#episodes where the adults are together are always gonna shine for me and we got more of those in s1 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mypoisonedvine · 2 years

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𝓼𝓲𝓬𝓴 𝓸𝓯 𝓵𝓸𝓼𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓼𝓸𝓾𝓵𝓶𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓼 (part II) | billy knight x reader

(part 1 here)

𝓼𝓾𝓶𝓶𝓪𝓻𝔂 | bringing your old friend back into your life forces you to decide between the life you chose to follow or the life you left behind...

𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓭 𝓬𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓽 | 6.4k

𝔀𝓪𝓻𝓷𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓼 | 18+ adult content (implied smut), angst, hurt/comfort, infidelity, mentions of abuse, fluff

THANK YOU MY DARLING BEX @creme-bruhlee who co-wrote this with me!! it wouldn't be finished without their contributions so everyone say thank you bex <3

You walked along the shore of the creek, hearing Billy’s footsteps crunch the soggy leaves behind you. You turned over your shoulder and laughed as you watched him make wide, awkward steps to avoid sharper rocks and puddles of water.

“Not gonna slip, are you?” you asked, and he shook his head, looking up at you for a second with a little smile on his lips.

You looked ahead again, admiring the view for the first time since your first week here— you got used to it, somehow, over the months. You nearly lost the ability to appreciate how gorgeous it really was. But knowing this was your last sunset at Oak Hill made it look entirely new.

The sun was low, hiding behind trees that bent in the wind, making the whole sky look all swirly and orange like—

“Marmalade,” Billy blurted out suddenly as he stepped up beside where you were standing. “Sky looks like marmalade on toast.”

You snorted, looking at him before looking back to the sunset-stained sky.

“And those clouds there? That’s the butter,” he smiled. “Good, Irish butter, getting all melty and soaking into the bread and mixing with the preserves—”

“Stop,” you whined, dragging it out as you tilted your head back and clutched your belly, “you’re making me hungry.”

“We could always go back for dinner,” Billy joked with a grin, “and have meatloaf for the thousandth time.”

“I’ve been here even longer than you— it would be my third-thousandth time,” you reminded him.

He seemed to get sad then, wiping under his nose roughly a few times as he stared down at the creek beneath his boots. You deflated, too; you’d been here longer, and your time was up. You never thought you could want to stay longer… but you never thought you’d meet someone like Billy.

“Anyhow,” you changed the subject quickly, “I-I was thinking I’d get something really good tomorrow. Been craving Nando’s for about, oh, a year or so—”

Billy snorted. “Figured you’d want something a little nicer— y’know, somethin’ fancy, after eating all this cheap cafeteria stuff…”

You walked together to the fallen tree— it wasn’t actually completely knocked over, but it had grown sideways into a sort of arch— and you kept glancing at him, kept admiring the way the light of dusk shined in his hair, made it look golden. “I mean, sure,” you replied, “but with whose money?”

He shrugged, reaching up and scratched the side of his head for a moment, before quickly sniffling and rubbing his nose again.

You leaned your back against the tree, wishing so much that he would stand in front of you and let you look right at him, but he leaned beside you instead. For a moment you were both quiet, just looking at the creek and the sky— darker by the second— and listening to the stillness of the world. It wasn’t so quiet out there, and you weren’t guaranteed a place to sleep or a nurse to come help you if you have an episode.

But you’d be free.

You looked at Billy again, watching him stare forward as he brushed a shaky hand over his wavy hair.

Free, and alone. No one to enjoy your freedom with.

“So,” you began quietly, looking down at the ground where you traced random circles in the leaves with the toe of your shoe, “I, erm… I’ll miss you loads. I know you know that.”

He nodded quickly. “Y-yeah, I… dunno what m’gonna do without you, actually.”

You felt your cheeks flush, and that butterfly feeling stirred in your gut again; Billy used to just be the new kid, the quiet one with the mess of curly hair. It’s hard to say when it changed for you— maybe it was when you took him out by this creek for the first time, with three others, just for some obligatory rebellion after hours, and he picked a wildflower to hand to you. Or, likely, it was when he found you hiding in a supply closet and didn’t even ask what was wrong, just held your hand until you felt right again. There was a case to be made that it started as soon as you met him, but you didn’t notice for the first month or two.

You shivered a little, since it was getting chillier the later it got, and he glanced at you. “Are you cold?” he wondered.

You denied it with a shake of your head, but he was stripping off his zip-up anyways. “O-oh, Billy, I’m really fine—”

Sighing, you relented as he draped the jacket around your shoulders, tugging either end of the zipper towards each other on your chest as you mumbled your thanks.

It took him a few seconds to notice that you were looking at his face, and when he looked back at you, you could see him thinking— though you could only imagine what. Your chest filled with a breath of hope; his eyes darted around all over the place, mostly down to the ground shyly. Maybe this could be it, the moment you’d been dreaming of—

He let go of the jacket and wiped his nose. “M-maybe that’ll keep you warm,” he mumbled awkwardly.

You slumped your shoulders defeatedly. “Bet so,” you agreed. It smelled like him, and you revelled in that.

An uncomfortable silence settled in as you watched Billy, gnawing your lip, wondering where to go now that the moment had passed.

He suddenly grabbed your— his— jacket again and slammed his lips onto yours. Eyes shut tight, like he was focusing all his energy on it; it was sudden and hard but it was perfect, and you melted into him quickly.

He pulled away almost as fast as he’d leaned in, looking at you with a particular expression, clearly wondering if he’d made a horrible mistake. You just reached up and weaved your fingers into the hair at the back of his neck and pulled him in again— a longer, slower, deeper kiss. You settled into a pattern with him, his lips carefully moving on yours. One of his hands found your waist and gave you a soft squeeze there, and you smiled against him.

It ended eventually, him pulling back first to look at you with more love in his eyes than you’d ever seen on anyone before— let alone directed at you.

“Billy,” you breathed, “why’d you have to wait so long to do that?”

He laughed softly, and you did too, reaching up to stroke his cheek with your thumb. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“No, I just—” you sighed, leaning forward to rest your forehead on his shoulder. You felt his hand gently pet the back of your head and you bit your lip. “I’ve just been hoping— I thought maybe— and I’m leaving tomorrow—”

“Shh,” he soothed, and when you lifted your head to blink up at him, he closed his own eyes and rested his forehead on yours.

As your eyes fell shut as well, a shiver ran over you— the evening chill was creeping in while the sun crossed the horizon, and not even Billy’s hoodie could protect you from the nippy breeze.

He wrapped his arms around you tightly, pulling you into him as you reached up to rest your hands on his chest. It was sweet, and it was warm, but it was a goodbye hug: you could tell just by the way he kissed the top of your head and rubbed your arms and took a deep breath in. You pulled back, just at your head and shoulders, to look up at him.

“Promise me we won’t have to be apart,” you whispered pleadingly, balling your hands into fists and tugging at his shirt, and he licked his lips for a second as he looked down.

“You know I’d never lie to you,” he breathed, and you bit your lip; his hands reached up and cradled your face.

“Just lie to me once,” you begged, “that we’ll always be together, please—”

He held your head and lifted it so he could kiss the height of your cheekbone, where a thin tear had begun to fall. “We’ll find each other,” he promised instead, “someday, when we’re out of this place. We’ll always find each other.”

In the morning, he saw you off from the front office, and you snapped off your paper ID band from your wrist to stuff into his pocket. “So you remember me,” you explained.

“We won’t forget each other,” he promised. “No matter what. Certain people will always be in your life… no matter how long you go without seeing each other.”

You raised an eyebrow.

“I-I heard that in a movie one time,” he admitted with a shrug.

“Is it true?” you wondered.

“I guess we’ll find out.”

“Do we have the ingredients for paprikash?” you wondered, and George narrowed his eyes as he opened the pantry.

“Well, we don’t have paprika…” he noticed. “So I guess it would just be ‘sh’.”

You snorted, ducking your head down into the opened fridge. “Oh! I could make beef stroganoff! Except, erm, with… pork. Or tuna.”

You both perked up at a knock at the door. “Pork sounds great,” he agreed as he started to walk away, “I’ll get it.”

There was another rapid succession of knocks before George could get there, and you started getting pots and ingredients out for dinner.

“We’re not giving you money or anything,” George announced firmly when he opened the door; you figured it was someone raising for a political cause or maybe even a religion when you heard that.

“I-is she home?” you heard a meek voice ask in reply.

“Mate, whoever you’re looking for isn’t here—” George began, but you were already running out of the kitchen and tumbling towards the door.

You knew you must have lit up when you saw Billy standing there on your welcome mat; he had on a soft grey hoodie, with the sleeves pulled up around his hands— one of which was held to his mouth to gnaw on his thumb nail. That hand fell quickly and his lips curled into a gentle smile as he saw you. “I knew you’d come,” you announced as you ran to him, pulling into a quick but tight hug. There was a bit more colour to his face, more brightness in his eyes as he looked down at you when you pulled away, arms still draped lazily over his shoulders while his hands gently held your back.

“Course I had to,” he smiled at you, “said I would, wouldn’t I?”

You realised you were still holding him and pulled away, facing George who seemed to be catching on. “Y-you remember I said I’d visited a friend in hospital?” you prompted, and George nodded, looking a little embarrassed that he’d reacted to Billy that way.

“Sorry, mate,” George offered Billy a handshake; Billy seemed a little uncomfortable with it, but shook your fiancé’s hand politely.

“I’m just starting dinner,” you announced, “you could help me, if you wanted? Give George a break from sous chef duty? O-or just wait, I’m sure you’re tired—”

“I’ll help,” Billy decided, “f’that’s alright.”

“Of course,” you hummed, and you and George stepped back to let him in. He toed his sneakers off, looking around the house with wide eyes.

“Nice place,” he noticed while George shut the door. “Wow, look’t that…”

“Y-yeah, it’s George’s place, really,” you admitted, “but I did some of the decorating.”

“Who painted that?” he wondered as he pointed at the oil painting in the foyer.

“Oh, that was a gift from a client,” George explained, looking at it with crossed arms. “It’s an original Lebo, he’s the next big thing, up-and-comer in the Miami art scene…”

“Miami? Like California?” Billy wondered.

You giggled a little bit as George made that face he made when he was trying not to be condescending. “Er… Miami, Florida.”

“Eh? Coulda sworn Miami was a place in California,” Billy frowned, wiping under his nose quickly a few times; he always did that, but you could tell by the way he did it that he was nervous. You bit your lip as you looked at George, willing him with your mind to not think less of Billy for questionable geography skills— you hadn’t told him everything about this friend of yours who was in hospital, just that you knew each other as teenagers and that he was a kind and gentle person. If George really understood all Billy had been through, you’d hope he wouldn’t be judgemental; but it wasn’t your story to tell.

“Listen, you two get to cooking and I’m gonna get some work done?" It wasn't a question but George raised the tone of his voice at the end like it was one. "Come up if you need anything."

Billy gave you a slightly shy look as George disappeared up the stairs with heavy footsteps. “If you slice the mushrooms I’m gonna start cooking the pork,” you explained.

He nodded as you opened the knife drawer for him and he took out a small one to begin cutting on the bamboo slate you’d already set out. “Been a while since somebody let me handle sharp objects,” he admitted with a chuckle.

“Oh, if you don’t want to, I can—”

“No, it’s fine,” he promised, shaking his head. “I can handle it. Only ever hurt myself on accident doing wood carving.”

“You still carve?” you realised excitedly, and he nodded. “I remember you spent ages trying to get them to let you do it in the facility.”

“Yeah, that took some persistence,” he recalled with a grin. “I was stuck doing regular arts and crafts for the first… six months? Lots of papier-mâché.”

You snorted at the memory. “In the girls’ wing we did a lot of ‘inspiration boards’...”

“Oh, Christ,” Billy laughed, “not the bloody inspiration boards. Hated those— as if anything you can find in an old magazine’s going to inspire you to not be fuckin’ mental.”

You laughed, and as you focused on preparing ingredients, the conversation lulled for a moment. Billy eventually, gently, broke the silence.

“S-sorry for how I was before, at the hospital,” he mumbled. “I was still pretty out of it, but I was so happy to see you.”

“Oh, you were fine,” you promised, “I know what it’s like to be hopped up on painkillers.”

He gave you a look with a raised eyebrow, and you shook your head.

“Don’t worry— distant memory.”

“But you’re, uh… you’re still on something?” he broached the topic carefully.

“Yeah,” you nodded. “Ziprasidone, forty miligrams twice a day. And, you know, some escitalopram as needed, but that’s nothing.”

“And the side effects aren’t too bad?” he pressed. “My tics got worse no matter what I was on.”

“Well, there are some,” you admitted, “but not that bad once I got the dosage right. It’s worth it.”

He nodded, reaching up with the hand that wasn’t holding the knife to wipe his fist under his nose quickly. You knew what the silence meant, you knew he wanted to believe you but was worried how it would feel to be medicated; he’d had so much trouble with it, having gone through his share of prescriptions— actually, he’d gone through his and three other people’s shares. You could only imagine how much trouble he’d had staying on pills if he couldn’t even afford them.

“You’ll stay on what the hospital sent you home with, right?” you asked quietly.

“Y-yeah, of course,” he shrugged, “as long as it doesn’t, you know, make me feel horribly sick or something.”

“You can’t go off of them just because you’ve got dry eyes or nausea, though,” you frowned.

“Obviously!” he scoffed. “I… I really wanna get better this time, for good. But, um… it’s hard, with my brother…”

You nodded, but didn’t say anything else, focusing mostly on stirring the meat around the hot pan as it sizzled.

“Malibu!” he said suddenly.

“Hm?” you turned to him, eyebrows knitted together, and he suddenly looked a bit embarrassed.

“I— I was thinking of Malibu… before…” he mumbled as he trailed off. “Malibu, California.”

You grinned wide, watching him reach up to wipe the back of his hand, covered with his jacket’s sleeve, over his face quickly. "How are you feeling?" you asked. "After the injury."

"Not so bad," he answered, "it still gets a little sore sometimes, especially at night with the pain meds wear off, but it's not that bad."

"You're so tough," you shook your head. "Got stabbed a few days ago and you're just walking it off."

"I got lucky," he explained, "it didn't hit anything important. Mostly I'm just hoping it’ll turn into a cool scar.”

He looked at you with a little smirk and it warmed your heart.

“People say scars are attractive," he continued, "but… they only mean the ones on the outside.”

You sighed, knowing how true that was— it took you long enough to find someone like George, who stuck with you even though you had so much you still struggled with. “Can I see it?” you asked, hoping not to get too deep into the other topic.

Billy nodded and lifted his shirt, exposing more and more pale skin, until the fabric was gathered up to his shoulder and you could see the sewn wound right at the centre of his chest. You gasped, reaching to cover your mouth first as you realised it was much worse than you imagined before; and then you found yourself reaching out to touch him, though you should’ve asked permission first (yet he didn’t make a move to stop you, he didn’t even seem all that surprised).

Your fingers gently trailed around the marks, and it was like you could feel how much it must have hurt— the stitches and the stabbing; your heart ached for him, as always. “Billy,” you whispered under your breath, shocked at all he’d survived.

For a moment, you found your touch trailing further, brushing over the thin layer of hair on his chest. It was new, after all, since the last time you’d touched him there— he was only a boy then, a bit scrawny and lanky, and while he was still on the lean side now, this was clearly a man’s body. A man who had been through so much; a man that the world had tried so hard to harden and callus and break, but he was still so soft and delicate.

Your fingertips were still tracing his skin when your eyes finally met his, and the look in them penetrated you. Knowing you should pull away, you started to move your hand back, but he grabbed it and pulled it to him— he pressed it flat and firm to his chest, squeezing your fingers, letting you feel his heartbeat beneath.

It didn’t feel like you were doing anything wrong, until you both heard George’s steps coming around the corner and jumped away from each other quickly; Billy tugged his shirt down, wiping under his nose as he cleared his throat, you did a bit of a better job of acting natural.

“How’s dinner coming along?” George wondered.

“Oh, well,” you smiled. “S’nice to catch up a little.” You cast Billy a small smile, hoping to connect his glance, but his eyes were down, his focus back on his task. It nearly seemed as if he were ashamed of almost getting caught.

“How’s it you know each other again?” George asked. “She’s got so many little friends, it’s hard to keep track.”

You scoffed and rolled your eyes, and you almost answered, but Billy’s inhale made you realise that the question wasn’t aimed at you. “When we were kids,” Billy started. “Not kids, really, I guess, but… when we were younger, we were at a-a facility together. Not for very long, but…” he trailed off for a moment, getting a slightly glassy look in his eyes. Finally, he simply added, “We grew close.”

“That’s good,” George said. “And you’ve just gotten out of hospital?”

“Erm, yeah—”

“What happened?”

There was a split second where the question hung in the air, and you could feel Billy’s energy change. He obviously wasn't ready to talk about it.

"Why don't you set the table, Georgie?" you requested without turning around. Your face burned, and you cleared your throat as you tried to dampen down the flames in your cheeks. “Make yourself useful,” you added with a light laugh, almost jumping a little when his hands rested on your arms as he leaned in to kiss by your ear.

“Anything for you,” George said, his voice a little quiet, like he didn’t want Billy to hear, and the kitchen fell into silence as George gathered the utensils and left the kitchen.

The kitchen was only quiet for a moment more, the sizzling of the pork dying down a bit, before Billy, with a smirk, noticed, "Bit posh, isn't'e?"

"Shut up," you giggled, pushing Billy's shoulder.

“Never thought you’d go for someone like that,” Billy admitted lightly. You could tell he was still trying to make it a joke, but the joke was obviously falling a little flat; you could feel the anxious energy radiating off of him. “B-but I’m glad you’re happy.”

“How about you?” you asked, and you found yourself biting your lip as you spooned the mix of meat and veg onto three plates. “Any girls strike your fancy?”

“Ah,” Billy started, and he shook his head. “No. You know me, though, that’s never been my nature, really…”

“I used to know you,” you said, and Billy cast his big dark eyes at you. You hadn’t meant to be so blunt about it, and you quickly added, “but I imagine you haven’t changed all that much, eh?”

“I guess not,” Billy mumbled, and you wondered if that hadn’t really helped to add— if that was what he was afraid of, not changing. But you never found anything to dislike in Billy all those years ago, even if you were still fighting the urge to resent him a bit for never calling after he promised to. You trusted that you’d find each other again someday— and most of the time, with him here, it felt like no time had passed at all— but you’d hurt for a while, wondering if you did something wrong… if he never really loved you.

And, of course, time had passed. You remembered that every time you looked down at your hands and saw the ring on your finger; every time you glanced over your shoulder and saw George setting the table.

I waited for you for so long, Billy— couldn’t you have let me find you sooner?

Dinner was… quiet. Not exactly tense, but not not tense. You could all pretend your mouths were just so full of stroganoff that you couldn’t say much, but really, there wasn’t much to say.

Actually, there was a lot to say— you and Billy wanted to talk, but you both must’ve felt strange about it with George there, and in turn, George probably didn’t want to talk to you how he normally did with Billy there.

"So, Billy," George prompted, clearing his throat after a long pause, "what do you do?"

"E-er…"

"For work?"

"Sort of between jobs at the moment," Billy admitted. "It's hard for me to work with… my condition…"

"Right," George frowned, and you lightly kicked him under the table. “W-well, we’re just—” he rushed to try to appease you, “glad you’re alright. After what happened.”

You caught Billy’s lips pressing together, and you knew he was trying not to smile at the wrong time. Maybe it was the use of we that amused him; maybe it was the idea that Billy was ‘alright’ after everything.

“Do you have a place to stay?” you asked suddenly, and Billy stopped chewing to look at you with wide eyes. You felt George’s glare land on you, he already knew you were going to offer Billy anything no matter how misguided it might seem.

“Erm… well, no, but—” Billy began.

“There’s our couch,” you noticed. “You should stay here tonight.”

“I— I couldn’t let you do that,” he insisted, rubbing his fist under his nose. “I-I couldn’t—”

You rested your hand on his shoulder, and he stilled for a moment as he blinked at you. “It’s the least we could do.”

“I don’t want him here,” George said sternly the moment he’d gotten you alone. “He’s obviously unstable, he needs real help—”

“Listen to me,” you pleaded, “he’s got a three-week prescription from the hospital, he just needs to get used to the new meds.”

“I know you wanna think you can save everyone,” your fiancé sighed, sounding so exhausted with you, “but you need to think about your own safety. He’s not well and he’s… inappropriately attached to you.”

“Inappropriate?” you repeated.

“A grown man has no reason to stake his sanity on someone he met in hospital,” George hissed, “as a child.”

You laughed in frustration as you shook your head.

“Oh, don’t do that,” he warned, “don’t act like I’m ridiculous for not wanting a strange man on my couch. That’s an expensive couch.”

“Well shit, George, he’s not a dog, he’s not gonna piss on it or something!” you scoffed. “And he’s not strange, either.”

“He is to me.”

“But I know him, and you know me,” you explained, “can’t you trust my judgement?”

“It’s my house, I have the right if I don’t want him—” George began.

“It’s my house, too,” you hissed, lowering your voice as you stepped closer to him, “and you brought her here— you brought her in our bed, didn’t you? So what’s that compared to my friend on the couch?”

“Oh, Christ,” he spat, “I knew you’d bring that up, again, when you said you’d forgiven me—”

“I did!” you insisted. “But you’re being a fucking hypocrite! Just admit that you don’t trust me— when I’m the one who shouldn’t trust you.”

“We should both trust each other,” he corrected.

“You should stop treating me like a guest here,” you replied, raising your voice, “like I’m just some charity case and not the woman you asked to move in and asked to marry you—”

“You always do this,” George shook his head, looking beyond irritated with you.

“And now you take issue with my friend?”

“He’s not your friend,” George spat, “he’s here because he’s mental and broke and horny, probably.”

“What?!”

“Oh, come on, darling, don’t be so stupid,” he groaned, rolling his eyes. “He wants to shag you!”

“I can’t believe you,” you scoffed as you stormed out, only to stop halfway down the hall when you found Billy, looking shivery and uncomfortable with his arms crossed around himself. “O-oh, Billy, I—”

“S’just lookin’ for some sheets…” he mumbled, looking down, and you knew he must have heard you arguing.

“They’re down here, let me get them for you,” you offered as you opened the door to the linen closet, but he stepped back nervously.

“I-is everything alright?” Billy asked you tenderly, and your heart ached.

“Yes,” you sighed, “it’s fine, he just—”

“Oh god,” Billy whimpered, knowing you were lying, “v’done it again, haven’t I? Fucked everything up.”

“No,” you sighed, “no— you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I don’t want to make it harder for you,” he choked, covering his face with his hands. “You got better! You’re normal! And I’m making it worse, I’m… dragging you back down. It’s just why I never called!”

You rushed forward, holding his wrists tightly even as he struggled for a second. “Billy, look at me,” you pleaded. “Look, I need to see your eyes.”

He relaxed and let you move his fists out of the way so you could see his wet, quivering face.

“You don’t make anything worse,” you promised.

Just as he started to melt into your touch, and your fingers slid up to interlace with his, you heard George come through the door and huff at the sight. He said your name sternly, and you turned around, giving Billy’s hand a squeeze before you let go.

“I was just helping him find the sheets,” you explained, already knowing what George wanted to say.

“Won’t need them— he’s not staying here,” your fiancé insisted.

“No, George, don’t—” you started to protest, but Billy was already shrinking away. “Billy, please don’t go—”

As you watched Billy start to run out, George held you back and stopped you from chasing after him. “He needs to leave,” George insisted, and he was much too strong— your fight was useless.

“Let me go!” you whimpered, but he didn’t, not even after you heard the front door slam, not even after your rage fell into exhaustion and you started to cry.

“Better this way,” George promised, “trust me. We need to trust each other.”

He kept saying that, a convenient quote from your couple’s therapist manipulated to apply to kicking out your oldest friend— and first love. “He just needs help, Georgie,” you whimpered as the restraint turned into a gentler sort of embrace, with soft kisses and shushes beside your ear.

“You can’t help everyone,” he explained, “you should just worry about yourself— God knows you’ve got plenty to worry about… we can’t have you getting bad again.”

That was what he called it when you had an episode, as rare as they were now, bad. You had to remind yourself that it didn’t make you bad for struggling.

It’s so scary when you’re having bad thoughts, but you’re not bad, you remembered telling Billy just a few days ago.

“I-I wanna get ready for bed now,” you decided quietly.

“Okay,” George whispered, and only then did he let you go, after one more kiss to your cheek. “See you in bed.”

It’s hard to say if you knew for sure, then, that you weren’t going to get ready for bed— you felt like you were in a dream, or a trance, as George left you in the hallway only for you to instead put on your shoes and walk out the front door.

“Can’t believe I found you,” you gasped as you threw yourself onto Billy, not even stepping inside first. He reciprocated the hug instantly, burying his face in your shoulder. “Don’t ever run from me like that again, please…”

“I won’t, I won’t,” Billy promised softly. “Just tell me you’re okay,” he pleaded as he held you tighter.

“I’m okay,” you promised.

“I— I heard him yelling at you,” he admitted. “I was so afraid he would hurt you— he didn’t hurt you, did ‘e?”

You smiled a little as Billy pulled back enough to examine your face closely, looking for marks. “He didn’t hit me,” you assured, “he wouldn’t— he’s not like that.”

“Good,” Billy nodded, “good— if he did, I— well, I shouldn’t say something like that. But I would be really fucking angry.”

But felt his hands tighten into fists at your waist, and you knew what he was imagining.

“How’d you find this place?” Billy wondered as he stepped back and let you in, shutting the flat’s front door behind you.

“Called back your old friend, Mr. Strike,” you smirked. “He had a few leads.”

