#i genuinely forgot how good s4 is

[izel-scribbles]

because of SOMEONE'S fucking drawing request, i now have to relisten to the entirety of s4 bc i just listened to 34 again and i remembered how fucking epic the butcher, noel, and oscar are

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

Broke (2016): BBC Sherlock is a phenomenal piece of media and anything that seems like a flaw just hasn't been fully explored yet

Woke (2020): BBC Sherlock is an incredibly flawed series run by an egotistical writer, it never deserved the hype and is actively bad on so many fronts (especially representation)

Bespoke (2024): BBC Sherlock is flawed and bogged down by increasingly poor writing, which many fans refused to see while it was airing, leading to hugely misplaced expectations (particularly for the final series), AND it has the seeds of some compelling characterizations and portrayals, some genuinely solid performances, and touches--albeit imperfectly--on complexities that are still being discussed today (particularly as it relates to the relationship between Sherlock and John). The huge cultural impact of the show has created a massive pendulum effect in its public perception, leading to most people today remembering a caricature of the show (whether positive or negative) rather than appreciating its nuanced merits and failings...that being said Season 4 sucked

[anxresi]

I Beg To Differ.

Okay, now just because I'm about to embark on an epic rant does NOT mean I think anything bad about you as a person, OP. It's just on this one teensie-weensie most minor of points, I happen to think you're 100% wrong. Just thought I'd clarify that, so no offense intended. Anyway, on with the show...

Nah, they did us SO dirty with Chloe. I hear your above argument a lot, and it WOULD be a fair point… if it wasn't for the fact that there are SO many clear signs this wasn't what was intended from the beginning that it makes your reasoning completely null and void. Chloe's 'arc' was the most blatant case of in-show character assassination I've ever had the displeasure of witnessing, and I'm about to explain why. Read on! (If you want to, that is.... no pressure).

They strung us along for at least three seasons with various hints about her 'traumatic past', her problems with her often absent mother (which Marinette didn't help by encouraging them to bond because 'they're both such awful people'), showed her genuinely apologizing to her victims, protecting Sabrina from akumatization and having times when she treated her as a real friend, sacrificing herself to save the day occasionally, hugging Miss Bustier in a moment of genuine emotion, telling Ladybug how 'useless' she felt in a teary rooftop encounter, saving lives both as a superhero and a civilian (check back if you don't believe me), giving Adrien a moving speech on his phone about how 'she'd always be there for him', sharing a really close bond with her father, telling her butler Jean it was time she started doing things for herself, loving Mr Cuddly, adoring Pollen… I could go on. Not the best person in the world, true.... but a promising start. Green shoots, and all that. Her name literally means that.

S4 simply forgot any of this happened, and literally pushed her burgeoning development off a cliff with Sisyphu's boulder tied to it's big toe. There was NO build-up, NO foreshadowing, NO precedent for Chloe suddenly becoming a one-dimensional total-sociopath irredeemable-monster AT ALL, they simply made her that way on a whim. They had her start acting like a complete psycho for the evilz, made her the most stupid person in the show BY FAR, severed ALL of her few close relationships, wrote AN ENTIRE FLASHBACK EPISODE in incrimate her newfound nastiness even more and 'punished' her by sending her off exiled on a plane in tears with her abusive mother to… what else? Get abused, of course. GREAT MESSAGE TO ALL THE VULNERABLE TEENAGE GIRLS OUT THERE. (I won't even get into how utterly useless and blandly boring her 'replacement' of a plot device Mary S... oops, I mean Zoe is).

And we're supposed to believe the former corrupt mayor Andre, the terrorist Gabriel Agreste and Thomas Astruc (you know him) are the GOOD guys here? Well, I'd like to tell you what I'd like to do to them… but for fear of censorship, I'd better withhold that particular information for now.

The upshot of it is… if Chloe had been bad from the beginning and terrible at the end, I'd have accepted it. Heck, if her so-called damnation arc was even halfway well written and gave us an accurate and compelling look at the moral descent a person who's capable of redemption could take to the light but ultimately chose to stay on the Dark Side, this would've been highly disappointing to me but fine from a storytelling perspective.

But they didn't give us anything like that, did they? It was just… 'pretend the last three seasons never happened, develop amnesia, hit yourself repeatedly on the head with a shovel… we don't care. Just accept this is the NEW Chloe without question despite past evidence, because you won't be getting any answers. Now let's go back to what we're REALLY here for… Marichat, Ladynoire, Adrinette and that other stupid ship name. SWOON!'

Thanks, but no thanks. Did I ever tell you how much I HATE this stupid show? Apologies if I didn't make that clear enough.

[fuckingfandomfreak]

Bro I saw that you said Arthur was in the right to kill that king in s4 (I forgot his name) and YESSSS omg everyone is always like it was wrong but I can never see how and I was starting to go crazy.

Genuinely, that episode irks me like nothing else. It drives me fucking CRAZY. Like it’s a perfectly good episode that I can’t enjoy bc it MAKES NO SENSE. I feel gaslit

Not even just bc im an Arthur girlie (but I am), but bc everyone fucking acted like executing the other king was a crazy decision that started a war. The show had me agreeing with AGRAVAINE 🤮🤢

Like just genuinely, from a normal perspective, King Carleon INVADED Camelot (not even the borders but deep into Camelot; they said in the episode) and took territory. That’s an act of war. Everyone in that episode (and eventually Arthur) acts like Arthur started a war, but Carleon did. You can’t invade another country and just expect the king to let you go. That’s crazy!!! It makes no sense 😭

And you got everyone telling Arthur that he shouldn’t murder a man in cold blood and that’s not like him, and then Annis calling Arthur a coward for executing her husband, and suddenly it’s Arthur’s fault there’s a war. When Carleon invaded another country and just expected to get off with a wrist slap????

Arthur was even better than he should’ve been about it. Carleon had to either secede land to Arthur as punishment for invading Arthur’s land multiple times (they mentioned Carleon kept taking border towns but this time was different bc this was little in the center of the country) or lose his head. And Carleon decided to lose his head, and everyone was up Arthur’s ass being like “Carleon would never agree to those terms. This is just an excuse to behead him,” and expect us to feel bad for CARLEON???

Like too bad, so sad, don’t invade other countries. Why was agravaine the only one speaking common sense?? Arthur had to be harsh with him bc Arthur kept sparing Carleon before and Carleon kept invading. And Arthur letting Carleon go with a slap on the wrist would’ve just shown every other king that he was a bitch, and they could keep invading Camelot until they succeed without any repercussions. Yes, Arthur should’ve killed Carleon. Obviously, Queen Annis was going to retaliate, but that’s not his fault. He didn’t start this. Carleon did.

