#i mean i have been putting off watching s1 because

[itsactuallycorrine]

Watching the new SNW trailer while in the midst of an Ugly Betty rewatch was an… experience.

The Number One voiceover started and I was like Alexis Meade?!?!?

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Up until the almost-end-of-the-world, the way Aziraphale and Crowley maintained their relationship was through a collection of well-established and repeated patterns (dances, you might say). These little rituals were what they used to communicate affection, intimacy and trust when they couldn’t say the things they wanted to say out loud. I like spending time with you. You make me happy, and I like making you happy. We’re in this together. I’ll always be there for you, even when your own side is not.

In season 1, as the stress of the impending apocalypse puts more and more pressure on their relationship, we see their patterns start to break down, and it’s very distressing for them. They’ve been communicating like this for so long that they don’t know what to do when one of them doesn’t follow the dance steps.

When we first see them in season 2, they seem in some ways to be closer than ever. They touch each other more easily, Aziraphale in particular. Crowley is comfortable enough in the bookshop that he has a Spot for putting his sunglasses when he takes them off by the door. They’re more open about acknowledging how much time they spend together and how many things in their lives are shared.

And I think, also, we expect them to be happy. They won, didn’t they? So it takes a while for the cracks to start to show.

It wasn’t until this post pointed out that the whole season, we never see them sit down and share a meal together in the present day (no, Crowley doesn’t eat; yes, it still counts) that it started coming together for me. The closer you look, the more you realize the old patterns they’re used to relying on are broken.

Three times, we see them sit down to their usual table for two (at the coffee shop, the bar, and the French restaurant) and then almost immediately get up again. This post also points out that we don’t see present-day Aziraphale eat anything on screen, other than one of the little candies in the Bentley. This in the same season we learn that Crowley is the one who introduced him to food! It’s one of their oldest rituals!

Even one of their most visually recognizable patterns starts to go wonky this season. In season 1, when the blocking allows it, Crowley’s always on Aziraphale’s left. When they’re standing or walking side by side, and most of the time when they’re sitting side by side together (there are some exceptions due to camera angles)…Crowley’s always on Aziraphale’s left (screen right if they’re facing us, screen left if we’re behind them). It’s one of the clues about the body swap that is easy to see when you know what to look for—in Berkeley Square they are each initially sitting on the “wrong” side of the bench. It’s so reliable that Aziraphale hears a little miracle bling in the sushi restaurant in s1 ep1 and turns to his left—because that’s where Crowley would appear—only to be startled by Gabriel on his right.

Go look at the scene where we find out Gabriel and Beez are a couple. You know the one.

And of course, many people have noted that in the end credits, we’d expect their positions on screen to be switched. They’re on the wrong sides. And it’s such a long shot that I think it has to be intentional.

Some people have speculated that this means they swapped bodies again. I don’t really buy that. Rather I think it is supposed to indicate what becomes extremely clear on a second viewing, that things are Off and Wrong. They are not okay.

And the more you watch them you see that Aziraphale’s excitement during his little adventures is manic and brittle, and that he misses having a place and a purpose and a mission to do good. And Crowley is depressed, unhealthily codependent, even more hypervigilant and cagey and angry than he was before. They both have layers and layers of trauma, and no way to talk about it. They have the time and freedom now to talk about what they want to be to each other, now that they don’t have to hide and encode and maintain plausible deniability. But they have no way to talk about that either, because that’s never been an option before. They don’t know how, and they are both so, so afraid.

And in the fights they have in episode 1 and episode 6, you realize they haven’t resolved anything from season 1. They’re having the same fight they had at the bandstand. Crowley wants to run, keep the two of them safe and damn the rest, and Aziraphale wants to stay and help, believing he can make a difference even in an imperfect system, and neither of them really understands the other’s position. It’s the same damn fight. They haven’t been able to move past this impasse, and it’s the exact thing that breaks them in the end.

And it’s just. Fuck. It’s such a human thing to have happened to them. To make it through the fire (metaphorical and literal) and then have everything go to shit afterward because of unaddressed traumas and insecurities and things left unsaid until they fester.

I know this is not at all how I expected the season to go, and I think it took a little while for me to parse what was going with their relationship, because we are predisposed to want them to be happy and to want things to be easy for them now. But it makes so much sense that this is where they ended up at this point in the story.

I know they’ll make it back to each other. They both love each other too much to give up. They’ll fight their way back together, and I know they’ll figure it out in the end.

But goddamn.

[princessbrunette]

how would stepbro!rafe react if his friends were ogling you and making gross comments about how badly they want you when they come over to hang out with him 😳 he’d be so angry and torn between telling them they’re not allowed to talk about you like that because he’s your protective older stepbro orrrr taking you upstairs and letting them listen to why he’s actually protective over you

i luv this idea w s1!rafe because he’s got more of a temper n the whole thing just seems more icky <33

︶︶︶⠀𓏸𓈒𓊆ྀི❤︎𓊇ྀི𓈒𓏸⠀︶︶︶

you were used to the stares from rafe’s friends — the ogling that wasn’t much different from the looks you received from your stepbrother himself. that distant look of amusement, the unabashed way they’d drag their eyes all the way down your body and back up as you speak — like you were a zoo animal behind glass. you barely noticed it anymore, the whole concept of ‘boys will be boys’ having been drilled into your head from rafe’s behaviour. after marrying ward, your mother had even noticed the way rafe looked at you, she’d even raised it with ward himself — who simply shut the whole thing down by telling her “hes a guy, honey. and… she’s a young girl walking around in a bikini i mean of course he’s gonna look. he just has to get used to the way things are around here. in no time, he’ll be seeing her as a sibling and treating her as poorly as he does sarah, trust me.”

but the looks didn’t go away, and with time you started to look back. enjoy his attention. to the point where you’d secretly end up on your back, with your big step brother ‘teaching’ you things that no other guy could, or would be allowed to teach you. your dirty little secret.

you knew rafe’s friends didn’t know — which surprised you, considering you thought rafe would jump at the chance to brag on something so pornographic. you figured they had suspected something was amiss with the two of you, from the way he would take any chance to put his hands on you to ‘mess with’ you, or from the way his eyes would drop to your ass when you’d walk away — but he hadn’t said a word, which to his friends meant it was free game.

after you’d walked out the room, having had a brief discussion with rafe about dinner plans — the eyes followed you until you disappeared into the hallway.

“shit, i nearly got up and followed her.” kelce fills the silence with a joke, causing the room of guys to erupt into laughter of agreement, even topper — the boy who prided himself on being the most ‘respectful’ slapping at his arm and nodding, chortling out something along the lines of “hey you said it not me!”

rafe chuckles himself, understanding the hype. you were smoking hot, and knowing he secretly had the girl they all wanted to himself filled him with a sense of sick pride. “yeah, alright.” he drawls, hoping to end the conversation there and then as he walks back around the couch and slumps down, chewing obnoxiously at his gum.

“you see the way that ass moves, man? shit i get hypnotised everytime she’s walking away.” another comments, followed by another chiming in with “hate to see her go, but love to watch her leave!” which of course had the room erupting into more laughter.

rafe got in his head pretty quickly after that. they were laughing, and not at you — at the idea that you were so easily accessible, and yet untouchable. perhaps they were laughing at the fact rafe wouldn’t be brave enough to make a move on you, due to the odds you’d been dealt — which couldn’t be further from the truth, but rafe didn’t enjoy the insinuation of disrespect. his smile slowly slid off his face, staring ahead, continuing to chew to curb that coke craving that his irritation fed him.

he feels a hand on his shoulder, some red faced try hard from the club that had tagged along back to tannyhill with barely an invite. he sucks in a breath of excitement, unable to continue what he was about to say through his laughter and rafe curls his lip up a little bit in disgust.

