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camelotsheart · 4 years ago

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Alright. I’m watching 1x11 and trying a new way of liveblogging. Which is just me writing random paragraphs. Enjoy.

A creature of magic mourning the loss of a creature of magic 😭

“Arthur is a hunter. It's in his blood. Whereas you are something entirely different.“ reminds me of “He is a weapon, a killer. Do not forget it. You can use a spear as a walking stick, but that will not change its nature.“ “You are wrong.” Especially with the way that Arthur then proves what is in his heart by the end of the episode, and how his ‘heart’ is shown to constantly guide him towards the ‘correct’ choice in s5 (e.g. “My heart says do anything I can to save Mordred.“)

“You've got a face like a wounded bear ever since we got back from that hunting trip." Arthur means bear. I have no idea what to do with this information.

The unicorn as a metaphor for those sorcerers who “do no harm” and thus Camelot serves no purpose in killing them. Especially since people like the Disir and Alator describe the purge as a “hunt”.

The drought serving as a parallel to the events that happened before the purge to Uther, in that Arthur sees all the harm that “magic” is doing to the land and his people, just like Uther witnesses Ygraine’s death. Arthur initially refuses to accept that what happens is caused by him, just like Uther does. But unlike Uther, Arthur is able to acknowledge his mistakes given time (it’s interesting how in the book adaptation of 1x02 merlin makes this comparison too)

“If it is magic, it's more powerful magic than I possess.“ So unicorn magic is more powerful than Merlin’s magic. Would dragon magic be more powerful too? Is that why Merlin couldn’t heal Arthur from the poison of Mordred’s sword tha was forged in a dragon’s breath?

Merlin not understanding hand signals is my life 😂💖

Ok I can literally draw so many parallels between Anhora and Arthur’s first conversation, and Nimueh and Uther’s conversation in 1x09. Especially from how both Arthur and Uther seem completely unable to understand how the ‘curse’ that happened to Ygraine and Camelot was technically their fault.

“And could you bear for your children to see you be executed?“ The way in which Arthur says this breaks my heart because he does understand the feeling of blaming himself for the loss of a parent, just like those hypothetical children would. This is highlighted more by the fact that Evan later plays on Arthur’s insecurities about being his father’s son.

“If you're tested again, you have a chance to end your people's suffering. I know you want that more than anything." Reminds me of what Bradley says about Arthur putting Camelot above everything, even his personal relationships. Compare this to Lancelot and Merlin, who’s “something that is more important than anything” is a person (or people, in the case of Lancelot).

I LOVE S1 MORGANA. S1 AND 2 MORGWEN WOULD HAVE MADE A PERFECT QUEEN DUO FIGHT ME.

Merlin’s face when Arthur says he’s going to the forest to seek Anhorra out 🥺 Also the way he looks back like he wants to see the exact moment Arthur figures out that he’s eating rat meat 🤣 Merlin’s sarcastic little nod. Arthur’s shit-eating grin. This is what I mean by sibling dynamics.

AND THEN THEY TURN ON MORGANA ASDJSAJASLDKKLDJSA. MERLIN. ARTHUR. NO 🤣🤣🤣

“The King must wonder if you are even his son.“ I absolutely do not like how Anhora chose to do the test with Evan here. I hate it. But it does prepare Arthur for a lot of things. It prepares him to do things his father normally would not do. It prepares him to ignore when people compare him to his father (not that it worked with Agravaine, but Arthur does eventually come around most of the time with Merlin’s help). I find it like a mini 5x03 in a way. Also the fact that Arthur doesn’t even try to defend himself by saying that the looter would have been executed by the law of the land anyway; because deep down he knows that reasoning is wrong. What needs to be changed currently is Arthur’s arrogance in regards to his honour, not his internal morals. He has already proven his internal morals with saving Mordred, laying down his life in 1x09, as well as rescuing Ealdor and his reaction to finding out Will was a sorcerer in 1x10. Right now, Arthur needs to be able to accept that he is wrong.

“Besides I would rather starve than beg my enemies for help! What of our kingdom's reputation? Have you no pride?” “I cannot think of my pride when our people go hungry. They're all I can think of.” I’m screaming over the fact that what ends up beating sense into Arthur is his love for his people. I want to cry. He loves his people so much that his battle cry is “for the love of Camelot” 😭❤️

“Very well. But if you'd caught the sorcerer, I would not have to. That's your responsibility! One day you will understand what it takes to be King!” One day, Uther, you’ll learn to blame yourself for other people’s suffering.

“My people are starving. Camelot is on the verge of collapse. And it is all my doing.“ IT DIDN’T EVEN TAKE ARTHUR A DAY TO LEARN THIS I WANT TO CRY 😭 FUCK YOU UTHER YOU DON’T DESERVE ARTHUR AT ALL. (also the fact that Arthur fiddles with Ygraine’s ring as he says this 😭❤️)

“I trust Arthur with my life” the fact that arthur proves that trust right both in this episode by drinking the goblet and in the previous episode by admitting that he “of course” would not kill Will despite thinking he was a sorcerer.

Why the hell does Anhora use a sword to cast the vine spell.

“I thought I told you to stay at home.” Every time Arthur calls Camelot ‘home’ for Merlin I 🥺

Are those carvings... horseshoes...? Making the shape of a heart....? I--

(Sorry guys. By this point it’s 200% certain that my shipper brain is going to take over. Please expect a lot of screaming)

“What kind of ridiculous test is that? What does that prove?” “What it proves is for you to decide.” Which means that by the end, Arthur realizes what this test proves. And he proves what is truly in his heart by sacrificing his life for merlin. Remember “To sacrifice his life to save Gwen’s... I can’t imagine any man loving me so much.” “I certainly can’t imagine that either” “That’s because you’re not like Merlin. He’s a lover” “Yeah? Maybe that’s because I haven’t found the right person to love”. Remember how in the book adaptation this episode, it says that Arthur proves that there is love in his heart by giving his life for Merlin? Remember “there was magic at the heart of Camelot”? Remember how in the book version Arthur doesn’t deny having love in his heart when Anhora says so when the Unicorn lives again, and instead turns his head to smile at Merlin--

“I’m glad you’re here, Merlin.” @thebookluvrr1816 More 1x11-finale parallels to scream about 😭 The book version describes Merlin’s surprise at this statement, and how he thought it was “ironic and unfair” that they understood each other "at the very moment that death was about to tear them apart.”

“No, I will drink it!” “As if I’d let you.” Someone stop these dollopheads from having a domestic about who will die for the other i beg

“You know me, Merlin. I never listen to you.” reminds me of “I’m the king Merlin, you can’t tell me what to do.” “I always have. I’m not going to change now.” Also, in the books Arthur actually says “farewell, Merlin” after this. Book Arthur is way more suave just saying.

HOW ARTHUR LOOKS INTO MERLIN’S EYES IN HIS FINAL MOMENTS UNTIL HE ISN’T PHYSICALLY ABLE TO ANYMORE. SOMEONE HELP ME 😭

“This was Arthur's test, not yours.“ idk but this reminds me of the fisher king saying “For this is not Arthur's quest, it is yours.“

“You've killed him! I was meant to protect him!” This is going to sound harsh but by this point I think Merlin was still putting Arthur’s destiny above Arthur himself. In the books, there’s a distinct difference in how he feels about Arthur’s death in this scene compared to 1x13 (I’m amazed at how fast his feelings changes, actually). Here, I feel like he focuses more on his own failure to protect Arthur as part of his destiny, but in 1x13, he says that the idea of destiny not being fulfilled was nothing compared to the idea of not being by Arthur’s side. I wonder what happens between this and 1x13 for Merlin’s feelings to change so much.

THIS HAS PROBABLY BEEN STATED MULTIPLE TIMES BEFORE BUT “HE HAS PROVEN WHAT IS TRULY IN HIS HEART“ AS THE CAMERA FOCUSES ON MERLIN. PRODUCERS YOU AIN’T SNEAKY.

Merlin’s smile as he looks down at Arthur sleeping 🥺

Arthur looking at Uther’s hand on his shoulder as if he’s trying to identify a foreign object 🙂 I can never say this enough but fuck you Uther.

“When he who kills a unicorn proves himself to be pure of heart, the unicorn will live again.” this is a stretch but it reminds me of “when Albion’s need is greatest, Arthur will rise again.”

And that’s done! I have a small meta that ties the theme of Arthur and magic in this episode to the same themes in 1x10, but I might do it on a separate post since this one is already so long 😂

#bbc merlin #merlin meta #long post #1x11 #merthur? merthur #someone stop me from having 4 spirals every episode #this is why my chronological watches take me so long

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tanoraqui · 4 years ago

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okay I have to do this today because even I wouldn’t do it after the godforsaken finale airs, and it’s basically my specialty and I did spend like an hour thinking about it last night while washing dishes. Definitely partly inspired by @words-writ-in-starlight‘s insightful post on everything Supernatural did wrong, and apologies in advance to all the characters for dragging them into anything related to Christian mythology:

Wei Wuxian’s parents die in a house fire when he’s 6(? I refuse to look anything up) months old

Jiangs are a hunter family I guess? That whole disaster of a family dynamic, except WWX dips out at some point to be idk an environmental activist bc at the time, that seems like the larger threat to the whole world. “Mom and Dad went on a hunting trip and they haven’t come back”, “bitch” “jerk”, 2 brothers in a beat-up old car, you know the drill

Jins are also an old hunting family, but more Men of Letters energy - they have a fancy bunker and do research and avoid getting their actual hands dirty. Jiang Yanli ducked out of the active hunting life a few years ago to be happily married to her peacock and settled down with a baby and she’s fine. We’re not going to bother Yanli. She’s safe and happy and doesn’t need to involved in any of this

so, WWX is the demon blood child developing exciting new abilities like telekinesis, mind control, exorcising demons by sheer force of will...etc, and Jiang Cheng is the Righteous Man. Lucifer, Michael, etc.

s1-3 probably proceeds more or less as spn canon...which I more or less remember...by the time they find their parents at the end of s1, Jiang Fengmian is...ugh, we probably shouldn’t kill him offscreen, I mean, we should probably meet him before he dies. I guess. Madam Yu lasts longer because I’m way more interested in her. But we do know that both Jiang parents are totally inclined to fling the boys into a metaphorical or literal escape boat and go hold the line for as long as possible, so...that’s spn energy...

Xue Yang is the one who’s like “fuck yeah, demon powers” and opens the gates of Hell, because I want him to have nice* things

*nice for Xue Yang

from characterization rather than memory, I’m 90% sure that Dean tried to hide his crossroads deal from Sam, but Jiang Cheng does it...better. I think it does come out, though. Right before the hellhounds do.

here’s where it starts to go farther off from spn canon. Jiang Cheng crawls his way out of the grave, gets stalked by a menacing presence that explodes windows for an episode, incidentally can’t find WWX...*Lan Wangji voice* “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition” (a baller line then and a baller line now)...and then the next episode starts with them all awkwardly standing around, and JC is like, “ok well let’s go find my brother then”, and you think there’s going to be an mdzs-riffing JC+LWJ Roadtrip To Find WWX...and they’re immediately attacked by like a dozen demons

in fact, the first time we see WWX in s4 is here, wherein he goes toe to toe with an angel and...holds his own. that’s new and terrifying! also is leading a squad of demons??

because here’s the thing: for the last 3(?) months, there’s been war in hell

because unlike Some People Mooses, upon finding out that his brother’s soul was legally nearly-owned by a crossroads demon, heir-apparent-to-Satan!WWX went, “actually fuck that” and kicked open the door of Hell (metaphorically, not loosing any demons this time) and was like, “who do I have to beat the shit out of to get a specific crossroads contract around here”

this did not work, obv. He didn’t know until it was too late, Lilith had already snapped up the contract, etc. etc.

obviously he also tried to offer himself instead, and got rejected for some reason

Since Jiang Cheng died, however, there’s been a war for control of Hell. Leading one side, Lilith, the Original Babe, who wants to break all 666(?) seals keeping Lucifer bound and in the meantime, break the Righteous Man so Heaven won’t even have Michael’s destined host ready for the Final Battle. Leading the other side, Wei Wuxian, infamous upstart, who wants to rescue the Righteous Man and restore him to life, tear Lilith’s guts out through her nose, and also stop her from doing the Lucifer thing because Wen Qing explained that yes, that’s a Thing, and it’s Bad.

Wen Qing! I’ve decided to combine Bela and Ruby’s roles and let WQ be both the cool badass example of how demon deals can go Bad and the demon deliberately leading our heroes astray for most of s3-4. Wen Qing is a very new demon; she used to be some sort of herbalist/witch but then she sold her soul in a crossroads deal to cure her brother of some lingering illness. 10 years of happiness and then boom, hellhounds. WQ is so obviously competent, though, that they (Lilith, I guess?) immediately offers her a job, with the promise threat that gee, that’s a nice brother you’ve got there, even with his Designated Chronic Health Condition getting all relapse-y. It’d be such a shame if something were to...happen to him...

we find this out at some point in last s3 I guess? some Monster of the Week case involves WN as a witness or something, or possible next victim, and WQ shows up to be A Normal Amount Of Invested In This, while desperately trying to avoid actually interacting with her brother (who thinks she’s dead). YES, the truth comes out; YES there’s a tearful reunion

now in s4, Wen Ning is fine actually, health-wise, bc he maybe made a crossroads deal with Wei Wuxian personally, and Wen Qing may or may not have admitted that she’s supposed to be working for Lilith to get WWX ready to host Lucifer? Or potentially that comes out later, idk. Either way, she’s 100% his top lieutenant in this exciting Hell War they’re waging

[insert whatever the hell (ha) happened plot-wise in s4 of supernatural]

we obviously mix up the relationships, too, bc it’s like, *LWJ internal monologue* I’m too young to remember my brother Lucifer as he was before he Fell, but surely Wei Wuxian is his Heir and Destined Vessel in truth, for he is Charismatic and Charming and Makes Me Feel Things, with his Clearly Feigned Righteous Drive and Compassion for All God’s Creatures and - why does heat keep pooling in the lower abdomen of my vessel when I look at his lips, which I am definitely doing a Normal and Not-Weird Amount - I’m just keeping an eye out for the famed Silver Tongue, and not in any way wondering how it would feel in my own mouth -

it’s actually DEFINITELY plausible for Lucifer to still be released even if our designated Heir Apparent is using his demon powers to his full potential and no one’s lying to each other about their motives. You just need to let Lilith be more scary too, and especially bc by “no one” I mostly mean Wen Qing; the angels are still totally hiding the fact that they, too, want to jumpstart the shit out of this apocalypse. LWJ decides at the last minute that that’s a bad idea actually, gets himself discorporated to send JC to intercept WWX because he accidentally releases Lucifer, etc. etc. Oh yeah, the boys were def fighting before this, bc JC has actually fairly reasonable concerns about the sort of things WWX is getting up to in his quest to become King of Hell...

...I neither know nor care what happens in s5

it does end with both Lucifer and Michael locked in the cage probably, bc I rather liked that solution. Fuck both of ‘em, basically.