It’s this weird thing that the show does where they have like zero tolerance for war, but they just makes everyone look like idiots. I love a good anti-war message, but the show wasn’t going for that. It just had stupid lessons. Like the multiple times some foreign king was going something shady, and Merlin went crazy trying to fix what they were doing while also keeping it a secret bc if Arthur or Uther found out, they would’ve started a war.

But a foreign king deliberately sabotaging a peace treaty bc he wanted two kings at the peace treaty to fight so that he could profit from the destruction is an act of war. It’s stupid to me not to tell anybody bc now Camelot just has an untrustworthy and shady ally.

[emblazons]

Thinking about that post that said Will had to be 'written out' of some of the S3 narrative because so much of it was about performing heteronormative relationships…& as an emotionally intelligent gay kid he quite literally stands entirely outside of both of those things.

Like. The Duffers said the premise of S3 was puberty, but in truth it's more like kids trying to act more mature than they are, not only by pretending they’re not into “childish” things but also emulating the relationships of the adults around them (for good & bad).

In S3, Lucas is literally just parroting his dad (and whoever else) when it comes to explaining relationships to Mike, and Max is projecting her displeasure/fear of divorce (because of her own parents) by repeatedly breaking up with Lucas and encouraging El to do the same while quoting Cosmo to her. El has her own streak of performative influence from her time watching all those soaps while locked up for a year—and Mike is just doing the best he can to keep up, seeing as (as we see with the Karen considering but then never actually cheating with Billy plot) Wheelers are often motivated by responsibility and duty to their relationships more than actual feelings or depth with their partners.

From the very first episode though…Will literally says “I’m not gonna fall in love," and while I know a lot of people like to talk about how that's kind of a sign he’s already falling in love with Mike, it’s also showing us that he stands apart from all the other people and “couples” we see this season…because he’s not performing social rituals trying to emulate the relationships of the adults around him.

Will is the only character outside of Dustin (who also comments on this tendency to be fake in love to Steve, ironically enough) who is refusing to take part in the ritualistic gambits of "dating" with his friends, on top of embracing his desire to continue doing the things he enjoys even as we are learning he is genuinely in love with Mike.

Will is the only one being genuine about his interests and desires rather than performing normativity (social and heteronormative) like the rest of his friends--the only one who is in love with his chosen interest because he enjoys being around him, and its that dissonance from the "play"/ sandbox narrative of S3 that makes it seem like The Duffers "forgot" about him (which, given the fact that S5 is confirmed as Will's Coming of Age season, obviously isn't true).

...I just think it's interesting that the season where everyone starts being shallow (because...thats the word for it. We should bring that word back lmao) is the season where it feels like Will gets neglected the most—not because he isn't important to the story, but because Season 3 was when The Duffers introduced dishonesty and ongoing romantic relationships as a concept for their "kid" characters, and Will's heartfelt affection for Mike and unwillingness to lie to anyone stands apart from that.

-

Bonus Thought: If you really want to get into it, you can also pull on how watching Will lie to Mike in Season 4 about the painting hurts all that much more because its the first time he's betrayed his character to "match the energy" of his peers—him "ripping off the bandaid" was him not only choosing to save Mike & El's relationship by sacrificing his own feelings, but also him choosing move into the same kind of dishonesty and shallowness he's been watching everyone around him get away with for two seasons now, even though it was going to break his heart to do so.

S4 got Lucas and Max back to the honesty and closeness they hadn't been mature enough to manage in S3...but that's not something Will got to see for himself. Getting us back to honesty for El, Mike and now Will (who have also been lying to themselves and each other in their performances of normalcy) will be a critical part of the "repair" that happens in Season 5.

[beevean]

Another reason the "wonderful in a vacuum" scene of Lenore choosing to look at Hector in her last seconds of her life doesn't hit as it should, is that the show didn't do what it could have to build up this moment. And I'm not just talking about how Lenore never loved Hector in the first place so her final moment of caring feels mocking.

In S3E6, she says this:

Hector: Daylight can be nice, too. Lenore: I'll take your word for it. Hector: You don't remember daylight? Lenore: Never much cared for it. I was always a night person. Hector: You might be missing something, you know. Only coming out at night. Lenore: Oh, I don't think so. Just look. I can't see how the sun would improve this view.

Now, this is not a bad moment. First of all, it's all part of Lenore's manipulations to make Hector accept to work for them ("Look at this lovely view! Surely you'll want to stay here, won't you?"), and it's a good strategy because while Hector is a human and not afraid of the sun, he's already accustomed to living among creatures of the night. Plus, her preference for the night fits her and her attempted aesthetic of "sad winter princess". And, of course, I doubt they had planned her suicide by sunlight when they wrote S3.

But in S4, the topic never comes up again, when it could have quite nicely. Since Lenore spends the whole season feeling sorry for herself, repeating the information "Carmilla's plan makes me feel useless", for a change she could have snuck in something like this:

"You know, it's funny. I haven't seen the sun in two hundred years. I almost forgot how it looks like... How it would feel for the sunlight to hit my skin without it blistering. The moon has its beauty, of course, but..."

One, this could be a genuine bonding moment between Lenore and Hector. As I pointed out, she only strikes casual conversations with him in S3 for the sake of manipulating him: once she's "solved his problem", she mostly vents about her personal issues, and the only natural, mutually respectful conversation they have is the one about strength and power just before her suicide, which is far too late. Maybe they could talk about what they miss, what they'd like to see... with the added irony that Hector is trapped in that castle so he can't do anything he would like to do, and it's all Lenore's fault to boot. Maybe Hector's lack of concrete answer would not only hint at hidden resentment, but it could foreshadow how he actually didn't think far ahead because he's secretly waiting for Isaac to come and kill him, or that his only plan for the future is to destroy the Council, which he's keeping under wraps; but it would also be nice if he had a dream, like going to see the ocean again. hector in s4 sorely lacks a personality that is not his depressing love for lenore and i would love to fix it

Two, it could be symbolic of Lenore regretting her vampire nature, or perhaps even foreshadowing her flirting with the idea of killing herself if Carmilla's plan comes to fruition, since another criticism is that Lenore decides to kill herself with the same consideration one chooses which dress to wear for the day. Lenore, as her basic concept, wants to be the bridge between humankind and vampirekind, and there are hints of this, such as her makeup that make her look like a living human being (contrast her with Carmilla, who looks like a corpse), her declaration that she enjoys eating food equating it to living a good life, and her insistence to use diplomacy in a culture that thrives on war and conquest, which gives her the reputation of being soft and weak. So, it would make sense for her to, at one point, drop her mask and admit that she misses the human pleasure of the sunlight, maybe even expressing subtle envy that Hector can experience it; the Lenore in S3 was a bundle of lies carefully woven to lower Hector's guard, but now she is fully sincere and open, showing her heart to the one person who would listen to her. It would be cute and sad at the same time if she asked him to describe him what the sun feels like, and Hector gave a wishy-washy answer, because he has never cared about it - or rather, his own humanity, paralleling Lenore in yet another aspect.