“bro, if that was my step sister… things would have got real pornhub in this house, i can tell you that for fr—” his words are cut off by rafe violently shoving the boy a little too hard off him, the guy crashing off the couch onto the floor. quiet falls over the group, now noticing rafe’s sudden change in mood. he doesn’t wanna seem too bothered, so he clears his throat and adjusts his polo collar.

“s’my fuckin’ stepsister you’re talkin’ about… alright? watch your mouth.”

the group decided to drop the topic after that.

︶︶︶⠀𓏸𓈒𓊆ྀི❤︎𓊇ྀི𓈒𓏸⠀︶︶︶

[clairegregoryau]

Through the Looking Glass

From fairytale in Season 1 to stark reality in Season 2 of Our Flag Means Death- meta ported across from this Twitter thread by popular demand!

This thread contains spoilers for the entirety of OFMD Season 2

First OFMD S1 rewatch since S2, and holy shit, if you haven't done that yet... do that. A thing that it made instantly clear: they told us *all along* where this was going, but there was a reason we didn't see it. Because we were living in Stede's world then. Now it's Ed's.

I know that a lot of us have felt that the tone shift at the end of S2 was... jarring, compared to what's come before. This felt like a show that wouldn't go there. One where being run through was a temporary hiccup. We've travelled all the way from this to this.

But we haven't jumped there without a journey in between. And from the minute we started hearing about Blackbeard, the show never tried to hide what Ed's world and his specific life was like. Not once. In fact they told us over and over and over.

But Season 1 told us a lot of those things through song and story and fuckery. It blended reality with fiction.

Stede met the Blackbeard he knew through books and tall tales, and the real man was even more wonderful than he'd imagined.

We, along with Stede, were comfortable thinking that all those other tales were exaggerations and misrepresentations, and a lot of them very likely were.

The Ed Stede got to know was a person who was capable of whimsy and silliness and loved soft things and doing something weird. Yep, he was also capable of violence and rage, but when he was with Stede, he didn't feel it so much.

This was a vacation from that life.

To Stede he was absolutely lovely... oh, and also a bloodthirsty killer. And Stede loved (and loves) everything about him, and both of those things can be true. This is a perfect example of a spot where (in watching Season 1 without the benefit of hindsight) I assumed that everyone else in that pub was wrong, and Stede was simply trying to protect Ed's fearsome reputation by agreeing on the bloodthirsty bits. And I think from Stede's perspective that was largely true. I think that's how they wanted us to see Ed, through his eyes. Now, after watching both seasons, I think it wasn't the whole picture.

They told us, we heard it, we saw glimpses of it. But we (and Ed) were in Stede's run-away-to-sea fairytale the whole time. It wasn't until Stede left that we saw the reality- the Ed we knew had been, to a degree, a fictional character all along. I always saw this scene as Ed putting a bit of distance between himself and reality; it always felt like the Blackbeard of Stede's storybooks was the fictional one. But now it feels like the softer Ed that Stede knew was much the same- neither of them the whole story of who Ed was and is.

The one person who refused to live in Stede's fairytale was Izzy. I've seen people say it before, but he always gave off that vibe of the only human in the Muppets movie, or the guy who was in Black Sails while everyone else was in Pirates of the Caribbean. He saw the real risks clearly.

And in that light, the end of S1 has shifted an inch to the left for me, and I'm seeing it at a slightly different angle.

Izzy ripped away the healing Ed was doing, but in some respects he did it by tearing away the fairytale we'd all been living in, shoving Ed back into the Blackbeard story.

And that's where we pick up again in Season 2.

The fairytale reference came back in S2 in two notable places, those being Jim carrying that legacy forward in the darkest times, and in Izzy invoking the wooden boy against Ricky's efforts. Stede's made himself into a real boy. Ricky, nope.

Now that I've watched both seasons together, the tone shift doesn't feel so jarring at all, actually.

It feels like sliding through the looking glass, out of Stede's world, and into Ed's- a world that existed all along; we were just seeing it, la vie en rose, through Stede's eyes.

At the beginning of S2, Stede's gone, and we're seeing it unfiltered through Ed's reality.

But Stede wasn't lying when he said he loved everything about Ed. He made a promise to come back and find him- he went down into Ed's darkest place and reminded him that no matter how bad things got, there WAS someone waiting for him, ready to love him.

The contrast between S1's fantasy and S2's reality (excluding mermaids and actual bird guys and cursed coats) is stark, but it really is that.

We have the same settings, the same people, and very different ideas and outcomes at different times.

But it was always there.

Things do come back to a state of (precarious) balance once they're all together. Apologies are made, whether they're spoken out loud or through actions. Things go right, things go wrong. Healing happens. Izzy continues to have the steadiest, most real through-line in the story as he tracks toward redemption, finds acceptance, and to an extent finds himself.

Once again, I hate that they went here with the ending and I wish they hadn't. But it got a fraction easier for me looking at it not as a continuation of Stede's fairytale, but of the grounded-in-pirate-reality arc Izzy was always on, even while we lived in Stede's world.

Where does that leave us? We're not going back to the fairytale, but we're not going to be living in Black Sails for S3, either. We've hit a fusion point where S1 ended with each of them going to separate, miserable homes, but S2 ended with them in the same place, ready and willing to make a go of it.

Season 3 is going to give us their world, together.

I LOVED the moments in this season where the deep emotions were in balance with the silliness I've always adored about this show. Eps4-6 were wonderful like that. Clearly we're not done with drama, either, but like Ed and Stede, I think we'll find a middle ground.

Anyway in conclusion, a rewatch of S1 after S2 somehow made me love the first season even more, which felt impossible? It's now gained /even more/ layers of depth than it had before. No matter how you feel about S2 I think it's worth that rewatch.

Adding one more bit of clarity for myself: I think we got a bit (intentionally) seduced in S1 by the idea that the Ed of the storybooks, the Vampire Viking Clown with the nine guns, was a version of him that others saw, when Stede saw the REAL person who 'worked' for Blackbeard.

In hindsight I think it's clear the Ed Stede go to know was also not the complete version of himself- the reality is, there's a whole spectrum between the two, and they've landed in the middle of it now. Ed intentionally leaned into the unlovable Kraken image to protect himself.

It very much didn't work, just like being just... Edward hadn't worked to protect himself, either. This season has been very much about pulling those two extremes together and finding all the parts that make up Ed overall (another thread on that here on Twitter, which I'll also shift across to Tumblr soon!)

And I think one of my favourite things in S2 has been seeing the way Stede SEES that- he knows what Ed's done, everyone's told him, but he still loves Ed. sees his trauma and how it affects him, and believes he's a good man regardless. He IS lovable; he's not forever broken.

And together, they can heal.

[neomujinjja]

Come Back Safe

Pairing: Park Chanyoung x reader

Length: 885 words Genre: imagine, reunion, fluff(?)

Warnings: not edited, pre sweet home events, reference to enlistment, vague mention of celebrity treatment during enlistment, mentions of guns, cursing, crying

Synopsis: You and your boyfriend were only supposed to part for a little while for his enlistment. But with the outbreak, you're not even sure of his status. And yet, the world works in mysterious ways.

Note: Because it felt too soon/too close to home to write this for woodz. But hey! sweet home 💃; also jinyoung is insane in the left picture 😵‍💫. I don't know when Chanyoung is said to be enlisted but I assumed it would be some months before the events of Sweet Home S1 happen.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

"Are you sure you're okay with waiting for me?" Chanyoung asked as he set his bags down. The two of you had just became exclusive; you had been on dates with one another but only decided on your relationship recently.

