#i also have more s4 script stuff to post i need to do it

[carigm]

MAJOR POTENTIAL SPOILERS/LEAKS REGARDING S5 (WARNING)

Last Spring/Summer, a semi popular fandom account on Twitter got sent some leaks about S5, focused on the first half of the season. At this time, many fandom accounts were receiving supposed leaks, so our attention was a bit scattered and we didn’t focus on any of them too much. A popular leak account on Twitter (unrelated to ST) also mentioned that they had gotten the first half of S5 leaked, and that this source is “never wrong”. Now, it is hard to tell if these leaks are the same as the ones that the specific fandom account I’m talking about received, but something to keep in mind. Her leaks were given to her by a person named James (which I assume is a fake name). These leaks were also posted on Reddit, last year, by her (the person in the fandom that got the leaks from James) but some major things were omitted in that post. I’m gonna leave a link here in case you guys want to read the discussion.

I’m sharing these leaks with you because some things from them are kinda lining up with what we’re seeing from S5 production. Keep in mind that these could be fake/wrong, and James himself said he didn’t have info on the last couple of scripts.

According to James, Mike dies in Ep. 3. I’m adding more screenshots later for more context, but the gist of these leaks is that Mike bites it, mlvn never breakup nor do they get a resolution, and Byler is left up to interpretation but never really happens. (I don’t really need to get into how shitty this all is writing wise)

Let’s go over the things these leaks might have potentially gotten right, according to what we know so far.

1. James said that the time jump would occur in ep. 1, after an establishing scene where S4 left off. He said the time jump would place us in late 1987/early 1988. He also mentioned there would be a series of flashbacks showcasing stuff from before the time jump. The dates he gave do seem to be accurate, and David Harbour had a shaved head right before they went into filming, which could imply pre time jump scenes.

2. According to him, after Mike dies, they find a letter he had been writing. Some of us were theorizing Finn had a letter in his back pocket in those rooftop pics. Could’ve also been Finn’s script and he just stuck it there (who knows).

3. He said that Joyce gets badly injured in ep.3, and since there’s speculation Winona was seen filming at the hospital, some people think that means she was taken there because of her injury. It’s important to notice that Natalia, Cara, and Finn were also supposedly seen filming at the hospital, and that the production called for many extras for nurses and paramedics. So whatever they’re filming at the hospital, it might be bigger than Joyce getting injured in her leg. Let’s remember Max is at the hospital too. I’m not 100% sold on this part of the leaks.

4. Today it was revealed that they’re setting up to film at Stone Mountain. (This is where they filmed UD scenes for S4)

Apparently production might have purple tentacles out already. (UD vines?)

Cara Buono mentioned, in that video shared by Ross Duffer, that she was filming stuff from Ep.2. This was around 2 days ago.

The people that know about the leaks think this is where Mike dies in ep. 3. Here’s some further context:

Here’s some stuff he said about mlvn:

Which is just….meh, because like I said, it doesn’t look like him and El ever breakup before his supposed death. Plus Byler never gets any resolution.

Now some things that might disprove the leaks (I’m trying to be impartial here)

1. These leaks mentioned Argyle a couple of times, saying he has a hero moment at some point. Eduardo made it sound like he’s not coming back to the show, but tbh he could just be lying. He’s listed for ep.2 on IMDb (and yes I know anyone with an account can edit that site)

2. These leaks say that Mike is very insufferable for the 3 episodes he’s alive, basically lashing out at everyone, specially El, and just overall behaving like an asshole. I really didn’t get that from the ElMike rooftop scene, in fact he seemed very gentle with her. People that know about these leaks think that the rooftop scene is Mike maybe apologizing to El and them having a heart to heart, right before he dies (no comment).

All in all, if Mike is dying this early, I’m sure we’ll know soon enough. The rest of the cast is gonna be filming for like a year, and Finn will be done in like two weeks 💀

I also hope there’s more leaks soon (on Reddit) so that we might compare them to these and see wtf is up.

I know someone is gonna inevitably ask why leaks would be out almost a whole year before they started filming when we usually get them during filming or post production, but I’ve been told these leaks happened around the time the writer’s strike began, which is when they were originally gonna start filming. I was also told other shows had issues with leaks around that same time.

I don’t want to get too much into the truly awful writing we’re facing if these are real but…First, I believe it’s a total disservice to Mike’s character. One of your mains since S1 and you don’t even offer him the option of dying towards the end of the season? Even fucking Eddie got that. Two, it seems like a very easy cop out for not having to make Byler canon. Let’s just have neither ship be endgame and that way we don’t get queerbaiting allegations. It also stands in a zone too close to torture porn for my liking, because sure let’s kill the character two of the most traumatized characters in the history of TV love most. And yes, it’s also a disservice to El and Will’s characters. And lastly, if that supposed letter vaguely alludes Mike having some sort of sexuality problems (we don’t know atp) it is pretty fucked up they just killed him off like that. Sure let’s not explore any of that, but give a half assed explanation via letter ex machina. This is looking like Supernatural finale levels of bad to me.

Another point, I distinctly remember the Duffers saying, after S4, that they could never kill off a character like Mike because it would be too painful, and that ST would cease to be ST and lose its identity. They didn’t want to be like GOT. I sincerely hope they actually meant this and were not trying to be cheeky or whatever the fuck.

It would be genuinely insane, and quite frankly, a highlight of their lack of writing abilities.

I hope the leaks are wrong, but I felt like it was necessary to warn everyone just in case. I know I’m not watching something this awful.

[xxmarzimoonxx]

it’s funny because the more i look at twitter and tiktok and just think about what we were given in regard to byler this season, the more it kinda seems right? don’t get me wrong, we were definitely queerbaited to an extent, and that’s completely disappointing, and using will’s sexuality to further mileven was just terrible, but i actually feel kinda hopeful for season 5? anyways heres some mixed thoughts on byler that i don’t feel like adding to my pinned post and some will stuff too bc he’s my main guy <3

since the writers revealed that the jopper kiss was planned day of by winona and david, i sincerely believe that finn and noah could convince the writers to allow for smth between their characters, especially considering the way they have their characters act around each other (lip glances, longing looks, etc)

the lighting in the cabin scene? the stick figure drawing and the way it was framed? the dead flowers? these are not coincidences!!

almost every scene w mike and el has will standing in the background. again, definitely not a coincidence.

i also think that, in regard to season 4, completely fixing mike and wills relationship over the course of two packed finale episodes would have been forced. they have an entire season to work out their relationship now, and i truly believe byler will happen between the hints/parallels in s4, as well as everything finn and Mike have said (keep in mind they’ve seen parts of the script for season 5, and most likely already know how their characters are going to end up!) i have strong hopes, like noah said, i really feel that they’re building it up. we really need to see a post s4 interview w either finn, noah, or both of them. this way we can see how they react in regard to byler.

since filming for season 5 began early and the actors have already seen versions of the scripts and know where their characters are going, i truly believe what noah has said in interviews about byler being “built up” and stuff. it would explain finns behavior during interviews too if he knows smth will happen between them next season.

adding onto this, i feel pretty certain at this point that a lot of the actors be getting confused w what happens in each season 😭. like this would explain why it seems like a lot of them lied abt what would happen in season 4, and why a lot of leaks and hints as to what would happen didn’t. filming two seasons pretty much around the same time has to have had a lot of them confused, because im not sure why else all that would’ve happened…

bro im hyped for main character will next season. i don’t care if he’s a villain. i don’t care if he’s a hero. he can be whatever tf he wants as long as he’s not dead and is the main character (and main character he will be!!!)

my guess is that will gets vecnaed at the start of the season before they do that weird time skip thing. considering noah was in his s4 clothes in the pic w the harness (and that pic was posted around the same time david had said they started shooting early, so it makes sense that it’s for season 5).

im super curious tho as to how they’re gonna handle the time skip? i don’t know how they’re going to make it make sense, and i am worried it’s going to take away a lot from the characters (and no, not just mike and will, literally every character), so maybe they’ll do some sort of two part thing where the first part kicks off where we left off and the second jumps forward? kinda like the season 4 volumes but more evenly distributed.

everyone on twitter saying will might get killed off next season, SHUSH. as much as they like to hurt mr byers, imagine the backlash they would face after killing off one of two queer characters.

i saw someone on twitter say that like the point of wills arc this season was to highlight his emotional struggle and detachment from the group (his friends, johnathan, etc) to lead into his plot for next season. and yeah. that makes sense! and it’s also giving villain vibes 😍

it’ll also be really cool to see everything start with will and end with will. especially if he’s a villain. he would be helping the one thing (vecna/henry) that ruined his life, maybe even finding comfort in him. something about that is kinda cool, and im all down for a will byers villain arc. like imagine him showing mike memories of each time mike hurt him (verbally ofc) or smth like that and be like “look! it’s every time you broke my heart! now ill break yours 🤪💅🏻”. he wouldn’t kill him tho. we still want byler to happen. it would just be very slay of will. OKAY ILL SHUSH NOW.

i might add to this haha but it’s just some thoughts on will in season 5. if more byler stuff comes up in the coming interviews i might add it here rather than my pinned post because it’s just kinda easier. smh for not doing bullet points on that one.

[esther-dot]

unpopular opinion maybe (?) but i don't think most people actually hated the ending of got because it was badly done or badly written. the show had been sloppy for years before the finale and most of us were still enjoying it, so i don't think it was really about that. i think we all tell ourselves we hated it because of that, but most of us probably wouldn't have minded it if only we'd gotten our preferred ending. d*ny fans would have been over the moon if they'd gotten an ending with her on the iron throne and jon as her devoted consort, regardless of how badly written, directed, and acted it was. sansa fans would have been equally over the moon if we'd not only gotten qitn but also sansa in a loving relationship with our preferred suitor, whomever that might be, quality of the writing be damned. arya fans would have been beside themselves with joy if they'd gotten their "queen arya with gendry as her lover" preferred ending, no matter how stupidly it was done. and so on and so forth, for fans of every character. the terrible writing certainly didn't help matters, but in my opinion the show's real failure was that it managed to leave literally EVERYONE unhappy and unsatisfied, and feeling that their fave had been cheated in some way.

Well, it’s kinda true for me! I was mocking D&D’s horrible choices and criticizing the show all season eight as I watched it, but if I had gotten Jonsa in the finale I would have definitely posted a “I have never said anything bad about D&D in my life” joke. 😂

This is why, even though I will never watch it again and I won’t watch the spin-offs, I’m not gonna pretend I stopped liking the show back in s5. There was a lot of “y’all thought the ending would be good? The show’s sucked since s4” stuff going around when we were all disappointed with the finale, but middles are hard! Lots of stories struggle there, and I was still caught up in what was happening and wondering where it would end until s7 just…made no sense to me. I was a show fan first so I wasn’t upset about their deviations from the books because I didn’t know about them at the time. I was still enjoying the show through s6. Honestly, s6 was a highpoint for me. Sansa and Jon reuniting, Sansa using LF, reclaiming Winterfell, Sansa finally being safe and happy, Jon becoming king….I understand hating the Ramsay plotline, being upset about Dorne etc, but as a Stark fan, a Sansa and a Jon fan, season six was very rewarding.

It wasn’t until after s7 aired that I started listening to Martin interviews/read the books, and at that point I learned that a) Martin has known the ending for the main characters for years, b) he told D&D, c) he expected the endings would be similar. So, I assumed that D&D had a plan and were working towards his ending and weren’t gonna just… plop his ending on whatever the hell it was they were doing without making it make sense. Silly me 😂

Thinking back though, I didn’t actually need Jonsa to be ok with the ending. The main complaint for most of us is how they wrote Jon. If they confirmed that Jon bent the knee because he had to and was afraid of Dany/trying to manage her the whole time, that he wasn’t disloyal to the North/his family and lying to cover his own ass, I could have eventually reconciled myself to the ending because there are a lot of ideas it’s touching on. I think that’s why I didn’t just drop the show/fandom completely after the show ended because there are so many things that I think one good kick would have allowed the whole thing to shift and settle into stuff from earlier seasons and things from the books and would have, as much as we wouldn’t want it to, worked. Instead it felt like D&D were waging a war of retribution on the fans and just wanted to destroy all the relationships they could. They really should have let Bryan Cogman have more sway in the final season or rewrite their finale script or something. You could feel the love in his episode, D&D’s felt intentionally cruel.

I agree with you though that no vocal part of the fandom (Jon fans, Dany fans, Arya fans…) getting what they wanted, none of the big ships (Jonerys, Jonsa, Gendrya, Braime…) getting a good ending, that’s why the show was so decried by fans and so hated. There was nothing truly redeeming in the ending on an emotional level/for the characters and their relationships, so even for someone like me, a Sansa fan, a character who got the best ending and “won” in a way none of the other characters did, it felt very empty. But, I have to say, I’ve seen a number of fans who are happy with the ending. Some people really liked the fact that the ending was so different from traditional fantasy. They appreciated Jon going beyond the Wall because they didn’t want him or Dany to rule. And with the success of HOTD and fans returning to GOT (indicated by the rewatch numbers on HBO Max), maybe there are a lot more of those fans than I realized.

[chirpsythismorning]

Would a potential writers strike actually affect Stranger Thinks production at all? The fact that the actors are all over the place for scheduling (unsurprising, they're all amazingly talented) it's very doubtful they will be filming episodes chronologically. Schedules have to be created from scripts in order to say who would be on set which days so wouldn't that mean all the episodes are written already? They've had since 2020 to work on the episode outlines (the part that takes the longest amount of time). The writing of a script from an outline usually only takes a couple of weeks (per the Duffer Brother's own masterclass lessons). Writers room may only have re-opened SM accounts last year after S4 aired but I imagine this far into the series run, writers room should just be airing out the final kinks with each ep under one/two writer's care.

It’s standard practice to have the writers still writing the final episodes while starting to film the first ones. The Duffer’s did talk about this within the last year and basically confirmed it is usually the case for them, admitting the writing process for s4 was unique bc obviously they had a lot of time on their hands to focus on it with the hiatus.

They started filming s4 in Feb 2020. Hiatus put filming to a halt, I think it was March 8th 2020 or sometime around then. Then in June they posted a picture of the s4 scripts complete. And filming didn’t start up again until Sept/Oct 2020. So it still took them another couple months, even with hiatus, to officially finalize writing those last episodes, despite starting filming already.

I think Noah’s comment about the first three scripts a couple months ago (right?) could mean that at the very very least the first three were quite finalized at that time, enough to warrant sharing with the cast to prep.? By now they could have up to the 5th-6th more finalized at least. But maybe more?!

When it comes to the writers strike, I honestly can’t say for certain.

I would hope with how hands-on they are in including fans by informing us about certain milestones in the production process (they will definitely announce when s5 is officially in production on their social media), that they would disclose how this could affect s5, if a strike does in fact come into effect.

I would hate it if the strike started and they just went MIA for a month+. I know the longest strike in recent history was like 3-4 months I think? So that’s a fear that I have I guess, of them just disappearing and not even giving us crumbs to go off of in the mean time for fun.

