#i just think there is a good discussion about the line between us as viewers and the players at the table to be had

[the-knight-of-destiny]

On Fantasy High, Redemption, and Agency (General Spoilers for Junior Year, sort of?) Also this post about FHJY is long as fuck, as all of mine are getting. In short it's my understanding of how Brennan Lee Mulligan sets up the teenage villains of Fantasy High.

Fair warning, this is LOOOONG below the cut.

Y'know when I said I wasn't going to talk about Ratgrinder discourse? I lied.

So Brennan as a DM has a very specific narrative language for how a villain is 'redeemable' and it primarily has to do with the level of agency a villain has in their actions. This isn't particularly hard to notice when you look at our very own (and fan favorite) reformed villain squad.

Starting with Ragh, while he was in his right mind for most of his villainy in Freshman Year, he really didn't do too much other than beat people up and be a bully? While he worked with Daybreak on some level, he wasn't anything more than muscle and not very in on most of the plans. There was also some implication of grooming and manipulation from Daybreak to Ragh.

Zayn as an example also helps build this thesis, while he also hasn't done a TON evil he's generally a bit more discerning than Ragh. However he builds the understanding of how Fantasy High looks at it's redeemed teenage villains, when Zayn is found as a ghost he explicitly calls out Daybreak as being the only reason he's still housed, were he not to go along with the Freshman Year scheme he'd have been sent back to his abusive parents, the foster system, or homeless as like, a fifteen year old boy.

But the actual silver bullet to understanding this is Aelwyn, to preface. Aelwyn fucking sucks in freshman year, way worse than Ragh or Zayn. She's also responsible for way worse than any other teenage villain in the series. She's arguably committed worse than Dayne Blayde or Penelope Everpetal, but there's an important component to her redemption in Sophmore Year, something Brennan has her stay conscious despite making death saves to explain.

In tears Aelwyn notes that Kalina was actively threatening to kill her had she not complied with the Kalvaxus plan.

So there's a running theme here, Ragh didn't seem to have much of an idea of what the wider plan even was and was just muscle, Zayn was under significant threat to his personal safety (and unbeknownst to him, also under threat of death, a threat that actually gets carried out), and Aelwyn was literally convinced she'd be murdered for not complying.

This tracks with the teen villains who DON'T get redeemed by the way, Dayne had no qualms about casually murdering his classmates with a great sword, Penelope didn't seem to mind the idea of throwing her best friend Kalvaxus for a power play. They both get killed because they don't seem to really care what happened, were fully complicit, and had no form of remorse at all.

This leaves us with our code to cracking if Brennan sees the Ratgrinders as possibly worthy of redemption (IMO, signs point to yes, but it's complicated.) We know the Ratgrinders are being manipulated heavily by Porter (I have so many more thoughts about Jace's place in this but that's for a whole other post,) however they don't have Ragh's excuse of being mostly in the dark.

Kipperlilly and Oisin for sure know exactly what's going on, and the rest (sans Buddy) probably do too. The actual question is how much does Ankarna rage affect one's reasoning, and the thing that's interesting about how the Ratgrinders have been set up is that question is sincerely ambiguous.

Signs point to the corruption needing some sort of genuine anger or frustration to latch onto, but this is my first hot take here. This isn't really that damning? Pre-Rage Kipperlilly said some concerning things, in private confidential counseling. She (at the time) understood her fixation on Riz was a problem and perhaps not fair. Oisin probably was mildly frustrated or saddened a girl he had a crush on didn't notice him, but to cast Pre-Rage Oisin as a full on Biz Glitterdew incel is, in my opinion, unlikely. Ruben was already seeking attention but wasn't anything worse than a mildly annoying teenage boy, etc.

These aren't exactly 'good' feelings but they are pretty normal for 14-15 year olds. Pre-Rage Ratgrinders really aren't that much worse than Pre-Character Development Bad Kids, let's not forget that they too definitely act out in really mean, unfair ways at around the same time as Pre-Rage Ratgrinders (Fig and Fabian, most notably.)

As for agency though, they clearly have a bit more of it than previous teenage villains, and are a bit more aware of their actions. They're not under direct threat of violence like Aelwyn or Zayn (though the way Porter and Jace act around them may make that threat implicit.) and they don't have Ragh's excuse of being seemingly largely in the dark.

The Ratgrinders I feel are an intentional test for the Bad Kids (and the Intrepid Heroes as players) because they're significantly more antagonistic than previous teenage villains. Heck, even ones that turned out totally evil. Dayne's kinda chill to the Bad Kids initially, Penelope is a bit backhanded but she isn't outright mean. If you count him, even Johnny Spells humors Riz and is relatively lax to him. Ragh's honestly way more harsh for most of the first half of Freshman Year, Zayn's initially more rude and confrontational to them too.

That said they're both being influenced by a much worse adult (Like everyone in the Reformed Villain Squad) and have a rage god clouding their judgement to an unknown degree. If we follow previously established patterns, they're salvageable by the story's own logic.

The test is for the party, it's easy to forgive Zayn when he openly cries and apologizes immediately when finally confronted about his place in the villain plot, it's easier to forgive Aelwyn when she openly puts herself in harm's way and almost dies to save Adaine.

It's going to be harder, emotionally, for both the player characters and the players themselves to forgive the Ratgrinders and recognize they're also victims in some sense when the Ratgrinders have been actively fucking with the Bad Kids for the whole season, and taking an obvious amount of satisfaction in it.

The challenge Brennan has set up for the party, I feel, is a test of their character. Fighting a possibly ascended god Porter is gonna be a lot easier without a whole other party of enemies in the fight (and even much easier if you can convince some to fight alongside you as a part of heroes.)

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

YASASHII NO DE

HE CAME IN 20 PULLS……………….. ……… ….. …. . … …. .. .. . . … . .. . .. . . . TRULY YASaSHii OF YOu, GOOD SiR 😭

***Crowley Groovy, chibi sprite, lesson lines, and vignette spoilers below the cut!***

Unfortunately, we do not get any more details on his profile. It’s the same as the profile he had before the update. Age and birthplace unknown, 185 cm tall, favorite food is wild game, and his hobby is vacationing.

SDFHEGYOGYFQEN;jkhaCWIDODB A LOT OF CROWLEY'S LINES ARE VERY CHILDISH OR GOOFY... Like he has one where he complains about Grim eating his snacks, tells on students who are sleeping in class, and gets distracted by shiny objects (which, I guess, is par for the course for a crow).

Crowley cannot attend Alchemy class and does not have Chats. His Buddies are Deuce, Vil, and Grim (with Grim being his Duo Magic partner). Deuce and Vil are interesting choices, I wonder why those two in particular... (Some friends and I were memeing earlier about how "all those characters have single parents so Crowley must be a single parent" and, "Vil is the Evil Queen and Meleanor is a princess of evil", etc.) Crowley can, however, attend the other lessons and it’s every bit as awkward as you think it is. (He has a pre-lesson line where he expresses surprise taht he has to do homework 🤡)

THE CROWLEY DOPPLEGANGER ALLEGATIONS ARE TRUE 💀 He can just straight up run into a clone of himself during lessons… THE DEVS KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING, they even goofily have Crowley say, “Oh! Hello, me!” while the other Crowley is in class for the special lesson… THEY KNEW HOW DUMB THIS WOULD BE 😭 (The dialogue states the Crowley that barges into class is a magical projection…?)

Here are some of his chibi sprites, as well as his Groovy candy. Crowley is not only very yasashii, but also very cute!!

He does, in fact, have vignettes but they are unvoiced. The first part is him running an assembly with the dorm leaders present. Crowley discusses the health of an adolescent apple tree in the school's courtyard, and no one seems to be interested in his speech. Malleus barges in late and, in a fit of anger at having not been invited, starts unleashing lightning. Wow, just like how Meleanor shoots lightning at Lilia... Like husband, like wife/j Everyone retires to their dorms, leaving Crowley to deal with an upset Malleus. The second part features Crowley having lunch with the other staff members (Sam included!). Each staff member is eating something different (Vargas is of course having eggs), and Crowley is revealed to have a great appetite in spite of his age. Crewel and Trein wonder how many decades old Crowley is, since he was apparently still headmaster when Crewel was a student and when Trein started teaching at NRC. Finally, Crowley is walking down main street and spots Yuu, Grim, and some mob students skipping class… so he uses his Lash of Love to discipline them! He binds everyone together and proceeds to drag them back to class. (It was surprising, we haven’t seen the Lash of Love since like… what, the prologue? I almost forgot about it.) Crowley alludes to the fact that even though the students joke about him, he is actually a very powerful mage that shouldn't be taken lightly, you know?? The vignettes end with Crowley referring to his students as "apple trees" that he is nourishing and watching over as they grow, which rounds us nicely back to the apple tree he mentioned in his first vignette.

BUT ANYWay HEREmS thE GROOviY in JUICy DETAIL INkjoW YOU WERE ALL WAiTING FOR

It’s so pretty AaAAaaaaaaaAAAAAAAaaAaaAHHHHH 🥺 His grotesquely detailed hand reaching out to the viewer, who appears to be awaking from within a coffin… and do I have to mention the parallel between Crowley here and the mysterious hand that is offered to us in the mirror at the very beginning of the game????? Which could imply that Crowley is beckoning/summoning us into another world... The dim room, light spilling onto the Mirror of Darkness… So atmospheric!! If Crowley knows how to do one thing well and consistently, it’s drama~ The Groovy totally reminds me a lot of the prologue when Crowley tells Yuu to go before the mirror to get sorted. Omg guys... He's posted like Masquerade Malleus/j

One detail I super appreciate in this illustration is that you can see the dorm leaders in the background! If you squint, you’ll realize that there are 5 of them posing exactly like how they are in the following promotional artwork:

The one without a matching pose is Idia, who is present via his tablet. Though… I feel like we’re forgetting something 🤔 … Eh, I’m sure it’s nothing, nothing at allllllllll~

[baeddel]

I think your analysis of the issue is overall astute, but I also think it's an important nuance that the maturity of the "MILF" has always been disturbingly relative, and I'm not sure that menopause has actually been that likely of a historic quality of one. Sarah Palin had her last child in 2008, and Lisa Ann was eight years younger than her when she performed in "Who's Nailin Paylin?". Youth as a source of feminine beauty is still valued in the MILF, despite the inherent countersignaling of the concept; while it always would have been disingenuous to present a twenty-something as a MILF simply because she could literally already be a mother, I'm pretty sure the type is most commonly imagined in her thirties or forties, a plausible mother figure for a specifically teen or college-aged assumed audience. A whole disquieting coterie out there of not-actually-that-old guys using the concept of MILFs to come to terms with being attracted to women around their own age.

thank you for your useful thoughts... your point about Lisa Ann performing the older woman is a good one, but i want to temper it with something i observed several years ago and made a post about (click), which was the actor Aaron Brandt, who acted in porn movies for a company called Bacchus Releasing (!), had but ten years between his starring in "18 and Horny" and "Guys of a Certain Age 3". but even by the time he starred in "18 and Horny" he had already been in the adult industry for 11 years. so in pornography, age is malleable. as is name, sex, nationality, even ethnicity... pornography, as in stripping and camming, and even full service, are all forms of performance, and there is more to protrayal than possessing the right sort of body.