“I’m sorry for leaving like that,” he sighed, “I was just—”

“I know,” you interrupted quickly.

"There's something I have for you," he said suddenly. You waited with a tilted head as he knelt down by his backpack, propped up against the wall, unzipping it and pulling something out.

A carving on a panel of wood, rough and unpolished but careful crafted: it was the creek, that very one behind Oak Hill. The bent tree, the rocks by the shore, the sun a big divot as it sank down behind the jagged treeline.

As he held it in front of you, you ran your fingers over the edges in awe; "It's just how I remember," you sighed.

"C-careful, splinters," Billy warned, reaching for your hand and grabbing it tightly. You looked at him, knowing you were already crying, heart breaking at the look on his face.

"You really carved this for me?" you whispered, and he nodded. "When?"

"Ten years ago," he replied, "but that was just the first one. This one— this one I did before I came to see you for dinner."

You looked at it again, then at him with a tilted head. "You did more than one?"

"I-I've done about… about a hundred, maybe more," he explained. "I kept trying to make it perfect, but I couldn't always— sometimes I messed up, so I'd start again. I wanted it to look exactly like it did then."

You looked down at the carving one more time, seeing the detail, and imagining every change he made over the years to accomplish it.

"I just couldn't remember it right," he explained, scratching beside his ear, "u-until I saw you again. Then it was like it was all there… I finally got it right."

“Billy, it’s amazing,” you promised, whispering as you fought back the urge to cry, “you’re amazing…”

As you trailed off, he suddenly asked: “Do you still love me?”

“Of course,” you answered, faster than you could worry about being self-conscious about it. “Always— of course I do.”

“But… you can’t love me the way I thought you did,” he breathed. “You can’t love me the— the way I love you.”

“A-and what way is that?” you wondered.

“Every way.”

You sighed, shivering as he stepped closer, each of his hands resting on your shoulders. His touch on your bare skin was still so… much.

“You’re gonna marry him,” he reminded you both, “and it’s better that way. You’re better off with someone you don’t have to take care of all the time.”

"I'd rather take care of you," you admitted, eyes welling with tears, "I'd rather have you, Billy, I just didn't think you still cared for me—"

"I said I always would," he interjected, "I meant that— c'mon, v'never really loved anyone but you, don't you know that?"

You smiled a little as you looked down.

"B-but that's not my point, you shouldn't be with me," he insisted.

"I want to be with you, Billy."

“What about when I have bad days?”

“I have bad days too,” you reminded him.

“Yeah! And what if I can’t take care of you, ‘cause I’m too messed up?” he wondered. "I still— I still see things, you know. I mean, not since hospital, but—"

"It'll be okay," you promised. "We'll be okay, we'll have each other. I can't heal you, Billy, I can't save you— but I can be here when you need me."

“You can’t leave him for me. I can’t let you throw your life away for me.”

“If he doesn’t understand you, then he doesn’t understand me either,” you explained.

He was shaking his head, looking down, but you held his cheeks and lifted his face. “I love you,” you reminded him, but he kept looking down, tears striping his face.

"Billy," you whispered, making him look at you softly. "Kiss me again. Please."

He did: tender and patient, just as delicate as the first time so many years ago. As you kissed him back, holding tightly onto his shoulders, he carefully reached for your waist and pulled you closer. Being pressed against him was so comforting and warm; being wrapped in his arms and pulled into bed felt so right.

He mumbled something about how his brother wouldn’t be home ‘til morning, and you just nodded, not wanting to break away from the kiss any longer.

You woke up to fingers tracing along your back aimlessly, and you hummed, clinging tighter onto the pillow under your head.

“Sorry,” Billy whispered, “wasn’t trying to wake you up…”

“S’okay,” you mumbled, feeling kisses trail your shoulder next. When you blinked open your eyes, you saw his hand— a bandage still around one of the knuckles, small bruises and cuts here and there— run down your arm to hold your hand and give it a squeeze.

He pressed himself up to your back, embracing you tightly again, resting his face in the crook of your neck. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “Tell me it’s real— that you’re real.”

“Of course I am,” you laughed softly.

“Just seems too good to be true,” he admitted quietly. “You show up at my door and tell me you wanna be with me instead of him, that you love me, I— I sort of imagined it before, if m’bein’ honest. Definitely imagined this…”

You giggled as his hand slipped under the sheets to run up your bare thigh, the memories of last night’s lovemaking imprinted into the soreness of your skin— everywhere he’d held you tightly, like he was afraid you’d run off and disappear if he let go. Bruises were likely blooming already in the shape of his touch, but you didn’t mind it; it was exactly what he’d feared, that he wouldn’t know how to love you without hurting you, but all you’d ever wanted was the ecstasy and the pain of sharing everything with someone.

Billy pulled you closer still, helping you turn so you could press your forehead to his. “I’ll never run away from you again,” he promised quietly.

“I’ll never let you again,” you returned, making you both giggle as he peppered your face in kisses. As you reached up, he felt your ring brush over his skin, and he grabbed your hand to hold it up where you could both look at it.

Delicately, he slipped the engagement ring from your finger, and examined it. “Well,” he frowned, “we can chuck this, then—” and threw it over his shoulder. You laughed as it fell to the floor with a quick ping! and he kissed you again before you could protest to his flippancy.

“Billy, you shouldn’t—” you still tried to get out with his lips overwhelming yours, but he hummed and rolled you onto your back so he could climb on top of you.

“I’ll get you a new one,” he decided softly, “when I can afford it. Won’t be as nice, but—”

“It’ll be perfect,” you smiled.

#this fic is so personal for me wow #billy knight x reader #billy knight #billy knight strike

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shkspr · 3 years

Note

hi. on your post where you may or may not have ended on 'moffat is either your angel or your devil' did you have maybe an elaboration on that somewhere that i could possibly hear about. i'm very much a capaldi era stan and i've never tried to defend the matt smith era even though it had delightful moments sometimes so i wonder where that puts me. i'd love to hear your perspective on moffat as a person with your political perspective. -nicole

hi ok sorry i took so long to respond to this but i dont think you know how LOADED this question is for me but i am so happy to elaborate on that for you. first a few grains of salt to flavor your understanding of the whole situation: a. im unfairly biased against moffat bc im a davies stan and a tennant stan; b. i still very much enjoy and appreciate moffat era who for many reasons; and c. i hate moffat on a personal level far more than i could ever hate his work.

the thing is that its all always gonna be a bit mixed up bc i have to say a bunch of seemingly contradictory things in a row. for instance, a few moffat episodes are some of my absolute favorites of the rtd era, AND the show went way downhill when moffat took over, AND the really good episodes he wrote during the rtd era contained the seeds of his destruction.

like i made that post about the empty child/the doctor dances and it holds true for blink and thats about it bc the girl in the fireplace and silence in the library/forest of the dead are good but not nearly on the same level, and despite the fact that i like them at least nominally, they are also great examples of everything i hate about moffat and how he approached dw as a whole.

basically. doctor who is about people. there are many things about moffats tenure as showrunner that i think are a step up from rtd era who! actual gay people, for one! but i think that can likely be attributed mostly to an evolving Society as opposed to something inherent to him and his work, seeing as rtd is literally gay, and the existence of queer characters in moffats work doesnt mean the existence of good queer characters (ill give him bill but thats it!)

i have a few Primary Grievances with moffat and how he ran dw. all of them are things that got better with capaldi, but didnt go away. they are as follows:

moffat projects his own god complex onto the doctor

rtd era who had a doctor with a god complex. you cant ever be the doctor and not have a god complex. the problem with moffats era specifically is that the god complex was constant and unrepentant and was seen as a fundamental personality trait of the doctor rather than a demon he has to fight. he has the Momence where you feel bad for him, the Momence where he shows his humility or whatever and youre reminded that he doesnt want to be the lonely god, but those are just. moments. in a story where the doctor thinks hes the main character. rtd era doctor was aware that he wasnt the main character. he had to be an authority sometimes and he had to be the loner and he had to be sad about it, but he ultimately understood that he was expendable in a narrative sense.

this is how you get lines like “were the thin fat gay married anglican marines, why would we need names as well?” from the same show that gave you the gut punch moment at the end of midnight when they realize that nobody asked the hostess for her name. and on the one hand, thats a small sticking point, but on the other hand, its just one small example of the simple disregard that moffat has for humanity.

incidentally, this is a huge part of why sherlock sucked so bad: moffats main characters are special bc theyre so much bigger and better than all the normal people, and thats his downfall as a showrunner. he thinks that his audience wants fucking sheldon cooper when what they want is people.

like, ok. think of how many fantastic rtd era eps are based in the scenario “what if the doctor wasnt there? what if he was just out of commission for a bit?” and how those eps are the heart of the show!! bc theyre about people being people!! the thing is that all of the rtd era companions would have died for the doctor but he understood and the story understood that it wasnt about him.

this is like. nine sending rose home to save her life and sacrifice his own vs clara literally metaphysically entwining her existence w the doctor. ten also sending rose with her family to save her life vs river being raised from infancy to be obsessed w the doctor and then falling in love w him. martha leaving bc she values herself enough to make that decision vs amy being treated like a piece of meat.

and this is simultaneously a great callback to when i said that moffats episodes during the rtd era sometimes had the same problems as his show running (bc girl in the fireplace reeks of this), and a great segue into the next grievance.

moffat hates women

he hates women so fucking much. g-d, does steven moffat ever hate women. holy shit, he hates women. especially normal human women who prioritize their normal human lives on an equal or higher level than the doctor. moffat hated rose bc she wasnt special by his standards. the empty child/the doctor dances is the nicest he ever treated her, and she really didnt do much in those eps beyond a fuck ton of flirting.

girl in the fireplace is another shining example of this. youve got rose (who once again has another man to keep her busy, bc moffat doesnt think shes good enough for the doctor) sidelined for no reason only to be saved by the doctor at the last second or whatever. and then youve got reinette, who is pretty and powerful and special!

its just. moffat thinks that the doctor is as shallow and selfish as he is. thats why he thinks the doctor would stay in one place with reinette and not with rose. bc moffat is shallow and sees himself in the doctor and doesnt think he should have to settle for someone boring and normal.

not to mention rose met the doctor as an adult and chose to stay with him whereas reinette is. hm. introduced to the doctor as a child and grows up obsessed with him.

does that sound familiar? it should! bc it is also true of amy and river. and all of them are treated as viable romantic pairings. bc the only women who deserve the doctor are the ones whose entire existence revolves around him. which includes clara as well.

genuinely i think that at least on some level, not even necessarily consciously, that bill was a lesbian in part bc capaldi was too old to appeal to mainstream shippers. like twelve/clara is still a thing but not as universally appealing as eleven/clara but i am just spitballing. but i think they weighed the pros and cons of appealing to the woke crowd over the het shippers and found that gay companion was more profitable. anyway the point is to segue into the next point, which is that moffat hates permanent consequences.

moffat hates permanent consequences

steven moffat does not know how to kill a character. honestly it feels like hes doing it on purpose after a certain point, like he knows he has this habit and hes trying to riff on it to meme his own shit, but it doesnt work. it isnt funny and it isnt harmless, its bad writing.

the end of the doctor dances is so poignant and so meaningful and so fucking good bc its just this once! everybody lives, just this once! and then he does p much the same thing in forest of the dead - this one i could forgive, bc i do think that preserving those peoples consciousnesses did something for the doctor as a character, it wasnt completely meaningless. but everything after that kinda was.

rory died so many times its like. get a hobby lol. amy died at least once iirc but it was all a dream or something. clara died and was erased from the doctors memory. river was in prison and also died. bill? died. all of them sugarcoated or undone or ignored by the narrative to the point of having effectively no impact on the story. the point of a major character death is that its supposed to have a point. and you could argue that a piece of art could be making a point with a pointless death, ie. to put perspective on it and remind you that bad shit just happens, but with moffat the underlying message is always “i can do whatever i want, nothing is permanent or has lasting impact ever.”

basically, with moffat, tragedy exists to be undone. and this was a really brilliant, really wonderful thing in the doctor dances specifically bc it was the doctor clearly having seen his fair share of tragedy that couldnt be helped, now looking on his One Win with pride and delight bc he doesnt get wins like this! and then moffat proceeded to give him the same win over and over and over and over. nobody is ever dead. nobody is ever unable to be saved. and if they are, really truly dead and/or gone, then thats okay bc moffat has decided that [insert mitigating factor here]*

*the mitigating factor is usually some sort of computerized database of souls.

i can hear the moffat stans falling over themselves to remind me that amy and rory definitely died, and they did - after a long and happy life together, they died of old age. i dont consider that a character death any more than any other character choosing to permanently leave the tardis.

and its not just character deaths either, its like, everything. the destruction of gallifrey? never mind lol! character development? scrapped! the same episode four times? lets give it a fifth try and hope nobody notices. bc he doesnt know how to not make the doctor either an omnipotent savior or a self-pitying failure.

it is in nature of doctor who, i believe, for the doctor to win most of the time. like, it wouldnt be a very good show if he didnt win most of the time. but it also wouldnt be a very good show if he won all of the time. my point is that moffats doctor wins too often, and when he doesnt win, it feels empty and hollow rather than genuinely humbling, and you know hes not gonna grow from it pretty much at all.

so like. again, i like all of doctor who i enjoy all of it very much. i just think that steven moffat is a bad show runner and a decent writer at times. and it is frustrating. and im not here to convince or convert anyone im just living my truth. thank you for listening.

#sorry if this is repetitive or makes no sense or if i got some details of the show wrong #i simply couldnt be bothered to put too much effort into this post #lest it become a research paper and take me several weeks to answer #anyway thats all my opinions #dw #ok to rb

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shinygoku · 3 years

Note

If you are taking non-train characters, what are your answers for The Other Gordon 👀

For simplicity, or maybe for complexity, I’ll refer to Both the TOS and the TAG versions, though I’m much more thoroughly acquainted with his TAG ver.

There wasn’t a Gordon Tracy in the movie, so I can skip that entirely lmao

To signify which Gord I’m talking about, TOS will have Orange and TAG will have Yellow heart emojis.

First impression

🧡 (Was very young at the time and not much good at reading quickly) “Gordon Tracy.... Astronaut.” I always liked TB4 herself, but I don’t think I got to see the TOS eps where Gordon really shines, which is a pity u_u;

💛 I was a little taken aback but the redesign, but also intrigued! This time I was already an adult and didn’t have issue reading Aquanaut lmao, but also got in on the ground floor of the show, getting to see the soon-to-be beloved shine in the very first episode.

Impression now

🧡 Holy cow is this dude ever underrated! In the episodes where he’s allowed to play a part, he actually shines so brightly! Several of the Best eps have him prominent, like Terror in New York and Operation Crash Dive, but even the ones where he is sidelined, the short moments we get can still do a lot, like his jokes and being The Most Fashionable of them Tracy Boys. They sneakily wrote in a potential reason why he ain’t used more with the notorious Hydrofoil Accident, but then maybe they coulda mentioned it in the show proper instead of in supplementary lore books? Oh well, the fans go very hard for this plot :P

💛 Holy cow, this time he’s not underrated so much as victim to Shoddy Writing!!! By both the show and the fans! [Mario from Super Mario Sunshine when he’s on low health voice] YAH-HOooorrrugughghh

Ok, seriously, this lad is again such a wonderful character, when he’s allowed to be written well. But they leaned very deliberately into his lighthearted, joking side and that fine character note became the unfortunate handlebars for people to grip into that being all there is to him, or to spin off into more annoying and out of character behaviours, like Season 2′s stupid underwater city episode that I hate so much, I hate it so fucking much that they wrote a whole episode to dunk on him by not only making him fill TB4 with food wrappers, but he doesn’t even pilot her for most of the episode >:V

Uhm yeah, when allowed to be written as more than Token Comic Relief, he’s fantastic. There’s such a wide range to his knowledge, his experience and his emotions. David Menkin defo brings his A Game to voicing Gordon and he has a beautifully nuanced performance [better than Virgil’s, who seems to be pretty much in one mode all the time lol... it can’t be easy being a VA where the characters are in high stress situations a lot]

I also think his feelings for Lady Penelope were actually handled really, really well. That he’s obviously got a Thing for her but doesn’t bring it up every time they’re in proximity, or that he doesn’t spend hours angsting over it. But s1 and s3′s advancement of this subplot feels sooo goooood and natural and is a lot of my good faith for s3 as a whole, to be honest! 💕

Favourite moment

🧡 Times like this make me wanna get the OG Series on DVD...! Hmm, gonna hafta go with the mad lad boarding a plane, getting in a firefight with the guy who’d been causing them all to crash, shooting him in the back, then holding the severed wires back together with his bare hands, all from Operation Crash Dive. That whole ep is a jewel and he did more earlier on too, but this short sequence is the ultimate Chaotic Good, the likes of which one rarely sees outside of Shounen Anime.

💛 I’m not gonna be so mean as to say SOS Part 1 lol, though that ep was Transcendent. It’s hard to pick one, he excels in the lovely new TB4, but I think it’s less his skills there and more his resourcefulness and emotional intelligence in eps like Extraction that have me the fondest. Also lmao, the contrast in my pick from this compared to TOS...!

Honourable mention to Heavy Metal for an action pick, we see 4′s Demo Missiles solve the problem by blowing stuff up, all while dangled in mid air! Niiiiice~

Idea for a story

🧡 It’s not so much of an idea, but whenever I do make myself watch Thunderbirds Are Go (The 1966 Film), I feel like there’s a potential plot thread of him feeling disappointed to be left out of the happenings that clearly the Andersons didn’t mean to pick up on. But he’s so clearly saddened when Jeff stupidly says Gordon won’t be needed [note that the previous failed Zero-X hand the crew land in the ocean....!] to help guard the 2nd Zero-X [in the end, only Scott is slightly relevant, Lady Penelope and Parker carry that mission!], and we also see him looking out of the balcony as the others launch, like he’s wistful.

Unfortunately the film turns into a weird ass Alan centric soap and barely skates over the main plot, too, before oh shit it’s time for the big climatic rescue. Gordon is overjoyed to be give a token role in that, which amounts to shooting a grapple line. Goes with the lore of him being the Best Shot, but oof! That’s it?! RUBBISH

So yeah idk, a rewrite of that shitshow that actually uses him? Could be an idea lol. Maybe it could even be combined with the strange narrative choice of an Alan pity party, the two could discuss the ups and downs of the gig and feeling over/under worked.

💛 Uhhh harder to say as I’m consumed many, many TAG fics since 2015 and still come and go and come back again for more at times, I don’t think I have any pitches that haven’t already been done, for better and for worse lmao

Honestly, I still ain’t let go entirely of the desire to cross over TAG with CSatM, but I don’t think I can make it work as a long form story which it deserves, plus I’d hafta focus on non-Gordon characters too, so uhh.... yeah, at the mo I got nothing ^^;

Unpopular opinion

🧡 Nooo babe, don’t smoke!! Also anyone who claims he isn’t the most handsome of the Tracy clan is lying.

💛 For years, the TAG fandom copypasted the TOS backstory in, which is understandable, but only a few works/authors could get the balance right. Look, the dude is clearly in his 20′s and it’s more than a little unrealistic for him to have done all 3 of the Served in WASP, Got Olympic Gold Medal, Hydrofoil Incident happenings. Like, the same applies to TOS but you could wave that away as being 60′s writing, where Military service as a young thing [eww] was common and Gordon looks older in that.

This got de-emphasised after SOS part 1, natch, as that seems pretty heavily implied to be This Universe’s answer to the Hydrofoil. The WASP and Gold Medal do continue to pop up, but at least 2 massive life achievements before being ....~23?? ish??? is a bit easier to grasp than 3 ¬w¬;

Favourite relationship

🧡 Did Gordon really get to interact with anyone other than his family and the other Tracy Island residents? I’ve read fic which gives him and Tin-Tin some fantastic platonic closeness, but I suspect the show itself wasn’t that generous...!

💛 All too easily, Pen & Ink! That is, Lady Penelope and he!

As I’ve said before, the romantic interest he has is played refreshingly well, and they get several great scenes together with the casual flirting and working well as a team. The Deep Water -> SOS 1 -> Upside Down triple punch really seals the deal, but it was hinted as early as Ep 1 and made obvious on his end in Tunnels of Time. All soooo good~ 💗

Favourite headcanon

🧡 Gordon rules at chess. We see chessboards in the episodes and occasionally the characters are seated by one, and I saw the notion that Gordon’s shockingly good at it in a fic and would like to embrace that~

💛 First, before the show made it be Virgil, I was introduced to the notion that Gordon was the most qualified First Aider type. I still prefer this lmao

Even though the series holds out on us, I firmly believe he has more Uniform variants than his wetsuit, and more causal clothes [though I am fond of his 1 Hawaiian Shirt n Jeans combo] and can make pretty much anything Work. Also his hair naturally has the same style as TOS when it’s not gelled upwards lol

#Gordon Tracy #Thunderbirds #Thunderbirds are Go #Thunderbirds 1965 #Thunderbirds are Go 2015 #uhhh dunno what else to tag it as officially so here come the post script notes #I put this off for so long but this was real fun to actually write #og ver had more salt about the shows' shortcomins and annoying fandom but I wanted this to be more a Celebration #and this is still really long cause I'm double dipping with BOTH vers!#The movie had some guy with his name but none of his characteristics #I've got so much fonder of OG Gordon with time and also without lowering TAG him! Eyyy!! B3 #kinda long

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miraculouscontent · 3 years

Text

(miraculous asks)

Anonymous said:

Oh My Gosh!!!! I was just thinking about Party Crasher and man I hate how they had Ladybug get captured for the men to save! It's a continuous thing you see in media: strong heroic woman gets put in peril so that the men can shine. I didn't even realize it until you said it! I get that it was probably meant to be a "role reversal" of Chat always getting kidnapped or brainwashed for Ladybug to save, but the fact that this is the "guys' episode" it read like "well damn, we can't have the guys be strong if a girl is in the way; let's have the girl get captured so the boys can prove their worth by rescuing her!".

At least in Sandboy, Ladybug was still competent and came up with the plans, but this?! It makes me sick, and it's all too easy to fall into these traps; even Kim Possible did it! In my magical girl story, the heroine does get put in a magical coma and require someone to bail her out, but it's her female friends AND her boyfriend who save her, so it's not just a girl being weakened so a boy can be powerful, especially since said boy actually does a minority of the work required to save her; the focus is on the female characters so it's her girl friends who do most of it. I still ended up scrapping that side plot anyway, and do you know why? Because regardless of who saved her, I still didn't want my female protagonist to be put in distress at all due to the unfortunate implications! Needing help in a fight? Sure. But outright being captured or kidnapped? Nah fam.

I was honestly thinking about that when the first episode came out. Like, they could’ve just had Marinette NOT SHOW UP in time so the guys take care of things, which at least gives more of a message that Paris wouldn’t go to hell just because Ladybug is a little late or something.

And yeah, the “boys squad episode so gotta toss the girl out” is... sigh.

Anonymous said:

I think the writers were trying to show Chat angsting to show his regret instead of an actual apology. Still doesn't explain why Aeon didn't bring up her death afterwards. Did Olympia delete that from her memory banks?

I guess? :|

I don’t know why Chat can’t just apologize without fishing or trying to earn sympathy. Like JUST SAY YOU’RE SORRY, DAMMIT.

Anonymous said:

If you haven't read Maribat, then you won't regret it. I am not in the DC universe but I started reading it and WOW. Literally every single time Marinette is a badass queen and gets her complete revenge and is actually happy! Even if you absolutely love Lukanette (which I have nothing against) you should totally try it.

Appreciate the comment, but I find it hard to ship other Marinette ships outside of Lukanette. Ivanette is a very loose exception and it’s not like I ship it hard or anything.

Anonymous said:

Despite not being a Lukanette shipper I love you. Why? Because you amazing, so right in literally everything and I love you <33

gkdfjgfdngjkfdg thank you

bat-anon said:

The NY Special made it so that Max is literally the only Black/Brown kid that doesn’t exist to make Love Square happen and that just makes me hate it even more.

I wish you didn’t make me have this realization because I hate it.

At least Delmar existed in the New York special???? I guess???? I dunno, I’m trying here, I don’t recall him doing anything love square centric.

Anonymous said:

I honestly don't mind Alix's outfit as Bunnix! I feel like it fits her, plus she's an adult so its not much of a problem, not saying it can't be improved however. I DO have issues with the designs for the underage girls outfits however....those are very sus

Yeah, the problem I take with Bunnyx’s is that it’s a bodysuit. If there was just more definition, like having actual boots, I wouldn’t complain as much.

Anonymous said:

I actually just really like the idea of the new bee being a genuinely nice person who becomes friends with Marinette. Not exactly close friends (since I like the idea of friendly working relationships without actual personal stakes in them). I also enjoy the idea of the new bee having some small animosity for Chat Noir- just because their personalities aren't the greatest mix. I also think that it would make sense for the miraculous of subjection to be at odds with the miraculous of destruction

Full agreement but we know how much the writers are resistant to have characters go against Chat.

Anonymous said:

Not gonna lie the scene where the girl squad gets akumatized almost makes it seem like they got akumatized on purpose, similar to Manon in Puppeteer 2(although she was a little kid who was probably just imagining she could enact revenge). And why can't they have a uniformed design, like they're a team but wear different colors, similar to the Sailor Senshi(like, Alya's the leader and wears orange, Rose wears pink, Alix wears green, Juleka wears purple, and Mylene wears yellow). It's so boring.

Mood.

Not to mention that WE ARE SO TIRED OF THEM GETTING AKUMATIZED INTO THE SAME AKUMA.

AT LEAST PALETTE SWAP THEM.