"Yes, you just focus on getting back to me safely" you told him with a nod and smile. You were scared for him, that he'd be treated badly due to his celebrity status or become hurt at some point during his enlistment. Chanyoung hummed before pulling you into a hug.

"I will be. Promise me that you'll keep yourself safe as well" he said before pecking whatever he could reach. You hit him on the shoulder and laughed.

"What the worse that could happen to me in the civilian world?"

"Just promise me. It'll make me feel at ease."

"Okay. I promise~" You pulled away to place your pinky finger between you. The baseball star snickered as he interlocked his into yours. He pressed a kiss onto your lips with a smile.

"Seal it with a kiss" Chanyoung whispered before pulling entirely away from you. You stood in a slight stupor at his actions, that was insanely smooth. You complained at him, explaining he shouldn't tease you before leaving for roughly two years. The enlisted male only laughed, playfully grabbing your hands to fight you off. The two of you struggling against the other whilst your stomaches began to ache from the fits of laughter. Chanyoung relaxed his arms, allowing you to lean in close to his chest, the two of you successfully out of breath. "Okay, I've really got to get going" he panted as he released your arms and sat to put his boots on properly. You watched as he did so, continuing until he had all of his bags gathered up and was opening the door.

"Be safe, I mean it" you told him, leaning onto the door frame. You knew that it was just bad timing and there was nothing you could do, but you wished you didn't have to be separated from your boyfriend so early on. Chanyoung saluted with a smile before blowing a kiss and heading down your apartment complex hallway. The two of you decided that it'd be best for you not to send him off at the gate to avoid dealing with the news tabloids; meaning this would be the last time you'd see him until his break or a visit.

-

'Shit!' you cursed in your mind. You had thought that moving early in the morning would prevent you from meeting others. You were especially trying to avoid soldiers, the civilians were bad enough, you didn't need to deal with people with gun access. Hiding behind a pillar, you thought about what your next move would be. The sound of voices caught your attention, you whipped your head in the direction it came from. Listening in to their conversation, you let out a sigh of relief at the their addressing. Watching the two males on the balcony, you decided to head inside the building anyway; any medicine you could get your hands on would do some good in the long run making it worth the risk.

~

'Fuck' you cursed in your head once again. You hadn't seen the tray behind you; and of course, your elbow bumped it causing it to crash to the floor. You turned your head in the door's direction, praying silently that no one would come to check it out. Though it would be a death sentence to not a noise out in recent events.

"I thought the building was empty?" a female voice asked.

"I'm not sure. Stay here, I'll check" a male voice responded. You heard the female scoff at his words but she didn't make anymore verbal protest. The room you managed to sneak and ransack was barren of any hiding spots. Running a hand through your hair, you closed your eyes with no choice but to accept whatever fate that came. "Who are you?" the male asked.

"Human" was the only thing you said as you opened your eyes again. You were left shocked by the person standing in the doorway. Standing there was Chanyoung pointing a weapon in your face. Your boyfriend was alive, seemingly safe and sound, with a gun trained on you.

"Y/N?"

"Chanyoung?"

The two of you spoke at the same time. The former baseball player lowered his weapon, staring at your figure in similar shock.

"Where have you been this whole time?" Chanyoung exclaimed as he practically threw the gun to the side. You said nothing as he strides closer to you. "Are you okay? Have you been safe?" the male asked. Chanyoung grabbed you, checking over what he could see for any visible injuries. He pulled you into a hug when he didn't find any, his right hand caressing your hair. You brought your hands up, lightly setting them onto the male's lower back. You began shaking as you released tears, one's of relief and frustration. "What's wrong?" Chanyoung panicked as he tried to pull away but you held onto his clothing.

"You're safe. You came back safe, you kept our promise" you whispered in between your sniffles. You ignored your boyfriend's coos as you buried yourself deeper into his arms.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Question: I enjoyed s1 OF OFMD, but for various reasons I never actually got around to watching s2 (pick up most of the plot from tumblr tho). What exactly went wrong in s2 that got so many people upset?

Oh, boy. Very long rant incoming.

So, for context, S2 had a significantly smaller budget, which necessitated moving the filming location to union-unfriendly New Zealand, reducing the number of actors/number of appearances of established actors, and cutting down the number of episodes from 10 to 8. In a show where each episode is only about half an hour long, that last one alone was enough to seriously hamper any character development or plot. I am very comfortable putting the vast majority of the blame on HBO because of these financial decisions.

The short version is that Jenkins et. al. needed to address and build on the problems left hanging in S1 while also getting the characters to the end of their character trajectories in case there was no S3 while also leaving room for additional episodes in case there was a S3, in a grand total of four hours, and failed.

The long version is that there were a bunch of what I'd consider small problems in isolation that came together and exploded in the S2 finale.

The reduced cast necessitated breaking up the crew (ex: having Swede marry Jackie and stay on land with her, so they don't need to pay Nat Faxon for all eight episodes) and not spending as much time on their relationships as S1 did.

The reduced time meant that the entire season was rushed (in contrast to S1, which takes place over at least several weeks if not months, most of S2 takes place in roughly five days), leading both to a lot of telling rather than showing (because they don't have time to show you), including vital character and relationship development.

This includes:

Having the Kraken half of the crew beat Ed to death after months of being abused by him – abuse that is clearly shown to have given them PTSD and a well-justified fear and hatred of him – only for them to be okay with him two in-universe days later;

On that note, having Stede dismiss the crew's concerns about Ed because he loves him and also we only have three more episodes left to fit in everything so we need to get over it really fast, even though Stede is supposed to be well-meaning and caring (even if he's not good at it all the time);

Resolving the issue of Stede abandoning Ed in one day, then having them "go slowly" in their relationship for two days and then have some spur-of-the-moment sex, and then the next afternoon have them break up over their diverging career aspirations, and then the day after that resolve that problem and retire on land while the rest of the crew sails off into the sunset;

Stede becoming a fantastic pirate captain over the course of one day, becoming wildly popular in the piracy world two days later, and then deciding the day after that to never be a captain again because he is retiring with Ed;

Having Ed and Stede decide to retire together as what is implied to be the end point of their relationship arc, when none of Stede's issues from S1, like his poor self-esteem, have been so much as mentioned by anyone, implying that he's either magically gotten over them or they don't matter all that much, actually, even though they were the catalyst for basically everything he did in S1;

Ed having two separate character crises – "I am an unlovable person" and "I want to do something with my life other than piracy" – not spending a lot of time on either one, having moments that clearly indicate he is still working on both problems and they have not been resolved, and then apparently having them both be resolved in the final episode despite nothing occurring to actually make that happen, and in regards to the latter, despite the story actively undermining it by repeatedly showing he can't do anything other than piracy;

Related to the above, Ed ending the series as allegedly being loved by the crew as a family (thus solving Crisis #1) despite this never actually being shown, demonstrated, or even fucking alluded to onscreen. If anything, it shows the exact opposite.

This last point is especially galling to me because of what is probably the most divisive issue in the fandom right now: killing off Izzy Hands after giving him seven episodes of character development.

The show begins with the Kraken crew clearly trying to use the skills they learned as part of Stede's crew to cope with their incredibly shitty situation and care for each other, which includes Izzy. Izzy, on his end, tries to protect the crew and speak up for them, which results in him being repeatedly hurt (both implicitly, as Ed at one point says "that's another toe" in response to Izzy advocating for the crew and we later see he's missing more than one toe already, and explicitly, as Ed shoots him in the fucking leg in front of the crew when he stands up for them).