But the duffers are also show runners and producers and directors, so I wonder if that means they’d just use them in place of the writers while filming? It would really just come down to solidarity and wanting to stand beside the people supporting the strike, which I assume the duffers fully support, so would they even undermine the strike and work despite it? I don’t know honestly.

Best case scenario, if a strike does happen, perhaps they would focus on the most fleshed out parts they already have written and don’t need rewrites for. Early s5 scenes are also what they are gonna prioritize filming anyways bc when it comes to marketing and promo they need that stuff filmed before the rest so they can have spoiler free content to share sooner than later, whereas only filming like the major stuff near the end, would mean little to no promo with canon content for them to share as time goes on. I mean, have you ever seen an official trailer use mostly later content from the season to promote it? It’s not unheard of to have some later stuff thrown in, but more often than not it just works out bc they don’t want that later stuff to be spoiled before the early stuff.

The promo we get the soonest will likely be from scenes in the first few eps so I do hope that with all things considered, there’s a possibility they could get the ball rolling and film a few things. Especially if they had so much planned out while filming s4, like s5 opener I could see being something they want to get out of the way asap especially if they have that the most fleshed out with concrete plans set in stone more than like a random scene near the end of the season, which still warrants some edits and doesn’t need to be finalized anytime soon anyways.

With how active they are rn, posting every Friday with a little assignment for the fans, has me hopeful they are planning ahead and don’t have the intention to step back and disappear even in the worst case scenario? You’d think they are aware of the worst case scenario rn and yet they’re just keeping it simple and having fun. And all the while filming rumors are already starting.

I’m not trying to stress about it bc it’s out of anyone’s control unless they manage to meet an agreement that’s worthy of not striking. I support them regardless of my bias to have ST start filming asap. Writers and a lot of aspects of this field deserve to be compensated for their hard work and I stand by that. If it takes a strike to make them get some results, so be it.

[multimetaverse]

HSMTMTS 2x08 Review

Most Likely To was the best ep of S2 so far and ended one ship while launching another. Let’s dig in!

Gaston was super fun, a very nice showcase for both Larry and Matt. This is the kind of energy that early S2 was lacking. Also feels like the first ep where East High might actually have a shot at beating North High. Covid restrictions played a role but we really needed to see more rehearsal scenes and scenes of the wildcats just being theatre kids. This also may be one of the last times we see EJ perform as a student in the musical so I’m glad we got this.  

EJ has been criminally underused for most of S2, he’s marketed as part of the big 4 along with Nini, Ricky, and Gina and Matt Cornett’s name is listed 3rd in the credits but in the early eps of S2 you’d think he was guest star. Lately he’s started to become more important and tonight was an excellent showcase of why he’s such an interesting character. I’m not gonna check but this feels like it’s the most EJ screen time in a single ep that we’ve gotten all season long. 

Of course, the main reason for EJ’s increased screen time is because of Portwell. I’ve been neutral on them but tonight they really won me over’ their scenes were so sweet that they warmed even my cold black heart. Matt and Sofia are good friends irl and that shines through in their easy rapport and great chemistry. Gina snorting at EJ’s joke was cute and I loved the shot of Gina accidentally walking into the shot for EJ’s confessional. As an aside, they’ve been doing some fun stuff with the confessionals lately which helps add a bit of the metaness that helped make S1 so great.

The real big Portwell scene tonight was EJ and Gina talking on the couch at Ashlyn’s. Lot’s to love there. Gina’s speech to EJ about what she sees when she thinks of him was sweet and her saying that EJ tried to do the right thing and often failed but kept trying echoes what she said of herself during her confession to Ricky. Also when EJ asked Gina if she understood the feeling of having her life mapped out she replied, ‘’not really’’ which is almost certainly the inspiration for Gina asking a question to EJ and him responding ‘’not really’’ in their pre S2 face time call on the hsmtmts instagram. 

EJ is still wracked with guilt for the guy he used to be but Gina reminds him that he’s grown and is a good guy which leads to her slip up about her seeing him that way vs the rest of the gang hinting that she’s beginning to catch feelings for EJ. Which leads to EJ complimenting her and them having a moment that could well have led to a kiss if Ashlyn hadn’t come home. And they cap it off with Gina falling asleep and EJ covering her with his Duke sweater. 

It’s been nice not seeing Gina upset over Ricky these past two eps and it’s a damning indictment of the poor writing and pacing of S2 that her story in the first 6 eps can be summed up as Gina being upset over something Ricky said or did. Not only has Portwell allowed EJ to rise in prominence but also it’s allowed Gina to escape the rut her character was stuck in pining for Ricky. 

I hope after S2 is over that we get an interview where Tim explains how the Portwell plot came to be. The S1 finale set up some possible interest between them as did the pre S2 face time call but nothing came of it during the first 4 eps, they stood next to each other a lot but barely interacted otherwise. Notably in 2x01, which Tim himself wrote, EJ tries to grow a beard and tells Ashlyn that he says her as so young which is extremely jarring now that we know that EJ is crushing on Gina who is Ashlyn’s age. 

Was Tim not set on doing Portwell until he realized he needed to give Gina something else to do other than hopelessly pine for Ricky? Narratively, it made sense after Rini got together in S1 to put the other two Big 4 characters together in S2 but did Tim not want it to seem so obvious to the audience so he deliberately kept Portwell apart until 2x05 where EJ’s feelings make for a nice plot twist? Was he just reluctant to plug EJ back into the love square due to how much more complicated it would make things but later felt he had no other options? Or was it just plain old bad pacing and writing?

Of course, I wish that there wasn’t such a large age gap between Sofia and Matt but there are no Gina ships that avoid that problem, there’s also an age gap between Sofia and Joshua, just as there was between Olivia and Joshua and Matt in S1. Depending on when they film S3 there’s a good chance that most of it will be finished before Sofia even turns 18 which is deeply unfortunate. There’s a broader issue of teen girls being cast in mostly age appropriate roles while their male love interests are older adults and in particular it often affects female characters of colour. Netflix has a really bad track record with those kind of age gaps but Disney has problems too as we’ve seen on HSMTMTS and on GMW where by the end of S3 they had 18 year old Peyton Meyer as the boyfriend of 14 year old Rowan Blanchard’s character (not to mention canon Joshaya which didn’t have such a bad age gap between the actors but was problematic regarding the ages of the characters themselves).

A knock I’ve seen on Portwell is that EJ is just gonna leave for university next year but that was never gonna happen, Matt’s under the same 4 season contract as all the other mains and he’ll be sticking around in some capacity much like Sharpay ended up doing in the movies. It is true that EJ will probably have to move on at the end of S4 while Gina still has her senior year left but that will also happen with her and Ricky since he’ll be graduating at the end of S4. It was a big mistake to make EJ a senior but it also may end up being a big mistake to make Gina a sophomore. It would have been too messy to retcon EJ to be a junior but Tim probably should have taken the chance to retcon Gina into being a junior in S2.

That Rini breakup was so sad (missed opportunity for gotta go my own way). They managed to get in a Troyella reference with the treehouse. This was inevitable they just have not been communicating well though now that we know that Ricky thought Nini left YAC for him some of his desperation to spend as much time together as possible makes more sense. I think Rini is endgame if the series has 4 seasons but it wouldn't shock me if we never seem them dating again and they only get back together in the series finale. It also wouldn’t surprise me if Nini never dates anyone else for the remainder of the series or at least not seriously. 

We’re not even halfway through the series so it’s way too early to permanently slam the door on Rini though this time apart will probably help Joshua and Olivia move on from their own bitter break up before it bleeds too much into their performances. I do wonder if Tim really has a clue what he's gonna do with them for the remaining 24-28 eps of the series, assuming S3 and S4 have 10-12 eps each. 

Roman Banks killed If I Can’t Love Her and the montage of all the couples or ex couples was great.

It was nice to finally meets some parents other than the Bowen’s and Salazar-Roberts’. Kourtney’s mom was played by Dara’s actual mother and their dynamic was great as expected. It seems from their conversation that Kourtney's father is dead which I don’t believe has been mentioned before. Cash Caswell.... well it gets what the character is about across. He really looks and sounds like a rich Utah republican, I bet he knows Mitt Romney personally. I liked EJ going to tell his father that he’s not going to Duke and recognizing that he wants to build his own life on his own merits. 

We saw a bit of that S1 Miss Jenn energy tonight which was fun though I didn't like how curt she was with Seb nor did I like how rude Carlos was to Seb although we know that blows up in 2x10. 

Jazzara rising! I really liked how Jazzara and Portwell are sort of mirroring each other and since Mazzara knows about EJ’s feelings for Gina it wouldn’t shock me if helping EJ out is part of him showing a softer side in 2x12.

Of course Ashlyn is VP of the Nostradamus society. It's clear her family has some kooky new age beliefs (her parents are probably members of some naturopathic medicine group on Facebook that doubles as a gateway into Qanon)

It was nice to see Big Red being such a good friend to Ricky and the return of Ricky’s infamous pillow hugs. Lmao at Ashlyn just chilling while Big Red is comforting Ricky

Also Miss Jenn saying sexy and Big Red referring to pillow talk, the writers are adding a bit of spice when cooking up these scripts.

Looking Ahead: 

Looks like Gina may be wearing EJ's duke sweater next ep according to some posts I saw. Jack presumably is there to somehow help Gina decide what she wants with Ricky and EJ though him having wanderlust might also feed into Gina’s thoughts on settling down in SLC or moving with her mom around the country.

Let's see what mom of the year, Lynne Bowen, has up her sleeves. Ricky’s bedroom at her place in Chicago looks much nicer than the apartment Mike Bowen has so perhaps she makes a lot more money than he does. 

Not looking forward to the Zoom portions of the ep but I guess it was inevitable. 

There’s only two paths for Gina’s story to go in the remainder of this season; either she decides to move on from Ricky and give EJ a chance or she decides that Ricky is worth trying again and squelches her budding feelings for EJ. The former looks much more likely after tonight’s ep but either way it needs to be handled with care. Inevitably Gina and Ricky need to talk about what happened between them but if Tim really wants Ricky to continue being a viable love interest or even a good friend to Gina then he needs to really have Ricky apologize and show a thoughtful, kinder side of him that’s largely been missing this season. 

What I think Tim is doing is setting up Portwell getting together in 2x12 but Ricky pining over Gina until Portwell break up late S3 and Rina get together in the S3 finale before they break up later in S4 and Ricky gets back with Nini near the end of the series. If I had Tim’s ear I would tell him that he should pick which ship he wants to do, Rina or Portwell, but don’t do both. He wants canon Rina? Great then end Portwell before it starts and have Rina happen in S3 and introduce other obstacles to them getting together rather than having to damage EJ’s character and make him lose another girl he likes to Ricky. He wants canon Portwell? Great then have Gina and Ricky’s conversation be closure for the both of them and have Gina and EJ get together and break them up without Ricky being a cause of it or waiting in the wings to get with Gina soon afterwards. Doing both will be a disaster and I truly hope that Tim Federle carefully thinks over his mistakes in S2 and really plans out the remaining 2 seasons of the series while there’s still time to prevent things from going really off the rails like GMW and AM did thanks to the bad decisions of Michael Jacobs and Terri Minsky. 

Until next week wildcats. 

[mcd-ms-rants]

the s1 post as promised :)

here u go

STUFF I DIDNT LIKE IN MYSTREET S1:

• This is probably the only season where Aphmau does not act like a literal child so props for that

• Also I liked the ‘Don’t tell mom!’ episode cuz Ro’meave supremacy

• k I’m gonna stop telling the boring stuff here’s the actual start

• Ok so at this point mystreet was basically a sandbox roleplay of mcd characters in a modern day setting which is NOT A BAD THING but it did lead to a lot of mcd references, whether it was Garroth and Laurance changing into their mcd forms or Zane somehow brandishing his sword from thin air. Again, NOT A BAD THING but it did make it a bit weird especially after the whole ‘mcd and mys are related‘ plotline s4 onwards

• Dante should not have had a crush on Aphmau like no hate if you ship it but the way canon dealt with it he never stood a chance. once again no hate :)

• Aarmau was a bit rushed in my opinion, tho it isn’t so evident. but the fact that Aph just unquestioningly gets closer to Aaron doesn’t sit right with me. just like mcd s1 it feels like she’s just going off a script, which she technically is but it isn’t supposed to be that evident. I would’ve liked Aphmau to question her relationship, tell aaron that she needed time or to take it slowly. They couldve still gotten together at the end of the season with a much better narrative. I dont exactly focus on ships involving aphmau that much but even I can appreciate some well written slowburn. which this was not. let’s not get into the age gap in pdh THAT WAS NOT OK but I’ll elaborate on it in a separate post otherwise I’ll just keep ranting about it here

• Garrance literally kiss on screen and nothing happens?? I don’t exactly remember what happened after it cuz I haven’t rewatched in a while but I’m pretty sure that they just went back to normal :/ (correct me if I’m wrong tho!!) is this queerbait? can I call this queerbait?? can we not have queerbait please?

• IM SORRY WHAT WAS KC’S CHARACTER. She was so nice in mcd. she worked well as a side character and her writing was done well in my opinion. WHAT HAPPENED HERE. This girl is literally a walking aarmau advertisement. I get it you wanted to promote the main ship but at least don’t ruin her character for it. I don’t really like her mys version for this reason and I prefer to use my hc version (tho this goes for all characters) Please give this girl some actual character development. by the end of this season all we know about her is that her name is kawaii~chan, she likes pink, she loves ships, yay aarmau is sailing, don’t get in the way of kawaii~chan’s ship!! Name ANYTHING ELSE THAT WE KNOW ABOUT HER LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE

• I really don’t like how some potentially triggering and more serious themes were joked about here. You can make it a comedy show without making serious topics funny. Travis makes perverted comments that I feel really border on sexual harassment at times, Katelyn keeps punching Travis every time he speaks and if that isn’t anger issues idk what is, Garroth and Laurance literally stalk Aphmau multiple times when she’s out with Aaron and KC has a goddamn aarmau shrine in her basement. The first time I watched it, it slipped past me but the second time I really looked at it and said why do we need THIS to make a show funny. • The story of Zane becoming Aphmau‘s friend was literally him taking a cat version of her home on Christmas and tearing up when she (somehow??) gave him her sweater. what was he even going to do with a cat-sized sweater?? How was THAT the good deed that turned her back into a human?? How was it going to help him?? I get that magic exists in this world and this incident can definitely be a part of their friendship story...but don’t make it the ONLY part of their story. youre telling me that THIS is the reason he’s willing to turn himself into a relic in s6 amidst all the blood and death and chaos??