I was toying with the idea that WWX also found Madam Yu in whatever hellish torment she was suffering after making a deal so her idiot son(s) would survive, and she was leading forces for him in the war against Lilith as well. If she came back to life somehow, body and all, it’d probably be compelling if she offered her own body to Michael - bc it’s her lineage! - and we’re all led to believe that she’s, uh, being a bitch and actually wants to risk destroying the world in order to destroy all demons...but then she seizes back control and flings herself/Michael and Lucifer into the Pit, because she’s just That Hardcore?

which means we’d actually have had her around and having characterization for most of s4-5, too, which would be fun

More importantly, it ends with newly crowned King of Hell Wei Wuxian appointing Wen Qing as Queen-Regent and ditching to go on an indefinite honeymoon with his new angel boyfriend (they’re going to fuck for like three weeks straight, then roll up their sleeves and go conquer Heaven in the name of free will), and Jiang Cheng gets to live out his hitherto-unknown-to-himself life’s ambition to be the sugar baby of the Queen of Hell. It’s very Hades/Persephone, except he goes back down to the underworld at least once a month. He gets his own demon squad whom he trains up in all the hunting techniques and it’s gr9. Wen Qing is reforming the crossroads deal process to make it more fair to the humans.

the end

Addenda:

it should go without saying but Jiang Yanli is definitely a recurring character, like, at least once a season there’s a filler episode where they go to Jiang Yanli’s for dinner and have to get along as a family, and also do the much easier job of defeating some sort of terrible demon that gets loose in the bunker and turns the evening into a horror movie. She’s their main research/emotional check-in person, a la Bobby, more often appearing in later seasons when there’s, uhhh, more to emotionally check in about.

Jin Zixuan is actually a perfectly competent hunter; he’s just a priss and we don’t Like him

we like Mianmian, though. Oh, I guess the official Hunter’s Guild or w/e tries to declare WWX a public enemy on account of the whole “King of Hell” thing and she’s like “actually what if you’re morons and assholes?” and joins hte team in s4 or 5? Yeah.

idk how the 3zun disaster happens in this ‘verse but I do encourage it to be happening in slow motion as a recurring subplot for several seasons. NMJ is a hunter, LXC is obv an angel, and JGY is...I wanna say one of the more human monsters, like a vampire? Or, you know, something that could be born from JGS sleeping with someone/something he shouldn’t have

#mdzs #the untamed #supernatural #ficlet #my fic #spn #ugh it'll probably fuck up hte bullet points again

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lovestrucklyuniverse · 4 years ago

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Villain Redemption Arcs (at least in animation) [Spoilers for a lot of cartoons]

So, I don’t post rants/character analysis a lot on here, or really anywhere since I like to keep them private, but I feel like this is something I think needs to be talked about. Because redemption arcs, especially in cartoons, are a very mixed bag.

Disclaimer: Everything in this rant is just my personal opinion so please be respectful.

Here’s a list of cartoons that I will be spoiling so if you haven’t seen these and plan to watch them or you don’t care, just skip the bolded section for each part:

She-Ra: The Princesses of Power (2018)

Avatar: The Last Airbender

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic/Equestria Girls

Steven Universe

Now onto the rant. The order will go from best to the worst, at least in my opinion, and only the ones that I want to talk about.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

As we all know, this series is known for having one of the best redemption arcs in not only animation, but television history. With Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation. So he has a very tragic backstory from his childhood, which gives the audience instant sympathy points. His father neglected him and scarred him for life, his mother disappeared, and his sister was the favorite child. And once his father burned his face, he set out on a mission to find the Avatar in order to restore his honor, or as it’s strongly implied, to gain his father’s love.

As the series goes on, we learn more about Zuko as a character, and he had done some very bad things. Like, he’s kidnapped Aang twice, he betrayed Katara in the cave, and sent Combustion Man after the group. But we also see through his relationship with his uncle that he’s actually a very nice person who is very awkward around most people.

And the moment where he finally confronts his father is so powerful, because he acknowledges not only the things that their nation has done, not only what his own father has, but also everything that he had done himself.

Now to where he asks to join Team Avatar. While he does apologize, he does understand why they don’t trust him at first. And something that makes the scene where Aang accepts him as his firebending teacher so powerful is that while he’s allowed to stay and help, they don’t forgive and accept him just yet.

Something that I like about his arc in S3 is how he goes on an individual mission with each of the three people he’s hurt the most/don’t trust him the most: Aang, Sokka, and Katara. Each episode, we learn about their dynamics and how they play off each other.

There is so much more to Zuko’s arc, but these are just the things I think work best about his overall story/arc in the show.

Equestria Girls

A lot of people reading this are probably not fans of MLP at all or have never heard of this spinoff franchise, so just keep that in mind.

In this franchise, there is one character that keeps everyone engaged with Equestria Girls. And that is: bacon-haired Sunset Shimmer. She is a very big fan favorite amongst the pony fandom, and she’s one of my favorite characters of all time.

Anyways, when we first meet Sunset, she’s the antagonistic bully who was just as powerful as the main character, Twilight Sparkle. She does everything in her power to frame Twilight and keep her getting ahold of the crown from Equestria. Everyone’s afraid of her and she very much uses it to her advantage.

However, once she gets defeated by the HuMane 6, we see a very different side to her for the first time the whole film: A vulnerable side, because she has tears streaming down her cheeks as she apologizes to the whole student body that she’s tormented for years.

In the next film (Rainbow Rocks), Sunset has a very different personality: She’s kind, willing to help, and an overall sweetheart. But here’s the thing, basically no one in Canterlot High trusts her, not even the HuMane 5. Throughout the film, we see her trying to make up for her past actions in every way possible, but she’s often left in the background due to their distrust of her. Every now and then, her temper flairs up but then immediately regretting it.

Once her friends have no way of being able to defeat the villain, Twilight (her previous enemy) calls out to her for her help. For a spit moment, we see Sunset’s fear in her expression before she looks determined. She throws her jacket off and sings. The group sings in harmony, which is what finally takes down the three baddies.

Throughout the entire franchise, Sunset still faces issues with her temper and her struggles about her past. Sunset’s arc is probably my personal favorite, as its one that I personally relate a lot to. And what makes it even more impactful is how she helps others learn to get through the mistakes they’ve made similar to hers.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

Now onto the original, where EG came from.

In MLP, it has a long list of redeemed villains. Such as Discord, Starlight Glimmer, Diamond Tiara, Gilda, Thorax, Trixie, etc. But I feel like the most controversial one would have to be Starlight, who actually becomes Twilight’s student and even meets Sunset.

So, Starlight starts out as a villain who wants to take away everyone’s individuality (such as cutie marks). Once the Mane 6 defeat her (with help from those who were once loyal to her), she stays in hiding throughout the season until the finale. Where she goes back in time in order to ruin Twilight and her friends’ potential meeting in the future.

But it ends with Twilight extending a hand, or rather hoof, in friendship which somehow convinces her to put a stop to her villianous ways.

Starlight’s arc for the rest of the series is fairly mixed, which goes for how the fans feel about it as well. She is fairly impulsive and doesn’t really think things through until she gets the consequences later on. I still enjoy her character in some ways, but I completely get why it’s mixed in the fanbase.

Steven Universe

Okay, I personally don’t hate these as much as everyone else, considering I love Peridot and Lapis’s arcs.

However, even I can admit that the redemption arcs for the Diamonds was way too rushed. These are dictators who had used their powers on their subjects for CENTURIES and then suddenly they just decide that they don’t want to do it anymore?

It was badly executed and I can tell that it’s going to annoy people for the rest of time.

She-Ra: The Princesses of Power

Before you all kill me, please just hear me out. I love Catra as much as the next person, she’s my favorite character. But I also can’t let my love for her get in the way of how poorly executed her redemption was.

Yes, she was mentally and physically abused as a child so it made her clinge to Adora more than anyone else in the Horde. And yes, it was understandable that she felt betrayed by Adora.

But it does not justify her kidnapping several characters, taking advantage of people’s vulnerability, lying to people, pulling the lever to end the world just to prove a point to Adora, and putting all of the blame on Adora for her turning out this way. She and Double Trouble were in the right to call her out on her behavior. Everything she did was her own choice and Catra never once showed that she regretted anything she did before joining the Best Friend Squad in the last season.

It was way too rushed and easily the worst way to redeem a character. I love S5 Catradora, but the arc should’ve started much earlier than it had.

#very long rant #avatar: the last airbender #equestria girls #my little pony friendship is magic #steven universe #she ra the princesses of power #prince zuko #sunset shimmer #starlight glimmer #the diamonds #catra #villain redemption arcs

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t100ficrecsblog · 4 years ago

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an interview with @easilydistractedbyfanfic (she/they)

what are you working on right now? I don’t typically take prompts, but after finding out about the Bellarke Writers For BLM Initiative and how their goal is to raise money for BLM via various fandom prompts that are requested by readers and written & illustrated by various writers and artists, I wanted to get involved. I’ve finished two prompts and am working on my third, which is a Murphy/Raven smutfic set during their years on the Ring. It’s definitely an idea I can work with - it’s over 10k at this point with a lot more to say, so hopefully the anon who requested it will end up pleased! Go check out the tumblr page and the ao3 collection - there’s various t100 pairings/ratings and you can choose the cause if you want to request a fic!

what is the fanwork you’re most proud of? I struggled with this question! My stories are all like my kids, and even if some of them could use a bit of improvement with pacing or dialogue or whatever faults I see when they age, ultimately I do love them all and I’m glad I wrote them. I do sometimes play favorites but that often depends on what I’m in the mood to read myself. That said, I really do always feel proud of my story called What You Need. It’s a darker version of Raven & Murphy, but one that I don’t find unrealistic under the circumstances of the fic. I surprised myself with where my head went on this one. In a good way, because it was really fascinating to dive into the minds of who these particular versions of the characters were.

I’m also pleased that I have over 500k on ao3 at this point. I never expected anything like this when I started writing, and it kind of blows my mind that this is my hobby now. It’s so strange to me that there are stories in my head at any given moment now.

why did you first start writing fic? I started writing in June 2018. Never wrote any fanfic before that, ever - though I did read plenty! I wrote three stories super fast, posted them all on ao3 on the same day and haven’t looked back. I think I started writing out of a combination of just really needing more content for my faves, but also I wasn’t in fandom before s5 and was quite desperate after s4 to talk to other people about Raven & Murphy. So I needed to get the stories out but also I had this hope that it would invite conversation when I didn’t know anyone in fandom.

what frustrates you most about fic writing? Just because I want to write doesn’t mean I can. Having prompts on my plate right now, I feel a real responsibility to finish them, but even when I carve time out to write, sometimes the words just don’t feel right. The muse doesn’t always strike when I have the time available. Also, it’s super ridiculously important to me that scenes and dialogue FEEL right based on the characterization I have in my head in any particular story. I can look at a scene I’ve written, especially an emotional one, and sometimes it’s just not resonating with me the way I know it could or should. It’s tough not to just push through and post it as-is, but I know that would never satisfy me, even if it means a much longer turn-around time on a story or chapter update. Often I will find that I get an a-ha moment that cracks open a better understanding of why a scene isn’t working for me, but this can take time and I have to trust in this process.

Not to preach, but it’s also frustrating when something you spend a lot of time and effort on doesn’t get much in the way of comments. I see posting fic on ao3 as a sort of conversation, so when there’s mostly silence even as the hits (and hopefully kudos) tick upwards, it can feel really...disheartening to feel like you’re talking into a void. And I say this as someone who has been fortunate enough to have regular readers who DO give feedback! I think every writer understands that they need to write for themselves first and foremost, but I wish more readers understood that feedback and enthusiasm will absolutely result in MORE CONTENT! I try very hard to follow this guideline myself by supporting and commenting on everything I read as time permits.

what are your top five songs right now? I listen to a huge mix of songs & my childhood influenced me a lot.

Some floating in my head include -

Chris Cornell’s live cover of Nothing Compares 2U Indigo Girls - Romeo & Juliet The Decemberists - Once In My Life Tori Amos - Silent All These Years The Chicks - March March

what are your inspirations (books, songs, other fic)? I find inspiration in a lot of things, which I think is lucky. One of my biggest is the characters themselves. I love getting deep into understanding who I think they are, what their motivations are and why they’d make certain decisions, whether in canon or in an AU. What parts of their personalities do they keep when they aren’t tortured and under trauma on the regular? What would happen if I change this one scenario in their lives? I could probably go on forever just based on these sorts of thoughts, but I do also find inspiration in simple things like tropes, or song lyrics and the lore of the show itself. Quite a lot of my ideas in my inspiration notebook have sci-fi themes too. A few of my stories have already touched on sci-fi topics, and I absolutely plan more of them because I love how creative that can be. I also love the idea of suspended belief - can I have sentient plant life from an alien planet that can mindread & communicate by projecting thoughts into characters' heads? Yes, yes I can! (I wrote this story, fyi - Flora Incognita, part of a series)

what attracts you to Murven? what first attracted you? Hey, do you have all day? Ha! Seriously, I could talk about this until everyone wants to strangle me! I loved Raven immediately - not so much Murphy! But I really disliked Finn, so ep 1x10 when Raven finally broke up with him had me interested. In that ep, you can see that Murphy is present, awake & nearby in the Dropship and probably overhears everything Raven says. Then he gets up and looks at her to make sure she’s still sleeping before he carries out his revenge plans. I’m not kidding - that one look absolutely and completely hooked me! Murphy was still awful then but he was so much more interesting than Finn, and back then I remember thinking how I’d really like to see them interact as two stubborn, strong personalities, because no doubt sparks would fly. And then when they did interact more, their dynamic was exactly what I’d hoped for and then some!

I love that they’ve seen each other at their worst and at their weakest and most vulnerable, yet they’ve built a strong foundation of trust, faith and understanding. They have so much in common but they’re also different sides of the coin in some ways too. Fandom talks about Bellarke being the head & the heart, but to me Raven and Murphy are the intellect & the instinct - they complement each other, provide some of the qualities that the other needs, their differences improve each other. For me, nobody gets Raven like Murphy & nobody understands Murphy like Raven. Maybe not a lot of people notice, but Raven & Murphy check in with each other a lot - Raven tends to say “I got this” but Murphy is the only person who replies to her “Do you?”. And Raven listens to Murphy’s ideas and suggestions and plans even when she’s known as the genius because she knows that he has valuable things to say. They have fun together, make each other smile and enjoy each other’s company, which is in such short supply in this show!

I know there’s parts of fandom that don’t ship them because Murphy shot Raven in s1. I have a lot of thoughts on it and have had quite a few tumblr posts about it. This is a fictional show - it does not reflect reality. I’ve been on the fringes of fandom for a long time and I know shipping doesn’t always mean yes, I want to see this relationship in real life. For me, I think it’s absolutely fascinating that someone Raven should hate has become one of her closest and most trusted friends. That she forgave him, and we as the audience get to see this dynamic change and grow, and that Murphy has always felt guilty about it even though he was being presented as selfish and out for himself - it’s such a huge, huge part of each of their character’s journeys. This is getting rather meta, but I don’t think either of these characters would have survived this long or evolved to the extent that they each have without specifically being around each other.

And I absolutely can not discuss my love for Raven & Murphy without mentioning the whole way these two LOOK at each other! OMG have you SEEN it?!?? How could I not ship them when they look at each other like that! LOL! Also, I want to keep talking about this but I’ll stop now because I truly could go on forever and anyone who follows me already knows I’m wordy.

BESIDES Murven, what’s your favorite ship in t100? Honestly, nothing else comes close to Murven for me, but I did like Kabby before the show just eviscerated their characters. I like the possibilities of Niytavia still. I can see why people ship Murphamy in the earlier seasons. Definitely think Echo/Roan could’ve been something intriguing. And I’ve got this weird thing going right now where I wouldn’t hate Murphy/Russheda, but admittedly that’s mostly about the aesthetic! I tried really hard to like other partners for Raven & Murphy since they’ve always been my faves, but I’ve been meh about all the possibilities except Luna as a partner for Raven or as a Luna/Raven/Murphy threesome. At some point I might write that. Otherwise I’d say I tend to like the friendships more than the ships.

what are some things you’d like to recommend? I always hesitate to recommend other stories & authors because I can’t stand the idea of people feeling left out if I forget to mention them! But I would like to say that I really and truly love my fellow Murven shippers who read & support my stories and who create content like fic and art and gifs and fanvids. I find so much inspiration in them even though sometimes I can’t get through 30 seconds of a fanvid before I have to pause it because the angst is too much for me!