Anonymous said:

Relating to the Didn't Need Burrows and Treatment of Marinette bingo cards, have you considered making one for whenever the show fails at girl power? It could say things like "sexualized frames of teenage girls" "boy tells girl what to do" "girls don't get to keep Miraculouses", and "girls are forced to apologize whenever a situation goes wrong". And in the center, it could say "Don't show this to your daughter!"! Lol! What do you think?

lol I feel like I have enough cards, otherwise I would.

Anonymous said:

I saw another post that talked about Miraculous New York, and they theorized that it was rewritten to focus more on Marinette and Adrien in order to get viewers invested in the Love Square again after more people started to lose faith in the ship. Do you think that's a possibility?

I think so. The whole special comes off as trying to reassure love square shippers because of how hard it goes for him. I cut out Marinette’s crushing and it cuts like 18% from the episode, meaning it’s even worse than Season 3 (15%).

Anonymous said:

Maybe the point of the [break-up episodes] is meant to discourage people from shipping Lukanette and Adrigami too?

Spoiler alert: didn’t work.

Anonymous said:

Are we not gonna talk about how in one ask, somebody legit said "(long dreamy sigh) Viperion"? Like same.

RIGHT????

Same.

Anonymous said:

Ml fandom: I hate how Ladybug keeps secrets from Chat Noir! He sacrifices himself for her all the time and she never appreciates him for it! He has EVERY right to get mad at her!!

ML Fandom when Chat Noir does the same thing in the special: ....Wow Ladybug was way to harsh on Chat Noir!! She doesn’t appreciate him at all!! Shes so mean to him!

i hate it

Anonymous said:

Idk if it's just me, but a majority of the fandom is split in two; it's never one or the other "MARINETTE SUCKS AND IS A HORRIBLE PERSON GUARDIAN MARY SUE WHO SEXUALLY HARRASSES" or "ADRIEN SUCKS HE WAS NEVER ON MARINETTES SIDE" but im personally on the latter, but not to that extreme. i hate videos bashing marinette and then never acknowledge adriens faults

Yeah, the fandom gets more divided as time goes on because of the writers trying to increase the drama/tension.

Anonymous said:

I am PERSONALLY offended they gave Luka the snake miraculous. Snakes have such a negative connotation. A lot of people insult Lila by calling her a SNAKE. And now those ML writers DARE insult the best character in ML?! HOW DARE THEY!?????

I adore Viperion but I agree that I first heard he was getting snake and was like, “BUT MY BOI???”

It gets awkward too because other animals like the pig have negative connotations, like how Daizzi basically means “idiot/stupid” and they’re giving it to the freaking blond character, really???

Anonymous said:

I think that Ivanette would be even better if Marinette was plus-sized character.

I see why you’d think that. I just disagree because then it turns the ship into “let’s pair the heavyset characters together because they heavyset.”

Anonymous asked:

On the topic of romance failures and general series salt, my main issue right now is how the series puts so much focus on romantic relationships while failing to consider other levels of relationship or what they affect.

On the L² front I can completely buy Marinette being in love with Adrien. Most of the time she genuinely wants him to be happy and is ready to take a step back for him, however much it hurts. But in terms of romantic love? It. Is. A. Crush! But if we step back from the formula, what is there left between them? Their civilian relationship is held together by a “comedy” of errors and without that there is surprisingly little left. Well, besides two “best friends” desperately trying to make it happen because somehow they lost their individual characters and instead of being friends became matchmakers?

I too like Luka and Marinette together. Their relationship is pretty nice to see and all. But sometimes it feels like it happens in a dimension of its own, like the writers want to make the endgame clear in that the “sideships” can be easily cut out of the big “how they got together”-recaps. I especially miss reactions from and interactions with Juleka. She is Luka’s sister, Marinette’s friend, and IIRC someone aware of if not even a bit player in the great shipping game. She is in a prime position to step up and bring progress on all fronts: She can talk with Luka. She can either give Marinette helpful pointers or go “All in or nothing”, i.e. trying to make Marinette get her Adrien-feelings in order as she does not want her brother to get less than Marinette’s full heart. Similarly, she can counteract “friendly acts” and stop humiliating situations from escalating, or she herself can escalate them in the “All or Nothing”-scenario. Yet she remains basically a background character who gets little attention from the camera and almost no “non-focus identity”

As for Kagami, I may be too biased. *Any* positive Kagami/Marinette relationship is to me what Lukanette is to you. So naturally I have lots of opinions when it comes to her role ;) But can I just say that Adrien/Kagami is the weirdest ship for me? They have a few cute scenes and I think if they’d spend a lot more time together, they’d do each other good but I don’t know how they work. “No Hesitation” Kagami would lob Adrien’s head straight off with all his…everything. If we are meant to take Adrien’s love for LB seriously (and I guess we have to because how in the name of sanity is any form of the stated endgame gonna work otherwise???), how does Kagami fit into that picture as a girl who can hardly express emotions while Adrien is the definition of a guy who can not stop flirting or goes for all kinds of romantic gestures? Sometimes it feels more like a “social fit” and “Mommy/Daddy approves” kind of deal which is quite the shame! Normally I like these kind of relationships in fictions but they need a solid underlining or good development. One they haven’t and one the series has not been giving to anyone so far.

Yeah, the whole thing with the love square versus side ships ends up feeling extremely forced. Keeping Luka away and forcing Adrien into Lukanette episode are the biggest giveaways, basically a big fat sign that says, “We know Marinette would forget that Adrien exists if she hung around Luka for more than five minutes.”

AND YEAH, KAGAMI WOULDN’T PUT UP WITH ADRIEN’S GARBAGE. I liked Adrimi but it’s definitely more flawed than Lukanette.

Anonymous said:

Watched your opinion on the New York special and I agree with you. It was mediocre at best. It could have been something nice, like if they added Kagami and Luka, for example, so that we can get a bit of development from the new couples on season 4, so that it doesn’t feel rushed when they start dating on season 4. It could also be a good opportunity to see the other temporary heroes one last time, since Marinette technically has the miracle box.

They could have had an epic fight with the American Superheroes, maybe even giving the bee miraculous temporally to Aeon or Jess so that we didn’t need to see their awful and uncreative superheroes designs. It would have been nice if they made something more useful other than being characters that believe that Adrien and Marinette are “Meant to be”, like, we already got a ton of these already, couldn’t we get someone who didn’t feel something about this ship? It has so much wasted potential that I don’t even know how to start. Do you agree with anything I said?

I agree, yes. They could’ve easily thrown Luka/Kagami into the mix (or had Marinette/Adrien stay behind while flipping perspectives or something; flawed but they could make it work).

Anonymous said:

I'm rereading ladybugout and wow... the moment of silence after "chat deserves that kiss" gets me every time. Everyone stopping and just staring because wow he really just said that

Me whenever Chat Noir opens his mouth in the show.

Anonymous said:

I saw the Backwarder post you just talked about and yes, it is so totally ridiculous. They forgot another thing, though. Miraculous isn't just about comedy, action, and romance, it's about embarrassing Marinette. And the fact that almost everyone in the comments was acting like the medicine scene at the end was funny was just stupid and saddening to hear or read about, because it shows how people have been conditioned to hate and rally against Marinette without even realizing it. Granted, there was one lady who said it reminded her of her husband, so I guess that's okay(but all it means is that Adrien will be Marinette's--aka "his lady's"--husband like eeerrrgh!). And there was one person who said they liked that Juleka's advice because "If you're friend isn't willing to commit crimes for your happiness, is she even your friend?". But everyone else liked the ending. And I don't get the person who said we got "Subtle progression with Adrien and Marinette". We're right where we started.

Weeeeell, I understand the “comedy, action, romance” comment because all of those basically boil down to embarrassing Marinette or invalidating her. Comedy and romance goes without saying while action involves her dealing with Chat “Nice Guy” Noir.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me, or does Snow White's "Red Shoes" form look a lot like Marinette. I know, I know, Marinette is Chinese and Red Shoes is Korean, but they still look strikingly similar. They're bodies are really similar, too, but that might just be because animation tends to use eerily similar body types for its female characters on a whole. It's sad and it makes me think of how cute Marinette would be if she was fat. I also think Snow White was cuter than Red Shoes but that's kind of the point.

I think it’s the body type thing but that’s just a guess since I didn’t immediately make the connection.

I agree that Snow White is cuter.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one who's never liked "destined to fail" characters? Basically this is when characters aren't allowed to be good at/succeed at something or else the whole universe will somehow fall apart. Think of how in The Amazing World of Gumball, if Richard gets a job, the world will be in complete and utter chaos. So he's better off as a lazy, bumbling dad. In Phineas and Ferb, Candace is always trying to rat out her younger brothers but if she gives up or succeeds something bad will happen.

TV Tropes put it the best: "Not only is she not allowed to succeed, but she's also not allowed to stop trying!"(conveniently under the Cosmic Plaything trope). I just don't like it because it shows that the writers just want to lead them on with the promise of success then snatch it away at the last minute. And now we're back at Miraculous Ladybug, where Marinette is humiliated every time she doesn't sign a gift that's for Adrien, and yet when she does, everyone in Paris DIES. Except for...HIM.

you: *mentions Candace*

me: [a million awful flashbacks]

Also, yeah, it’s so hard to watch, especially in “Chat Blanc” because it’s like, “Oh, you want to give a gift to a boy and you dArEd to use your powers for it? Congrats, but everyone else is DEAD and you can hang out with him as much as you want! You’re welcome!”

Anonymous said:

I think it’d become a “faintest idea blackout card”rather than a bingo.

(referring to my “Faintest Idea” card)

We’re getting there.

darkmoonravewolf said:

I hate that everything on that list could happen and very likely will

(referring to “Didn’t Need Burrow”)

Yeah, and it makes me sad :’)

Anonymous said:

That’s be real here. Miraculous ladybug is not a show about Marinette; Miraculous Ladybug is a show about Adrien. Adrien is the real main character.

Notice that when they focused on Adrien in “Lies,” they only cut back to Marinette (IN A SCENE THAT CAN’T EXIST) to have her fawn over him.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me or are Lady Noire's eyes huge? Maybe it's just the green but they seem way bigger than Marinette's

I’m not sure, but considering Rena’s facial structure being different from Alya’s, it wouldn’t surprise me.

asexual-individual said:

With what you've said about Adrien lacking a reason to exist outside of development for Marinette and Gabriel, I have to wonder how different the show would be if Chat Noir's identity was also kept from the audience. Adrien would still be there as himself, but he only gets as much focus as Alya, and Chat Noir's identity is treated as a mystery (a Tuxedo Mask type mystery, but a mystery all the same).

I see what you mean but it might cause Adrien+Chat’s screentime to feel excessive once the reveal happens, because suddenly their screentime gets combined and it’s like, “oh wow so the combined screentime is his then.”

Anonymous said:

I know that the kwami's really only exist so we can hear our protagonists' thoughts outloud (like what the Coraline movie did with adding Wybie to the story). But honestly, what's the point in having magical gods in the jewelry if you're not going to do anything with them?

Marketing with “cute” side characters.

guisendisguise said:

It's funny, originally, I had shipped Marichat in the sense that Chat and Mari start hanging out and both fall in love with the other's supposedly less perfect, more real selves. Then Luka was introduced and I ended up putting both lukanette and marichat at the same level. Then S3 hit and killed any love I had for Marichat. The writers themselves killed the Love Square for me. At this point, it's very clear they are living in a delusion where the Love Square could ever work narratively without Deus ex Machina or Deus Lo Vult (God wills it). Basically, they've gone past scraping the bottom of the writing skills barrel and are now shoulder deep in the hole they dug thru the bottom of said barrel. I'd like to point out that the bottom of the barrel is writing poop and now they're digging thru the useless plastic landfill the barrel was sitting on top of

Uggggh, yeah. Any appreciation I could’ve had for Marichat died in “Weredad.” I already didn’t like Adrien/Chat and then “Weredad” just showed his complete lack of... well, ANYTHING.

cosmostellar said:

Honestly feels like MLBs writers are going based off the "JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE" instead of, yknow, fleshing them out while developing them also in the context of their cultures and giving them these little things that the audiences who belong to the same minority can identify with. I don't mean "have Marinette walk in qipao 24/7" bcs thats just... bad on its own but man, /some/ casual acknowledgments of her culture would be nice.

Reading the sentence “JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE” physically hurts me.

Anonymous said:

Ok, I've always thought that Chloe was robbed of redemption (they held it in front of us, but then jerked it away while Astruc says, "She's irredeemable! We thought she was redeemable, but she wasn't :)!" What are your thoughts! Also, I just recently found your blog and I really like it :)

Thank you!

But I have no sympathy for bully characters, so I didn’t want Chloe redeemed. Maybe I’m still bitter about my own bullying experience, but I just wasn’t here for Marinette being forced to forgive Chloe, which is basically what they did until they backpedaled.

The time spent on her was wasted though and that I can agree on.

Anonymous said:

Me: Writes a 1k rant about how the tweet makes no sense as the "mistake" is about motivation and not the critical plot. Also me: Remembers that in MLB the plot always comes back to the romance. Finally me: Wonders why he got involved with the series post-S3 when all the red flags were already everywhere.

Mistakes were made.

Anonymous said:

I'm semi-catching up on miraculous, and- is it my impression, or does Kagami rebel against her mother more in few episodes she's in (even though her mother's influences on her seem to be stronger in general), than Adrien in the entire show? I /know/ that I don't want to see Adrien free himself from his father w/ the desperation I want to see Kagami free herself from her mother and realize that the standards she's held up to are unhealthy and too strong.

Yeah, I’m way more invested in Kagami than Adrien.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one confused about whether the staff stopped caring and half-asses the series or cares too much and over-produces the hell out of it?

Nah. It really feels like they secretly hate the love square so they have to keep forcing it.

Anonymous said:

ngl I haven't watched any new episodes since Chameleon and I've been getting all that Miraculous News via tumblr to avoid that Marinette Brand Second Hand Embarrassment™

Understandable.

Anonymous said:

If they aired the 6th one first WHAT WHAT HAPPENED TO LEAD UP TO THIS???? WE ARE ON SEASON FOUR WITH TWO SPEICALS, GETTING A THIRD, AND ANY DEVELOPMENT WE HAD HAS GONE BACKWARDS, SUCKED, OR STATUS QUO YO-ED AWAY!!!!! HOW THE HECK DO WE GET ADRIENETTE FROM FOUR SEASONS OF NOTHING?????? I USED TO FANGIRL AT THIS NOW I AM TERRIFIED.

Answer: We don’t get Adrienette. We get forced love square and rushed/fake “development” of it while being constantly confused as episodes air out of order.

Anonymous said:

im sorry But adrienette has been suck in this limbo of one sidedness for 3 seasons. neither of them have become closer, neither of them have confided in one another, but somehow people still ship it? at least luka was able to make a move on marinette lol adrien still repeats the same boring “shes just a friend” line. adrienette is a really boring ship.

lol don’t apologize, you’re absolutely right.

nahte123456 said:

Very minor bit of salt to throw to the pile, but can this show just decide on how strong Miraculous holders are? Yes it's a cartoon and not the focus but in the Furious Fu episode we literally get Ladybug dodging lighting and then Su who seems mostly human and is at least slower then Fu was outspeeding her. It's distracting trying to figure out what is and isn't a serious threat in this show.

The deciding factor in the strength of the miraculous holders is “whatever works for the plot.”

Anonymous said:

At this point the only thing I'm excited for concerning Miraculous Ladybug is when it gets a reboot in like, a decade with actually competent writers

Best case scenario is that Zag goes bankrupt and Disney/Netflix picks up the series and gives it to competent people.

Problem is that the love square has been ruined so badly for me that even a “good” version of it wouldn’t be something I’d be into, but still.

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the problem with having all of Marinette's mistakes result in huge disasters (ex. Feast), is that is gives off the impression that teenagers aren't allowed to make mistakes. This show clearly doesn't like giving second chances to the protagonist, so why would life give one to you? Am I right, kids?

Exactly.

Marinette makes mistakes and suddenly the world is ending.

Anonymous said:

If your gonna watch the show, at least pirate the episodes so the writers dont get your support

Don’t worry, I have no interest in financially supporting the show.

Anonymous said:

ml in a nutshell: wasted potential, then giving themselves more potential, only to turn the rest of it into a dumpster fire

Yup, that’s it.

Anonymous said:

u know, when My Little Pony, Sofia The First, and fanfiction carries out character development, respect, romance, and the main plot better than the original show, especially when the shows mentioned above are aimed more at little girls and the original show is aimed at slightly older audiences... somethings wrong

*sigh*

And then it’s like--people will excuse the show because “it’s a kids’ show” and then I’m just “okay then, why are there actually good kids’ show?”

If shows get a pass for being for children then all childrens’ shows should just not try and be garbage since the standard is so low.

Anonymous said:

ive seen some cool fic ideas/concepts/reviews that made me think: ml could use so much more looking into how a character thinks in some situations. one fic i read had alya in chameleon (i know its been forever since the ep came out but hey) not question lila cus she thought: "hey, lb wouldnt befriend a bad person" w and added a plot line of lila making her think lb was cobsidering replacing rena rougue. like, just a few lines to make them seem better pls?

YES. Like, show us characters’ perspectives and why they’re rolling with the facts that they’re rolling with, otherwise they just end up looking like jerks.

We sort of got it in “Ikari Gozen” with Kagami but of course it was just to make Marinette look bad.

Anonymous said:

You know I’m honestly considering making reviews of this show and if I do I could create hour long rants about the show just from that mans twitter.

Yeaaaaaah, once you had in the Twitter stuff, it just becomes, “okay so this is going to add another hour or two then.”

Anonymous said:

Okay one thing that bothers me is how plain marinette's suits are despite being a DESIGNER. Her multimouse suit it just blocks of color and her ladynoir suit is just grey with green lines. I think the lines are supposed to represent actually clothes. Like the limes on the calves are supposed to make it look like boots but why not actually GIVE her boots. (Right, because she has to have a skintight suit unlike the boys who get some layers.)

THE SHEER DISRESPECT OF HAVING THE FASHION DESIGNER WEAR SUCH A PLAIN SUIT.

It also goes to show who really designs here, like oh, interesting, the girls get skin-tight simplistic bodysuits and the boys gets all the cool stuff--

Anonymous said:

I heard some people in my class saying they watched Miraculous Ladybug for the first time, and they were saying how good it was, and I was like: 'Oh you poor fools. You have NO idea what it's truly like.'

You know what they say: ignorance is bliss.

bat-anon said:

Isn’t it INTERESTING how in Frozer, Luka understands that Marinette is torn between her crushes and continues to support her even though he knows she probably won’t chose him, and in the exact same episode Chat Noir refuses to help save the city because Ladybug told him AGAIN that she wasn’t romantically interested in him? HMMM 🤔😑

dbfgjbdfjkgf

I’M REMINDED OF “FELIX” WHERE IT’S LIKE--THEY WERE CLEARLY TRYING TO SHOW HOW MUCH “BETTER” CHAT NOIR IS THAN FELIX, BUT LUKA WAS THE RESPECTFUL ONE.

Anonymous said:

You know what I want to see? An evil kwami, like they just want to commit crimes. No moral high grounds, just chaotic evil.

That’d be amazing just because I wouldn’t be able to take them seriously.

Anonymous said:

Watching S1 and S3 episodes back to back, it feels like reading salt fics at times, especially in regards to the L². Like, Marinette was happy about weird plans, she both needed and wanted the final push, and most of the time there was at least something coming out of it. Nowadays it just makes her sad, Alya and the girls act *against* her, and we get shipping for shipping's sake.

That’s a good point. The shift from Seasons 1 to 2 to 3 is rather noticeable.

Anonymous said:

I hate how Adrien's busy schedule seems to only matter when it's used to make Marinette feel bad, but the second Marinette has a bit more to do, it somehow has a negative effect on not only her, but also everyone/everything she cares about, like, what's up with that??

I’m reminded of “Lies” here and I hate it. :|

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the way the show treats teenage girls is horse ass. The show treats the teenage girls of this show as if they're stupid, naive, emotional, clumsy, and need a boy to tell them what opinions to have. Marinette is always treated like the show's punching bag and blamed for everything that goes wrong because she's "emotional" or "obsessed with Adrien", Chloe could've been redeemed but the writers would rather keep her a brain-dead Alpha Bitch Valley Girl(even though Gabriel and Felix, the latter of whom is a teenage boy introduced in one episode, get to be treated as redeemable, despite the things they do being far, far worse), and Lila is a conniving, self-absorbed fox.

And even though Kagami seems better, she's still roped into the "girls catfight over an oblivious guy" cliche and so far, all of her akumatizations have been because of Adrien. Whenever Marinette tries to move on from Adrien the other characters tell her what's good for her and steer her in the "right" direction because she apparently can't think for herself, and the writers LOVE to use the girl squad to tell us who Marinette should be with, because they apparently know better than she does.

Plus the show loves to treat all the girls as the same, making them all either fight over Adrien or be obsessed with shipping, as if teenage girls are all one assimilating, homogenized group(also when they treat Marinette as if she's "just as bad as Chloe", rinse and repeat for the other ladies.). Honestly, the show feels like it was written by those types of people who think "teenage girls are the worst" so they make them all mood-swingy, obsessive, showoffs, emotional, and downright clingy.

Plus the way Thomas Astruc talks about the female characters on Twitter is even worse, and only serves to make this more evident: he claims Marinette "has poor control over her emotions"(all the while calling Adrien "perfect"), that Chloe was racist in Kung Food "because she's stupid"(so rather than having that scene serve as a lesson on respecting other's cultures, he just did it to pick on Chloe and make her look "stupid"), that she's incapable of being redeemed, that Lila's unlikable but Gabriel and Felix aren't(even though he claimed Felix was a terrible character and a "cliche", that's not what the show says my guy), and other such nonsense.

Other Twitter users have also called out Miraculous Ladybug and its stereotypical treatment of teenage girls. The only shows I've ever seen do this worse are those pretentious "darker" Magical Girl "deconstructions" aimed at grown men such as Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna, as well as most shonen/seinen shows such as Naruto and Death Note, which says a lot. Honestly, whenever I feel like watching a show with empowering and respectful depictions of teenage girls that treats them as bright and intelligent and actually unique from one another, I just watch Equestria Girls, Liv and Maddie, LoliRock, ANT Farm, Moesha, PreCure, or Sailor Moon. Because the way the show acts towards them is deplorable, absolutely deplorable.

Yes to all of the above. Almost all of the girls are involved in love affairs in some way, the two teenage girls are irredeemable while Felix got a sympathetic backstory right away (Chloe took forever to get hers which is a failure), and Marinette is flawed because she’s “too emotional” (a misogynistic stereotype).

Anonymous said:

Hi, I'm the anon who got upset at the lady who made the "Miraculous Ladybug is a Mess" rant, and yes, thank you zodiacspirit17 for liking and agreeing with my rant! I'm glad someone else saw that video! And ugh, Marinette learning to love Chat Noir? Really? I don't remember that line but I also don't want to go back and revisit it to make sure so I'll take your word for it. Ew. That was actually one of the things I hated about the Glaciator scene. Chat was supposedly comforting Marinette by taking her to the rooftop where he planned Ladybug's date, and yet only Marinette finds out about Chat's crush on Ladybug and comforts him on that(while rethinking her feelings), while all Chat knows is that Marinette's heart was also broken. He never asks who it is, or tries to help her get over her crush even if he doesn't know it's coincidentally him.

I know it's because of the "love square" but it's unfair that only Chat's love problems are directly addressed. Come to think of it, the reason Chat took Marinette to the rooftop...I know he was doing it in-universe to help her instead of intruding on her personal feelings(which might have also been why he didn't ask her who her crush was, he was probably thinking along the lines of "we don't have to talk about it right now, we can just have fun!"), but meta-wise, since we know she's Ladybug, the writers were probably trying to tell her "See? This is what you could've been doing, but you missed it. Shame on you!" That's a huge issue I have with the show: characters will do things in-universe to help Marinette, but the show has a different motive in mind. Compare to how Tikki gave actual advice to Marinette in Puppeteer 2, but the writers intended that for the statue scene so they could embarrass her in front of Adrien and the thousands of eyes watching the show(except we're not laughing.). Even if characters do support her, the writer is using them as props for her ritualized humiliation. And yet Luka is the problem somehow.

If Marinette needs to learn how to love Chat Noir, then it should at least be balanced out by Adrien learning to Marinette. I'm sick of this double standard that "girls need to learn to accept boys who like them but guys can do what they want". Another thing she said was that "Marinette needs to learn to define herself outside of who she's crushing on." NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. You see, unlike Adrien, Marinette HAS a life outside of who she's crushing on: she has school, she has Kitty Section, she has her "girl squad", she has her parents, she has her outside family, she babysits Alya's and Nino's siblings, and she has OH YEAH HER FASHION DESIGNING! I didn't even count being a superhero since Adrien does that, too. She has so many things to do outside of Adrien, and yet the fact that she makes gifts for Adrien or dreams about Adrien or wants to have kids with Adrien somehow makes her nothing but an "Adrien fangirl"?

First of all, she's the bloody protagonist?! That's such a "Real Women Don't Wear Dresses" argument, that she can't have her own life AND be in love at the same time! And somehow her crushing on Luka also means her life revolves around him, too! But Adrien's life doesn't revolve around Ladybug even though he doesn't really have anything going for him in his ordinary life? Outside of being rich, hot, white, and male, that is? What are his interests and hobbies, besides what Gabriel lets him do to pass the time? He doesn't even like modeling! And the Agreste plot is more about Gabriel, Emilie, and Nathalie than it is about him.