• STOP BABYING ZANE HE‘S A GROWN MAN. I HATE it when Aph keeps cooing at him in a baby voice, especially since I hc him as autistic. the way he’s written really makes me feel that he is autistic and this ruins it

• once it’s revealed that Zane likes mlh, most of his screen time is just focused on that. He has other aspects of his character too which are never really shown and this makes him so one-dimensional which is ironically the same problem his MCD counterpart had. GIVE HIM DEVELOPMENT PLS

• Lucinda is like the ONLY character who has their shit together. good for you girl <3

• WHERE DID JEFFORY GO?? I really liked his character and we never see him after s1...in fact we barely see him IN s1. he keeps zooming in and out and then he just...stays out forever. for the record, WHERE DID BRENDAN GO?? He was like in three episodes and then he just dipped MORE MINOR CHARACTER REPRESENTATION PLS

• MORE VYLAD PLS. I get it he’s traveling the world but Aphmau is literally god so don’t say that it’s not doable

• Showing Katelyn actually recognizing her anger issues would’ve been great, and maybe joining therapy or taking a group lesson or even doing meditation would’ve been such a great development to her character and would’ve paved the way for much healthier interactions in s2. she would not have been able to fix them completely since these things don’t just go away in one day, so the s2 talk between her and Travis would still happen but it would better in my opinion (and I’ll elaborate more on this when I do a rant for s2)

• Can we have more nb and lgbtq+ representation in general?? this point is gonna be in every rant I make istg it needs to be said.

ya umm this is all that I can think of rn

thanks to everyone who follows me and even those who liked and reblogged my posts!! Your support means the world to me <3 <3 <3

[rochey1010]

Just a quick post cause i gotta say this:

I now see exactly where the Lola/Maya/Eliott/Lucas plot is going and it's not what the fans were convinced it was at all, aka context and lack there of.

So there has been foreshadowing of what's about to go down. Let's unpack it:

Lola and Eliott's friendship based on self identification. A mirror of each other. Him male and out of the darkness. Her female and going through it. His insta being the northern brightest star POLARIS. A guiding light. Her's being beta hydri/hydra the star all the way down in the south. The line between the 2 being representative of the journey they are on in life. Focus on where they both are in their life and how one (POLARIS) can guide the other.

Eliott a mentor for lola and her being guided by him (star symbolism). Her seeing him as a positive influence and copying that influence to heal e.g. her Vendredi Daphne movie chat being a direct mimic of Eliott's playbook of helping Lola in the video club Mardi 'The Kid' clip.

Her saying to Daphne that when she wanted to self destruct, she thought of Eliott, the video club, and their chats. And it stopped her. He created a safe space and she is using it. He really is guiding her.

Him now being set up as a buffer to drugs (rock bottom)

The movie with him, and it being a focus and a sense of direction for Lola to be distracted....for the moment. His art is positive and about love and connection. Her art is negative and about breakage and destruction. The movie is again him mentoring her, through art this time and the expression of it and how you can use it to see the world.

Maya in love with Lola, Lola in love with Maya. Maya scared to get involved because of her past with alcohol. Lola wanting Maya to be her Luquette and relying on her right now as a reason to change.

Char being in the picture. Lola meeting her. Maya not hiding her (upcoming theory) preventing a consummation of love.

Lucas encouraging Lola to take part in the movie and giving his consent. But grappling with creeping abandonment issues, and not really comfortable with it.

Lucas talking of Eliott and telling Lola he's afraid their mirroring friendship will result in one dragging the other down. Him also admitting that he felt insecure over the friendship.

This is the one that worries me the most. Eliott obsessed with mental illness in his love with Lucas. "He's just worried about me. I have bipolar disorder. Do you know what that it?" Him hiding stuff rooted in those fears being mentally ill and toxic can have on your love. Not wanting to be a burden and keeping lucas from leaving him. Focussing over and over again on not wanting to stress or strain lucas (S3, S4, S6)

Him saying "And i have Lucas. I can't lose this" a declaration of hinging his mental health on his need and love for Lucas.

Him talking of suicide and attempting it 3 times in the past. Poss during depressive episodes. Him saying he still has thoughts and he suspects they won't ever go away but it's better now. Again the focus on what he has with Lucas as the above quote comes directly after this.

Him telling Lola to find her Luquette. Creating a freakin term for his love with Lucas.

Finally Eliott going out on a limb for Lola to physically help her. Protecting her feelings and keeping her secrets. (E5)

Prediction time: Char is gone after tonight. Maya won't tell Lola immediately. Lola will still think she's in the picture and will be jealous, bitter and hurt. Eliott and her are shooting 'Lux and Obscurus' Lamifex are helping and are there that night. In the pic you see Max holding the camera and beside him someone that looks like Maya with her jacket. I'll assume Jo and Sekou are out of shot too. Not sure if that scene is scripted. The spoiler says though that it is and Lucas says no and Eliott goes ahead. But Let's say for a minute scripted/unscripted it happens. So Lola is gonna pull a stunt she did at the funeral. She's gonna blow up her tentative support network she's built (Eliott, Maya, La mif) in one go. She is gonna use the scene scripted/unscripted and rile and get a reaction out of Maya, she's going to hurt her and she's going use Eliott to do it.

The fallout of that night is going to be distance from La mif, Maya hurt and getting the wrong idea, and Eliott falling out with Lucas, who like Maya gets the wrong idea. It's going to cause Lola to lose her mentor/friend/buffer in Eliott at that moment, as he is going to a dark place if he thinks he'll lose Lucas. And the foreshadowing is complete. Lola drags them both down and hits rock bottom to drug town. Eliott feels he's lost Lucas and his mental health takes a dive (depressive- please don't say poss suicidal mood) and Lola has to fix her mess and help the ones that once helped her, especially Eliott.

I don't know if Eliott reacts in a way we haven't seen before though. Maxence said we're going to see his darker phases. But what if it's not just depression or something worse. What if he snaps at Lola because of what's happened with Lucas (possibly leaves Eliott ) like what we know of Eliott is that he is a very caring individual. Doesn't judge and tries to be empathetic to his world and the people in it. He doesn't push or pressure anyone. He unconditionally supports, and he'll put himself out there to help others. We see all this in so many ways since he turned up on screen. He's simply a very compassionate character. I honestly don't see him holding what Lola does against her. She's confided in him about Maya. He knows what it is to feel that the one you want most is someone you can't have. And he knows the pain involved because of that.

BUT Lucas is a different situation all together. We've seen Eliott in his pursuit to have Lucas. He gave zero fucks and his dark side came out with both Chloe and Lucille. He's hinged his mental health and well being on his love. He is deeply in love with him, and it's been said by both Lucille (his freakin ex) and Arthur that Lucas is the one and is special. He can't lose him. If he thinks he has. His mental health takes a dive. And then so does his mood. He even snapped at his beloved Lucas in a depressive crash. Depression doesn't care about your compassion and love for others. So we may see something ugly with Lola from Eliott. Like he may be really angry with her. He may sever the friendship in that moment leading her to lose her buffer. And causing her to slip finally to rock bottom. I'm unsure though, as it can go both ways with Eliott. Compassionate and forgiving or angry and depressive. Maybe both. 🤝

Guys i'm scared. I don't think i want to see Eliott's rock bottom. It was heartbreaking the first time. And he's such a positive and warm presence that even the audience feels good when he's happy and smiling. I think they are going there. With Lola i've adapted, we've seen several benders and she's a depressive character and doesn't bring sunshine on the screen. So when she slips it's sad but more of the same. With Eliott it is a swinging extreme of light and dark. A sunshine puppy happiness to crying, black despair. 😭

Ok if it's going that way. All signs point to 😔 brace yourselves. 💜

[neighbourskid]

2020

What a year, huh? Surely not anything anyone has expected to happen when we woke up on this day a year ago. I certainly haven’t. I’m not even sure, now, where to begin to sum up this year like I’ve done years prior. But then again... I may just as well just dive right into all the media I consumed this year, as I have done every year. I haven’t kept track as detailed as I have last year, but my year was definitely punctuated by pieces of entertainment that have come into my life.

Continuing on from 2019, my obsession with Good Omens was still going strong. Which was ideal, since I was gonna spend the first half of the year writing my Bachelor thesis on it. The intensity of the obsession may have waned a bit since, but I still love that show and book dearly and hold it close to my heart, and I don’t think that will ever stop. But while Good Omens was certainly an overall theme throughout my year, there were some other things that actually stood out.

With January came new episodes of Doctor Who, and having returned to that particular bandwagon the year prior, I was all about that. Jodie’s second season finally brought what I had longed for in her first--a darker kind of Doctor. She wasn’t quite as bubbly anymore, you could finally see some of the depths in the character that I loved so in the previous regenerations, which made me love Peter’s Doctor so incredibly much. In this season, I felt, Jodie was finally becoming the Doctor. Overall, that season catered to me personally every single episode. So many of the time periods they visited were of people I loved, and the introduction of Sacha Dhawan as the Master was absolutely....well, masterful. Sacha is brilliant in that role and I am utterly stunned by his talent. Although both John Simm and Michelle Gomez brought things to the Master that I liked, it’s Sacha’s completely unhinged take on it that made me finally like the character. He’s a madman and I love it.

The next major thing was The Good Place. I tend to have a talent of getting into shows just as they either ended their entire show, or the final season is just coming up. It’s happened quite a bit, and it was the same with this. I finally binged the show early in January and it would end its final season at the end of the month. True to form, I was completely obsessed with it for about a month, before I only occasionally thought about it again. But, thinking back now, I get this incredibly fond feeling for this show, and I remember that the finale absolutely wrecked me and I basically ugly sobbed through the entirety of it. Also very true to form, actually. I want to rewatch it again some time, but honestly preferably with someone who has never seen it before. Which, obviously, is a difficult thing to do given, well, everything.

Next up is something that surprised me a lot. In the middle of having to write my BA thesis, my procrastination thought it would be a great idea to rewatch and catch up on the entirety of Criminal Minds. And so I binged 15 seasons of that instead of writing my thesis. Which, coincidentally, had also just aired its final season not long before I started my binge in March. Rewatching this, I realised just how little I took in of the actual, like, stuff in the show when I first watched it as a teen. Although I mostly cared about the characters and their found family this time around--although I do find the cases really fascinating most of the time too--I noticed just how much I am not watching this for the fact that they are in the FBI. I was hyperaware of how often they shot at people before doing anything else, how many of the suspects died before ever being questioned or being brought in, and it made my skin crawl. I am aware how fucked up the criminal justice system is, and especially in the US, how the police functions and how incredibly glorified they are in the media. But rewatching this show, I realised how little I actually paid attention to anything when I was younger. Big yikes. Still, I remembered my love for these characters, and I really enjoyed that rewatch a whole lot. Found family will always get to me.

Once I finished writing my thesis and handed it in early in July, I then found my next momentary obsession: Community. The show had finally come to Netflix earlier in the year and a friend of mine had watched it then. I remember watching that pilot episode back then and being completely uninterested in watching it. The comedy felt like it wasn’t quite up my street, the characters were entirely unlikeable, and I especially disliked Jeff who the show was more or less centred around. I binged Criminal Minds instead, but then decided to give it another try. And, well, I watched it twice through without taking a break to watch something else in-between. Ironically, and maybe actually unsurprisingly, Jeff ended up being my favourite and I found myself relating a lot to him and his arc throughout the series. I even found myself writing some short ficlet-like things in the notes app on my phone. I made an attempt at starting a third watch, but I guess then the month was up, and my brain decided it was time for something else. My hyperfixations usually tend to die out after about a month. Which is why my complete devotion to Good Omens was a pleasant surprise. I did, however, end up watching quite a bit of Joel McHale and Ken Jeong’s The Darkest Timeline podcast throughout August. 

Early in September, while already preparing for the new term at uni, and my first semester in my Master’s studies, I then turned to New Girl. Friends of mine had seen it and recommended it, and I remember watching probably the entire first season on TV while I was in San Diego the first time around back in 2016. Or at least I think it was the entire first season. Either way, I binged that whole thing, realised through Nick Miller that the go-to character I am drawn to and tend to project on in any piece of media is usually what I like to call “the garbage man,” which Nick is a prime example of. And although I spent a month watching the show in-between starting university again and volunteering at a film festival, I didn’t spend much time afterward thinking about it and moved on to other things rather quickly. I enjoyed watching it, that much I remember, and I’m pretty sure I cried at the finale because it was done wonderfully, but seeing as another month was up, my brain was probably like “okay fine that’s enough”.

I then spent most of fall and early winter watching every single bad Christmas movie available on Netflix, which was quite fun. In that moment of festivity, I also watched a movie I found absolutely brilliant and fell in love with immediately. It’s a beautiful movie called Jingle Jangle, it has a magnificent soundtrack and is absolutely incredible. I had no idea Forest Whitaker could sing and he completely blew me away. If you haven’t seen it already, I highly recommend it. It doesn’t matter that Christmas is already over, it’s beautiful either way.

By the time December finally rolled around, I was already over the whole Christmas thing, to be honest and I turned away from festive movies or shows, and eventually ended up finally picking up a gem I had heard much about and had been meaning to watch for a while. A show which, as it were, also aired its final season earlier this year. This little show is Schitt’s Creek. I will be going on about what this show means to me probably in another post at length, but for now just let me say: if you haven’t seen it, find some place to watch it, and put this beautiful show in your eyeballs. I am on my second run through already (although I’ve seen the second half of the show a second time already while watching it with a friend on their first run through), and it brings me so much fucking joy. It’s a gift, this show. And it will likely stay with me for a very, very long time.

That’s about it for the big things. I also watched a whole lot of other stuff, including entirely new things, or just newly released seasons of things I was already watching. Here’s what I can remember off the top of my head:

Charlie’s Angels (2020). The Night Manager. The Witcher. Dolittle (2020). The Librarians (rewatch). Harley Quinn (2020). Sonic the Hedgehog (2020). The Chef Show (S1 part 3, S2 part 1). Avenue 5. Money Heist (part 4). The Good Fight (S4). Brooklyn Nine-Nine (S7). DuckTales (2017 reboot). Frankenstein live. Staged (2020). Hamilton. Sense8. Julie and the Phantoms. The Boys in the Band. One Night in Miami. Enola Holmes. Supernova. His Dark Materials (S2). Happiest Season. The Great Canadian Baking Show.

I also got some reading done in-between what I had to read for my thesis in spring, and then for regular university courses in fall. Here’s some of what I can remember:

Anthony Horowitz, The House of Silk. Ramona Meisel, Sunblind. Donna Tartt, The Secret History. Good Omens novel and script book. Matt Forbeck, Leverage: The Con Job. Keith R.A. Decandido, Leverage: The Zoo Job. Greg Cox, Leverage: The Bestseller Job. Greg Cox, The Librarians and the Lost Lamp. Greg Cox, The Librarians and the Mother Goose Chase. Greg Cox, The Librarians and the Pot of Gold. Neil Gaiman, Marvel 1602. Christina Henry, The Lost Boy. Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology. John Green, An Abundance of Katherines. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh. Maria Konnikova, The Confidence Game. 