Of course, during the same time Hector is taking advantage of Lenore's inability to stand in the daylight to study on his own and plot behind her back, so the scene would be even more tragic. Hector is already benefiting from his own humanity to cause Lenore's downfall.

And three, her final choice would have more weight. Not only, with the added context, Lenore's grief would be more easy to interpret as "no matter how hard I try, I'm a cursed creature doomed to live in misery and spread misery, I'm tired of living in the night" and not "weh i refuse to live in a cage :< sorry hector idc about you i refuse to live if i don't have a shred of power", but also, well. Lenore wanted to see the sun. She has found the courage to see the sun, knowing that it will nor reconnect her with her lost humanity, but it will only lead to her death. And then... at the last moment... she renounces it. Sure, the sun is pretty, much like the moon... but neither of them, in the end, can compare to Hector, who is one of a kind, who, unlike the sun, cared about her. Now it works, after more buildup.

(also it would be much nicer if Lenore melted like Dracula, instead of turning into pretty dust. Show her as the monster she never accepted herself to be.)

Now, this only fix only a fraction of the infinite and immense issues I have with Lenector in S4. It needs to be reworked from the foundations, and I focused too much on Lenore when the source of my anger is everything surrounding Hector and the sanification of Lenore's actions. But look at how easy it is to build a much more organic chemistry, when you don't waste precious screentime on dick jokes and rape apologism! The building blocks are all here! I'm just so profoundly sad when I see the botched attempt of a good story and it wouldn't have taken much effort to improve it, just respect for your own writing.

[puellaphantasia]

Oddity found this JCA meme on Deviantart, time to cringe like it's 2010. Elaborations on some of the questions under the cut

2). It would literally be easier to list the characters I don't like than my favorites, I do genuinely love most of the cast, they're all really fun and bounce off each other so well.

3). I appreciate that the Ice Crew has fans, but I just couldn't stand them, they were poor replacements for the Enforcers.

Oddity and I both are both of the opinion that the Ben-Shui monks are kinda creepy, not sure I can elaborate they just...ew

I don't remember liking Paco when I watched this as a kid, he didn't grow on me on a rewatch as an adult, and I'm not sure I'll learn to like him in my reboot fanfic- but my god I'm going to try.

Viper...I genuinely forgot she existed. Even when I did a second rewatch with Oddity there was a whole episode that I remembered seeing in my initial rewatch that I completely forgot Viper was in. I wish I liked her more than I do, but she's just really boring.

4) Again, it'd be much easier to list characters I don't like than ones I do. I would have put Tarakudo on the favorites list, because I remember really liking him as a kid, but when I did my rewatch he didn't hold up as well as I remembered so he didn't quite make it to the favorites list even though I still like him.

6) Seasons 2-4 are the whole reason to watch JCA, honestly. S1 was a good foundation, but it didn't really start to shine until s2, but even then, I have to admit the Demon Sorcerers arc got pretty reputative and the non plot episodes sort of dragged on. There's very few episodes outside of s5 I didn't like, so I wouldn't say skip 'em but I think they could have been interlaced in the Demon arc a little better

S3 gets a bad rep in the fandom, and I get the complaint of it just being the Talisman Hunt 2.0 but honestly the character interactions are at their best in this season, several of the Nobel animals themselves have such fun personalities. I wish that s3 had it's own Mcguffin to collect that I could buy replicas of on Etsy, but it's not a big complaint to me compared to just how fun s3 is

S4 had the best individual episodes. I think more could have been done with Tarakudo interacting with the other characters, he was a little passive until the final episode and that's why he didn't make the favorites list, but the new types of Shadow Khan, their powers and the different situations the masks created were some of the best scenarios in the whole series.

8) Mei Xing and a cast of other OCs will be appearing in my fanfic Jackie Chan Adventures ↺ -wink wink-

9) I didn't actually create Mei Xing to ship with Tso Lan, it's just something that ended up happening while I was planning out her part in the story. It's just really funny to me that after I decided this aspect I looked to see if there was other Tso Lan/OC pairings, and saw two others who were also named Mei- I swear this wasn't done on purpose.

10) Just for the record, I also considered drawing the scene where Daolon and Uncle froze each other while Big Jade was fighting the Ogre, that scene just sticks out to me as one of the funniest in the show because of how they were both that stupid. I love them. They need to kiss.

[thealogie]

i can’t even tell if they were trying to push the sherlock is in love with Irene angle like I know she’s a lesbian who also likes him bc he’s just so special but was that texting thing their attempt to make him straight in s4 ???

I genuinely deleted large portions of s4 from my brain like I genuinely forgot this happened plus John’s impassioned speech about how sherlock should go after a woman he hasn’t mentioned or shown to be thinking about in two and a half seasons. Could have been a coded speech about John’s own gay feelings but no the writers were genuinely like….this is a good use of impassioned speech

[skayafair]

John, Lies and Trust, and the Dark World Pt.2

Part 1:

The Dark World

That's the part where I get very emotional for many reasons.

First time was bad enough to become what appears to be a life-long trauma and the worst nightmare John's terrified to death about. But THIS time he experienced a close bond with someone, learned what not being alone feels like, reshaped his mind to be more human-like... and lost all that. He was in the worst place in all the worlds, alone, again. Somewhere he'd give almost anything to never be. Unfamiliar horrors are one thing, but it's entirely different when you went through hell, know exactly how unbearable it is, and then you have to go through this again. Knowing how it would feel. This is devastating. And that's the first blow.