now i will insert a warning that a very graphic reply continues beyond this point, incl. discussion of rape and pedophilia

regardless, what you say about these terms being used by men to come to terms with their own attraction is an interesting one and i will think about it... i wonder about the age of the ideal viewer of some of these. "nubile teens" and "barely legal" (Chaturbate politely terms it the '18 & 19 Year Old' category) is a genre one can only picture a filthy old man enjoying; but girls like to put themselves in this category, i believe for more than just marketing reasons. a memory of mine: a girl who has already told me she is really 26, but lists her age as 18, asks me what age i am; when i say 31, she seems to get visibly excited by the age gap that doesn't exist. once begun, it is difficult to extract onesself from the coordinates of the performance. "Suppose you couldn't get back, out of the chaos?" what i mean is this: i don't need to be such a filthy old man to be immersed in the fantasy of the barely legal teen, i need only play my part. i mean, when it comes to my own fantasies, i wouldn't even begin to tell you the things that i'm not...

this is how i explain why in eromanga the characters are all teenagers, yet they are not some kind of dark pedophilic sex manga, but a normal manga. it's because the ideal reader is themselves a teen, even in such cases where the manga could not even be lawfully sold to a teenager (although i know in Japan for a long time eromanga could be sold to children; perhaps it still can be, i'm not sure). we are required to immerse ourselves in the highschool performance, in which we play a fellow highschooler. sometimes the anxieties surrounding this are complex to navigate; in Rance (which is focused on noncon), in the first game, Rance rapes girls as young as 16, but if you have him rape a 14 year old girl you get a judgemental game over. when we played it we said "so that's where you draw the line??", but perhaps this is a line that its ideal player would intuitively understand.

yet even in a game so flagrant as Rance we are a world away from, say, Burroughs' letters to Ginsberg and Kerouac, where he describes the things he paid child sex workers to do in Mexico; things that, in his fiction, he would exclusively write as atrocities committed by horrid space monsters. that is the gulf between rape and noncon; it is the crater left by the 'death of the author', the strange effect which comes over us when we put pen to paper, and set about to write something other than a confession.

anyway. to return to the jpeg porn webrings. what is this suburbia that they created? the nubile teen, the girl next door, the college coed, the milf, the gilf... i was the tender age of twelve when i went and viewed them, and i had never once been to such a suburb, yet i knew how to comprehend what i was seeing. i had seen the trailer for American Pie. i had heard Stacy's Mom. i knew what i was getting into. so each cliche need not appeal to any particular real viewer; he need only know how to perform his part. there are old Newgrounds flash games organized along this basis; you go door to door, engaging in different sex acts with different kinds of women; sleeping with a young, flat chested girl in pigtails, then going next door to have sex with a mature, large breated woman with a blonde perm; upstairs you are tortured by a dominatrix, then go downstairs to inflict sadistic punishment on a submissive. even a game of such artfulness as Degrees of Lewdity has something of the colour of that; the charcuterie town where every type of partner may be tried out (or, in the case of DoL, feared and doggedly fled).

in any case, yes, i'll concede that drawing the line at menopause was fanciful.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Since you’ve talked about the secret between Adrien and Mari and how Adrien has no agency, back when the s5 bible leaked, there was a part where it said that „Adrien will never find out about his father being Hawkmoth“ or something like that.

Do you think the writers will actually stick with that rule? Because I just can‘t see how this is supposed to be narratively satisfying…

I have no idea and that's not a compliment. It's a condemnation. Adrien should absolutely find out about his father. The story isn't satisfying if he doesn't. But Miraculous doesn't seem to care about being satisfying. It cares about being shocking and that's a terrible thing. To explain why, let's talk about the topic of predictability in narratives and why it's generally a good thing.

We'll start with a quote from a famous George R.R. Martin interview where he perfectly explains why you want your stories to make logical sense with the final line of the quote being the most important part:

Before the Internet, one reader could guess the ending you wanna do for your novel, but the other 10.000 wouldn’t know anything and they would be surprised. However, now, those 10.000 people use the Internet and read the right theories. They say: “Oh God, the butler did it!”, to use an example of a mystery novel. Then, you think: “I have to change the ending! The maiden would be the criminal!” To my mind that way is a disaster because if you are doing well you work, the books are full of clues that point to the butler doing it and help you to figure up the butler did it, but if you change the ending to point the maiden, the clues make no sense anymore; they are wrong or are lies, and I am not a liar.

This is a writing rule that I believe in my soul, but that the Miraculous writers don't seem to care about. Miraculous will introduce things that should be important to the story, but they end up meaning nothing.

A great - and relevant - example of this is the Chat Blanc stuff. Chat Blanc comes near the end of season three, early season four sees Marinette have a nightmare about Chat Blanc, and late season four is all about Chat Noir feeling left out as Marinette trusts Alya over him. Many viewers looked at these story beats and went, "Oh, okay, so Chat Blanc is causing Marinette to push Chat Noir away. Got it." because it honestly was the only thing that made any sense.

But that's not what was going on. The official word is that Marinette was just stressed over her new role as the guardian even though nothing in the text really explains why that would strain her relationship with Chat Noir. It actively improves her relationship with Alya! Why wouldn't it do the same with her long-term partner? As we've discussed several times, he was fine with the status quo at the start of the season and didn't even ask for more responsibility until Kuro Neko so it's not like he was doing anything to stress her out until he randomly quit on her.

This begs the question: if Chat Blanc isn't haunting Marinette and Chat Noir isn't stressing her, then why doesn't she share things with Chat Noir? Why go with Alya when Alya's identity was revealed to the villain requiring Alya to go into "hiding" as Rena Furtive? There's really nothing in the text to answer those incredibly important questions. Question that are only incredibly important because the writers actively chose to have multiple episodes dedicated to Chat Noir feeling left out. Why that happened really isn't clear so there's also no clear resolution. What needs to change? No clue! Did that thing change? Once again, no clue! It's all set up with no pay off!

Or, at least, we don't get the kind of pay off you'd expect to see. Aka the big dramatic moment where Ladybug finally confesses what happened to her. Instead, Chat Blanc's big pay off is Adrien missing the season five fight because he just magically knows that Chat Blanc happened:

During the scene that leads to Adrien wearing the Alliance ring after being reticent to it, [the writers] say that they had a conflict when writing it as they had to find a way for Adrien to not become his superhero self, cataclysm the walls and go help his lady in Paris. The end result is that Adrien is reminded of the devastating effect of his power by the nightmare and would therefore do anything to avoid hurting people, and so he wears the ring. Mélanie says that he "could become Chat Blanc" and the others add that even though he does not remember and has never lived it, Chat Blanc still has an influence on his actions.

So Chat Blanc doesn't matter to the person who actually met him, but it does matter to the person who was Chat Blanc an alternate timeline even though this show has never once showed another akuma victim to be haunted by their akumatization. Does that make any sense? No, it's frustrating and confusing, but it does tell us the way these writers think and that insight doesn't bode well for Adrien learning the truth about his father. It's not enough for me to say with certainty that it will never happen, but I would not assume that it will happen. The show has an active pattern of avoiding these kinds of payoffs:

Example 1: Multiple Lila appearances had her claiming to be Ladybug's BFF and she was even interviewed for the Ladyblog based on this lie, but as soon as Alya learns Ladybug's identity, the show conveniently forgets about this ongoing lie because then Alya would be against Lila and the writers didn't want that.

Example 2: Marinette gave Alya the Fox without telling Chat Noir that they had a new full-time teammate, but Chat Noir never learns about this development. The most he gets is that Ladybug revealed her identity to someone, which is nowhere near as important as the Rena thing in terms of the ongoing fight against Paris' resident supervillain. The fact that Rena Rouge is now Rena Furtive is literally never revealed to him. He learns that she's active in the final fight, but the name change and her status are forever a secret. Alya being Rena Furtive also leads to nothing useful for the heroes. You could remove that from season four and it would play almost exactly the same same for a few minor tweaks.

Example 3: Luka learns Ladybug and Chat Noir's identities in Wishmaker, but this reveal is just used as an excuse to write Luka off the show in season five. The episode that gets him written off shows Monarch realizing that Luka knows the identities because of some mental connection that happens during akumatization. This is damning because Kagami was akumatized twice in season five (Perfection and Protection) and we later learn that Kagami learned Marinette's secret identity during Perfection, the first of the two episodes. In fact, Kagami learned the secret mere minutes before getting akumatized and she was akumatized because Marinette wasn't talking to her so Marinette being Ladybug should have been on her mind and yet Monarch didn't get so much as a hint of any of this!!!!!

That's not even getting into the issue of the fact that nothing in Perfection so much as hints that Kagami knows even though the episode is all about her relationship with Marinette or the issue of Marinette keeping her secret identity safe even though she was almost akumatized the freaking times! SOMEONE PLEASE MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!!! WHY IS IT WRITTEN LIKE THIS??? How is anyone supposed to follow such shitty lore? The audience can't text appropriately if they don't know what the stakes are.

So, yeah, I'd put a small amount of money on Adrien never learning because that would be way too satisfying and Miraculous hates being satisfying or logical. The times we do get big reveals are generally terrible like with freaking Andre the Ice Cream Man being the one to tell Adrien about Marinette's crush or Lila being outed because of a plan Sabrina and Marinette made up off screen or Adrien finding out about Chat Blanc because magic. Watch Andre the Ice Cream Man be the one to tell Adrien about his dad for some reason. Nothing would surprise me at this point.

[whygalaxy]

Senseless jealousy

♡⃕ Relationship} Quackity x Fem!Reader

♡⃕ Summary} "You're Quackity's girlfriend. But the fans wanted him to be with Wilbur. You get threats and hate mail and Quackity gets mad."

♡⃕ Inspiration} The inspiration came from stonermujer, from this post.

♡⃕ Notes} English is not my first language, there may be mistakes. I'm sorry for anything. {I feel like I should mention this, I made and published this fanfic before Willbur's exposed. I just wanted to say that I don't support him or his attitudes, but I won't edit it so as not to lose the meaning}

On Valentine's Day, Alex decides to open a stream and, after obtaining you consent. He decides to introduce you, his girlfriend, to his audience.

He decided to do a romantic stream, from you two cooking a cake, everything was going well. The public quickly accepted you, of course, there were some stupid comments in between, but they were crushed by the vast majority and quickly deleted;

The stream had been perfect. You laughed a lot, you joked a lot, you threw flour at each other. It was a fun stream… But it didn't take long for the peace to end.

────────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹────────

You were lying on the couch, relaxing, the day after the Stream. It didn't take long for Alex fans to discover your Twitter and Instagram, and of course they would have negative comments. About your looks, about your body, about how you're only with Alex for money. You already expected it, so you didn't care.

But one comment caught you attention… "She's so ugly, Quackity should be with Wilbur." “What the fuck?" you think to yourself, your brow furrowing. You'd hate to admit it, but you were always a little jealous of Wilbur, how close Alex and him were, and how they were seen as a couple by most people in Fandom, especially during DSMP. You hated this feeling, after all, Wilbur was a good friend to both of you. So that comment really got to you.

You got up and headed towards Alex office where he was editing something. He hears you open the door and turns to look at you, noticing your sad face. “Mi amor, what happened?”, he says in a worried voice. You walked over to him and sat on his lap, showing him your phone, he read all the negative comments you received. He just put down your phone and kissed your cheek, telling you to ignore the comments, that people would get used to you soon.