Having mulled over all this entertainment I consumed in 2020, there are also some non-tv or book things I need to point out. As many, many other people around the globe, I have also spent a large amount of time this year on my Nintendo Switch, playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It is a game I have waited for since the Switch was first announced, and I fell in love with it from the moment the first trailer dropped. It has brought me great joy in this weird fucking year, and I have more or less consistently played it since it came out in March. I ended this year with the in-game New Year’s Eve celebration and I feel like that summed up this year quite neatly and appropriately.

This year also brought with it another game very close to my heart: Super Mario Sunshine. With their release of Super Mario 3D All-Stars in September, Nintendo finally brought my all-time favourite Mario game to my all-time favourite console, and I played the entire game through in the first week of owning it, in-between university courses and volunteering at the film festival. Also contained in that package was Super Mario Galaxy which I have also played through in its entirety since. All that’s left for me now is Super Mario 64, which I am excited to play through in the coming year.

And to round off my year of entertainment, there are two more things I would like to mention. First, David Tennant Does A Podcast With..., which released its second season this summer. It is one of the only, if not the only podcast I keep up to date with and listen to immediately whenever a new episode drops. I’ve loved the first season dearly, and David came back with some incredibly fantastic guests for the second season as well. I can’t wait for what the podcast will bring in the future, but I will wait patiently until it is time. I can highly recommend it for everyone who likes interesting conversations between lovely people who clearly adore each other a whole lot.

And finally, while this year brought a whole lot of bullshit with it, it also gave me something I never thought possible and did not even dare to imagine in my wildest dreams. My all-time favourite show announced that it would be rebooted with the same main cast (minus one), a new wonderful member, and involvement of the original creators, and even started filming already in summer. Leverage is coming back. I still cannot believe it. I hoped for a movie, always. That maybe one day, they might bring the gang back together, for one last job, just one more encore. But to get a whole new tv-show with Aldis, Christian, Gina and Beth returning? With the addition of Noah Wyle? I can’t wrap my head around it. I am so excited for this. I predict that I will ugly sob through the entirety of the pilot episode, if not the first season, and will have to rewatch every episode because of it, but I have no doubt that it will be brilliant and wonderful.

True to form, I have now gone on about tv shows and movies for far too long, and haven’t really said anything about this year at all. 2020 was fucking weird. And I don’t think 2021 will be much different quite yet. I wrote an entire BA thesis in 2020. I successfully finished by Bachelor’s degree and started my Master’s studies and even got some excellent first grades in as well. I was lucky enough to be able to see some friends and family throughout the year, and even celebrate my birthday with a small circle of friends. I’ve become closer with friends, shared experiences I wouldn’t trade for the world, and, I think, maybe also grown a bit as a person.

I started this year excited to finally be able to start taking testosterone in February, and to finish the first part of my studies by summer. Although I did both of these things, they didn’t happen quite how I imagined them, but I am glad that I could do these things nevertheless.

2020 was a hell year, for sure. But there were some moments in there that I wouldn’t want to lose.

I’ve tried very hard to not be optimistic about this upcoming year, and rather take a more realistic, even pessimistic approach. But I can’t help but be hopeful. Hopeful that this year will be kind to us, and if it isn’t, that at least, we’ll be kind to ourselves and each other. It won’t be easy, and not much will change, I think. But we have to approach the coming time with kindness and compassion. That’s where I’m at currently. And I think that’s all for now.

Be well, friends, and take care.

[hopevalley]

I've actually enjoyed watching new episodes of the show for the first time in a LONG time! I thought Lucas being frustrated w/ Elizabeth was contrived and misplaced. Was his mom like "me & your father are separated btw i told elizabeth before you?" The bit felt off. But hey, these past three episodes have been fun & much-better written than anything last season. How much of this season's improvement over recent prior ones do you think is due to the season having a new showrunner?

As to Lucas and Elizabeth, I feel this is an issue with shows in general of this runtime and episode length. I like to compare WCtH with Road to Avonlea because both shows had short seasons and 40ish minute long episodes, were family shows, and featured ensemble casts. Avonlea had a similar issue with pacing in the occasional episode. I know I like to nitpick WCtH a lot about its writing, and I never shy from honest critique, but I really do think the hiccup with Lucas and Elizabeth in Ep3 was just a product of needing a few more minutes of screentime—preferably the start of Helen telling Lucas about the situation with his father, since it did feel like him knowing everything came out of almost nowhere. We knew Helen would have to talk to him, but we never really saw her resolve to do so, and I think we earned the emotional payoff of the truth coming out. (As an aside, Helen should have apologized for telling Lucas that Elizabeth knew as well as putting her in a position where she had to keep a secret from someone she cared about. Elizabeth being put in a bad position was awful enough, but then she went and told Lucas that Elizabeth was aware the whole time? Yiiiikesssss...)

I’m pretty confident that Helen told Lucas something like: “I have to tell you something important... Your father...left me...a few weeks ago. I need to apologize for keeping it from you but I didn’t know how to bring it up...” and then probably responded to something Lucas said with a comment about how she’d talked to Elizabeth about it, or Elizabeth suggested she be honest about the situation because Lucas would find out eventually and it would be better if it came directly from her. I could definitely see Helen accidentally being too honest in a situation where she’s nervous about admitting the truth to her own son. She’s probably extremely embarrassed and ashamed, and the episode doesn’t really go into how Helen feels about it. They just jump into talk about love and how it needs to be nurtured and nobody ever asks Helen if she actually loved/loves her husband, let alone if he was a good man/husband to her. 

Not getting a scene where Helen confesses the truth weakens the entire plotline. I’m hoping they’ll just keep improving on this specific aspect of the show, and consider getting rid of unnecessary scenes or entire unnecessary storylines in favor of stronger, more complete stories.

I know their hesitation is based on the idea that not everyone cares about (for example) Lucas, so focusing really hard on Lucas’s relationship with his mother might feel Bad, but the entire “chair” plotline with Rosemary and Lee was unnecessary, as were the longer Florence and Ned scenes. Don’t get me wrong—I enjoyed them! But if they cut those out, or mostly cut them, then there would have been enough screentime for a full scene showing Helen telling Lucas about the truth.

And Chris McNally is clearly an actor who can handle an emotional scene like that, so it would have turned out well, and been well-received by the fans...even the ones who aren’t rooting for Lucas. Because what people who watch this show want to see is...depth, I think. So many relationships feel tacked on or fake. I’ve seen improvement this season, but they could definitely do more to bolster the “community” feel of the show.

--

As to the quality of the season so far...

@trash-god​ and I were chatting earlier this week about how wild it is that we’re both, like, actively looking forward to the next episode regularly. Sure, it’s still pretty early in the season, but we’re 25% of the way through. If the writing stays this consistently decent I think we’ll have the best season in a long time on our hands!

It’s funny because if you lurk on the WCTH subreddit, you’ll see most of the fans there are bored of this season, but I disagree with them in a bit way; this season is DEFINITELY better-written and smoother. As to where to place the credit, I think it’s worth considering the last few seasons and what the writers/writing teams have struggled with.

Season 4: They knew something was going to happen with their lead man so they tried introducing other things and in many ways had success. There were some REALLY GOOD scenes in S4, but there were also scenes or arcs that had a lot of potential that just fell flat. For example, they had that plot where Frank and Abigail got annoyed with each other over the fact that he’s kind of still living (mentally) as a carefree bachelor, and even though it wasn’t as thorough as it should have been, it was a pretty good and realistic storyline. But then later in the season, they introduced Carson, and Frank is suspicious of him for almost no reason (or at least, no solid reason), and then actively is...like a BAD PERSON for NO REASON. Two completely different plots, one was good and felt natural, and the other was awful and cringey. We also have the AJ plotline in S4. It started out super good because it was one of those plots that was genuinely built up to over the course of several episodes. We find out the accountant that was going to testify has withdrawn their statement, then we find out they’ve disappeared and we have a name. Bill discusses it with Abigail and Frank both, multiple times. He thinks it’s a payoff and he’s determined to prove it so he starts poking around. Eventually he gets a lead and follows it, and it’s revealed that AJ is a woman. Bill is annoying. AJ is a liar. I think conceptually this is one of the more interesting plots they’ve cobbled together, but in execution it was lacking toward the end of the story. Bill spent two episodes fighting AJ’s attitude and in the end he just lets her go with a smile? That isn’t like Bill at all. There’s a scene or two missing to make that reaction make sense. They don’t interact enough to give us the idea that Bill *understands* her, let alone would be okay with her literally breaking out of his jail ON HIS WATCH.

Season 5: They had to write Jack out of the story and had to rush a wedding in to “appease” the fans. They also had to write Shane, Philip, Frank, and Dottie off the show in this season (Dottie because the actress deals with a chronic illness and can no longer do acting work—I want to say she has Lyme’s). So they cobble this like, awkward storyline to write Frank out that doesn’t really make a lot of sense. They put this dramatic story together for Philip (when him just moving away would have been better/more interesting), and they try to bring AJ back for another 2-part episode, which sounded fun until we actually had to watch the episodes. It was at this point that I thought, “The people writing this show...think they’re writing a movie script.” It’s not that I think AJ isn’t pushy or emotionally blunt, but it definitely came across in those episodes that they wrote her that way specifically because the plot wouldn’t work out if she wasn’t. She does unreasonable things. For some reason Bill still has feelings even though she’s done nothing to earn them. (And vice-versa; he’s just so mean to her...why would she be interested?) Everyone was like :O when the AJ episodes weren’t very well-received. But like, I didn’t want AJ to come back for a huge dramatic rattlesnake bite scene. I wanted her back to see her emotional struggle with facing prison. I wanted to really see where they’d go with her seeing Henry Gowen. She says she wants to start over in Hope Valley after prison, but like...WHY? The only people who are nice to her are Dottie and Abigail! And then after this super dramatic poorly written set of scenes that pretty much ensured AJ would never be seen on the show again (because her presence was actively mocked by a lot of fans) they actually kill off Jack and try to have a deeply emotional and thoughtful episode.

The worst part is that...the post-death episode was good. The actors were great. Then you look back at the dramatic rattlesnake stuff and you’re just like, “What went wrong here?”

Season 6: They decided they were going to introduce a love triangle, so they start doing that, but then Abigail’s character AS WELL AS CODY’S CHARACTER has to be cut from the show, so they edit those out. I still think doing this was the right thing—Abigail as a character was literally UNBEARABLE throughout most of S5—but I also can’t deny that it probably brought the cohesiveness and overall quality of the season down by a bit, particularly with Abigail acting as a buffer between Nathan/Lucas and Elizabeth. I have no way of knowing if they edited other characters into those roles (it’s possible Bill became a buffer between Nathan and Elizabeth, for example), but the editing still gave us some scenes that just didn’t...quite work, like the one where Elizabeth comforts Henry, or when Lee becomes Bill’s confidant regarding the position of judge being offered to him.

Season 7: In their attempt to make Lucas seem “mysterious” they accidentally made him come off almost creepy. More than once. They had some good ideas in this season, but the writing felt a bit choppy and isolated from episode to episode. Of course Nathan’s father was innocent. Of course it was resolved in five minutes. You could see they were trying REALLY hard for cohesiveness at certain points (Elizabeth tried talking to Henry about his attitude; Jesse mentioned Frank; Dottie was mentioned), but each episode felt very isolated from the others, almost as if most of them were written completely separately from the rest.

And you’ll notice in S4, 5, and 6, we kind of have a similar problem, where some plots feel like they were written or inserted into the story independent of the other plotlines. Frank breaking into Carson’s room at the saloon to snoop through his stuff was one of the worst things in the season (literally cringey—and not in that “character is doing something in character that is hard to watch” way, but rather, “this character would literally never do that” way). The AJ storyline in S5 felt like the person who wrote it watched AJ & Bill’s interactions in S4 and absorbed ONLY the fact that they bickered a bit (and then didn’t know how to write that dynamic in a pleasing way). Writing Abigail out of the show was for the best, but it forced cracks in the plotlines that weren’t necessarily filled, as well as gave us interactions that didn’t feel quite right.

And I think S7 was trying to get on the right track, but wrote episodes in a very disjointed, haphazard kind of manner. There were good things about it, yes, but there were also some very...bad things. 

And overall the problem almost universally was that it felt like some of the episodes/interactions were written as if they were part of a movie, as part of a one time deal, instead of something that would need to be carried forward. If you go back and look over some plotlines you can start to see where the writers...didn’t know how to write fanfiction. S5 AJ is not the same character as S4 AJ. She doesn’t feel the same. She’s not written with S4 AJ in mind. She’s not a natural version of the character that exists a year later in the storyline...and then she was given a storyline that they had to force the character to fit, instead of tailoring a storyline to match the character. And they continued this trend...over...and over...and over...and over.

And now, finally, it feels that they may actually have a head writer who knows how to write television, who knows that in order to write a successful television series, you have to go back and watch the early episodes. You have to see how the characters have evolved. You have to consider how they’ve gotten to where they are, and where they will LOGICALLY go from here based on things that happen to or around them.

I don’t want to state this as Fact too early, but I definitely think it’s a factor. We’ll see how the rest of the season plays out, but I hope the quality continues to be as good as it is.

[kaypeace21]

Do you have any meta/theory on the significance of the cleric/paladin d&d characters vs wizard/dungeon master. Is maybe one more Will and Mike's relationship and the other their role in the story as a whole? Sorry if you already mentioned this and this is redundant

Yeah, I’ve talked about it before. But why not talk about it again? It’s been a while- and Will’s recently published journal (plus st tweets) added more to this symbolism

The Duffers used Will and Mike’s d&d classes to say they’re soulmates! XD

Will in all 3 seasons identifies as a wizard- he even writes on the mixtape he makes “will the wise- wizard mix” (which is a different class than clerics). Even in s1 Will’s castle byer’s password was “rhadaghast” a lothr wizard.

But in s2 Mike (the paladin) says that Will is a cleric. Meaning this reflects how Mike (alone) actually feels about Will. In d&d, they have similar moral values, powers, and generally need and depend on each other in the lore of d&d.  Mike says Will is a cleric,despite Will still identifying as a wizard in s3, since it shows how deeply Mike actually feels about Will.

It shows he views Will as one of the only people who understands him and views him as a his moral compass 

“ strength of conviction gave many paladins a sense of common fellowship but did not always endear them to others. In many cases, paladins did not get along quite as well with other non-paladin adventurers, with the exception of clerics with similar beliefs.”

“A Paladin tries to hold to the highest standards of conduct, but even the most virtuous Paladin is fallible. Sometimes the heat of emotion causes a Paladin to transgress his or her oath (of honesty, courage, compassion, honor ,and duty). A paladin who has broken a vow typically seeks absolution from a cleric who shares his or her faith or from another paladin of the same order…

“The paladin might spend an all-night vigil in prayer as a sign of penitence, or undertake a fast or similar act of self-denial.”

“After a rite of confession and forgiveness, the paladin starts fresh.”

“Using the ‘lay on hands’ power, paladins can grant their comrades (or themselves) additional resilience with a touch of their hands and a short prayer, though they must give their own strength to do so.”

