#i have a lot of thoughts but i hated s3 as a whole

[atlanticsea]

LMFAO. anyways i'm so sorry to sam for being a victim of a hate crime and this storyline not being given the gravity it deserved, i'm so sorry to shandy for being brought in just to be an edwin 2.0 because it's apparently hilaaaarious when characters of colour become unreasonable and make poop jokes i guess, i'm so sorry to edwin who went from being an african man aware of the ridiculousness of his wealth and of the way he could help african players get recognition in their home countries to a man only interested in making white men richer (and a sidenote sorry to sam richardson who is a fantastic actor and deserved a lead actor nomination for his role in the afterparty), i'm so sorry to simi who was seemingly just brought in to make rebecca briefly jealous, i'm so sorry to sharon who was barely present, i'm so sorry to shannon who fully disappeared with one last little cameo where you couldn't even see her face, i'm so sorry to nate's family and lloyd in particular for not being centered in nate's growth because it was apparently better to bring in a manic pixie dream girl to literally force him to go back to richmond, and i'm so, SO sorry to nate who had so much potential and was played by a fantastic actor but did not get to have some of his biggest moments on screen and was forced to go back to richmond not even as a kitman, but as an assistant to the kitman, with none of his concerns ever being addressed, because he doesn't matter here: he's only present to further ted's good guy reputation. i'm so so sorry to every character of colour in this fucking show that got treated so horrendously and i'm so glad they're free now

[miwiheroes]

Dropping Byler evidence Every Day Until Season 5

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ Day 15: Will's 'Love interest' . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

Obviously, as bylers, we have all seen many many people out there constantly saying that Will deserves better, or that Will should have a different love interest, and will have a getting over Mike arc in S5. There are many reasons why these things are not true.

I could easily go on and on and on about this for ages, talking about arcs and why the narrative has not built this up at all but instead here are some simple reasons that don't need much thought on why this would make no sense:

Will is taking 'centre stage' in season 5. Creating a new love interest for this season where he's the main character is stupid, because that means if they want that relationship to be well written, they would need to have A LOT of focus on his love interest too. I understood doing this with Robin (where Vickie is a new character), because she is not one of the main characters and will not have as much impact as Will in S5. No new important characters have been spotted with Will.

Will did not get a love interest in S4. Instead of introducing a new character for Will to fall in love with, they establish that he's in love with Mike instead! In the penultimate season of a show! So that the audience can already have this view that Will may never get the thing that he wants! Just for them to be wrong in the final season after years of waiting, subverting the audience's expectations, which the writers love to do anyways.

Will being in love with Mike has been planned from the beginning. This does not suddenly get dropped after no pay-off. If he is taking centre stage and having his coming of age arc in S5, why would this mean that he gets over Mike? His whole arc is realising that he should be loved instead of settling for being alone???? And he's been planned to be in love with Mike since S1??? So,,,,

They did not have to make Will be in love with Mike. Some people may think that Will's arc only surrounds him being gay and getting acceptance for that. That would make sense! Honestly, that would be a good arc. If he wasn't in love with Mike, when that is clearly a choice that the writers have made. They did not have to make him in love with a boy for years to make it believable that he's got internalised homophobia that he needs to overcome. The writers did not give themselves the easy way out.

Will has stated that he will never stop loving Mike. Will has stated multiple times that he wants to spend the rest of his life with Mike. In the garage in S3 and in the van in S4. This is TWICE and the actors have pointed this out to the viewers to show that Will loves Mike (see Finn and David in that one interview thing pre S4). This seems like enough evidence, but there's still more! He also says he'll never join another party, which, if you don't understand subtext, means that he'll never love someone else. Will then, in the big climax of his arc in S4, states that, in a sign of resignation, he will ALWAYS need Mike no matter what. Is that the face of a man who will suddenly stop loving the guy who he has just sacrificed everything for?

Will has been set up to have his happy ending. We have been shown countless times that Will is selfless. It is an integral part of his character that affects his actions constantly, sometimes hurting himself and other characters in the process. He has also dealt with a lot of pain. Why would a character that feels like he will never fall in love with someone else, whilst still sacrificing himself at every turn, be right about feeling worthless in the end? What? Imagine the message of Will's arc, in a show about outcasts where the theme is that love overpowers hate and that cycles of abuse should be broken, become 'we all need to admit that sometimes we can't have everything we want'.

Will does not 'deserve better'. Hear me out on this one okay? I can't imagine saying that Will deserves better than to have Mike love him back. Mike has been presented as someone that Will loves because Mike is the only one that understands him, the only one that protects him, the only one that doesn't make him feel like a freak, the one who says that making friends with him was the best thing he ever did. Also, also, S5 is definitely going to make Mike seem more likeable to the GA again. It's basically been confirmed at this point, and so, I can't imagine making Mike very lovable all for Will to suddenly deserve better than him again and date someone else.

Will's happy ending is only with Mike. It has been stated many times in interviews that The Duffers are apparently weaving this thread of a storyline where everyone's arcs get completed perfectly and everyone gets their perfect ending. In what universe do people really think that after all this, after Will being selfless and self-sacrificing for years, after Will believing he's a mistake that doesn't deserve love, after Will saying he's going to be in love with Mike forever, he will get a random guy's phone number in a bar or some shit? And that will be his amazing happy ending? That lazy ending will happen to a guy where the whole season will be centred on him? l can't with people on twitter. Take a moment to think.

[sofixt0k]

If we are right, and we are, I believe in Byler because I was both.

I was Mike, I wasn't thinking about love until the girls around me stopped playing hide and seek and started talking about boys. Until they started asking me if I liked any boy. And I felt completely out of place with them, so I invited a love interest from a city where I had relatives, so I could tell them about him and seem normal. I was never homophobic, but I didn't think I could be gay until I was Ten (I invented this whole boy thing when I was eight/nine). I also started to act totally stupid for not being myself, I was an idiot when I was 11/12, I know I was pathetic, I wasn't myself, I was still trying to be normal in everyone's eyes. And it wasn't just about pretending to have feelings for boys anymore, it was about pretending that I didn't like certain things, like video games, youtubers, music, clothes, definitely... I thank the pandemic, because without it I would never (or maybe I would have arrived too late) have my moment to be with myself and find what I want.

And I was also Will, the fact that I realized at age 14 that maybe (definitely) I had feelings for my ex-best friend that I had from the age of five to eleven. How did it get to a point where I started to get stressed out because everyone around me only talks about love and there are only couples (maybe I'm still stuck in this and it still makes me feel out of place). As I literally said the same sentence "I'm not going to fall in love." ( I don't remember exactly if it was like that, sorry ), As I have also complained to certain people like Will did with Mike in s3/s4, and that my complaints NEVER had to do with love, what always mattered most to me was friendship. I've always felt like an oddball, and it's weird, you know? I've already graduated, I'm starting university this year, and at school I always got the best grades, the teachers loved me and I laughed with some colleagues, but that doesn't stop me from always, and maybe still... feeling like a mistake.

Sometimes it's inevitable not to want Byler to be endgame when I often see myself in them, in some way I hate anti-Byler when they say it's nonsense because I feel like they discredit me too.

I have suffered bullying, I have received homophobic comments, I have been teased for being a nerd, but I have long since accepted the fact that I was born to do it. I have let myself be consumed by my problems and thoughts and that has ruined me, since I do not talk about things with others (Mike) and I am disinterested with my feelings, and I only seek well-being of those I love (Will).

So yeah, I'm mad at the obsessive milkvans who hate the Bylers. There is already a LOT of "normal" straight teen content out there for you to relate to.

Stranger Things is literally about WEIRD THINGS, nerdy people, rejected people, people with family problems, people with personal problems, gays, machismo, heteronormality...

Byler is not about wanting two men to kiss and get married and adopt blah blah, it's not a fetish.

This is about a story. Byler is about being a Story. A story that many of us on the margins, including myself, can relate to.

And a story that will go down in history (excuse the redundancy), being portrayed as one of the most realistic versions of what "fitting in" and being "normal" means.

[i-only-ever-asked-questions]

On the last blow to GO and why we want the 6 episodes

I might get hate for this, I may be completely ignored, I don't know. But I wanted to point out a couple of things.

I have seen a lot of hate towards fans who are sad, disappointed and angry at Amazon for reducing the 3rd season by about 2/3rds (45 min per episode originally) to a home movie. Hate that is unwarranted because you can, in fact, have more than one thought in mind. You can have different feelings about different things at the same time, you can have different feelings about the same thing at the same time, and more importantly you can respect people for having feelings different to yours in response to the same thing. Life is not black and white, humans are not black and white, situations are not black and white, it is more like... shades of gray

So want to remind (or inform) people of why we are so upset and why we want those 6 episodes back

This fandom has been around for 34 years, it has been around since the book came out. It is not 4 years old, it is 34, older than many of the fans have been alive, maybe even you

The fans have known since at least 1991 that there was a sequel planned, that there was a plot and even a title, 668 The Neighbour of the Beast, but nothing happened. The sequel was again brought up in 2005, when a little bit of the plot and the South Downs were revealed, and more hope was built, but again it didn't happen

In 2010 when they decided to make GO a TV show instead of a movie, Terry believed that the whole story could be told at last

In June of 2021, S2 was announced and we learned that since the beginning the idea was to take two seasons to finish the story, where S3 would be the actual plot of the unwritten sequel and S2 would be the bridge between them

S3 is the story that the fandom has been waiting for for 34 years, the story Terry wanted told, the one he had a hand in creating. It was supposed to be the last of his stories to be released into the world

We were told it was bigger than S1 and suddenly it is not. The story that fans have been waiting for 34 years, the one we've been looking forward to see on TV for over 3 years is suddenly taken away. S1 needed 6 episodes to go through it all (5 if you exclude the cold open of Ep3 and the executions in Ep6), S3 was supposed to be bigger than that, the story in S3 was supposed to take a whole 6 episodes to be told and seeing how S1 needed so many hours, a bigger story would need a bit more, not less. So yeah, many of us are upset, many of us have been waiting for a long time, many of us had been hoping for a long time, don't belittle us for that

[cbrownjc]

I'm curious on why do you think Daniel would hate Armand when he recovers his memory... I thought he would resent him or be ashamed of being in love with the guy who tortured him not too long ago (He could maybe even prescribe himself as having Stockholm Syndrome).