────────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹────────

You did this, you tried to ignore these comments, thinking they would lessen over time… But, you were wrong.

As time passed, more and more comments of this kind began to emerge even more.

“You’re a slut, Quackity should be with Wilbur.”

“You’re stealing Wilbur’s spot.”

“Why can’t Quackity dump you and just be with Wilbur???”

“What did he see in you that Wilbur doesn’t have?”

“If you don’t break up with him, I will kill you.”

And several other comments you received. This was crossing the line, there were people saying that you and your family should die!

Alex noticed you were becoming distant, you told him everything that happened. All the threats and comments you received;

────────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹────────

“This just got out of hand!” Alex says in an irritated tone seeing the types of comments you had received. “Calm down, I think with time they will st-”, you are stopped from finishing the sentence by Alexis, shouting “NO! THIS SIMPLY CANNOT CONTINUE LIKE THIS! THEY ARE THREATENING YOU!”. Your eyes widen when you see Alex raising his voice, he almost never yelled at you…

You look away, sad. He lets out a sigh, playing with his hair before placing his hand on your chin, making you look at him. “Look… I'm sorry for yelling, but this really has to stop… I'll comment on this on stream.”

You nod, knowing this should be discussed before it gets out of hand.

────────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹────────

A few hours later, Alex opened a stream “A serious warning” in the title and it quickly became filled with several viewers, thinking it was about some QSMP announcement. Fans quickly realized that it wasn't going to be a fun and relaxed stream like all the others when the stream finally started. Everything Quackity said was in a serious tone.

“Listen, I've noticed a lot of people messaging my sweet girl. Terrible messages, death threats, for the simple fact that she was with me, and I wasn't Wilbur. Is this serious? Are you so childish that you would threaten someone with death simply because she is “getting in the way” of me having a relationship with Wilbur? I'm with her for a reason, she's a sweet, kind, funny and beautiful person. Wilbur is a good friend, and I never felt romantic interest in him, we just make some jokes. If you call yourself my fan and don't accept my girl, you're not my fan and I don't care if you stop watching me for that stupid reason. I hope this stops after this stream, these messages stop, I don't mind starting to take drastic measures.”

────────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹────────

A few weeks after Alex long speech on the subject, the messages dropped dramatically. Of course they didn't stop, but you received much less than before, but you ignored these messages.

You were much calmer now, not paying so much attention to those hateful messages, knowing that Alexis would always be by your side, always defending you.

<3

[hot-on-my-watch]

Final Script- Sherlock S4- The Six Thatchers

I may have fallen down a new rabbit hole, and this time it's reading bits of BBC Sherlock scripts different from the episodes.

Last night on here I saw a post purporting to show a cut scene from the series, and began looking up more. Lots of fun.

However, there were still rumours of a scene about John and Mary's marriage that I not yet found, so I decided to have a look at the Six Thatchers script on the BBC website.

Delightful!

Here I should say that I know very little about how tv programmes are made, so was rather titilated to find that many of the scenes were in a different order to that in which they appear in the episode, and to have the joy of reading stage directions and whatnot.

Anyway, a few notes:

Formatting

Firstly, a lot of scenes have been moved around. Clearly season 4 goes in for a lot more visual hijinks, flashbacks and ambitious transitions between scenes than we've generally seen previously, but the script describes characters walking, running and looking between scenes almost constantly. Whether this was too ambitious to pull off practically or ultimately considered too confusing for the viewer I don't know, but to a this utter novice the transitions in the script do sound a lot harder to film!

"Love"

In the script, we don't get the codenames (Love, Porlock etc.) in the 'doctored footage' scene. The first time "love" is highlighted is when we see the torturer laying into Ajay while crying not "ammo/amo" but "I love you" and "love", and we only find out Lady Smallwood's codename when Mycroft questions her.

Personally I think this was a good change. It gives the viewer the opportunity to pick up the codename clue first (if they know a bit of latin, mind, which obviously most of us don't). I still find it a bit weird to repeat any kind of phrase over and over while torturing someone- but then I find it strange to gain entertainment from torturing someone at length at all. Mostly, I think that the original line was a bit on the nose - we get it, love hurts! People hurting and being hurt by the ones they love is everywhere in this season. And yet, I had failed to put two and two together on that before.

Sealife

I noticed an additional example of the 'whale' motif- within the greater 'ocean' theme of course, which is bloody everywhere.

In the swimming pool scene, the script describes whale sounds being heard as the father relaxes in the jacuzzi and the girl swims, then returning along with music when Sherlock and Ajay crash into a control panel during their fight. Frankly I'm terrible at noticing these kinds of things, and my attention never does very well with action scenes at the best of times, let alone now that I have severe ME/CFS! I will be rewatching the scene soon to check if the whale sounds made it in!

Just FYI the other whale references in TST: the black fish/killer whale mobile above Rosie's cot/crib, what looks like part of a whale skeleton in the beginning aquarium scene, a poster at the bus stop behind E that says "KILLER WHALE". Obviously we also have the sharks at the aquarium that SH compared to Magnussen in HLV, the scene where John and Sherlock discuss the fact that you can't arrest a jellyish, and more jellyfish behind Sherlock during the confrontation scene in the aquarium- thanks to Erik Voss for New Rockstars on Youtube for this!

Of course Vivian Norbury makes her own comparison between the sea creatures and intelligence agents, and her code name Langdale seems to come from Langdale Pike in the ACD stories. Pike, as well as being the name of a fish, was apparently a high society gossip that helped SH with cases occasionally- just like a receptionist, she knew "everything". We see what you did there, Mark Gatiss.

"M" for Mycroft

In the script, Mycroft's look to Sherlock when accused of lying about ignorance of Mary's true identity says 'Really?' I was never quite sure whether that was the case, or a look of 'worth a try', but I had decided to believe that Mycroft genuinely didn't know, and would have had a closer eye on things if he had, so was pleased to be vindicated there. Of course this also goes back to Mary working for Mycroft in Sherlock's Victorian trip trance, implying that either consciously or subconsciously Sherlock correctly suspected Mary of working for "the British Government".

The Mystery of Man Meeting DCI

Similarly, following the scene in which Lestrade converses with Hopkins the Interpol officer outside the flat about how he met Sherlock and is cut off, we get this:

Damn you Gatiss! I love it.

'Miss Me?' Post

There were a couple more things explained in the script that didn't make their way into the episode. Firstly, SH deduces that the post containing Mary's "miss me?" DVD seemed to have come from a lawyer who had two dogs in the office (always with the dogs!) Personally I never took issue with The DVDs from Beyond the Grave as this is the kind of thing solicitors and friends can actually do for you, but I know it irritated some fans.

"There's somewhere she goes."

Secondly, there's a brief scene in which someone at the MI6 office explains to Sherlock that "she" i.e. Norbury always goes somewhere i.e. the aquarium on Friday nights and that they keep it open late for her. I have been a bit confused in the episode when suddenly we're headed back to the aquarium, probably when it's closed, and Sherlock's commenting about her having nothing better to do on Friday nights. This explains it, and that Sherlock didn't expect Norbury to be carrying a gun. Edit: on rewatch, a voiceover announces that it's "five minutes til closing time" at the aquarium and Sherlock greets Norbury with "your office said I'd find you here." So really it was just my tricky brain misfiring! Of course in the UK we don't typically expect people to be carrying guns and certainly not little old ladies anyway. And, this continues the "whale" motif of something considered serene and unthreatening but is more powerful and dangerous to us than is usually perceived.

Missing Scene: Curry and Fears

There's also an extra scene between John and Mary, which is what I was looking for. They're in an Indian restaurant, their first time out without Rosie, and worrying about her the whole time even though babysitter Hudders assures them that she's fine. I see why they cut this as it adds nothing to the plot. However, there are a couple of interesting bits here.

John talks about not wanting to paper Rosie's room with clown wallpaper, because clowns are scary. We've already had the hyperbolic blog post The Inexplicable Matchbox which mentions John's utter delight at Sherlock dressing up as a clown for a case as well, as Mrs Hudson being pushed put of a helicopter. Now we're about to get a scary clown in The Final Problem during the "pantomime" that John helped design. So John has now developed a fear of clowns. Mary, however, isn't afraid of clowns, but of the sea:

This comes back later in the episode when the trio (let's face it, that's what they are now) are on the plan heading back to London; the sea is visible from the window, whereas in the finished episode we get an image of E superimposed onto it. Perhaps the showrunners thought at this point that there were quite enough references to THE BLOODY SEA. It also comes back in The Final Problem when we see "the girl on the plane" flying in an unpiloted aeroplane over the sea- and Mycroft announces that they will have to get her to crash it there.

Anyway, as someone who was never that invested in John and Mary's marriage (knowing that she was going to die shortly) but wasn't against it either, I do like this conversation in the restaurant as a waypoint between the couple's classic bickering, banter and Mary's statement that the danger was the fun part, and her rather contradictory claim as she dies that her life as Mrs Watson was the only one worth living.

John, on the other hand, is not necessarily checking on Rosie or even Sherlock when they both compulsively ("surreptitiously" in the script) check their phones, even after Mary's declaration. Oh dear.

Mrs Hudson, meanwhile, is busy with her knitting, sudoku AND a Fifty Shades DVD, according to the script. She not only tells Mary this, but begins to talk about when her husband brought some blindfolds home. Is she purposely bringing these things up to get rid of people at this point?

Childhood Flashback

Something else notably changed is the flashback from Sherlock's childhood: the script describes it containing three children all along, as well as a dog. Something must have changed here - delaying the Eurus reveal or deciding they were making it too obvious, perhaps.

I had wondered if the flashback we do see was part of Sherlock's recurring dream that the therapist refers to near the end of the episode, and here it is shown again just before she asks about it, so I take that as confirmation too.

"We tried!"

Conversely, there are however a couple of bits that made it into the final episode that I didn't clock in the script. Firstly, there's no sign of the brief scene in which John jokes about trying to arrest a jellyfish. I'm aware that people have since said that's (one of/) the only bit of their usual banter we get in this episode, perhaps even this season, and I'm glad it was included.

"If you want the rattle..."

I didn't see the best scene of the episode in the script either: the one where Sherlock gives he famous "you see, but you do not observe, Watson" speech, and gets hit in the face with a rattle. Obviously. I'm in favour of virtually any scene having been cut in favour of this, and especially the ones listed above! There is a part in the script where Sherlock says he's doing his best but it (dealing with babies) is not really his area, and I'm glad the writers seem to have gone for Sherlock being a little more interactive with Rosie in the end.

John's JPEG

Finally, I don't think there was any mention in the script of John typing into his blog. It seems that was added as they were moving scenes around, perhaps explaining the minor fiasco of the nonsensical JPEG. Personally I think that was a gaffe and the repetition in BBC Sherlock canon of a Six Thatchers case similarly a cock-up. It's a real shame because the blogs are otherwise fantastic, and I would have liked them to continue through season 4 where reasonable. I am fascinated by the various theories that season 4 was not meant to be taken at face value (blog, trance, Sherlock's dying brain etc.), but am yet to be convinced by any of them. Still, if anyone thinks they can change my mind, I'd be open to letting them try!