And what about his friendship with Nino? He didn't even care that Nino was getting strung along by Lila with the others! What about his friendship with Chloe that also waxes and wanes? Granted, Chloe's not a GOOD person, which that lady acknowledged, but she at least tried to change and has more development than him, the writers just won't let her change. I hate when people come for Marinette for doing literally anything when the show won't let her have agency and progress. It's so unfair of her and I wish they could see that. These double standards are driving me insane and they're sexist(maybe even a little bit racist, too), and it hurts even more when a woman's doing those things.

(I had to cut off some of this ask because I didn’t get all of it, so I cut it off at the point where it still seemed like a full ask.)

I FEEL THE “GLACIATOR” THING SO BAD. It hurts even worse when you realize that “Frozer” has to take place after “Glaciator,” so Chat Noir heard that Marinette has love problems and then ignored it to ask her for advice about his own love problems later on. The total lack of insensitivity???

Also, the idea that Marinette’s life would revolve around her crush on Luka is stupid. It’s the exact opposite, in fact.

Meanwhile, Adrien has so little going for him and the “interesting” parts of him involve who he’s connected to or what his father has forced him into.

61 notes · View notes

fishylife · 3 years

Text

Spoilers for Hyena Ep 8

- I really like Ji-eun’s character. She’s not dumb, she’s not just a mindless sidekick. She knows her job involves toeing the line, and she knows that her boss works in mob boss ways. But her boss is also a good boss, and gives her opportunities to shine. I love seeing the little scenes when Geum-ja indulges her, like letting her order something fancy for dinner. At the very least, Geum-ja is a good boss.

- Geum-ja and Yu-mi....interesting. Listen, Yu-mi is annoying, but she’s not a completely illogical character. She’s just very dramatic, and she is being chased down by scary loan sharks, so the theatrics get blown up. She may have made some mistakes along the way too (i.e. accidentally letting someone else know that Geum-ja and Hee-jae dated), but I don’t think any of this was like, illogical. Though Choo Dong-sik, rude. Just walks into someone’s office while they’re with a client without knocking? Though he might’ve also done it on purpose. Who knows.

- Anyway, I thought it was interesting that Geum-ja did initially try to talk to Yu-mi calmly. She did trick Yu-mi and so Yu-mi does deserve an explanation. It did get annoying when she spam called Geum-ja and Ji-eun so then Geum-ja was like aight gonna brute force this. But she didn’t do this because she’s friends with Yu-mi, she did this to stop Yu-mi from pestering her forever and ever lol.

- Kim Min-joo returns and we see that she’s put some blame of her sister’s accident on Song Pil-jung. What’s the story? We’ll find out eventually, but in any case, we know what’s between them is both personal and political.

- Let’s talk about the team dinner. Sang-mi has no idea how to read the atmosphere, yikes. After getting drunk, I-jun said that Hee-jae and Geum-ja were like hyenas because they were too busy fighting each other. That got me thinking though, maybe fighting each other is a distraction for both of them. To distract them from their own problems, and to distract them from their attraction to each other. That, or they fight each other because that is the only thing they can fight, the only thing they can fight for. The only thing that Geum-ja really fears is her dad and she couldn’t fight him (because she thought she was still in prison), and now she has a steady income from Song & Kim, so she doesn’t have to fight for survival anymore. So maybe she channels that survival instinct into her legal work. As for Hee-jae, as a descendant of a prominent family, he also has his hands tied. He makes one wrong move and his world comes crashing down. He’s already the black sheep of the family for being a lawyer and not a judge, so if he’s going to be a black sheep, he might as well do it well and show his family that he can. And though they are attracted to each other, they both have lots of pride in being independent. Their first relationship ended poorly, and I think that to both of them, they’d feel that giving in to their feelings would be surrendering to the other and showing weakness. This might be bordering on BS though lol. Just me trying to fit pegs in holes.

- Before, I had suspected that Geum-ja’s informant was maybe a brother, because she cares for him, but not in like, a mushy way, but more in a family way. And in this episode, I guess we can assume that they’re at least childhood friends. Anyway, I think he was a police officer but he got fired for leaking info to Geum-ja, but I think they’re still tight. The dude accepted Geum-ja’s money, so I don’t think that he hates Geum-ja, he knew what he was getting into.

- We got more backstory on Geum-ja. Her name was Jung Eun-yong. Her dad had “drunkenly” killed her mom and gotten off light for it, so she studied law to try to get her dad in jail. Then she set things up so that it would look like he’d stabbed her, which would get him in jail for 30 years. Makes sense in terms of why Geum-ja grew to be the kind of person that she is.

- When Jung Chun-su, Geum-ja’s dad, visited Geum-ja, she showed behaviour that indicated that she was afraid of him. When he tried to give her his business card, she stepped back, and she was very hung up over that. Why? Well, all along Geum-ja has showed that she fears nothing. Death literally does not scare her, as we saw when she had to fight that dude in the alleyway. And it’s because she was already prepared to die once, when she was planning to put her dad in jail. But when she was with her dad, that’s when we first saw signs of Geum-ja actually being afraid. Geum-ja is annoyed at this probably because she thought she’d moved past fearing him, but in front of him, she returns to being that young girl. Again, makes tons of sense.

- The other thing is that to Geum-ja’s annoyance, her dad is now supposedly a changed man. Now that Chun-su’s a religious man, he’d like Geum-ja’s forgiveness. Well, it’s a bit soon for that because Geum-ja has seen him for two seconds and he hasn’t proved to her that he’s changed. But also, sometimes people just don’t want apologies. I think Geum-ja would rather never see her dad ever again than to open old wounds. Sometimes apologies are only for the perpetrators and sometimes do nothing for the victims. Geum-ja is probably still reconciling this pastor with the dad that she remembered. To her, her dad will always be the one that hurt her. I half expect Geum-ja to forgive her father, but I sure hope the writers don’t make it easy for him, because he needs to have done way more than just “be a changed man.” If I were Geum-ja I’d honestly just want to...never see him ever again, regardless of whether he was repentant or not.

- So it looks like Hee-jae and Geum-ja really only talk when they’re drinking. They got into a slight argument at the team dinner, then Hee-jae sought out Geum-ja at that food place where her friend told her that he got fired, and then they were drinking at the end when Geum-ja was in her office after her dad left. Only when they’ve drunk do they ever even acknowledge what happened between them.

- After working together on their last case, I do think that Hee-jae has started to respect Geum-ja more as a person, and even though they did have a spat at the team dinner, he understands that Geum-ja is really upset. At the very least, Hee-jae sees Geum-ja as a peer who is in need. And Geum-ja reacted to his attention, telling him a bit about how she was feeling when she was talking to her dad. I think Hee-jae appreciated Geum-ja opening up at least a little. Geum-ja drew a line insisting that they weren’t going to start dating again, but accepted Hee-jae’s offer (?) and they probably had adult relations in that office (yuck, think of the cleaners). But in any case, their relationship has taken a step in a new direction. Now they are no longer just rivals. They also share a sort of intimacy that they wouldn’t share with anyone else. Geum-ja has probably never shared how she felt with anyone. Her childhood friend the informant already knew what was going on, and Geum-ja is professional enough that she wouldn’t share this information with Ji-eun either. And as for Hee-jae, I think he was taking a risk. I think earlier in the show Hee-jae said he’d never been in love, so like, him trying to cheer Geum-ja up and being there for her is probably kind of new for him too, and I feel like he’s probably pleased that Geum-ja was receptive to his offer of just being a comfort to her.

- I don’t think that the two of them will become awkward after this. I think they both knew what they were doing when Hee-jae offered to be a shoulder to lean on and Geum-ja accepted. Geum-ja said to forget what they were going to do. I don’t think they will, but I also don’t think it’d interfere with their work. Instead, I think that Geum-ja and Hee-jae will be...sort of more attentive to each other, now that they’ve seen each other in a different light, if that makes sense.

- When Yu-mi and Gi-hyeok were on their date, Yu-mi said how she was trying to change her memories. She’d visited that locale with her ex-husband, but now she was going to make new memories there by going on a date with Gi-hyeok. As for Geum-ja, she is still haunted by her old memories of her father. I brought this up because Geum-ja specifically said that the memories hadn’t escaped her, because even though her dad looked and behaved differently, her instinctive reaction toward him was to recoil. So we’ll see if/how she rewrites her memories towards him.

- So this was an episode that focused more on Geum-ja. We got a lot of questions answered, which is neat, and we’re introduced to her dad, who might be the only challenge in her life that she worries about. Literally nothing else in her life has ever worried her besides this guy.

#thinking out loud #kdrama #hyena

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shimmershae · 3 years

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My thoughts on Episode 3--Hunted.

Most of you lovelies already realize this, but my thoughts tend to zig and zag quite a bit, lol. So. To save some of you the headache and spare you from seeing spoilers you’d rather not see yet, I’m again placing them behind a cut.

First things first. I have totally turned into Yvette Nicole Brown with her TWD notebooks, lol, and I’m not even sorry. I just felt like it would be fun to go back when the final episode is in the books and see how well my thoughts from these early episodes line up with what I’m feeling when we say our (not-so) final goodbyes.

But that’s enough about that. Let’s get to this thing.

It really is insane how very much I love Melissa McBride. Just hearing her doing the previously on TWD recap voiceover makes me ridiculously happy.

Cole! Dude! We hardly knew ya.

Not gonna lie. That first shot of Maggie in all the chaos reminded of a shirt I’ve seen. It says--”Well, well, well. If it isn’t the consequences of my actions.”

I have to hand it to Angela and the rest of her team. These opening scenes--on all 3 episodes--have been BOMB so far. They really hook you in right away. At least IMHO.

I realize I’m behind the game on this little tidbit, but how much do I adore the fact that Dog is now in the opening credits?

Okay. Alexandria might look like it’s been on some kind of post-apocalyptic bender but all our girls are looking beautiful as ever. Maybe it’s Maybelline, lol.

I love to see Kelly and Carol still gravitating toward each other. It really speaks to each woman’s heart. Carol wants to make amends so badly and Kelly just has the most lovely, warm, forgiving heart.

Carol’s point about Alexandria still needing the horses to help with the heavy lifting and pointing out the walls and rebuilding won’t matter quite as much if they’re limited by their hunger and what they can physically lift on their own isn’t wrong. But I’m sure the same viewers that were okay with Daryl and Co. going out on Maggie’s suicide mission (using the same reasoning) and saying it made sense for the bigger picture will pretend not to recognize that the same element is there in Carol’s desire to go out there and look for the horses. You know. Because it was Carol’s idea and not that of their fave(s).

Aaron, Man. Or maybe I should say Angela. You just had to put a pit of dread in my belly mentioning Buttons like that. RIP, Buttons. You deserved better. I’m still traumatized.

Look at all the babies bonding. Look at RJ getting to sit at the big kid table.

“My mom always comes back.” She damn well better. Those babies need her. Until she does, though, Uncle Daryl and Aunt Carol (and Aunt Rosita and everybody else) are going to be there.

Anyway. Poor RJ. He barely ever gets any lines, lol.

Hershel and Judith are obviously the mini-adults in this group and baby Rhee is already more cynical and jaded than his sweet daddy was until they reached Alexandria and the wheels started to come off.

So. Does Maggie just think everybody’s already dead here or what? Hmm.

You know. Any building can be creepy AF when the lights are off and it’s dark, lol. Any building.

So much darkness so far this season. I’m going to have to invest in some blackout curtains. I just know it.

Where are all those stairs leading? Why am I thinking of Hitchcock? Am I mixing up my scary, suspenseful movies? Probably.

Of fucking course, Maggie dropped her flashlight. Thank goodness she had that lighter at the ready just before Ghost Face Reaper took a swipe at her.

Is that Father G with a screwdriver impaled in his thigh? Listen. These people deserve a Mega Bottle of pain killers and a week just vegging out in a soft, luxurious bed.

All these horror movie tropes. Some of them are cheesy, yes. But I’m totally here for it.

LMAO. That’s it, Maggie. A good old punch in the nuts works every time.

Alden really is having a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day.

Negan is still Negan. Self-serving and looking out for number one. But I believe the man really does feel the group is his group too. He’s like that long lost, sketchy uncle nobody wants to acknowledge much less invite to the dinner table, but that bond? However thin? Is there.

I am both hating that Maggie is being forced to work with the man that murdered her husband (my baby Glenn) and finding it fascinating the lengths she’s willing to go to survive. This your plan, Angela?

Rosita and Carol! How sad is it that the last really significant scene I can remember the two of these women sharing was way back? Before Rick and Co. attacked Negan’s outpost and Maggie and Carol were subsequently taken? If only the show had done more of these kind of scenes.

How much do I love all the girls working together? Gimps would never. They’d all be stuck back at Alexandria minding the kids and the community.

Shallow aside--Rosita is so pretty in this scene.

Rosita being worried about Carol honestly makes my heart hurt, because it’s about damn time more of them actually did. Her saying Abraham is trying to tell her something in her dreams is interesting. Angela sure loves her dreams, doesn’t she?

Where are Daryl’s dreams, hmm? No. Seriously. I guess they want to give some viewers plausible deniability until the bitter end.

“Really? We’re just gonna go toward the screaming? Cool.” Hahaha. You know. Even the smart people in horror movies sometimes bite it, Negan. Just saying. Maggie really does need to “stop running up the staircase” when she could just run out the front door though, lol.

Poor Duncan. I think you could have been another Tyreese, Jerry type for me.

WTF does this show have against horses? Those poor creatures.

Kelly is totally me right now. I’d be freaking inconsolable.

Carol needed that hug. Thank you, Magna. From the bottom of this tired fangirl’s heart, thank you.

Why give us that beautiful, golden shot with the horses when you’re planning to stab us through the heart later and twist the knife. Oh. Yeah. That’s exactly why.

Oh snap! Father G’s delivery when he tells that Reaper “I’m not. God isn’t here anymore.” Cold as ice.

Judas. That the Reapers’ work. Or. Damn. Either way, that’s harsh.

Back to what Alden was saying. All these oprhaned children. Who’s going to take on Adam if he dies? That poor kid has had a rough go of it. Knowing that, makes you wonder what Alden was thinking volunteering for the suicide mission.

Omigosh. There went Agatha. Terrible way to go. Right, Beatrice?

I’m sobbing. Carol with the horse. That hurt my baby so much but she hurt herself for her family the same way she has been doing since the Prison. Melissa Mcbride? When she cries, I cry. Every effin’ time. Aaron being there just made it hurt more. But at least someone was there to see how and really take in how she continues to break pieces of herself off to keep her family as whole and safe and happy as she can.

Rewinding a minute--that Magna and Carol conversation. I get Magna’s reasoning too. I do. But Angela is just making everything so dire right now so that the sun when Connie is ultimate found shines a ltitle brighter.

Those babies know they’re eating horse. I could never.

That’s got to be a different Coco. She’s even smaller. But she’s gorgeous.

Fucking finally. Angela having the other characters notice after an eternity of being blind to it, just how much Carol sacrifices of herself for them. It’s so long overdue and I imagine Rosita’s even more worried for Carol now. It’s a shame it’s taken 11 seasons. My baby’s had blood on her hands trying to keep her family safe and whole and happy and fed for a long damn time. So heartbreaking watching her try to scrub the blood away.

Sweet, sweet hug that Kelly gave Magna. She’s such a sweetheart kid sis to all of them, isn’t she?

Interesting place of refuge. A gutted church. A visual symbol, Angela, of where Maggie and the rest of our people are now perhaps?

“It’s easy for you, isn’t it? Being reckless with sombody’s life...” Maggie. Maggie. Those words would have hit so much harder if we hadn’t spent the majority of the last 2.5 episodes watching you ignore sound advice just because it came out of the mouth of somebody you (justifiably) hate.

But will Alden be there when Maggie and Negan get back? That is the question. Or will he eventually Lucille himself?

That little bit of lineup Negan music to remind the audience of Negan lovers and sympathizers that he once took great pleasure in murderously swinging a bag at people’s heads was a nice, subtle touch there. Like agree with her or not, Maggie is literally left to rely on the hope, however small it is, that Negan has changed just enough that he won’t try to finish a job he taken on years before--killing what’s left of her.

Oh lawd. Next episode sees the return of a character literally nobody asked for. How excited am I not?

Dog better not be harmed or so help me.

Now for Angela’s weekly explanations of WTF she/there were thinking because they been doing this plausible deniability thing so long some people out there watching with biased, muddy stan glasses can no longer separate head canon from canon.

Is Maggie worried at all about Daryl or does she just assume his superhero powers are in full effect in this episode?

“You can’t really say it wasn’t going to happen anyway.” Not Angela pointing out that simply laying the blame for literally everything bad that ever happens at Carol’s feet isn’t the answer. Say it louder for those in the back. Alpha was going to do what Alpha wanted to do.

“There is love there. There is respect there. However, there’s also frustration...” You damn skippy. Friendships and human relationships are complex AF. Like Carol. She’s honestly one of the most complicated characters on this show and any show, IMHO. That’s what makes her so memorable and such a lightning rod for discussion.

I know I might be in a minority, but I really feel like they need more of those little scenes between the kids to keep things real.

Kang saying she always feels like she’s going to get murdered in a staircase or parking lot is relatable, funny, and sad all at the same time. It’s a girl thing.

Why is Carol’s story giving me Dark Knight vibes? Like I feel like she’ll gladly shoulder the burden of their distrust, their hate, or their judgment as long as the hard choices she makes keeps them safe. And she’s still ultimately going to come back to save their asses even when they forsake her. Just like Bruce Wayne/Batman. Am I reaching too far, lol? Because sometimes I do that.

Anyway. This is the third episode of the season and the third episode in a row that I mostly enjoyed. I don’t know if I’m just so relieved and happy to have all the characters and my show back or what, but overall? I’ve been pleased with the episodes and found something to love in all of them.

There’s a much stronger horror vibe woven throughout Season 11 so far. I feel like it’s a return to the roots of the show and I like that. Literally none of the characters are making perfect choices and this viewer is here for it. My only complaint so far is there hasn’t been enough Carol but what we’ve been given has felt like a gift and significant in a way that Gimps’ version was not. Also? I really hope the trend of the ladies working together and supporting each other continues because they rule the TWD world, lol.

Hope you enjoyed at least some of my TWD word vomit.

Until next episode.

#The Walking Dead #Season 11 #TWD spoilers #things that make me smile and cry #for reasons #my heart

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fizzingwizard · 4 years

Text

We got episode 3 “Into the Digital World”! And the good news is we are still Very Much at it with the Taishiro lol

This pic pretty much sums up the whole episode for me:

❤️!

Spoilers under the cut...

So let’s knock the most important thing off right away, at the end of the ep they DO go to a real digital world!

And it looks like a child’s fantasy... a beautiful natural world full of amazing creatures. I have no idea how similar it’s gonna be to the world we know, though! So far everything’s different, even things that seem the same. Keeps me guessing.

The landscape is pretty intriguing. Looks like a planet/moon on the horizon? And I’m sure that interesting island’s gotta mean something...

But back to the beginning.

So last week, I was all boggled because they introduced Omegamon and Jogress so early. It was easy to think that since they’d started this hype wave, they were gonna keep riding it out, especially with Hikari and Takeru seeming to receive magic feathers and all. Well, that’s not really how it goes down.

The battle is very quiet, with few words - none at all from Taichi or Yamato until Koushirou gets their attention. I am not 100% sure about this, but from the way Taichi looks to the side when an attack comes his way and Omegamon then takes it out, I think it might mean Taichi and Yamato have some mental work of their own to do to help Omegamon fight and that’s why they’re so quiet. But that’s just a thought. I do love the idea that the kids’ ties to their Digimon have more of an affect on their ability to battle than just their evolutions.

One thing a Jogress does is make you glow. Yeah yeah, we glowed before too. No, I mean GLOW.

Like, nonstop.

Also, I have figured out that Taichi and Yamato must have suction cups on their shoes and that’s how they don’t fall off Omegamon while he’s hurtling all over the place

Cue awesome rock version of the theme song battle music!! Omegamon kills nu!Diaboromon the same way he kills him in Our War Game, with a STAB. But that doesn’t stop the missile. Here I thought would be Koushirou’s turn to shine, but aside from continuing to keep tabs on things, he doesn’t get to join in the fight this time.

Omegamon is somehow able to detect missiles, I guess?

And lock on to the infected one, which conveniently shows an actual lock, is red, and even has the monster’s eyeball symbol. We also see a bunch of Digi code before this.

He absorbs the powers of all the Crests into his sword (!!) ...

(notice they’re still glowing!)

... and stabs it. Because in Digimon, stabbing is always the answer.

BOOM shakalaka

People of Tokyo: Wow that’s bright! I should probably avert my eyes or put on sunglasses. But first, to Instagram!

Thanks, Kouushirou’s computer.

The missle blows up way up high and no one gets hurt. They also don’t seem to care all that much about what this is either! Seconds later everyone’s devices lose power, including Koushirou’s computer. He is very distressed, but the outage doesn’t last long.

Yamato and Taichi’s suction cups finally lose their grip and they fall away into a bright light...

Omegamon became a butterfly!!

It is now certain, Taichi didn’t pull a Kouichi xD He’s perfectly fine. That’s the RIGHT way to get in and out of the digital world at a train station. Take notes, kids.

OK before we move on I must take a second to appreciate these text messages Koushirou receives from someone named Mr.Unknown (gee I’m sure we’ll never hear from him again!)

OMG my life is

WHAT KIND OF REACTION IS THAT TO YOUR IMMINENT DEATH!?!?

“Someone stop it!” Suddenly Japanese (also from Mr.Unkown)

Twenty bucks says this guy is Gennai? Ryou? Wallace? KEN?!

no don’t bet against me please, I have no money.

Have an adorable Hikari, who didn’t get to do anything with the feather in the end. Who knows if she even really has it. She DOES seem to totally know what happened with her brother though. Takeru might know also? But Hikari definitely does. Our little oracle is back.

So Taichi is fine, Koushirou is fine, Yamato is fine. They all get back to the human world safely. Taichi and Koushirou head home, wondering if all that really happened, talking about what could happen next. More importantly, the Taishiro power returns at full throttle.

Koushirou: Do you know about this? This? This?

Taichi: Hmm... hmmm... hmmm.. thinking makes my head hurt...

(Like I rag on Taichi for not thinking but tbh he’s quite the thinker and planner... maybe more so in this season than in the original.)

Gloves returned to pocket. Goggles still at the ready.

Then Taichi reaches out his hand... Koushirou stares at it like he’s not quite sure what to do with it. And Taichi’s like, “Thank you so much, for everything, you were a huge help!”

Koushirou: “But I didn’t do anything.”

Taichi: “You helped so much by doing all that research! You’re awesome!”

Koushirou: :D “Y-Yeah!!”

He agrees that he’s awesome!! My baby!!

They shake hands! They’re such good friends now!

... Then Taichi walks backwards out of the elevator with his hand still outstretched, staring at Koushirou

WHAT

WHAT THE HECK IS THIS!?!?

This show producers aren’t even TRYING to hide their bias hahaha okay that’s the Taishiro fan in me but HOW ELSE AM I SUPPOSED TO READ THIS SCENE CMON LIKE!?

So Taichi’s about to go home, and at this point I’m thinking “I guess Koushirou’s never gonna ask that question about camp...!”

Then Taichi is like, “Oh yeah, didn’t you have a question about camp?”

Fricking. TAICHI.

I am absolutely stunned that it’s him who brings up Koushirou’s original errand xD Koushirou himself has completely forgotten about it! (Too busy basking in the glow of being called awesome about twenty times in what this episode establishes is less than an hour!)

Seriously Taichi is SUCH A DAD!? His mom comes home and tells him about her day. Hikari comes over and he pats her on the head and tells her she was brave and did a good job. All he needs is a newspaper and a tie to reach peak Dad-ness.

Hikari: “Thanks big brother!”

Taichi: “...? For?”

So about Yamato... on the elevator Taichi realizes he never found out where Yamato lives...

... It’s Shimane. Grandma’s house in Shimane! Well I mean, they could make it somewhere else, but the point is it’s super inaka countryside. Yamato has a call with Takeru which makes it seem like they indeed don’t live together, as Takeru shyly asks Yamato if he’ll come visit since it’s summer break, and Yamato says he does intend to go to Tokyo and see him. Not sure yet who Yamato’s living with, if it’s still his dad or he lives with his grandparents in this version, or there’s some other reason he’s not in Tokyo...

Yamato also asks if Takeru’s okay, and Takeru replies he was inside all day so he’s fine. That’s what makes me think Takeru knows about Yamato going to the digital world. He might not, but I like the idea that he does. My guess would be he knows because he’s seen Yamato do it or something, whereas Hikari just knows because she’s psychic :P

Then guess what! WE GO TO CAMP!

Only for like, two minutes, though. That was a bummer for me. Camp is just a vehicle to introduce a couple other characters, then they go home. Well, we don’t need two of the exact same show I guess... I’ll just appreciate this as a nod to the original.

First we see Jou! He’s hancho again and trying to tell other kids how to use a knife. He immediately cuts his finger. Good ole Jou I can’t wait to have him back.

Taichi and Koushirou are walking around camp and Koushirou trips due to Jou yelling and basically throws his laptop straight into the air

Laptop: “FREEEEEDOM!”

Mr Superior Reflexes AKA Taichi quickly grabs Koushirou and prevents him from smashing face first into the dirt. GOSH THEY JUST WILL NOT STOP WITH THE TAISHIRO. I CANNOT.

Koushirou: “H-H-Human c-c-contact?!?!?! Is this SKINSHIP”

Like y’all know this isnt my fault right? I wouldn’t have to say these things if the show didn’t make it so durn easy. Bahahahaha.

Guess who catches the laptop! Soooooraaaaa!

My girl is back! She’s got butterflies!

Koushirou says he knows who she is because the girls in his class always talk about how she’s so cooooool!