This camaraderie is shown again and again and again. Frenchie, Jim, and Archie take care of Izzy while his leg is infected, at risk to their own lives. Izzy's misery over losing his leg is what unites the PTSD-ridden Kraken crew and the well-meaning-but-ignorant-of-PTSD marooned crew, who are initially at odds, to make him a new prosthetic leg. Izzy gives Lucius advice about forgiving Ed. Izzy is introduced to drag and opens up enough to sing at a crew party, and the whole crew is having fun together while Ed and Stede are in their cabin having sex for the first time. Izzy gives Stede pirate captain lessons and bonds with him when Ed leaves him. Izzy provokes the season's villain into focusing on him and then gives a big speech about how piracy is about belonging to something, giving the rest of the crew time to try to escape.

Recall that Season 1 had some pretty well-established universe rules, one of which was that it runs on Muppet physics/magical realism. People can jump off yardarms, hit the side on the way down, and be perfectly fine. People can get stabbed in the liver and it's totally okay because it's probably not that important, and even can stay pinned to a mast all night that way with only mild discomfort. Buttons can talk to birds and see long distances without a spyglass and put hexes on people. Good people can be hurt (Stede is stabbed repeatedly), bad people can die (the Badmintons, Geraldo), but no one we care about is ever killed.

This is repeated in Season 2: Ed is beaten into a coma with a cannonball and wakes up like Sleeping Beauty after a spirit journey, with no injuries to his face or body. Buttons turns into a seagull after spending an episode doing a magic ritual and is never seen again (because they couldn't keep paying Ewen Bremner due to the budget cuts). Jackie microdoses her husbands with poison to build up their immunity, so that she can later pull a Dread Pirate Westley and poison the British with shared drinks.

So: in the finale, the villain of the season is taken hostage by the pirates (for reasons? unclear how that fits in the plan), happens to have a gun on him (no one checked??), shoots Izzy on the right side and then leaves with no repercussions. The entire crew stands around silently doing nothing while Ed cries over Izzy and tells him that he's his only family.

And Izzy fucking Hands, the guy who just spent eight episodes bonding with and protecting everyone, uses his last words to reassure Ed that him becoming Blackbeard/the Kraken was Izzy's fault and that the crew is Ed's family and they all love him. No one else says anything to Izzy or tries to comfort him or help him in any way.

I repeat: in a show predicated on the idea that bullies and bigots die stupid deaths while queer people and POC are basically magic, a show that was praised for being kind to queer people by not making them worry about their faves suffering or dying, a show founded on the strength of the relationships between the characters, the guy who went through a season-long arc of learning to embrace his pirate found family and his own queerness is shot for stupid reasons on the side we're told isn't important and dies while everyone just stands there. His last words are about the whole crew loving Ed when the only person that the whole crew has loved all season is him.

Anyway, never mind all that, let's cut to Lucius and Pete getting married and Stede and Ed retiring!

Complicating all this is that people who liked Izzy (or even said anything insufficiently mean about Izzy) were harassed for months in between seasons with insults, slurs, and actual fucking death threats. Izzy's growth was kind of a vindication for liking him: it meant that, despite all the harassment, we were right to like him and care about him as a character. Even people who didn't like him initially started to like him during Season 2.

And then he dies, and now there's a bunch of people saying that Izzy fans are big whiny babies who can't handle fictional death, and actually his death was so meaningful and beautiful and the only logical end to his arc, and it can't be bad writing because people die in real life all the time, and also he admitted he fed Ed's darkness so actually he was a terrible person all along anyway and they were right to hate him (and his fans)!

So, yeah, there are a lot of reasons why it's so hated, and I'm probably only addressing the problems of the pro-Izzy people (from what I can tell, BlackBonnet shippers who don't like Izzy think Ed and Stede's relationship is fine and dandy, but I'm sure that there are other criticisms they have that I have not addressed). I'm not even addressing the issues with Jim and Oluwande's relationship this season (and whooo boy are there issues).

It wasn't a universally bad season. There were episodes I really loved and still do. But the finale was a train wreck, and because it was a train wreck, a lot of people are looking back at what happened before the wreck and realizing that, oh, the train lost its brakes and steering because of the budget cuts and the engineers kept throwing fuel in the engine to make it go faster, and huh, now that I think of it, that part earlier in the trip was really wobbly but I didn't pay much attention to it at the time because I was sure the engineers had everything covered.

[chronicsyd]

I think the issue I'm having with people already holding the sentiment that "Caitlyn's an irredeemable asshat and Vi's better off without her" is mainly the sheer lack of Context that we've been given about this situation as a whole (leaving the people who've seen the leaks out of this per usual). Because in reality, the only Real context we've gotten is Vi's side of the fallout of whatever happened between the two. Everything else is just sheer speculation that we've gotten from the trailer.

Because with this line of thinking we should have held the same sentiment after Vi leaves Caitlyn back in "Oil & Water", but we don't. At least not from what I've seen. But the reasoning behind this is very simple, as a viewer we've been given context about how Vi operates, how she thinks and feels so calling Vi an "irredeemable asshat" for leaving Caitlyn doesn't make sense in this regard, even if she's hurting Caitlyn as a result by doing this.

Hell this line of thinking even follows for Vi hitting Powder back in episode 3. Was it wrong for Vi to do? Yes, but as a viewer we've been given the context that Vi lashes out when she's angry and was dealing with an overwhelming amount of emotions after watching what happened to her family. So throwing out that Vi's an "irredeemable asshat" after this doesn't follow either, even if we've seen Powder change for the worse as a result of what happened.

Now why do I bring all this up? Well, it's because of what I've said before. We're missing the context of what happens building up to the scene, or the scene itself, or even how Caitlyn's thinking or feeling at this point, because she's going to behave differently than how we've seen her in S1. We have speculation that her grief and revenge for Jinx is probably going to make her more cold hearted and closed off (mirroring how we saw her behave facing off against Jinx back in episode 9). But that's just the thing, those are speculations, we don't have anything truly confirmed about what happens. So is Caitlyn going to do something wrong that hurts Vi as a result? Most likely. But I at least can't behave like Caitlyn's irredeemable or undeserving of Vi until I actually see what's going on or how Caitlyn behaves after all of this has transpired.

This also falls into a discussion of what someone can claim as Truly "irredeemable". Because hurting someone you care about is a cause for a negative reaction from people, I won't argue with that; but I wouldn't claim it as something that's truly irredeemable or something you can't come back from If you put the time/work in to reflect on your actions and apologize for how your actions have hurt the person that you care about, which is something we're probably going to see from Caitlyn as the season progresses.

And to be honest, people saying "I've seen the leaks and you're not gonna like her" means NOTHING to me because 1) that's Your opinion on the matter and 2) the show itself has still shown us Nothing so essentially your word means nothing to me at this point and time.

(Not gonna lie but i feel like we're going into the same "Miles vs Gwen" discussion here)

[hexedwinchester]

Early seasons of SPN are superior

so I'm re-watching Supernatural (I'm always re-watching SPN, don't mind me) and I realised why the early seasons are so freakin good whereas the laters ones are a complete mess...

Horror was the core theme of Supernatural (yes, I'm not discarding the brothers' drama, I'll get to it in a minute). These beautiful scare tactics that they employed were amazing: the crib mobile toy rotating, shadows moving out of the corner of the eyes, toys going off, subtle bloody Mary reflections in the mirror, creepy skulls dug from the ground, the ghosts flickering. Hell yea they nailed 'Scary just got sexy' with these.

Don't get me started on the background music. Whimsical music crescendo, building up the anticipation. The rock music blaring through the Impala. What happened to the cool ass music in the later seasons? They just played this weird, sad tune like someone's blowing raspberries to show grief and that's it!