And Mike calls El a “mage” which wasn’t even a class in D&D (in the 80s)- A line he says to Max about zoomer (who he doesn’t like) …so… how much do you want to bet Mike was the one who made him and Will matching by giving him and Will “lawful good” (since this is writen in his starter kit). And he already ignored the fact Will is a wizard. 

But in Will’s recently published cannon journal he also does this- he keeps Lucas (Ranger) , Dustin (Bard) and his own character (a wizard) …but he changes Mike to a cleric !!!

Because Clerics have the strongest of healing abilities

Mike thinks Will brings out the best in him. And Will thinks Mike as someone who helps him heal. So they both call each other clerics.

D&D also represents their romantic relationship

when they fight in s3 Mike says “I’m not trying to be a jerk. We’re not kids anymore. I mean…what did you think? That we’d never get girlfriends. Play games for the rest of our lives?” And the truth is that’s actually what Mike wants- which is why he was upset about Will trying to give away the d&d game . And why he still has all of Will’s d&d pictures on his basement’s wall (which he’s kept on his wall for years- despite removing the old poster from the wall). And during Hopper’s speech, when it pans to Mike , Hopper says “I miss playing games every night.”

* He also caresses Will’s  d&d drawing- when he thinks he’s dead- and has a binder filled with every d&d drawing Will has ever given him.

 In the first ep - Will  admits he rolls a 7 (since he couldn’t lie to Mike)-  and in the last ep of s1 (they show us Mike smiling at Will right before Will rolls a 14- since they’re 7s together.) Mike even apologizes to EL saying “sorry I sound like a 7 year old.” When talking about how all 3 can play with toys & right after talking about Will visiting to play. and mentions Will’s rolls as a way to convince Lucas to help him look for him.And Mike even mentions Will rolls as a way to convince Lucas to help him look for him in the first ep.

Mike in the last ep in s1 ,writes a d&d story for Will.  in ep one Will tells Mike “it was a 7, the demogorgan it got me.”At the end of the season Mike writes a whole story of him and his friends killing a 7 headed monster, and showing the decapitated head of the monster to king Tristan (Will). Similar to how at the hospital he tells Will to not worry cause “it’s dead now”. This is right after Will rolls a 14 (cause Mike and Will are 7s together). And Mike who is a fan of starwars has King Tristan give them medals after killing the monster. Cause he wants Will/king tristan (instead of Leia -a girl) to present him with medals and be his romantic love interest (and praise him for being a hero)…

In the pilot, they even say Will uses d&d to “escape” his insecurities about his sexuality “like mike” & Mike uses d&d to “escape” his insecurities about not having a gf.  * And no, dustin & Lucas didn’t use d&d to “escape” anything- in the pilot script.

Mike angrily yells “El’s not stupid. It’s not my fault you don’t like girls” to himself- cause Will hit a nerve when saying mileven was ruining their friendship - because a part of Mike is trying to use El to put distance between him and Will . Dustin in s1 foreshadows the fight, saying “all you want to do is spent time with her… and you know it and he knows it. And nobody says anything until you’re yelling at eachother like goblins with intelligence scores of zero.” (Another  d&d ref/ ‘love makes you stupid’ ref.).

And also, maybe a part of him resents how Will is making him feel. So he says this whole speech , in the garage, to himself - to keep his romantic feelings for Will under control ( expecting Will to agree with the heteronormative statement). Which is why he was so shocked when Will (who he assumes is straight) and he expects would agree -  instead says “yeah, I guess I did. I really did.” (about never getting gfs but instead being together for the rest of their lives). 

And the  “crazy together” scene (which is romantic since both Mike & Flo both equate love making you ‘crazy’. Flo says “ only love makes you crazy and that damn stupid”). And the ‘crazy together’ scene also has a zoom-in on Mike’s d&d game.

(x)(x)

Mike and Will both love each other (and El is just confused). He wants to be with Will- but he’s scared. The Hopper dialogue even says “Lately, I feel like you’re pulling away from me or something? I miss playing board games every night.” Mike was upset when Will gives the game up- but Will says “I’ll just play with yours when I come back… if we still want to play?” In other words- the ball is in Mike’s court- if he wants Will, he has to initiate it. Because Will assumes he was “stupid” to think he had a chance. Mike is also acting “stupid” because he’s pushing away Will despite loving him, and hurting him in the process (the opposite of a cleric).

But Mike in s4 will admit his feelings to Will… since after Will says this line, Mike asks

“Yeah, but what happens if you want to join another party? ” (find someone else (‘another’) before that- the other ‘species’, or just someone else: girl, guy or otherwise?”

But Will decides to make himself vulnerable and just be honest,  and shyly admits “Not possible” (much to Mike’s happiness)

so yes- this tweet is about byler

They even answered the question of ‘what makes Mike crazy’ with one’ joke’ response - of Will asking about d&d. And in a separate post made fun of mileven by ending it with “can we just play d&d?”

And when, Mike and Will open up to each other about their mental-health issues,  that’s when they both agree that no matter what they’ll be together- “crazy together”. It’s a double entendre - they’re crazy cause they’re in love- but also “crazy” and will be “together” to help each other through their issues.  This theme is double-downed on in Will’s cannon journal (where it’s established “crazy together” is shown to be Mike & Will’s thing- not mileven’s). As Mike tells Will to tell him when he’s having ptsd episodes since- they're “crazy together”.

*Will draws Mike’s d&d character next to the sticky-note. And we also see throughout Will’s whole journal- Mike’s d&d character is always by Will’s (d&d character’s side). And on the cover of his journal Will ONLY draws his and Mike’s character- cause they’re “crazy together”.

Mike specifically says to get him when he’s having ptsd episodes about the mf (which represent Will’s se*ually abusive father- theory here/ here).

That’s what love is - like Flo said only love makes you “crazy” and “stupid” and this is only applicable to byler.  Mike and Will love and  bring out the best in each other-  heal each other. Being “crazy together” to Mike is about being selfless and wanting the best for you partner’s happiness no matter what- with mileven it was simply a way to excuse his poor behavior to El (under the guise of ‘love’).

 For all the supernatural stuff to stop , Will has to face his trauma and heal. This involves having a strong support  (of friends and family) and Will learning to not hate himself any longer, because of his past abuse and sexuality. And to stop correlating his love (for Mike) with his past abuse/trauma (represented by the monsters. And Mike and Will have to embrace their love for each other. And let go of their shame. When Will ‘dies’ in s1, Mike hugs his mom ,and  Heroes plays, and the lyrics are “and we kiss as though nothing could fall and the shame… was on the other side.” In s1 the term “other side” was used to describe the upside down. So it’s saying Will’s shame relating to Lonnie will eventually be on the other side, and so Mike and Will kiss ‘as though nothing could fall’. In Will’s journal he even draws Mike’s d&d character again with the caption “never Kenny Roggers”. This is because Jonathan asks ‘who would you rather  be friends with David bowie or Kenny roggers?”. And Heroes was originally sung by David Bowie- making the byler hint of this being ‘their song’, more apparent. The cannon Will-comic is even titled  the “other side” and Mike is on the opposite end (‘the other side’ waiting for Will who is trapped in the upside down looking up at the imposing figure of the demogorgan). The demorgogan in blue light and mike in opposing red light. The monsters Will created are based on the d&d game and his prior abuse at the hands of lonnie. But byler’s love is also represented by d&d- and thus the only way to stop it.

gif credit: cath-avery 

[marlahey]

@rochey1010​ going back and forth in long-winded replies seems like unnecessary effort for both of us so I hope you don’t mind another text post as I fully articulate my thoughts. as I’ve said before, you’re obviously entitled to your own opinions, but you’ve now seemed to make a lot of assumptions about me a fan/viewer/general consumer of media that I feel like I should clear up. you’ve also made some further claims about the show I’d like to pick up for discussion. If you want to speak further please feel free to respond but of course don’t feel obligated. This’ll be the last public post/reply I make and we can go back to ignoring each other in the tags!

Well i love Eliott/Lola's friendship and i have an upcoming post on that as i said in other posts. I love lola too but i'm sorry i didn't just start watching this show because lola was invented and there's a w/w love story. I've been here for seasons and carried over from OG. I have investment in eliott for personal reasons (mental health) and elu because duh. Their stories have been long running too as i said. And you don't have to be a main to set up a plot/arc. The things between them have been set up since S3 with minute par minute talk, S4 and Idriss, S5 and the cheating perspective, and now S6 and Lola friendship. That is intentional. Do you think it's a coincidence that Lucas talked about pansexuality and eliott having more choice in S5 and suddenly Eliott has a friendship with a girl. That lucas abandonment issues haven't been resolved and are now coming to the forefront because of this friendship? That max has stated that Eliott feels he can save someone from a darkness he himself went through, that eliott himself was sorta saved from the shadows by Lucas. That neils/david specifically stated that this character can help someone even though he has bipolar disorder. That with Eliott's arc there is a focus on his SKAM. That we now have new info about it serving the season. If you understand writing. These things aren't put there for fun. They are there to imply/hint/foreshadow events actions to come. That there is a character now on the show with Lola basically female eliott. Do you think these are all coincidences. This plot we are seeing has slowly been set up not just since S3 but actually heavily developed starting in S5. And that if you now go back and watch S5 you see our main players being set up for this plot e.g  dasille relationship, daphne's ED, Eliott and his individuality, Elu trust/insecurity issues, Eliott's art and it tying into seasonal themes, Lola herself and her outlier persona etc. I don't know whether you are but there are many fans have migrated over from espana just for this season. But you have to understand there is a long term fanbase here that love Eliott, are invested in him and have been waiting for more of his insight. We are now getting that and we will talk about him. He's a hugely popular character as is Lucas and their love. I love both and i will talk about both. Sometimes i won't talk much About lola and talk more about eliott, sometimes i'll connect them and discuss their relationship, sometimes i'll make a post about just about lola, daphne, tiff, benny, movie references as i have. But this is my blog and i'll post what i want to post. You don't have to read any of this stuff. The tag is a big place, just scroll by. As for the theories- just theories. And in my theories i believe these characters are going to make mistakes, fail and grow e.g. lola self Destructing again but being her own hero by the end, eliott and lola being dragged down like lucas said but showing the strength of their friendship by the end, lucas being proven right but also proven wrong by the end. Like i said specific dialogue now being used is not just there to fill the script e.g. "and i have lucas. I can't lose this" "i think one of you may bring the other down" and eliott is heading for a rock bottom as is lola. Again just my thoughts. 👍

While I find it odd that you seem to be gatekeeping the skam france fan community, to be clear I have seen the entirety of three iterations: og, france, and austin. I believe I started OG during s2 or 3, and have seen Fr and Aus from the beginning. I’m not as interested in other versions as I’m very familiar with the plots/characters by now. I’m partial to france as a bilingual canadian as it’s nice to exercise that part of my brain; I’ve also studied/lived there briefly and have some very close friends from france so that amplifies my enjoyment. I’m also bisexual, so I also find this ‘only here for lola + w/w’ when you yourself admit to being emotionally invested in the show’s most dominant queer ship dichotomy very awkward.  to be honest, I think many skam’s fandoms tend to fixate on the esak ship and their season. friends have seen other iterations and confirmed this for me. it happened with elu as expected so I was really unsurprised when maya was introduced and fandom immediately put a lot of their investment into shipping two characters of the same gender. nearly every fandom in general does this: teen wolf, glee, supernatural to name a few – even harry potter. I’m not really a fan of the romantic subplot in lola’s season. she is not elliot 2.0 for so many reasons; she’s her own person and she doesn’t need a romantic partner to be a compelling character with a compelling story. that being said, I liked elu’s season. I particularly love maxence’s elliot; he’s my favourite even. I was thrilled to see him onscreen however briefly after S3 every time he appeared. now he’s finally his own person outside of his relationship with lucas and I couldn’t be more pleased to see that.  I’m not sure how idriss and elliot reconnecting after the attempted kiss falling out plays into lucas’ insecurity or their relationship. it’s perhaps a reminder of his bipolar disorder or the fact that he clearly had friends/relationships before lucas, but I’m not sure how it’s relevant to the season at hand. the biphobia discussion with arthur preceeding lola’s introduction as the new main is not proof that lucas’ supposed abandonment issues are founded in any way, or that he even still has them when we meet her. by insisting on it, you’re perpetuating the harmful idea that any bi or pan person will be tempted to cheat or leave (physically or emotionally) when presented with literally any person whose gender opposes their current partner. this is something that skam fr had literally left unaddressed for so long even with representation in alexia and elliot, and I was so thrilled when it finally came up. it’s very uncomfortable that you’re now using that important conversation as apparent proof that lucas will be abandoned or betrayed, inadvertently or not, by his pansexual boyfriend. I know that daphné was meant to be s6′s main and skam fr wasn’t given the rights by og’s creator. so it makes sense that she/her relationship/struggles feature heavily in her sister’s season. I’m personally thrilled cause I love her and lula is a wonderful actress. that being said, not everything is foreshadowing. not every single interaction or conversation will return to further plot or character. sometimes storylines are just resolved or dropped and awareness raised is just awareness raised. sometimes it’s wonderful and sometimes less so. I understand writing. I’m saying this as a literal former english teacher (ignoring capitalization for aesthetic lol) and assistant in film/tv post-production with an MA in media studies. “Lucas, you have nothing to worry about, it’s not like that between us.” “I know, he explained it to me.”  I’m not sure how much clearer the literal show can be about this issue. spoiler or not, it’s been made abundantly clear that lola and elliot are not romantically involved. even more importantly and I’ve said this on my blog before, you’re allowed to have intimacy with someone without forcing it into a defined familial or romantic relationship. it doesn’t mean that someone’s partner should necessarily feel threatened or abandoned and says a lot more about that person’s insecurity than either individual in the friendship. we’ve also already discussed how much I dislike this turn for lucas’ character as elliot’s apparent MH saviour so it’s not worth repeating again. as for elliot saving lola, well he literally did that already. I’m not sure what you mean by lucas ‘being proven right and proven wrong’ by the end, but you’re obviously adamant that something will happen. I have also seen maxence’s interview a few times. I’ll not argue with the ‘lucas saved elliot from that shadow’ because it literally came from the actor’s mouth, but maxence doesn’t say he can save anyone else from their struggles, but help them and I think that’s a really important distinction. this whole saving idea doesn’t seem healthy at all, especially as lola and elliot grapple with their mental health. it seems like people want to see a ‘rock bottom’ (whatever that means) for them both and it makes me a little uncomfortable. addiction and MH struggles should not have to reach a breaking point in order to be considered resolved or cathartic; they don’t even have to be resolved, because they’re not a plot device. they’re a reality for so many people. the show does a good job of not romanticizing them but some of the things I see in the tag are just... yikes.  as for his ‘dark’ side and the less than happy elu moments, I’d argue that maxence may have meant literally punching out what’s his face to save lola and the subsequent argument(s) with lucas, since that interview came out just before ep 4. but there’s still several eps to go so I could be totally wrong. who knows. it’s your right to theorize on your own blog of course and it’s not my intention to be mean. I’m just trying to further the discourse in a respectful way. I do feel that you may put a little too much stock in what’s literally said/seen and assuming a lot in the unseen gaps, rather than considering a broader context. to wrap up though, lucas is free to have this (however hurtful) fear, just as you’re free to believe it’ll for sure come to pass.  I dread seeing either lola or elliot spiral out, but as 2020 has taught me, I very rarely get what I want lol. thank you @cakepleasee for helping me sort out my thoughts!