I also can't wait to see all the relationships in Dubai in S3, the angst omg

Hi!

So I don't think Daniel is going to recover all of his memories before the start of Season 3. I think he's just going to remember one more thing by the end of the season via one memory, which will reveal that he and Armand -- at some unknown point -- had sex and said "I love you" to each other.

And that is all Daniel is going to remember of his and Armand's relationship -- that they had sex at some point in time and there was an "I love you" exchange (likely during it) and that's it.

And that little bit Daniel remembers is in no way going to tell the whole story of everything. And that is going to be the key as to how and why he'll react the way I think he will.

Because there is no way, IMO, that Daniel would be happy to learn he and Armand were involved with each other like that with only that little bit of info about it all. Especially not after how Daniel has been reacting to just the whole Rashid deception.

Because after learning that Armand might have very well screwed with his mind not just for days, but for who knows how long? And doing so to hide that something like that happened? I think Daniel is going to view it all as Armand lying to him in a HUGE way. No matter what Armand's excuse for it might be.

And now also given the fact that Daniel knows Armand has messed with Louis' mind in the same way too, I don't think that is going to help Armand in any case he might plead about why he did it in Daniel's eyes either. I really do think Daniel going to see it -- at first -- as nothing but manipulation on Armand's part at first. And, as Eric himself said, Daniel doesn't like being bullied.

Now, I'm not saying that Daniel will only see it that way from here on out. But if Season 2 ends with a reveal that they had sex and said "I love you" to each other in the past at some unknown point (and I still think that reveal will be coming in episode 2x08), the first half of Season 3 is going to have Daniel super angry about that, along with some shame too as well of course, I'm sure. Especially because he's not going to have the full context of it all.

But it'll probably take until the middle of Season 3 before Daniel is even willing to hear Armand fully out about it I bet.

And honestly, I think Armand is going to have to deal with a lot of anger coming at him during the first half of Season 3, and not just from Daniel. I fully expect Lestat to be there and, since we know we're getting Lestat's backstory in Season 3 then, if you know that story from The Vampire Lestat, Armand doesn't exactly cover himself in glory during the events there either. Heck, Louis already alluded to the hands thing with Nicki in this very episode.

So yeah, Daniel won't be the only one angry at Armand for a time at the start of Season 3 IMO, but I do think he will be. And what Daniel will very likely hear wrt Lestat's backstory isn't going to help things in that regard either I bet, coupled with the fact that his memory of their time together as lovers will only be remembering one fleeting moment and that's all.

Daniel won't yet have his full memory of everything regarding him and Armand together going into Season 3; not for a (long) while IMO. And so missing a lot of context is going to inform Daniel's first and immediate reaction to learning it, IMO.

[quirkle2]

i'm sad so im gonna talk about dimple in the anime world domination arc and how he makes me a little ill

besides the divine tree arc, bc that's obviously where he rly shines, i think the wd arc is where we see the most Genuine Dimple. we see him just earnestly helping out any way he can during this whole thing, doing his absolute best to keep mob alive and anybody the kid cares about to boot. and Yeah, he has a motive to help the kid bc he's trying to earn his trust to manipulate him, but he Knows mob trusts him already (see mogami arc). he doesn't have to keep this up. i dont think dimple even has any of that on his mind at the time.

there's a couple lines in this arc from dimple that feel like they come straight from his soul and i never stop thinking about them. i'll talk about The Scene in a minute but

when they meet up with reigen and the others in the hideout, dimple does not have to say "let him rest, i'll fill you in," but he does. when mob is unconscious and vulnerable dimple does not have to protect him, but he does. when mob is fighting minegishi dimple does not have to stay—hell, when mogami shows up, somebody that dimple seems very afraid of, he does not have to stay, but he does. and when mob goes up that tower to confront serizawa and toichiro, dimple accompanies him, not rly bc reigen asks him to, but bc he seemed like he was planning on it from the start with that little "i know i know" that sounds so halfheartedly bothered

he doesn't have to do really Anything that he does in wd arc, and yet he's there and helping, and while you can argue that a lot of it might've been done just to keep mob alive and dimple in his favor, i think the majority of it was instinctual and real

mogami arc seemed like a turning point for dimple and mob's relationship, bc mob truly and completely put his life and wellbeing into dimple's hands and dimple's hands alone. dimple cracks some joke abt his uglier intentions and mob simply stares and says "i'm sure it'll be fine," and dimple visibly does not know how to react to this. like reigen says later: this is the first time somebody has put so much trust in him. dimple has No Idea what to do w this, and the sheer kindness of it makes him hesitate to take advantage of the kid

the fact that dimple is able to possess mob at all during wd arc goes against what we've been told before about espers and their mental barriers, which (and i believe this is touched on in the manga w more explanation but i haven't read it) shows just how much trust mob has in dimple. his mental barriers are already off 24/7 for the guy. dimple could probably possess him whenever the fuck he wanted

Something changed in dimple's mind between mogami arc and wd arc, and that's further proven by a line of his in s3. it's been a while since i've watched this part so correct me if i'm wrong but i think dimple says smth about forgetting that his original goal had been to become god. that he lost sight of that somewhere along the way, and just stopped thinking about it. even during divine tree arc, toward the end, he says smth about "has being around the unmotived shigeo caused me to lose sight of my goals and ambitions?" at some point dimple just completely dropped that goal and started being a genuine friend w no ulterior motives. started embracing that trust he's been given, and not letting it go to waste

yes, dimple half-lied to calm him down after the fire, but he tells reigen that he has reason to believe what he said was true. and when reigen comments that mob would hate him if he Knew he lied, dimple's reaction is Genuine Remorse. that face is not one of "damn my evil schemes r falling apart. aw drat" or "ohmy god i'm going to be exorcised" that is the face of a guy who feels real and honest regret and guilt over even the Thought of his friend hating him. that is a guy who shrinks into himself at the idea of mob not calling him a friend anymore

and so.when mob runs to his parents' room and That Scene happens, dimple's first and genuine response is to scream at mob to look away, shigeo! look away! protecting the kid, protecting his innocence, bc no kid should have to look at something so horrible, and dimple Cares about this kid. he doesn't know when he started caring, but he cares now, and in a dire situation like this, dimple's knee-jerk reaction is to comfort and protect this boy, not take advantage of him. do u understand how important this scene is to me.

this rly has nothing to do w the story itself but i am an English Dub Enjoyer and dimple's va is Outstanding, especially when he voices that look away, shigeo! look away! it sounds so panicked, so desperate—there's rly nothing in the rest of the show that sounds quite like it bc it's so horribly despairing and pleading. he just wants shigeo to look away, to not stare at his family's burning faces. it's a devastatingly raw command that burns just like the walls do. that line and its delivery is so haunting to me

[unfortunate17]

Hate how some ppl are saying it shouldn’t have been a big deal for Simon to delete his accounts and lay low for Wille. Yeah sure that’s probably what’s expected for the crown prince’s partner, but wasn’t s3’s whole point ‘why should he have to? Why should Wilhelm have to?’ You want a queer king to revolutionise the monarchy but want that monarchy to operate exactly as it always has?

It’s not even that he hated all the attention! He loved being appreciated for his music, he was so happy that boy in bjarstad looked up to him, he thought that if Wille had to start a foundation, he could do some good for a cause he believed in. Yeah they’ll probably always still be in the public eye, but I think with time and support Simon could make peace with that, if he got to handle it in a way that fits his values and lets both him and Wille thrive (this is how pop star Simon can still win). IMO the issue was the royal court and Wille’s own issues leaving him out in the cold, with no idea how to deal with the hate except to “ignore it”

No you’re so right 👏

Honestly I’ve always felt that Simon and Wilhelm both have very “small” dreams. I actually kind of disagree with the pop star Simon agenda (but I also don’t fully disagree with it I think it can work depending on the context), but yeah he loved the positive attention 😭

I see a lot of people who keep saying that abdication wouldn’t solve all of Wilmon’s problems but they’re kind of missing the point?

Like yes Wilmon will always have to live with scrutiny and probably security, but they’ll be free to live how they choose. Wille can cut his hair how he likes, he can get tattoos, paint his nails, move out of the country, choose not to have children, get married however he likes - or not get married, dress how he likes, develop his own interests without wondering how the public is going to perceive him, etc. Simon can post on social media however he likes - they’ll have no reason to hide behind outdated ideas of respectability or tradition.

They’ll be free in all the ways that matter.