My Overall Impression

Of course this delve into a whole new set of texts has made me want to read ALL the scripts, but I do feel my limited energy should be spent doing something useful sooner or later. So we'll see! But surely they can't all be THIS different from the finished episodes and thus drive me to Tumblr? Can they?

To be continued...

[thequeenofmyownscreen]

My thoughts about episode 1, season 3 of The Legend of Vox Machina :

I'm going to start with a bummer : I'm disappointed they didn't include the "Call me child one more goddamn time !!" in the discussion with Raishan. I'm just going to hope they will do it later. It was such a good Keyleth moment, and it could have been integrated in this scene where we see Keyleth's (justified) anger...

The Plate of the Dawnmartyr retrieval in Ank'harel is a small change (it was originally in the City of Brass in the Fire Plane), but one I welcome. This change means we get to Ank'harel much sooner, and honestly the elemental plane of fire has been already seen last season. And Raishan already explained how Thordak escaped, so no narrative reason to go there.

This moment ! Grand Poo-ah !! the mayonnaise !!

The Vaxleth kiss we were all waiting for !! Haaaa

Got to say though, I'm not thrilled by the fact that it's Vax that sees Keyleth destined to survive Vox Machina. In the campaign, the moment where she reveals it, and she reveals that every second she thinks about what it means to complete her Aramente, and thinks about all of her friends dying before here... that was so powerful, and it was hers.

i laughed so much at Trinket's face there

"What could possibly go wrong ?" with a hard cut to Vax falling was easy, yes, but also supremely funny

ANK'HAREL IS SO BEAUTIFUL WE AGREE RIGHT ??

fucking Stassmans

it's Hiiiiiiiigh Nooooooon (yes I caught that 1st time watching but I couldn't explain to my sister why I laughed, it would have taken too much time)

the Scanlan song while he rides the broom was so fucking good. Me and my sister were dancing !!

Oh, hi Matt :

that was such a fun scene. I love it. Also I don't know if they'll later include the drug use arc for Scanlan, but my guess is no, there's no narrative need, the seed of discord between him and the group are already planned, and this scene serves enough as a wink for Campaign viewers. But I could be wrong of course.

RIP Lance Reddick. He was such a good actor. His Thordak lines are so good, the lines in themselves are so over-the-top (the use of "shall" multiple times makes me laugh) but he could make it work like no one else with his amazing voice. Thordak is scarier because of him. The world will miss him.

[canceledromance]

another aspect of this discussion on taboo, or problematic, or whatever word you want to use for it, media that i've been thinking about a lot, is the way certain taboos become acceptable within certain narrative contexts, but not in others.

and i mean, i think this is understandable. it's why a novel like lolita is not the same as a novel like daddy's little toy (in so much as i can make that assumption given i can't actually read dlt for myself). lolita is making a point that is bigger than, like, the literal events that are being depicted in its pages. it's not a book of csa. it's a book about the harm and ruin that comes from people who enact csa on children. it has something meaningful to say beyond entertainment. meanwhile, the assumption (due to how it was marketed and the snippets available) with dlt is that the presence of child grooming is the statement. it's the entertainment. and that's pretty fucking foul.

but i also wonder where we put things like the television shows criminal minds and law & order: svu when it comes to subjects like the sexual assault of adults and children. is the supposed messaging of these shows (this is bad) stronger than the exploitive reality of selling these kinds of stories to viewers? i'm genuinely asking; i do not know. to me, the episodes of those shows that tell stories about sexual abuse still feel kind of icky in that they're still attempting to titillate. they're arousing in the general sense of the word, and they come with ad breaks. should we be socially okay with monetizing entertainment about sexual abuse if it comes packaged as social commentary? it's still fiction, and it's still meant to entertain.

i've seen some comments on tiktok vids about ttws that say, it's one thing to have this kind of dead dove shit on ao3, but a mainstream published book is so gross! and i've found myself taken aback by that distinction. partly because i would think any portrayal of that kind of thing would be seen as unacceptable and deserving of jail time regardless of platform, and partly because i think it's kind of laughable to presume that dlt, a self-published book in a niche genre, would have reached any kind of influential scale. regardless, the question stands in my mind: why would (to these commenters at least) ao3 be an acceptable platform for csa stories while other forms of publishing are not?

in asking these questions, i'm not leaning towards an answer of, well, just eradicate these narratives across all platforms, because good riddance to bad trash. i think having that answer oversimplifies the issue. but at the same time, it's hard to say with my full chest we should allow base, lurid, predatory fiction to run rampant wherever it so chooses.

next day eta: i want to adjust this to add that even my last statement ("it's hard to say with my full chest we should allow base, lurid, predatory fiction to run rampant wherever it chooses") is super hypocritical, given the kind of fic i've read and written myself.

i don't want to take that line out, because i said it, and the purpose of this blog to also deal with the areas in which i, myself, have biases or sticky spots, or contradicting beliefs. i have written a lot of base, lurid, predatory fiction. i've even written that kind of stuff between adults and older teens. and it upsets me that even i can get caught up in the moral panic of this discussion to the point i forget my own participation and start lambasting myself.

if i could adjust what i said last night and rewrite that line, this is how i would:

in asking these questions, i'm not leaning towards an answer of, well, just eradicate these narratives across all platforms, because good riddance to bad trash. i think having that answer oversimplifies the issue. but at the same time, it's hard to say with my full chest we should allow base, lurid, predatory fiction to run rampant wherever it so chooses. the crux for me is that there is always nuance and context, and i believe this even when it comes to the kind of morally controversial fiction that people write purely for smut. an all or nothing approach doesn't work here, in my opinion.

[the-bi-space-ace]

There’s been some discussion recently about the subplot of bullying in The Bad Batch and I had some thoughts so I decided to write them out to discuss them.

I wanted to bring up some things that maybe can put together this disconnect we seem to see between the show The Bad Batch and the show The Clone Wars and maybe explains a bit about this whole bullied versus bully concept.

To me The Clone Wars paints a very different picture than The Bad Batch in a way that only serves to make the lines blurry and make the viewer think (perhaps not their intention but I think maybe they fell into this more on accident). The Clone Wars batch rolls in with a reputation that’s already not too great. Jesse even says it: it’s not that they win. It’s how they win. The batch is known for dangerous stunts that put other people at risk. They don’t always think through their decisions outside of themselves. Then we get this scene of them walking off of the ship and they are very arrogant. They show off, they talk big, they don’t exactly give off ‘approachable’.

We get into the mission and Jesse, in particular, is not a fan but it isn’t very aggressive yet. Crosshair is being confrontational - staring Jesse down, making snippy comments, and being an overall ass (I love Crosshair, don’t get me wrong, I’m just talking about what I observe in this introduction). I think it’s because he senses Jesse’s dislike of them and wants to poke at it.

We’re not off to a good start.

Where I think the batch fails in this episode is letting Crosshair insult Rex and further goad Jesse. Crosshair shouldn’t have said half the stuff he did and Jesse (and later, Rex) are justified in hitting back at him.

They’re soldiers. They’re going to get in each other’s faces if someone starts talking shit.

When Jesse scolds Crosshair - I think Kix is somewhere standing in the background but not directly involved- Wrecker steps in and turns things violent.

It’s not a moment I’m most proud of them. It’s actually one of the moments I’m least proud of them. Crosshair and Kix get into it when Crosshair shoves him for trying to help Jesse and Rex is attempting to get Wrecker to let Jesse go. This escalated quickly and I’m not sure I can say that this was justified. It seems like a big jump to me (but maybe someone disagrees, feel free to, I’d like to know someone else’s thoughts).

In this episode we’re really led down one path that says the batch and other clones don’t get along and from this limited perspective in this episode it seems like the batch are instigators. They roll in, avoid consequences for themselves, and roll out without giving anyone else a second thought.

The Bad Batch tv show paints an entirely different picture and it is definitely to make them more likable and relatable to a young audience. Every kids show has the character that’s an underdog, it’s who we want to root for. It makes the people in The Bad Batch’s age range connect with them more and I can’t exactly blame them for writing it this way - although after seeing the batch in the clone wars it does make me sigh a bit, I won’t lie.

I was bullied as a child. Quite severely, actually, so I find myself justifying the disconnect with a few things. Perhaps the batch puts up a front so they push other clones away before it can happen to them. I’ve done this. I put on a really abrasive attitude to keep people away when I was in high school and I regret it. However, I got over myself as I got older and worked through my own issues rather than blaming other people. Because you have to. It’s not alright to continue to hurt other people because you were hurt and I remind myself of that every single day. It’s the only way to move forward. I never have to forgive people who have hurt me but I can’t start using it as an excuse.

I mention this only to say that maybe their behavior in The Clone Wars was a mask built from past hurt and that could make sense to me. You build up walls when you’ve been hurt and you create behaviors based on experience. However, I still don’t think their behavior should be excused. I still think they escalated that situation far before anyone else did. In the same way I think Jesse made a lot of snap judgements about the batch and just kept finding ways to reinforce that judgement based on what he’d heard about them prior. And this snap judgment isn’t the best way to go about working with new people. It’s not an excuse, just an explanation.

I even think the batch’s behavior in episode 1 of their own show kind of contradicts some of their behavior in TCW. Particularly Crosshair. Crosshair doesn’t engage in the cafeteria until he absolutely has to while in TCW he is the primary instigator. We can try to explain this by saying it’s because his chip activated and his personality shifted. I just think it’s something worth pointing out.

I’d also like to add that of course the batch are the primary instigators in The Clone Wars because the clones we knew and loved in that show are technically the heroes of the episode. Of course they’re portrayed in a better light. It’s the same as the batch in episode one of their own show. Of course they’re portrayed as the ‘good guys’. It’s their show. To me it’s less of a character moment and more of a way to get the viewers of the show to root for somebody, whoever they want us to root for in the moment. The Bad Batch is told from their perspective so they are going to be the underdogs while The Clone Wars brings the batch in as outsiders to the group and gives them a more aggressive interaction to further our already beloved character’s narratives.

This was a very long way to say, I’ve always been kinda meh about the whole ‘the batch is bullied’ subplot and I tend to avoid writing it in my own fics because I think there is inconsistency with the writing between the clone wars and the bad batch and this can possibly be boiled down to a few things like different writers on the creative teams, an uncertain future, and wanting to paint certain characters in certain lights because of the show they are on. Rather than actually being a truly defining character arc it is a tool, as most writing is, it’s just not a tool I particularly care for in this story. And while I do think there are inconsistencies I can piece together some things to explain it if I really want to. I don’t think one side is right and one side is wrong. I think there are a million explanations for hurt on both sides and we decide it for ourselves because neither show truly made it clear enough for me to draw any lines in the sand. (And if you’ve been reading my stories at all you know I love a good grey area so I probably wouldn’t draw lines at all.)

I always try to be fair to everyone when I write stuff like this so I hope I’ve covered all of my points well enough. There are plenty of things to say about this topic and it has been talked about a few times recently in other posts that you can read. Tagging 1 by @laughhardrunfastbekindsblog and 2 by @gars-technician because these two posts inspired me to write this.

I’d definitely encourage open discussion here if anyone wants to chime in 😊 while I know we might all have different opinions I’m certainly willing to hear them as long as everyone is respectful.