Since you’re kind enough to ask me this question and maybe a few people will read this answer, please - I recommend that everyone educate themselves on social justice and climate change and Black Lives Matter and capitalism and unions and what intersectionality & solidarity truly mean! Vote like your lives depend on it because THEY DO!

ed’s note: compiled a few resources -Rebel Well: A Starter Survival Guide to Trumped America -Jacob and Al’s Intergalactic Intersectionality Adventure -Get involved in your local chapter of DSA -Join Your Local Mutual Aid Group -Keeping Yourself Safe Online In This Capitalistic Hellscape -Angela Davis’ book Are Prisons Obsolete? -Resource about defunding the police

You can find @easilydistractedbyfanfic here on Tumblr, on Twitter, and on AO3. You can also a request a fic written by her via @bellarkefic-for-blm!

#bellarkefic4blm #raven reyes #john murphy #murven #murven fanfiction #bellarkefics for blm interview

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coldflasher · 3 years ago

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For the meta writing asks: 1, 4,11 please!

1. Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

Well with it being me I have approx 938382 WIPs haha, so i'll TRY to give a brief outline haha (*note, this did NOT end up being brief at all, a thousand apologies.)

- Hades/Persephone ColdWestAllen fic. Len is Hades, Barry is Persephone, Iris is kiiiinda Demeter in that she represents home and family etc etc. Basically, Barry needs Len's help and makes a deal that he'll spend six months out of the year with Len in the criminal underworld (see what I did there?), paying off his debt, and then the other six months with Team Flash. It's gonna be ColdWestAllen endgame but there's a LOT of angst and mess before they get there >:) Progress on this one is steady, but it's gonna be LONG, I'm estimating at least 250k when all's said and done. As for what I love about it - basically everything? This one is my baby and I love her, mostly cos I've never written coldwestallen before and they're an absolute delight, but also cos it's so angsty and complex! Len and Iris' dynamic is probably my absolute fave part though

- Body Swap Fic - Been working on this one today! Len and Barry are enemies with benefits. They swap bodies during a run-in with a meta and neither particularly wants their friends and family to find out about their, ahem, arrangement, so they agree to just... pretend to be each other until they can figure out how to switch back. Predictably, chaos ensues (Len is a terrible CSI, Barry is an even worse crime boss, it's a whole thing.) I'm not very far into this one, only a few chapters, but I'm obsessed with it :D What I love about this one is that (if I do say so myself) it's really funny. I'm leaning hard into the puns and ridiculousness and it's a real comedy of errors so I'm having a blast!

- Michael Snart Fic - This is a continuation of my super long fic, Aftermath, which was basically a rewrite of s1 but Barry and Len were dating the whole time. This fic is basically my combined rewrite of s5 (which I loved) and 6a (which i did not.) Aka Barry and Len's adopted kid shows up from the future, inadvertently triggers Crisis (which is totally different to how it panned out in the show) and they all have to handle the fallout. This one has kind of stalled - I have every intention of going back to it, I have maybe 20k-ish written, but no progress for a while now. My fave thing about it is probably Len having meltdowns bc he thinks he's a crappy dad but he's actually a surprisingly good one (aside from the fact that he sent a teenager back in time to stop Crisis by himself but we'll just ignore that haha)

- The Vegas Fic. Barry and Len get whammied by a meta and fall in love and immediately become convinced that running off to get married in Vegas is the Best Idea Ever, and Team Flash and the Rogues have to chase them across the country to try and catch them before they tie the knot. When I tell you I've been working on this on and off (mostly off though 😅) since 2017... I wrote the first draft in summer 2017 when i was Very Depressed, so it was BAD. I rewrote maybe 90% of it during first lockdown and that draft was Pretty Good, Actually, but then I... put it aside again and I haven't worked on it since. I just need to pull my finger out cos it's so close to done at this point it's just ridiculous. What do I love about it? Well, the sheer ridiculousness of it, mostly. The ridiculous PDA between Barry and Len. The way the love spell wears off at the worst POSSIBLE moment. The Vegas hijinks. It's just great, honestly

- Len/Savitar One Shot. This one's an AU, kinda like if Doomworld Len and Savitar wound up together. Everyone thinks Savitar is just Len's boy toy and he's the weak link in the Rogues, so they kidnap him to use against Len and discover they have made a terrible mistake... this one's mostly drafted, it's a short one so shouldn't take too long if I really put my mind to it, just needs finishing up.

There's probably more if I were to wrack my brains but I think that's quite enough to be going on with 😂

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

Okay, bear in mind that this is unedited and needs cleaning up, but I like it so far! The prose is ~fancy~ haha. I feel like sometimes in my writing you can really see the influence of my degree and it's always nice to see that I got some use out of my 9k a year lmao. This one's from Hades/Persephone!

The change in him was immediate, the sudden stillness. Frozen like one of Len’s icicles. The chill in him only intensified, his unease ramping higher like the music in a horror movie reaching a new crescendo, the scrape of bow against violin string as intense and wrong as bone scraping together. For a moment they were still as a photograph. Then Len realised that Barry wasn’t still at all. He had begun to tremble, not the usual overflow of energy translating into static, but a full-body shiver like an animal trapped in a predator’s view. His expression hunted, not so much the animal caught in the trap but the animal after hours of captivity, with the metal teeth of the trap sunk into skin like a vice, like his skin was the tree growing around a foreign object.

“Run,” Barry croaked.

Len glanced sharply at him. He’d seen Barry happy, angry, upset, in pain, frustrated, even anxious - but he’d never seen him scared. Not this terror. It was the kind of fear that lived in you, a primal thing, like the fear of monsters under the bed. Something lurking in the dark with nowhere to run.

11. What do you envy in other writers?

I mean, everything. This fandom - and other writers in general - are scary talented. But mostly I think I envy anyone who has the ability to focus on one thing at once cos my brain NEVER takes a break. I'm always having new ideas and I want to write ALL OF THEM and consequently nothing ever gets finished.

Thank you :D

Ask me a question about my fics/writing? :D

#long post for ts #tldr #this one's a big boi #my fics #i could talk about my fics all day tbh #shame i can't say the same thing about writing them shsgdggds

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bombshellsandbluebells · 5 years ago

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Hey @wolfheartgirl! responding to you here because boy that post is getting LONG

Thanks for joining the conversation! Always good to have more opinions! I’ll admit I also don’t agree with your points completely and I just in general have a different view of the characters and relationships I think. Also, being 110% honest here - I didn’t finish season 6 so I might be iffy on all the details and how they play out. At some point I just really could not bring myself to keep watching, not just because of what was happening but because of how bad the execution of the writing and the acting was. Let’s face it - no matter what ships or characters we like or what side of the fandom we’re on, we ALL deserved better than what we got execution wise. And that’s disappointing. :(

Anyways, onto some body-snatched Bellamy discussion!

1. The Monty Thing - completely fair points! I did forget that they reached out to Wells’ actor first and he was unavailable, which is a shame. But that’s a good reminder that sometimes writing gets dictated on television because of things like that the writers can’t control. I do think you’re correct here, and I was wrong when I said it didn’t make sense for it to be Monty. Monty appearing to Clarke was much more about his legacy and what he had asked them to do than it was about his relationship with Clarke. On second thought, yes he was the only one who really fit there.

What I WILL still argue is, even if it works with Clarke, it still WOULD have had more weight and emotion behind it if it was Bellamy. So basically, it’s fine as is in canon, might have worked BETTER if it was Bellamy.

2. Honesty hour. I don’t know....what Octavia did in season 6. I really don’t. I tried to follow. There was some quicksand and some time travel and I was just really lost and disinterested at that point and I stopped watching and I STILL don’t know what she did in the finale.

Octavia’s redemption is......iffy. As is. I love Octavia. I don’t always love Octavia’s writing. I really don’t like anything I saw of Octavia’s writing in s6 aside from getting paired with Diyoza, though even THAT fell flat for me. And I really don’t understand what role she played in this season at all.

So maybe she would have crossed lines trying to save Bellamy, but I also do think there is a possibility to do something fun with switching the dynamic to being “my brother, my responsibility” and her trying to make up for hurting him last season. Again, don’t know WHAT she did last season, so being part of the Save Bellamy Squad would have at least pulled her into the action a little more. (I know that Octavia’s time travelling quicksand adventures are supposed to help set up the whole s7 thing but honestly.....it’s way too confusing and disconnected from the rest of the season and would probably be better cut.)

3. Inside Man Murphy. Fair! Completely far! Murphy 100% would not have helped them he is ride or die for his family ESPECIALLY after last season. And true, his anger and growing indifference did lead to him helping Josephine! (I didn’t get to 6x11 lmao, but I am kind of glad to hear it was about Abby, not Clarke. That makes A LOT more sense for his character.) And I don’t think CLARKE saying she was proud was OOC - I more meant that in my opinion it doesn’t make a lot of sense for that to hold much weight with Murphy considering he DOESN’T care about Clarke or her opinion of him.

What I will say about this is that not every detail of how the season was written is going to work with Bellamy as the bodysnatched because it wasn’t written for Bellamy. It was written for Clarke to be bodysnatched and so all the details of that storyline are going to support that. The idea behind switching it was an attempt to try to fix some of the main character and relationship arc issues last season with one simple fix, though the entire execution of the plot would then have to be adjusted to fit Bellamy and not Clarke. So yeah, Murphy’s storyline as a WHOLE would probably have to be adjusted - if not completely changed - to make sense with his character.

I was thinking about this actually and I think in general most of Murphy’s storyline needs to change. For instance, why did his near death experience THEN suddenly spark this fear when he nearly died in the finale of s5. It wasn’t necessary to have him nearly die AGAIN just to convince us that Murphy is scared of dying. He always has been. That’s a core part of his character. It’s kind of redundant.

But I was thinking that the main arc Murphy goes on in s5 is that he feels worthless and that triggers his fears of being unloved and abandoned. This is a pretty core part of Murphy too so it makes a lot of sense. I didn’t think the resolution of this arc was the best, but Murphy choosing to save his family and being instrumental in doing so and then Monty and Bellamy risking their lives and the lives of everyone in the finale do a lot to prove to Murphy that he’s not worthless or expendable.

Rather than switching to a completely new arc for him in s6, it’d be nice to keep expanding on this idea. That might mean removing him from his current canon storyline completely (which, although I did like it and it IS in character, doesn’t add much more to his character since he’s already gone though many similar arcs)

What if instead he took on more of a leadership role in saving Bellamy? That’d be something new from him we haven’t seen before. It would echo back to moments in s5 when Bellamy asked for his opinion or he was the one to make a decision for the others. It would be a really exciting new adventure to take his character on and it’d just be new for him. Maybe then he could work closely with Clarke and we’d get an interesting new dynamic there. It’d also let Murphy continue his journey of realizing that he is not worthless, which is nice.

Just spitballing here. I do agree his current arc doesn’t at all work with bodysnatched Bellamy, so it would definitely have to change.

4/5. Ok, here’s where we won’t agree, haha. I’m not a Bellarke shipper at all. I don’t disagree that s6 was very centered on Bellarke. It was, absolutely. My issue is that that is directly at odds with s5. s5 set up Becho in the beginning, forced them through struggles and separated them for most of the season, but then reunited and reenforced their relationship at the end of s5. The clear takeaway seemed to be that Becho was here to stay and strong. Bellamy and Clarke’s dynamic was certainly important, but it wasn’t framed as romantic in s5 and wasn’t, to me, framed to be more important to Bellamy than Echo.

s6 then goes and completely flip-flops that with no development to get there. Becho goes from ending the season strong to finding over nonsense and then Bellamy being completely focused on Clarke. s6 absolutely frames Bellarke as more important, but it’s frustrating that it is so at odds with the season that came before it. If they wanted to switch from Becho to Bellarke - which I’ll admit, I’ll never be happy with - it at least needs to have more development. Because the last we’ve seen, Becho is happy and Bellamy and Clarke are not on the same page and dont’ have the same priorities. If they did want to change that, there just needs to be more growth between Bellamy and Clarke that isn’ reliant on what happened between them several seasons ago.

So frankly, I don’t think with EITHER of them bodysnatched that can happen. They don’t have the time to get to know each other again (remember, in canon, they haven’t seen each other in six years! you can absolutely re-fall in love with someone you knew, but it isn’t instant) which NEEDS to happen to sell that relationship. It isn’t good enough to me to rely on the development of early seasons when both characters have changed SO MUCH and been separated for so long.

I’m not going to argue whether the writers intend for Bellarke to be canonically romantic because honestly they have been so back and forth about it and unclear in the writing that I’m going to need some outright “I love you”s before I buy it. I do think they’re important to each other, I’m just going to need more recent development before I buy it, espeically after last season ended with Becho going strong.

6. Scrap the sheidheda storyline. Just scrap it. I really dislike it and it adds clutter to an already busy season. I don’t believe it really added anything of importance and just distracted from the other plotlines going on. You’re right it probably wouldn’t work with bodysnatched Bell but like.....I’m all for just getting rid of it. There’s more interesting ways to use Madi than whatever that nonsense was.

7. True! I actually talked to someone else about this. As it is currently written, the nightblood is a problem. However, like I said this plot and all it’s details was written to fit Clarke and it can easily be adjusted and re-written to fit Bellamy. Since bodysnatching and Sanctum was totally new this season, it doesn’t contradict anything previously established to just cut the nightblood thing out. A lot of other random details probably don’t fit for it to be Bellamy either because it just wasn’t written that way.

So yeah! Those are my thoughts :) Whew that was long.

I would also just really love to see everyone saving BELLAMY this time around since he’s always saving everyone else.

#the 100 #the 100 meta #bodysnatched bellamy

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datingdonovan · 5 years ago

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rules: pick 5 shows, then answer the following questions. don’t cheat. tag some people.

I was tagged by @pettykaspbrak thank you!!! This is gonna be so fun okay lets go:

The End of the F***ing World

I Am Not Okay With This

Sex Education

Stranger Things

The Walking Dead

ps wow that is a BASIC list can u tell i dont watch a lot of tv

who is your favourite character in 2?

oh stan just like everyone else in this entire crazy worlllllldddddd

who is your least favourite character in 1?

oof probably tony??? runner up alyssa’s mom?? and also i have bad vibes ab teri but tbh i forget what (if anything) she did in s2 so maybe i am being too judgmental lol

what is your favourite episode of 4?

oh GOSH probably has to be the snow ball i mean come on

what is your favourite season of 5?

literally the amount of times ive jumped in and out of this show is hilarious and i really know nothing about the overarching storylines so lets go....... whatever one where rick goes rick crazy and bites out a guy’s jugular. i looked it up and there are so many separate google suggested searches along the lines of “episode where rick bites guys neck” and i m not sure how to feel about this??? anyway apparently this was season 4???????? I didn't even think i showed up watching this show till at least like s5 but what the heck the verdict says im EXCESISVLEY OLD!!!!! this must've been one of the first eps i watched and i mean who doesn’t love a good man ripping out somebody’s jugular. i looked thru the s4 wiki and yeah, i actually remember a fair amount of the later eps so this must've been the season i started watching. checks out.

who is your favourite couple in 3?

ugh TOSSUP adam/eric (yes i recognize why some ppl find it problematic but i think they’re growing and im hoping the best for them) vs. ola/lily 2 FAB duos

but oh gosh im actually gonna say adam/eric bc come on from the very first episode of the entire show i was onto that dynamic and its very satisfying to see them start embracing it and growin up and changing and to see how they deal with lots of heavy stuff and keep coming back to this strange and evolving bond

who is your favourite couple in 2?

i mean i suppose syd/dina there’s not much else there lol

what is your favourite episode of 1?

oh my word, thank u for literally asking me this. i will never stop talking about it. s1e3 is,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, my whole life im tearing up just thinking ab it............... the dance scene is the only thing that matters BYE

what is your favourite episode of 5?