I also want to point out that the last thing Wilhelm says to his parents is that he loves them and the queen lets him go. It’s very much implied that Wille’s going to repair his relationship with his parents and it’s probably going to be a lot healthier now that he can be himself

[the-chessboard-is-personal]

ii s3 liveblog

I'm a bit sad rn so sorry if my reactions are bad this time

1 - I'm not supposed to relate to Balloon am I. y'know. the guy that did something bad in the recent past and now everyone hates them even though they're trying to change.. sigh. wHAT? h. how is he here?? HOW IS SHE HERE??? ...does MePhone look different from how he was in the first half of s2? it's been a bit since I watched that but I swear there's something different about him. oh, new intrthe island is alive. warp pipe.

2 - yup sure :) 👍 right okay BOW is glitching now. something to do with chairs and maybe she lost her memories? she was obsessed with chairs before she died, so..oh fuck I'm taking as many notes as Cabby huh

3 - oh I thought I had something to say about this one. sorry

4 - if the floor gets eliminated, how will that work? .yo WHAT is going on with candleMUMBO JUMBO CATCHPHRASE ... I. I don't think that's what polishing a screen does.?

5 - what if Box wins lol ..oh. wait there was no formal elimination, I guess that got replaced with Box being pulled this episode

6 - them ,,,,,they,both of them,, the cool(s) -> ☯

7 - well call me a camera because [screenshots the auras file]. . . . . . . . . . a. ..nobody knows about this joke yet but if I had a- uh. nickel. for every time a series I know about had a character named Bow with trigger words, I would have two nickels. which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice what is going on with Bow and chairs. HEY MARSHMALLOW TOO?? yes I will keep doing this strikethrough bit

8 - oh fuck I just realized. "iii" as in Inanimate Insanity Invitational but also as in 3 (roman numeral) because it's season 3. also just based on the title I have a bad feeling about this episode (<-half-right??) wait WHAT. MePhone what the fuck does that rnean. whhaaAAAA- oh. agdjhk s ghdclod damn it the commercial is pLOT RELEVANT. hhhhey quick question. how uh. how do we know that everyone's back in the right body..? like. there were some characters who weren't onscreen after they all died again. uhh

9 - th. this episode is probably not like. actually worse than the other ones or anything. but, with the bias I had already formed because I distrust people with the name of the one this episode is a collab with, some stress I was already feeling today before even starting this liveblog, something Balloon said at around 9:14, said pre-liveblog stress making me associate the whole "animation machine" thing (which is seen as bad) with something I like but everyone else hates, I personally have nothing good to say about it.

10 - why is Cabby gold. oh it's whoever has the Immunity Cookie. wait did Cabby forget about TBD because her file was burned??

11 - bat? pokemon. the game you're thinking of is pokemon. wait did he say backstab HOW DOES HE KNOW CANDLE SAW BETRAYAL?? ..yeah I was wondering how that would work

12 - I knew it. I knew Cabby would forget stuff that isn't in a file! urghhh can they Please vote out silver spoon already. he's not gonna WIN, right?? sorry. but I don't like him.

13 - oh the intro reflected Bot's change in appearance. neat! nononoononoNONOONNO GAUhokay. listen I know it's probably not going to happen but I really want YinYang to win. and holy shit that "for the rest of your life" was foreshadowing.

14 - okay off to a start that makes me want to punch something. okay. okay. it's not a real ad. good. HUH HE GLITCHED holy shit, damn uzumaki lookin rooms what is this /positive(?) ☯ 👈 GRIAN INSTINCT (which. to be fair, mood). p u r p l e . PURPLE ACKNOWLEDGED. WHAT WAS THAT! ohhh what the hell. you fuck off this INSTANT you silver shitface. ohh I hate him. I hate him more than I hate Cobs. ..does Cabby not have parents? SPLRINGY IS FAKE. SPRINGY IS A ROBOT OR SOMETHING MADE BY COBS I'M CALLING IT NOW. please please please kill the spoon kill the spoon plEASE- ARRGHHH

15 - seeing as the next episode has Blueberry in the thumbnail and is called The Great Bluish Bake Off, I have a slight prediction on who will win the rejoin. wait what. yeah I'm gonna be honest I don't think it was murder. NO NONONOONO DON'T NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WAUGHHH,,,,,

16 - why....why am I finding Nickel so relatable. w h a t . now I've never had oatmeal raisin cookies, but I don't think they're the Number One Cause of global warming. I know it's a cartoon and awHAT THE HELL HE JUST DIED

(between 16 and 17) m. MePhone knows. MePhone knows what's going to happen when the season ends, doesn't he? that's why he doesn't want it to. that's why he's desperate. but the question remains, what does he know that the viewers don't?

17 - wait this episode is from 10 months ago. is- is the series not over? damn it! I prefer to binge watch stuff so I don't forget while waiting for new episodes. oh don't even fucking go there. 14:01 FUCK OFF.

(between 17 and 18) y'know I was trying to watch this to ESCAPE all the drama and discourse everyone hates me for. this just feels personal at this point. but hey, who cares about me, right? onto the next damn episode!

18 - there's another 4 under that 4. are they all 4s. ohhh noooo, what an inteeense moooooment. wow it's really fucking difficult to care right now.

19 - again final episode so I'll break this into sections. kinda

..,.Cabby..I think I understand a bit more about my own..situation because of Cabby. wait wait. "built" to? BUILT to?? HMMMMMM 4S is still here?? what ??? ? well at least the one that YinYang wanted to win won..!

and that's season 3 huh.

well. that was kinda filler? tbh?

and the message in episode 17 sucked- ..eh. hold on. I'm getting too angry over some discourse. I need a break from typing this.

okay after like half an hour I realized something. they were trying to win an award. I like AI art, but I don't think it should ever win any awards in competition with human art. the two are fundamentally different. I don't think there should be any competitions that have both, especially high prestige ones. that line at 14:0whatever was too far though.

my opinion is that human art and AI art are both art. but they're VERY different forms of art, and should probably be kept that way.

overall I liked the season. sure, YinYang didn't win and episodes 9 and 17 are...like that. but it's not that bad tbh.

probably gonna watch the rest of s2 tomorrow, but for now I just want to play minecraft.

[zabala0z]

TMA S3 FINALE (and me screaming)

I don’t know where to start. Maybe the fact that everyone I like in this podcast always dies? Yeah I’ll start there. What the fuck guys. What. Like. What?????

I’m not going into my usual format but holy shit. MAG 119 was like motion sickness but for my ears. The music. I hated it so much. That organ. Tim. Tim. I knew he raised too many death flags, Jesus. Like I’m happy and all for him but GOD NO. AND DAISY??? Though when she started attacking the shit out of Breekon and Hope, I did internally cheer her on. The fact they tried to act as Basira made me wanna scream. Now that I think about it, was Daisy being influenced by one of the entities?? Like The Slaughter?

Basira is so much stronger than me. Like genuinely, I think she got bumped up a couple places just by her sheer logic during 119 and I am so impressed 💀 so much so, I’m wondering if she had like any internal help, y’know??

Orsinov is like one of the most horrifying sounding characters here. The moment she put on Gertrude’s and Leitners voice, I shrieked. Something about the sing-song voice, the way she inflects certain words makes my head spin. Like Michael.

Little backtracking, Martins situation with his mom is like devastating. And the moment Elias started speaking, I knew he was gonna pull out some traumatizing shitty news to give Martin, I hate him.

Fast forwarding: Jon’s dreams

Okay. So. Jon I guess is in some sort of coma and man are his dreams fucked up.

All the people that appeared in there were the people who gave physical statements. Not super hard to figure out but we had Dr Lionel Elliott, Tessa Winters, then Daisy but obviously she’s not there (DAISY 😭), Karolina Górka, Jordan Kennedy, I think the melted woman refers to Jude Perry, the hunters (Julia and Trevor), Naomi Herne and then the pitying figure. The only woman I would think would fit this vague description is Sasha because of course it’s vague, he doesn’t remember her and I’m going to sob.

Bit scared on what Jon is turning into. Whatever it is, it’s not anything good. He’s watching a lot and I guess he’s watching other people’s dreams- or nightmares- and just….watching??? I’d be terrified.

Elias got arrested. Love it. Though, “Be seeing you” I HATE YOU. 🫵🏻

Would be happy but god damn PETER LUKAS has replaced him and I don’t know if that’s worse or better because we at least know Elias’s actions and his limits. We don’t know much on Peter and I don’t like him at all. At least he’s giving them paid leave. And a counselor. I personally need a counselor for this WHOLE SEASON.

When people told me “good luck” when I started getting into TMA, I laughed it off. I should’ve taken it more seriously because I have never felt more distinct and unpredictable emotions than listening to this podcast. I think that’s all my thoughts. Mostly I’m just uhh dying here. I hate everyone and this podcast and I’ll be listening to the beginning of Season 4 tomorrow!

Again, thank you to everyone who has been following my mini rants and crappy theories. Remember when I thought Gertrude was living in the tunnels??? But seriously, thanks to anyone who has been like fully reading through my posts. School has been wack and the people, and just the podcast as a whole has been making my time less stressful 💀 anyways that’s too emotionally vulnerable so thank you!!!

[just-a-toast]

II 17 SPOILERS UNDER CUT

So I have a LOT of thoughts on this episode but there’s one that has been weighing on my soul since watching it.

Mephone is stuck with Cobs. For good.

After telling everyone the truth. They all hated him. Even MePad told everyone to get behind him because he thought mephone just wants to hurt the contestants for amusement.

While what mephone did to them was unfair, mephone admits to not seeing the problem because that’s how HE felt. He never knew how that would affect a person. He’s known NOTHING ELSE

He felt broken. And all of them were broken as a result. It’s like when I kid grows up in an abusive environment, they assume everyone has the same experience.