[mytsukkishine]

small fluffy prompt bc i know you've wanted some (for damien haas ofc), kinda sucks but oh well. maybe the two of them are super close friends at smosh and evryone knows they like each other but the two of them are just oblivious to it all?? but then 1 of them lets slip that they like someone the other knows and the other (either damien or reader) is jealous. u don't need to include the last bit tho if you don't want to. btw, love what you did with that other prompt. :)

a/n: hi anon. Thank u for the lovely request. I enjoyed writing this one, as you can see its 2k workds lmao and hope you would enjoy this too!

a/n2: i kinda changed the storyline on this one but still i hope you will like it! Thank you!

Summary: Arcades and realizations. What a fun way to ask someone out after being... jealous?

Note: summary is super random . Damn i spologise. Alsoo Jelous Damien yey!! Also I posted this while on phone, I will check grammars after I open my laptop tomorrow. Thanksss

Enjoy guys!

wordcount: 2,173k.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Look!” You exclaimed excitedly as soon as you entered the squad’s office. It was a Monday, meaning all of them would be dead tired and complaining about Monday but not you. You were excited because later after work, you’ll go to the movies with Damien.

Well, not just Damien. You will go to the movies with Shayne, Courtney, Ian, and Damien.

Damien, who was doing something on his computer stopped. He put his headphones around his neck and turned to look at you with a smile, “Yeah?” He responded, cheeks still a little pink.

“The trailer for Season four!” You showed him your phone and Damien read for a moment before his eyes widen. “No shit! Have you watched the trailer?”

“Not yet. I want to watch it with you,” Damien’s heart skipped a beat and he immediately grabbed the nearest seat and put it beside him before ushering you to sit and watch it on his desktop.

“Oh no, do you have earphones so we can both hear?”

“I have none,” You pouted and Damien puts his hand under his chin to think before grabbing his headphone to rotate on headphone cup to the outside. “Would this do?” He asked and showed you his headset. You nodded and Damien searched up the trailer for My Hero Academia S4.

Damien clicked the video and paused it before wearing his headphone. You immediately, as if you two have done this before, put your face next to him, ears pressed up to the open headphone cup as the two of you watched the trailer—completely unaware of Shayne, Boze, and Keith’s gaze on you two.

They were wondering whether you two are going out. Or when would you two go out.

~

Ever since Damien entered Smosh, you two hit it up quite quickly. You both love anime, and cats and you both were talking non-stop for a week just because of that.

At first, you were unaware of your feelings for him. Both of you have already went to the movies alone, eat out alone, even went to the cat café alone, however, one night. Only one night made you realize that, shit, you like your friend.

The Smosh fam has thrown a party for one of their producers and you had one too many drinks that night. However, what they don’t know about you was that your alcohol tolerance was higher than any other person. So, they all thought you were drunk because you were talking too much. Actually, when you drank too much, you would get talkative and super red but not drunk. Shayne had suggested you go home and Damien volunteered.

He was assisting you with your every step. Hands always on your waist for support and you can just feel Damien’s concern for you.

“I’m good now,” You said once you stepped in front of your apartment door. Damien was looking at you worriedly and you giggled. You looked down and you realized that you two were holding hands.

“I can help you up,” Damien suggested and you just waved him off, hands still linked together.

You averted your gaze up, eyes meeting each other then you found yourself resting your head on the crook of Damien’s neck.

Confusion was written on your face for a moment, you don’t know why you have done it but as soon as Damien patted your hair, your heart did some backflips.

“Hey dude, earth to Y/N,” You snapped out of your thoughts and felt something cold on your cheeks. You looked at the source and saw Damien with a smile and a cola in hand pressed against you face. You took the can with a thanks as Damien sat beside you.

“Why were you staring at your computer for a minute?” He asked, drinking his own can of cola. You brought your hand up and rubbed your eyes, thanking yourself for not putting it mascara earlier. “I’m just writing a script, that’s all.”

“Whoa, can I peek?”

“Peek, and you’re dead.”

“Why so mean Ms. Y/F/N.” You blushed. Damien rarely calls you by your full name and it sent butterflies in your stomach, even though you dislike butterflies.

“Hey how about this, after work let’s go to the arcade,” He suggested and you rolled your eyes, “Aren’t we too old for arcades?”

“Nah uh, we aren’t. Come on, what do you say?” He looked at you suggestively and admittedly, he looked so handsome you want to squish his face. You sighed in defeat as you nodded, Damien cheered and exclaimed on how he can’t wait for later.

~

Now, Damien has known you for quite some time and he was glad you two had hit it off quite easy. At first he was cautious but as soon as you mention you watch anime, Damien can’t stop.

Damien has Shayne to talk to about anime, but it was really different when you talk to someone who also reads the manga. You managed to read mangas and Damien was enthusiastic.

At first, Damien was unaware of his feelings for you. Kind of avoiding that topic in his head whenever he sees you. But one day. Only one day was needed that he realized, shit, he likes his friend.

Damien was busy playing, eyes never leaving his screen and him, Mari and Wes played some game. It was nearing afternoon and Damien was getting a little stressed with the game. Wes was winning and Damien hides it a little that he doesn’t want Wes to win.

Damien the groaned and stared at his camera for a long time as the rest laughed out. They gave out their outros and the shoot was done.

“Nice job everyone,” Mari cheered and Wes emitted a laugh as he pointed at Damien. “Sorry bud. Maybe next time,” Damien pouted and there was a tap on his computer screen.

“Hey Dames,” You greeted with a smile. Damien then proceeds to whine a little, telling you that he would win next time.

You just laughed and patted his head. Your smile was blinding and pretty sure Damien can’t see anything else but your reassuring smile.

“Dames,”

“Yes?” Damien was waiting outside your office and he didn’t realize that he had zoned out for minutes. “Ready?” You asked, feeling all excited to go to the arcade with him.

“Yeah, come on!”

It has been a while since the two of you hang out, just the two of you. You were pretty excited as you both entered Damien’s car. “Where to?”

“Maybe near the xxx?” Damien suggested and you nodded. As Damien was driving, you picked up the aux cord and rummaged through your phone. “What you gonna play?”

“You’ll see,” You smirked and pressed play. Soon, the both of you were singing your hearts out to Boku No Hero opening songs.

~

“Pretty packed, huh?” You commented as soon as you opened the door. Damien was scratching the back of his head as he looked around the arcade. “Yeah, didn’t know it would be full on the weekday,” Damien apologized but you immediately waved him off.

“No, no it’s fine. Come on, let’s play!”

You and Damien played from basketball shooting to race car driving. It was so fun, and looking at Damien laughing and enjoying because of you made your heart all warm and fuzzy.

Half an hour later, you both decided to eat when a group of girls stopped you. Well, more like Damien. They seemed to be fans as they were talking to him about how awesome he was and if it was okay to take a picture with him. Of course, who was Damien to refuse? He’s the kindest person you have ever known.

You stood on the side as you watched Damien get surrounded by girls. This was bad, you thought as you felt your chest tightening when one girl went in for a hug, her hands wrapped around his waist as Damien posed with a dashing smile.

Releasing a groan, you turned around with a pout.

You knew damn well Damien was quite famous so you don’t really have the rights to complain. Hell, you weren’t eve his girlfriend—

Girlfriend.

You felt your cheeks heating up at the thought.

Oh god, girlfriend.

“Hey, sorry to keep you waiting. Let’s go? Taco Bell?” You released the breath you didn’t know you were holding and Damien looked at you worriedly. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh nothing. Just—I suddenly remembered work stuff.”

“Oh no. Y/N is super stressed. This requires food! Let’s go!” Damien grabbed hold of your shoulders as he guide the both of you to the nearest Taco Bell.

~

“You know, why are they so thin but yet, only one can already make me feel so full?” You showed Damien the quesadilla you were holding and Damien shook his shoulder, eating his food in the process. “Beats me. They look like you wanted four but then you quit after two.”

The both of you continued to talk animatedly, any random topics that would came into your minds will automatically be the new topic.

This was what Damien liked. Just you and him talking about random stuff. It made him happy that somehow he would get to know you more and more. And the way you laugh, damn, Damien wanted to pinch those cheeks of yours.

Y/N was discussing about something when she was suddenly interrupted and she stood up to hug that guy that interrupted her.

“Max!”

Max? Who is he? Damien thought as he looked at you and the new comer. You two seemed close. Too close.

You and this so called Max broke the hug and ask how each other was and all. Damien’s lip formed a thin line as he grabbed for his drink and drank a little too harsh.

Damien knew damn well you were pretty. With you hair and eyes, and those lips. You were so pretty, he kind of questions how the two of you became friends. However, as he looked on how you and Max interacted he can’t help but to feel… jealous.

Jealous? No, no. He doesn’t have any reasons to be jealous because he isn’t your boyfriend—

Boyfriend.

Damien’s already red cheeks went redder.

Oh god, boyfriend.

~

Something was wrong. You felt it. Damien was awfully quiet right now as he was driving you home. It was nearing eight, the sun has already set and traffic was unpleasant.

He said he was just tired but you can feel that it wasn’t just tired. You were tired but not that exhausted to be all quiet.

As soon as he parked in front of your apartment, you bit your lips. Eyes scanning the dashboard as you process in your brain on what to say to Damien.

“We’re here…” Damien announced and you groaned. Turning to look at him with a pout.

“Tell me what is bothering you,” You said, more like demanded and Damien was taken aback. He released a sigh before resting his back on his seat.

“Nothing,”

“Don’t nothing me Damien Christian,” Damien cringed a little as you called him by his full name.

“Ever since Taco Bell you have been acting quiet,” You started, eyes never leaving his face.

Was this your first ever quarrel with him? You don’t like it one bit.

“And I don’t know what to do. It’s making me all anxious knowing something might be wrong and the reason might be me. Damien tell me—”

“I like you.”

Silence.

Pure silence surrounded you both as Damien looked at the steering wheel, afraid to look into your eyes.

He hated it. How he had let his temper and feelings in the way. Well, it was go home or go big. Damien can’t back out now.

“I’m sorry…” He finally managed to mutter out, eyes still glued in front. “I like you… ever since. And I—oh god this is so stupid,”

“Why is it so stupid?” You managed to ask and Damien immediately averted his gaze to you and saw tears pooling in your eyes. He quickly unstrapped his seatbelt as he leaned into you to cup your face.

He was even more scared to see you on the brink of tears.

“No, what I meant-”

“Is it so stupid to like me?”

Damien stared at your face as you avoid eye contact. “No,” He said softly, “No, no. No. Oh god, no.” Damien sighed as he wiped away the unshed tears. “I—”

“Because I like you too, Damien,” Damien’s eyes widen at your sudden confession and he badly wanted to kiss you right now but he hugged you instead.

“Oh, t-that’s—I…” You two were speechless and you both succumbed into each other’s arms.

“Silly Dames,” You commented and both of you laughed, still entangled in a hug.

You were so worried. You thought you have ruined your friendship somehow but it turns out to be quite different. You smiled under Damien’s hug.

Oh god, you love this dude so much.

--

Do tell me what u think. Thankuuu

[wild-aloof-rebel]

Hey, I often read that the timeline doesn't always makes sense in sc and now I'm curious! Do you have some examples??

oh absolutely. i’ve discussed it with various others in various posts across my blog, but let’s see if i can get most of the highlights in one post.

most of the confusion centers around the timeline of s4, including david’s birthday (and thus the start of his relationship with patrick), a couple throwaway comments about summer, and jocelyn’s pregnancy, so let’s start with that.

this discussion nearly always starts with david’s pin in “moira’s nudes” because he indicates that he uses his birthday as his pin. what he types into the atm is 1282, which would make his birthday either jan 2 1982 or feb 1 1982 depending on whether that’s month-day-year like in the u.s. or day-month-year like most of the rest of the world. HOWEVER, what he tells the teller is 7283, which would make his birthday either jul 2 1983 or feb 7 1983. she does tell him before that that he needs to pick a new pin, so you could assume that 7283 is the new pin and not his birthday, but after he says it out loud, johnny says “what about my birthday?” which implies that what david just said is indeed his own birthday. (plus, i trust a number written into the actual dialogue—and therefore officially part of the script—to be more accurate than whatever dan happened to punch into the machine while filming.) anyway, the point is that we’re already starting from a place of confusion, where we have four potential options for david’s birthdate. so which one is it?

we know from “grad night” that david’s birthday is on the same day as alexis’s high school graduation. in canada, the school year ends in late june, so it would then make sense for “grad night” to take place in late june/very early july. three of the options for david’s birthday are in january and february, which leaves us with july 2 as the only birthday option that makes sense to be on the same night as alexis’s graduation. okay, cool. that means david’s birthday–and thus david and patrick’s first date–is on july 2. we’re getting somewhere.

in “pregnancy test” jocelyn finds out she’s pregnant. it’s clearly been long enough for her to have noticed and thought she was maybe going through menopause instead. david and patrick have presumably been dating for at least a week or two at this point, though possibly a bit longer. either way, this is most likely still in july (or possibly very early august), and jocelyn is likely about 2 months pregnant at this point.

in “asbestos fest” alexis says “is this the number? it’s the middle of summer.” middle might be a stretch, but feasibly yes, this can certainly still be summer.

in “open mic” jocelyn and roland find out the sex of the baby, which typically happens around 4 to 5 months. that puts us about 2 to 3 months after “pregnancy test” which would mean that the open mic night is taking place in probably late september or into october. so far so good.

“the barbecue” rolls around, and it’s david and patrick’s four month anniversary. that makes it november. weird time of year for a barbecue, and they’re clearly having unseasonably warm weather, but alright, climate change etc etc. we can make this work at a very long stretch.

stevie says david waited “a full week to forgive [patrick]” which means “the olive branch” is a week after rachel shows up. however, stevie also says “you’re wearing a leather sweater in the dead of summer,” which… what?? that can’t be anywhere close to true.

after that is jocelyn’s baby shower, which is typically around the 6 to 8 month mark of a pregnancy. if she was 4 to 5 months in open mic, that puts us somewhere between november and january for the shower.