The second hit is that if I understand it correctly, ending up in the Dark World is fate worse than death because you cannot die there. As I get it, things there are already dead. So if a god - fine, a piece of a god, doesn't matter in this case, - ends up there, and gods are immortal, they have to endure this indefinitely, most likely forever, with no hope to escape. As if the very nature of the Dark World was not bad enough, the worst thing about being there this time was that it went on and on and on, the horrors didn't just happen one or a many times, they kept happening with no end in sight. Before there was at least a book. Now there was nothing. So no matter how long John held to his newfound principles and determination... anyone would run out of this eventually. I'm not surprised he rolled back to the old ways. By its description, the Dark World is not a nice and welcoming place. And, like I said, John wants to live and couldn't die there anyway, so he had to preserve what he could. He had to survive, and a survival mode is never pretty. We don't know what exactly he had to do there - on his own and for Kayne??? - but judging by the way he was in s3 I think we can confidently say one thing: he didn't enjoy any of it, and that's important. I'll get back to this later, but mention that Arthur in his survival mode is pretty terrible either.

Now we enter the territory of questions and assumptions, but still. I wondered if John had some hope - certainly not much, but some - that Arthur would get him out of there, like the first time? Or that when Arthur dies, they'll at least meet each other? John knows that together they can endure any horrors. Almost anything feels more bearable when you aren't alone in this. When it isn't lonely. But no one came. John was abandoned, completely, for good. @keykidpilipili mentioned how this situation with the Dark World is similar to Aqua's in KH, I went to watch the scenes with her and I think they really deliver exactly how unbearable this is and why. What makes me think I'm not just making things up is the fact that Arthur heard his voice during one of his first NDEs. What if it actually was John, calling from the Dark World, desperate for any glimpse of hope and companionship? Cry with me And then in s3 Arthur really says it. "How about we find each other if we end up there". Gods, my heart.

One last thing. Whatever happened there, however long it lasted, whatever John had to give up and lose there... he kept his promise. He never forgot his one and only friend, never stopped keeping him dear. And I think it's another important thing not only about John and how much his whole personality is built around being true and genuine, but also about their relationship.

Yes, to me John is about truth and not lies. His reationship with both is complicated, but... when one builds themselves up as they go, not knowing who they are yet, only exploring the concept and the limits, lies tend to really confuse them. John hates being misjudged, called by any other name than the one he chose himself, when others say things about him which are simply not true as if they knew better. He's going in a full rage mode immediately. Oh how much I understand you in this, pal. It's important for him to distinguish the truth - what actually is there, and about himself as well, - from lies, assumptions and illusions. Important to keep them apart.

But, again, when he's backed into a corner, he'd revert to lies as one of the escape means, hating every moment of it. It's a survival tactic for him - a bad one, but one of the most familiar as it seems, and therefore nearly automatic, like a knee jerk reflex. It's also the last resort.

[sibylsleaves]

Helloooo defend in place/mayday anon :) sad to report I did not finish my s4+s5 watch/rewatch this weekend (tall task in hindsight plus anirudh tweets dropped right before I was about to start jinx of all episodes lol) BUT I did finish up to 5x10 which means I got to defend in place yayyy! General s5 thoughts 1. Watched ghost stories for the first time and its not nearly as bad as I thought it would be (although 618 and 710 didnt exist when this seemed to be consensus worst ep. So). I get how this ep might be hard to watch on a weekly basis but its pretty fine while binging and also features crucial henren/karen lore like … also noooo way chim really said he was going to bring buck near death, revive him with his paramedic skills and then kill him. Did the writers know. Lmao. 2. Taylor kelly stuff is not nearly as bad as I remember it from what I had watched. Its just painfully obvious her and buck should be friends and not even because their physical chemistry is outright bad just their dynamic feels super friend-ish. And they put all that development time into taylor when they should have developed bucktaylor instead, like how karen was developed after henren, for example. Bucktaylor ily scene still hits like nails on a chalkboard though. God forbid we have to live through something like that again 3. Ravi deadass in every episode. When will my sweet prince return in this capacity 4. Forgot about athena hitting harry :( definitely one of the things that I had issues with from before and was just as shocked now as before like why did that need to happen :(

Okay okay NOW defend in place thoughts !!!!!! I really really liked it, definitely a top 3 s5 episode for me probably (the other 2 I really love are 5x11 and 5x12). Michael/grant family proposal montage… genuinely top (fun) montage in the show. Up there with jinx and stuck/chris and poker date montages imo it was so cute. And while I really loved the ep the whole time I was like damn we were robbed of david content so bad 😭😭😭 he was so good in this ep and the s4 michael bobby ep like I just want more I cant believe we’ll never see him again. Okay and the ravi lore. Im going to be honest I spent years thinking the ravi cancer child thing was fanon/ravi begins spec LMAO like I saw gifs of that ravi hen scene a few weeks ago and was like damn… that lore is canon😭 but yay I wish the show would just once expand on his lore beyond surface level. And the defend in place call was so good although I will say it was giving greys anatomy massively though. Before I kinda wished the show would have done more with david/hen dr stuff but honestly after this Im glad it didnt bc I swear Ive watched this exact stuff happen in greys before lol. But yeah overall what a great send off for michael like so good. On my first watch years ago I was always kind of like okay michael is fun but he doesnt really get to contribute to the main part of the show much outside of being a dad and in that sense I always found his character a bit weak/neglible. But now on this watch Im like why didnt they give us more of this michael!! Copaganda aside, The athena team up when theyre searching for harry was so good and it was probably when I started thinking damn this cast is really missing rockmund in recent seasons. But at least they went this direction with the send off, if theres one thing you can trust 911 for its an eventual happy ending. (And also side note. Amidst the summer of bpreg and domesticverse some of the scene in this episode had me really in my feels. Yay)

hiiiiii bestie!!!!!!! thank you for updating me!!! i also did not watch 5a live (started the show the january between 5a & 5b) so i'm in agreement with you on the fact that it's really not a bad half season when binged!! i can understand the frustration of watching it live though. also ravi being in every episode omg......we used to have it all....(totally forgot about that athena and harry shit too wtf...)