Kids make up silly gags with basic stereotypes because they don’t think how that could affect someone. Mephone was still mentally a child/had childlike innocence when he first thought of the contestants.

This could also be taken in a meta stand point with Adam, Justin, and Brian making the characters stereotypes for jokes and not seeing how that directly effects the character. They’re characters so why do the childish authors care?

Back to my point, now that everyone knows, why would they help him? They have been helping him every season! 1 4s sacrificed himself for him, marshmallow killed bow to help mephone! S3 balloon, cabby and silver campaigned for his life! And he had to be saved from being thrown into a volcano!

Now that they know their lives weren’t theirs in the beginning, why should they help the person they’ve been saving, but made them broken? (I’m not saying they never had their own lives it’s just they don’t feel like they had any control over their lives. This is a whole post in of its self)

So even if the contestants came back as ghosts, none of them would help him.

Neither would MePad.

After everything MePad has done for Mephone, MePad doesn’t have any good feelings towards him anymore. MePad borderline hates mephone.

So … mephone is.. completely alone. Not a single soul will help him.

The only people would would WILLINGLY help him is toilet or bot but either probably won’t work

We still don’t know if toilet is real or not. We didn’t see him at the end so we could assume he disappeared with everything else. And Bot is in S3. They could come back because everyone there might be disappearing too and needs help but once they find out mephone made the contestants and that test tube and fan died.. it’s really a 50/50. I don’t know they will be coming back to help him.

Another possibility is the shimmers but mephone is still a Meeple product so even if he knew he was a shimmer (which I don’t think mephone even knows he’s a dead shimmer) they wouldn’t trust him enough to help him.

So. Mephone has no choice but to take the one hand that is given to him. He has nothing else.

There’s no where to go, no one to call, nothing. Just him, his abuser, and the cycle of abuse.

Everyone might live, and get a semi happy ending with them being free in the afterlife but mephone.

There’s no happy endings without him, but none for him.

It’s time for him to go home. Start over from the beginning.

[yuerikoko]

I think I now get where all the Angela hate (and mischaracterization) came from

(Posting another ramble dedicated to my beloved yay)

I might sound like I’m beating a dead horse here since the Angela hate has died down as of recently but I still can’t help but wonder why she had received that much hate in the first place. What warranted her to get this much hate even until recently, whereas other characters who are written similarly to her, or have done much worse, are not as actively hated? Where did the popular fanon conception of her— one that portrayed her as an abuser, stalker and even r wordist at one point— also come from?

After some thinking and also me having known this fandom for 3 years up to this point, I think(?) I was finally able to trace where all this hate came from and where the infamous fanon version of her came to be.

CW: spoilers for WE and mentions of abuse/stalking/sexual assault and other potentially triggering themes. Please proceed with caution.

Also note: I do not intend to harass or call anyone out with this. Therefore, I will not be naming any names (if any) nor will I mention any works that can be triggering. This is simply a meta analysis trying to dissect a character’s fan reception, and while I may give my own thoughts somewhere down the line, I will also try to be as objective as possible with my observations.

0. Pre-C42

Before C42 came out, Angela did not receive as much hate. She wasn’t as popular as Jack or Elliot either, yet people didn’t have a reason to hate her at all prior to IPS. It was likely because she didn’t have much to remember her by other than being “Lars’s wife” or the S3 coroner, either due to the fact that she doesn’t have as much screen time as compared to other characters, or simply doesn’t have anything that makes her stick out as a character or as iconic as others in the team (e.g. Jack, Elliot and Marina for their designs, Lars, Carmen and Elliot for their attitudes towards the team and other people around them in general).

This, however, will be a topic of discussion again in a while, so please keep this in mind as we move on to the next point in this analysis.

1. The aftermath of C42 and C56

This seems to be the starting point of this whole hullabaloo, and understandably so. Angela had just murdered someone, betrayed us, and tried to frame other people for it (C42) and of course, people were upset about it, yet there were still those who had hope for her and tried to sympathize with her. And then came C56, where she returned, but as a colder, more aggressive version of herself that has pledged loyalty to SOMBRA and was willing to carry out their orders so dutifully that she was willing to plant a bomb. This, of course, likely fueled the hate and people had more of a reason to hate her when she made fun of Dupont’s death. Although one take in particular did stand out to me (and not in a good way):

The idea that she doesn’t genuinely love Lars.

Yes, I do understand that this is a very old take from 2016 and things may change from there, but I would just like to highlight how dangerous it is to perceive characters this way. Takes like these erase the complexities of her writing and essentially reduce her— someone who has had to make a lot of hard decisions to even be with Lars, which became the basis of the person she was up to that point— into a nothing more than a caricature of how people think morally gray characters should be based on whether or not they are deemed “good” or “bad” in the traditional sense.

I also do think certain plot holes in PS’s handling of her character in the final case also contributed to it. It felt ridiculous to see how a character whose most defining trait is being family oriented suddenly turned cold and bitter towards her old team, unhesitatingly claiming that they were enemies now as if their previous friendships did not matter. Maybe this was where the idea that she’s manipulative and/or possessive came from: since she was still clinging onto Lars and the triplets (that her literal last wish was to see them again) while showing this lack of compassion that would be unnatural to her past self.

With that said, the fact that she wasn’t as memorable as a main character but was more iconic as a traitor/antagonist did contribute to mixed opinions from the fandom back then. While a lot of people seemed to be mad at the things she’s done, there were some who thought it made her more interesting as a character. I guess it depends on subjective interpretation in this case, though unfortunately, back when WE first came out, many people fell into the mindset of black-and-white morality, and end up hamfisting complex and nuanced characters into extremes based on whether or not they like them.

2. Fanon/“Yandere” Angela

Following the events of WE, this seems to be a very common fandom perception of her. This subject is somewhat hard to accurately put into words, but I will try my best to give my analysis and thoughts on it, so please correct me if I get something wrong.

For those who don’t know, this is what a yandere is supposedly defined as:

TL;DR: yanderes are known to be violent, possessive and obsessed with a particular love interest. This may even go to the extent of hurting any potential “rivals” or even their love interests themselves.

If you have been in the fandom long enough, and especially if you’re into WE or Angela, you might find that there have been numerous fanfics that described her this way: as an absolutely horrible person who abuses and even stalks Lars in some, along with getting upset when others get close to him.

It may have originated from Wattpad, where there were two fics (afaik) focused on the concept of Angela being a yandere in itself. This, and considering the fact that there is barely any fan material of Angela (most especially fics) and that almost every fic that has her in it at the time either has her play an antagonistic role or use her as a plot device (usually for other ships to happen) may have contributed to the whole idea of her being a “yandere” that was almost universally accepted as the basis of her character in fics.

There is also that perceived manipulation and “sociopathy” from earlier that may have contributed to the idea of yandere Angela. A common fandom perception of her is that Angela has a warped idea of what love is and ends up displaying unhealthy/dangerous behaviors towards Lars as a result of her obsession (which she perceives as “love”). And as a result, she ends up resorting to actual criminal behavior in some of these fics: stalking Lars, physically abusing him and in one extreme case, even raped him. (Disclaimer: I will not be naming any of these fics since I do not condone hate or harassment towards the authors, nor do I want to further trigger anyone reading this by openly naming said content.)

This may have also been a big factor in contributing to Angela hate as the normalization of this depiction of her has led to people almost unanimously accepting this as her actual character.

I would like to say that I very much disagree with this take on her character. While yes, it is true that Angela does have questionable morality (e.g. she understands that what SOMBRA did to children is wrong and actively condemns it, yet was willing to blow up the Bureau hq knowing that Elliot and Sanjay are inside), her love for Lars seems to be genuine and even healthy for the most part. Time and time again, she has shown that she really loves him— hell, her laptop password even has his name on it.

3. Popularization of these misconceptions

As these fics were the only depiction of Angela in the fandom for a time, they are, by far, the most infamous depiction of her. This, along with the “I hate her because she’s a bad person and did bad things” majority, has then led to her getting this much hate from the fandom.

Moreover, there was a time in 2023 where there’s an influx in WE-centered fics, and that also resulted in most of the anti-Angela fics for the most part. This may explain the more recent hate directed towards her as compared to characters from other seasons.

Conclusion

Much of the hate towards Angela in particular stems from both severe misinterpretation of canon events and her character’s actions/intentions, and this version of her being extremely popularized to the point where people treated it like it’s actually her. The former mostly applies to around the time WE was still ongoing to after it ended (2016-2017 ish) while the latter could explain the more recent hate. Fortunately, it seems as though more people have the media literacy to read along the nuances of her character and understand her intentions before forming an opinion.

Anyways this was A LOT— probably even longer than the Carmen/Angela post but I’ve been thinking about this for just as long (there was a time I was afraid to admit I liked her because of how hated she was). Thank you for listening to my TED Talk, I guess.

[lover-of-mine]

so I saw your earlier post about how Tommy is getting Ali’ed, and I wanted to ask about who you think is the most developed and likeable out of Buck’s love interests? (except Eddie ofc, he’s the best and I can feel it in my bones that he will become endgame.) I’m still in s3, so I’m kinda a new watcher you could say. (I’ve read too many tumblr spoilers and copius amounts of fanfics though, so I’m able to keep up with and watch season 8 live).