This episode establishes that Sora is 1) popular 2) well-liked 3) responsible 4) quick-thinking 5) athletic 6) Taichi’s old friend 7) coooooool in like, thirty seconds.

Taichi and Koushirou continue to spend aaaaaall their time together. My one complaint here is that all they do is talk about the digital world. And while I know it’s no surprise, the one thing I always loved about old Adventure was that to a certain extent, the kids got to act like kids. Of course they had uncanny adult wisdom and ability to sit still, lol. I understand that. So far in this show, they’re not really acting like children even a little bit. It’s all superheroing. That’s how I feel at the moment though - the only one I expect to really act like a child is Takeru, and probably Mimi, I’d guess. I do hope we get to see a larger range of personality from all of them in the future. It is only episode three.

Koushirou’s icon is a pineapple <3

So there’s a new threat but it’s not as obvious as the old one. Another power outage happens but they don’t know how important it is right away. Then both Taichi and Koushirou’s digivices start to glow! Taichi runs out, and here we finally got some new personality from him, something beyond friendliness and bravery: He really, really wants to see Agumon again. He’s already feeling the depth of that bond and it’s really been weighing on him that they parted so abruptly. He has so many questions. I would say, Koushirou talked about the digital world non stop because he finds it interesting, but Taichi talked about it because he misses Agumon. (Koushirou after all hasn’t met Tentomon yet.)

Before he can run out, Taichi runs into Hikari in the living room. She’s worried, and she clearly knows what he’s up to, but all she says is “Itterasshai.” I super appreciate that the set up and lighting is the same as these scenes between the two of them in original Adventure! It’s a total throwback to that hallmark ep of Adventure, episode 21.

Unable to think about anything but seeing Agumon again, Taichi runs outside to the train station where Koushirou is (I wonder if the train station is going to become like their base point or something). He doesn’t even notice Sora, but she notices him...

... and in true Sora fashion, immediately turns around and starts chasing after Taichi without a word xD

ugh I will always hate how PINK she is in this

Sora: “Taichi’s running somewhere awful fast... he has that look on his face... he’s going to get into trouble ugh I just know it”

The digivices glow and both Taichi and Koushirou disappear into the digital world. As they go through the vortex, we see a bunch of colored lights...

So this one is clearly Taichi and Koushirou, and Sora as well. My guess is she gets swallowed up as a result of following Taichi.

However, over here we have Yamato, Jou, and Mimi, but why would they all be together? Yamato’s fine, but how are the other two getting in?

It doesn’t seem like Takeru’s joining this time, which is interesting. But I might be wrong - only episode 4 will tell.

Taichi wakes up in the real Digital World and is finally reunited with Agumon. End episode 3 <3

I’m really curious about what’s coming next! I’m still pretty shocked that a Jogress happened so early, but I’m gonna guess now that we might not see it again for a good long while. My prediction is that Yamato’s gonna be more like the lone wolves of other seasons (Ken, Ruki, Kouji, etc) who don’t want to join the main team right away, then suddenly just do. Everyone loves a rogue hero. I am super excited for the whole team to be together though so we can see all those personality dynamics grow! I really want them to not go home for a while and have to live by their wits, but I don’t think that’s the way this show wants to go, it wants the drama of going back and forth between lives... OTOH, we now know for sure that it IS summer break, so I suppose they don’t really have a NEED to go home. Maybe we’ll get a bit of both - they usually go home after, but sometimes end up on a longer stay?

I think what I need most from this show is the rest of the team before it will really feel like Digimon Adventure to me. So looking forward to episode 4!

eta: I totally forgot about the pics I took of the trailer for next week!

Look how awesome this is! This is exactly what I am hoping sticks around for a good long time! We need the partners to bond and we need to live up to the name of “Adventure”!

Since the trailer only shows Taichi and Sora, I wonder if that means everyone’s split up. Koushirou’s light seemed a bit distant from the other two in that screencap up there, so maybe he lands somewhere else and they all have to find each other. Makes sense, really. I’d expected that for the other three but figured Koushirou would be with Taichi... but it’ll be awesome if he has to try to get by on his own in the beginning. Also, so excited for Birdramon!

Bonus: I found a vid on youtube that claimed to have English subs and I clicked out of curiosity... this is what it wrote when Taichi says “Koushirou”:

X’D Koushirou has so many nicknames now. DJ Wiseman, Kou the Bro, Awesome, Taichi’s New God, Godzilla... I love Youtube.

#fizz watches digimon 2020 #digimon adventure 2020 #digimon #digi spoilers

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some-lists · 4 years

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Ranking all the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers

Go Go Power Rangers! I felt it was time for another 90’s throwback. Today I’m ranking all the Power Rangers from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. Just about every 90’s kid was obsessed with this show. It was a phenomenon. It started out with the original five in its first season. As the show went on, we saw a number of replacements added to the cast.

As a child, I had my definite favorites based on my childhood memories. I later rewatched the series as an adult and my perspective on the characters really changed. This is my ranking based on what I observed as an adult looking back.

10. Kat Hillard (Pink Ranger)

Kat had the unfortunate task of filling Kimberly’s shoes as the new Pink Ranger. She was doomed from the start. The writers introduced the character as a villain -- a fellow student under an evil spell to undo the Pink Ranger. It made us not like her from the very beginning. Kat eventually grew into her role, especially in the following seasons of Zeo and Turbo. But initially, she felt like an imposter who literally did not fit the suit.

9. Aisha Campbell (Yellow Ranger)

I liked Aisha as a kid. I liked her sassy attitude and that she was girly and short. After watching the show again as an adult, I realized how completely useless she was as a ranger. She had no fighting ability whatsoever, couldn’t do any flips, and didn’t offer any brain power either. I actually felt embarrassed watching her fight scenes.

8. Rocky DeSantos (Red Ranger)

I think Rocky got a raw deal as the new Red Ranger. Many viewers were used to seeing the Red Ranger as a leader. However, when Rocky was introduced, he was just another ranger on the side. I don’t think this was his fault as Jason had already been demoted as leader after Tommy became the White Ranger. As a kid, I liked Rocky. I didn’t mind him as an adult either. His taekwondo skills were actually better than Jason’s. He was faster, more agile, could kick higher, and do more flips. Unfortunately, as one of the replacement rangers, he was always in the background.

7. Jason Lee Scott (Red Ranger)

Ranking Jason this low is gonna shock some die hard fans. As a kid, I absolutely loved Jason. He was one of my favorite rangers. I thought he was a great leader and strong fighter. He was the glue who got his team to work together. I especially preferred him as a leader over Tommy. But when I rewatched the show as an adult, I realized he really didn’t do anything! He had maybe two episodes about him. One was about him bench pressing a world record where he lifted weights the entire episode. That’s pretty much all he ever did. He lifted weights, punched bags, and occasionally taught a karate class or two. Essentially, he was there to flex his muscles and not much else. Even his sword, which I remembered being so cool, was pretty much useless. That was a big eye opener for me. I was also disappointed to see that his taekwondo skills weren’t as great as I remembered them. He was really slow, kinda clunky. Overall, Jason deserved better than what we was given.

6. Billy Cranston (Blue Ranger)

As the resident brain, Billy managed to invent the team’s communicators, which were also teleportation devices, and a flying car. He often operated the computers at the Command Center along with Alpha-5. It’s fair to say he contributed significantly to the team. He was a weak fighter in the beginning, but somehow became a super ripped expert gymnast by the end of his run. The show never explained that, but it was never a realistic show anyway.

5. Adam Park (Black Ranger)

I remember not liking Adam very much as a child. He was so quiet, shy, and often in the back as one of the replacement rangers. In my child mind that meant he was boring. However, as an adult, I realized how awesome he really was. First of all, he was way cute and I didn’t even see it before. He was smart and often operated the Command Center along with Billy (good ole Asian stereotyping). But mostly, he was an incredible fighter. His Shaolin kung fu style was a beauty to behold. His kicks, spins, and flips were so quick, effortless, and graceful. He had the best line in the movie: “I’m a frog,” which turned out to be the best zord as well. As the seasons went on (especially into Zeo and Turbo), he became much stronger, more confident, and a lot funnier too.

4. Zack Taylor (Black Ranger)

Zack is seriously underrated. He had a great personality. He was the life of the party, a great dancer, and funny. He even created his own martial arts style called Hip Hop Kido. He especially shined in the second season as he incorporated his karate with dance moves and incredible acrobatics. In my opinion, he was a way better fighter than Jason. If he had been given the proper treatment, Zack would’ve been on the same level as Tommy. After Zack left the show, the cast wasn’t nearly as fun.

3. Trini Kwan (Yellow Ranger)

Original Yellow Ranger Trini was the best. She was strong, brave, and intelligent. She had a spiritual side to her that was cool, calm, mature, and classy. She had natural leadership skills that were completely overlooked. I’d even say that when unmorphed, she was the true leader. She often stepped up and encouraged the other members no matter what situation they were in. She could understand Billy’s nerd talk and translated for the team. She also kicked serious butt. She became a big role model for many Asian American girls, as she was one of the first Asian American actresses with a visible role on television.

2. Tommy Oliver (Green & White Ranger)

I loved Tommy as the Green Ranger. His karate took the show to the next level. He was super bad ass and totally convincing as a villain. That evil laugh was perfect. Even after becoming good, the writers found a way to keep him around. His weakening powers and ultimately losing his powers gave him a tragic appeal. His relationship with Kimberly was also super cute. He was an exciting fighter and a compelling character. But, I didn’t really like him as the White Ranger. Once he became the White Ranger and the new team leader, he became a lot less interesting. He no longer had a real story. His martial arts was always top notch, but compared to the Green Ranger, White Ranger Tommy was too perfect and a lot more boring. Separately, I would’ve ranked White Ranger Tommy after Adam, but Green Ranger Tommy was awesome. Like I said, he elevated the show.

1. Kimberly Hart (Pink Ranger)

Kimberly was such a popular character. She was loved by girls who wanted to be like her, and by boys who had a crush on her. As an adult, I could easily see why and I was actually really surprised. She was hands down the star of the show. She had the most episodes dedicated to her out of all the rangers. Even when the episode wasn’t about her, she often saved the day with her bow and arrow. Seriously. She saves the team in almost every episode. Even though she wasn’t the strongest fighter unmorphed, her gymnastics skills were crazy impressive. Overall, she was the most valuable and consistent ranger on the team. Without her, they would’ve been toast.

Overall Thoughts

First of all, I couldn’t believe how poor quality the show was. They obviously reused the same footage over and over again. Even more unbelievable is how we all believed it as kids! But that cheesiness is now one of the best aspects of the show.

I was also surprised by how much the show favored certain characters over others. Kimberly had the most spotlight, followed by Billy. When Tommy showed up, it became all about him. Zack and Trini were tied for second to last place for air time. Jason was dead last. He was barely even in the show. It’s no wonder the three were unhappy and left the show when they did.

Rewatching the series also made me realize how much the movies glorified Tommy at the expense of the Pink Ranger. In the first film that meant Kimberly, who I mentioned in this list was an incredibly strong character. In the Turbo movie, they weakened Kat for Tommy to rescue her as well. That’s super disappointing as the show offered some really cool role models for young girls.

One thing I appreciated about the female rangers was how feminine they were. Kimberly was a fashion crazy mall rat, but she was never diminished for it. It just happened to be her personality. It was never a weakness. None of the girls were expected to act like boys in order to be strong. Later in Zeo and Turbo, Tanya was more tomboyish. She naturally excelled at sports and that was really cool too.

Overall, I was impressed by how much stunts these young actors did. The putty scenes were my favorite. We got to see the real actors (not costumed stunt doubles) do all their own stunts. They were all talented martial artists of various styles and masterful gymnasts. As the show progressed, so did the choreography. I can understand why the actors complained about not being paid enough.

Today, most of the newer Power Rangers shows don’t do their own stunts like the originals did. They’re a lot more flashier as well with explosions going off in every episode. Even though the budget is higher and the actors have more rights now, it doesn’t beat the nit and grit or the talent of the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.

#90s nostalgia #90s #90s throwback #power rangers #mighty morphin power rangers #red ranger #blue ranger #yellow ranger #black ranger #pink ranger #green ranger

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theythinkimabitch · 5 years

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Merry Christmas, @greetings-and-defiance from your (no longer secret) secret Santa! :D I’m so sorry your gift is here so late in the day, but I hope you enjoy regardless! For your gift I rewrote the OUC episode with a happier ending for Saram and tried to bring in Agnes and drop hints to the idea of a happy Keenler family! 😁 I really hope you like it and I wish you nothing but the best during the holidays and an utterly delightful new year! 💖

After years of waking up no later than seven, with vacations a concept rendered unfamiliar due to a job as mercurial as being an agent, Samar had been awake for quite a while.

“Rise and shine!”

She’d been awake long before Aram, whether he believed it or not.

“You’re up early,” Samar proclaimed, rubbing her eyes as she shifted so she could sit.

Samar might have been awake for a while, but that didn’t mean she particularly felt like moving. After all, it was the first day in a long time she could remember having free. The first weekday, mind you. She was going to make the most of every second, even if those seconds were spent reveling in the warmth of her soft bedding with blankets and pillows tastefully scattered across their bed to give her that extra support she so desperately needed.

“It has been a morning,” Aram huffed, carefully carrying what little he salvaged from his many breakfast-related mishaps. “Two small grease fires in the kitchen, one almost disastrous juicing accident. But, voilà! Breakfast in bed.”

Samar struggled to fight a grin as she looked around the wonderful display Aram made her. “What’s on the menu?”

“French toast, hashbrowns,” Aram began to list. “All your favorites.”

“So, none of my favorites,” Samar retorted, “But, I love you anyway.��

“Well, I got the orange juice right,” Aram sighed, taking a seat on the edge of their bed. “But, um, be careful...there might be part of my finger in there.”

With a nod, Samar took the hint and traded orange juice for a more practical cup of coffee, having faith Aram couldn’t possibly have messed that up. “What’s the occasion?”

“I thought you’d want a full stomach for our trip.”

“Our trip?” she questioned. “Where are we going?”

With a devious grin, out came a leaflet from behind Aram’s back that danced excitedly between his fingertips.

“The Lodge at Glenforest,” he began to announce. “Rural Pennsylvania. Three days, two nights, our own cabin in the woods. Dinner in the main lodge, crackling fires.” And as if that wasn’t enough to encourage Samar to go, he added, “I look really, really good in flannel. What do you think?”

“That sounds amazing,” she responded, running her thumb against the rim of her coffee cup. “But don’t they need you at work? I’m the only one that’s retiring.”

“I cleared it with Mr. Cooper!” came the happy announcement. “The team can manage. It’s not like the world’s gonna end.”

“Aram, we worked together, remember?” Samar’s retorted sassily. “We both know the world could literally end if you’re not there.”

With a sweet smile reserved just for her, he bent over to place a kiss on her head. “It’s just a few days. Eat and I’ll pack?”

“How about we share breakfast instead?” Samar asked softly. “They’re your favorites after all.”

Aram quickly jumped over her ready to tuck himself back under the covers, not needing much convincing at all. With Samar being a morning person and Aram quite assuredly the opposite, breakfast in bed wasn’t something they did often. But in this new life of theirs, with new beginnings just starting to unfold, perhaps breakfast in bed was something they could start doing more often.

Grease fires and juiced fingers not included.

But for that to happen, as they both later decided, the cooking might be better left to Samar.

They spent hours eating breakfast. Talking about everything and nothing all at once. They wouldn’t have moved had it not been for the plans that Aram made. Eventually, though, they had to get up.

After all, what good was a new beginning if it was spent wasting away in bed?

Once the dishes had been cleaned and the refrigerator scanned for any possible food they could bring on the road trip they broke apart, each focusing on packing their own bags.

With the advantage of having planned the trip himself, Aram walked back into the kitchen, his own bag already packed, simply waiting for Samar to be ready to go.

“I was thinking this would be more of a romantic getaway, but, you know, if you feel naked without a gun, we can always role play.”

“Sorry,” Samar apologized, placing her weapon back in the lock box she always had within reach. “Force of habit.”

“How about we start some new habits?” he suggested kindly.

“You’re absolutely right. New life, new habits.”

“Unless you want to role play.”

“I think a cabin in the woods is a perfect place to start. No phone reception, no internet.”

“Meeting a stranger,” Aram enthused giddly. “No! Maid/butler secret rendezvous.”

“Thank you for not letting me push you away,” Samar whispered, turning to her fiance with a smile, ignoring the need to pack for just a little while longer.

“Yeah, you tried pretty hard, but lucky for you, I can’t take a hint,” Aram said with a smile before the glint in his eye gave way to yet another idea. “Hitchhiker! No, interrogation!”

“I got an idea,” Samar teased, her hands snaking around his neck.

“Teacher/pupil?”

“Why don’t we make our own fantasy?”

With the smile she’d grown so accustomed to seeing on his face, Samar leaned in pressing her lips against his, living so happily in a moment so blissfully boring and domestic...at least it had been until the sharp ringing of a phone interrupted them.

“Has the world ended yet?” Samar quipped leaving Aram to pat every pocket looking for the offending device.

“Actually, I think that’s your phone.”

Samar frowned, turning around to place the device that indeed belonged to her against her ear.

“Ressler?”

“Yeah, hey Samar--”

“You know I’m retired now, right?”

“Look, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

“What happened?” she sighed, focusing more so on shoving her arms through the sleeves of her favorite green jacket.

“It’s Agnes. Liz is sick and practically delirious. Cooper let me go so I could take care of her, but I can’t keep Agnes away and I don’t want her to get sick. I know you and Aram got plans, but with Christmas right around the corner, I can’t find a babysitter a--”

“And you want us to take care of her?” Samar finished for him, already mulling over the idea.

“Just for the weekend,” Ressler pleaded. “You do this and I’ll get you that room myself.”

With a smile Samar glanced back at Aram who had already moved onto new and better things. She was sure that he wouldn’t mind bringing an extra little guest. They had both decided that children was something no longer in the cards for them, leaving their goddaughter the closest thing they had to a daughter of their own.

“We’ll be there in an hour,” Samar decided before turning back to Aram.

“Where are we going?”

“To grab Agnes,” Samar answered with a smile. “She’s coming!”

She’d forgotten how calming it was to simply occupy the passenger’s seat and have nothing at all to worry about. Like many adults, Samar had simply gotten used to the task of driving. It was something she did near every day. She’d get out of bed, go on her morning run, return back to wherever it was she had slept the night before and take a shower before inevitably needing to take some sort of vehicle to complete whatever task she had for the day.

Even on the occasional lazy day, there was still the drive to work or maybe the drive to a grocery store. But on their way towards the Keen and Ressler residence, it was Aram that took control of driving, letting Samar rest her head on the cool window, watching patiently as the city that’d quickly become home began to blur by.

As relaxing as it was, her brain couldn’t help but continue to whir. Reminders of her promise to Aram that she’d do whatever she could to fight off the impending decline of her brain as well as the various tricks her doctor had suggested pinged inside her head. So on the way to grab Agnes, she mentally mapped the route she’d come to be so familiar with until the car eventually slowed to a stop with the brakes squealing as Aram pulled closer to the curb.

For as much as they knew Ressler loved Agnes, he certainly did seem impatient to let her go. They stood hand in hand on the corner of the street, the little one decked out in her impractical winter gear with a small backpack and silver puffer jacket she donned being the only sign that Ressler had indeed prepared her for their impromptu trip.

“I’ll be right back,” Aram promised as a rush of wind blew through the open door with Samar giving him a quiet nod and soft smile in response.

She couldn’t hear much of what was going on outside, what with the soft droan of the heater they’d flicked on long ago, but seeing Aram smile as he bent down to Agnes’ level, watching Ressler guard the excitable little girl that shrieked loud enough for Samar to hear, was enough to spark a laugh from Samar’s lips.

Perhaps Samar had been ready to leave in order to secure Aram’s chance at a happy future, but Samar knew she deserved the happiness as much as he did. She, like her fiance, deserved to have a happily ever after and without such an adorable goddaughter or such a dorky soon-to-be husband, she wasn’t sure how she could.

“Prozen, prozen!!” she screamed, jumping inside the car without so much as a greeting to Samar, without regard for the carseat first needing to be secured.

“What’s that?” Samar questioned, glancing at Aram for answers as he packed bags into the trunk, leaving Ressler to work securing the her car seat.

“Frozen,” Ressler sighed, trying to get his kid to pay attention.

“You told her we were going to see the snow,” Samar brightly deduced.

She knew the way kids' brains worked. She was about to marry one after all.

“She’s gotta get in the mood,” Aram argued with a smile. “We have to sing ‘Let It Go’ exactly two hundred thirty five and a half times to make sure that we have enough snow to last the weekend.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“That’s the truth!” Agnes chattered back, her legs kicking up and down excitedly, thumping loudly against the plastic seat.

“Alright, kiddo, you’re all set.”

“We have to listen to Elsa!”

“I’ll see you in a few days, okay? Have fun. Something happens--”

“Bye-bye, daddy!” Agnes quickly sang out, before chanting for the one thing she’d been waiting for for a whole five minutes! “Elsa! Elsa! Elsa! Elsa!”

Samar had known for quite a while that the ride there would be long.

“Elsa!” Aram cheered with her, searching on his phone for songs sung by everybody’s favorite winter princess.

What she hadn’t expected was that it would be this long.

“Ready?”

But this was all in regards to family and family vacations.

“Ready!” Agnes confirmed.

As far as Samar was concerned, the ride couldn’t be long enough.

As it turned out, Aram had been wrong. It wasn’t something that he was very often, but he was, and he’d so gratefully admit it.

It hadn’t taken two hundred thirty five and a half times before Agnes got bored of the song. Not that he’d been counting, but really, it’d been closer to only a hundred times.

For as much as he loved watching princess movies with the girls, even he tired of listening to the Frozen soundtrack on repeat. Thankfully, Agnes had fallen asleep after the first hour and a half, letting Aram tentatively unplug his phone from the car and switch to the droan of whatever radio station Samar settled on.

They drove a little while longer, making progress on their journey before they came to a quick pit stop for a warm cup of coffee. Once he’d finally made it past the border and into Pennsylvania, the radio eventually turned off. With conversation kept to a quiet minimum so as not to wake Agnes, Samar eventually dozed off, leaving Aram the only one awake.

After so recently having learned to drive, the bliss of driving with little to no traffic as darkness began to reign was something he still managed to find comfort in. Time ticked on and silence stretched thin, broken only by the occasional rhythmic click of the turn signal or motion for more coffee.

Finally, they made it. Eventually they reached the Lodge at Glenforest, the girls still sleeping safe and sound.

He checked in without a problem, getting help to carry in bags. Samar, the light sleeper that she was, woke up without a fuss and carried Agnes into bed until eventually there was nothing left to do.

There was no technology to ensure was charged--the only service was in the Big House, after all--no dishes to make sure were cleaned, no turtle to make sure was fed.

Aram turned in the bed in which he lay with Samar, one arm around her and the other reaching to turn off the light.

How great had this idea been? After so long, there they were sleeping blissfully in the sweet sound of silence.

She’d woken up alone again. There was no one in the bed beside her, the sheets were empty, space next to her cold.

Samar could smell the food. This time, it really did smell like her favorites.

Slowly but surely, Samar made it out of bed. She went through the motions of everyday life.

She brushed her teeth, tied up her hair, washed her face.

It didn’t take long for her to end up in their temporary living room, the food Aram had saved resting on the coffee table waiting and ready for her to grab.

Despite the steaming pile of food, what she went for instead was a mug filled with fresh coffee and the jacket she’d worn on the way over. She could hear Agnes and Aram playing around outside. It wasn’t anything particularly unusual.

What was unusual, however, was the burst of cold wet that smashed across her face the second she pulled the door open. Cold wet that dripped down, cold wet that suddenly crumbled and fell into her coffee with a splash, nothing but silence and a stifled giggle from a certain someone in response.

With all the dignity only Samar Navabi could manage to retain after being pelted in the face with a snowball, she turned stiffly on her heel, softly closing the door behind her, walking back into their cabin, searching for another source of coffee to help kick start her day.

It didn’t take long for Samar to find Aram’s stash of coffee left abandoned with an energetic kid to do the job for him. It did, however, take a little longer for the two deviants to make their way back inside.

“Are you mad?”

“Mad?” questioned Samar, unfamiliar with the concept.

Who had time to be angry when planning revenge?

“I just hit you with a snowball,” Aram said carefully.

He didn’t need to know Samar as well as he did to know she was in the process pf plotting revenge.

“That’s all part of the game, though, isn’t it?”

“What game?” Agnes innocently questioned, getting to work on the food she well knew was reserved especially for Samar.

“The snow day games,” Samar teased back, grabbing a strip of bacon from the plate before Agnes could finish it all. “It’s a three day compeition to see who will win a super secret, very special prize.”

“Prize!!” the girl cheered.

“When I win,” Samar said sternly, glaring at her soon-to-be husband. “I get two months off laundry duty.”

For what felt like years now, Samar had been the one doing all the laundry. Aram had managed to skillfully parcel the chore out to Samar under the pretense that she was the only one who knew how to care for her magical green jacket, but Samar had patiently taught Aram how to clean it many times before. She was confident he knew how to care for the jacket on his own.

“And when I win,” came Aram’s much anticipated reply.

“Big chocolate gummy bears!” Agnes screamed mystically.

“I get big chocolate gummy bears and I get to keep my bike in the living room.”

That god forsaken bike of his was an argument they’d had plenty of times.

Bikes simply did not go in the living room. There was a bike rack right outside their apartment for a reason. Bikes didn’t need any special care and if Aram truly did need for his precious bike to be wrapped in the warmth of their household as he so eloquently put it, then she by all means, would be more than willing to buy it a tarp to stave off the rain and snow.