[tiggymalvern]

Burn Noticed 4x13 Eyes Open

This is another lengthy podcast ep that runs about an hour and a half. What does it mean this time? Where lies the disagreement between the podcasters? 🤣🤣

Bri loves the starting scene in the hospital - the callback to the pilot with Fi kicking Michael awake and then saying that the bullet missed his heart because it's so small. "She's so scared for him, and it comes out in being mean to him. I like watching her be a bit more vulnerable and covering it up with absolute violence." (It is cute, and so very Fi.)

She also loves the scene with Madeline and Michael after the credits. "When there's not a lot of cuts and Burn Notice just lets the actors work themselves, especially in more emotionally wrought scenes, it's so good. It gives them an opportunity to actually perform and these two actors are so good together."

Then they get into a lot of discussion about Dennis the serial killer...

Chris: Everything about his look and performance is 100% intentionally doing Patrick Bateman from American Psycho.

Bri: But isn't that the thing? He's a delusional narcissist who was born into money and has an inherent distrust of anyone he thinks is lower on the social scale.

Chris: Dennis is killing criminals and there's a weird morality thing to it - he's got a manifesto, and that's a different kind of serial killer than the American Psycho serial killer.

And then it turns out Bri doesn't know American Psycho, so there's a diversion. These younglings and their missed cultural touchstones!

Chris: He looks like Patrick Bateman but he acts like a weird, unwashed Rorschach character and those two things don't jibe. Killing criminals and killing homeless people, it's a weird mish-mash - they're fundamentally different psychologies so this character makes no sense to me.

Bri: He's killing anyone he feels is lesser than, he's like Darwin's tool.

The discussion goes on along those lines for a while and neither of them are convinced by the other's arguments. (I don't think it's that deep, honestly. He's a BN plot device of the week, and he's killing criminals because that's the plot and he's killing homeless people to make absolutely sure he's unsympathetic to everyone and none of the viewers are buying into his version of vigilante justice, as opposed to the BN version of vigilante justice.)

Bri likes the fact that the plan has to drastically change because Michael can't manage to get away when Dennis comes home when he's so injured.

Bri: Unfortunately, it doesn't really come up again that he has to reckon with his team about the fact that he's physically incapable of doing things like he's used to. He lies to Fi about what happened to save his pride and I feel like that's something that should come up again - forcing Michael to accept help because his whole stoic lone wolf thing shit can't get him out of it forever. I was initially very excited about this moment but then they drop it immediately. (Yeah, they do. His injury is mentioned again and used for humour, but this is the only time it causes a problem.)

They love the scenes where Fi is trying to get Jesse to be friends again and he's all, "Our marriage is on the rocks!" Bri: Jesse pouting aggressively I find incredibly endearing for some reason, and I think Fi also found it kind of endearing. (She really did 🤣)

Then they start talking about Jason Tracey and how he's really good at writing the comedy in BN. Those scenes truly are a delight.

Michael talks to Sam on the phone about the bombs then goes back over to Dennis. Bri: This is one of the first times we've got to watch him become the alias. He sort of shakes himself and then he slumps and kind of bugs his eyes out and starts to breathe a little different.

Chris: This is a good episode for Jeffrey Donovan. He's legitimately creepy in this episode. Talking about my complaints with Dennis, Jeffrey Donovan is playing this type perfectly. He's doing a much better job of playing this kind of zealot serial killer. (JD's acting is generally great, it's a huge part of the show.)

Michael and Sam use a flower delivery pretense to get close to the guards outside a house and disarm them, and then the guard throws the bouquet to the floor in frustration. Sam says, "Hey, pick that up! I worked hard on that bouquet!" and the guy actually does pick it up.

Bri: Sam is someone who really commits to the bit. He enjoys the drama of it, so I always like when Sam's around. (❤️)

Jesse deliberately detonates the bomb, and that goes down incredibly well with the podcasters.

Bri: Fucking dope move. That's the second time this episode that a really violent thing has happened unexpectedly and I think it really works. Jesse's like, "I'll help, but also kind of fuck you guys." I am digging this arc for him. (It is one hell of a wow moment 💯🤩)

It gets to be a great episode of BN easily, but not a great episode of television.

Bri: It's a perfectly serviceable action episode, it's very exciting to watch, but if you take a step back for a second, there are choices that don't thematically jibe. There were some thematic things they set up that were interesting but they didn't quite follow through with.

Chris: If they'd maybe pulled off that thing with Michael and his injury, that would have pushed it over the edge.

Bri: Totally. Because then the episode becomes about Michael Westen having to reckon with his own limitations, which is an interesting character study.

I definitely agree they could have done more with that, but it will be a little while longer yet before BN commits fully to being an arc plot show...

[aceofnace]

Nancy’s Feelings for Ace

Nancy told Ace that the first time she realized she had feelings for him was during the dreamscape with the wraith, because that was her official “oh�� moment, but as a viewer we know she had feelings for him long before that, even if she didn’t know it. The first real signs for us were her obvious jelly feelings as she watched Ace flirt with Amanda in 2x07 and her mind immediately jumping to Ace when she heard the sentence “the one with the pretty eyes” in 2x08. But really, it goes even further back than that.

Nick asking Ace in the last episode if it was ever really only friendship and nothing more between him and Nancy got me thinking back to the very beginning. And to be honest, I don’t think it ever was only friendship. For either one of them.

We know now that Ace had a crush on Nancy in high school. So naturally, when she started working at The Claw, that crush returned right away (even if he also had a crush on Bess at the time). And we know Nancy met Nick and it was lust at first sight and she immediately embarked on a physical relationship with him soon after. This all happened before the show began. What else happened before the show began and it’s one of the first things Nancy tells us about Ace when her narration introduces us to him?

The smoke break.

Upon first viewing, it feels like an unimportant throwaway line. A piece of information that could just as easily have been left out. But it wasn’t. Why? Because I think that smoke break, a moment we’ve never gotten to see, was when Nancy’s feelings for Ace actually started.

Think about it for a second. We know that Nancy has always found Ace attractive. When she hears the term “pretty eyes”, she’s like “Who, Ace?” When she’s under the spell of a lust dress, she lets it slip out that she’s always imagined how soft his hair would be. In as early as episode 1x02, she’s placing a hand on his shoulder for no reason while she talks and she doesn’t let go until she’s done. He may not have necessarily been on her radar in high school like she was on his, but he certainly was as soon as she started working at The Claw.

So, now that we have obvious physical attraction out of the way, that smoke break. We know very little about it. The most of what we do know about it is made up from the minds of countless fans who’ve written their own fan fic version of it (myself included). But the one canon thing about it, the thing Nancy told us herself, was that he didn’t judge her for tanking her grades after her mom died. And how did he even know about that? Because she told him.

Nancy Drew, who at the start of the show was the queen of high emotional walls who didn’t like divulging personal information to anyone, divulged some pretty personal information to this boy she barely knew (and even though it’s never discussed again, there’s a pretty good chance that wasn’t the only smoke break they ever spent together). Meanwhile, she was hooking up with Nick and even sorta calling herself his girlfriend, but any time he tried to get her to open up and talk about anything, she shut him down immediately.

I feel like this is something that should be discussed more. The fact that she was able to so quickly and comfortably share stuff like this with Ace and nobody else is a huge deal. And in the beginning, it’s completely overlooked because Nancy’s love interest was Nick, and then after they broke up, Owen was next in line. For most of season one, she did not outwardly show any significant interest in Ace as anything more than a stranger–turned–co-worker–turned–sleuthing buddy–turned–close friend. But that interest was there.

And why wouldn’t it be? As I already mentioned, Nancy was always physically attracted to Ace. She knew from before the show began that he was a good listener and easy to talk to. And then early on when she learned about his hacking abilities, she saw how smart he was. Soon after that, she learned how loyal and dedicated he was. The boy risked his entire future to break her father out of prison, and he did so without her even asking him to. He willingly drank what could’ve been poison to prove she was right and to keep her from getting arrested. Every time she called, he answered. Every time she needed help or needed a favor, he delivered. How could she not possibly fall for him?

So, she did fall for him. Most likely even in season one. It was evident during the library scene where they were reading Ryan and Lucy’s emails out loud. Hearing Ace say things like “I think I love you too” and “I want to be with you, I don’t care what anyone else says” made her feel something, hence the look the two of them share afterward. But here’s the thing: if Nancy recognized that feeling at all, she would have shoved it down so far and so fast because that feeling was something real. Something more than she was used to feeling. And that scared her.

Nick was a distraction from the grief over her mother’s death. Owen was also a distraction from that grief, as well as from her break-up with Nick. Ace wasn’t a distraction. He was a friend. A confidant. Someone she could rely on. Someone she could count on under any circumstances. This kind of relationship with a guy was one she wasn’t accustomed to. And she knew that it could someday lead to something more serious—something she most definitely wasn’t ready for.

In 2x10, while under the spell of the lust dress, Nancy theorized out loud that perhaps the dress was intensifying feelings of attraction she already had but was repressing, and she said it while turning and looking directly at Ace. Keep in mind that (somehow) 2x10 in the timeline is not that far from where they were in season one, so to assume those repressed feelings started in season one is not that much of a stretch. And looking back, even starting within the first few episodes of the series, you can clearly see she has always been drawn to him in a very subconscious way. She would always stand so close their arms would almost touch. She would lean closely over his shoulder when he was on his laptop, their faces sometimes only mere inches apart. She would practically bump into him while walking side-by-side. She’s always had this unrealized need to be near him. To be close to him. And he’s the only one. I challenge anyone to find scenes that show her casually existing so closely next to Nick, Owen, Gil, Park or even now Tristan. You can’t. Because they don’t exist.

And this makes sense. Canonically, they are soulmates. And that would explain why Ace could simply see her make a volcano erupt in high school and develop feelings for her. It would explain why since day one, Nancy has had a bond with Ace that she’s never had with anyone else. And I know the writers say that Nace wasn’t the plan from the beginning, and I do believe that, but somehow, they inadvertently set it up perfectly for these characters to end up in the situation they’re in right now: desperately in love and desperate to be together. They are each other’s person. And they always have been from the very start.

To go back to what they were before would just be staying the same. They’ve never been just friends. And the sooner Ace can admit that to himself, the sooner they can get back to trying to break that curse and securing their future together.

[transflynnscifo]

Words left unspoken-- Flynn and the XBOX 360 ending

Today, I finally wanted to make a post about something that might be a little obscure. Whether it truly is would depend on whether

a) you’ve watched/seen the original version of Vesperia,

or

b) you enjoyed the game through PS3 or Definitive Edition and have looked into the significant differences done between the same game.

To preface, I think it is no secret to anyone that the original 360 version did not have Flynn as a playable character, whereas Patty was just not present (though there was a hint in the original version, if my memory serves me right, that there were plans to implement her even before the ps3 version)

This is my warning to avoid reading further, as this entire post contains spoilers for the ending of the game, regardless of the version.

To make sure all readers are up to speed, it’s important to mention that Flynn is not brought along for Tarqaron in the 360 version. If the player wants to talk to him as an NPC, he would be present in Aurnion (and the Colosseum as an enemy if you’re doing the 100-man melee). Regardless, this significantly changes the progression of the ending cutscene, once you are able to defeat the end-game boss. I would suggest to take a few minutes to watch and compare the original vs updated ending, which I am providing now, below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e91L4AIKcyg The version used in PS3 and Definitive Edition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgeMz8Vyocw The version used for the XBOX 360 version, in English.