Monster of the week theme and the lores/legends in early seasons were much, much better than S12's Foundry or the later season episode with bizarre tentacle porn thingy (you know which one I'm talking about). It just didn't feel the same. The stories were poorly written and even more poorly executed.

Early seasons used to be purely about Sam and Dean (as it should have been throughout) Them against the world, heaven and hell. No dumbass angel lurking in the background like a pathetic third wheel. No king of hell bitching about his sad childhood for two whole seasons. No Soccer mom half assing their way into hunting.

Foreshadowing was done so beautifully! Everytime I re-watch the early seasons I find a few bits that connects to something that happened initially in say S1-2. The parallels are done beautifully and writing is good, and I mean 'I wanna use this quote as a wallpaper' good.

The struggle for the boys was real. They had to do their own research, save their own asses, stitch their wounds, pop their dislocated shoulders back in the place. Later seasons? Bunker has answer to everything, angel healing wounds with a flash of light, Lucifer bringing Sam back from the dead without asking for anything (and no, taking him to Jack is not a good enough bargain), Jack healing wounds or whatever. Where is the damn struggle?! Where is the hero's journey?!

I miss the beautiful, colourful motel rooms that had its own personality. I HATE the bunker (yes I know a lot of people love it because Dean has a good shower, they have a home etc, etc) but no! Bunker is lame and boring and monotonous. There isn't a single thing I like about it. Gimme back my motel rooms with the sunburst mirror!

Story arc or lack thereof from S12 onwards. The main plot just got duller and duller from S12 onward and it felt like the writers got lazy and stopped putting efforts. There was no build up and the plot felt forced. The main arcs didn't feel exciting enough. BMoL and Kelly's pregnancy: the who and why? Jack: predictable. Other Micheal and Micheal Dean: meh, next! God as the big bad: interesting but I don't think they have it in them to execute this correctly.

Irrelevant/Unnecessary characters and their mini plots. S1-5 focuses purely on the brothers and that's what I'm here. I don't care how and why an idiot angel opened purgatory. It sounded more like a dull spin off plot than main story arc. I don't care about prophets and their lives (yeah Kevin is in Advance Placement, what am I to do with that?). I don't care about the different angel garrisons at war (again a plot for a lame spin off). I don't care about Crowley, his son or his relationship with Rowena. Tell me how this affects the boys. If it doesn't, please let's move on. Whatever was going on with Cole Trenton was pointless. I don't care about Mary and her hunting escapades with BMoL. I don't care about Kelly's pregnancy. The multi-universe and all characters they vomited back in the show with this. Not needed! Let Charlie, Gabriel and Bobby's memory rest in peace. Nick's killer storyline and wayward sisters. Enough said. Empty and the deal with Cas and Meg 2.0? Boring! Billy playing the bad cop, the whole death's library? Poorly executed and it turned into a bowl of cold spaghetti. In the end, the focus moved from the boys to useless characters and mini plots. Fuck that! Supernatural is about Sam and Dean and that's about it.

The direction. Later seasons lack the beauty of scenic shots of the landscape, close on up the boys' faces, the lights hitting their faces to show their beauty. Camera angles and slow panning shots. I miss the beauty that were the early seasons.

[darkstarofchaos]

Spoilers for EarthSpark S2 below the cut.

The problem with Starscream isn't that he was evil. I have to lead with that because apparently if you complain about how he was handled, people are just going to assume you wanted him to be redeemed. I am not a Starscream redemptionist, nor am I a fan of "redemptions" where an evil character becomes a Good Guy. One of the biggest issues I have with Megatron redemptions is that he never actually has to address what he did to his own side, he just fucks off to join the other side/goes his own way. Suffice to say, I was not hoping for EarthSpark to "redeem" Starscream (unless it was in the more personal sense of trying to do better by his own people).

The problem with Starscream is not that he was evil. The problem is that, to make him the specific brand of evil the Powers That Be wanted, they had to completely ignore his previous characterization.

I honestly did not have a problem with most of his (admittedly few) scenes. His motivation for being Evil was disappointingly shallow, but him being grumpy-but-accepting of the new Terrans fit with his S1 characterization. The bit where Skywarp complains when he doesn't do anything to punish "Spitfire's" disrespect could easily have been spun as him trying to be a better leader after his talk with Hashtag. I liked that he isn't stingy with praise when someone accomplishes something. Even the painfully underdeveloped motivation could have been expanded into him trying to do what he thought was best for his faction. All the building blocks for a villainous-but-sympathetic Starscream were right there.

Which is why watching everything fall apart in the last 20 minutes felt like character assassination.

You cannot convince me that the Starscream who knew Hashtag for an hour and was ready to risk his life for her is the same Starscream who murdered two children without blinking. You cannot convince me that the Starscream who criticized Megatron's violent leadership would consider it a compliment when he's called more cruel than Megatron. I don't care what previous Starscreams were like, this one had an established characterization that does not work with what we see later. Not unless working with the Autobots briefly completely disillusioned him to the possibility of a lasting peace.

Also, love how the time skip allows them to just avoid any sort of fallout from having the people you were working with go back to trying to kill you. Love how there was no deeper reason to the war restarting than "they're Decepticons". Heaven forbid we get any sort of conflict with the two sides trying and failing to work together, and the falling out being a shared responsibility and not just "the Cons were actually still evil, lol". Can't have anyone grappling with how things went wrong and wishing they'd done something differently to maintain the peace. Megatron yells at Starscream to end the war like the Autobots played no part in it continuing. Which is obviously the intent, but it just feels like such a lazy copout to keep the Good Guys morally pure.

The Decepticons were being hunted down and locked up. They had no reason to think well of the Autobots or the humans, which means that if the Autobots wanted peace, it was their responsibility to reach out and prove that things could be different. Yes, the Decepticons would need to put in effort too, but they were not the ones - at least not the only ones - who needed to prove that they meant well. If the two sides worked together for a while and the Decepticons still unanimously rejected the possibility of ending the war, the Autobots share the blame for that decision.

I have plenty of other issues with how S2 is going so far (why was Nightshade the only Terran who got completely relegated to side character?), but I'll save my rant about the Chaos Terrans for later. It'll be huge, trust me.

[kravchikfreak]

I'm sorry if this ask is coming out of nowhere, but I have been looking for posts that talk about how S2 has declined in quality and there have been virtually NONE. Even tags like 'arcane critical' or 'anti arcane' don't show up even though I know there are posts that are tagged with them. I'm losing my mind. Has nobody else noticed this downgrade? The ideas could have been good, but they were not executed well and the whole thing reads like they wrote it really quickly without any real editing and then rushed to get it out. It feels hollow, like we're seeing a botched or unfinished version of what it was supposed to be. What kind of random ass shit is it that an enforcer comes up to Vi and says, "cait said good things about you," and Vi is just like wow you're right, I'm sold! Even though she already knows Cait has a high opinion of her and that wasn't the issue in the first place! Also who was that random homeless man? Why am I supposed to care about these people? Fans get defensive about the pacing and argue that s1 did a lot in a minimal amount of time too, but I don't think they realize that pacing has to do with making something feel organic. Vi's heel turn into becoming an enforcer was not organic. Viktor's two second goodbye was not organic. Both of these things could have made sense if they'd given these moments even just a little more effort or care. There were so many unnecessary scenes that could have been cut out to give more time to things that desperately needed it (like caitlyn's sad wordless montage about her mom. Why did it drag out so long? Her grief is apparent in every other scene. We did not need an entire abstract slideshow of her making various sad expressions.) There's also the animation. The animation is leagues above a regularly animated show, but if you look closely it is actually not as good as s1. There is less detail, the lighting of the background doesn't always match the characters, and there are moments where the lips don't always sync with their voices. These are minor things that I wouldn't usually care about, but for a multi-million dollar show like Arcane? Riot games recently laid off a whole slew of its creative team, too, and I wonder if they've been making similar cuts before that. It would certainly explain the drop in quality. I wouldn't put it past corporate greed to nerf one of the most groundbreaking animated shows in modern media if they thought they could profit more by cutting corners.