But Samar had every intention of winning this battle and if winning this battle meant she could end their everlasting war…

“Deal,” Samar responded.

“Then may the odds be ever in your favor.”

It seemed almost counterproductive to let day one of their games begin after they had the massages Aram had ordered, but that’s the way it all worked out.

The victor of day one would be determined by the victor of a snowball fight.

Samar had been preparing for this particular competition the whole day. She’d bribed Agnes, been clandestinely making snowballs as they walked around the campgrounds, and had been more on guard than usual.

She’d been waiting for the perfect moment to launch her sneak attack.

The time came when Agnes served as a perfect distraction. After walking around for such a long time, her legs had grown tired. Normally Samar would’ve had no problem carrying her, but she did need a distraction and with the promise of extra Christmas presents, Agnes had agreed to be on her side.

She traded the many bags Aram carried for the small little girl and walked ahead of them with the excuse that they were carrying perishables. Of course that wasn’t true, but Agnes was a wonderful distraction.

Within minutes Samar made it into their temporary home and set down all the bags filled with possible gifts for all their friends. A minute after that, she’d managed to sneak out towards the back and stockpile some necessary ammunition.

With a pile of ready to fire snowballs and footsteps getting increasingly louder as they crunched in the snow a small smile spread across her lips. Agnes stayed with her head resting on Aram’s shoulder, a grin on her own face as she and Samar made eye contact.

She lifted a gloved finger to her lips, hoping Agnes got the message to be quiet. For a split second, Samar fear her plan had backfired for up came Agnes’ head as she pulled from Aram before she very vehemently decided that they needed hot chocolate.

While Aram wholeheartedly agreed with the plan all Samar could think was that Agnes would grow up to be a wonderfully mischievous young lady.

From outside as Samar creeped around the building, she could hear Aram calling for her.

“Samar!” she heard a loud hiss.

“Where’s Aram?” Samar asked back.

“Hot chocolate!” Agnes whispered back, crouched right beside her.

“Good idea,” Samar whispered back, handing her a ready made snowball. “Okay, you have to go out front and call Aram now, is that okay?”

“I wanna throw snow!” Agnes pouted in response.

“You will!”

“The first one?”

“If you get Aram,” Samar bartered.

Samar stayed strong under the withering gaze of a determined five year old and soon enough Agnes relented, a quick grin breaking free as she spun on her heels screaming for Aram.

Within a second she could hear the door creaking back open and a soft thud broke out soon after along with a cry of indignation before giggles that masked it and big footsteps that ran after her.

“Snowball, snowball!”

“Shh!” Samar whispered, handing her another.

The element of surprise wouldn’t be as strong as she’d hoped, but Samar was proud knowing Agnes had gotten him good.

Another set of footsteps stopped in front of them and the two girls smiled innocently at the man standing before them.

Brown eyes raked over the two girls standing ready to fight across from him when he noticed a certain pile of white snow looking oddly similar to snowballs.

The minute he opened his mouth, the attack began with Agnes letting out an excited scream and Samar pelting him along the way.

That was certainly one point for Samar placing her firmly in the lead.

On the second day of their vacation, Aram finally managed to sleep to a respectable hour.

Things seemed to drift back into vague semblance of normalcy. Samar woke up first, took care of breakfast, spent time with Agnes.

And while Aram may have been sleeping, that didn’t mean he hadn’t been scheming.

You see, as Aram lay in bed accepting woeful defeat, he’d come upon a very important fact.

Where Aram was born and raised in the snowy lands of Delaware, Samar had been born and raised in the sweltering heat of Tehran, Iran. He was fairly confident that through all her worldly travels, she’d become acclimated to the snow, but there were certain advantages that having grown up in snow gave him.

He knew better than to surprise her. He had to play to his own strengths, needed to propose a challenge he was fairly certain he could win.

(Even if he couldn’t manage to bribe the would be judge.)

“Day two of the snow games are upon us,” Aram announced, walking out into the open.

Fresh snow had fallen the night before. It was as if the universe was laying down the groundwork for him to succeed.

“That it is, my love,” Samar responded, curiously looking up at Aram as he walked down the few steps and sat right beside her.

“How would you like to build a snowman?”

“A snowman?” Samar questioned.

“Do you wanna build a snowman?” teased Aram.

Samar’s lips easily quirked into a smile and she nodded firmly, placing down her mug on the stairs and getting up to prepare.

Build a snowman they would.

With Agnes tired after a morning filled with playing, keeping her within view was a moderately simple task.

Aram knew better than to ever have underestimated Samar, but there were certain things that he just knew how to do better than her.

Samar played around with the classic materials. She started rolling the snow, trying to keep it nice and steady. She made balls each increasingly smaller that she stacked one over the other. Samar did excellent for what had to be one of her first snowmen.

But for Aram who had years upon years of practice, he went above and beyond. He quickly slipped into the focused determination he so often slipped into at work as he found just the right kind of snow to properly pack together. He went around looking diligently for good stones to use as eyes, for nice twigs to use as arms crossed akimbo.

He made sure that his was not only the most aesthetically pleasing, but technically proficient. He rounded each ball making sure they were smooth around the edges. He packed extra snow around the bottom of each circle making sure they each stayed steady.

Even if Samar managed to miraculously find the better of the decorations to use on her snowman, Aram was certain his snowman would at least fare better structurally.

He hadn’t been actively planning for this competition all week, but he figured that the tiara and scepter he bought Agnes the day before would work well with his magical creation. So he worked and he worked, went in and out of the cabin rifling through the many bags they all had brought until early morning melted into early afternoon and the creation he’d spent all night fussing about finally finished and he took a step back to admire his work.

To say he went above and beyond was an understatement. His snowman was decadent. She was dressed in full princess gear, her snowy cheeks painted red thanks to a sacrificed strawberry flavored drink, a tiara on her head and scepter sticking out from her body.

Samar had finished long ago, ending up with Agnes back on the stairs, watching and giggling as Aram placed his hands on his own hips ready for the judge to announce the winner.

Upon the sudden realization that what they’d been giggling at was him, Aram looked worriedly at Samar’s entry for a moment, fearing that she bested him in a way he never could have anticipated.

But rather than a masterpiece rivaling work of all the world-famous snowmen making artists, Aram was greeted with a haphazard attempt at a snowfigure that already begun to crumble long ago.

It must’ve been something else then…

Samar tapped her head and Aram reached for what should’ve been his beanie, his fingers landing only on cold spikes that spread out from every direction.

Oh, no.

Aram’s eyes widened as he turned around, trying to press down the many spikes, hoping that what he feared wouldn’t turn out to be true.

Please no. No, no, no--

A cold puff of air materialized before him as Samar held up her phone, selfie camera activated so he could see for himself the mess he’d somehow created.

In all the mayhem of making sure this day’s event had been won, somehow Aram had managed to freeze his hair into reddish spikes. The strawberry drink he’d used to color his snowman’s cheeks was mysteriously empty, the bottle having blown off toward the walkway as he pouted in reluctant acceptance.

“It’s definitely a new look,” Samar offered up, sliding her phone away as she reached to get a feel for his hair. “Not as bad as you might think.”

“Does my snowman win at least?” Aram questioned, hoping that at least it’d been worth it.

“Yes, Aram,” Samar admitted with a soft smile saved only for him. “Your snowman wins.”

A tie it was, then. Day three would be reserved for the ultimate tie-breaking game to see who would finally become the sole victor of their very own winter olympics.

The competition had been forgotten for most of their last day in Glenforest. Determination to accomplish all the activities they could in one day served as an excellent way to procrastinate determining the true victor.

It wasn’t until all the bags had been packed and the car had been readied for travels that they realized there was still one activity they hadn’t managed to try out: ice skating.

As Samar rolled out of the parking lot and Aram started to fiddle with the GPS, a few wrong turns were made until eventually they happened upon an ice rink, wonderfully bedazzled with fairy lights, filled with people of all ages laughing and falling, twirling and some more falling, scoring and...well, falling some more.

“You know, the day isn’t over quite yet.”

Aram looked up at her, excitement dancing in his eyes, knowing exactly what she was going to suggest.

“Whoever makes the most goals by the end of the night,” Aram began to declare while they all tied up their shoe laces in preparation for the rink.

“The hockey area seems full,” Samar pointed out, trying to get Agnes’ tiny feet into her own set of skates.

“We can make our own goals,” Aram offered back, tilting his head sideways, trying to see how they could make ice skating into a fair competition.

There were buckets scattered in the rink ready for the taking, but Aram figured that those would be better left for the kids who really needed it rather than their own grand competition.

Holding Agnes’ hand, Samar stood, contemplating along with him.

“How about whoever makes it from one end to the next first?” she offered.

As Agnes reached up for Aram’s hand, he looked down and smiled, content with the possibility.

That he could do.

It took them a little while to get acclimated. Samar and Aram, being used to the concept, made it around the ice rink a few times together with Agnes in between them who was more than happy to be pulled with them wherever they decided to go.

As time went on, however, Agnes started to get restless and they found her a stack of colorful buckets for her to move around with all on her own. They stood away from her for just a second, watching as she managed to go around and make friends with new children and independently explore, people making way for her to pass. Enough time elapsed to where they felt sure she knew what to do. They kept her well within eyesight, let her mill around on her own before deciding it was time to end this once and for all.

The more time they spent on the rink, the more people seemed to filter in. It had gotten to the point where they could hardly see the other side of the rink. The light at the end of the proverbial tunnel seemed almost nonexistent.

At their side stood Agnes looking as elegant as she always did, one small hand in the air, the other steady on her bucket.

“Weady?” she asked, preparing herself to announce the beginning of the end. “One..”

Samar and Aram both crouched into ready positions, the two of them separated by the crowd of people enjoying their own adventures, unfazed by the war that’d soon explode around them.

“Two!”

Each of them plotted their path. Sought out small breaks in the throng of people that never seemed to end. Planned strategies on how to avoid collisions with innocent passerbyers.

“Three!”

But all of their meticulous planning went out the window as soon as they surged forward, desperate to win their well-deserved gifts.

There was not a chance in the world Samar would let Aram keep his bike in the living room. She refused to have it looming in the corner, wheels tracking dirt on their floor, sticking out for them both to trip.

But even with that in mind as Aram swerved, nearly falling to avoid bulldozing down a sweet toddler, she couldn’t help but reach out to catch him.

She hated that damn bike, but she did love her soon to be husband.

While Aram was determined to win, he couldn’t help but want to stay alive. It was no secret that grace wasn’t his forte. He could skate; he was capable of doing it, but just like with most things, going too fast made him clumsy and he really didn’t want a repeat of the time he’d needed a cast to reset his wrist.

Determination was a powerful thing. It made focus unbreakable, it made everything else unimportant, made losing something akin to a sacrilegious crime.

In a race with one victor, there was always meant to be a loser, but what the pair hadn’t expected was for both of them to lose. For when they managed to get back around the rink, dashing forward, slipping around other people, they both slowed to a stop realizing Agnes was moving forward, her face scrunched with steely determination, pushing her basket right along as she slowly made her way back to the starting line.

“Hey, sweetie?” Aram carefully asked, slowly making his way along with Samar after her, wanting to see how on earth she’d managed to beat them both.

“I win!” she cheered excitedly. “I wiiin!”

She most certainly had. How exactly, they’d never be quite sure, but Agnes had made it around the rink faster than either of them had.

“What do you win, love?” asked Samar.

They really hadn’t planned for that specific outcome.

With a smirk matching one they so often saw her mother wear while interrogating the most devious of criminals, Agnes simply tutted forward with her stack of buckets, making her way out of the rink and back into the car.

To say she was excited would be an understatement. She was happy and restless and couldn’t go to sleep.

She was trapped in the car seat, uncomfortable yes, but she was going home enveloped with teddy bears and she’d had so much chocolate!

Chocolate was her favorite! Chocolate was the best. She had a great big lollipop that she got for mommy and she got a cuddly bear for daddy!

But her favorite was the big cuddly stuffed pig she got. It was just so cozy and so soft and so pretty.

It took her only a few moments into their hours long journey before she finally dozed off. Aram and Samar would say it was a sugar crash, but Agnes would always know that it was the power of Mr. Oinks that forced her to sleep. He was just too squishy and made for a nice pillow.

By the time they arrived back in DC it was late. Dusk had settled across the sky, the world bathed in a soft purple hue. All the colors the sun had proudly shone off before were replaced with the artificial coloring of street lamps and traffic lights. They were beautiful still, but in a different sort of way.

And unlike before, when Samar and Aram had shown up at the end of their trip, parking was easy to find. While Samar reached for all the bags Agnes had brought and later accumulated, Aram reached in to grab the little girl and rest her on his chest while the other bravely reached for the car seat hoping that it wouldn’t tumble out of his hand and break.

Luckily for them, there was a functioning elevator in Liz’s building letting them rest for a moment before having to begin to shuffle things back out again.

Samar had called Ressler earlier, wanting to make sure Liz recovered enough to make bringing Agnes home safe and with the confirmation that it was, Samar and Aram stood patiently, waiting for the door to open and Agnes to return home.

To their surprise it was Liz who answered with a smile on her face, reaching out for her daughter, inviting them both in along the way.

“We gotta get home,” Samar argued in response to the invitation to stay.

“Thank you for taking care of her,” Ressler answered back, his hand around Liz’s waist as they all contently watched Agnes sleep, a rare moment of peace for them all.

“It was our pleasure,” Aram answered, exhaustion weighing him down enough to want nothing more than to be back in his own bed with Samar beside him ready to drift into a restful sleep.

With final greetings being echoed out all one after another, Samar and Aram eventually made it out safely, managing the trip back to their own apartment well-enough, leaving their bags in the trunk, too tired to carry them back up stairs with them.

There was hardly anything left in them and it wasn’t a bad thing. All they wanted at the end of such a day was the same peace and tranquility they always found in each other. All three of them had had fun and it would be a trip they’d talk about for years to come, a tradition of sorts, at times with Agnes and at times without. Although their bet never officially had a winner, at the end of the day, they couldn’t be happier with the prize being the simple life they always managed to gift one another.

#the blacklist secret santa #mis cosas #ah katie i'm so sorry it's so late! 😫#hopefully you'll be able to read it tomorrow morning?#anyways i really do hope you like it! :D #fluff isn't what i usually write so i hope i did alright!#much love to you lovely! <3 #happy holidays

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purfectmlpblog · 5 years

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...alright fuq it lemme explain my thoughts about the finale spoilers lol

Don’t worry, I WILL be posting this under a read-more so PLEASE turn away and ignore this now (especially with some “spoiler” tags on if you use ‘em) if you don’t want to be spoiled for the finale until it officially airs. I just can’t contain my thoughts no more after ponderin’ them and who knows when it’ll officially air in English (’cause slow schedules can be a pain to deal with lol) sooooo... yeah you’ve been warned xp

...Ooooh boi, well admittedly I kinda skimmed through what the whole plot was about behind the last three episodes (I was moreso focused on all the stuff happening for “The Last Problem” so lol), but I’ll try to keep it brief for the most part:

-So... that whole thing about Grogar being the last “big bad” was just a total lie... since apparently it was just Discord masking himself as the guy just to give Twilight one last battle to face? ...Ehhh, I get that he apparently had “good intentions” but this just seems to be pushing it too far even for Discord’s standards tbh... like these are his friends now (including Fluttershy, his best friend) so why would he allow this much risk to be thrown at them for the sake of just teaching them a valuable lesson about overcoming obstacles? ._. Then again, this IS Discord we’re talking about so him pulling some shady stuff like this is to be expected, I guess? Idk...

-As another twist to the trio of bad guys... NONE of them get redeemed at the end (not even Cozy Glow... who again, is nothing more than a whiny child compared to Chrysalis and Tirek :P), as they all pretty much get blasted with the same stone spell that Discord was under for what I can presume to be forever. I mean... had Sombra been placed in Cozy Glow’s position then I guess I’d be a bit more satisfied with this kind of ending for them instead of feeling questionable about it (’cause again, Cozy’s young age ^^;)... but at the same time, for what it is it’s at least a refreshing change of pace from just having them all instantly forgiven and befriended by all the main heroes. Now that would’ve been cringey... >_<

-We got a reaaally big group of cameos from many past ponies/other creatures from the show to aid in the final battle, including Sunset and a few of the MLP movie characters like Tempest, Capper and Skystar! o.o A shame that Captain Celaeno couldn’t have been added along with them but still, pretty cool to see that particular trio regardless along with my girl Sunset ❤️ about time the main show acknowledged her importance to Twilight -.-

-Moving onto the big finale itself, “The Last Problem”, we cut ahead to I presume to be a couple decades or so since the last episode... where Twilight and her friends are all grown up and leading their own lives as Twilight’s pupil (Luster Dawn, was it?) comes to prepare herself for her own first friendship lesson. Surprisingly, unlike past finales it’s not so much a really heavy or action-packed episode but more of a “relaxing breather” kinda filler... yet still pushes the feels the more we get to see the aged-up cast and realize how this truly is the end for our heroes :(

-We’re also given a nice flashback to Twilight’s coronation as Equestria’s new leader, though it didn’t go according to plan it still provided some heartwarming feels to teach that friendships will always remain solid even if some end up moving far away. Awww ;w;.

-As for the “Grown up” designs themselves... I’m kinda torn, tbh lol

On one hand, I do like Rainbow’s, Fluttershy’s, and AJ’s older looks just fine. AJ’s especially gives me the feels looking at it ‘cause of the shawl... really hits in that poor Granny Smith is no longer around by this time :( at least she’ll always keep her memory strong in her heart ❤️

As for Twilight, Rarity, Spike and Pinkie... ehhhh ^^;. Rarity’s sparkly shawl is rather pretty though that big grey steak in her hair kinda clashes too much with the regular purple imo, Pinkie’s beehive look could’ve been fine if they just took out all that random junk in her hair, and while part of me kinda likes the “ethereal princess-y” vibes of Twilight (despite the rather dark implications that she’s gonna outlive her friends now ;-;)... the fact that she still sounds like her old dorky self when speaking kinda kills the effect for me... plus idk if only a couple decades in the future would be enough to make her this tall as an alicorn, I mean even Luna (who’s older than her) is alot shorter so it’s just a little off-putting to me to see her so “Celestia”-sized ^^;. And as for Spike... yeah, I don’t even know what’s going on there, so... let’s just move on, please lol.

So then we get to look over how everyone else in Ponyville’s doing, with so many new species living there now, some old kiddos grew up like the CMC and the Cake twins, Starlight and her friends (plus the Student 6) continuing to run the friendship school together, and apparently some canon couples started to thrive during this time too including Lyra and Bon Bon, Big Mac and Sugar Belle, and... Pinkie and Cheese? o.o

...Um, wow lol Wasn’t really expecting that considering that most of Cheese and Pinkie’s previous screentime together (which was only in like, two episodes?) wasn’t really that romantic from what I can recall, but guess the writers decided to just throw it in anyway ‘cause it’s a popular ship? lol I mean, not like it’s a bad one or anything but it still feels a bit randomly-placed in a narrative sense imo ^^;

Speaking of their daughter (Lil Cheese, I think?), while I do think she’s cute, part of me is kinda disappointed that they didn’t really get more creative with her design like they’ve done for Flurry Heart and the Cake twins :c. Color-wise she looks okay but... why just make her a recolor of her mom’s filly design? .-. Even putting her hair in some pigtails or something would’ve worked better imo.

-Some more design nitpicks I had were certain weirdly placed hairstyles like Pumpkin Cake’s and Diamond Tiara’s, as well as why Gummy the alligator just looks like he resized into a giant than legitimately grew into an adult lol. Also this might also be nitpicky but why exactly is everyone (minus Twilight) so old-looking with grayed hair and/or eye bags (ex. Rarity and Sugar Belle), when a couple of them have school-aged children at this point? .-. Hell, even most of the Mane 6′s parents didn’t look this old (including Twilight’s, and they’ve got a granddaughter lol), so I’m kinda confused by this type of design choice tbh.

-I don’t really remember if they explicitly stated what happened to the old princesses during this time since they didn’t show up again, nor what the final fates of Shining Armor and Cadence were (save for a brief shot of Flurry Heart having her own stain-glass window in the throne room). Idk, just would’ve been nice to have gotten more explicit about that ‘cause I don’t wanna think of these poor royals being gone now with just Twilight being the leader now ;-;

-I guess there was also a couple “implied” ships thrown in too like Fluttershy and Discord (though that one might be more “loose” to interpret, depending on how much you like the ship) and apparently AJ and Rainbow Dash seem to be having something “deeper” going on considering they specifically walked in together when all the other Mane 6 walked in individually into the throne room. Hmmm...?

-And lastly after a bit more filler and than a montage song of the Mane 6 harmonizing together one last time, we get to close off the entire episode, season, and series with one final shot of the heroes standing on a sunset-y hillside together, saying goodbye to Twilight’s student who goes off on her own friendship adventures... and then the screen fades to a book closing as a call back to the very first episode of the series over 9 years ago... where the exact same book opened up to start off our beloved show to begin with T-T

....aaaand yeah my feels exploded over again, sorry T-T. Despite the lil nitpicks I had here and there (and how I wish certain plot holes could’ve been handled better in hindsight), this was still a really sweet and thoughtful way to end MLP: FiM with one last batch of fluff like this... the end of a good 9-year run of the show which’ll surely leave a special place in every fan’s hearts, including mine ❤️

Though again, like I mentioned before I still won’t be considering any of this actually “canon” in the main universe I’m setting up, which is all basically an AU at this point since I haven’t really been keeping up with the show as frequently to care much for sticking with the main canon :p. For my fellow content creators, please don’t be afraid to keep working on your own next gens and such btw, even if some of it might be contradicted in this particular finale I’d say anyone is free to make their own interpretations however they want, canon or no canon~ ;p

Hope y’all understand that well and I hope you guys have a great rest of your day! 😃

#mlp spoilers #purfy chat #long post #mlp season 9 spoilers #mlp finale spoilers #spoilers

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itsclydebitches · 6 years

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RWBY Recaps: Vol. 6 “Uncovered”

This is a re-posting from Nov. 4th, 2018 in an effort to get all my recaps fully on tumblr. Thanks!

So much for Thursday/Friday postings. This episode ripped my heart out through my teeth, so you know I've gotta get thoughts down on paper. What’s today’s theme? The folly and inexperience of youth, but as much as I want to dive straight into my impassioned defense of Ozpin, we need to make sure that we unpack the new intro first. And, you know, the rest of the episode...

The highlights have already been circulating for the last week, most notably the animation of Ozpin’s (presumed) past reincarnations… and the fact that the one right before the guy we think of as Oz looks like a dad. He looks like Tai’s brother. One of these Ozpins is not like the others and honestly I kind of love it. Seriously though, in the realm of actual analysis there are a number of details I want to make sure we put a pin in before moving forward. Let’s make use of our good friend the list:

The beginning is super fluffy with the gang hanging out while waiting for the train, Ruby chasing after Weiss, and Blake watching them fondly. Out of the whole group Yang is the only one who appears upset, staring morosely out the window where we get a flash of Adam. I think this is significant given that she seems to be the most volatile of the group right now. As we’ll see, though most of them have beef with Ozpin, Yang is the one instigating the fights.

We have a moment where the camera moves through Maria’s eyes and then immediately does the same with Ruby’s. Are Maria’s eyes also important? Perhaps her semblance is connected to her blindness somehow.

We see (I think??) Roman’s hat blow by right before the hooded person (Cinder) is broken up by red slashes across the screen. Omg could he actually come back? I mean yeah, he literally got swallowed whole by a grimm, but he also might have cut himself out a la Hannibal Chau style. Please bring back my flamboyant fave and have him get revenge on Cinder. That would be so very excellent.

There’s a young woman (Salem) staring up at a statue of Oz. Last week it seemed weird that this statue looked so very much like his Vol. 1-3 reincarnation, but considering we’re in Jinn’s story world she might be borrowing imagery that the gang is familiar with. Either that or the reincarnations tend to look like each other in time? Idk. To be decided.

Jaune slams Ozpin up against a freaking wall. Given how this Volume is going so far, I’m pretty confident that it’s Ozpin and not Oscar. Wonder if Jaune is finally going to confront him about his part in Pyrrha’s death…

Plenty of potential WhiteRose (as mentioned in the first recap). Seriously, I try to keep shipping out of these (a few Ozqrow jokes aside…) but I’ve also gotta call any potential setup as I see it, and given the happily chasing after her, using her glyphs at the end, the final shot of Weiss helping Ruby to her feet, Ruby collecting dust cartridges later in the episode, her calling Weiss's name in Jinn's world, Weiss doing the same for her… all of this could just be them re-developing their relationship after the separation. Could also be something more.

Also in terms of that final shot: having the whole group—Ozpin included—standing together and facing down some threat is very reassuring after this week’s episode. Ngl lol.

Finally, we have those grimm arms reaching out to drag Qrow into darkness, notably while he’s drinking. “Wow,” I say to myself. “Those arms sure do look a lot like Cinder’s!”

Oh look. We open on Cinder.

Classic rule of television: if you don’t see a body they’re not dead yet. (Unless, apparently, you’re Ozpin.)

(…but maybe not Roman.)

She’s clearly terrified, waking up in water with her eyes darting every which way, groaning when she finally pulls herself to shore. It’s always good to throw your villains into moments like this where their basic—human—instincts take hold. It makes them a little more sympathetic (if not more justifiable) and therefore more compelling. At this point I really have no desire to see an attempt at a Cinder redemption arc, but even I’m wincing at that panicked look on her face.

She’s having trouble summoning up her power, presumably because she just got her ass beat by another Maiden. It comes back pretty fast though, which really helps put into context how powerful these women are. Even freezing them from the inside out is only going to knock them out of commission for a little while.