L o L see my above obsession with rick going rick crazy. i literally use the phrase rick crazy irl thanks to that

what is your favourite season of 2?

SIKE there’s only 1

how long have you watched 1?

i just found it last year actually very close to this time of year.... we’re probably coming up on just about a year of me loving every second of it

how did you become interested in 3?

i actually was very wary of watching it because i just didn’t know if i’d like it that much or if it would be the kind of humor im into i was raised fairly religious (now much more questionable on that front but still sort of involved in the whole thing??) and i just didn’t know if it would be my thing but after i LOVED TEOTFW my pal kept telling me to try sexed, its similar (eeeehhhh idk if its that similar lol???), etc and like i said at first i was skeptical but for some reason one time i decided i’d watch it and zoink its fabulous

who is your favourite actor in 4?

oh millie bobby brown

which do you prefer, 1, 2, or 5?

1 always fave show ever

which show have you seen more episodes of, 1 or 3?

i think...... i looked it up and the amount of eps are the SAME GOTCHA

if you could be anyone from 4, who would you be?

omg el dUH im obsessed with her when i shaved my head (among many other things I thought) i was like i will harness her energy..!!!!!!!!...... that sounds dumb but its facts she’s so strong and does the right thing and has such a range of like idk identity expression that is so unique and cool and confident and well bye. wish that were me!!!!!!

would a crossover between 3 and 4 work?

Otis helping the older kids thru their relationship problems????? sign me uppp bye

pair two characters in 1 who would make an unlikely but strangely okay couple?

obvi Jalyssa is endgame nothin else about it but since there’s so few characters idk......... alyssa and bonnie would be very weird but like.... for the sake of just contemplating maybe they’d start out annoyed with each other and both do some good snarks and actually end up getting to like each other and how neither one of them messes around they just..... go for things? and tell it like it is? and ultimately act on how they feel??

overall, which show has the better storyline, 3 or 5?

hmmmmm idk i don’t feel qualified to judge TWD bc i haven’t watched the whole thing so i will go for sexed on this one

which has better theme music, 2 or 4?

uhh i think ianowt JUST has soundtracking i dont think it has title sequence much which would make st’s better, but if im remembering correctly ianowt has the better overall soundtrack i think st has ramped up its soundtracking capacity in the most recent season but i remember for quite a while i would watch it and think ok........ but soundtrack when???

omg this was so long but so fun!!!! thx again for the tag you fabulous human being @pettykaspbrak

I’ll tag: @emullz @stellar-alley @victorydoll @yeetthedragon @blog-anxiousscreenwriter and whoever else decides they want to undertake this massive expedition

#me #teotfw #ianowt #sex education #sex ed #stranger things #twd #tv #tv shows #me n all my tags ooo boi

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laufire · 5 years ago

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I love when I win XDD. Ok, so, let's see: Eleanor Shellstrop, Lizzie Saltzman, Rosita from WEarp, Alisson Argent (one of my best friends was an Alisson stan in rl, and I used to be sick of hearing how awesome she was), Cersei Lannister and Echo from T100

EleanorShellstrop

This is thefirst time I really stop to think of Eleanor this way and… huh. I think she’s aVimes, which is not exactly what I would’ve expected xD (I guess it makessense, because a few Eleanor/Tony parallels had already ~pinged my radar lol).

There’s asimilar tired cynicism, just walking ahead in life with this sense ofnothing-really-matters, despite clearly being dissatisfied about it on somelevel (Vimes is a lot more self-aware than Eleanor, for one). Both have a “wakeup call” later in life when it’s (almost) too late, and after that you get tosee them taking charge, indignant about the faults of the system, etc. I evensee parallels between the Eleanor-Michael and Vimes-Vetinari dynamics (thisunofficial “mentor”, and how they transform each other’s worldviews).

LizzieSaltzman

The obviousone is Caroline, duh, and ofc there’s plenty of Caroline in her lol. But Ithink I see some Lana too? It’s not as obvious, it’s not really about anything she’ssaid or done just… a vibe. Maybe it’s just the actress, idk. I haven’t put myfinger on it, I’ll tell you if/when I do :P

Also, herresentment over the Alaric-Hope situation is very, very Jason with Bruce-Dicklol.

RositaBustillos

A Jason. Nodoubt in my mind. First, she’s a nerd (science nerd and not literature nerd,but still). And ofc, how her “origins” separate her from the core clan (Batfam/TeamEarp), put her at odds with them, make her feel she’s expendable for them (and she’sright here, unlike Jason). All culminating with her crossing A Line that breaksher relationship with them.

AllisonArgent

(I feel foryour friend lol. Allison’s death literally changed the way I get invested incharacters & shows xDD)

She’sALWAYS reminded me of Lana. Always. A Lana with a rushed arc, that met thetragic ended Lana avoided (most of the Lana types I’ve met so far had tragicendings, while Lana, original Tragedy Girl, swiftly avoided it lol). “Dark” arcincluded (and I guess Gerard would be her Lionel, sorta? It’s been a long timesince I watched these shows lol). Clark/Lana and Allison/Scott have a lot incommon too, imo. That Magic & destructive power of that first, True Love.Allison’s and Lana’s fears about being “weak”, the pressure they felt to bePerfect™. My bby girls.

CerseiLannister

If therewas ever a cautionary tale for how bad things could’ve gone for Caroline… I knowthis is an extremely controversial opinion, but I don’t think people realizedhow terrible SC would’ve ended for her, if it wasn’t for Klaus appearing andtransforming how the writers felt about SE. But Caroline stuck with a guy sheused to hero-worship but that was still obsessed with his past love, who hecouldn’t have for some reason, and in turn mistreated her? INCREDIBLE LIKELY,imo (Mellie Grant is another example for this, like I’ve told you).

ETA: after a conversation in the tags, I want to say it here (so it can be read by everyone), that Rhaegar=Stefan and Robert=Matt is a perfect parallel too xDD

Butbasically, yeah. The “dreams” they had when it came to men & how they wereshattered, the mean streak present in both from early on, the ambition andhunger. How they grasped power (vampirism for Caroline) and didn’t let go.Their approach to soft vs. hard power strikes me as similar too.

Echo kom Azgeda

I do see bothCaroline and Jason in her. From Caroline, her quick thinking, the leaps oflogic they make (T100’s s6 main plot is basically Katherine-in-Elena’sbody-snatch situation lol, and Echo figured out in two seconds flat once shestumbled into the first inconsistence –which I predicted. I literally said “Echo had to be absent from this episode because she would’ve figured out in two seconds flat”, and what do you, next episode she does just that xD–, just like Caroline did. It reminded meof how Caroline figured out the DE sire-bond too). Their willingness to carryout Tough Choices, how they cling to a notion of Their People.

BTW,recently there was an Echo Appreciation Week, and while I was making thosegifsets I noticed Echo sorta reminds me of Lizzie LMFAO. Something about the actresses’ expressions, body language etc. Plus there’s this AMAZING scene whereEcho just walks up to a guy and stabs him in the stomach with a sword, saying “Hesitationis death”, and while editing it I kept remember when Lizzie just walked up andstabbed Landon without a second thought xD. As a bonus? Landon’s body died, buthe could come back because he’s a Phoenix. The dude Echo stabbed is abody-snatcher, so while that body died, his chip could be put on someone else (also,Echo used said cheap as leverage against his mother. She makes me proud

With Jasonthere’s how they were made to take someone else’s name/mantel as children, howshe made that Her Identity, how her leader let her down & banished her whenhe thought she’d gone “too far”. How she keeps reinventing herself. The arc isout of order, but the emotional beats are so there. I guess Queen Nia could beher Talia too, thankfully without the sex xDD. And the way the conflict betweenher and Raven in s5 (aka Echo wanting to kill a dude Raven was getting investedon for valid strategic reasons xD) is not dissimilar to Dick and Jason’s dynamic imo(Echo at least is not alone being the Morally Dubious One Pushing For Murder AsA Solution in her new family! Murphy reminds me a lot of Jason too. So doesEmori. LOL).

#missbrunettebarbie #replies #talking to the void #my thoughts #everything i love is the same #eleanor shellstrop #lizzie saltzman #rosita bustillos #allison argent #cersei lannister #echo kom azgeda #caroline forbes #sam vimes #jason todd #lana lang #this was super fun to do thanks :DDD

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booasaur · 5 years ago

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Update: I'm halfway thru s5 and I'm really really dreading the end Bc I'm not ready for the show to be over! Tbh s4 & start of 5 are bleeding together Bc I watched too many in a row & then took a break. I think s3 was most interesting altogether, I've found myself losing focus in parts of 4&5. Some of the stuff seems more disjointed/unnecessary than I'd expect from a show that needs to wrap up. But there are so many moments that have given me ALL the feels. S4 was so much angsty pining!! (1/?)

Delle seyah and aneela love each other so much and s4 was so painful even tho aneela hardly appeared. Gotta say those eps without Dutch dragged a bit tho, but the Delle seyah kept me going during them lol. Omfggg all the feels from Delle seyah’s priority of finding aneela above all else, followed by protecting Jaq & searching for aneela above all else. I love them. Side note: HJK’s smile and face and eyes are so GOOD I’m so gay send help. She’s a delight. Also I got feels from Lucy dying (2/3)

I haven’t had so many feels about an AI since s4 of poi. Also ALL the family feels for Delle seyah/Jaq when she says “never claim what you may lose” and when she told Jaq that she wouldn’t be ok if she lost him and she’s his mother and all her speeches in that ep. Then the ENDING WHEN ANEELA STEPS OUT AND SHE FALLS TO HER KNEES AND ANEELA CANT TAKE HER EYES OFF DELLE SEYAH. OOOF. So good. You’re totally right that watching characters learn to care makes them so appealing, like Root, who’s a fave

Yeah, I think this is really a show that shouldn’t be binged. Not even one season at a time, you know? How some shows thrive by being released on a weekly basis? This one needed that wait. But yes, absolutely, looking back, s3 was probably the highlight, and then personally, even without Dutch, I loved the first eps of s4 and the last. s5 was where it lost the most focus for me, for me s3 and s4 went well together, but s5 was very stop-start.

The s4 pining was AMAZING. It made it so worth the watch even with Aneela barely in it. I’ve said it again and again, KJ was a masterclass in how to make you care for a really terrible person while barely showing her. And I’m just still so impressed how they were never changed or punished in the way we usually see, their growth got to be on their terms, they cared about just a few more people than before and it turned out to be enough. Although, although, Delle Seyah has always been an actual leader. She’s power hungry and ambitious but she has an actual idea of what to do while in charge.

That s5 ep was so good! Delle Seyah and Jaq and their odd little relationship, I was actually super happy to see him being a brat to her. It gave them something to work through and made them both...just a normal parent-child relationship. When characters are given that kind of conflict, it’s to develop them and their dynamic. Which it did, in her way, we got Delle Seyah’s speech to show how much he mattered to her. BUT THEN YES THE ENDING OF THAT EP. Like, we waited that long for them to meet again and it absoLUTELY paid off. I could never have imagined that’s how they’d do it, but like, how else would they actually have, but it was the execution, how like, utterly romantic they made it, and the way, as you said, they couldn’t stop looking at each other and Delle Seyah just falling to her knees! Miss Queens Rise Never Gonna Bow My Head It Messes with the Crown Royalty just sinking to her knees. And the fact that it was out of emotion? *chef’s kiss* Yes, yes, watching Root’s journey with Shaw was kinda similar, yeah, that’s a great point. And Regina and Henry. Seeing people care about others, that is the most effective way to have them appeal to your audience.

Aw, yes, Lucy! She was such a presence, honestly, the third member of Team Awesome Force, before D’av. She was there from the very start, calling Johnny out for being a thief. The series cheated a bit, killing her off for the emotional payoff and then bringing her back, but I will 100% take it.

HJK did so well, Aneela was consistently so different from Dutch, so appealing and intelligent in an entirely different way. Dutch was warmth and humor and compassion, Aneela was just this cold volatile intelligence and then softening for just her chosen people, but never did the two ever overlap. And she’s hot as hell, lol, I can’t deny that, lol. I’m just really grateful that we got this series with her, the perfect writing and timing and tone, and now hopefully she’ll move on to huge things.

#replies #femslash related stuff #sent on 20191018 #Anonymous #5 #killjoys #aneela x delle seyah

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head-and-heart · 6 years ago

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The 100 Highlights - “Damocles: Part 2″ (5x13)

Hey guysssssss.

I’m back to cover my final highlight recap for Season 5. After this, I’ll be going more in-depth on analysis/criticism of the overall season so enjoy this lighthearted blundering while you can. :)

To read other posts in this series, you can click here.

Tree is really out here (as always) doing his best work. The score during the opening sequence this episode was *kisses fingers*

I have to say that I did enjoy Bellamy protecting Madi in various ways throughout the finale. He promised Clarke that he would, and it feels like he’s living up to that promise. First by stepping in front of her to protect her from Octavia, and then later when he told her “we’ll be right beside you”, ensuring that he would have her back the entire time. And that he would be there to advise her whenever she needs his help.

“Now we win.” Lousy shot. Ha. Sorry, but that was hot.

“You’ll never know your daughter.” Good. Fucking. Riddance.

“We’ve been here before, Madi. We were the criminals. The 100.” I get weak for any reference to the original hundred what can i say i’m a starving woman

“You can execute them because they’re the enemy, or you can break the cycle. You can be better than them. You can be better than us.”

I do like the theme of Season 5 being about breaking the cycle. Let’s hope that the writers really do mean that when they say it.

I also enjoy the return of motivational speeches Bellamy. Madi may have been the figurehead throughout this episode, but it was really Bellamy leading the way. He may have changed, but he’s still the heart. He still inspires people, and I’m glad that he got to the be the one to have this moment where he changed the tide of the war. It felt like a nice wrap up of his journey over the course of “Book One”.

“We’ll wait as long as we can.” “Deja vu.” MONTY IS THE ONLY REAL ONE HERE. My first thought when Raven said that line was “oh ffs not this again”.

I did enjoy the parallel of Monty saving Murphy’s life like Murphy did in 4x13.

“First we save their lives. Then we let them prove they deserve it.” “The commanders told you that?” “No. Bellamy.” aksqinsks first lemme laugh at Clarke’s skepticism about the flame telling Madi to spare them because that bitch KNOWS that they would never be so noble lmao. Second lemme appreciate my crumbs.

I mean ... I guess we finally know how the radio calls were addressed???

Clarke’s hopeful little smile when Bellamy sat down next to her on the ship was really cute. She looks so guilty and nervous. Eliza raised millions for the Blarkes in this episode.

“THAT’S BRILLIANT!” Me, every single time Bellamy Blake speaks. Thank you for the enthusiasm, Clarkey G.