I'm sorry to ramble in your inbox as a random stranger, but it boggles my mind that there are so few people mentioning s2's flaws (not including rage bait, which is annoying because it only delegitamizes real criticisms and discussions.) I feel like I'm screaming in the void like is nobody else seeing this shit??

well hello there! first of all, "arcane critical" is what i was looking for when i was writing that post. gonna put it in tags now before i forget

secondly, i love asks! so no need to apologize. thirdly it's a bummer you went under anonym, i don't believe you get notifs for your anonymous asks, so unless you actually hang out on my blog regularly there's a chance you won't see me appreciating your thoughts and agreeing with you (expect for the animation part, cause for me it was great, i have no questions on that regard. but for each their own. i'm a big fun of the dragon prince first season's animation and still sad they get rid of their 13fps style, so...)

anyway, i got bored at the beginning of my rumbling that time and didn't get into some deep analysis but yes, the first season also had events to go fast and forward, but at the same time they made sense. it wasn't rush or dragged, every scene had a meaning and weight

YES to the burial scene. like i get it, it was drawn pretty and it was sad and grey for cait but my god how many hours can we watch vi going away from 317 different angles? i was actually shocked to see her at cait's, cause after 10 minutes of her hiding in the crowd and leaving before cait saw her i was legit sure the show tried to tell us they broke up for now and won't see each other for a while

and it all feels so odd, as if on the one hand writers had too little allowed episodes to work with their ideas, like they came up with all these important story points but had no more screen time to add actual story development between the points, cause the season is like 10 episodes too short to fit a full coherent story. but on the other hand they have too much unused screen time, like they wrote only 5 episodes but they had to make 9 so now we will just fill the equivalent of 4 episodes of free time with mute repetitive long scenes

who the fuck is that mute lizard cop? is he actually mute? or there were no budget on one more voice actor? what's his problem? why he always looks like he's mad at everyone? should i even care he's always displeased? does he even matter? if no, why he has so much screen time and close-up shots? if yes, why he has no meaning or story or character or name? i swear to god, in the first season that one future-junkie dude had more of a meaning and weight in his two minutes scene than these lizard cop and the new jinx's sister during two episodes

and it all would've been fine, really, if it was the first season, or one of these already bad shows that you don't really expect much of. but arcane was a masterpiece, and also we've been waiting for it for three years. so it's the feeling that we know how GOOD it can be, and the feeling that it just chose not to

w....wait... what if they also tried to do great? and failed to do good in the process

or maybe, as you said, just some internal kitchen shit. i never actually follow media creation stuff and staff so maybe that's just it. still not make it all better for me as a viewer who was too excited to learn at 1 am that the act dropped and stayed up until 7am to make sure to watch it before getting to sleep

HEY THANK YOU for giving me opportunity to rumble about it again

[cezqstar]

haven’t been active in the rykter fandom in awhile, but i’ve seen quite a lot of opinions floating around on here & twt that i had quite a lot of thoughts about!

someone said the show is queerbaiting… and i genuinely cannot believe how anyone can see a character figuring out his queer identity and only see the matherik ship & dumb it down to queerbaiting.

edit: i want to clarify this part i said on queerbaiting because i didn’t articulate my thoughts in depth. at the end of season 2, mathias initiated a kiss with erik ultimately implying his queer identity. and his season 3 storyline has confirmed him as a queer character, who is crushing on erik & struggling with acceptance whilst getting bullied by his ex-best friend. however, erik’s pov is open to interpretation, which leaves a lot of space for fan theories (that i eat tf up) but at the moment, that’s all they are. fan theories. erik’s actions can be interpreted as both platonic & non-platonic, and i don’t see the show dangling matherik in the audiences faces. since they’re very focused on mathias’ story and his perspective rather than erik’s. whose own story seems to focus on him hanging around the wrong crowd and his questionable behaviour. it leaves the storyline open to go down two very different routes: erik could have his own queer realisation and the two of them eventually end up together. or mathias’ has unrequited feelings for his straight (or aro 👀) friend but those feelings helped him with his own queer journey to acceptance. and i think with how they’ve set erik up, it could genuinely go either way and make sense.

^^ that’s why i believe the queerbaiting claims are a stretch.

it’s become very clear why people began watching rykter: matherik. but people NEED to remember that the show is not solely about them. it never has been. this show is about the chaotic lives of ‘sheltered’ (i can’t think of the word i’m after) teenagers who all have the capability to be stupid, immature and selfish. which yes, includes felix as one of those characters and yes, includes erik as a teenager capable of being a bad person at times.

these teenagers are also all (well almost all) capable of redemption. mathias has proved his own ability to be redeemed after his s1 antics, erik will surely have his own redemption path regarding his current s3 antics and thea is currently having her redemption this season. just because erik has been generally good in the first two seasons, doesn’t mean he isn’t prone to poor decision making & shitty actions. remember: they’re all 15-16 years old.

i’ve seen a few people suggest that the rykter writers are ‘getting off’ on or ‘enjoying’ the homophobic abuse that mathias has been subjected to, but i think that’s a massive stretch. and an extremely poor outlook on the shows writing in my opinion. many people forget that even though norway is a progressive country that homophobic shitheads still exist. and the way mathias is being treated by someone as horrible as felix & no one saying anything due to being ‘sheltered’ followers is quite real.

and when someone as jealous, hateful & spiteful as felix who clearly puts up with his own share of prejudice gets to put someone else down (someone who he also feels ‘betrayed’ by), he’ll jump at that opportunity in an attempt to make himself better and stronger. from victim -> perpetrator. i understand the frustration around this season focusing on felix quite a lot but people need to stop seeing his storyline as ways to ‘excuse’ his actions and moreso to explain them & simply SHOW his life. they seem pretty hellbent on showing you that he’s a shitty person regardless of his home life & personal issues.

anyways rant over! time to disappear again lol. feel free to disagree with anything i said. always happy to have a discussion!

[eternalera]

we need to talk about mel because out of pretty much everyone in arcane ive been seeing the most drama with her and just... god is it all so fucking stupid. so for the next few paragraphs im gonna be talking about haters of mel, 'defenders' of mel, jayvik, meljayce, and just... everything going on with that because god is it a lot and god is so much of it bullshit and just plain old toxicity. so yeah...

dang still here? alright lets begin.

so first off we're starting with with the haters and defenders of mel and honestly this is some of that dumbest fandom shit ive seen in a while? why? alright let's bring up some argument stuff that ive (and youve most likely) seen before. one of which being that her haters define her as 'problematic' and a villain which is not true well at least not more true than jinx being a villain. jinx is a worse character than mel but people hate on her because 'oh shes supposed to be portrayed as good!' when this was never the case.

in s1 mel was portrayed to be a politician and from what ive gathered she was meant to represent the upper class of piltover and the council members in general (with the exception being heimindinger). she was supposed to be a corrupt and morally ambiguous character just like what? politics, politics are not black or white all of the time. mel strived for her own goals and used people to get there. do you have to like her for this? no. you dont. in fact when i first watched s1 i hated this about her and her relationship with jayce gave me the ick (i did not ship jayvik at all during this time). but we'll get more into that later

now the 'defenders' of mel. where to begin? well first off if you dont like her you get called misogynistic, if you ship jayvik well then youre writing her out and therefore are misogynistic, if you criticize mel for any of her actions guess what you are? yeah misogynistic. they really like throwing that term around for no other reason than mel being a woman. what if she was a guy? would there be a problem with it? and what if people are still doing what they are with mel being a guy? is it still problematic? the answer is most likely no. also the problem with calling people misogynistic is that youre not attacking their argument but them as a person.