I wanted to ask this because I’ve seen so much Tommy hype and promotion on here that I really thought that he was developed as a character and a main. But from what I’ve heard, he’s only worse than Buck’s and Eddie’s actually developed love interests. Before I actually started watching the show, I’ve only heard bits and pieces here and there about 911 and the “gay” firefighters, but that’s about it. I only started watching seriously during season 7, and I’m a pretty slow binge-watcher (hence why I’m only 3x12 lmao). When I went back to season 1, I fully expected to see Tommy (bc honestly, I thought Tommy and Eddie were the same person for a while lmaooo), but then I got to season 2 and saw the begin episodes and I was like wtf? How do people actually like this man? Eddie is literally RIGHT there. Even if Eddie wasn’t endgame or a romantic interest, he’s still a better compliment to Buck platonically than Tommy is romantically. So then I thought “oh maybe he had a redemption arc or like changed for the better like Buck did,” but from what I’ve seen on s8 and on here, it seemed like he didn’t? So that only makes me more confused on why a majority of the fandom seems to love his character. Personally, I don’t really see anything, but I guess everyone has their own opinions 🤷🏻 . Though, I’m scared that I’m basing this on too little info and I missed something because I haven’t watch seasons 4–7.

(this got so long I’m so sorry. it kinda ran away from me a little bit 🫡. Lowkey needed to vent my thoughts)

Hi, darling! I'm gonna ignore Abby, because in the context of season 1, Buck is her love interest, not the other way around, since she is the main character. So most developed is hands down Taylor. Ali was barely there, and Natalia didn't fulfill what they wanted to do with her since the actress couldn't come back to s7. Likable is complicated because Ali and Natalia aren't around enough for you to get attached and, Taylor and Tommy have a past of hurting the 118, so it's hard to be sympathetic at times. Taylor gets a lot of background information, they live together, even though the relationship is clearly wrong, both of them are trying to make it work as best as they can, so it makes sense for Taylor to be around. She tries to love Buck as best as she can, it's just not enough, they are incompatible. And, well, Tommy. Imma be honest, the only thing Tommy has going for him is the fact that he is a man. The bt fandom took that and ran. Basically, they decided that since he is a man and a first responder that meant that the relationship would be super developed and they built it UP based on nothing really (actually based on Lou having a cameo and people paying him to headcanon with them, but that's a whole another you just had to be there), not on the show at least. I don't believe he had a redemption arc, the show kinda makes it seem like being queer excuses his behavior and just doesn't address it. In my opinion, when I try my best to be unbiased and ignore the way I deeply hate the character because of the fandom, I think Tommy is pointedly being written as a bad fit in Buck's life and the relationship will run its course once Buck wakes up and stop just accepting whatever.

And if you think Eddie is the better compliment to Buck and you're still in 312, just wait, they get more intense. It's madness. They are soulmates, I don't care about anything else.

[macabresymphonies]

With the news of cancellation of Good Omens S3 into a 90 minute finale I sort of find myslef reminicing about where does the border between seperating art from the artist lie.

As a preface I'm gonna say I don't have any particular attachment to Gaiman's body of work as a whole. Western comics were never really popular where I'm from outside of extremely niche circles that graduated into standard niche circles only recently, with Gaiman's visual and literary works included. So this opinion does not stem from any particular nostalgic place. As far as I'm aware the situation is currently still under investigation, but there is concrete proof that Gaimain is, by the traditional definition, no longer considered a "good person" or at least not aligning with his previous public persona. I'm not really an authority to speak on the topics involved in the scandal and I'm really here just to ramble on my own personal blog about art and artist relationship, I'll leave the rest to people who know what they are talking about. Good? Good.

I know it's easy for to denounce, degrade or disprove work made by people we find out were some sort of morally corrupt or did awful stuff in their life. This usually stems from the fact it's hard to believe someboy who's in empathetic and introspective enough to write about topics that resonate with many people so well would still choose to hurt vulnerable people around them or to generally engage in activities that mean to do harm to others.

If we take JK Rowling for example, as heartbreaking as it must have been for most fans of her works to find out about her hate campaigns and such, if we look objectively at the body of work in question it was already brought many times it was a bit problematic. Class issues, race issues, character development and morality weren't really well handeled topics in her books and the whole pedestal was really based more on the whimsy of it or mythos that people enjoyed getting immersed into. Even that was put into question with many plagarism allegations, as such, while flabbergasting from a fan's perspective, from outsider's perspective it wasn't really that thought provoking. "Bad person's books turn out to be pretty bad after all" type of situation that's pretty common among people, especially with writing that's generally consider to be "cool", but ultimetly hollow when it comes to emotional stakes.

Another thing is actors that did bad or immoral things. Generally unless an actor doubles as a writer for stuff they star in, it's not hard to imagine that they are actually wicked people behind the curtain. It was a "funny movie trivia" for years that some actors who played the sweetest most innocent characters on screen were awful when the cameras stopped rolling so it's not that hard to detach yourself from their work. Especially when you consider that it's technically not their work to begin with, just because Bratt Pitt plays an important character in Fight Club, does not mean the whole movie should be shunned, because that's just punishing other actors, director, screenwriters even the OG book's author for sins of one person who's personal life was irrelevant to the work in question.

Gaiman is a special case to me, because despite his actions, his work has been universally regarded as very emotional, empathetic and generally very introspective. I was not an avid fan but I did see merit in his work and ideas he helped create. To write stuff like that you need to be in some way selfaware of your own morality and emotions while also being an empathetic enough to be able to imagine how your characters feel. He touched upon a lot of topics, including stuff he's accused of, while also getting praised on how he handled them.

We want to seperate art from the artist and claim it's impossible only when that art relates directly to the artist's immoral deeds (like in Jeepers Creepers), but to me it's just that we don't want to consider the fact that somebody can be so introspective and emapthetic and STILL use their position to hurt people. To write about the emotional damage caused by cruelty and malice of others and then do the same is incomprensible to us and it either speaks really badly about the person or about our understanding of what it means for somebody to be a "bad person".

[ladyorigami]

How do you feel about season 4

Bad. I feel reeeeal bad about season 4. LOL I hate it, actually-hate what they did to my boy.

Yes I'm always focused most on Five as a character, but I will say as a whole, the season is just...just a mess. They took away a lot of particular traits from the characters in order to sort of give this...shock value? Not sure that's the word, but in order for us to see how differently bland and miserable everyone's life is this time around, and to do that, they also just, sucked a ton of their characters out right with it. We also have no catharsis, no proper conclusion to the relationships and events of s3, and even though they carry that over, they don't actually give resolution.

The plot also just-and the ENDING-I...okay I need to round back to Five for a second. I'm going to ramble rant about Five for a bit PASSIONATELY so SPOILER ALERT AHEAD, don't read below this if you don't want to see me lay down a quick wall of text about The Boy:

It's not like I don't understand the 'why' of it.

Imagine spending the majority of your life in an apocalypse, eating bugs and learning how to harden your heart and kill as a child, all for the CHANCE at getting back to your family.

Throwing him back into that scenario is like...the mere THOUGHT of that makes me insane with all of the character exploration we could have had and then DIDN'T GET ANY.

Like I can't even fathom the sheer trauma he was going through once they got lost in that subway for more than a couple weeks. He's essentially in his personal hell all over again and this time it's without that hope of his family he had before. Of course he's going to cling to the one person who is there, of course they both would, it's been years. Trauma bonding exists and they both have a lot of it and yes, they are like with their rough edges and independence. So sure, I can understand the 'why' and 'how' of this happening (even if I hate it and it lowkey gives me the ick)

But we didn't even GET the character parts of that. We didn't get any trauma, didn't get any PTSD, didn't get any look into Five's mind and heart there in the subway. This really would have been a perfect opportunity to finally crack all of that wide open, because it's always been brushed off before. But nope.

Instead, an affair with Lila. A rushed sloppy timelapse and then they're a thing now and that's...it? Like the whole point of that was just for them to have this weird relationship and then they came back??

There's a time that he even SEES a younger version of himself in the same apocalypse and he reacts like he isn't even there.

This character who becomes lost without a purpose and is still searching for it, whose flame is uncharacteristically dimmed of the usual fire? Yes. I would like to explore that.

Like I said it's not even necessarily the issue that it could have happened in the beginning but it's his attitude after that really got to me. The entitlement he had to square up to Diego?? The entitlement he had to continue to cling around her when her family is there and the way he's acting...it's like it's just terrible to me.

When Five loves he loves with his whole heart, he devotes everything he has to the people he cares for but once upon a time that used to be his family and like hell if I think he would fist fight Diego for LILA. Diego his brother...Diego whose eyes warmed with such love and relief in the second season when he saw Five at that hospital. Five who sacrificed himself numerous times over to keep them safe.

I get the point is that Five is lost. That his family clearly can't give him what he needs and he's just in some ways given up trying for it. He's-tired and he just wants to rest and have something or someone that he can call his own...but that's definitely not going to be the wife of his brother???? rihgqoirgoais

I just can't swallow this attitude by him in the after bits-and I definitely can't come to terms with the fact that they basically planted him back into his personal nightmare and all that came from that was a rushed love affair. It puts a bitter bitter taste in my mouth he deserved this character exploration, he deserved to actually have his family go try and save him for once-fight for him-show him that they care as much as he's cared for them.

(There is NO slander being thrown to people who like this ship before or after s4, you guys like what you like and that's fantastic. I just have issues with the way it was all handled and I must rant passionately.)

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Brigerton Round-Up

Ok, so I have read all of the Bridgerton books I care to at this point, but my reviews are spread across this blog and possibly like a year of time??? So I thought it would be fun to bring them all together in a single post!