Bellamy and Clarke are so, so, so awkward in this scene between them but it kind of feels like ... the start of something? Like, they both have made huge mistakes and still found it in them to forgive each other despite it. And now they know how much the other cares for them. I have to hope that it means they’re going to move forward. For real, this time. How they’re supposed to.

“You’re not mad at me for leaving you in Polis?” “The commander told me not to be.” Anyway, Bellamy’s jokes still suck and Clarke still laughs at them so ... some things never change?

“I’ll meet you on the bridge.” That was a weighted fucking look, my dudes. I liked that Bellamy thought to include Clarke. It felt like an apology, in a way.

Also, WAS THAT THE S5 BELLARKE THEME I HEARD IN THAT SCENE. Cause if so, it’s fucking beautiful.

THAT LOOK BETWEEN THE BLAKES. BOB AND MARIE HAVE SO MUCH CHEMISTRY.

“Cheer up. I wasn’t invited either.” I LOVE A WOMAN

“Your mistake was liking it. Power. It’s the kiss of death. It’s okay. I liked it, too.” Ivana and Marie are both such compelling actresses and HEY LOOK THEY GOT CHEMISTRY. I honestly really enjoyed this short scene between the two of them. They were enemies and yet - no hard feelings. Because the war wasn’t personal to them. We didn’t get many scenes between Charmaine and Octavia this season (or obvious reasons) but I’m intrigued to see if we’ll get more in Season 6 because they work really naturally together. And they seem to understand something about each other (or, at least, Charmaine understands something about Octavia).

Bellamy and Clarke leading the meeting on the ship ... it felt like old times. I really loved that everyone looked to them for guidance in that scene, despite everything that happened throughout the rest of the season. Gives me hope that we might (finally !) get that co-leading dynamic back in Season 6, especially since they were the two that will be informing the others of Monty and Harper’s discovery.

Bellamy, in particular, gave me serious Chancellor vibes in that episode. He really stepped into his leadership boots this season, especially near the end there.

Dear god, please get rid of that goddamn flame as a viable form of leadership. If anyone from Eligius starts following it next season I’m calling B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T. Let Bellamy and Clarke lead, dammit!

Also ... Zeke looked to Bellamy for permission to speak. Not the Commander. So jot that down, honey’s.

“And Bob’s your uncle.” “I thought you hated that phrase.” “It’s growing on me.” STOP this was cute (and now i’m cryingggggg cause that was Monty and Raven’s last interaction ever)

Clarke taking the bindi off of Madi. 10/10 great scene, let’s burn it now.

Marie in that tank top ... ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm where’s the nearest bucket of holy water

“Kind of like closing the door in the floor.” “Kind of like that.” I liked this callback. Octavia is soft with Bellamy in this scene in a way we haven’t really seen all season. It’s ... oddly nice? Coming from someone who has never cared for Octavia.

“You’re my sister, and a part of me will always love you.” “Does the other part of you still wish I was dead?” “The other part wishes a part of you was. Yeah.”

OKAY. I really liked this scene for a couple of reasons. The first being that I think it clarifies the line from 5x12 where Bellamy tells O that he wishes she was dead A LOT. It basically confirms that Bellamy was referring to the part of Octavia that is blodreina, which doesn’t feel as out of character (whereas Bellamy wishing for his sister’s death did).

I also really like that, even though Octavia tells Bellamy that she loves him and he tells her that he loves her, too, he doesn’t forgive her. Bellamy and Octavia feel like they are finally on the road to establishing healthy boundaries and burying their dysfunctional relationship in place of building something new. I’ve always wanted this to be textual on the show and I never anticipated that we might actually get it. What they did with the Blakes this season is probably one of my favourite things to come out of the season.

And, as always, Marie and Bob are stunning together. This is a large part of the reason that I’m actually okay with Octavia surviving this season, because they work so damn well together.

I feel like Tree doesn’t get enough credit for his work so I have to mention, again, how beautiful the score was during that scene. He elevates the show so much with his music. In the scene where Clarke and Bellamy woke up, alone, it had such an eery feel to it. I really liked it.

Ngl, my FAVOURITE moment in this entire episode was Bellamy and Clarke’s soft-ass fucking smiles when Bellamy’s pod opened. Like, Clarke’s face when she was watching Bellamy wake up? A BITCH IS IN LOVE. And Bellamy was so soft too ughhhhhhhh Platonic Excellence

“Hey.” “Hey.” HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

LISTEN. BELLAMY BLAKE DESERVES TO WAKE UP TO CLARKE LIKE THIS EVERY SINGLE MORNING FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE OKAY? OKAY I’M GLAD WE’RE ON THE SAME PAGE

...

I’m a Big Fan. They’re so fucking cute. That was so domestic. How do I move on?

“Why is it just us?” I literally stood up and yelled “BECAUSE IT’S FATE DUMBASS”

“That’s the way mom and dad wanted it.” I stan my new Bellarke warrior

“Can I just say that - wow - I mean, I can’t tell you how good it is to finally meet you. Weird, but good. Great, actually.” WHY IS THIS LITERALLY ME WHEN I MET BOB AND ELIZA

ALSO JORDAN IDOLIZING BELLAMY AND CLARKE? RELATABLE. THIS WOULD 100% BE ME IF I GOT TO MEET THEM

“Who are you?” WHY THE FUCK AM I LAUGHING. Bellamy is so intense and he’s got his deep voice and he’s wearing his intimidation face and him and Clarke are both looking at Jordan like “what the actual fuck is going on” and then there’s Shannon Kook with his adorable fucking smile and his adorable fucking voice and he’s literally a bundle of sunshine and these two people are just glaring at him. BELLAMY, CLARKE, SWEETIES, PLAY NICE THAT IS YOUR GODSON YOU ARE TALKING TO

“My name. Right. I didn’t tell you my name. Sorry. I haven’t met anyone before, so clearly I suck at it.” Reason #2 for Jordan being the most relatable character ever. I, too, am the most horridly awkward human in the world. Step aside, Clarkey G, I think I’ve found my TRUE self-insert on this show.

Monty and Harper are just the loveliest couple on this show. I never anticipated how much I would love them when they hooked up in Season 3. Wow. It was really nice to get all of those shots of them in peacetime, just loving each other, on the ship - especially after how little screentime they got throughout the rest of the season. Also, I swear that Shannon has a mixture between Monty and Harper’s smiles. What is this sorcery?

“Smart like his father.” “Kind like his mum.” CAN YOU HEAR ME CRYING ALL THE WAY DOWN HERE ON EARTH

(Also ... sounds like my new damn favourite character.)

“Hey Bellamy ... hey Clarke.” WTF MY EYES ARE SWEATING

“Wait ... take care of our boy.” Listen, Jordan. Madi failed me. I’m counting on YOU to parent trap them. Okay? Okay.

But seriously, the fact that Monty and Harper trusted Bellamy and Clarke to take care of their kid, that they wanted it to be them ... is A Lot. I’m excited to see how that goes in Season 6.

When Jordan opened the window and the new planet appeared and the music started swelling I got fucking shivers. Holy hell. It was so beautiful. TREE WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME

“Can you see it? Is it beautiful? It is in my dreams. I hope we do better there. I hope Jasper was wrong and we aren’t the problem. I hope your lives there will be as happy as mine has been. Be the good guys. May we meet again.”

GUYS THOSE WORDS FROM MONTY ARE FUCKING EVERYTHING

LIKE, THESE ARE THE EMOTIONAL BEATS THAT THE REST OF SEASON 5 HAS BEEN MISSING

This is honestly the first real time where I’ve had hope that they might actually break the cycle. That they might build something new. Its the end of an era, but it feels like the start of something new. I genuinely cannot predict what is going to happen on that planet. Which is a new feeling. And I like it.

And of fucking course it would be Monty and Jasper (and Harper) who are responsible for breaking that cycle. Of course. This is the best thing they could have done with Jasper’s memory, is sending Monty on this mission to do better for the rest of humanity. And this is the best send-off I ever could have asked for for any character. Monty and Harper have been with us since the beginning. It just feels right that they should get this ending, that they should be the ones who usher in the next generation of The 100. Like. Wow. I’m speechless.

Also, that Bellarke side hug was er nice. That’s the most domestic they have ever looked. Idc. Bellamy staring at the Earth alone on the Ark in 4x13 and 5x01 vs him staring at the new planet with Clarke at his side is the ONLY parallel I claim.

The final shot of them through the window with the planet reflected around them was STUNNING. Honest to god the most beautiful shot I think this show has ever done.

“End Book One” on Bellamy and Clarke, together, staring at the new world and the new hope they will deliver to their people. Maybe that’s what the first five seasons were really about. Bringing them to this place, where they are staring at the future - side by side, as a unit, ready to face whatever comes next.

Fuck.

I have to say that I enjoyed the second half of that episode way more than the first half. I feel like it had a lot of emotional beats that I really wanted to see throughout the season (that we just weren’t getting) and it also teed up a lot for the next season. I’m so intrigued by what they’re going to find down on that planet, and I’m excited for the writers to really break the cycle and build something new - hopefully something that involves more character moments.

I still haven’t decided if I’m going to continue with this series in Season 6, but stay tuned! I hope you enjoyed reading all of my recaps throughout this season. It’s been a ride ahaha. See ya on the other side, folks.

#the 100 #the 100 highlights series #posts by moi #monty green #marper #harper mcintyre

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mittensmorgul · 7 years ago

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Wayward: Supernatural in Parallels (and a parallel universe as well)

aka I have spent the last four hours typing again, so here you go. :P

(at least I managed to keep it under 6k words this time!)

(shut up that’s kinda brief for me... now if only I could write 6k of fic in 4 hours I’d really be on to something...)

Wayward Sisters set itself up admirably as a spinoff, if for no other reason than it’s so deeply rooted in the original series without actually being that series. We already know all six of the main characters (some of them for nearly a decade, like Claire and Jody), and we know at least a little bit about about how they came to be where they are at the start of 13.10. But even more than that, this episode served so many parallels to the entirety of Supernatural’s past canon, but did so in ways that take all of those themes and wove something entirely new out of them.

All the seeds for the spinoff grew from the original, but they’ve been sown in a new field.

I needed to record as many of these as possible for future reference.

(under a cut because as I said, it’s like 5900 words deep and it’s 2:23 am and I am so not up to editing this tonight.)

The little girl Claire saves from the two werewolves in the cold open looked so familiar to me-- because she reminded me of the ghost girl in 2.11 Playthings. Not technically a parallel, but even from the promo clip with her in it my brain insisted that I’d seen her somewhere before.

Mr. Werewolf and his terrible knock knock joke was such a dark mirror to Kate the werewolf in 8.04. If she was the noble version, he’s the grotesque, right down to the way he uses almost the exact same movements to terrify an innocent as Kate used to get revenge on the guy who’d turned her against her will and murdered her boyfriend. The Winchesters rightly let Kate go (TWICE!) but Claire rightly kills this jerk.

Not to mention Claire’s very personal history with werewolves (and being one bite of a heart away from becoming one herself) in 12.16. This case, and rescuing a little curly-haired blonde girl from werewolves is a tidy metaphor for how Claire has developed as a hunter since we’ve seen her last. And she absolutely PROVES that she’s learned. She doesn’t hunt dumb like she did back in 11.12. She does her homework, and knew exactly what she was doing when she approached Mr. Werewolf’s lair. She knew exactly who she was there to save, how to approach the werewolf lair most effectively (DELIVERY! LAND SHARK!), and she kept her cool throughout the entire fight-- for the sake of the little girl.

This entire fight is also reminiscent of 11.17, just for the fact that she’s physically proving herself as capable as Sam and Dean are in a werewolf fight.

Her rescue of Amanda Fitzmartin from werewolves was a direct parallel of 12.06, and Mary Winchester’s rescue of Asa Fox from… you guessed it, a werewolf! Right down to the mother/child reunion scene on the front porch. I can only imagine that Amanda Fitzmartin may be a future generation hunter now, too… Then again, Asa took up hunting because Mary told him she was “retiring,” and he felt obligated to fill her shoes so that someone would be out there saving people. Claire told Amanda that everything would be okay, and then went right on hunting. Claire’s in a very different place than Mary was, despite the similarities.

Jody’s call to Claire-- “It’s Sam and Dean. They’re missing. They were on a hunting trip, and I haven’t heard from them for a few days.” Well, isn’t that just THE iconic line of the entire series? 1.01, top of the script, hello Dean Winchester. Not to mention 12.20 and how Alicia used the same line about her mother to get Sam and Dean’s help in finding her.

What’s DIFFERENT in Jody’s plea to Claire is, “It’s time to come home.” Home has always been such a nebulous concept for the Winchesters. For the longest time, the only home they knew was Baby. Their “apple pie life” was a pipe dream that they wavered on ever really believing they could have it, or if they even really wanted it the few times it seemed like it could be within their reach (Dean with Lisa after s5, Sam with Jess pre-series, Sam with Amelia after s7). It took a while, but they both now identify the Bunker as “home,” despite it not being a home in the traditional sense. And after Dean’s words to Cas in 13.06-- “Welcome home” as he hugged him at some alley payphone-- I believe their concept of “home” is more “the people we care about” rather than a fixed physical point on a map, you know? And after watching Wayward, and oopsie here jumping to the end for just a second, Claire says, “I'm staying because I need them, my family.” In both series, home is where the heart is, if you will.

Of all the hunters Alex could’ve mentioned that she’d tried calling while looking for Sam and Dean, she mentions Donna (who we’ll see in a bit here), and WALT. Aka one of the guys who killed Sam and Dean way back in 5.16, and who returned in 12.22 to help take down the BMoL.

Claire and Alex’s gentle teasing of each other is just… so dang sisterly. In the same way that Sam and Dean’s teasing of each other is just so dang brotherly, you know? “Did you miss me?” “No, not really.” Lines delivered deadpan followed up with the knowing little smiles.

Claire pointing to her cut lip and telling Jody, “It’s just a werewolf, no big deal.” Well, isn’t that exactly what Dean told Sonny in 9.07 when Sonny questioned him on how his wrists were injured? And heck, how many times has Dean diminished the seriousness of an injury with an “I’m fine” or a “no big deal.” To the point where in 12.23 when he meets up with Cas again, Cas doesn’t even bother asking if he’s okay, just rolls his eyes and heals Dean with a lil boop.

“When did we become huggers?” Well, Sam, Dean, and Cas seem to ask this of themselves every time they find themselves hugging… at least they used to. They’ve since become acclimated to the fact that yes, they are huggers.

Claire’s discovered that Jody let patience move into her room, borrow her sweatshirt, while she was away. But she takes the blame for leaving on herself. This calls back to a lot of the emotional baggage between Sam and Dean over the years in a far less toxic fashion (You chose a demon over your own brother? You didn’t look for me in Purgatory? Who are you gonna replace me with next? There’s a lot of that between the brothers.) But Claire lets it go. And they have Business to attend to…

Alex tends Claire’s wounds during their meeting to share what they’ve gathered so far about Sam and Dean’s disappearance, and then Alex gets up to leave for work. She has a job-- a real, regular job as a nurse (how respectable! In Dean’s words from 2.20). Claire is upset, because finding Sam and Dean should come first, but Alex doesn’t even argue about it. The entire dynamic is similar to Sam and Dean’s motivations in 1.01. Sam had a law school interview that he didn’t want to miss (which Dean initially assumed was a job interview), and described as his whole future on a plate. But Dean insisted they already had “the family business.” Just as Claire insisted her own job is hunting. Unlike Sam and Dean, Alex and Claire work this out in their own way, and Alex DOES go off to work. Her job is just as important as hunting to her, and she doesn’t compromise on that.