[I want to mention that I think the part where the rest of the party runs up to Yuri is cute in both versions. In the older one, Yuri kneels to greet Repede! Um, they forgot Patty in the new version somehow, but I imagine she’s doing her Dream Star arte and is about to explode the others.]

Let’s put our focus on Flynn, though!

In the Definitive edition, you know that he approaches Yuri happily, and they both do their little handshake/high-five thing before running up to the others.

In the XBOX 360 version, we get something entirely different! We have Flynn looking up softly at the sky in order to declare his pride for Yuri, without Yuri ever being able to hear that, let alone know it was even said.

Why does he not say it in the newer versions of Vesperia? Your guess is as good as mine, but I will still propose an idea: The moment was different.

Time and time again Flynn witnesses Yuri and the gang do so many good deeds without taking the proper credit for it. In the case of the original, Flynn is not playable, so he witnesses even less of what the party is doing. I think this cut away from the party perspective in the original to show Flynn is meant to assure the player (who usually may be controlling Yuri) that yes, he genuinely considers Yuri in that high of a regard. He doesn’t personally witness the defeat of the Adephagos in the original, so his only line of thought is to assume Yuri was able to defeat it himself. In fact, the original helps the viewer know that Flynn is perfectly certain this was Yuri’s doing.

Though Flynn goes through the same issue of Yuri refusing to take credit in all versions of the game, he is able to travel with the others and establish more of a bond (albeit awkwardly) with them in PS3 and onward. I think part of him not saying the pride line in those endings was also because he was generally relieved to see the Adephagos defeated with his own eyes. I assure you he probably still is proud of Yuri for it.

Let’s move on to a more interesting observation. Since the English XBOX 360 was very big for the west and there was no dual audio at the time, many players have missed out on how the line is spoken in the Japanese version of the original. So I wanted to compare them too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5h6QoedZ9o&t=322s The 360 ending, in Japanese.

INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:

This part of my post isn’t meant to say which version is superior, but to discuss the choices done that make the lines both similar and different. Please keep this in mind I am saying this as a(n English) Language major thank you and godspeed.

Anyway, let’s put the lines together:

……君こそ僕の誇りだよ。親友 ...I am so proud to call you my friend, Yuri Lowell.

The website I’ve referred to for years by now does not offer a fan translation for the 360 version, but only for PS3 and on. In my experience playing the game in Japanese audio, watching my sibling play it in the dub, studying Japanese, I have found that the only significant times the fan-TL and the localization differ are when translating arte names. (Here is the website https://hyouta.com/vesperia/index.php?version=ps3p&locale=jp&compare=c2)

Some notes: こそ is used to put emphasis after pronouns. だよ is also used to put emphasis too, but in a very informal manner. Flynn typically ends many of his sentences with だ in Japanese, especially when he is speaking casually with Yuri and other party members. He even switches his first person pronoun depending if he’s on duty or not.

(for だよ: https://www.alexrockinjapanese.com/meaning-of-dayo-in-japanese-and-english-how-to-use/, for こそ: https://selftaughtjapanese.com/2015/10/22/japanese-word-koso-%E3%81%93%E3%81%9D-explained-in-detail/)

With my beginner-level Japanese, I will try to offer a translation of the former line, with the help of dictionaries such as https://jisho.org and the above resources to help me parse out a meaning.

“...You are my pride, close friend.” ← where arguably, switching close for the word dear might convey the message better. Frankly speaking, this ended up being the same translation as the one provided by a fluri quote bot that was used on twitter (pay respects for it no longer working).

Now, you might have noticed that I put an emphasis on ‘you’. Well, it’s because Flynn’s wording would be impossible to convey in the translation otherwise.

Let’s compare this and the official English localization! Several elements here are the same. They are marked:

...I am so proud to call you my friend, Yuri Lowell. ← Subject: I, Predicate: am, Complement: to call you. I’m not making the rest of the sentence now as it’s not that important. ...You are my pride, close friend. ← Subject: You, Predicate: are, Direct Object: my pride

So why is the English one so different? I can’t be truly sure, but even with a glance I can say that the syntactic construction is more complex, for one. I am interested in the switch between ‘pride’ and ‘proud’, with the former being a noun, the latter, an adjective.

What I also want to highlight here is that they ARE saying nearly the same thing. With the words ‘pride’ and ‘proud’ being able to be formed from one another, the meaning behind the words are not lost. In fact, when looking up the kanji for pride in the script of Vesperia, it is always translated interchangeably, depending on context.

If I must further simplify Flynn’s words, we get the following:

ENGLISH: I’m proud of my friend JAPANESE: (close) friend is my pride

depending on whether the difference is significant may be subjective.

Let’s determine the reasons /why/ the two versions wind up ultimately different while saying the same thing.

1. This is something my friend Choc pointed out. The possessive adjective. MY FRIEND vs MY PRIDE. When pulled from all context, the Japanese version comes out more intimate. But putting them back in it makes the scale more equal

I am proud + you are my friend = you are my pride + close friend

2. Troubles in translation: 親友 (しんゆう)

This kanji is not easy to translate. I’ve seen posts talking about it used in Naruto, where even there, it is difficult to emphasize the meaning in a translation. Even directly translating it like I did may come off awkward when in English. Translation and localization are one of the hardest parts of offering a Japanese text to non-Japanese speakers. And what can one do when the direct translation fails to impart the word?

You find other words that attempt to impart a similar connotation/meaning. This lies at the core of translation studies. It’s why a translator is REQUIRED to be a good speaker of the source and target language. The capability of having a wide range of vocabulary AS WELL AS being able to use it in the best placements are at the core of what one could consider a good translation. And even then, such a term is very subjective depending on which language speakers you ask. Especially when this comes to languages as different as English and Japanese.

But is 親友 truly lost in translation? I think the average English speaker is still able to infer that Flynn genuinely means his words in regards to Yuri. If not through one word, I think everything else that is said in done in the game is proof enough.

“I am so proud to call you…”

3. Cultural translations and implications

This point arose in further discussion between me and my friend Choc on the topic. Though I have operated with both lines saying they convey the same thing, I have not considered the semantics and cultural aspects of such phrases.

Firstly, Japanese is taught in a way where there is a large emphasis on formality. Most of what is seen in anime/manga/games can be considered at best informal and rude at worst. So it is important to keep such a thing in mind when looking at a Japanese texts. While we can translate something, we also need to understand how intimate it can be read, and subsequently, how would such a sentence come across in English.

“X is my pride” as a phrase is much less common than “I am proud of X”. And, subsequently, a speaker comes to alert if the former would be uttered. Why call someone the noun when you can describe them with the adjective?

This is speculative on my end but, in the case of Flynn’s line, I think it’s perfectly fine to say it’s intimate. That’s the intention! He and Yuri have known each other all their lives, and have been through the roughest parts in their relationship. They already speak informally with each other in Japanese, so such a line should not be too surprising, right?

Well, the perceived issue with using “You are my pride” in the localization could be that its meaning alters when it enters English. Semantically speaking, most English speakers would perceive this as romantically charged in most contexts. Part of it could be due to how direct it is when dissected syntactically, whereas the official localization lengthens the sentence and makes it more complex. In personal experience, many sentence structures I’ve already learned in Japanese are short and direct. Though Flynn’s line breaches intimacy, the structure is not why, but because of “こそ” and “だよ” that I mentioned earlier. Once more, the direct translation would in theory create a miscommunication of intention in the translation.

Ultimately, the most devastating part of Flynn’s line is the fact that Yuri will never be around to witness it. Yes, Flynn is still pretty direct with his feelings, we have that one line before the Aurnion fight, and it seems he can still convey his feelings non-verbally in a fight. But for someone who begins the story as demotivated and depressed, continues on to a point where his self-esteem plunders further, and manages to find what he wants to do while holding certain unhealthy ideas about Flynn (such as putting him on a pedestal, check the conversation with Sodia in Nor), Yuri probably really should hear those words, even if he is allergic to praise or positive affirmations aimed at him.

Ultimately, what can be done as a result is to ponder ideas after the end of the story and hope that Flynn eventually actually uses his words. But who’s to say! What did I do for this? I made edits. This is your reward for making it through my post. Maybe someday I’ll post them separately too.

Thanks for reading. Flynn Scifo is gay

[dr-futbol-blog]

Before I Sleep, Pt. 4

Sheppard never joins them in the infirmary where they finally discover who the mystery woman is. For what ever reason, he chose not to follow them there just then.

They have a meeting about it in the meeting room, and we next find Sheppard and McKay seated opposite each other. They are much further apart now but with a clear eye sight to the other. They are both also seated at the ends of the table with the least amount of obstacle between them. Sheppard is making use of having a clear line of sight to McKay, too, mostly looking at him and not at the person speaking. The shot is framed so that we we are not shown them looking at one another, just out of frame--and we will see this kind of editing more and more; they use negative space that requires the viewer to actively use their imagination to complete the picture. But they are positioned in such a way that it's clear who they are looking at. They are also mirroring each other, both holding their left hand up.

Sheppard's eyes keep drifting to McKay even when he's trying to pay attention to the person speaking. And he's not so much resting his chin on his hand as he is pressing his fingers against his own lips. This is called autoerotic touching that results from the skin of the mouth becoming increasingly sensitive to touch and other stimulation when someone is, you know, turned on.

McKay, on the other hand, is doing the hand thing again. I once wrote a long treatise on Jensen Ackles having made an acting choice to do a similar gesture every time Dean Winchester was trying to not be turned on by something. Just to throw that out there.

It seems like the older Weir is a time-traveler prompting them to discuss the topic. McKay, who seemed to be a little bit offended by her "[Missed you all so terribly,]--even you, Rodney!" which makes it sound as though one would not miss him under any normal circumstances, isn't ready to believe her at face value. We don't actually know how well Weir and McKay knew each other before the expedition but certainly the events of the past few months have brought them closer together, has given them an opportunity to get to know the other person in a way that they never could have an Earth. But it's certainly possible that even Old Weir had known McKay enough to suspect that he would simply not believe he was included in the group of people she had missed unless she literally, explicitly told him so. Regardless, McKay isn't just ready to accept her claims as being true:

McKay: Well, let's not be too quick to exclude the possibility that the woman might be, um, what is the clinical term… nuts? Weir: She may be senile, yes, but that doesn't explain that she knows so much about all of us. Ford: Is time travel even possible?

Sheppard's expression indicates that he agrees with McKay's assessment, which must come as such a shock to Weir. She would probably be more surprised if they ever disagreed on something. Unlike previously in the lab, this time McKay chooses to answer Ford's question as it's relevant. A really cute moment happens then:

McKay: Well, according to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, there's nothing in the laws of physics to prevent it. Extremely difficult to achieve, mind you -- you need the technology to manipulate black holes to create wormholes not only through points in space but time. Sheppard: Not to mention a really nice DeLorean. McKay: Don't even get me started on that movie... Sheppard: I like that movie!

Sheppard makes a reference to a well-known science fiction film, probably thinking that because it's science fiction, McKay might enjoy it. He catches the reference, obviously, but reacts in the way that people who were likely picked on in high school for their genuine interest in science often do--ridiculing the make-believe science part of science fiction to assert superiority that is really just trying to mask feelings of inferiority. It's a good movie, it's a good story, most people enjoy it. What's not to like? But he has to pretend he's above the fictional timey wimey stuff being a real scientist. He has a reputation to maintain.