Cinder takes a look way up to where the tree stands and pounds her grimm hand against the rocks in frustration. Apparently these things are ridiculously strong because it opens up a crack in the mountain, letting a sliver of light shine through to her face. (A trope normally reserved for the heroes.) Cinder then uses her One Punch Man powers to break out, considering that her flames are still sputtering.

Outside she meets a sweet, no-name woman who makes the mistake of stopping to help. Cinder steals her clothes, her money, and presumably kills her. RIP nice lady just trying to do her grocery shopping.

We realize that Cinder woke up weeks ago as we move into another flashback at the house. There the team has their first conversation about the relic.

Ruby: “We need to take the relic to Atlas?”

Qrow: “That’s what Oz said.”

For all his banter and bluster, Qrow is a very passive character. He has so little faith in himself that he needs to put it in others—so he fosters pretty much all of that onto Oz. Ruby is the one who subtly questions why they’re taking the relic all the way to Atlas. Qrow is the one who just reiterates that these are Oz’s orders, so that’s what they’re gonna do. Right now he’s not questioning his general and I’ll be interested to see if and how that changes after the events of this episode. One of the reasons for Qrow’s dark descent in the intro?

We have a funny exchange where Ren points out that the borders of Atlas are closed, but no worries. They have a missing Schnee heiress to get them through! What’s less funny is when Qrow mentions that they actually wanted to seal the relic back up in the vault but can’t because they don’t have access to the Spring Maiden. Cut to a guilty looking Yang. Not that they’d have much chance convincing Raven to help them (what is she up to with Tai??), but again: Oz isn’t the only one keeping secrets.

Ozpin comes out leaning heavily on his cane and wincing with each step. Hmm. Another indication that, despite his power, he’s surprisingly fragile? I’m still wondering how Cinder won that fight and it looks like he isn’t recovering as quickly as the rest of the group, despite the fact that everyone took a beating in Haven. Something to chew on.

Still talking about the relic, Jaune mentions that they don’t know what the thing actually does and we get to see Ozpin’s conflicted expression before he whirls around with a smile. He’s clearly weighing what he should and shouldn’t tell them, secrets later revealed in the episode. He says that the relic has a “wonderful and incredibly dangerous ability”—important wording! We’ll come back to that. It can answer any three questions every 100 years, provided they’re not about future events. Ozpin claims that the questions were asked before the relic was sealed away so, sorry, no knowledge to gain right now.

Jumping a little farther into the episode, we also continue the plot-line with Cinder sneaking around in the dead woman’s clothes, realizing that she’s very much a wanted criminal now. She heads into this super sketchy spider gang and asks for information on Team RWBY and the others—not going back to Salem then—throwing down the woman’s lien as payment. The leader assures her that she’ll have their locations within a week… despite the fact that she already knows where they are. The “big guy,” Hazel, was asking first.

Back with the group. Ruby finds the relic lying nearby while Yang tries desperately to get her bike out of the snow. Despite having agreed to this plan of separating and stranding themselves, Yang is expressing her frustration by treating it like a cruel trick of fate, complaining about that as well as the fact that they’ve “gained a defenseless old woman.” After Maria introduces herself and comments a little about being hard of hearing, blind, and how her glasses need a tuneup, we slam hard into the heart of the episode. Good. I’ve got things to say about how these kids are acting like… well, kids. Yang has basically just had a temper tantrum in the snow and Qrow rightly points out that they need to try to keep calm so as not to attract more grimm. Yang—as we expect—uses this opportunity to segue back to the relic. She wants to know why Ozpin lied to them. Oscar thinks they deserve to know too and forces (maybe?) the switch.

“I didn’t lie,” Ozpin says. He just didn’t provide them with all the information. This immediately sets Yang off because that’s just a technicality. An excuse. Right? Well, yes and no. Do people sometimes manipulate others by doling out pieces of information and then claiming, “I didn’t really lie”? Yes, absolutely. But there’s also something to be said for adults withholding information in an effort to protect their charges. Like… if a kid asked you how someone died there’s a BIG difference between saying, “They were murdered” vs. “Oh, well the murderer tortured them for days and then sent pictures of it to their family and then gutted them very slowly….” Yeah. Sometimes you don’t need that kind of shit weighing you down and in this case Ozpin has an additional, practical reason for not telling them that the relic attracts grimm: their worry would just bring more. Which is exactly what I said last time. Telling them wouldn’t change the situation—there’s a very good chance it would actually make things worse—so he tried to give them what little peace he could.

Weiss: “You know, I’m getting real tired of people choosing what’s best for me”

An understandable statement? Sure, but Weiss is still a kid. Yes, 14, 15, 16, and even 17yos are still kids, whether we want to give them the label of “teenager” or not. It’s sometimes hard to remember given their responsibilities, but Team RWBY is still a collection of developing brains challenging thousands of years of experience. Kids never like it, but sometimes adults do know what’s best for them. All of this is complicated by the abuse in their lives—notice that Yang (Raven), Weiss (parents), and Blake (Adam) are far less trusting of Ozpin than Ruby is—but that doesn’t change the fact that a teenager is not equipped to make these world-altering decisions in the same way an adult is. Combine this with the fact that they have implicitly acknowledged Ozpin as their leader and them thinking they can challenge his well thought-out choices in this manner is a big problem.

Ironically, Ozpin and James have a lot more in common than they think they do when it comes to leading: they both understand the importance of compartmentalization, it’s just that James is more obvious about treating subordinates as subordinates. Ozpin cozies up to people and then they’re surprised when they don’t have his ear. As I said before, you can trust your army without giving them every single secret. That’s dangerous, and the girls aren’t entitled to dangerous information just because they want it.

Ozpin says he’s not entirely sure why grimm are attracted to the relic (another lie?) and we learn that he was the one who spun the story of Lionheart’s heroic death. Again, Yang sees things in a very black and white manner—that’s another lie and lies are bad—and Ozpin angrily argues that Lionheart doesn’t deserve to have all the good he did erased by his final mistakes. That's a pretty loaded conundrum and I’m definitely not equipped to untangle it. Rather, I’m more interested in how the girls are completely unable to consider that viewpoint. Because (common theme here) they lack the experience that Ozpin does. To them Lionheart was just a Bad Guy and should be treated accordingly because they’re teenagers who have never faced a betrayal like that. They might have a very different reaction if, years down the road, one of Team RWBY succumbed to Salem and betrayed them in the end. Would Blake want Yang’s name forever tarnished if she gave in and joined Raven? Would Ruby be okay with the whole world thinking nothing but awful things about Weiss if she went dark? No, it’s more complex when you love someone… but they’re too young to understand that yet.

Age matters here. Experience matters.

Just as important, Ozpin is an emotional, flawed human being who is being cut very deeply right now. That is, the girls have 100% condemned Lionheart despite the good he did in the past… and Ozpin has no doubt done things just as bad, if not worse. Though unintentional, their rejection of Lionheart’s worth is a rejection of Ozpin’s as well. If they can’t consider forgiving Lionheart for his mistakes, how could they possibly forgive him? “Does one lapse in judgement truly negate all of his good?” he asks, a question he no doubt poses to himself all the time. As Ozpin defends his friend he’s also trying desperately to defend himself and what he’s hearing from Yang is, “No. You’re irredeemable.”

Whether we consider Ozpin’s past to actually be irredeemable or not, that’s a pretty hard blow. Remember last recap I pointed out how shocked he looked at Ruby’s support? It’s because this is what he’s used to hearing. Everyone (like Qrow) looks to him to be their leader and then reacts with fury when he makes decisions they don’t like; people insist they care for him and then condemn those who have made far fewer mistakes. And he’s been dealing with this for thousands of years. Honestly, I’m surprised the guy can even get out of bed anymore.

“Do you really think Leo was the first?” he growls when Yang insists that he can trust them. Of course Leo wasn’t the first to betray him and, as Ozpin points out, he said those exact same words. You can trust me. Ultimately, why are these kids any different? Because they’re the heroes? No, that’s the perspective of the audience. From behind our fourth wall we know that Team RWBY is trustworthy, but Ozpin has no such reassurances. If a friend he had for years could suddenly betray him like that, what the hell is stopping a bunch of former students who are already frustrated with him?

Also… just pointing out… Yang insists he can trust her and then two seconds later she, along with Blake and Weiss, have their weapons pulled on both Ozpin and Qrow. So he can trust them… but only if he does what they want and tells them what they want to hear. And people question why Ozpin has trust issues.

I do want Ozpin to trust more—both for himself and for others—but my god does he have good reasons for holding back.

Sadly, we don’t get to see Yang try to grapple with the revelation that she’s parroting Lionheart’s words (because, as I’ll discuss a bit below, RWBY ultimately dodges any real sticky moral questions and segues back into simple story logic). Instead the conversation is derailed as Ozpin realizes that the relic is missing.

Ruby has it, but she’s not willing to hand it over. So much for my theory of her sticking by him this Volume. At least right now, she’s acting as much like a kid as any of the others. In what I think is a reckless move, Oscar realizes that Ozpin is hiding something from them and briefly takes control, telling Ruby to say the name Jinn.

She does and all the snow stops.

A sort of genie appears and says that she was created by the God of Light to “aid humanity in its pursuit of knowledge.” Jinn then reveals that Ozpin did lie outright. There are still two questions left.

And with this revelation we come to the crux of the matter. His own very personal history aside, compartmentalization aside, why doesn’t Ozpin just give the gang all the information they want? Why all the lies? Because they’re children and right now they’re acting like it. Yang isn’t interested in making sure everyone gets to a safe place after Qrow mentions that they’re probably attracting grimm, she wants answers right now and she won’t move until she gets them. They’re not considering the hypocrisy of demanding Ozpin’s secrets when they’ve all had (and for some still have) secrets of their own. The girls aren’t responding logically to Qrow’s innocuous “Hey” later—why does he deserve their wrath?—they’re reacting with pure emotion, pulling their weapons on him for daring to just try and voice an opinion. That is an incredibly extreme reaction and in my opinion shows how little they’re thinking through their actions right now. They are, to put it bluntly, acting like a bunch of bratty teenagers. They want something and the adults in charge won’t let them have it, despite having numerous good reasons for withholding it (both practical and personal). So they throw a fit. The only difference is that instead of stomping their feet these girls have crazy powerful weaponry and a relic at their disposal.

All of this culminates in the release of Jinn. Let’s think back to that moment in the house: Ozpin tells them that the relic has a “wonderful and incredibly dangerous ability”—emphasis mine. Do the kids stop to wonder why the ability to answer questions is called incredibly dangerous? No! They’re just fascinated by the shiny new toy. Ren thinks it’s cool, Blake is amazed, Yang notes that picking the right questions would be a big responsibility but doesn’t back down from the challenge, and Nora immediately leads them in a charge to determine what they’re going to ask. Not one of them says, “Hey. What’s the catch here?” They’re all ready to jump into asking three questions without thinking through any of the potential repercussions of messing with an ancient object they know absolutely nothing about.

This no doubt tells Ozpin, as it told me, that they’re still kids and as such are in many ways still thinking like kids too. They don’t have the experience and the maturity yet to consider the consequences of their actions. What? Do we think someone as controlling as Ozpin just let two questions remain without a very good reason? That it’s a coincidence that immediately after he—or someone else—used the first question the relic was sealed away? No, there’s some downside here… but the gang never considered that possibility. So rather than explain all that and risk them insisting that they use the questions anyway—as kids are wont to do—Ozpin says the questions are used up for now. That way there’s no risk to them.

I’m thinking that when Ozpin charges Ruby he’s trying to reach her to protect her somehow. It's not just about him keeping his secrets. Jinn’s smoke is reaching for her too and he’s trying to get there first. He’s flawed, yes, but he’s not going to attack her. When has Ozpin ever been violent towards them? When has Ruby ever hesitated to defend herself? This isn't an experienced Huntsmen going on the offensive, nor a talented Huntress scared for her life---it's a desperate man and a young girl panicking at this mess of a situation. Because let's be real, if Ozpin had wanted to take the relic by force he easily could have. But he wouldn't do that. He’s not the one who drew his weapon here. No, if there’s a catch attached to these questions he wouldn’t want Ruby to pay it. He literally begs her on his knees not to use the relic… and when that fails he gets desperate and uses incredible speed to try and reach her before the magic does.

Remember, he wanted to immediately seal the relic back up in the vault and would have it they’d had access to the Spring Maiden. It might not just be because they’re worried about the relic falling into Salem’s hands. It sounds like there’s danger attached to using it too…. and people would absolutely be tempted to use it.

As we see here.

Ruby says, “What is Ozpin hiding from us?” WHICH IS ABOUT THE WORST QUESTION YOU COULD POSSIBLY ASK.

That’s not a targeted question to help you understand what Oscar was hinting at before. That’s an entirely open ended question that, depending on how Jinn works, will show you every secret Ozpin has ever had. What kind of fucked up invasion of privacy? Granted, we don’t have time in RWBY for something like that to actually happen—looks like Jinn is going to show us Ozpin’s greatest mistake/regret, something he thinks they’ll abandon him because of—but that doesn’t change how horrible that question was. I don’t care if the girls are right that Ozpin needs to work on trusting people more. You know how you don’t help people do that? By forcibly pulling all their secrets out into the open without their consent. Ruby’s question wasn’t just horribly invasive, it wasn’t thought out at all because no matter how frustrated she might be I don’t think she’d ever want to do that to a person. She, like the rest of her team, isn't thinking clearly.

Finally, you know what the real kicker is? All of this—everything I’ve mentioned throughout this scene—is done in front of Maria. What’s the latest definition of oblivious immaturity? Demanding that your leader reveal his secrets in front of a complete stranger.

Honestly I wanted to rip out my hair through this whole part of the episode. It’s easy to identify with Ruby and the gang because they’re our protagonists. The show wants us to empathize with them, but in this case it doesn’t change the fact that they’re acting their age and making really uninformed decisions. Despite the huge range of ages in this fandom, sometimes I feel like I’m watching RWBY very firmly from an adult’s perspective while the vast majority of the fandom is watching from the perspective of our heroes. They see the mean adult keeping secrets—and in a black and white universe secrets are bad!—while I’m seated firmly in Camp Context. It’s like that post about watching The Little Mermaid at different stages of your life:

As a child: She loves him! How romantic…

As an adult: You love him? You’re sixteen and you met him yesterday!

The thing is, I know RWBY isn’t going to take that adult perspective. That’s not how most stories go. Ozpin’s secrets will be revealed, he’ll probably be forgiven, and he’ll learn the lesson that it’s Bad to keep things from your friends. The intricacies of the situation and his very justifiable reasons will be brushed aside because he’s not our primary hero. Ruby is and her view of the world is that nearly blind faith in humanity. She doesn’t understand that after thousands of years Ozpin’s fractured faith doesn’t mean he can’t encourage others to be better than he is, she just pouts and says he should trust them specifically because he preaches trust as a general principal. At its core RWBY follows the simplistically moral logic of a fairy tale and though that’s great in many ways, I’m still at times frustrated by how the show introduces adult viewpoints without ever having the narrative justify them. Ozpin tells the group that he has more experience than them and has carefully considered his choices, but we’re encouraged to frown at him like the rest of the cast. Except Ozpin is right! He’s right!! He’s right and he should say it!

But most people don’t seem to agree with me. Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We end the episode with Jinn’s magic reaching the group before Ozpin can reach Ruby. They’re all seeing the same vision of a castle and a beautiful woman, Jinn’s voice telling them a fairy tale:

“Once upon a time there stood a lonely tower that sheltered a lonely girl named Salem…”

So Salem’s backstory coincides with whatever Ozpin is so terrified of them figuring out about him. Full disclosure: if he starts crying next episode I will also be an emotional wreck. Here’s hoping that whatever the girls see, they’ll start mending their trust in one another once it’s over. I’m not sure I can take a whole Volume of everyone eviscerating Ozpin for trying to protect them, himself, and the rest of Remnant.

What’s he doing? His best. It’s far from perfect, but give the poor immortal a break.

Here’s hoping for one in episode three!

Other Details of Note

Of course it’s raining when Cinder leaves the vault. We need appropriate atmosphere for her dramatic collapse and rejuvenating murder lol

Except can we please have women remove their heels when everything goes sideways? I’m sorry, but if I were that exhausted and injured getting the spikes off my feet would be the very first thing I did.

Love that they essentially gave Maria’s glasses eyelids. Makes it very easy for her to express herself.

Okay so we pretty much know for a fact now that Ozpin and Oscar are starting to share thoughts both ways. I can’t imagine that Ozpin went, “Yeah so I’m still hiding something and you can figure it out by saying ‘Jinn’ to the shiny relic over there, but don't tell anyone else, okay?” Oscar is starting pick up on things as they (presumably) merge.

The relics are entities! And now we know why the the statue in Haven was of a woman bound in chains—she’s Jinn. Look at Ozpin’s dramatic ass designing lairs that reveal secrets no one realizes are there.

“It’s a pleasure to see you again, old man”—evidence that Ozpin either used that first question himself, was there when it was used, or has used the relic at another time in the past.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #mymetas #RWBY Recaps

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akocomyk · 6 years

Text

The Greatness that is 2018

Okay. So my post from last year was restricted by Tumblr because of its new rules regarding adult content and such. It wasn’t deleted, it was simply removed from the public view. Though I’m quite sure I didn’t put any restricted content there other than a couple of words of profanity—and I actually wanted to appeal to Tumblr—I let it go, and I’m more determined to put a highly positive composition for this year.

And I know it wouldn’t be very difficult for me to do so.

The year 2018 was a very positive year for me. Like whatever I was experiencing in the previous years, it was totally the opposite for this year. Generally speaking, I was very happy and content for the year’s entirety. You can simply tell by the decrease of drama posts I made here on my blog—or honestly, the total decrease of posts I made for this year. I’ve even started concluding that I no longer need Tumblr as my place to vent out my personal delusions, but I feel so much regret if I would simply leave my account here to the dirt, covered in interweb dust.

Going back to the main purpose of this post… I had a lot of memorable moments in the past year, and they all meant a lot to me that—similar to my 2017 dilemma—no memory stood out (and I didn’t mean that in a bad way). Last year, nothing stood out because every single memory felt very lame. This year, ALMOST EVERY SINGLE MEMORY HAD AN IMPACT IN ME. Every memorable moment stood out, that I think any memory can take the top spot without me having to contradict myself.

Twelve moments in my 2018 were included in my shortlist. It’s less than my previous years, but that’s okay. I have enough good moments to include in the ten. Here’s my 2018 and all its greatness.

10. The A-List Awards - November 20

While having our team win a prestigious award is memorable enough, that isn’t the reason why this was included in this list.

I was one of those lucky people who got to attend the awarding ceremony, and, to be honest, I didn’t really expect or plan to attend. Those who would attend were chosen by raffle draw. I put my name less than thirty minutes before the draw. I know I’m not lucky in these raffles, that’s why I didn’t bother putting my name in there immediately after it was opened. I was only encouraged by my other teammates who put their names solely for “representation” purposes—you know, just so that their teams have representatives. And it didn’t matter if they got picked or not—if they did, then it’s okay; if not, it’s fine, not much of a great loss.

Eventually, my name was drawn. Then I had to buy my own barong. And I attended the awards night.

Half of those who were meant to be there wasn’t able to arrive on time due to the heavy traffic—which was very unfortunate, by the way, because they arrived at the exact moment we went up the stage.

There are times in life where you get to do things you never really planned to, and everything still goes smoothly even when you just let it be.

9. Papa Comes Home - February 24 to March 15

Papa doesn’t come home very often recently. He only does whenever it’s needed, like when my Mom died, or her sister died, or when there’s a wedding.

For this year, my cousin Nikki had her wedding and my father was one of the sponsors, so he came home from China. For the first time since we moved to our present residence back in 2013, he stayed in our house during the span of his vacation.

Growing up, my father and I didn’t have a sound relationship. It’s not that we hate each other. It’s just that I wasn’t as close to him as I was with my mother, and we we weren’t as you expected an ideal father-son relationship to be. To me, he was more like a hard-assed king who wants his son, the prince, to toughen up and be like him—a stereotypical man who’s a model of machismo.

I’m nothing like that.

In these two weeks that my father was here, I had felt like I regained a parent. The last time I felt like this was when my mother was still alive—and not sick. When I came home from work at night, dinner was at the table. Before I left every morning, someone was asking if I’m not going to eat breakfast—which by the way, I don’t—and telling me, “Ingat,” right before I ran out to the door.

8. Watching American Vandal - August 11-12 and September 28-30

Every year, there’s always this one memory about me watching a movie, a series, or reading a book that left me on a hangover for days. They may not have always penetrated the Top 10, but there’s always a memory that’s shortlisted.

American Vandal takes that spot for 2018, and it enters the Top 10, thanks to the fewer shortlisted memories.

If you’ve been closely following my Tumblr posts this year, you’d know why American Vandal was very memorable for me. You already know I haven’t posted much this year, but I couldn’t help myself from posting a review about the series—for both Seasons 1 and 2. Those two posts are also probably one of my few blog posts in the past year that actually made sense.

Anyway, the series spoke to me more than any other show that I watched this year did. Black Mirror was pretty close, but American Vandal is in league of its own when it comes to personal preference. The way it streamlined themes that are so relevant nowadays affected me so much—not because it was new to me—but because we share the exact same sentiments.

If you’re reading this blog post, go subscribe to Netflix right now and watch it.

7. Queen Comes Home - April 5 and 7

If you don’t know who Queen is, she is one of my closest friends. We’ve known each other since High School—we both joined the choir and the short theater we had for the school’s founding anniversary. Then she briefly went to the same college I did and became a member of the student council. That’s the time when we grew closer, before she moved to Canada.

She came home for a few weeks, and we met twice.

What I like most about the time that we spent together is that we get to talk for hours without getting uncomfortable or awkward with each other. During that time, I didn’t care much about what we did or what we talked about. What mattered the most was that we got to spend some time together.

It’s nice to have a friend who—no matter how far you are from each other right now, in terms of location and communication—will treat you the same way they’ve treated you ever since. And I’m grateful to have Queen as that kind of friend.

6. Got Ear Piercings - February 5 and June 3

August 2016 was the first time that I ever thought of having my ears pierced (this was according to my post here in my blog, but I probably had thought of it earlier). A couple of years before that, I’m one of those people who think lowly—appearance-wise—of guys who have piercings.

This is just a theory, but I think what drove me in doing so is my grief towards my mother’s passing.

Now, I don’t only have one, but two lobe piercings, both on the right ear. The first one was probably more memorable than the second one. I even wrote a post about it (click here). The second one wasn’t as terrifying since I already know what I had to do.

Did it make me happy? Yeah, I feel like I’m more me now. (Does that make any sense?) And I’m actually very proud that I did it on my own. And if there is any person close to me who thinks it looks very inappropriate, I don’t care much about your opinion on this matter. Having piercings didn’t harm any of you—it did more harm to me, actually. It’s best if you’d just accept me for who I am.

5. My Sister’s Wedding - November 26

Looking back at my sister’s wedding, I realized it’s not the wedding day itself that was memorable—at least for me. It was the preparations for it. And I mean that because, I’m good at that stuff—preparing and designing event materials.

I wasn’t stressed during the preparations since I’m practically used to it, thanks to my event planning experience with my previous job. If there was anything that drove me nuts, it was my sister’s nagging and stressful episodes. Everything felt so complicated and problematic whenever her thoughts jump right in, and I always wanted to tell her that there’s no room for such drama when you’re planning events such as her wedding.

I am so glad that my friends were there—who also eventually became a one-event choir—to welcome my rants and get a share of my madness.

Anyway, I can say that the event was successful, even though I was absolutely stressed during the wedding day itself—everyone was calling me, seeking my approval, plus I had TONS of roles to play.

One vital thing I realized after this: I’m more alone now than I’ve ever been in my entire life. My sister’s gonna have her own family. My Dad’s having his own life in China. My mother’s gone. I’m alone, but I’m okay and I’m happy with what I have now.

4. TG Life Resurrected - January 6, 10, and 15-18

A humongous part of my college—and high school, actually—life revolved around campus journalism. It’s that one thing that made college more meaningful, more enjoyable, more exciting, and more stressful—in a good way—for me. If it hadn’t been for that experience, I probably wouldn’t have had the foundation for all the skills that I am using right now for my profession.

Earlier this year, I was invited to train the now-members of The Gateway Group of Publications for the upcoming press conferences. And since I didn’t have a regular job during that time, I was also invited to attend the conferences—both Cavitewide and Regionals.

The experience was just a surge of nostalgia. A part of me wanted to join the contest myself, but my time’s long been over—and I’ve already grown tired of it after nearly more than five years of participation. It’s now time for me to pass on my knowledge to the next generation of journalists.

I may not have taken home any medal or certificate, but it gives me great pride and joy that the students I trained were able to place in their respective contests. The inner teacher inside me—who is still waiting for his time to shine—is verily satisfied.

INTERLUDE

I’m a hundred percent sure that all those memories that ranked 10th to 4th deserved all of their places. I already know from the get-go who’ll get the lower ranks and probably wouldn’t even get in the ten. Ranks 6th to 4th was a bit of struggle, but this eventual ranking is final.

For the final three…

Before divulging into that, I wanna go back to the past memories that topped since I started doing this kind of blog (just to have a throwback and a glimpse as to what memories usually top my list):

The Day Nanay Pinat Died (2013), My College Graduation (2014), The Great Depression of 2015, Mama’s Death at the start of 2016, and My Unemployed Days (2017).

I’ve already mentioned earlier that I had a huge problem regarding what memory would top the list. This is my blog. There are no rules in it. I can just say that all three memories are tied on the first three places, but I don’t wanna do that since this list would not make any sense.