Patience’s visions in this context are so reminiscent of Sam’s visions back in the early days. She’s still trying to figure out exactly how they work, and exactly what they mean. And in a lot of ways what Clare seems to be feeling is a reflection of Dean in 2.05 when Andy mind-controls him into telling the truth, “He's psychic. Kind of like you. Well, not really like you, but see, he thinks you're a murderer, and he's afraid that he's going to become one himself, 'cause you're all part of something that's terrible. And, I hope to hell that he's wrong, but I'm starting to get a little scared that he might be right.”

It’s not an exact parallel, but the same sort of disbelief and maybe even a little bit (or a lot) of fear over what those visions might mean. And Claire addresses this later in this episode when she’s talking to Kaia while Jody and Donna are investigating the ship. So I’ll get back to that later… I’m finding it’s really difficult to take this scene by scene…

Claire’s difficulty with Jody “smothering” her while hunting reminds me A LOT of both Dean’s difficulty with John (when Dean first began to break away from blind obedience to John’s every order toward the end of s1), as well as Sam’s difficulty with Dean. How many times has Sam pulled the “I’m not a little kid anymore, I can do this” card on Dean? Exactly. This growth process hurts, and it’s terrifying, but it’s a give and take on both sides, and Claire and Jody both grow a lot by it. Because it’s not just Claire wanting to prove she’s capable, it’s also Jody’s abject fear of losing ANOTHER CHILD to the Supernatural. She would give anything not to have to relive what she went through with her son in 5.15. And Claire does begin to understand Jody’s point of view, as Jody begins to understand Claire’s. And after Dean admitted to Mary in 12.22 that he’s been both mother and father to Sam most of his life, this exact same dynamic can be applied to his over-protectiveness of Sam. There’s a balance to be found between Claire’s “run in head first” and Jody’s “find the perfect plan.”

Speaking of balance, Alex seems to have found a balance that works for her. It’s been a long time since 9.19 when Jody gave her a foundation to build a new life on, and as Jody said in 10.08 and we saw first-hand in 11.12, it wasn’t always easy. But Alex found a career that makes her happy, and in return she’s happy to help Jody with whatever she needs, be it housekeeping or monsters. She seems… settled. And she confirms to Claire that Jody (and by extension Alex herself) never stopped worrying (or thinking) about Claire even when she wasn’t around. It was a solid confirmation to Claire that yes, she’s still part of their family, regardless. And wow, how many times has this sentiment been expressed in Supernatural? Too many to count.

And Claire and Alex get their emotional baggage handled and properly stowed, and it’s right back to the Big Issue at hand. Where we discover that despite all their differences, they’re both on exactly the same page. Claire suggests searching the hospital database for “rock star aliases” in case Sam and Dean have been injured, and Alex confirms she already searched for practically every rock musician she could think of, “From metal gods to obscure hair bands.” And of course “obscure hair bands” makes me think of poor old Vince Vincente and Ladyheart back in s12. Their third album wasn’t terrible… :P

Incredibly enough, a new search for Jane Doe leads Claire to find Kaia in that very hospital (and heck, is it Sioux Falls General? Aka where Dr. Monsterface worked back in 7.02?) Claire finds Kaia and confronts her about Sam and Dean, and instead of needing to be broken out of “child prison” (10.09 for Claire) or rehab (13.09 for Kaia), they both walk out of the hospital. Except oops… there’s some Bad Things waiting for Kaia outside. She freezes in fear and Claire comes to the rescue… but Jody also came to the rescue, and only working together did they kill the Bad Thing.

Warning that here the Destiel Parallels become impossible to ignore or avoid. They’re just blatantly there, so freaking deal with it.

In the hospital, the first time Claire and Kaia see on another we get increasing close-ups of their eyes. Like… welcome to intense eye contact city. The scene is punctuated with an eerie swooshing sound effect to make it impossible to ignore as A Significant Thing.

Back at Jody’s while Alex goes from Nurse Mode into Monster Autopsy mode (snapping that glove on like a regular Dana Scully), Claire and Kaia have a Bonding Moment outside-- comparing scars. As we pointed out back in 11.15, Dean did this exact same thing while bonding with his childhood idol Gunner Lawless (and yes, not Destiel per se here, but definitely a queercoding of Dean and the exact nature of his youthful infatuation with this wrestler). And the trope started with a scene from Lethal Weapon 3, where Riggs bonded with his wife-to-be in the exact same fashion. And Claire and Kaia’s bonding over this is again shown to us through significant eye contact and smiles, and then beginning to open up about themselves in ways we’ve been told that Kaia never opens up to anyone. At least based off what we know of her from 13.09. This is Significant for both her and Claire, who’s been hunting alone for at least a year now. (like… all the Destiel parallels intended)

Back to the Monster Autopsy… this is so reminiscent of 7.09 for me, as a lot of this episode is. I was half waiting for the monster to sit up and start fighting again just like the monster formerly known as Gerald Browder did in 7.09. But unlike Gerald who’d been human until the “creatures from another dimension” got hold of him and fed him grey goop and turned him into a monster, the thing on the table in 13.10 is… really not even remotely human (and it wore a strange mask anyway, in a season of “masked things” and misidentified things). I even tweeted at one point while watching the first time that the monster’s blood was even visually reminiscent of the TDK Slammer goo. Which is interesting because in 13.03 when we first met Patience, there was a billboard announcing that the TDK Slammer was back at Biggerson’s for a limited time. And isn’t that just entirely amusing.

(also a depressing but necessary side note about 7.09-- the episode ends with Bobby shot through the head by Dick Roman. Dick was a thing that looked like another thing, a thing from “another reality” aka Purgatory in his case. But something that absolutely was not supposed to be on Earth. And of course 13.10 uses a LOT of parallels between Purgatory and The Bad Place. I’ll get to those soon.)

Claire convinces Kaia to open up about what she knows of this strange monster and where it came from, and therefore what happened to Sam and Dean. Kaia was convinced that if Sam and Dean are in the Bad Place, then they’re already dead. Much like Dean was convinced that Mary must already be dead in 13.01 when she was trapped in the War World. And much like Sam was convinced that Dean was already dead when he was trapped in Purgatory back in 8.01. And yet…

Sam and Dean are just having a lil camping trip. Well, Dean’s adjusted SCARY FAST to the Bad Place. I suppose that compared to Purgatory it’s kind of a garden spot. They say they’ve been there for two days already, and they haven’t seemed to have run into anything that’s threatened them. It’s not the sort of 360 degree combat we saw Dean endure in Purgatory anyway. He’s even bothered to stop for barbecue. Well, he’s bothered to trap a lizard and roast it over a fire he managed to build.

Poor Sam, meanwhile, looks disgusted at the mere thought of eating the monster land lizard, and rather uncomfortable in general. In the face of Sam’s uneasiness and insistence that they continue to look for the door back to their universe, Dean maintains his exceedingly practical outlook. “Eat up.” They’ve been there two days, they have no reason to believe the door is even still open, and nobody knows where to look for them. He’s been in this exact same spot before, in Purgatory, and learned very quickly there that you do or your die. There’s no point wasting energy fretting about it. I think it must be a switch he can just flip at will at this point, into Purgatory!Dean. We saw it in 12.15. We’ve seen it a few times since s8, actually. It’s unsettling, but it’s practical. It’s how you survive.

When the monster closes in on their little campsite, Dean takes his roast lizard on a stick to go. Unbeknownst to Sam and Dean, something human-shaped has been following them. They’ve seen nothing to raise their suspicions that it might even be a possibility that anything human-ish lives in that world, or that anything might pose a threat to them aside from the giant monster they keep hearing. They’ve been there just long enough to shift their priorities on what to keep their attention focused on that just by waiting them out, Darth Kaia is able to sneak right up to these two men who at ANY other time would’ve been on high alert about being followed. Like in 8.13 Dean had his “gay thing” with Aaron following him around, and Sam had “something stuck to my shoe,” aka their code word for “I’m being followed.” They have a LONG history of being hyperaware of their surroundings, so it took some kind of patience for Darth Kaia to wait them out like that.

Patience has a crisis of normality after watching the monster autopsy. She’s not sure she can handle the hunting life, and it’s Alex who convinces her to stay. Which is incredible because this was Alex’s crisis back in 11.12 when her own history caught up with her at a time when all she wanted was to be normal, to go to school and have a boyfriend and maybe go to nursing school. She didn’t want anything to do with monsters or hunting, as she and Claire talked about earlier at the hospital, but she’s found a balance that she can live with. She knows she can truly help Jody by helping with the hunting stuff when she can, and that it doesn’t have to be her entire life like it is for Claire. She can do both! And she also knows her limits. Alex isn’t a fighter for the most part, and Patience doesn’t have to be either. They can each have an important place there, though. “We help in other ways.”

As Patience is packing her car to leave, she has another vision of Jody’s house being overrun by monsters. Claire wants to stay and fight, but Patience argues back that they can’t win. And hooboy this is a fascinating parallel to 3.12, in about six different ways. RIP Victor Henriksen. Patience laying down the truth to Claire, and then using an interesting bit of technology to demonstrate the truth of the situation, much as Dean laid the truth out for Victor and Sam used an interesting bit of technology to trap and exorcise a gaggle of demons all at once.

For Sam and Dean, 3.12 also marked one of the points in the show where they were officially declared legally “dead.” It was a turning point for them, which in a strange way freed them up to do their jobs more effectively with far less concern over interference from human authorities, so they could focus on the monsters. In a way, this moment functions in a similar fashion for Patience, not that she’s going to be cut off from society as drastically as Dean and Sam were, but as a liberation of sorts, and an affirmation to herself that her visions are as important to the group as Claire’s fighting skills or Alex’s nursing skills. They all have a role to play. This just helps her find her way to it.

In some ways it’s also reminiscent of 3.15, and the trap Dean left for Bela at their motel, similar to the trap Aragorn helps the hobbits lay for the Ringwraiths in Bree. These monsters aren’t so much fooled by a trap, or decoy bodies left in beds, but they do arrive to an empty house while their quarry has managed to flee. I think this tactic has been used elsewhere in Supernatural, but since I’m just about at the halfway point of the episode and this essay is already nearing 3500 words, I figure I should probably try to be more concise...

Me… more concise. Talk about your freaky AU scenarios…

Whatever. Claire watches the monsters tear up Jody’s house via webcam, and she gets a sudden, shocking, undeniable lesson in the reliability of Patience’s visions, which brings to bear the full weight of the vision that brought her home in the first place, and the reasons that Jody was so terrified for Claire’s safety. For the first time all day, Claire is rattled. It’s one thing to go through life as a hunter knowing how hunters typically end up (and hello all 39 iterations of Dean’s “point of a blade or barrel of a gun” speech), but to know specifically how you’re going to die is entirely different. This was s3 Dean with the ticking clock to Hellhound Day. This was Sam during the Hell Trials.

And enter the D-Train. The ray of sunshine so chill that butter doesn’t melt in her mouth. And like the monster that signalled her first REAL introduction to the supernatural back in 10.08, Jody introduces her as someone who’s killed a lot of vampires. To think Claire wondered when they all became huggers before… “You too, Rainbow Brite. Come on, bring it in.” Donna brought the hugs. And the angel wing imagery behind her in this scene, combined with her nice tan coat. She’s our angel; our sunshine, as it were. And armed to the teeth (just the basics, because she’s from Minnesota).

Alex proves yet again that she’s an excellent Sam parallel, using the phone and Kaia’s vague clues to find the exact location where the rift opened. Please oh please let Alex have the same sort of Magical Wifi that Sam does. :P

When Jody and Donna leave to investigate the shipyard, Jody has Claire stay behind to protect the other girls, much like John used to do with Dean, ordering him to protect Sam. I mean, it has nowhere NEAR the sort of ick factor to John doing that in the flashback scenes in 1.18, for example, but there has been a consistent implication throughout the series that it was a constant state for Dean, and thank HECK this dynamic between Jody and Claire is shattered by the end of this episode.

Jody’s actually surprised when Claire agrees to stay and protect the other girls without much of a fight, because of what Patience’s vision might mean for her, as I mentioned above.

Donna asking who knows how to use a flamethrower… honestly Dean would be jealous. He and Sam have always had their jury-rigged camping fuel flamethrowers when they’ve needed literal firepower like in 3.02 and 4.05 among others.

Speaking of Sam and Dean, back in the Bad Place, Sam’s finally figuring out that they’re in an entirely different universe, and Dean’s annoyed by how muddy it is. Which was a rather hilarious reversal of Sam’s reaction to stepping in horse poop the moment they landed in Sunrise, Wyoming in 1861 way back in 6.18. Sam complained about the state of his boot, and Dean was all excited because AUTHENTICITY! But he’d been wearing his lil cowboy costume at the time, and we know how much Dean loves cowboys, despite the fact that he was far less enamored with “authenticity” and how much germier it was than he’d been expecting… but once he adapted his expectations back in 6.18, he kinda stepped right into the role of sheriff, just like he’s able to adapt to Purgatory and to eating monster lizard despite the germiness factor. He’s a delightful but thoroughly consistent bundle of contradictions, and I love him.

Enter Darth Kaia, who catches them entirely unaware and off guard. They were entirely convinced that the only potential danger to them in this world was whatever huge thing they kept hearing in the distance. They hadn’t run into any of the creepy Monster Autopsy critters that constantly plagued Kaia in The Bad Place, and after two days, it’s entirely understandable that they would begin to let their guard down at least a little bit. Heck, it’s like Westley and Buttercup in the Fire Swamp, except nobody ever told them about the ROUS’s. When Darth Kaia sprang out of nowhere at them in full-on kung fu attack mode with a spear, they were honestly lucky to survive. They’d been flung as far from the portal into that world as Kaia was flung out to that abandoned roadside where the ambulance found her and had picked a random direction to wander in search of a portal the size of a party streamer in an entirely foreign universe. A portal they weren’t entirely sure was still there to find in the first place. Everything about their situation had them on their heels for once, even more so than Purgatory did for Dean (where he was at least expecting to be attacked from the moment he landed, by a pack of red-eyed monsters he later referred to as “gorilla wolves” in 8.02). And funny that the Big Monster in the Bad Place has a skull that vaguely resembles a gorilla, and the smaller red-eyed monsters were scripted as “Canids,” aka “dog-like monsters.” Again, in so many ways, The Bad Place is similar in design and function to Purgatory.

Back at the abandoned shipyard, Jody and Donna find the Impala and know they’ve found the right place. They find the melted angel blade and scorched angel wings from 13.09, as well as the portal, but encounter a very large pack of the “Canids.”

Claire and Kaia have another heart to heart reminiscent of some of Dean and Cas’s conversations. Claire expresses some of the same sorts of self-doubt and fear that Dean did at the end of 4.16 while lying in the hospital bed, telling Cas it’s too big, and he can’t do it. But Claire feels she can’t stand back and let others handle this alone. Kaia encourages her with, “If you go, I’ll go with you.” And how many times have we heard Dean and Cas offer this to each other? Very recently in Dean’s offer to accompany Cas to his angel meeting in 13.07. But also highly notably in 11.23 when Cas offered to go with Dean to face Amara. In situations large and small, they have offered to go with each other. But unlike the majority of Dean and Cas’s I’ll go with you’s, Claire accepts Kaia’s offer. They DO stand together. They ACCEPT the help and support. (Can we please have this gradually begin to happen with Cas and Dean? I mean, even something small like Dean running out to pick up pizza or something, and Cas offers to go with him, and Dean’s like YES GOOD I WOULD LIKE THAT.)