thats like if you said '1+1=2' and i went 'no youre stupid' or if i said 'the earth is round' and you told me that i was a conspiracy theorist. youre not attacking the argument but the person themselves. youve done nothing to disprove their argument, sure you called them a mean name but whats that going to do? people hardly ever even argue why thats the case and why its wrong, but they throw around the world mindlessly. i would be fine if people were saying that their argument was misogynistic and therefore they would be misogynistic for supporting it but even then just leave it.

not to mention that mel was written to be morally ambiguous in a sense (in s1 and in s2 she gets better but still is... eh on morals imo) and if you bring this up these 'defenders' will go rabid over you. calling you names and saying how youre 'part of the problem' and that you cant handle a strong female character and this is just by you criticizing them keep in mind. maybe you dont agree with their actions but that doesnt matter to them and its horrendous.

now moving onto jayvik and... yeah it has its issues, i will NOT lie and say that there isnt an unreasonable dislike for mel in certain parts of the community because believe me there is and its almost always uncalled for and their reason is lacking to say the least, once again mel is a complicated character and to put her in a box and say that she's the big bad is entirely and fully unreasonable. ive seen large parts of the fandom also hating on mel just because she 'gets in the way' of jayvik and i guess that this is true but also people do forget something really important

THIS IS ALL FANDOM

SHIP WHOEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT CANON OR NOT ITS NOT MEANT FOR THE CREATORS BUT THE CONSUMERS AKA FANS

whether or not she 'gets in the way' of jayvik in canon (which she really does not as she encourages jayce to spend more time with viktor and viktor and jayce still have a bunch of meaningful scenes together DESPITE her) doesn't matter one bit. your fanon does not need to be canon in order for you to enjoy it. and tons of people tend to gloss past that because they just have to have things their way and then they throw a pissy fit over it. HOWEVER this is not the only drama with jayvik, once again if you ship this rabid mel enjoyers will say how youre misogynistic which... yeah it fucking sucks.

tbh everything with mel has got to be some of the most toxic shit ive ever seen in my life (not worse than mha and ochako but hopefully as a fandom we never get there). because mel enjoyers if they dont ship jayvik tend to ship meljay or jaymel or- whatever its called and since its canon to some extent (they did kinda break up) they will use that as a way to discourage jayvik shippers and once again call them names that do not make any sense to the argument that they are giving as they are just spewing out random ass insults to people who disagree with them

good job internet. proud of ya

NOW MELJAY AND OH BOY DO I HAVE SOME WORDS-

... yeah it was meant to be a morally grey thing. sorry to everyone who looked at it and was like 'omg they care for each other so cute!!!' mel manipulating jayce into a relationship to take advantage of him and get what she wanted is meant to be a bad thing and you wanna know why? CAUSE SHES A COMPLICATED CHARACTER. if i had to place her on the alignment chart id say that shes most likely lawful neutral and on a good day lawful good.

now if you still cant see the problem with mel and jayces relationship lemme do smth called the good 'ol gender swap

theres a smart girl inventing stuff and trying to change the world, a man comes along and supports her endeavor fully, throughout the way makes heavy advances towards her in order to trap her and get her to do what he wants. this happens and in order to trap her even further puts her in a position of power which she knows nothing about and therefore relying more and more on him and his knowledge. advances are made and they fuck but to him she is just an investment. of course as the relationship carries on he might start caring more and more about her but the manipulation never truly leaves

see what makes it so bad? me and my friends talked about this for hours thinking about it and finding out what made us not like the ship in s1 (keep in mind we did NOT ship jayvik only started after their divorce). we loved mel's characters, she's a strong woman a strong character with flaws and she's compelling. but she was never written to do morally good decisions 100% of the time and thats what makes arcane so good ignoring all of this is not understanding mels character or her actions

anyways thats all i have to say. if you disagree or have any other news feel free to share lol and thanks for listening to my rambles <3

[noushienoushnoush]

Once again, I sit here in absolute awe of David Tennant and Michael Sheen's acting. (And also the writing for this show.)

Let's talk about S1 E6 of Good Omens, shall we? (spoilers incoming, *in Crowley's mocking tone* obviously.)

Something that absolutely went over my head the first time I watched this episode was how masterfully they fooled us about the body swap. It's a wonderful surprise the first time around, but when you re-watch the episode, certain things makes you question why Crowley acted the way he did at the trial, and same with Azirophale in Heaven. Something seemed off the whole time. And during my first watch, I took it as "oh, they're probably both nervous about what's to come." But noooo, I was dead wrong.

Here's some amazing hints that conveyed, in the most subtle way, that maybe these two supernatural beings were not in their usual bodies.

The Ice Cream Stand

From the moment they go to the ice cream stand, Aziraphale's face looks rather stressed and serious. It's rather out of the ordinary for Aziraphale, there's always a sense of emotional vulnerability in his eyes, but in this scene, there's none of that. He looks around and scans the surrounding, the way Crowley always does. He walks around Crowley, the way Crowley always does around Aziraphale.

In fact, what would be expected of the real Aziraphale would be a stiff stand and some kind of nervous smile, and at least a bit of anticipation for eating ice cream. But who do we smiling instead? "Crowley". (Putting the quotations there because of course they have switched bodies before going to the ice cream stand.) And look at how David smiles here. It's a tight smile after receiving the ice cream cone, the kind that Aziraphale would give in appreciation if he was interacting with the ice cream person (which, he technically is, in Crowley's body.) If David was acting as the real Crowley, we would have had more of grin and maybe a slight tilt of the head even.

It's such a subtle thing but my god does it makes such a big difference and shows how much David and Michael know about each other's characters and I can't even-

Reaction to Gabriel Entering the Scene

Firstly, we have a close up of Aziraphale's hand and Crowley still adjusting to how the angel's body moves and functions (which can be easily taken as adjusting to the tight grip of the rope. Honestly, it's probably a bit of both).

Then Gabriel enters and what we would naturally expect is Aziraphale losing his shit by adjusting in his seat nervously, checking to make sure he looks okay, and loads of anxiety in his voice. But we get none of that. He doesn't even nervously laugh at Gabriel's joke, just gives the slightest little twitch, the kind Crowley would give when he's stressed. There's not a hint of nervousness in his eyes, as if his emotions are tucked away, something Crowley is quite good at.

Holy Water/ Eternal Fire

When Eric shows up from Hell with the eternal fire, the real Aziraphale would've been utterly surprised, but the one sitting down just watches Eric come in as if he was expecting the demon. In fact, if you look closely, everyone reacts to the fire EXCEPT Eric and "Aziraphale".

And when Michael looks at the fire in his subtle (and brilliant) way, the look can be read as both our angel looking reflectively at the very thing that could destroy him AND as our demon in the angel's body holding back the anger that he feels when he sees that this is what they were going to do to his best friend had they not switched bodies.

And can't forget the iconic scene of the roar with the fire spitting out. That is such a Crowley move and so out of character for Aziraphale!!

And we can see the sheer joy as his eyes glow in a shade of yellow awfully similar to Crowley's. I mean that grin is also literally Crowley?!

Lastly, we have the moment where Gabriel says "shut up and die already" and rewatching the show with context of how angry Crowley was at this statement, I can literally feel Crowley's anger in Aziraphale's body here. Michael how do you this? My two brain cells are literally going brrr.