So… I’m not entirely sure about this rankings that I did for these three most memorable moments, since I relied totally from gut feeling here. I tried to switch them all a couple of times, but in the end, everything went down to sentimentality.

3. Accenture - February 23

This one’s an obvious frontrunner from the beginning. After months of having no regular job, I finally got in to one of the most internationally renowned companies.

Tons of memorable moments happened when this chapter of my life started, and I wouldn’t want this list to be crowded with memories from Accenture. (The A List Awards is the only exception I reconsidered.)

Working for Accenture is one of the most liberating moments that I’ve had in recent memory.

By liberating, I mean, in our team, people truly respect you for who you are. They don’t mind your weirdness or your quirky personalities. In here, I found people who I share the same interests with, and if I talk to them about it, they don’t get weirded out—sooooo unlike the people from my previous company.

And what I love most about this is that… I feel like the old me has returned. Me who was constantly smiling. Me who seemed like he doesn’t have any problem. Me who could be in the borderline of crazy.

The me who believes that I can conquer the world in my own little ways.

2. 24th Birthday - January 27

“To know that someone appreciates my existence, someone is willing to spend their time with me, and someone is ready to get high with me is worth more than any money can ever get.”

I got that from the blog I made about my birthday.

I stand firm with what I said back then. This is one of the most memorable birthdays I’ve ever had in the recent years—maybe even in my entire life. Throughout the year, I was thinking that this moment might top this year’s list. And I was secretly hoping that something good would still happen in my life since I couldn’t accept yet that this would be the one. Thank God, things still happened.

This is the second time that my birthday celebration was included in the list, and this is its highest placement so far. I still wish that someday, my birthday celebration would be the one on the first place. This one was really close—it’s on the second place and it certainly lost by a minimal margin—but I had to hand it over to the other one that’s more… sentimental… and left my heart in emotional shards right after.

1. A Day with Wilma - December 23

Amongst my friends who know that I love watching films, this is the first time that someone actually asked me to watch a movie with them. You know… just me with him or her.

Ever since 2015, I’ve been glorifying the thought of me doing things on my own, and the belief that I can be happy on my own. Having said that, I also have never set aside the fact that I’d be even happier if I do the things that I do with someone else.

For those who don’t know, Wilma’s one of my BFFs and one interesting fact about her is that SHE IS RARELY SPONTANEOUS—close to never, to be frank. I am the opposite of that. I adore spontaneity. So when Wilma asked me to watch Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse with her—out of the blue—I said yes, without any hint of hesitation. I didn’t even ask if she invited someone else, which I usually do when someone asks me if I wanna go with them. I didn’t care.

I’m finally gonna watch a movie with a friend… my friend.

Wilma got caught on traffic on her way, so we missed our schedule by roughly 15 minutes. She didn’t want to go on the next screening since she’s concerned that it might be too late for me, but I told her that it’s okay. For the meantime, we had coffee—tea for me, actually—and I also helped her shop for Christmas gifts.

After watching the film, Wilma offered to eat dinner at her house, since I didn’t really give any concrete answer as to how I’m gonna feed myself that night. And so we did. We went to her house and ate dinner with her family. Her Mom even wanted me to sleep over since it’s also a bit late already. I told her that I had to attend the ninth Misa de Gallo the following day, but she insisted, saying, “Magsisimba rin naman kami.” I wanted to say yes. Part of me didn’t want to end the day just yet. This day was feeding me with so much spontaneity, it’s making me euphoric.

But I didn’t have extra clothes with me… so I had to refuse.

On my ride home, I felt really weird, thinking about all the things that happened that day. I wanted to cry, but I also wanted to laugh at the same time. I was emotional, but I didn’t know what emotion it was. I just knew that something inside my heart was not okay, yet I’m perfectly fine with it.

After years of feeling like the world completely neglects me, a day comes when all the love is poured out and I can’t even handle it.

I didn’t even have any picture of this day. It exists now only inside the memory centers of our brains—Wima and mine’s.

I hope we can do this again sometime.

#akocomyk #top10memories

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stardustizuku · 6 years

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What is it that you hate about ladybug? I also don't like it very much

(This is a bit long and written on my phone. Sorry for the weird format!) but

1.- The Romance

I have time and time again praised ML for having an interesting twist on the Magical Girl Romance. In cases where a girl would be crushing on a guy who is crushing on her alter ego…they added the love triangle of the bad boy/good boy. Which is interesting when handled correctly

But I don’t think they’re handling it the best way possible.

The thing is…there’s a fine line between Slow Burn and plain reluctance to actually get to your end goal.

They make it clear they’re gonna end up together but they don’t really give us that much interaction…Especially considering the amount of time we’ve been in the series. I personally prefer the fanon versions because they seem more nuanced and with a quicker pace.

Because to make a slow burn work, you have to make them really likable on their own, or give a subplot that that drives the viewer away from the fact you’re still teasing the couple.

Sakura Card Captor does a magnificent job in my opinion, by making the B plot the cards and making friends. So, Despite everything, the plot is always moving forward.

Miraculous Lacks a concrete end goal aside from defeating Hawkmoth. Which causes the slow burn to be a bit tedious.

Compare it to Sailor Moon or Tokyo Mew Mew, where they had also very vague missions and chapters that didn’t move the plot forward. To make up for that, they had a relatively fast paced romance.

ML is stuck in the middle not really advancing the plot not the romance and you’re just left unpleasantly unsatisfied by both.

But it’s really the least of my problems with the show that’s why it’s on the top of the list.

2.-Aesthetics

I cannot emphasize how much I loathe ML’s designs. They’re ugly, 3D models feel cheap, everything is grey and colorless, or just way too saturated with primary colors. It’s plain ugly. It has very little artistic direction, I wouldn’t DARE put a single pic of the background as wallpaper, the aesthetics in general feel like New York not PARIS

As Magical Girl Enthusiast, aesthetics play a BIG part of the genre. Transformation sequences are polished to a T for this very reason.

The sparkles matter, the colors matter, the feeling matters.

It simply does not feel magical enough. And it frustrates me to no end. I would be passing so much shit if it weren’t for the art.

Because it seriously feels so low quality..,especially for the time it takes for a single episode to air…

WHICH LEADS ME TO

3.- the pacing

I’m actually trying to remember a single series with as much of a horrible problem of pacing as ML has.

45 EPISODES IN and nothing is substance has actually happened. Well yeah we got Ayla transforming into Rena Rouge

But by this point every single magical girl EVER was nearing its season 1 finale with most of the gang long since together.

ML Is waisting a lot of time with shit we don’t need.

We really didn’t need a whole season of the entire school being akumatized. And we didn’t need to wait a season to get our first partner (AKA Rena)

The series is all over the place. It takes FOREVER to update and they update one episode at a time, that gives little to no context on whatever the fuck is happening.

And then when they finally started showing us the Chat and Lady’s team members….it’s super rushed, they’re barely given time to breathe, or shine. They’re being given the miraculous with no real thought, or justification (just because Marinette wants) and they don’t even get to keep it! I know it’s something about keeping the secret but it’s seriously feels so fake that they have to turn their miraculous in every time she needs help.

It seems like a waste of time in universe and outside.

It overall feels…rushed. Not really well thought and even cheap to a degree.

It frustrates me to no end because I know it could be great.

And this is coming from someone who loves JEWEL PET. This is not a matter of “oh oh you’re just an adult asking for too much from a kids cartoon!”

I adore dumb mindless magical girls. I was a fan of the first season of SVTFOE and ML. If it sparkles I’m gonna watch it and I’m gonna like it.But ML doesn’t sparkle. Doesn’t have that great of a romance…and the pacing is worst that sailor moon.

Is this down in the bottom with KamichamaKarin? God no!

It does a better job that SVTFOE in regards of romance and has adhered to the themes more. It’s more along the lines of Jewel Pet, Fushigi Boshigi no Futago Hime and probably Princess Yucie.

Good but not that good. Passable but not memorable.

#ask #anon #I don’t think it deserves the hype #go watch jewel pet instead #it’s dumb and sparkles and I love it #miraculous ladybug #2k Magical Girl essay

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simbar4lifelol · 6 years

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A huge Soy Luna S3 rant lol

Im not complaining about simbar rn, they've been the best. But i honestly cant believe the show is gonna be over on friday. Like what even happened in s3?!?! I always payed more attention to my ship obviously lol but since they would only come out for like two minutes each episode, I have to admit i was bored out of my mind with everything else that was going on:/

The flow of the story was so odd and i cant help but feel like this story is incomplete now. I know several people have pointed out that the story was over s2 and i have to agree. The real plot ended in s2 and we had a s3 with no direction of what the show was going to be about next. It literally was just about boys and revenge.

Of Course a show could be just about that, but since this is disney the way it was all presented wasnt interesting enough, especially with how long they dragged everything with just that. They definitely did not know what to do with their secondary characters and they just came across(well at least to me) like a waste of space. All the characters could have done more. And i feel this is why s3 doesnt feel complete.

Luna had nothing going for her but thinking about relationships. So, since she is the protagonist no one else was allowed to do anything else. These characters had so much potential and this is where i get disappointed with how s3 turned out. When they would do something outside of relationships, for example skating or the open musics, absolutely nothing would happen afterwards. The characters werent further explored and they just never grew. When you would think they would do something different, they would just go back to exactly how they were before. Like when the girls formed their own group for about 3 episodes and then they just broke up. And nothing came from that but one performance.

Nothing happened with the roller band either. Didnt they have a bunch of fans?!?! Nico is not even missed because he didnt contribute anything. Nina only ever wrote something in her blog thingy to blackmail gary and she was just put together with erik for her to do something else aside from just asking luna who she likes the whole season. Jim and yam started off trying to figure out what to do after graduation but ended up in the shadow of what does luna need. Ramiro went to the red sharks then nothing. He leaves the red sharks, hes forgiven then nothing. Jazmin, oh jazmin we know nothing of her only that she loves creating content for social media. nothing else happened with her except her meeting that guy. Pelfi although cute they also didnt do much but react to either lutteo or simbar. Delfi's only arc was the fight with jazmin. It was pretty entertaining so points for them. But this is my point when theyre not revolving around luna they had great content.

The downfall of this season was the writers forgetting their other characters and just constantly repeating storylines with the main characters. And everyone else just reacting to them. All of season 3 was so predictable that my only joy was simbar lol They were the only ones not just reacting to lutteo. which is why they were a breath of fresh air. Individually, simon was just reacting to lutteo and ambar was just reacting to luna. But as simbar they had their own thing. They were trying to figure the other out with the new dynamic of ambar going full "rebel".

It was different and new and exciting. To see these characters tease each other and seeing the tension of wanting to be together but both being stubborn. Simon knowing damn well ambar was in a path of self destruction but still trying to find a way in. Ambar telling simon he needed to stop lying about his feelings for her. My only issue was when bembar became a thing. Those episodes were so messy that they actually made me less enthusiastic about simbar because i didnt get ambar, but i feel it was needed to make ambar finally snap out of it and officially leave that behind her. These past 15 episodes had ambar in her own arc as her best self not worrying about luna and thriving as a character because of that.

But of course i understand the show is called Soy Luna. I like luna. The first two seasons revolved around her being a happy girl with loving adoptive parents starting a new life away from home. She eventually gets curious about her origins and sets out to find out where she came from with the help of her best friends. While every other character did their own thing.

The problem came about when in s3 they didnt know what to do with their protagonist. The first 5 episodes were her feeling overwhelmed with finding out she's Sol Benson and remembering a bit of her past. But that's it after that shes okay. "She's the same luna except now she's rich." Thats the whole story. Oh and she has three love interests. Oh and shes gonna bring the jam&roller team together but no one gets to shine except her and all the opportunities will go to her only. They're gonna have rivals and theyre just gonna go back and forth forever without any consequences till episode 40. The open music will have cool singing and dancing numbers and they will serve no purpose but to fill in things in the episodes except episode 10 when luna will confess her feelings for simon but jk nevermind she doesnt. Nothing ever changes.

The main focus was her love life and honestly that could have worked if it wasnt the exact same formula as season 2 with matteo. The hot and cold relationship yes no yes no. Ugh i dont understand how lutteo fans have survived for so long. I wish they had given her something more to stand for. A different character arc that wasnt just about her and matteo. Because thats what the whole season has been about. Everyone else are just there getting 1 or 2 episode arcs that really don't matter because everything will go back to normal. Simbar was lucky to get a continuous arc however they only got one or two scenes per episode and that was the highlight. Soy luna comes to an end in two episodes. And this whole week has everything revolving around luna and matteo realizing their dreams in the last 5 episodes. Just them. Jk we still have two episodes and im sure theyll show the rest "realizing their dream too" but i just cant believe they made 60 episodes of nothing.

The adults took up a lot of screentime in a storyline that just sucks. The only thing sharon's been good for is to give luna nightmares. Again everything has only been a huge plot device for luna and things a lot of times felt forced.

Well all of this was my main issue with season 3 and i wanted to share my personal opinion. Im sorry this is so long. Season 3 had its great moments but as a whole was really disappointing. I hope no one takes offense to this and although im here complaining soy luna finishing is still bittersweet. You can love something but still recognize its flaws.

#my grievances #its sad that the characters were jus sidelined #wish s3 was better #the end is here #soy luna #soy luna 3 #simbar #anti luna #kind of:/

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miyoron · 6 years

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Miyo’s Anime of Note 2018 Rainbow Edition

2018 was some kind of a year wasn't it? It was long and a pain in the ass but there was some anime out this year I really enjoyed. I'm here to write down a bunch of shows I enjoyed in no particular order. I might put them in the order I watched them in, or I might not. I guess we'll see huh?

Also, I think there's WAY more this year than usual which means I either like things easily, there were a lot of good shows, all of the above or some other reason. Hope I don't get too long winded on you! Also I'm using whatever names I feel like for naming things off, translated, still Japanese...whaaatever~

Pop Team Epic

Pop Team Epic was everything I wanted it to be and more. I've been a fan of Bkub's work since the early days so to see these two shitty girls finally show up on the anime screen week to week was a pleasure and a delight. The decision to make two separate half episodes with different voice actors for Popuko and Pipimi was a wonderful decision that let us experience things like Aoi Yuki as Popuko and Norio Wakamoto as Pipimi. It also shot the wonderful team of ACBU into the spotlight. Their Bobunemimimmi segments were so disgustingly perfect and fit the tone of the show perfectly. It also gave us one of the best moments in anime this year:

Needless to say, I really hope they are doing a season 2 like it's been rumored. I'm on board for SO much more.

Yuru Camp

This was a show I actually watched twice this year and have subsequently watched multiple episodes just on my own. It is one of my favorite things this year and maybe it's just because of how unassuming it is. There's honestly nothing deep to the show. Cute girls dress in warm winter clothing and go camping. However, the way everything is paced with nice warm colors and chill ass music nestles its way into your heart and fills you with a nice cozy feeling. It's like a blanket, the anime. Just wrap yourself up in the wonderful friend times and maybe you'll learn a thing or two about camping and friendship along the way.

Mitsuboshi Colors

Are adults letting you down? Sure, they're not up to the challenge pretty much all the time. But that's why you should just stay out of the way and let Colors come in to save the day! This trio of girls are ready to save their town and to let shitty cops know what's up. Seriously, it's a cute show with a cute group of friends getting into big adventures, even if those adventures are often due to their own misconceptions. It's a good show with kids who act like kids and are always either talking about poop or are sucking at video games. It's a nice show and has some good performances, as well as the best sunglasses of 2018 in my book.

Karakai no Jouzu Takagi-san

A series about a boy and a girl who are totally crushing on each other, even if one likes to keep it deeply hidden and the other would never admit it really. Oh, also she owns him every chance she can get with teasing. It's like a reverse Tonari no Seki-kun if Seki was not in his own world and was actively trying to make Rumi blush or stumble over herself. This premise may sound mean but it's honestly all in good fun and there's something really cute about the pair's friendship with each other. The way the manga apparently goes makes me really want to check it out sometime too.

Oh also there's a great side trio of friends with and I love how dumb of a baby one of them is.

Hinamatsuri

What happens when a yakuza becomes the dad of a psychic girl who crashed in an egg in his apartment and broke all his vases? This series! Hinamatsuri was a show that got me really hard this year at a couple points where I know I had to either fight back tears or take a few minutes to sit their with a quivering lip and watery eyes. It's an incredibly funny show from the premise alone but when you have the put upon character of Nitta having to take care of the force of nature that is Hina it just escalates it. On top of that though, there's a good heart to it as well. Anzu is a wonderful character and I love her story and her many grandpas. Also Hitomi's story actively hit me hard to where I felt bad for a fictional child to please just be a child for a little while. It was powerful stuff and I loved it.

Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online

I hate Sword Art Online. I've only watched the first series with the original and faerie times, but I hated it so much. That being said, hearing that the new one was actually good made me seek it out and...thank God it is. Llenn/Karen is just a much more compelling character than the power fantasy that is Kirito. The story of a woman who does not like herself in the real world, but finds a new home and life in virtual reality is a nice little story. On top of that, ditching the stupid "if you die in the game, you die in real life" really helped the show out in my eyes. This show is not about stop some huge over arcing villainous plot to fuck over the whole world or whatever. GGO is about trying to save someone from hurting themselves and honestly, that's a lot more relatable. A recap episode in this day in age IS silly though for what it's worth.

Let's take a short break shall we? For a little section I'm gonna call, Fuck, You Let me Down Man.

Amanchu Advance

I put Amanchu on my list two years ago of Anime of Note because I really enjoyed the tale of friendship it told. Amanchu Advance continues that story and shows Teko slowly becoming more of her own person thanks to that friendship. She wants to become a stronger person, a better version of herself and it's through her friends she's able to do this. The series is still very good at showing these moments but the last few episodes of the show are bogged down in a weird supernatural plot with a ghost boy that I wish they would have just tossed down the shrine steps. The twist at the end with it was not worth sidetracking the story for three episodes in a 12 episode story and soured my experience as a whole. I've been told the author likes doing these sorts of things and I didn't mind the lucid dreaming episodes, but this bit just did not land for me and it's a big bummer.

Here's Another Side Category Called Old Anime I Watched And Enjoyed. Yes, that's the full title.

G Gundam

I don't know why it took me so long to watch this series, but I am glad I did. Maybe I just needed friends to be there to watch it with, who knows. Either way, I'm thankful I got to join Domon on his journey searching for the man in the photograph and to experience the Undefeated of the East in his most powerful form. G Gundam is a goofy setting with a bunch of weird but fun characters and their even weirder mobile suits. I don't know how much I can really say on it since I'm sure most people have probably checked it out years ago on Toonami. It's still fun and good and it has a Gundam who is a boxer and a football man at the same time. Gundam Fight, Readdddddy....GO!

Back to my normal list, though I have grouped the next couple shows in a block I am calling the "I wish these had a full 24 episodes even though I understand why they didn't but please make more I'd love it, ok thanks" block.

A Place Further Than The Universe

This show had...a lot of moments where I was sitting there and just processing all that was going on. A group of girls become friends and join a civilian expedition to Antarctica, one of whom is going there to basically go where her mother had spoken of years ago and never came back. It's a show that I felt compelled to keep watching even though I knew I should have stopped for the night, telling myself "I can watch one more episode..." . It just gripped me and sank its penguin fangs into me. Shut up, I know what I said. Seriously though, the cast of secondary characters are just as fun as the main ones and I enjoyed every minute of it. It definitely destroyed me in one of the more heavy moments near the end though so keep a box of tissues handy ok?

Wotakoi

Love is hard for otaku. It's in the show's translated title and everything. Let me tell you, I'm very happy seeing so many anime featuring adults in the work place these days. Wotakoi is a show I felt a very personal connection to, especially its humor levels. Not going to lie, I am a Kabakura through and through when it comes to my anime watching and purchasing habits. It's a cute love story with a couple of characters getting together out of convenience before realizing maybe there's something more than that to it. The interactions are great and it's very relatable if you've ever had a friends' game night or anime watching session. It's a show that just feels like it knows just how to speak to you if you've been a fan of anime for a long time.

Hisone to Masotan

Hey, you into dragon vore? Then have I got the show for you buddy. All joking aside, Hisomaso is a show with one of the more fun protagonists I've run into in a while. Hisone's blunt and to the point to the detriment of anything that comes out of her mouth most of the time, but there's something about her honesty that's very endearing. The show's pilots are a great cast and their dragon friends are just as charismatic even if they spend a lot of the time cosplaying as aircraft. This show has a nice story about trying to find just where you fit in within the world and sometimes that's hard. Sometimes the best thing to do is dive into the gullet of a big scaly F-15 and ride the free skies to your heart's content. I love you Masotan.

Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight

This show I think more than any others in this block I wanted more of, even though I know why I don't have more of it. From episode one, I got Utena vibes with the music, the auditions, Hell, even the prefight wardrobe transformations. Stage girls do battle with all of their shine to prove who is truly the top star. That's the basic premise and the cast of characters really helps to flesh it out with their own motivations of what makes them keep going to be the very best they can be. I loved all of the imagery in the auditions and the music and the big doofy giraffe just watching from the stands and enjoying the whole thing. Revue Starlight is a stylish show with some amazing animation and choreography that puts most of the things I watched this year to shame and I need more things like it.

STOP IT'S PRECURE TIME

Go Princess Precure

This is me and Cheapsteak's "old Precure" of the year and it's wonderful. It's a story about dreams and fighting for them. The Princess Precures are maybe not the most relatable of characters as they attend a very prim and proper high class school. One is a business conglomerate's daughter, one's a super model, one's a Princess from another plane entirely. But there is something wonderful how they all work together as friends and work to save everyone's dreams, I don't know there's something very good and wonderful about that. I love that even when it comes to one of the villains, a character in the show goes out of her way to help him with his self esteem (and make up). I don't know, I've got a few episodes left but I just love it. Haruka is my favorite Pink Precure I've met so far and she is gonna be tough to beat.

Hugtto Precure

Very similar to Go Princess is Hugtto, with its message of hope for the future because you can't just stay in the present. There's a great cast of characters and they all work so hard to cheer each others' dreams on, all while taking care of a baby and a hamster from the future. I think this show also has the best mid-seasons Cures I've met so far and just...everything with how supportive and good everyone is to each other has me smiling the whole time. Also in the episodes leading up to the anniversary movie this year, we got some of the best big moments I've seen in a show in a while. A lot of the episodes have some amazing animation work as well and just...I like this show a lot especially what it did to show Hana's pre-show back story as well. Pink Cures are really good huh?

Back to business!

Asobi Asobase

Along with PTE, this was one of the weirder comedies that I watched this year. It's often crass or just outright weird, but that's one of its strong points I think. The show's opening is a giant fakeout from what seems like your ordinary "cute girls doing club things" chill show because you're soon hit with some of the weirdest faces and shrieks that I've run into in a while. The characters are a troublesome group of weirdoes who try to do activities like a normal club but fail horribly at it, often due to one or more of them sabotaging it with their own dumbness. It really says something that the sweetest and most relatable characters are the witch girls who practice curses all day. They're really the best though but so are all of the fucking weirdoes in this show. Also there's ass lasers so if you're into that...

Cells at Work

Learn about the human body while dangerous viruses and germs get fucking iced like they walked into the wrong anime. Follow a red blood cell make her way through the blood stream and lose her way every single time. Thrill at the amazingly adorable platelet crew as they get to work each day. Cells at Work is a weird science shounen show with some great character designs and interactions. The way the cells just are working hard and doing their jobs as best they can is great and you want to root for them so hard. Those Killer T and White blood cells and Macrophages just love killing SO much. It's a fun show that teaches you about biology and anatomy in a somewhat rudimentary but enjoyable manner.

Plus I will stress again, the platelet design is beyond cute.

Skullface Book Seller Honda-san

Honda-san is a cute little series you could watch in an afternoon due to its episode count and length, but it's one I could see myself watching multiple times easily. It's a fun window into the window of book store retail and the Japanese publishing industry. The characters have fun designs, mostly normal bodies with some kind of weird mask/helmet on but they're very relatable. Honda-san does his best to help out the customers, even when their requests tear at his very sanity some times. But that's retail huh? It's fun though, go check out this good skeleton!

Bloom Into You

I think this was the show that intrigued me the most this year because I was just hooked on the relationship between Yuu and Touko and seeing how it advanced. Yuu is a girl who wants to be able to fall in love like everyone else her age seems to be able to and when she finally meets a girl who she thinks feels similarly...that darn senpai falls in love with her. It's a very relatable tale even if you haven't been in a lot of relationships. Seeing Yuu realize her own feelings slowly grow towards Touko and the issues that come up because of was something that had me wanting to find out more each week. It also was the show that took me the longest to come to my final thoughts on too due to its ending but ultimately, I'm glad I watched it.

Zombieland Saga

Honestly, I'm glad to start and end this list with certifiable bangers. The concept of zombies becoming idols sounds like it could just go so wrong but it doesn't. It's so good and fun and goofy. The characters are all really fun and goofy but still have depth to them, even zombie brained legend Yamada Tae. I love this show and every character in it and if there were Franchouchou concerts done like a Hatsune Miku tour, I'd go so hard. Zombieland Saga is a good and powerful show and it even has a good ending with a sequel hook. Watch these girls and cheer them on, that is an order.

I normally do a "Shows I'll Watch Next Year" section but I realize I never end up doing it so I'm just going to add one of my current ones I know I'll continue watching.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Wind

Come on, you knew this was going to be on here right? I'm curious where this gangster plot line is going and can't wait to continue next year.

So that's my list, I hope you enjoyed it. For a special treat to go into 2019, I leave you with the best moment in anime 2018. Peace!

Ah well I got copyright striked so here’s a mirror

https://streamable.com/87z73

#MiyosAOTY2018

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