All of these reviews were written between S2 and S3 of Netflix's Bridgerton Series, so bear that in mind when you're wondering why I haven't talked about all the seasons!

Content warning for some misogyny and discussion of sexual assault.

Also...THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE.

The Viscount Who Loved Me

There comes a point where a girl can't deny she has engaged in a fandom. It probably is well before you start writing fic (you can find The Polin Fic on Ao3), but y'know, here we are. Let's talk Bridgerton.

Ok, couple things right off the top.

We are not dealing with either The Duke and I or S1 of Bridgerton on Netflix. We are not dealing with *THAT* scene and it's complete disregard for consent. Find that somewhere else on the internet, it's a big place.

We are literally only talking about The Viscount Who Loved Me and Romancing Mr. Bridgerton. They're the only books I've read, and at this point they're the only books in this series I care to read. That means we'll also chat about S2 of Netflix's Bridgerton.

Ok, with the ground rules established, let's jump on in!

I think the reasonable place to start here is with Kate. I watched Bridgerton the Netflix series before reading The Viscount Who Loved Me, and Kates Sheffield and Sharma are objectively not the same woman. They wouldn't even LIKE each other. Kate Sharma is self-assured, confident, driven, and quite frankly, a force of nature when she wants to be. Kate Sharma understands that not only is she a grown ass woman but also that if she does not get in gear and go for her goals, they ain't happening. You guys, I freaking love Kate Sharma.

By contrast, Kate Sheffield is a blond, blue-eyed, infantilized debutante with some serious unresolved PTSD. I was not at all sorry to see that Shondaland did away with THAT library scene and THAT bee sting scene. I think that the show did both of them way better, and I will never be mad when an adaptation takes an adult female character and lets her ACT like an adult. I also appreciated the shift from creepy Anthony trying to *checks notes* suck the venom out of the bee sting to a full-blown panic attack. It subverted a highly gendered trope and put both Kate and Anthony on a much more even and human footing. It was also--and I cannot stress this enough--so much LESS CREEPY than the book scene. Anthony describing what he was doing in detail while the reader is told but not shown that he's panicky left several different flavors of bad taste in my mouth. Kate Sharma showing actual dimensionality in her strength in the show in this scene as Anthony goes fully nonverbal is objectively a stronger scene that does far more to develop the characters.

Generally speaking, Anthony Bridgerton is Anthony Bridgerton in both the show and the book, with maybe some of the high-and-mighty, self-righteous edges sanded off for the show. He's a regency era Viscount, there's not a whole lot you can do with him in adaptation. Show Anthony is my preference because he has some of the high-handedness sanded off, and because Jonathan Bailey is extremely nice to look at. I don't even hate the S1 (*gasp* she mentioned Bruno!) sideburns and hair, they had a very 1995 Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy vibe that I was willing to lean into. I honestly don't have a whole lot else to say about Anthony, so let's move on and hope that maybe we get an S3 release date before I get to the end of this post. (Spoiler Alert: We did not)

An Offer From a Gentleman

Dearest Gentle Reader, I suppose if you play with fire, you do eventually get burned. This Author has finally been burned by a Bridgerton novel. --Lady Bookshelf's Society Papers, 7 June 2023

So uhh...yeah. We gotta talk about Benedict Bridgerton. And we gotta talk about what the actual hell happened between book and Netflix series, because I found the series before the book, and even knowing that the characterizations were different, this book was JARRINGLY different, and not gonna lie, I absolutely cannot stand book Benedict and I fully do not understand the Benophie appeal. Now that I've finished painting a target on my back, let's talk An Offer from a Gentleman.

Ok y'all, I have recipts for this one, because book Benedict was basically a "too aloof and edgelordy to give a damn" and he really, REALLY needed to stop telling Sophie she was stupid or thinking too much. He also was hideously high-handed about blackmailing, coercing, and passive aggressively manipulating Sophie into doing the closest possible thing he can make happen to what he wants. He can't hear the word "no." His art seems somehow less important to him than the bowl of rocks at the cottage.

Show Benedict is a sweetheart artist with a wicked sense of humor and a real damn good sense for his siblings' moods and needs. I like show Benedict. I was prepared to yeet book Benedict off a cliff.

So real quick before this descends into incoherent screeching, I just need to point out the section where Sophie leaves the Cavendar's house during a party that is SUPER not safe for her. The "male lead saves the female lead from getting raped" is not my favorite trope in the world, but I'm not here to shame anyone for rescue fantasies. What I am here to do is explainin why Benedict is the WORST POSSIBLE EXAMPLE of this trope. I'm just gonna go ahead and put the passage up here, for ease. This is Benedict's reaction to seeing Sophie is an objectively scary situation:

Cavender was standing under a stately old elm with two other gentlemen. They appeared to be having a bit of fun with a housemaid, pushing her back and forth between them. Benedict Groaned. He was too far away to determine whether the housemaid was enjoying their attentions, and if she was not, then he was going to have to save her, which was not how he'd planned to spend his evening. He'd never been particularly enamored of playing the hero, but he had far too many younger sisters--four, to be precise--to ignore any female in distress.

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS REACTION??? What is this "ugh, I guess I HAVE to step in, what a pain in the ass FOR ME" nonsense??? This is not allyship, this isn't even--as Benedict tepidly says--"having sisters," this is just "ugh, I guess I have to be a hero, how annoying."

If you're going to do the rescue trope, it kind of works better if your leading man gives a rat's ass. Like, give him a strong position on rape being bad. Give him a motivation. Give him something other than an eye roll and vague irritation that he has to do the thing! He's not even particularly T-ed off with the guys in this situation, it's just...and event. That he has to deal with. Like going to the DMV or something.

Can we PLEASE not do this. This is gross, it is bare minimum, and frankly? It's the least interesting version of this trope. I wasn't a Twilight girl, but the scene where Edward rescues Bella from implied gang rape was done better than this moist tissue of a scene purely because HE GIVES A RAT'S ASS ABOUT BELLA.

Bare freaking minimum, your romantic leads have to have strong feelings for each other. Those feelings can be positive or negative, depending on whether or not you're doing enemies to lovers, but the feelings have to EXIST. And when you're dealing with limited third omninscient narration, the character in who's head you are should probably have stronger emotions than *eye roll* to keep it interesting for the reader!! We know Sophie is already in love with Benedict at this point in the novel, but we aren't in Sophie's HEAD just now.

I'm basically out of coherent things to say about this book, so let's just go over key examples of other things in this book that made me rage. It's not every instance, but it's a selection of demonstrative examples.

Let's check the receipts:

She shot him an arch look. "Horse races are almost always silly." "Spoken just like a woman," he muttered.

And just WHAT is wrong with speaking like a woman, Benedict??? Is it maybe because you think they're somehow LESSER than men???

"Sophie," he said, "I can practically see the steam coming out of your ears. Stop taxing your brain with useless mathematical computations and do as I asked."

TAXING HER BRAIN, BENEDICT??? Let the woman think for her own damn self for five seconds!

"His chin jutted out belligerently. "You're not supposed to be thinking. That's the point of of it."

LET. HER. THINK. FOR. HER. OWN. DAMN. SELF.

"You bloody fool," he swore. "Do you have any idea how dangerous it is in the world for a woman alone?" "Er, yes," she managed. "Actually I do. If he heard her, he gave no indication, just went on about "men who take advantage" and "helpless women" and "fates worse than death." [...] About halfway through his tirade, she lost all ability to focus on his words. She just kept watching his mouth and hearing the tone of his voice, all the while trying to comprehend the fact that he seemed remarkably concerned for her welfare... "Are you even listening to a word I'm saying?" Benedict demanded.

YOU SPENT THE WHOLE BOOK TELLING HER NOT TO THINK AND NOW YOU'RE MANSPLAINING CLASS TO HER??? SERIOUSLY???

"Don't you ever call me stupid," she hissed. " Benedict blinked, trying to get his eyesight back to the point where he only saw one of her. "I wasn't--" "Yes you were," she replied in a low, angry voice."

Oh, yes, call her stupid. That's a GREAT way to get in any woman's skirts, Benedict. (Please excuse me while I scream incoherently into a pillow in rage.) Punch him again, Sophie.

"I didn't save you from Cavender just to let you squander your life away." "That isn't your choice to make." She had a point there, but he wasn't inclined to give it to her. "Perhaps," he allowed, "but I'm going to make it, anyway."

Wow, so you do ONE DECENT THING and suddenly you own her life??? PUNCH HIM AGAIN, SOPHIE. And no, gentlemen, going "oh shit, I am actually being a huge dick here" and then DOING THE THING ANYWAY does not earn you any points.

"I didn't want--" "You don't know what you want," he cut in. It was a cruel statement, condescending in the extreme, but he was beyond caring. She'd wounded him in a way he hadn't even known was possible, with a power he'd never dreamed she possessed.

ACTUALLY SHE DOES KNOW WHAT SHE WANTS, BENEDICT, BECAUSE SHE IS A HUMAN PERSON WITH AGENCY!!!!!! AND SHE HAS SAID NO TO YOU LIKE FIFTEEN TIMES!!! Dear god, someone throw this man back in the lake and hold his head under.

"I didn't think," she whispered, more to herself than to him. "I know." He smiled. "I know. I hate it when you think. It always ends badly for me."

FOR FUCKS SAKE-- *screams in impotent rage while channeling Beatrice's "would eat his heart in the marketplace" vibes*

So...I actually don't recommend this book. Don't read this one. Just enjoy show Benedict and we can all collectively pretend that the book didn't happen.