Only, Sheppard seems so comically betrayed by his response. He had expected McKay to have liked it. And he tells him that he likes it, like it's supposed to mean something to McKay. He doesn't say "I like that movie!" as though he's offended, he's saying "I like that movie!" in a genuine childlike way, raising his eye brows like he's saying that since he likes the movie and McKay likes him, he has to like the movie too.

When you're still getting to know one another, you've got to at least pretend to like the things the person you like likes. It's in the rules. If they had access to films and the nearest copy of the movie wasn't in another galaxy, McKay would have had an unavoidable evening of watching the film with Sheppard in his near future. And yet, in spite of McKay's reaction, he still chose to share this with him. Sheppard chose to make himself vulnerable, the man who very seldom shares any personal information about himself. Yes, other people were present for this, but it is clearly to McKay that he said all of it. He wasn't entertaining the whole class with his humour, he was flirting with McKay.

So, Sheppard likes Back to the Future. There are many reasons why he might. He is fond of cheesy science fiction, this we already know. Perhaps the idea that one might be able to go back and remake one's life, to get a happily ever after, to get a better version of your family appeals to him. Perhaps he liked the romance of it, and we learn over the seasons that he does have a fondness for romantic stories like The Princess Bride (and War and Peace). Perhaps he wished that he had someone like Doc Brown in his life when he was a child, a safe if quirky adult he could have turned to instead of his parents. He also likes things that go fast, although he has specified that as "anything that goes more than two hundred miles per hour" in Rising (S0101).

Many, many reasons.

The thing is, Marty McFly is eroticized in the film. He is the object of his mother's desire, and hence there's a an objectifying gaze on him. His father, on the other hand, thinks that Marty has the hots for him due to the focused attention he is giving him, and since his masculinity is already being ridiculed by the school bullies, he tries to keep him at a distance. It's a kind of a love triangle that flirts with incestuous themes. But because of this, Marty McFly is eroticized in a way that few male protagonists ever are in mainstream films. Usually, the audience's gaze is the male gaze and you would see this kind of objectification only in "chick flicks". But we are asked to look at Marty McFly through both his mother's eyes and his father's eyes, both of whom view him in erotic terms in their own ways, which creates a very interesting, very different gaze that we as the audience put on the character. And this gives young boys that are still exploring their sexuality permission to look at him with desire. After all, it's an action film, it's a science fiction film, and it just happens to have a lot of romance in it, have romance at the heart of it. So it's easy to see why Sheppard would have liked it.

Also, one of the reasons George McFly is bullied in the film is his love of science fiction. If McKay had been bullied at school, which we later learn that he was (McKay and Mrs Miller, S03E08), he might over-identify with the character (and, given his name, people might even have used the name McFly to tease him; "Hey McFly, I'm talking to you, you Irish bug!").* And yet, Sheppard admires George McFly since he shares the character's love of science fiction. He admires Doc Brown for being a genius scientist. He admires Rodney McKay. This is what he was trying to communicate. And once more, it's McKay's negative self-image that keeps him from understanding this.

Even after he's offended Sheppard to his very core by insulting one of his favourite movies, Sheppard still has his entire body turned toward McKay (and away from the women) while he's politely trying to follow other things happening in the room. The focus of his attention is clear. John Sheppard knows what he's about.

Continued in Pt. 5

.*McFly seems to be a name made up just for the film whereas McKay is an actual name of both Scottish and Irish derivation. We don't know the origin of McKay's family, and given that the name Meredith is Welsh, the family seems to be of a general Gaelic derivation. But it's interesting and, perhaps, not coincidental that in Scotland Mckay is a gender-neutral name meaning happy, rejoicing... as in, gay. Rodney McKay is literally gay.

Children being cruel, they might also have called him McGay (also a real Gaelic name), which may later have increased his desire to take a beautiful woman to the equivalent of his class reunion where people still assumed that it must be his sister--and not just or even predominately because they simply thought Rodney McKay couldn't get a woman. But we'll get back to that with Brain Storm (S05E16), where Malcolm Tunney ("One of my old… this guy") was most definitely his ex.

[quarterlifecrisis-activated]

So I’ve been thinking about my earlier post (idk how to link posts 🤷🏻‍♀️ so it’s the one about Zheng) and I’ve been trying to figure out her character arc. Because she’s not in the show a lot and I know there’s more there that got cut for time. I’ll be honest and say I never fully understood why she went to Ricky for her plan or what her full motivation was. I have some theories but I’m trying to piece together an arc using the gaps in said arc so it might be rough. So if you disagree please let me know because I’d love to discuss this more.

I love Zheng and I think she deserved more screen time in season 2. I tend to believe that Zheng does operate with good intentions overall, but when the point was raised about some of her totalitarian tendencies I had to restructure my view of the character. Because we don’t see much of her I use the little we do see and what other characters say about her to form my opinions. But there are different ways to interpret things and I go back and forth on what is actually going on. For example, her “join me or die” line is interesting. I took that line as a woah harsh, but that’s just piracy. We as an audience have to adjust our standards of acceptable behavior towards what is common for pirates. On the other hand that line indicates that Zheng doesn’t let people walk away from the table. And her recruitment of the Republic of Pirates is in a similar vein. Again, as a viewer I took what she was doing as kind of a pirate union, because of her demand for a livable wage as well as Olu, Jim, and Archie’s positive reaction towards it. Of course it’s also extortion by a powerful crime boss, which is far less wholesome. (Even though extortion of the British Crown is rad as hell.) I believe that these two opposing views are in a way both true and intentional of the writers.

Which brings me to Ricky and Zheng. I was caught off guard originally when I saw them meet together and initially brushed it off as “plot stuff that needed to happen”. But I think there’s something there. In many ways there are parallels between Zheng and Ricky, they’re both in charge (kinda for Ricky) of massive fleets and they both are striving for even more power. In Impossible Birds they have similar lines Ricky calls people rubes who don’t know the puzzle chest is valuable. And Zheng in the same episode says “you people know so little” in reference to the same chest. While I believe Zheng’s statement comes from her years of experience, Ricky’s is very obviously classist. She’s a character that is on the path to becoming like the people she hates. If she got that power she could very well turn into that authoritarian leader who only cares about power. But it’s her interaction with the crew and her relationship with Olu that is going to pull her back. We see her appreciation for Stede and the crew grow throughout the season, whereas she rejected and mocked it at the start. The destruction of her fleet was necessary and I don’t think it’s going to come back.

Which leads me to season 3 predictions. Cause the shows coming back and no one tell me otherwise. Zheng’s goal is to get Ricky and rebuild her fleet. I think Jim is going to play into her arc a lot during this season. They understand wanting Revenge and will probably push Zheng to appreciate the people around her, like Olu. Her ultimate arc (fitting with the theme of the show) will be about realizing the error of her ways and understanding community and softness. My theory on kind of how this happens is they’ll meet Captain Henry Morgan. I’ve been listening to Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates at work and it gave me ideas. Captain Morgan has a fleet to rival Ricky’s and I can see them enlisting his help to get revenge. He also is a piece of shit. He stole money from his own men and fucked off and is still regarded as a great pirate. I can see him being like a Mr. Beast type, where he’s a cult of personality that cares little for other peoples safety but he still has a rabid following. It’ll be a great parallel as to what Zheng does not want to become. We’ll also get to see how pirates typically operate (Stede and Zheng are the exceptions) which will provide more context to Ed’s Kraken era. It’ll be a great way for the show to say how different Ed was truly operating in regards to pirate culture. I think it’ll be similar to his Kraken era but the confirmation will be nice to get.

Anyway, let me know what y’all think cause I’m spit balling her and I’d love to discuss.

[becauseimanicequeen]

In Defense of Ji from To Be Continued

(Or “Let’s Look at Characters From a More Non-Binary Perspective”)

I’ve been thinking about writing a post like this since the 5th episode last week (but haven’t gotten around to it). But after reading a couple of comments with the general consensus that Ji’s actions were at the risk of becoming irredeemable, I felt like there was no time like the present. Better late than never, right? (This is a long one, so I’ll put most of it after a break with a TL;DR at the end.)

(Btw, that purple light between them is so well placed. They're clearly not communicating, symbolized by that line being drawn between them. And the purple, a mix of blue (trust and loyalty) and red (love and fate), symbolizes the mysterious and unresolved feelings they're both having (or are beginning to have) towards each other. )

The response to Ji and Achi that I’ve seen has been interesting. The little response I’ve seen (since I haven’t seen this series being talked about that much, or perhaps I’m just bad at searching for it) was utter annoyance with Achi the first few episodes until we were shown that Ji made Achi cry in the past and (mostly) everyone I’ve seen writing about this turned on Ji all of a sudden.

(It’s hilarious to see how easily viewers change their opinions. I mean that genuinely. Some of that is more entertaining than many QLs I’ve watched.)

My mindset isn’t that binary, though. (I don’t see things in either black or white because that’s too limiting for me.) That means that I’m neither for nor against either Achi or Ji. (I can definitely like one character more than another, but that doesn’t mean that character is “better” than any other. And in this particular case, I like Ji and Achi equally.) It just annoys me a bit when a character gets torn to shreds for an isolated scene or situation (akin to the whole Non vs Jin situation in DFF, which got waaaaay out of hand).

(Obviously, this is by no means a call for deep analysis of characters–essay style–every time anyone wants to say something about a character. But I do feel like taking an isolated situation out of context means that the meaning, however differently all of us interpret that meaning, gets lost.)

Based on what we’ve seen so far in To Be Continued, both Achi and Ji have made mistakes (in the past and present), they are both terrible at communicating, both are clearly confused and/or terrified of their feelings (especially towards each other), and it seems like no one wants to be the first to fess up. That’s the general situation of their relationship in the series so far.

A discussion on who’s at “fault” for Ji and Achi’s current situation based on what I just listed is pretty much unnecessary because they’re both equally responsible. However, since it’s so easy to play the blame game and spread it like wildfire on the internet just because there’s a character one doesn’t like or see eye to eye with, I thought it was a good idea to include it in this post anyway. Especially since my answer is based on my non-binary way of thinking. (Spoiler alert: it’s not either/or, it’s both/and.)

(I’m putting fault between quotation marks because I feel like its connotation is too negative when something like responsible would suit better. But since fault is often thrown around when playing the blame game, I’ll stick to that word.)

If we look at Ji and Achi’s actions (the ones we’ve seen so far), I feel like 3 moments stand out:

Achi pestering Ji in the first few episodes even though Ji said he wanted nothing to do with Achi. (Present)

Ji asked Achi to introduce him to Pear. (Past)

The mixed signals both of them are giving each other. (Past and present)

I’ve previously written a post about Achi choosing not to respect Ji’s boundaries (even when clearly stated), so I won’t go too deep into that. What I will mention here, however, is that it doesn’t matter how desperate Achi is in trying to keep Ji close. Breaking someone else’s boundaries is not okay. Whenever someone needs space, it should (ideally) be respected.

Achi is being way too pushy in the first couple of episodes, and he’s not even communicating why that is. I think he says once (or twice?) that he’s missed Ji all these 10 years they’ve been apart and that he wants to know how Ji's been, but that’s no excuse.