OK YAY DEFEND IN PLACE!!! idk if you saw but i ALSO rewatched it this week (partially in your honor and partially to fulfill the summer of buddie self-care prompt). I have SUCH a soft spot for david, we really don't get to see much of him but i loved their meet cute, loved him in there goes the neighborhood and he's just!!! ugh!!! super hot and so sweet and such a good partner to michael.

lol I've never seen grey's anatomy but i can def see that...anyway yay i'm glad you enjoyed the episode. on my rewatch it really hit home for me how much the episode was grant-nash focused (like you said, with the fun little proposal montage) and it made me realize how much i really do miss them. Looking back, part of what really drew me into the show in s2 was all the family stuff--Buck and Maddie first & foremost (also Eddie & Chris), but also definitely the Grants and how they navigated adding Bobby to their family. It was such a good storyline and they really continued to showcase how special their family is through the next couple seasons!!!

anyway thanks for updating me, let me know how the rest of s5 goes (esp May Day!) 🫡

[diagonal-queen]

thungo thursday pt2

ep 6 (put it under a cut because this one is LONG)

fukuchi be like 'the agency couldn't possibly be smart enough to- oh wait nvm i forgot ranpo existed lol' like more than once and i think that is testament to the fact that RANPO BEST BOY

'have you forgotten? we're terrorists' ICONIC BEHAVIOUR

man and i complain about doing one 37 hour work week. after this one week the agency needs to take a NAP. AND THE MAFIA TOO. imagine there's like just no criminal activity or anything for like three days and everyone's like ?? but on day 4 atsushi and akutagawa are fighting to the death at the port and everyone is like 'ah. business as usual' lmaoooo

omg every time the hunting dogs song comes on i get so hyped lmao im like yESSS ACTION

'that man, that demon, the evillest most scawy man ever in the world....etc etc' and its just some guy doing the most coy babygirl pose a guy can possibly do

wait DAZAI WHAT DID YOU DO. HOW DID YOU DO IT

taneda btw deserved none of this he was just some nice old dude and then sigma fucking stabbed him lmao

dazai is like the personification of the perjury mechanic in drv3. 'go on lie. you gotta. lie now. cmon pussy you wont'

OH MY GOD CHUUYA

my god fyozai is so fucking babygirl. also wdym dazai?? if the two of you were the last ones on earth you should just have gay sex. its not that hard smh

oh no dazai falled down through the flore

OH MY GOD MYKOLA AND SIGMA

BESTIE??

BESTIE?????

BESTIE????????????????

BESTIE??????????????????????

B

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?

dm me if you want to receive a free 2min audio file of me laughing about this (i have a headache from laughing. my throat fucking hurts so bad. i'm pretty sure it's actually bleeding. my eyes are moist with tears. BESTIE???????)

do you even needa ask why i'm here?? ⭐️❤️☺️ *voice drops 6 octaves* i'm here to murder you 👹👹👹

and then after that fyodor was just like 'teehee he's so romantic x' like bro

dazai: *turns to the camera like he's on the office* waow

i love mykola's little laugh it's so silley

omg they're actually animating him so well. bones must've seen the reception from s4 and decided to step it up 💀

dazai and fyodor are simultaneously evil grown men and bimbo highschool girls and it's such a look. 'omg ur friends are so cute <3' 'omg right???' also mykola my beloved i want to be yours forever pls

i love how bram's acting all tough like aya can't just open the casket and leave and render him thoroughly powerless lmao

omg the official anime aya and bram sillies begin. we've been waiting for this for months folks so far so good

it was already pretty funny that aya is carrying bram like a backpack but actually seeing her running with him on her back is like a billion times funnier especially since this shit is life or death. but she just got a whole entire vampire on her back no problem sjhsksjssjhj

sigma: watashi wa shiguma me: fucking superb you funky little toddler

imagine if it was a fucking prank this whole time and mykola just injected them with a slow-working sedative or something that would be so funny. like all of this for nothing sksjksjsjks and then he just stabs fyodor or something the end. boom world save

oh ok nvm the vampires can talk just fine i guess lmao. also i genuinely cant tell if im supposed to be taking this episode seriously or not. one second people are being brutally slaughtered next moment silley little guys??? such is the way of bsd i guess

'you're a failure of a woman' my dude she is literally 10 years old she is nowhere close to being a woman shut your misogynistic ass up lmao

OKAY BECAUSE ok ok listen i was wondering what music they were gonna use for bram and when i heard the ending music i was like 'ok a little anticlimactic but i understand' and then it TRANSITIONED into the ACTUAL ENDING??? 10/10

hehe. bestie

[desmoonl]

As was mentioned in a discussion I had earlier, in the first season, a murder of a concubine carried a significant weight that seemed to diminish in later seasons.

We were introduced to the concubine that was murdered, she was her own person. Everyone reacted to the murder with shock, which also includes Valide and Hatice, before they themselves started murdering concubines for their own gain, to win in a fight with Hürrem.., Whereas in the later seasons when a concubine was murdered, while it wasn't a happy moment, it didn't seem like a big deal either, probably because like I said the dynasty members themselves had usually been the murderers. Basically everyone would move on like it's an every day occurence (which in a way was i guess, this only adding to my point).

Season one introduced us to all of the main characters and their relationships really well, they were believable and it was easy to get invested in the show. There seemed to be rules and balance in the harem (which stopped being the case later, once the concubines' lives have started to get used as an own). Through Hürrem we were introduced to kalfas (specifically one that I'll mention more later), aghas/servants in general and other concubines. We saw more of their personal lives/personalities, they weren't only one dimensional plot devices like all of the concubines in later seasons became. Could that be because Hürrem became a sultana so there was no way to see more of them, since she had no reason to really interact and hang out with other concubines anyymore (even though the show does show that Hürrem does like befriending her servants)? It's either an intentional choice by the show aimed to emphasize how distanced she had become from the servants the more powerful she got, which I highly doubt, or the writers couldn't think of another way to show more of concubines' lives or they simply forgot about them/didn't really care for them.

Now, aghas were handled alright (when they weren't completely being reduced to comic relief) even later in the show, in s4 we actually finally got Sümbül's backstory.

Characters the show were was overall more aware of how bad it really was for servants and other women there, which we see in this scene of Mahidevran and Hatice talking about how the women of harem are only worth of being treated as human beings if they give birth to a prince.

We see the show criticising the life of servants there a bit through Ibrahim's reuniting with his family arc as well.

Most of the criticism was shown through Viktoria's arc though, firstly as a condemnation of Süleyman and by being the closest the show ever gets to the real criticism of the empire as @hurrempilled mentioned. Viktoria truly suffered a lot there.