Romancing Mr. Bridgerton

I actually thoroughly enjoyed the fluffy confection that is Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, which makes it much harder to talk about than The Viscount Who Loved Me. I suppose the biggest difference between the book and what the show is setting up for Polin is in the stakes. The book stakes are arguably extremely low; the consequences for being Lady Whistledown in the book are essentially a round of polite applause and some deep-seated rage that Cressida freaking Cowper would dare to take credit for Penelope's work. And frankly, I was 100% with Penelope on that one. The show cannot possibly roll with that ending (or if they do, they're going to disappoint everyone) because Penelope has pissed off a reigning monarch, and that has, historically, gone poorly. So I think the show is setting up to give Colin real, concrete reasons to be pissed as hell when it comes out that Penelope is Whistledown, and to actually make the pair work for their romance. And for all I enjoyed the fluff in the book, I am a sucker for multiple layers of increasingly high stakes and I hope the show really goes ham on the payoff for this setup. Frankly, I want Colin to be absolutely furious with Penelope and still ready to sneak her out of England if the Queen decides that Lady Whistledown is too dangerous to leave at liberty.

In terms of how Colin himself changes in the show, I'm fairly cool with the "I am a bottomless pit where is the food" aspect of Colin's character being quietly left behind. I think we can do more interesting things with our male characters than that. However, like many of the people who have both read the book and kept up with the show, I am WORRIED about how much Colin's writing has been downplayed. Yes, he and Penelope have a correspondence, and clearly they mean a lot to each other, but writing letters does not necissarily set up Colin's journals and the writing relationship that the two develop in the book. It's so, so wildly uncommon for game to recognize game and form a partnership of equals in skill in regency romance novels, and that was one of the things I loved about Romancing Mr. Bridgerton. I also loved that Colin, not Penelope, was the less experienced newbie of the writing partnership.

Not that the book didn't complicate this issue, because Julia Quinn didn't hesitate for a millisecond to slot Penelope into the historical role of "uncredited, unpaid, and historically unknown editor and 80% of the reason that history remembers the husband who's name is on the cover of the book." And that SUCKS for Penelope.

That takes me really smoothly into the thing that I love most about what Nicola Coughlan brings to Penelope in the show. She has an edge, a little more willingness to take risks, and that really makes me believe that the Penelope of the show could be behind the edgier, sharper, WAY riskier Whistledown. I am excited to see what they do with Polin in S3!

When He Was Wicked

Ok, as a Bridgerton book, When He Was Wicked was UNUSUAL. Given how tightly knit and very much there for each other the Bridgertons are (although I admit, this might be show bias affecting my reading), the fact that Francesca was, for the most part, isolated up in Scotland and very separate from the rest of the family was odd. It really allowed us to see what a Bridgerton-raised person would do when their back was to the wall and they were more or less alone.

Add to that the fact that most of this book is Francesca's second season and second love and that she gets to have actual EXPERIENCE and CONFIDENCE and not be your bog standard romance ingenue meant that this was a refreshing change of pace. I also would be absolutely remiss to point out that this novel went unapologetic on the fact that Francesca knows a little something about sex and her own body and that she has zero doubt that her needs, wants, and pleasure are important and that she can (and does) ask for what she wants with Michael. That's something that contemporary 2023 still really struggles with, so props to Julia Quinn for making it clear that Francesca can, should and DOES have a voice that matters during sex.

I also want to say that while Francesca wanting to be a mother so badly that she goes for a second season often gets side-eyed or openly pooh-poohed for being anti-feminist, breeding kinky, or somehow lesser, I would say that while the "All I want in the world is to be a mother" is complicated by the regency setting and the gender roles and expectations imposed on women whether they wanted them or not, Francesca is a widow for most of this novel, and widows historically had more (not complete, this isn't perfect) choice about their remarriage, and had Francesca not wanted to, she didn't have to remarry. So I'm willing to give this book the benefit of the doubt that Francesca actually DOES want to be a mother, actually DOES want children, and making the choice to remarry to have kids is an active, intentional choice on her part. Motherhood isn't for everyone, and that's 100% fine. But we shouldn't shame people who do want it, and I think a generous read of this book puts Francesca in that camp without some of the weird vibes and setting complications that you get with Daphne.

Again, none of this is wholly unproblematic, and there are arguments to be made that social conditioning overrode any choice Francesca could make. However, that's a deeply cynical read of a fun, fluffy romance novel, and I'm not here to shame people who can get pregnant for their reproductive choices, whatever those may be.

Michael is, in the grand tradition of non-Bridgerton love interests, fairly bland. His whole thing is being the merry rake, which, like, whatever. That's fine. I'm not like, terribly enamored of his full-on BAILING on Francesca for like three years after her first husband unceremoniously drops dead. I'm also not super enamored of his whole "did I secretly cause my cousin's death because I was coveting his wife and now I can never be with Francesca because I don't deserve her for killing my cousin" schtick, but this is Bridgerton so the absurd drama is pretty par for the course.

The reason to read this book really is Francesca, and Francesca finding her feet as a more mature heroine than we typically see in these books. I was very very much here for Francesca, and I hope that if the show gets this far, we really do get to see how Frannie is different from Daphne, Eloise, Penelope, and Hyacinth.

It's In His Kiss

This is now the fifth Bridgerton book I've read, and I actually have to say that while it's not my favorite of the series, it was a nice change of pace. Hyacinth and Gareth feel like they spend more time together as a couple really getting to know one another, which honestly was not really the vibe of previous couples. Anthony was too wrapped up in waiting to die, Benedict was too busy being shitty Prince Eric and generally devaluing all women everywhere, and Francesca and Colin were working through dead spouse trauma and a variation on professional jealousy, respectively. Hyacinth and Gareth just like each other, and Gareth was refreshingly brief in his daddy issues in favor of seducing Hyacinth and realizing that whoops, he actually meant it. So frankly, Gareth and Hyacinth feel more like they are actually good friends. And as a Polin Stan, that is a little heartbreaking to say, since Polin was supposed to be the friends to lovers storyline and as far as the books go, I actually think Hyacinth and Gareth feel more friends to lovers. Polin is more she fell first, he fell harder, which is a great trope but it's not really friends to lovers.

I swear I'm not going to be low-key disappointed about Polin for this whole post though, because in addition to Hyacinth being genuinely good friends with Gareth, we get her friendship with Lady Danbury. And THAT friendship is an absolute delight, although Jukia Quinn might be flying just a TAD close to the sun by spoofing bad romance books that we read to mock in her series of borderline read-to-mock romance books. This is very akin to my feelings about Penelope getting weak-kneed over Colin's writing talent because he described the temperature of the Agean Sea as half-hour old bathwater. Like, I get what you were going for emotionally, but on a very realistic level, you fell flat on your face and your skirt rode all the way up so you flashed your panties at people by accident, and not in a kinky way. Not that that makes Hyacinth and Lady D's dynamics any less wonderful, it's just one of those "my eyebrows were raised while I was smiling" things. We cannot help but love Lady Danbury.

I also just want to call out the objectively hilarious scene where Gareth goes to ask Anthony for permission to marry Hyacinth and Anthony completely blows the tone with his combination "YES ALL MY SISTERS ARE MARRIED OFF I AM KING" and "hurt her and I won't kill you, I will make your long life a living hell" reactions. I enjoyed this Anthony.

Now, having noted what I enjoyed about this book, it wouldn't be a Bridgerton novel if there weren't also a couple of things that I feel the need to call out as WILDLY WTAF. We're gonna go ahead and start with the prologue, because we need to take a minute and ask ourselves why the actual hell the girl Lord St. Clair was trying to force Gareth to marry had to have a mental disability, and why the hell we needed Lord St. Clair's "kick the dog" moment to be telling his son to rape a vulnerable woman. And that's before we even get into the issues with the rampant asexual objectification and infantilization of disabled people, and how that plays into wildly ableist tropes throughout literature. And the worst part is, this adds literally nothing to the story. We do not even see this character on the page, she is just briefly mentioned twice in the novel and is literally not even an obstacle. This didn't have to be casually thrown in and frankly I saw ten different shades of red when I was reading it. Honestly, it's one of hose thoughtlessly, pointlessly ableist things that causes real harm in the world and I am not here for it.

The other WTAF thing about this book is the fact that Gareth plans to "ruin" Hyacinth. I'm not gonna go do ar as to say there are consent issues here, because to say that would be to wildly and willfully misrepresent their relationship and I'm not going to do that. But I'm not wild about the perpetuation of the idea of virginity as some magical thing that can be taken from a woman and tbat devalues her. And yes, I know, it's it's regency romance. But I can understand scenes-a-faire and still not like it. Which I do not, because it says more about the level to which Gareth initially values Hyacinth than anything else, and you shouldn't have to devalue your SO to feel worthy of them. That is some toxic bullshit, do not do it.

Overall, though, this book was pretty cute and it was heisty, and I am a bit of a sucker for a good heist. Insofar as I recommend any Bridgerton novel, this one was pretty fun.

On The Way To The Wedding

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a hot romantic regency male lead must be in want of a more intelligent heroine. But even given that, Gregory flippin' Bridgerton strains credibility about how obtuse he is throughout this book. Anthony might have been lying to himself and deeply traumatized, Benedict might have been a chauvinist dickhead, and Colin might have been a golden retriever, but none of them were so vacuously vague as Gregory managed to be. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy this book; there were chunks of it I found thoroughly amusing. So let's talk On the Way to the Wedding.