If you doubt that some space would make any difference, look at how Ji reacted during that whole montage of Ji finding those bags with food (or whatever it was) that Achi hung on his door in ep. 5. And those notes they write to each other when exchanging those bags is probably the best line of communication they’ve had since they got to know each other. That’s how much can change if a person’s boundaries are respected.

(Sure, you could argue that it was a result of Ji showing respect first when he thanked Achi for coming over with food in the scene before the montage. Sometimes you need to first give what you want to get, and that “thank you” to Achi might've made Achi realize he could back off without being terrified of losing Ji (or whatever his reason for being so persistent is).)

When it comes to my second point above (Ji asking Achi to introduce him to Pear), it’s very interwoven with the third point (the mixed signals both of them are giving).

In the whole montage of them going on that day trip and playing games and stuff in the past (ep. 3), you can clearly see that there are feelings involved from both of them (whatever that may be; friendship, fondness, curiosity, love, whatever). But every time Ji looked at Achi (especially when they were at one of those lookout points with a beautiful view), Achi turned away. I mean, if you look at that whole jacket scene, you can see that he literally steps back and avoids Ji’s gaze.

Ji doesn’t seem to mind though, it’s not like he’s surprised or worried about it. But it still doesn’t change the fact that Achi is giving him mixed signals. Achi is both hot (giving Ji his jacket when Ji’s cold) and cold (stepping away and avoiding Ji’s gaze when Ji is looking and smiling at him).

And then there’s the scene on the pier/jetty at the end of episode 4 (which is also from the past). This happens after Ji asked Achi to introduce him to Pear (which I still believe was very innocent at first because Ji seemed genuinely interested in her, and there’s nothing wrong with that).

On that pier/jetty, Ji is tentatively trying to figure out how Achi is feeling because he can sense the tension (at least that’s how I interpret it). Ji does so by first asking Achi if he has feelings for Pear (because that could be a logical explanation for the tension), but Achi says he doesn’t. That’s when Ji has this look on his face:

It’s like he’s trying to think of another reason for the tension, which I think is what leads to the moment when he says that Achi’s got pretty eyes, nose, and lips.

I feel like he’s being genuine here. At the same time as he’s trying to figure out what the tension is all about, he’s also giving Achi an opportunity to clear things up, to be honest with Ji, and for both of them to get closer.

Then Ji lays his head on Achi’s chest as if to listen to his heartbeat (perhaps listening for an answer rather than being told, because we already know that their m.o. isn’t communication).

Achi is swayed for a moment, but he still chooses to change the subject and ends up leaving the pier/jetty (once again giving Ji mixed signals, especially after looking at Ji with heart eyes only moments before).

Achi’s reaction is probably based on a fear of being rejected since he thinks that Ji is interested in Pear, so it makes sense. But, even though his actions make sense, he’s still choosing to participate in giving off mixed signals.

(I mean, if someone looked at me with hearts in their eyes and then avoided me like the plague when I wanted to get closer, I would ditch the bitch. But, this isn’t about me…)

What’s interesting (and something I think some viewers are forgetting) is that this scene from the past is mirrored in the scene in Ji’s bedroom earlier in the same episode (which is in the present). In the present, it’s Achi who says that he thinks Ji’s eyes, nose, and lips are pretty (confessing to Ji only when he thinks Ji is sleeping, which seems to be his m.o., btw).

But then he repeats it when Ji asks him what he said.

I feel like Achi is trying to bring back that moment from the past because he knows he missed an opportunity to be honest about his feelings at that moment on the pier/jetty. The difference is that this time it leads to them kissing (a kiss that should never have happened until they had cleared up their shit, btw, but who can stop these two confused, love-sick, adorable idiots? Well, the screenwriters can, but what would be the fun in that? I digress…).

This time, Ji is the one who breaks the moment. He knows just as well as Achi where those words came from. He remembers that moment on the pier/jetty in the past just as well as Achi. And I swear that he remembers the rejection too.

It’s possible those memories were too much for Ji. It’s also possible that he realized the kiss wasn’t a good idea (he has shown previously that he’s not okay with Achi just kissing him, like in ep. 2). And as we saw with the previous kiss, it takes Ji a moment or two before he realizes what happens an/or realizes the implications of what’s happening (it took him a moment before he pushed Achi away in ep. 2, and the same here in ep. 4 before he pulled back).

So, who’s at “fault” here? Who’s at “fault” for creating more tension (and hurt feelings) between them?

Is Achi at “fault” considering he brought up the past when mirroring that moment on the pier/jetty? Is he at “fault” considering he initiated the kiss in Ji's bedroom (he was the one who leaned forward first and the one who held onto Ji with both hands/arms)?

Is Ji at “fault” considering he rejected Achi? Is he at “fault” considering he told Achi to leave his bedroom after the kiss (clearly needing some space)?

And don’t come at me with the whole “but Ji hurt Achi’s feelings by hitting on Pear, not to mention taking her to the same movie that Achi took Ji to.”

First of all, was that a conscious choice of Ji’s? Possibly. Was this the best way to go about it? Debatable. But it should be said that Ji got interested in Pear before he started sensing the tension between him and Achi. It was all good feelings before that (and it could be that Ji didn’t think his relationship with Achi was beyond friendship, because delusion and confusion are every teenager’s middle names).

Secondly, on that same pier/jetty in that same scene in ep. 4, Ji mentions that he doesn’t like romantic movies, whereas Achi says that it might be because he’s never been in love. Is it then so far-fetched that he takes Pear to that same movie (which I assume is a romance) to test out if he sees the movie with new eyes now that he’s with Pear? Not really.

(Could he have chosen another romantic movie? Sure. Was there another romance playing at the time? I have no fucking idea because this is fiction and they didn’t tell us and we’re probably supposed to read between the lines that it was a romance and that Ji was influenced by Achi’s words and I’m totally getting off track here…)

Thirdly, and probably the most important point: Let’s not forget that there’s actually a possibility that Ji is bi (the same goes for Achi who had some sort of relationship with… what’s her name, Mona?).

I know it’s difficult in this generally binary-thinking world to understand there’s a possibility of something in the middle of black or white. You’re either gay or straight, right? Wrong! There’s such a thing as bi- and pansexuality. And since we’re living in such a binary-thinking world, it’s easy to be hella confused as bi- or pansexual.

(I won’t go into the bi-hate that viewers spew out in comments and reactions to QLs, especially when the lead roles are bi (and especially when they are together with or hook up with the opposite sex), but it’s so fucking annoying. I want to write a post about this one day, or reblog someone else's post who might’ve written about it better than I ever will, so if anyone knows a post on this, send it my way.)

If Ji is a bi character, can you blame him for being confused? If he’s not bi but is having his gay awakening, can you blame him for being confused?

Can you blame him for asking Achi to introduce him to Pear, especially since Achi has never expressed his romantic interest in Ji and Ji seems genuinely interested in Pear? Can you really blame Ji for trying to figure out what the fuck is going on with Achi when he notices the tension between them?

Can you really blame Ji for not being able to read between the lines (has anyone forgotten he’s a teenager?)?

And I’m not saying all this to say that it’s Achi’s “fault” either. He’s just as confused as Ji. And none of them are brave enough to take the first step to clear things up either.

Again, it’s both Ji and Achi’s “fault” that things are the way they are. They are both responsible for their situation.

There’s still much to be revealed in this series, so a lot of it is still up for speculation right now. Clearly, however, something happened that made them go their separate ways and be out of contact with each other for 10 years.

If I were to put my money on a bet, it would be that they split because of a misunderstanding on both their parts. What that misunderstanding is, though, remains to be seen.

(If I were to guess I think they hooked up, Ji was confused and needed some space to process, and Achi took it as a rejection and left the country (since we’ve seen that his mother lives in the US). But I'm probably wrong.)

Ji's actions, so far, are not irredeemable (he’s not even on the verge of being irredeemable). And if they were, Achi’s actions would be just as irredeemable.

It’s easy to play the blame game, especially in today’s world. It’s a lot more difficult to be open-minded. But the latter will always be more rewarding.

TL;DR: Both Achi and Ji have made mistakes, they are both terrible at communicating, and both are clearly confused and/or terrified of their feelings. No one is at “fault” for their current situation because they’re both responsible for it.

*stepping down from my soapbox*

[monocle-teacup]

Hi! I am glad that someone is interested in my posts! I think it would be more comfortable to respond to your reblog this way, if you don't mind, of course.

- On the lack of a first name

I agree, this was most likely the original plan, but it seems to me that by the end of the season the authors decided to make a completely black-and-white morality, so they had to dehumanize Meridian, and revealing the name and the emotional scene between him and Alex would not help this new idea. I don't blame it on the need to develop the plot quickly, because literally one or two lines of dialogue would fix it. So it was the authors who probably decided to go this way.

-The circumstances around him losing his arm

I understand this, and what surprises me is that there was not a single flashback or further details about this fateful event in the character's life. For example, at the GHOST base, in addition to working for Croft, he was looking for a cure for himself. The viewer could be shown some kind of screen with X-rays or diagrams in the background, where we could see some additional structures that were added by Arachnamechs. That would be an interesting little detail.

-The deal with him and Croft

Yes! I really like the way Meridian worked at these moments, his emotions and attitude towards Croft are obvious, as is her attitude towards him. My problem is that it looks like a puzzle with about 1/5 of the pieces missing. We understand what kind of picture should be in front of us, but the key point is missing. Meridian has been drafted and is supposed to hate the entire organization, not just Croft, but he's not trying to destroy the GHOST or kill other employees. Croft treats him not just as an employee who needs to be exploited to the last, until there is no replacement, as the head of a large villainous organization would behave. No, she does not feel such a level of inner hostility and does not show it towards other employees, only towards Meridian. I got the impression that there must have been a personal conflict between them, some specific event or series of events that made them hate each other. But here either the authors did not want to delve into this additional plot, or they did not come up with a reason.

I'm always up for chatting about Mandroid and other aspects of ES! It's actually quite nice to be able to actually discuss Mandroid's character deeper since IMO there's a lot to talk about.

The thing that gets me is that in the show's Production Bible, Mandroid's character description outright refers to him as a tragic villain. It's like the writers were afraid to actually explore this concept fully since that would go against the show's obsession with making humans that hate Cybertronians automatically terrible people.

There really needs to be a Battle of the Bay flashback not just for Mandroid, but so many other characters as well. Dot lost her leg in that conflict and it's when Megatron switched sides. But nope, the show was too busy bludgeoning the audience with the whole importance of family thing.

The thing about Mandroid is that from what's been shown he only goes after humans if they interfere with his plans (the Maltos) or in Croft's case, treat him like garbage. I see some fan content where it has him going after random humans when he just wouldn't do that. His main concern is Transformers not people.

I've made a post about this before, but IMO Mandroid and Croft are good foils to each other. If Mandroid is fire then Croft is ice. Croft is a very frigid person in general going by her interactions with Schloder and when she tries to arrest Dot and Alex. As ridiculous as her master plan of conquering Cybertron is, it does fit in nicely with her control freak tendencies. I mean, she has a personal army of mindless robots while Mandroid went out of his way to give the Arachnamechs personality. I have this headcanon where the two just instantly disliked each other upon first meeting.