“Maybe together we can save them.”

Meanwhile at the rift, Donna wants to go back and tell the girls they found it, but Jody is ready to go into the rift alone. “If I don’t, she will.” She knows Claire would run into danger to do what she believed was right. That’s how you save people, after all. But here we see into what’s motivating Jody to protect Claire from danger-- “I can’t lose another child.” And I know I mentioned this about 3k words ago, but the Canids pose an immediate threat and Jody is forced to turn back from running headlong into the rift the way she was trying to prevent Claire from doing. This motivation to self-sacrifice to save someone else-- a child-- is what motivated John’s deal with Azazel in 2.01 in exchange for Dean’s life, and what motivated Dean to sell his own soul in 2.22 in exchange for Sam’s life. Jody’s only saved by circumstance, but it gives her a chance to step back and reevaluate that choice, and to see Claire clearly, to let go of her need to protect Claire at all cost.

Back in the Bad Place, Sam and Dean come to tied to a couple of trees in a foggy forest. I feel like yelling, “I hope your apple pie is freaking worth it!” because this feels just like 1.11. Instead of being sacrificed to the scarecrow, they’re being sacrificed to the Kaiju.

Meanwhile Claire has tried to call Jody, but when Jody doesn’t answer, Claire goes immediately into Concerned Mode. All four girls unite immediately into “Together we can save them” mode. And it’s beautiful.

Donna and Jody take refuge in an abandoned car aboard the ship, lying across the front and back seats in a configuration identical to the way Sam and Dean slept in 11.04-- the Winchester Motel. But instead of a cooler full of beer, Jody and Donna have a swarm of Canids trying to figure out how to get at them.

(wherein we discover that Canids are really not the smartest monsters…)

If they make a run for it, they’re dead, but if they stay put they’re dead too. Kinda feels like a situation typical of Supernatural, yes? What they need is a miraculous intervention.

*enter the flamethrower*

And Claire is so chill and competent with her flamethrower that it brings a smile to Jody’s face. And in that moment she might still hate the whole idea of it, but she knows she’s gonna let Claire go through that portal without too much fuss… especially after she realizes that the portal is shrinking. Claire tries to run through it and Jody holds her back, though not to stop her. To tell her she knows. Jody understands. As much as Claire needed to save Sam and Dean, Jody needed her to know that she understood.

Donna, ray of sunshine and weapons training officer. OKIE DOKE, HERE YA GO. and then “Oh there he is! Hiya, buddy!” When there was just ONE Canid, but Donna absolutely does not lose her cool when she sees it’s a veritable swarm of the things coming at them. Bless. “Okie doke” reminded me so much of that security guard in 2.12 that Dean liked because he said “okie dokie.”

Kaia knows right where Sam and Dean probably are in the Bad Place, just from the sound of the Kaiju monster. Claire shows up and cuts Sam and Dean free in a circumstance reminiscent of Sam showing up to cut Dean and Emily free in 1.11.

At the portal, Kaia shoves Claire out of the way just in time to save her from Darth Kaia’s spear, and instead she takes the spear wound to her own side. Need I even bring up all the Fisher King symbolism here that was so incredibly prominent in s12 surrounding Cas? The comparison has already been made to Ramiel stabbing Cas with the Lance of Michael, but it wasn’t just that one episode that draped Cas in Fisher King/Wounded King parallels. I believe many of those also apply to Kaia…

As she lay there dying, she reaches out and grabs hold of Claire’s hand while Sam and Dean have drawn their angel blades to stand off against the now apparently disarmed Darth Kaia. Except that’s when the Kaiju shows up…

Claire ignores her own safety in the face of that much larger threat, and charges at Darth Kaia in a fit of rage/grief over Kaia’s apparent death, and Dean has to grab her and pull her through the portal just as it snaps closed. Cue the parallel to Dean dragging Sam away from Jess’s burning bedroom ceiling in 1.01, and Sam pulling Dean through this exact same sort of portal in 12.23 when he was struggling to run after Cas.

Meanwhile Patience struggles to understand the vision that brought her to Jody’s in the first place-- Claire’s “death.” The editing of this scene is spectacular-- cuts between Kaia’s body in the Bad Place, Claire in Jody’s arms both in Patience’s vision and in reality, and Patience herself putting all of these pieces together. Death, life, and what she believed was a death was actually profound grief… and again this has been a theme of s13 through Sam refusing to grieve for Mary and his belief that she was not only alive but that they could save her, Dean’s grief over Cas’s death that he believed was permanent, to the point he’d lost all hope for anything and was ready to die in 13.05 until Death herself told him he still had work to do.

Whatever the truth of what’s happened to Kaia, there is absolutely work to do here, as well.

Dean says “I tried talking to her.” Not “we” but “I.” He’s beginning to use the proper words here. This issue has been going on for a loooong time, where Dean phrases things in terms of “we,” such as in 11.23 during the infamous Beer Run, telling Cas he’s like “our brother,” and always couching his feelings as inclusive of Sam as well. This was nicely lampshaded in 12.20 by Max Banes calling Alicia out on her attempt to do the same thing, and in 13.07 Dean FINALLY told Cas “I’ll go with you,” instead of “we’ll go with you.” The fact that Dean is talking about himself like this regarding anything even in the same arena as emotional issues is just… fantastic all around.

Claire feels responsible for Kaia’s death, after promising to protect her. She feels she failed, and that that was the reason Kaia was killed. Jody doesn’t dismiss any of Claire’s feelings or try to talk her out of them (the way Sam and Dean have done for, like, ever), only offers her unconditional support whenever Claire’s ready to accept it.

Cleaning up after the Canids tore up the house, Patience has a lil moment of shock over the fact she killed a monster. Donna smiles knowingly and Alex chuckles and says, “Welcome to the family.” Like Claire said in the cold open, “I kill monsters, that’s who the hell I am.” Well, that’s what this whole family is. They save people and they kill monsters.

Darth Kaia has opened a rift to our world, in the middle of a park reminiscent to the place where Mary turned up in 12.01… opening about a million other mysteries along with that rift.

I know I didn’t cover all the parallels. That probably wouldn’t be possible considering how many times the show has looped back around on itself thematically and narratively, but I think I hit all the big ones here. Now how the hell do I even begin tagging this?

‿︵‿︵‿︵‿ヽ(°□° )ノ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

#spn 13.10 #wayward sisters #destiel #dreamhunter #parallels #too many episodes to tag them all #the fisher king #kaia nieves #claire novak #patience turner #alex (mills)#jody mills #i fudging love sheriff donna #the tropes are hungry #i'll probably come up with some more tags for this eventually >.>#heaven hell purgatory and the empty #alternate universes in canon #‿︵‿︵‿︵‿ヽ(°□° )ノ︵‿︵‿︵‿︵#there that covers my feelings on trying to tag this :P

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twdmusicboxmystery · 6 years ago

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FTWD 4x06: Analysis - Parallels to Alone/Coda

Okay, this episode got me super excited!

**Spoilers abound in this post for FTWD 5x06. Seriously, there were some major things that happen in this episode. I'm going to talk about them in detail, so don't read until you've watched! You’ve been warned!**

My post last week was about the billion parallels in to Still I saw in FTWD 4x05. We saw Jonah and Naomi's romance in the cabin. By the end of that romance, she disappeared and they were separated. So if 4x05 was a re-telling of Still, then this episode, 4x06, was a retelling of both Alone and Coda.

Believe it or not, when I say there are parallels to Alone, I don't mean in a Beth and Daryl sort of way. The major parallels I saw to Alone were Maggie/Sasha/Bob parallels. I picked up on it the instant Madison, Strand, and Naomi went out together. Think about it: we had three people, two women and a man, on the outside together, searching for something. The dynamics between the characters were very similar, and the plot was almost identical.

Aside: I’ve noticed the show putting Madison and Strand together as a duo. Of course, they’ll never be romantic, because Strand is gay, but they're a duo the same way Maggie and Jesus are. In fact, that's a good analogy because Jesus is also gay, and both Maggie and Madison have lost their significant other and are now leading a community.

But the exact same thing happens with these as happened with Maggie/Sasha/Bob. One of them (Naomi/Maggie) wants to be on their own and the other two try to convince her to stay with them because it's safer that way. When the other two (Madison/Strand and Sasha/Bob) go to sleep, they wake to find her (Naomi/Maggie) gone. In both cases, they go after her. In both cases, when they found her, she was surrounded by walkers and needed help.

And of course at the and they all realize they need one another and decide to stay together and watch each other's backs.

Before going into details, let’s skip to the end.

Naomi shows up and seems to be a part of the Vultures.

Remember last week I said that John =s Daryl and Naomi =s Beth (mostly)? So we have yet another indication (there been several in the past) that Beth will show up with an enemy group. I thought it would be Madison who stepped out of the car. Nope, Naomi.

Remember, John thought she was dead and he suddenly saw her standing there. He went to go over to her, but then Alicia freaked out because Naomi was with the Vultures and shot him.

I think we can interpret this two ways. The first and most obvious is that it’s a retelling of Coda. Think of it this way: the two characters who represent Beth and Daryl have been separated for long time. Finally, they see one another in the middle of a tense, hostage-like situation, and move toward one another. Before they can swap stories/hug/exchange two words, one of them is shot. And the one who is shot, used to be a sheriff/cop. (John even wears a sheriff-like hat.)

It was even an accidental shot. Alisha was aiming for someone else (Naomi) and John stepped into the line of fire. That's exactly what we think happened with Beth. Someone was probably aiming for someone else (most likely Dawn, though some theories suggest Rick). Beth stepped to the left, right into the line of fire.

Next question: Will John Dorie die? We don’t know for certain yet, but I seriously doubt it. In the sneak peek for next week, we see Naomi and Morgan doing various things to try and save him. She says they have to get him to a doctor. So at the very least, he won’t bleed out and die instantly. Everything they’ve set up suggests he’ll live.

Here's another bit of evidence for you: on TTD, Chris Hardwick said there will be a surprise guest next week. He made the joke that he hoped it wasn't Garrett Dillahunt (who plays John Dorie). That's actually really good indication that it won't be. If he were dying next episode, they wouldn't of had him on this episode of TTD. They would have wait and had him on next week. So I really don't think he's dying. At least, not yet

I also think there’s another way we can interpret this ending. Not everything in this situation is identical to Beth and Daryl’s situation in Coda. For one thing, John thought Naomi was dead. Definitely not the case with Daryl and Beth at Grady. He knew she was alive and was going to get her.

…But Daryl believes she's dead now, doesn’t he? So, I think this is also a foreshadow for what will happen when Daryl and Beth finally see one another. She will probably arrive with an enemy (Wolves, Whisperers, what have you) and I'm even thinking there's a possibility that right after they see each other, Daryl could be shot.

But, like John, he won’t die.

Either way, my mouth dropped open when I realize the implications of this episode.

Now let me digress and talk about something they said on TTD:

Chris asked Gail Ann Hurd to give us a timeline for John and Naomi’s story. They said John and Naomi were together at his cabin for probably a month or two. So not super-long, but longer than what was obvious in the episode. In my mind, that confirms that Beth and Daryl were probably on the road together for many weeks, rather than just a few days, as so many people believe.

But it gets more interesting. Garret Dillahunt said John had been looking for Naomi for about a year before finding her again. So their separation, from the time she left the cabin to the end of this episode when they saw one another again was about a a year.

As of 8×16, it's only been 4-5 months since Beth was shot. I have no idea if they’ll stick to the same timeline for Beth and Daryl, but given all the parallels, they might. So this actually might support a longer time jumped than I initially thought there would be. Maybe it will it really will be more like 5-6 month time jump so there’s a full year between Coda and when Beth and Daryl finally reunite. Of course, even if the time jump is shorter, we have 5A, and they could always do time jumped between 9a and 9B. We'll just have to see. I thought it was interesting that they were so specific here. It could be a template for Bethyl.

Okay, let's talk details.

The beginning we see one of the Vultures raiding a gas station. Some very familiar symbols here including the gas station itself, lights, batteries, etc. A cash register is seen plainly.

We see an arrow just before we see Morgan, pointing to the right. We saw something similar in 6x04.

We also learned about what happened after the damn blew up last season. Strand says that Madison saved him. She says “I wasn't going to let you drown." And then he says, “you didn't have to pull me out of the water." Not tons of detail, and we did see Madison in the water, so water being involved isn't surprising. All the water references, because of Beth, really jumped out at me. Lots of talk of drowning and saving people. Madison then says, "I know who you are. And I really like drinking with you." Something Beth and Daryl could've said to one another.

I noticed that Flight of the Valkyries was played at this part. I’m sure that’s important, but I haven’t had a chance to research it yet. If anyone else wants to look into it, have at it. But it’s important to note that during this conversation about water, drowning, saving people, and not leaving others behind, they are drinking alcohol, talking about being drinking buddies, and there’s a huge X in the background. Just saying. ;D

Speaking of that, this episode was chalk-full of Xs. I noticed quite a few, but I’m willing to bet @wdway noticed more. ;D

Scissors around Naomi. (A.k.a. Beth proxy. Madison was there too, and she’s still missing.)

More interesting wire colors for hot wiring cars. (So many cars in the apocalypse laying around with viable batteries! 😁)

Later in the episode, Madison says, "I get it."

At one point, strand says to Madison, that people “always show you who they really are." The conversation reminded me of Beth and Daryl's, “you gotta stay who you are” conversation.

The motel they stopped at was interesting. Not only a few Xs,

but red doors,

a dinner that looked suspiciously like the Alone dinner (and a few others we’ve seen),

and a pair of glasses jammed in a door lock.

That last one is especially interesting, and I’ll have to think about it more. The glasses themselves are most reminiscent of Patrick from 4a. When he died, they nailed his glasses to his grave marker. We could also compare them to Father Gabriel in S5. The blond woman he knew, and that he had a picture of, wore glasses. It’s how he distinguished her and seeing her as a walker freaked him out. The interesting thing here is that the glasses are jammed in a door lock, almost as though they were used to pick it. So the glasses (only one side is intact, as if to suggest one eye rather than two) was being used as a key. Like I said, not sure what to make of it yet, but it’s interesting!

Let's talk about Naomi at the FEMA center.

We find out that Naomi’s daughter got sick and Naomi went to look for medicine but didn't tell anyone how sick her daughter was. While she was gone, her daughter died, bit everyone, and everyone he inside the FEMA center died. So, a huge parallel there the virus at the prison in S4. Patrick died and turned in the night, biting people inside the prison.

When Naomi goes into the FEMA center, she sees a lot of baby and child stuff. Again, because her daughter was in there, that's not surprising. But it might be more evidence of the child/baby stuff around Beth. It especially reminded me of the baby stuff around Denise in 6x14, which was right before Denise’s death, which was also a re-telling of Coda.

We can also compare what happened with Naomi’s daughter to what happened with Michonne’s son. He died while she was out on a run, and she came back to find him dead and her camp overrun.

We saw two more turnips again so turn up symbolism still here.

Naomi crawling across the wire was a whole lot like when Spencer did it in S6/

We saw Beth symbolism there, especially because Spencer lost a shoe and carried a green bag. Naomi didn't lose a shoe, but she was wearing her backpack. That didn't jump out at me when I first watched it, but on TTD, they pointed out that her backpack was on her back, joking that she was stupid to let it dangle toward the walkers rather than putting it on her stomach. That made me realize Naomi was wearing the black bag that looks exactly like the one Beth carried in S4 when she crossed the rope.