I guess we might as well start with Gregory, because holy cow there was no critical thought in this man's head. He literally did not hear a thing Lucy said to him the night before her wedding to Haselby, because AS COLIN POINTED OUT while he and Gregory were *checks notes* SITTING IN A TREE SPYING ON LUCY'S HOUSE, she did not actually ever at any point say that she wasn't going to marry Haselby, she just made bland statements and let Gregory hear what he wanted to. Like, Greg. Sweetie, honey, friend, she did not explicitly say she was calling off the wedding, and you KNOW she would have if she really intended to. You were thinking with the wrong head, my dude, and frankly it's on your own dang head for being so shocked the next morning.

But on top of having cloth ears when it comes to hearing "no," Gregory managed to talk himself into being in love with Hermione and out of being in live with Lucy. And this is AFTER separate sit downs with Anthony, Kate, and Violet that collectively tell the reader (and should have told Gregory, except he has cotton wool instead of a brain inside his skull) that Gregory has exactly zero connection with reality, no drive or ambition, and has had so much handed to him in life that he won't extend effort to get something that isn't handed to him. Quite literally, my reaction was, "Aww, Lucy gets the second-worst brother. She and Sophie should get together and start a support group." So Gregory and Benedict are super not my favorite Bridgerton Brothers.

One thing about Gregory that was well set up and paid off and used fairly humorously throughout though, is his complete inability to hit anything he aims at with a firearm. I was impressed that he was not toxically masculine about that, and the fact that he nonfatally shot Uncle Richard at the end was well executed, and Lucy telling her Uncle that he is lucky Gregory can't aim for shit actually got a laugh from me. It was very good. AND it established that all four Bridgerton girls can shoot as well, so at some point I want a pall mall game settled via target shooting. My bet is that Eloise thinks she's the best shot, Francesca actually is, Hyacinth does trick shots just to piss off Eloise, and Daphne is scarily efficient as a markswoman.

However, what really kept this book interesting were Lucy and the CW drama-esque plot, because I did not see "oopsie poopsie, did a treason, and now my neice has to marry my blackmailer's gay son" coming in the Bridgertonverse, but here we are, I guess.

Lucy falls into line with Penelope and Sophie in terms of women who are head and shoulders more competent than the Bridgerton man they married, although admittedly Lucy has less personality than either Penelope or Sophie. Lucy is a people manager and pleaser, and she is extremely organized. She also has some excellent one-liners and is more than smart enough to wrap Gregory around her little finger when she needs to.

Unfortunately, she couldn't talk Gregory's stubborn streak out of tying her to a water closet (seriously, what is this, a regency Criminal Minds episode???), which is how we get the big reveal that it's her Uncle, not her father, who committed treason. It's also how we somehow end up with Uncle Richard holding a gun to Sophie in a random bedroom before her marriage to Haselby was consummated, which... Richard. Honey. What was the plan here??? You needed that girl legally and permanently married before Davenport gave up the blackmail. Why are you holding a gun on her right now??? What the hell was the way out of this room of you hadn't been interrupted by the husband squad and their two guns? Weird time for a power trip, is all I can say. You might as well have gotten caught monologuing for all the sense this scene setup made.

And Gregory once again proves that he is a COMPLETE IMBECILE because if you spend an entire book announcing repeatedly that you can't hit the broad side of a barn, why on God's little green earth do you take the shot at a man holding a gun to your love's head? You're as likely to hit her as him! He got lucky because plot armor, but he wasn't the only man in the room with a gun, Lucy's very angry brother ALSO had one, and he was almost certainly a better shot than Gregory. Nobody is exercising critical thought in this scene, is all I'm saying.

Now, for all my criticisms, if you suspend your disbelief, this whole scene is VERY fun, and in principle I quite enjoyed it. Sometimes you have to meet a book where it's at, and in this case it was at CW-esque dramatic farce. So this book was very fun for what it was.

OOH and before I wrap.up and forget: Hyacinth gets to be totally furious in this book, and holy cow I wish we got Hyacinth in a decade st some point, because she would have been show Lady Danbury's equal but more spitfire, and I love that so much for all of us.

This is definitely the last Bridgerton book I'm reading because I have no desire to deal with Daphne or Eloise's books. That said though, the books I have read I was largely either pleasantly surprised by or thoroughly entertained, and really you can't ask more of these books than that. Book Benedict still sucks though.

[quijabored]

OKAY SO I JUST FINISHED WATCHING LIKE THE ENTIRETY OF S3 FOR BSD SO UH SPOILERS FOR A LOT OF IT BUT ESPECIALLY THE ENDING CUZ HOOOLYYY SHIIITTTTT

I JUST

I CANT PUT MY THOUGHTS DOWN INTO COHERANT SENTANCES SO LIVE LAUGH BULLETPOINTS ((o(^∇^)o))

OKAY SO AKUTAGAWA AND ATSUSHI???

THEYRE GONNA WORK TOGETHER ARENT THEY I JUST KNOW DAMN WELL DAZAIS GONNA LIKE MAKE IT SO THEYRE COINCIDENTALLY PAIRED UP TO BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF A GUY

ALSO THE PROMISE ATSUSHI HAD AKUTAGAWA MAKE??? FYM AKUTAGAWA CANT KILL PEOPLE HES IN THE *PORT MAFIA.*

Just realizing I don't know how to do the whole colored text or different font thingy BUT ANYWAYS

STILL I LOVE ATSUSHI FOR THAT AND SINCE IT WAS MADE WITH A GOAL IN MIND, I REALLY HOPE I GET TO SEE AKUTAGAWA DEVELOPMENT

AAAAHHHH HES SO SILLY I LOVE AKUTAGAWA HES MY SON

SPEAKING OF SONS

IVAN??? HES SO ME LIKE HE IS SO ME????

ASAGIRI WAS SPYING ON ME WHEN MAKING IVAN FR

Funny thing when I first started getting into the fandom bit for bsd and I saw Fyodor being simped on I was like "eeehh I mean I guess hes cool but I dont really get it. Like sure hes an interesting character but..." AND THEN I SLOWLY STARTED BECOMING A FYODOR SIMP AND I JUST SKDHKSJD I HATE THAT MAN I HATE THAT MAN HES SUCH AN ASSHOLE

please I love him so much hes such a bitch I hate him I love him so much

"If Fyodor told me to cut my skin off I would" FUCKING SAME

ALSO AAAAAA THE ENTIRE TIME LIKE I WAS JUST STIMMING LIKE IM TELLING YOU IT WAS AJSHSKDJSJ

I HAVENT HYPERFIXATED ON A SERIES LIKE THIS SINCE THE PROMISED NEVERLAND (Specifically the manga. Miss you Yuugo)

AAAAAA ALSO THE FACT THAT CHUUYAS JUST STUCK IN POES STORY??

AND POE BEING LIKE "But if Ranpo were to die what would be my reason for living..." LIKE HELLO??? I LOVE MY OTHER SON (Poe)

AND AND AND FYODOR???? AHHHHHH HES SUCH A BITCH I LOVE HIM

THIS MOTHERFUCKER WAS REALLY COMMUNICATING QITH MUSIC??? ALSO THE SURPRISED AND SHOCKED LOOK AT THE END WHEN DAZAI FOUND HIM??

I KNOW WE SEE MORE OF HIM LATE BUT FUCK

ALSO FYODORS ABILITY?? From what I saw it seems that it's just kill by touch but if Dazais like "welp, idk" then I'm guessing it's a bit more complicated than that AND I AM SO EXCITED TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS AAAA

Also Mori and Fukuzawa did the sskk punchy thingy they did in the end of S2!! I'm not sure if people ship them (I refuse to take in any content about Mori) but if people do then win for them :D

Also Im extremely excited to see Nikolai cuz hes me minus the Ukrainian terrorist bit BUT AAAA I HOPE I GET TO SEE HIM SOON

JUST SEARCHED IT UP ITS S4 EP 5 AND AAAAAA

I can't watch BSD until tommorow now cuz I wanna have a minute to process everything BUT AAAA I CANT WAIT TO WATCH S4

Fyodor made me feel so many ways I love him

AAAAAAA OKAY SO MY FAVORITE BOY (Akutagawa) IS ALSO SUPER SILLY THOUGHOUT THIS WHOLE THING LIKE

THE SCENE WHERE ITS LIKE "Are you sure youre the real Akutagawa?"

"Yeah."

"...And youre not gonna try and kill me?"

"Yeah."

"What did you have for breakfast?"

"Yeah."

LIKE I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

Live laugh love Dazai but FUCK MAN AKUTAGAWAS TRAUMATIZED

Like don't get me wrong I love Aku how he is and I'm gonna love him more when I learn more about his character, but god damn it hurts to watch him seem so reliant on Dazais praise and Dazais approval like akdjkajsdj Ive been there my boy :(

ALSO I FEEL SO BAD FOR KUNIKIDA LIKE HE HAD TO GO THROUGH SO MUCH THIS SEASON

I PROBABLY HAVE OTHER THINGS TO SAY BUT AHDKSJDKWBD I LOVE BSD AND I CANT REMEMBER WHAT ELSE I WANTED TO YAP ABOUT BUT AAAAHHH ASAGIRI WHEN I CATCH YOU ASAGIRI- ASAGIRI WHEN I CATCH YOU-

Twas talking about this scene earlier btw :3

AH ALSO WHEN FYODOR GOT SMASHED WITH A WINE BOTTLE??? HELLO??? I LOVE HIM BUT I STARTED LAUGJING AT THE SCENE