“singles week” rolls around and jocelyn goes into labor “a few days early” according to johnny. therefore it’s been pretty much a full nine months now. if “pregnancy test” was in july, that puts jocelyn giving birth in about february. which would be fine except…

roland jr. is clearly no more than a few months old in “merry christmas johnny rose.” this definitely can’t be the following christmas or he’d be closer to 10 months old (there’s no way the baby in the carrier is that old). but it also can’t be the preceding christmas because there’s no way he was born then. 

since that doesn’t work, let’s say we shift everything back to david having a january birthday instead, which pushes everything up by six months. that means roland jr. is born in august, which makes the christmas stuff work out a bit better. it also makes stevie’s comment about the leather sweater in the dead of summer better because now it would be taking place in may, when it could theoretically be hot enough out to be considered summer. but then you’ve got the issue of alexis somehow graduating in january, which doesn’t work at all, and you’ve got asbestos fest taking place in february or so, which is by no means “the middle of summer” as alexis says.

the only way that both asbestos fest and david’s olive branch can both take place in summer is if one is at the start of the summer and the other is at the end. if we say then that “the olive branch” takes place in august, that puts david’s birthday and his first date with patrick in april. that gives us roland jr being born around november, which works with the christmas special sort of okay. this is probably the timeline that works best, but it only works if you completely ignore the whole pin situation because NONE of those indicate that david’s birthday could be in april.

everything about the timeline works like this. you have to pick and choose what aspects of it to ignore to make the rest work. david can be born in july if you ignore stevie’s comment about summer in “the olive branch” and roland jr. somehow being born before christmas. david can be be born in january if you ignore asbestos fest taking place in summer and the timing of alexis’s graduation. david can be born in april if you ignore alexis’s graduation and “moira’s nudes” which means ofc assuming that he doesn’t know his own damn birthdate.

i think we’ve collectively mostly decided from that to stick with july 2 even though it causes issues (as all options do) because a) it’s the pin that david actually says aloud, b) it really is the only one that works with “grad night," and c) since it’s the one he actually says aloud, that means it’s [presumably] what was written into the script

that same principle applies elsewhere too. like moira’s career.

she says in “ronnie’s party” that she had a 6 ½ season television career.

in “wine and roses” johnny mentions her being on seasons 3, 4, and 5. that puts her on the show somewhere between seasons 1 and 9. if she started in s1, she was on it through part of s7; if she started in s3, she was on it through part of s9. (all of that is presuming that her seasons were consecutive, of course.)

in “rock on!” we see a training video that was clearly made in the 80s where moira is looking for a tape from s21 of sunrise bay. if we say the training video was made in ‘89 at the latest with s21 having aired that same year, that puts s1 as taking place in 1968 and thus moira having acted on the show somewhere between 1968 and 1977.

in “a whisper of desire” moira says she was cast in cabaret in 1979 at the age of 17 (david says she was not actually 17, and therefore she was probably at least a few years older). either way, this seems to be her first acting job (or at least before she hits it big in any way) as she says she was working at a gas station at the time. but if her big break came in 1979, she definitely couldn’t have been on sunrise bay prior to that. to compound on that, even if she was a few years older than 17 at that point, that would still make her a teenager during at least part of 1968 - 1977 and from what she’s said about the plots on sunrise bay, it seems unlikely that she was a teenager when she was filming it (she played her own father, for instance). that means she must have been on sunrise bay sometime after 1979, but then there’s no way that s21 would have happened sometime in 1989 or earlier OR moira was not on s3, s4, and s5. 

just to throw an extra wrench into all of it, in “rip moira rose” they also indicate that she was projected to be nominated for 12 daytime emmys, which doesn’t really work with only having been on the show for 6 ½ seasons. (some of those could be for guest star work on other shows perhaps, but that’s a whole lot of guest roles to be nominated for, especially since nothing else she’s ever said about her career indicates that she did that at all)

just like with all the stuff with david’s birthday and roland jr., you can make some of that work together, but you’re gonna have to pick and choose what to ignore in order to get there. that’s the kind of stuff we mean when we say the timeline is a mess. in the broadest of strokes, if you squint, it all kinda comes together. but when you start looking at the details of it, you can’t get all of it to fit neatly into place

[poorreputation]

SPN 15X04 Atomic Monsters: Notes

Episode Summary (via IMDB): Sam and Dean investigate the mysterious death of a girl and the disappearance of another.

Written By: Davy Perez

Directed By: Jensen Ackles

Tagging: @thegalwhorants @emblue-sparks @metafest @verobatto-angelxhunter @evvvissticante @sudo-apt-get-destiel @wildligia @mishka-the-angel-of-saturday @stopmakingfaces (peeps put in bold are those tumblr won’t let me tag. It’s tumblr, what else is new?)

Spoilers below the cut:

Pre-Episode Thoughts:

A bit late, I know, but there's some things I wanna think out before going into this episode, that will affect my mood while watching.

1) This will be a Cas-less episode, and I have no idea when he will return. At least this time Cas will have left on his own terms, so maybe his absence will have a different feel to it, but I still strongly dislike episodes when he's gone. There truly feels like there's a void in the show, in the characters' interpersonal dynamics, without Cas there.

2) The tone of this episode. Sam and Dean investigate cheerleader deaths at Beaverdale, what hi-jinks will ensue? It could be a vintage bait-and-switch by Davy Perez, with us going "It's another MotW episode...? In the midst of a Destiel break-up? And an episode that's weirdly upbeat and cheery?" And that throws me off, quite a bit, especially considering this was the first episode filmed this season, as it's directed by Jensen Ackles. Was Jensen given a more light-hearted script as his final directorial episode for SPN? Or, is this actually going to be a heavy episode in disguise, to throw off the crowd who just want the show to be Sam&Dean against the world? Kinda like 13X05... (Yockey wrote that episode, but Perez was, according to IMDB, an executive story editor)

3) It's Davy, so I expect good things, and PR isn't showrunning, but I'm always cautious with Cas-less episodes. The Cas gap in S13, starting at the midseason finale, was especially frustrating (and set up by Buckleming, so that explains the quality). This is Davy, I need to have good vibes. 

Episode Thoughts:

- We begin at the Bunker, lights red, Dean kicking some Demon ass. Looks like it's part of Sam's vision from 15X01.

- Benny? Not that Benny? (It is, played by Ty Olsson)

- Dean's looking for someone. Probably Sam.

- Namedropping Sioux Falls, Bobby and Jody, murdering people? Sam taking Demon blood, killing Dean. All a dream, just a dream? A premonition?

- So far, the episode's very heavy. Dean mentions Jack, Rowena, but not Cas. The absence of Cas' name, or even Sam bringing him up, at least not yet, we're meant to notice.

- Sam insisting Dean work the case alone. Even the Bros-only, Monster of the Week episode is muted.

- The girl who's dead, Susie, had a best friend named Veronica. Another of the students then comments how Veronica is mourning, 'Like a piece of my heart is gone'. So, best friends, maybe something more, separated by death, in the first episode since the Destiel breakup? Nothing queer here.

- Dean's day-drinking. When's the last time he's done that? S13 grief-arc?

- Becky married? With kids? Eeeeew, Chuck's stalking her.

- Becky talks about how she turned her dark obsession into something, unbelievably, healthy. She actually feels shame for the stuff she did to Sam in S7.

- Looks like Billy, Susie's friend, is a part of a Vampire nest. Or, is it just the Dad? But, the Mom looks like she's in charge. I don't know if the Dad would do anything without her approval.

- As a result of Becky's pep-talk, Chuck begins to write, again.

- Sam and Dean show up at Billy's place, confronting the Dad. I still think the Mom's involved, but I'm not sure about Billy, himself.

- Maybe Billy's the Vampire, and he doesn't want to hurt anyone. But, his parents are getting him the blood he needs, without his asking.

- Becky critiquing Chuck's work, especially the part where 'there's no mention of Cas'. The ultimate Bronly and Wincest shipper is really a Cas fan, a TFW fan. I know, I saw the Funko Pops on the mantle.

- Billy's a Jack mirror. "I killed someone I loved". Billy to Susie, Jack to Mary. And, in an episode with Benny, a Vampire with a heart of gold, who befriended Dean, and was killed by Dean, and Dean's now gotta kill Billy.

- (Speculation) Sam's visions are actually Chuck's ideas for an ending. That's it, Chuck's been wavering on an ending, and his ideas are leaking to Sam. Now that Chuck's certain of the ending, regardless of the destination, maybe Sam's visions will get more frequent, detailed. 

- So, still no mention of Cas (on Chuck's end). Maybe like in S4 with Lilith, Cas will be a dark horse, coming from Chuck's blindspot.

- Now, the Sam and Dean Funko Pops are on the desk with Chuck, as he continues to write.

Post episode thoughts:

-Billy was executed by Dean, while Sam stood in the background, as Billy was on his knees. Hell, Billy's Dad, now that I think about it, was a Cas mirror: willing to take the blame for his son's actions. The imagery of the Mom holding Sam and Dean at gunpoint makes me think of Dean to Jack (Or Dean in general). There's also the Mom's need for day-drinking, paralleled with Dean's.

-Earlier in the episode, during Sam's dream, when Dean says Sam went to Sioux Falls and did something bad to Bobby and Jody, does he mean AU!Bobby? Why would that Bobby be in Sioux Falls in the first place, everyone outside of the Wayward crew thinks he’s dead. Would Jody have called in backup, and AU!Bobby would’ve gotten killed along with her?

-Sam and Dean confronted Veronica, and there's an emphasis on Dean calling out Veronica's eulogy for Susie. As I stated earlier, Veronica and Susie being mirrors for Dean and Cas. Dean, who's spent the whole of 15X04 trying to cheer-up a distressed Sam, while being the living embodiment of the "This is Fine" meme. Dean, who then tries to invalidate Veronica's grief, believing she's putting on an act, because that's exactly what Dean's doing, now.

Those are my thoughts for this week’s episode! This was a really meaty episode, one I’m sure Dean could get behind (Bless you, Davy).

If you like my stuff, and want to be tagged in future notes/metas, let me know!

[mwagneto]

1, 30 & 36

1: Talk about the first time you watched your favorite movie.

oh god you're braver than any us marine ok so instead of what everyone expects I'll do a detour and start with the honourable mention that is rdj sherlock, i was super depressed (and I mean like. incredibly so) after sherlock s4 because it just sucked so bad, like i was deadass in ruins and i was trying to find ANYTHING to take my mind off it and by the end of February I watched and read pretty much all Sherlock media there is except for rdj because for some reason I thought it was bad?? but then I noticed the first movie was downloaded on my laptop so I went ok fuck it and watched it on the 26th of February and HOLY SHIT I fell in love with RDJude's dynamic literally immediately their chemistry was so fucking good and the plot and the script and the setting and the music and- point is I fucking loved it so I watched the second movie on the same day and Mother of FUCK it was somehow even better and gayer and sweet Jesus I've been obsessed with them since

NOW onto the real deal, light of my life and my reason for living....Rocketman

Jesus Christ I don't think I've ever been this hyped for a movie in my life

I saw the first trailer on November 11th but I wasn't into it at all mainly because I saw it in theaters and they played the censored version and made it look like some het movie about an imaginary person

But then I saw it trending when the second trailer came out and I scrolled through the trending tag and watched the trailer and boy I was HOOKED

And holy fuck the wait was Agonising especially since the fandom on here consisted of like. Me and 3 or 4 other people and then some ppl who didn't post but reblogged stuff - point is the fandom just. Didn't Exist

By the time carpool came out there were a bit more but still basically nothing, hell in my desperation I even looked at stan tw*tter a few times but I regretted it each time and thankfully I don't remember anything specific

But anywayS so the movie is supposed to come out on the 31st of May but for some reason they release it on the 18th in the UK and then turns out it won't come out until the 5th of June here???

I was so fucking mad my friend and I literally almost went to Wien to watch it

Worst of all, the big cinema chain that's in my city didn't even put the tickets out

And when they did they only put them out for Thursday and only the dubbed version

Which, ew, but I was like I don't care I'll take what I can get

But THEN I went into the city one Saturday and I was just riding the tram listening to the soundtrack when in passing I saw a theater that had a big ass Rocketman sign on the front

It was literally like a 0.1 second glimpse because the tram was going fast but I immediately went rabid and found it online and turns out not only were they showing Rocketman on the 5th of June, they also have the original English version

So I booked two tickets immediately and waited because I still wasn't sure the usual cinema wouldn't put their tickets out

So I stayed up every night until midnight to see if there were tickets but No

Finally they put them out on Tuesday midnight so a day before it's supposed to be released but only for Thursday so I was like ok fuck you I'm going to the other one

Oh yeah by this point I've been logged off Tumblr for weeks because i didn't want spoilers so I didn't have Any Rocketman content at all, I didn't even dare to look at YouTube videos or anything because I was scared the recommended section would spoil me

So yeah I was absolutely content deprived

Fucking FINALLY the 5th of June rolls around and we get to the theater and wait for it to start and jesus fukingn

I'm gonna be honest I literally don't even remember much because I was so high on "oh my fucking god I'm finally watching it" but holy SHIT IT WAS JUST. SO GOOD.

I do remember a few things

I know I screamed out loud when Richard first appeared during crocodile rock (even tho I knew he was gonna be there at some point but it was still so sudden I fuckin lost it)

Also I held my friend's hands during tiny dancer like my life depended on it skdnd

And I've told this story a million times but tmttp shocked the soul out of me coz I knew what it meant scene wise and I didn't think they'd play it so fuckign early skmfsk I had like a full body convulsion and drew my hands back and my calf muscle cramped so hard it hurt for a whole week afterwards

anyway I didn't cry

somehow

I thought I'd be sobbing like mad but I didn't and I still haven't

Idk for some reason I just can't cry over this even tho I SHOULD and I want to

my friend did sjsnfjd

we were fucking. spent dude I don't think I stopped smiling until I fell asleep

Anyway after she somewhat finished crying and we exchanged a few words we somehow got up from our seats and left

She had to print a few things so we walked to a photocopier and talked about the movie but it wasn't anything more coherent than just verbal keysmashes

Literally it was so smfjsjjdsjdn i felt high

I was so fucking HAPPY bro it was so fucking good and everything I expected and way more like we were over the fucking moon

I brought food coz I like to eat during movies but I didn't even dare to look away from the screen during this one

While she got her printing sorted I logged back into Tumblr and checked the tags (they were still disappointingly empty😔)

We then went to a park near the tram and ate the food I brought and talked abt the movie till it got dark at which point we headed for the train and talked there some more before she had to get off at her stop

I spent the rest of the ride smiling like an idiot listening to the soundtrack and texting her & other people

I went for a bit of a walk on the mountain I live on to clear my head but I was literally so happy and giddy I couldn't stop smiling hhh I'm losing it just thinking about all the stuff I felt

By that point I was super low and empty coz of school stuff and irl stuff so to feel so many emotions after months of feeling absolutely nothing was a LOT

Anyway I got home by...idk, late, and blasted the soundtrack on full volume for a while before booking her and myself tickets for Thursday so we could watch it again

And we did

And it was just as amazing as the first time

And then on impulse I watched it again on Friday

And then I went to watch it again on Saturday and as soon as it ended I ran to a nearby theater and watched it again immediately

Then again on Wednesday

After watching it on the 5th I lost my appetite both for food and for water, and also my need for sleep, so until I gained it back after watching it next Wednesday I basically didn't eat, drink or sleep for an entire week but it didn't take a toll on me, somehow

The Rocketman power

Anyway we watched it again on Saturday and Sunday (the girl I mentioned came with me both times then and on Saturday so did another girl)

And then I had exams, a class trip and a family vacation so I couldn't watch it for an agonizing two weeks

but then finally watched it again on the 3rd of July with another friend (a 3rd one)

And then on the 6th of July with the original girl

And then on the 7th and the 9th at home alone and them on the 12th with yet another friend (4th one)

Then I went to watch it in theaters alone again on the 18th

And then one more time with the first girl on the 24th

Then on the 3rd of August alone

And then the first girl came over on the 9th of August and we watched the deleted scenes and the extras and then the extended movie

Then I was once again busy so I couldn't watch it until the 25th

And I took my laptop to the hotel I'm staying at for two weeks rn so I watched it here on the 30th

And now here we are

Jesus fucking Christ I'm so sorry for making you read all this

This took me like an hour to type

Anyway! Peace and thanks for asking skdmsmcmsmmd

30: Talk about what turns you off.