Even Gülfem's character and her dynamic with Süleyman was more fleshed out, specifically in this scene which I really liked, I wish the show focused on her character more

Now, Nigar kalfa has to be the best written character in season one, like genuinely the smartest, most mature person there. Firstly, it was such a good idea to give Hürrem a mentor, her relationship with Hürrem was so nice, having Nigar advise her, hang out with her.. I do hate how the show ruined them. And not only do I dread watching post Leo's death episodes because of the end of her friendship with Hürrem, but also because of her character change. In the final episodes of season one we see her threaten Mahidevran, a sultana, in such a smart and confident way, to have her promoted to a head kalfa.. but then unfortunately that storyline never really goes anywhere. Now, I don't think that Nigar's character was bad in season 2, but I didn't like how they handled her arcs, firstly by switching her from one palace to another to progress her affair with Ibrahim, and then kinda reducing her to only that, being Ibrahim's lover/being in love with him. We could've had that storyline, but also the smart head kalfa arc continuation. And yeah, how season 3 handles her is pretty bad, by s3b I was confused on what even her goal was other than being writers' plot device. I mention her, because she is one of the servants that was handled so well in season 1 and then started going downhill unfortunately. But yeah, this isn't only the case with her character

What @faintingheroine mentioned once, it would've been great if there were servants that were more rebellious, didn't just completely go along with loyally serving the dynasty. Which is also something that I love about s1 Nigar, she was never just blindly loyal like everyone else, she worked/did things for herself as well

[anxresi]

They're absolutely right...

...It's the writers that deserve the lion's share of the backlash, for poor, innocent, boring-as-hell Zoe is merely a tool of the oppressor, aka Mr Astruc. What's being oppressed, you may well ask? Well, interesting storylines, proper continuity, two-dimensional personalities... I could go on. Everything that makes a show compulsive and rewarding viewing that Miraculous Ladybug conspicuously and utterly lacks in every department due to his increasingly destructive machinations, basically.

This pink-streaked plot device masquerading as a serious character can (along with another equally pointless individual called 'Soquerline' who was so unmemorable I almost forgot she was ever a thing) exists for one reason and one reason only: to diminish Chloe's relevance and role in the show to the sum of precisely nothing. Well after S5, job done I guess guys. Well done. Well done indeed. (Although apparently not... they're bringing Miss Bourgeois back for more torture in the London 'special'. Guess Tommy Boy just can't keep away from his favorite punching bag, can he?)

The irony is though, having such a super-sweet but dull-as-ditchwater Mary Sue to replace a well-established and multi-layered person such as Chloe actually sends out a seriously awful message. Why? Because if I was a bad kid and saw S1-3 Chloe, I'd think 'what a fascinating redemption arc, I can inspired by that and do better.' But after seeing S4-5 Chloe and what an arguable downgrade as a replacement the incredibly tedious Zoe is, I'd be more like 'well, obviously there's no point in trying to be good, because you'll probably turn into a psychopath overnight with no explanation in the middle of your genuine efforts to improve. And if what the show is presenting to me as the ideal for a teenage girl to be is the waste-of-blank-space that Zoe clearly is... then a life of deliquency sounds more tempting with every passing minute! Now, where did I put my spray can?'

The most shameless aspect to this whole argument though, is by those trying to paint the hapless Zoe as some kind of lesbian icon. Pardon? She got a plot-mandated crush on Marinette in one episode and somehow that makes her insipid and needless presence an asset for the gay community? Somehow a few people have got it into their heads if you 'dare' to make someone non-straight in cartoons these days you deserve a big pat on the back for that 'risk' alone. WRONG. They should also be fleshed-out, complex, necessary characters whose sexuality isn't just define them or deflect from deserved criticism as to what the hell they are doing there if they turn up in the middle of proceedings with no prior explanation. See: The Owl House for how it's done.

And that's all Zoe being gay is... an irrelevant trait Mr Astruc can point to cynically and say ' you're a bigot for disliking her whatever your reasons are, so I'm not listening to you' instead of engaging with the actual argument which is SHE IS NOT AND WAS NEVER NEEDED IN THE SHOW. Everything you required to make Chloe the brilliant character she could've been was RIGHT THERE in the script but you CHOSE to rub it all out and scrawl some hastily scribbled doodle with no personality other than being 'very nice' in her place. A tragedy. The worst case of self-vandalism I've ever seen. No wonder Jeremy Zag wants to start from scratch with his rebooted movies. More power to him, IMHO.

Needless to say, nearly all the above in the quoted post about her father loving her (we haven't met him yet, it's DEFINITELY not Andre Bourgeois, his name ends in 'Lee' for a start) her supposed growth (the only 'growth' she's had is when she turned into that giant golden Chloe after being akumatized) her alleged pansexuality (all in the desperate mind of the OP) her 'abusive' family (I think you'll find Chloe had it FAR WORSE over the course of the show in that regard, so why not idolise her?) is complete bunkum. and to be frank I couldn't compose a much delusional post if I tried. Sometimes I wonder: what planet are some people on to reach such implausible conclusions? I don't understand it, I'll never understand it and quite frankly I feel quite sorry for the arbiters of such risibly deluded takes.

Last but not least though, we have...

Now this I ALSO agree with 1000%. And I know just the place to 'flush' her... ;)

[allfrogsmatter]

i spent a lot of my weekend playing sims 3 and mannn i forgot how much i loved that game, but it also makes me miss the sims 4 like crazy

rambling thoughts below (also if you played s3 what do you miss or not miss about it???)

sims 4 just does a much better job with relationships and dynamics between sims, which makes it such a good platform for storytelling and i miss that because all my sims 3 sims’ relationships just seem so flat

but there’s something about sims 3 that just makes it so playable. the open world truly was so nice, i love not having loading screens anytime i leave the lot and being able to toggle between sims as they go about their day - i miss it so much in sims 4

also the autonomy in sims 3 just seems so much better, when i leave my sims to their devices they always seem to want to clean up or play with the dog, but in s4 it’s play video games or drink water and leave dirty cups around, plus they spend so much more time actually doing things instead of standing around (maybe this is just because i didn’t excessively mod my game fro s3 but still)

and the wants in s3 are so much better than whims in s4, something about the way they’re displayed just makes me actually want to complete them, and i love that lifetime aspirations show up as wants for kids and teens

other things from s3 i missed:

- pets are more doable- in s4 they’re always running away from neglect because my sims don’t interact with them unless i make them

- separation between worlds- i wish you could travel to other worlds for vacation like you can the ones from world adventures, but i like that your world is contained in s3, everyone at the school lives in your world, everyone at your job lives in your world, you can maintain relationships with people from other worlds but they’re not showing up at your door every day (esp. in the context of a decades challenge, if your sims immigrate from europe to america you won’t be seeing your european auntie walking down the street in your neighborhood)

-color wheel - oh my god, i had almost forgotten, this genuinely was a heartbreaker when s4 came out, there was so much variability in cas and build in s3, even with limited clothing options you could create unique looks for your sims with different patterns and textures and you weren’t restricted to the awful ea options