Lots of blond walkers in this episode. After telling Madison and Strand her story, they went to get the truck. Low and behold, there's a blonde walker in the cab.

I also noticed the rule of threes several times. They see a sign that says glass lodging and food, and Strang remarks, "three things we really need." When talking about her daughter, Naomi said it took 3 days to find the medication. That one especially jumps out at me. There’s the resurrection of Christ, which took three days. The way it was worded though. I also thought of the story of Lazarus. Christ didn't arrive until three days after Lazarus died. He then raised Lazarus from the dead. I'm not saying Naomi's daughter secretly alive. (That would be interesting wouldn't it? I mean, we haven't actually seen her body.) So, just like Lazarus, Christ arrived after three days and found that the patient was already deceased.

In terms of the plot, the Vultures leave the stadium, but obviously they and Alicia’s group hate each other now, so I’m assuming they'll be back.

Another connection I didn't make until I watched TTD is that Naomi wanted to get the supplies from the FEMA center and bring them to Madison's group. She wanted to do it to help save them as a way of making up for the people she believes she was responsible for killing. It's literally an example of the "good out of the bad," game that Sasha and Bob played. She wanted something good to come from a terrible situation, and didn't mind if she died doing it. Luckily, she survived.

Overall, this episode made me super excited! These last two episodes retold Bethyl’s story, which is awesome! I’ll say the same thing I said in 6x03 when Glenn's death fake out happened. I said if Glenn died, that would be bad for TD because there were so many Beth symbols around him. The same is true of John. I'm not necessarily going to give up hope on Beth if he dies, but it would be much better for TD if he doesn't, because the parallels are so strong. I believe he’ll live, just as Beth did. Thoughts?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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sharpeshelen · 7 years ago

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To all the Darvey shippers out there:

The last few days have been really rough on us, and I know that most of you are feeling tired and emotionally exhausted but I just wanted to bring some hope.

• First of all, I would like to point out that even if I am not a fan of the Paula/Harvey storyline for so many reasons (like the fact that she was his therapist and that she knows he still have issues, that she was the only woman who wasn’t a love interest for Harvey, that she knew about Donna and Harvey’s relationship, that she showed no interest in him in S5 but, now, she had fantasies about him, right?...It just feels like it came out of nowhere but, anyway, that's not my point), I feel like I understand why they choose her over any other woman on the show (even though I hate the fact that they're doing another love triangle. When will the writers understand that this isn’t necessary to write a beautiful love story between two characters?). She's a therapist, and she knows Harvey’s backstory, which have me guessing that she's going to understand sooner than we think that he went to her because he was scared when Donna told him "she wanted more" and that deep down he have feelings for Donna.

• What makes me think that? Well, there were some interesting parallels with the season premiere and the end of S4/start of S5.

- In the first Donna and Harvey scene of 7x01 Harvey says “about the other night I know you said you wanted more, but before you say anything…” but he can’t finish because Donna stops him and tells him that she wants to be a senior partner at the firm. In 4x16, we had a similar scene with Harvey saying “I think you're one of the most amazing women I've ever met, and just because I don't…” and then, Donna cuts him off again and tells him that she’s leaving him to work for Louis. Interesting, no?

- Then there’s the whole dinner scene with Paula in 7x01: Harvey doesn’t actually listen to her; he’s lost in his thoughts because of everything that happened at the firm and the fact that he’s finally becoming managing partner. This one is pretty interesting too, because in 5x07, Harvey couldn’t take his eyes off Donna while she was talking about work during their dinner and he even said “I just realized I haven't thought about Jack Soloff and his bullshit for two hours”.

- Now, the biggest hint of it all (at least for me) is Donna’s new position at the firm. Back then, she had that rule about not dating people she worked with (which was brought back in Harvey’s dream sequence in 6x11 “I told you once this happened again, I don't work for you anymore”) and well, it turns out that she’s not Harvey’s secretary anymore (and I think that the scene at the end of 7x01 with Donna smiling while holding the can opener was made to hint at this, especially considering that this ritual was born in 3x06 after their whole conversation about putting “the other time” out of their minds). I also think that Donna being a senior partner is going to change the whole dynamic between Harvey and Donna both professionally and personally. I was mad at Harvey for not being really supportive of Donna in 7x01, but like Korsh said, Harvey wasn’t really himself in 7x01, he was adapting to his new status (that doesn’t mean that I completely forgive him, but that’s probably the one thing I can actually get from this whole mess) and the scene where he confronted Louis kind of made up for that. Besides, that was only the first episode, Donna’s storyline is far from over, and I really think that Harvey is going to be here for Donna in the next episodes.

- Also the song choice for the end of the season premiere was intriguing: “You went back to what you knew, so far removed from all that we went through” / “We only said goodbye with words, I died a hundred times, you go back to her, and I go back to...I go back to us” (x)

• I also think that the first half of this season is going to end with a “bang” concerning Donna and Harvey’s relationship. Here’s why I am thinking that (spoilers ahead):

- It’s probably the first time since the show aired that we got an interview with Gabriel & Sarah talking about the upcoming season (x) which is a big thing. I’m also curious to see how some scenes from the interview are going to play out (especially the ones in Donna’s office/the one where Donna gives back to Harvey the key to his apartment).

- Korsh did this interview (x) and even if I still have trust issues when it comes to him, he said that: “Other things emerge as the season goes and I feel like there is a lot that happens over the course of the season in the realm of Donna and Harvey. I never know how the fans are going to react, but I think there's a lot there for the fans.”

- Korsh pissed me off with his answers on twitter, but keep in mind that he loves trolling and even if Darvey is happening, he wouldn’t say it. Talking about twitter, Gabriel recently retweeted the interview above and a tweet where a fan was mad at the last scene of the season premiere, which is curious considering his point of view on Darvey in the past. Also, Gene Klein (a producer) tweeted “Hang in there” (x), which sounds hopeful, right?

I know it’s hard to be positive right now, but the season is far from over and I’m ready to give Suits the benefit of the doubt and honestly, I just can’t give up on Darvey, not after all this time.

#darvey #sorry for the rant guys #txt

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avaantares · 7 years ago

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My thoughts on Torchwood: Aliens Among Us

Minimal spoilers. I’ll discuss themes and events, but try to avoid any major reveals.

Putting the rest after the jump for length and spoiler protection.

I debated whether to even post this, because I still haven’t quite made up my mind whether or not I actually like S5. I mean, the production values of the episodes are excellent, as usual (Big Finish knows what they’re about in that department), and the performances are great, and even the ongoing series hook is interesting -- but I think the problem is that I’m not actually enjoying the direction the series is headed. It’s done well, but it doesn’t quite feel like Torchwood to me. And that’s not just because more than half the original cast is missing; it’s a shift in something vital and central to the series. Its purpose, perhaps. I’m still digesting the episodes I’ve listened to. (More on that in a bit.)

Anyway, I’ll start with my take on the characters and their new roles:

Jack - Apparently having exhausted all his potential development in previous stories, Jack is relegated almost to the background of this series. He makes the usual lewd jokes and sleeps around and dies when the plot demands it, but he’s practically a cardboard cutout, doing Action Things when necessary and coasting on listeners’ affection for him from previous stories. After four episodes, there’s still no evidence that he’ll have anything resembling a character arc, which is massively disappointing.

Jack also shows some disturbing behavior here -- namely, he pseudo-stalks and seduces a man he’s considering hiring on at Torchwood just to get more information about him, which is not only dishonest and manipulative, but is a REALLY FREAKING CREEPY thing for a potential boss to do, especially if the hiring had gone through.

But no worries on that account, since Jack then bars said potential employee from Torchwood because he made a mistake in the field and got civilians killed. Jack cites the Doctor’s “no second chances” line and pontificates about how he won’t tolerate people dying on his watch. This seems out of character coming from the man who forgave Gwen for unleashing an alien gas that killed dozens of civilians, forgave Ianto for betraying them all and getting two innocent people killed in the Hub, forgave Owen Harper for rebelling and putting a bullet through Jack’s brain, etc.... not to mention Jack’s own tendency to shoot first and apologize later, for which he was often criticized by both Gwen and the Doctor. Even if he’s changed his views on violence in the meantime, I can’t imagine him drawing such a hard line in the sand without at least turning it into a teaching experience. Jack is the king of second chances; it seems hypocritical for him to deny one to a panicked newcomer.

Gwen - I’ve seen several other people say that they didn’t recognize Gwen until the character identified herself at the end of the episode, and I had the same experience. Her Welsh accent seems much stronger than it was in the TV series. There may be plot reasons for that, or it may just be an inconsistency. (EDIT: I’ve since read that, due to plot reasons, Alexandria Riley is actually performing most of Gwen’s speaking parts, so the difference is definitely intentional.)

Gwen doesn’t seem to serve a significant purpose in the stories until the extreme end of episode 2, when she conducts the major reveal of what will be (I suspect) her ongoing story arc for the whole series. That subplot is by far the most compelling thing about this new series, and honestly is probably the only thing with enough hook to keep me listening.

Mr. Colchester - The spiritual successor to the conspicuously absent Ianto Jones, Mr. Colchester is the dry, longsuffering general support. In many ways he’s the most complex and developed of the new characters, and while it took me a bit to warm up to him, I quite like him now. (Of course, since he’s basically replacement-Ianto, that may explain why I enjoy his commentary so much.)

We’ve learned a bit about Mr. Colchester’s personal life, as well as just a sliver of backstory, and I hope that is setting up for some kind of series-long arc for him. I think he has a lot of undeveloped potential. I’m very curious to know exactly how he came to Torchwood.

Orr - Orr manages to be interesting despite the fact that their introduction scene feels a bit too much like Discourse(TM). (I described the scene to a friend as “Tumblr: The Audio Drama.”) As a gender- and biologically-fluid being, Orr can psychically tune in to entities to acquire information in a way I’ve never seen done before, and that leaves open a potential gold mine of story opportunities and mystery resolutions. However, since the two episodes in which Orr features are largely spent establishing their abilities, there’s still not much sign of a dynamic arc. It’s strongly suggested that they will become a full-time Torchwood operative, which should be... interesting, given that crew and their proclivities.

Tyler Steele - Let me put this on record right now: I do not like Tyler. At all. I wouldn’t mind if he got flattened by a spaceship.

Now, that doesn’t mean he’s a bad character -- sometimes the most compelling characters are ones you despise, and Tyler’s role in the story seems to be going in that direction -- but it does bother me that Jack seems intent on carrying on an ongoing sexual relationship with a character who is so morally questionable, disrespectful, self-serving, and generally kind of a jerk. I can’t imagine Jack putting up with that, no matter how good Tyler is in bed, unless we’re just going to undo the past ten years’ worth of Jack’s character development and kick him all the way back to the way he was with Captain John Hart.

Tyler himself is the only one of the new characters who does seem to have the setup for a dynamic story, which could be more interesting if they turn him into a villain or boost his moral grayness to have him play both sides. (Personally, I’d really like to see him waffle for a while, then cross a line and become unredeemable, forcing Jack to have to stop him. That would provide a nice characterization moment for Jack, too.)

Other Characters: Rhys and Mary Cooper (Gwen’s mother) get cameos, but that’s about it. At least two other named characters (Andy and Billis Manger) are coming back for the next set, so we’ll hope for an expanded cast next time.

Before I get critical, I do want to mention a few specifics that this series does well:

It’s implied that either there is no coffee allowed in the Hub, or no one is allowed to use Ianto’s coffee machine. Which is heartbreaking, but also gratifying, as it implies that Jack can’t bear to let that one piece of Ianto be replaced. Many of us were worried that Ianto would be forgotten or just garner a token mention, as he has in most series/publications set post-MD, but it’s nice to see actual evidence that they remember and mourn him.

It’s also suggested that Jack is still thinking constantly about Ianto, even years after he died. Which is small comfort after we’ve had to witness Jack getting it on with that creep Tyler multiple times, but at least Ianto hasn’t been erased completely.

The reveal of the subplot surrounding Gwen came as a complete shock to me. I often work sneaky plot things out beforehand, but I’ll confess, I did not see that one coming. (Others have pointed out that this plot element may have been foreshadowed in a previous episode...? But we’ll need more information about what’s actually going on before confirming that.)

I like that they’re operating out of the literally collapsing ruins of the Hub and are completely broke, even though it does raise some questions about EU continuity (we saw the Hub cleaned up after the explosion in Long Time Dead, and Gwen was trying to rebuild it in Forgotten Lives). It’s nice -- and thematically appropriate -- to have them huddling in a broken ruin of the past while trying to come to terms with the future.

Now, some thoughts on the story itself:

I’m really not sure how to approach this new world, where aliens populate Cardiff and are so far from secret that there are human protest groups lobbying in the streets to remove them. It acknowledges the events of Exodus Code and the Titan Comics series (I have major issues with that, too, but that’s another conversation entirely). At this point the series has split so far from the known Whoniverse that it has more in common with awkward American stepchild Miracle Day than with its own BBC parent series. I feel like we’re now trapped in a bubble universe that is never going to resolve with the original series of Torchwood.

Anyway... Cardiff is overrun by aliens, and apparently instead of Torchwood trying to protect humanity from alien threats, in this brave new Cardiff, Torchwood is trying to protect... the aliens? For motivations that remain unclear to me, in episode 2, Gwen and Mr. Colchester spend a whole night repeatedly putting their lives on the line to protect an alien from capture after they witness her eating innocent humans. Reluctantly, she claims, but the extremes they go to to protect her (including endangering human civilians and hospital staff) just don’t seem justified when she and her family are actual threats to humanity.

The ongoing story of S5 centers around the economic and political takeover of Cardiff from a particular race of aliens. It’s sinister enough, and provides a backdrop for multiple villain-of-the-week episodes, but there’s really no soul to it. Maybe that will change with future episodes, but I think this points to the main reasons I’m not really getting into this series as much as previous Big Finish Torchwood dramas:

Classic Torchwood was a character-driven series set against a dramatic (and often camp) space fantasy backdrop. At the end of the day, we didn’t care what kind of aliens were attacking Earth that week; we worried how Ianto processed his grief, wondered whether or not Owen actually had a heart under his flinty exterior, cheered the little moments when Jack opened up to his friends, and mourned when characters we had grown to care for sacrificed their lives in defense of the people of Cardiff and the world. The character development was the hook, and the episode plots, for the most part, were secondary.

This is one reason so many fans were disappointed in Miracle Day, which was more an American political thriller than space fantasy, and introduced new characters who were wooden and lacked compelling character arcs. The premise of Miracle Day was fascinating, but we couldn’t engage with the story the way we did with the gripping bureaucratic drama of Children of Earth because we were put off by MD’s flat, unlikable protagonists.

AAU, as well, is missing some of those critical elements that let the audience engage deeply with the story. While there are complex things happening in the political sphere, we come into S5 knowing nothing about the new characters, and the characters we do know seem too static. Gwen does get an interesting story hook, but not until the halfway mark of this boxed set.

In short, I just don’t care enough. I miss the depth and complexity of the original characters, and I miss the ongoing growth that made Jack and Gwen interesting. I don’t know the new characters well enough to feel strongly about what happens to them, and there is little indication that they will become dynamic over the course of the next few stories.

It’s a shame, because I love Torchwood and want more of it, but I just don’t feel like I’m getting proper Torchwood with these stories. I’ll probably give the next part of Aliens Among Us a try, but I’ll wait to see how it goes before deciding on the third set. it’s hard to justify the high price of the box set for a series I’m basically ambivalent about.

#torchwood #aliens among us #big finish #my review

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