I don't have any turnons or turnoffs tbh skdndn I'm. not about that sorta stuff

36: Talk about your guilty pleasures.

sometimes I hateread awful old fanfics on Wattpad because they make me wanna die but like in a good way

[kery-sims]

This is a great read with some great recs! I came up with my own system from scratch but I'd argue it's pretty much exactly this (convergent mod sorting evolution? perhaps 🤔).

Personal things I like to do (sharing if others want ideas I guess):

For mods I know are likely to break during patches (anything that mods gameplay in some way or anything with scripts) I slap a 0 - at the front, (so for example, '0 - MCCC' ). This will force the files to appear at the TOP of the list if you're using windows alphabetical sort order.

Extremely major mods like MCCC, Wicked/Wonderful Whims, Better Build etc. get their own folders with the respective mod name with '0 -' added.

For any additional gameplay tweaks I try to rely on specific creators who cover a lot of areas so I can give them their own '0 -' marked folder with their creator name, again making it easier come patch day. I also use this for creators who have a gameplay mods with a lot of files (common with kind of 'module' type systems for example).

For my own modding specifically, I have a folder named '[KERY-SIMS] Modding', which with windows sorting order takes precedent over 0 - so it appears at the very top.

I also have a folder called [TEMP] for any CC I'm just testing out or putting in for screenshots or something to remove later. Sometimes I'll just straight up chuck any new mods in here if I am especially tired and can't sort stuff at that moment, just so I can play and make sure it works.

I use subfolders a lot. I don't know what the subfolder limit is, but I find this super useful for when I get a huge haul of cc. I'll drop it in the main category first and then check it out (almost like a probation period). If I decide I like it, I'll use Sims 4 Mod Manager to sort it into it's appropriate sub-folder. If I don't it's still in the first folder so it's easy to find and remove. (Reminder: don't put scripts more than one folder deep, ofc).

Primary categories are still reasonably specific, and I'll append them with a label to indicate what section they are in (CAS - Hair, for example, then Subfolders are 'Female', 'Male' etc.). I previously used 'Buy -' but have since moved that into a primary folder (until I notice items start disappearing I'll keep it this way I guess). I keep CAS divided up in the root of the mods folder because that's usually where I'm putting most of my downloads and need more housekeeping.

I'll merge some things with S4S to improve performance. I usually merge by creator sets, rarely by creator (if I tend to get a lot of stuff from one creator) which I'll also throw on a date of when it was merged so I can tell any content I find after that date is not in the package. In the case something goes wrong and needs updating, it's not too difficult to find what is broken and S4S can easily un-merge the package.

Lastly I'll do an occasional housekeeping (like today) where I'll go through items in CAS for example and decide if I still want them, then tab over to the Mod Manager, find the item and apply 'marked for deletion' custom tag from the categories option, so once I close the game I can just pull that category up and delete everything in it.

Sorry to make a long post longer anyways those are my personal little sorting quirks!

Hey, folks! I'm a simmer who loves me a well organized CAS/CC/mods folder, so I figured I'd share some resources to help you out in achieving such a thing yourself.

A well organized Mods folder as well as organized CC in-game IS possible! Click through the cut to read more!

Table of Contents:

Getting Started

Essential Programs

Essential Mods

Useful Programs and Utilities

Other Useful Things

A Word of Caution/Caveats

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Getting Started

1. @nynsimmer's Completely Empty Organized Mods Folder

When I first started getting serious about CC I went looking for something to help me get started, and I'm so happy I found this. It takes a lot of the effort out of figuring out these category trees yourself! It's not a mod, it's just a simple collection of empty folders to help you organize your CC more effectively. It comes in a couple different flavours based on what your CC-hoarding game is like, and of course, you can make any changes/edits to it you like. Use it as a starting point, then build your perfect Mods folder from there.

For those who are curious, here's how my Mods folder looks right now after using this to start:

I added a "Defaults and Overrides" folder to make those easier to find, and to separate them from non-default CC so I can more easily run batch fixes without harming my default files.

I have a lot of Gameplay mods; since many of them are script mods and can't be more than 1 subfolder deep in order to work, I organize them by creator to make it easier to keep track and update them. Any miscellaneous mods go in the "Gameplay/Build/CAS Mods" folders.

2. @sparrowcc's Tidy Details & Tattoos

Though recent game updates have made this not work so well for original Maxis items, it still works for CC items and makes it so much easier to figure which slots everything is listed under so you can more effectively make use of the various skin detail/tattoo/accessory categories. It adds an item thumbnail to the beginning of each Skin Detail/Tattoo category to tell you where that category begins, making the CC in that category appear after it; no more long list of thumbnails and having no idea which skin detail slot they're hiding under!

There are also versions available for accessories, occults/Get Famous, and acne, which could be useful depending on what EPs you have.

EDIT: There's also an updated version of this available from @yoruqueenofnightsims!

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Essential Programs

1. Sims4Studio (Windows Version | Mac Version)

Sims4Studio (S4S) is an essential program for any Sims 4 player who dabbles in CC, whether you're creating it from scratch or simply downloading and using other creator's CC in game. S4S allows you to make simple edits to fix problems or make your CC life easier, and comes with a TON of useful batchfixes to fix some of the more common problems that occur with CC. (The "Disallow CC for Random" batchfix is essential for me; I run it periodically to catch new CAS CC that isn't tagged properly.) The UI is pretty friendly, and it's fairly simple to get started.

You can find the official S4S Tutorial List here.

Some more tutorials to get you started:

How to Clean out CC with S4S by @srslysims

How to Run a BatchFix with S4S by @srslysims

How to Edit/Change Skin Detail Categories using S4S by me

How to Change the Sort Order of CC Eyecolours by @oydis

2. CmarNYC's S4 CASTools (Windows Only)

CASTools is another program you can use to make CC from scratch, and it comes with a lot of options to make that easier depending on what you want/need to do. It's a little more complicated and difficult to get the hang of, but once you do, it gives you a ton of control over your CC.

For example, you can easily hide an item from appearing in CAS by unchecking this box and saving the package:

Which is useful if you have some recolours/hairs that require a mesh to show up, but you'd rather the original mesh didn't appear in-game. (I have some Maxis Match texture edits of Alpha hairs that require the original meshes to work, and this way only the MM edits show in CAS, not the Alpha hairs.)

You can also easily use it to change the sort order of CC, changing where it appears relative to other items in the CAS categories in game. To do that, you just change the values of this option here:

(Changing the Sort Order in S4S is slightly more complicated, so I often use CASTools for this instead. It applies the sort order to all swatches of an item in one go, which saves a lot of time!)

CASTools is also required for the CAS Sort CC Alphabetically Utility I mention later, which has been an essential tool for me!

(I am not an expert on CASTools, so please don't ask me for help or support using this program! Please reference the original creator's page or search for tutorials to help you learn how to use it.)

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Essential Mods

1. @twistedmexi's Better Exceptions

I didn't know how badly I needed this until I found it. This mod does a LOT of things to help you keep a healthy Mods folder, such as letting you know when mod errors occur, and telling you about any issues such as duplicate CC or possibly outdated mods. Super useful, I recommend it to anyone who has a heavily modded game!

2. @twistedmexi's Better BuildBuy: Organized Debug

Super useful if you have a lot of BuildBuy CC, or if you do a bunch of building! Adds a bunch more filters to your BuildBuy menu so you can more easily find the CC you want, and also indexes and adds Debug items to your BuildMode catalog and makes them searchable/filterable. Read the mod's download page for more info.

3. @twistedmexi's Expandable BuildBuy Catalog

This is included in the Better BuildBuy mod, so don't download it if you decide to use Better BuildBuy. Otherwise, it's a simple mod that allows you to expand the size of the BuildBuy item picker window, letting you see a much larger number of items at a glance. Super useful if you have a lot of BB CC, or if you're an avid builder.

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Useful Programs and Utilities

[Note: All of these are Windows Only. Apologies, Mac users!]

1. NEW Jan/2022: GameTimeDev's Sims 4 Mod/CC Manager

A real game changer! GameTimeDev's mod manager allows you to easily visualize your mods folder by showing your package files with their in-game thumbnails to help you identify them, then gives you powerful tools to sort, add/delete, "load/unload", and filter to your heart's content. This is such a powerful program to help you organize your mods folder! The Sims 4 Community wrote a really great tutorial here to help you get started with the program if you need it. Just be sure to refer to the original download page on ModTheSims for updates and support.

2. Barteke22's Sort CC in CAS Alphabetically Utility

So you've downloaded a bunch of CC, and it's all working great, but your CAS categories are still a chaotic mess; hairs from different creators are all mixed together, and it's impossible to find that One Hair you're looking for in amongst all the others. How do you fix this horrible situation??

If you're me and this bothers you to no end, you end up spending hours changing the Sort Order for each piece of CC yourself by hand using CASTools. You put on a podcast, zone out, and start opening packages, changing numbers, and saving files. It takes forever, and you wonder if it's really worth it. 😵😩

Thankfully, Barteke22 came to my rescue with this amazing tool! It does pretty much exactly what I was doing by hand before, except it automates it, allowing me to eat lunch or play my Switch while it organizes all my CC exactly where I want them. It does make your computer unusable while it runs, but that's a small price to pay for the piece of mind of having a nicely organized CAS, imo.

You can go from this:

To this:

All your hairs sorted alphabetically and easy to find! What a relief!

(Please refer to the original download page for information on how to get this tool set up and for how to use it. You'll need to download AutoHotKey for it to work.)

Keep in mind: This tool doesn't read sub-folders, so you have to organize each sub-folder separately. It's a good idea to keep a .txt file around with info on what sort numbers you've used where, so you know what you're doing and don't accidentally reuse any.

Also: It WILL screw up Merged packages. Make sure you're only sorting individual packages with this tool, not merged ones (You can use S4S to merge/unmerge package files).

If you're still having trouble getting this utility to work, I wrote a long rambly thing about it here that might help you. I apologize for my deplorable lack of brevity. <3

3. Bulk Rename Utility

A small Windows utility program for bulk renaming files. Extremely useful if you have CC from a creator that doesn't put their username at the beginning of the filename, making it difficult to find their CC in your Mods folder when sorted alphabetically. I haven't used this much myself, but @ilovethesims2cc gives a quick overview of it here and how to use it to remove special characters from filenames.

4. S4Pavir by @margosims

Note: It's come to my attention that the current version of S4Pavir doesn't work and the creator has stopped developing it, so download and use it at your own risk. That being said, I'm keeping it on the list on the off chance someone picks it up and updates it someday; it could still be useful to the right person!

I haven't used this myself, since my CC has already been categorized in subfolders for a long while, but if you have a large, unorganized mods folder this may help you organize and make some sense of it. As I understand it, it checks each .package file to see what category the item is listed under in-game, then it can move them into subfolders based on that category. (Like I said, I haven't used this myself, so I can't help you make sense of it; please contact the original creator for support!)

5. Sims 4 Mod Assistant by EgorBlagov

A small program used to find duplicate packages and possible mod conflicts. Useful if you have a lot of CC and you know there are dupes in there, but you're intimidated by going through all your subfolders and finding them manually.

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Other Useful Things

1. More Columns in CAS by Weerbesu

This mod gives you more columns to work with in CAS, allowing you to see more items/CC at once! Comes in a few different flavours, use the one that works best with your screen resolution. (This mod regularly breaks with the bigger patch updates, so make sure you check to make sure it works with the patch version you're using.)

2. Various Maxis CAS Item Hiders

If you're serious with your CC and would rather not have the original Maxis items cluttering up your game (alpha players might appreciate this!), or you just want to hide some of them because they're not to your taste, there are some options available:

@starbearysims CAS Hiders (For everything up to Journey to Batuu/Nifty Knitting)

@plumbobsandcowplants CAS Hiders (For the Hair Swatch Update and more recent EPs/GPs/SPs/Kits)

MAC Cosmetics Hider

CAS Makeup Hider

Feb2021 Patch Custom Content Hider by @teekalu

3. @amicurl's Catalog Overhaul

Amicurl's been working tirelessly to reorganize and clean up the BuildBuy menus to make more sense. Check out the Introduction to the project to see if their mods are something you'd like. They also have a mod for hiding the pack icons on BuildBuy items, and a subtle CC wrench icon override.

4. @maxismatchccworld's, Well, Everything

@marvell-world at @maxismatchccworld has been tirelessly supporting the Sims 4 CC/modding community for years by sharing posts featuring Maxis Match CC for your perusal. It's extremely well organized and searchable, making it easy to find exactly the CC/Mods you're looking for. I highly recommend taking a look through their navigation categories to see if there's anything you're missing!

5. NEW Jan/2022: @xandezsims' Notes and Tips for Trans Sims

If you're annoyed at your CC not working properly on trans frames, take a look at this handy reference and consider updating the "restrict opposite gender/restrict opposite frame" flags yourself.@xandezsims worked so hard on this guide, and the information is so valuable to CC makers! Definitely worth bookmarking.

6. NEW Jan/2022: The Sims After Dark Team's DIY Troubleshooting Library

A great many very useful tutorials with step-by-step notes and useful reference images for doing a great many useful things in regards to your game and Mods folder. There are tutorials on how to 50/50 test your mods folder for broken CC, how to install mods in the first place, how to organize your mods folder, how to batch fix, and more.

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A Word of Caution/Caveats

As always when using mods and programs that edit files, always be prepared for mishaps and mistakes; keep backups of your CC and important game files before editing them if at all possible, and know that Mods/CC are not officially supported by EA/Maxis. You use them at your own risk.

I am not an expert in any of these programs, nor am I responsible for how they affect your game. Please contact the original creators for support and more information, and make sure they're all updated to the newest versions and working with your game patch version.

If you have other suggestions for useful tools/resources on how to keep an organized and healthy CC/mods folder, please reply/reblog and add them! What works for me won't work for everyone, and I'm sure there are tons of things out there I've missed!

Take care, and happy simming! <3