-clothes- something about the s3 basegame clothing option, it’s just very workable and versatile, maybe i think this because trends have come full circle, but a few years ago when i jumped into s3 again i remember being so tickled with the outfit options

-teens- there’s something about s3 teens that just makes them better, maybe because they made them look like teens by making them shorter instead of just scrawny, but with generations teens just feel more fully fleshed out than in s4 (i don’t have growing together or high school years so ig that’s on me, but also i can’t afford both of those packs)

-packs- something that has really been grinding my gears for the almost TEN YEARS since s4 came out is how much extra content you have to purchase, for s3 if you wanted game content, for the most part you got it through expansion packs, but s4 is just excessive with expansion packs, game packs, stuff packs, kits, etc. there’s just so many features that you want in your game, but it costs a small fortune to get them all because they’re distributed across packs that cost up to $40

-PRICE- i have so many nostalgic memories of saving up my $20 to go to target and buy a new expansion pack for s3, then the joy i felt when it was on sale, every s3 expansion was, and still is, $20 but for s4 they’re twice that, the only time i can ever justify purchasing anymore is when they’re on sale

- rabbitholes- it seems like for s4 they did away with a lot of rabbitholes, just not work and school (except with packs), it was nice being able to send my sims to the movies or the bistro for a date night and not have to be following them the whole time, making them interact

- ownership- maybe it’s just me but i miss physically having the boxes the games came in and putting the disk into the computer and having the little icon for every pack on my desktop, i don’t like how everything’s through origin or the ea app now, esp. because for whatever reason s3 university got uninstalled on my moms pc and ea wanted me to buy it and when i used the code from the box it said it had already been applied (i only have the one account i have no clue why tf they took university from me) and if i didn’t have the disk i wouldn’t have been able to reinstall

- i also miss little things, like ordering pizza and seeing my sims drive around and catching birds in the wild and holiday festivals

[winderlylandchime]

1/2 Finally 4x01!!! The new intro started playing and he got up so fucking fast as if he was watching a game ‘WAIT WHAT?! THIS IS DIFFERENT! OH MY GOD THIS IS COOL AS FUCK! I like this more!! *tries to sing along while not knowing the song* ..cue…BEGIN…pulse..YEAH i fuck with this. And of course the intro ends on Brian walking away. He is the moment!’ ‘Ohhhh Drag Queen moment! I fuck with this. Hi BRIAN! Look at them just hanging out in THEIR loft, damn he is broke as fuck, huh? *said in an affectionate aww type of voice* THEY ARE PARTNERS! He really hates accepting any type of help, huh? Brian maybe you should listen to your own advice from two seasons ago about a man knowing when to accept help. Wait shit, i just remembered the nothing noble about being poor thing. Well fuck Brian’ It briefly showed Mel and Linds and he was so disappointed until Britin popped up again ‘this is what I want every episode, Brian and Justin. And that’s it’ ‘I am genuinely surprised that Hunter and Mike haven’t killed each other. Proud of them’ ‘Brian having lunch with Ben and Linds AND mel? Is he okay? Aw Brian and Justin being sarcastic is one of my favorite things in the world. (Deb says Mikey and her talk 3x a day) Okay, three times a day is…yeah. I mean even I don’t..actually never mind. OH HE IS GONNA KILL EVERYONE IF THEY DONT STOP PITYING HIM. But Bri Bri you are broke as a jok- HA he is gonna steal Bald dudes clients’ ‘i like this drag queen singing in between moments. Its been a while since I went to a drag show. I wonder if they miss me back home..i mean i did tell them I was leaving but still, i hope they miss me- oh ted. I was trying to forget that horrible party-BLAKEY! I’m so happy that he’s good now. EMMETT! Im glad he came to visit but I rea- Ted what the hell is wrong with you? He didn’t do shit wrong to you, why are you being bitchy? No Emy no, blakey didnt do anything wrong. But damn it i get Emy is hurt but fucking hell this isnt it. GIVE ME BRIAN BACK’ brian shows up on screen with Vance ‘HA WHAT DID I SAY? I CAN FEEL WHEN MY BOY IS UP! Wait that..sounds..weird. Of course he looks great, he always does. Oh so now you love him, fuck you baldy, Brian youre better than this. I like his hair. *does jazz hands* spikey. Oh baldy knows that Brian could destroy him if he pulls a Justin Timberlake and goes solo. DO IT BRI BRI! I didnt plan on him having his own company but DO IT!!!!’ ‘How did Mike already lose Hunte- HES HUSTLING AGAIN? *randomly starts laughing* It’s really funny hearing Mike call him little asshole when they’re the same height.’ Ted and Blake are on right now where he’s cleaning the floor ‘ohhhh i think this is gonna be bad. I hope im wrong because i like Blakey but this is looking like you know that thing where you get a crush on your savior or your therapist or something like that? I know my shit..i think’ ‘OH MY GOD WHAT DID THEY DO TO BRIANS CAR? Id rip their head off? I mean the car sucks but damn. Wait i forgot to focus on the important stuff: Brian looks good as fuck! CAN HE STOP KISSING HIM?’ ‘ITS BRIAN AGAIN!(Brian says ‘because no ones close friendship means more to me than yours’) aww Bri Bri, i feel the same way. Im glad you can agree that we have a deep connectio- OH HE IS GONNA GO SOLO! HES PULLING A BEYONCÉ! YOU GO GIRL! I really like the drag queen moments.. i miss my girls back home, i gotta call them.’ ‘AW JUSTIN CAME UP WITH THE COMPANY NAME!! KINNETIK! I fuck with that. I think i need a new shirt (i said No at this point) *looks at me and does jazz hands* merch. Of course Blondie is the one to help him come up with the name. LOOK AT THEM ALL HAPPY AND IN LOVE! Aw they wanna hang out with Emy! I NEEDED THIS TRIO! Make them hang out like when they danced together. The new dream team!’

The new intro! It really reminds me of the OG intro to the OG Beverly Hills 90210 (not to date myself).

It is so hard to watch Emmett and Ted during this arc.

Brian looks sooooooo good in S4.

OH HE IS GONNA GO SOLO! HES PULLING A BEYONCÉ! Truly, I looked it up and she went solo in 2003 right as this was being filmed (if I've got my timelines correct).

AND YES JUSTIN CAME UP WITH KINNETIK. He's named both Gus and Kinnetik (swoon).

The new dream team - I wish!

[tinylilvalery]

I rewatched everything before s4, and I honestly forgot how awful t/s relationship was. Directly after s3, most people were in agreement that Tom was in the right for the betrayal, now everyone is revisionist about it. How he never lover her, and only ever used her. How he mistreated her for the past 3 seasons, while she was only ever thinking about him in her own way. And how HE is exactly like Logan(???). I love Tom, and he can be terrible, but I don't think he ever was towards her prior to the betrayal, he was to other people though. He wouldn't have even gone through with betraying her, if she showed she thought about him at all in her plans with her brothers. The only thing I think he was very much in the wrong for, was him trying to leverage a baby out of her before being send to prison. I hate the framing of their relationship this season, because she looks devastated and he looks careless and now he's the bad guy, even though it was the other way around for 3 whole seasons and nobody cared or made cucking jokes about it. I really feel for Shiv cause so much is going to shit rn, but that doesn't mean she gets a free pass. Same thing with how she grew up. I also think it's so weird how people swear up and down that they both never loved each other, even if she had a weird way of showing it. I think both did at one point. We're watching Succession the nuance show, and everyone wants to take the nuance out of it to baby the sibs

I was so pleasantly surprised to read this!

Adding a cut because my reply got very long!

Fucking fantastically stated. I fr don't know what's going on with the Succ fandom this season cos people this time round seem to have zero nuance when viewing the show and have forgotten the past seasons. My guess is a whole lot of twitter folk came over to Tumblr (since they're brain-dead and loud).

I've rewatched the show, like, more then five times at this point, at the least (tbh I've lost track), so I'd say I have a pretty good understanding of it. And the way all the Sh*v stans want to come in and rewrite T/S (multiple times in one season too lol. One second he's Logan 2.0, the next he's Sh*v's equal in marriage and they're THE otp of Succession and the perfect match, the next he's back to being an abusive piece of shit... It's funny, it's almost like their perception of him changes completely due to them being incapable of faulting Sh*v and they have to change his character to ensure she's in the right at all times), they wanna rewrite Tom's character (oh suddenly ALL he ever was, was a money grabbing manipulative asshole that never cared about anyone and wanted to use Shiv. Yep, nothing more to his character ever /sarcasm), and they wanna rewrite Greg (wow, another character that suddenly was only ever a piece of shit, and an annoying one at that... Despite the fact that Greg has been a fan favourite throughout the whole show alongside Tom... Funny that...), it's just funny to me because they're so obviously reinterpreting EVERYTHING about the show to fit this narrative they have that Sh*v is a great person who has only ever been the victim her whole life, who has only ever been devoted and loving to Tom and he stabbed her in the back (which literally isn't true helppp)! And the hatred of Greg and Tomgreg suddenly rising out of nowhere this season was also so obvious as this immature hatred for another character getting in the way of their ship.

I agree with what you said about Tom and the baby. I think he genuinely would have loved having a kid with her once, but yeah, the timing of wanting one so badly before he was going off to prison? It was definitely to secure a place in her life, cos he even says in 4.7 that she wouldn't have his baby cos she never thought she'd be married to him for more than four years, which shows he's always feared her leaving him, and so a baby would have been a way to keep her committed to the relationship. And I hate that. Women being reduced to Baby Machine is fucking revolting and it's one of the things that makes me the most angry in life. So I do hate Tom for that and honestly, Jesse Armstrong too for making Sh*v pregnant when we all know she didn't want that, and so her pregnancy is so out of character (this is something I've seen in multiple shows. Career driven or otherwise independent woman who states throughout the whole show she doesn't want to get pregnant, and then last minute she gets pregnant. What??? ENOUGH). BUT ALSO LIKE, people forget Tom felt the ONLY way to secure some sort of loyalty or devotion from Sh*v was through a baby. He didn't feel like he had any options cos Sh*v was SO indifferent to him going to prison. She didn't gaf and moreso other characters remarked she even seemed happy about it. I'm not saying he was right in trying to pressure her into pregnancy, he fucking wasn't, but yeah, maybe people should think about how Tom was being slowly marched to prison and Sh*v in his perspective was doing NOTHING to help him or at the bare minimum even comfort him (cos that's what you do as a partner. It's funny people tryna heckle Tom after that 4.8 Tomsh*v interaction and his lack of sympathy considering how little she gaf about him going to prison and actually told him off for coming to her for comfort). Like,,, what does it say about the state of their relationship that that's where he was at.

And yeah dude, the whole thing about framing and a free pass. Look, in a way yes, but I guess when it was edited they didn't think that fans were going to have such strong amnesia to the Tomsh*v relationship throughout the whole show? Cos idk how else to defend it.

Cos, you're right, she doesn't get a free pass, and that finally came through in Tom's behaviour in 4.8. Tom who has had endless forgiveness and love for her throughout the whole show and was the kicked dog as a result, suddenly is just devoid to her now. I think it all caught up finally. This is the result. This is the sum total. Sh*v cares rn because she is fucked up rn about Logan's death. Tom has been her support for years now and she trusts him to be the only one close to her when she's in a bad place. But now he doesn't even want to be (because when she's not in a bad place she doesn't care about him) and she hasn't really had her brothers as support (her own choice because of her guilt and distrust for them) since she started conspiring behind their backs, so who does she have for support?

I think it's all crashing down around her (her father - her god, the king - is dead and she's not coping with the grief at all, she has no alliance with her siblings to make something with them, she has no position at Waystar and ATN, she has no familial support cos her family is also her work, and now she has no husband who was also her work).

She has NO support network. And THIS is the tragedy: she put herself here. Not because she's so great and everyone screwed over poor Sh*vvy. No, the fucking heartaching tragedy is that she isolated herself, because as a result of her upbringing, she was taught to trust no one, not even her siblings. She was taught that personal life was nothing compared to business life, so she put all her eggs into that basket, and now all those eggs are broken and she has no support network to go to now that she's so fucked up. So that's the tragedy for Shiv to me. She's reaping what she's sowed. She didn't question Logan's values and instead adopted them and this is where they've gotten them. It's rough cos I've been in the same place in life where I've isolated myself and have ended up with no support network outside of my family, so when that too went fuckup, there was no one, and it feels like the world is crushing you. So it's the same with Shiv. She has no one now, and that's fucking sad, but there's no free pass here, cos this is the bed she made and now she's gotta lay in it. The only thing she can do is realise that when you isolate yourself like this and shame your own emotions, this is where you end up. Alone and choking on everything you pushed down without understanding of how to cope and no help from anyone. But who knows if she will, cos she'd have to admit she's been wrong about living this whole time, and that's a little ego death in itself.

And yes,,,, lastly I'm so fucking bored of people babying the sibs. Jfc they're all ADULTS. ADULTS.