Meanwhile, in Hell, when Archangel Michael enters the scene with the holy water, Crowley looks back and is genuinely surprised, but really it's Azirophale, in Crowley's body, who's like "wait a minute, Michael?!" The real Crowley wouldn't have been surprised even one bit. He'd probably make a snarky remark in fact about something like how Heaven and Hell are not that different after all.

Tone of Voice & Dialogue

It's just all so perfect. I remember reading on Neil's Tumblr that Aziraphale generally speaks with every word in every sentence pronounced perfectly and in an almost bookish way. Crowley, on the other hand, mumbles a lot of his words. They role off the tongue very quickly. There's a peculiar snake-like vibe to the way he speaks.

But during the trial? Crowley doesn't make a single super snarky remark or mumble his words. He stands quite straight (no putting his weight on one knee or slithering around) and the way he speaks is awfully similar to Aziraphale.

"Well, yes, um..." (87.5% of Aziraphale's sentences start like this lol)

"I don't suppose in the nine circles of Hell, there's such a thing as a rubber duck?" (Crowley level snarky yes but Crowley already knows that it doesn't exist, so he would've framed it differently if it was really him speaking. This is very much peak "unexpectedly funny" Aziraphale humor.)

Also, I think the very first hint we have about the body swap, as far as dialogue goes, is when "Crowley" is knocked to the ground and says "It's not a problem. It's a tickety-boo." Just cracks me up cause again, that's something our southern pansy Aziraphale would say.

And then there's the whole scene at the park after the fact, but this post is already long enough as is lol.

I hope I'm not repeating something that another person has already mentioned. I'm just mesmerized by David and Michael's acting and Neil's writing is all. Honestly, there so many other micro moments I didn't cover. And my 2 am brain doesn't have energy for making GIFs, I hope the still images will do. Alt Text will be added soon as well.

[the-gentleman-pining]

Righto party people, we had a good run, we got a beautiful S1 of OFMD unmarred by bullshit, which was the first time a lot of us had seen queer rep in that way. It meant a lot, it's been my hyperfixation for a couple years at this point! I even met Rhys, Vico, and Samson this weekend gone, which was unfortunately a bit soured by everything going on.

It boils down to this: how can I enjoy a show with themes of anti-colonialism and rising up against oppressive powers, knowing one of the biggest people behind its creation, Taika Waititi, is himself in signing letters in support of Israel as they occupy and mass slaughter Palestinians. The whole thing smacks of hypocrisy. As someone in the UK, I couldn't watch this recent season in a way that financially supported it anyway. But it's about more than that. I don't know how fans can continue to comfortably engage with it.

We had widespread abandonment and condemnation of JKR in queer circles after her TERF bullshit, and yes it took a while to catch on and for people to realise the smear campaign against an entire group of people wasn't worth them holding onto that piece of media. It's hard letting go of something that means so much. Or is it? I personally was never a huge HP fan, so I didn't share that struggle. But here? With OFMD? Yeah it's safe to say this show has been my life for a couple years. I'm heartbroken this is going down the way it has, and I don't mean that to have anything to do with the quality of the media in S2. It's not a relevant factor when its creator starring actor and co-creator is ADVOCATING GENOCIDE*. If that doesn't put you off, I don't really have more to say.

My conclusion? It's not hard to let go, you just don't think it's important.

I think, unless there is significant backtracking and work done to undo this damage, and even then probs not, this will be my last OFMD post.

Fuck you Taika, you betrayed your fans, but you also betrayed yourself by forgetting the things you used to stand for. Eat shit.

*some people have pointed out that pro-Israeli support is not inherently advocating genocide, because Taika may be ignorant to what's really going on. This is possible, however, firstly, if you don't fully understand something, don't fucking advocate for it. Secondly, intentional or not, he has contributed to a pro-genocidal rhetoric, by signing a letter that one-sidedly condemned Hamas taking hostages without awareness that Israel has taken far more, and for someone in his position of influence, that amounts to the same impact. Obscuring nuance pushes a biased narrative. It's insidious and easily denied.

[t4kalcvr]

VAMOS A BAILAR — k. tsukishima smau

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚ S1, EP 12 . te apoyare

“Y/NNIE!!!!” amidst the sound of your heavy breathing, you heard a loud scream around you.

as you pivoted, you stole a quick glance over your shoulder, while keeping your hands poised just above your knees.

“satori!!” you puffed out.

“youre doing so good y/nnie! i didn’t know you were so fast. i mean i knew because of elementary and then we separated but—” you began to sort of space out, hearing tendou go on his daily tangent, but not quite listening.

“sweetheart?” his velvety voice resonated so close to you that it felt as though he was speaking directly into your ear.

you were startled a bit as you jumped, “jesus–sorry tennie! was just thinking about my splits,” you wiped some sweat dripping down your neck, “i gotta do some more warms up!” you tried to excuse yourself, “gotta keep the legs warm,” you did a little jog in place to really sell the excuse.

tendou let out a soft chuckle, “okay cutie pie,” he ruffled your hair, “yo mira arriba por tu,” he spoke with a hidden lisp.

you bursted out laughing, “what did you say?” you smile up at him.

“well,” he crossed his arms, “i WAS TRYING to say i’ll watch from above, but i have missed more than a few of my duo lingo sessions,” he bites the inside of his cheek.

you let out another good chuckle before taking a breath, “mirare desde arriba,” You corrected him before giving him a pat on the back and then hurrying off to the center of the track field.

tendou stood there with a small grin on his face, his eyes reflecting a mix of amusement and contemplation—he released a deep, heavy sigh, burdened by the weight of his thoughts, yet still wearing that dreamy smile, “te apoyare,” he spoke in a low voice as he rested his body weight on the fence in front of him.

“y/n,” you heard a voice from behind you.

you turned around, why can’t i just take a few to breathe, the thought crossed your mind.

"hello," you spoke before even catching sight of the person speaking.

tsukishima.

tsukishima and you locked eyes for a few seconds. He grew even more nervous as you faced him. “um,” he choked, “can i..” he paused.

he realized how strange it would be to ask the question out of the blue so he cleared his throat and switched his beginning phrase, “you did good,” he complimented, and it felt extremely unusual on his end.

you let out a shy laugh as you grabbed your bicep and starting rubbing it slowly, “oh! thanks,” you blushed—you were only used to your friend’s complimenting you and they BARELY ever did.

“uhh, were you gonna ask something before?” you try to close the silence.

tsukishima was startled in his place, he kinda reminded you of a cat because it, “oh yeah, i was just gonna a–”

“Y/NNIEEE,” tendou cheered as he engulfed you in a spine crushing hug.

“tendou,” you grunt, “hey!”

as tendou released you, he began ranting about something that you didn’t mind giving attention to since you had your gaze on tsukishima, who was also glancing between you and tendou.

it had been a few before tendou had finally acknowledged tsukishima, “ohhh, blondie,” he teased, “what are you doing heeeere?” he questioned.

tsukishima was baffled, by tendou and the fact that he didn’t know how to answer that question. was he here for you? or because his friends drag him out? or support?

and did he just call those heathens his friends ??

tsukishima cringed before speaking, “my companions dragged me out,” he replied.

you sighed, “uhh anyways,” you interrupted, “i would like to be going home now,” you glimpsed between tendou and tsukishima.

“oh, that’s what i-” tsukishima attempted again.

“then come on n/nnie,” tendou wrapped his arm around your shoulders, “lemme walk you to your friends, i remember you and yaku live together,” tendou spoke in a know-it-all tone and tsukishima took it personally.

“you only know that because-”

tendou put his finger on your lips to shush you, “because i love you,” he grinned.

tendou turned to face tsukishima, “adios amigo,” he gave a big smile.

“oh yeah, yaku!” you call from the stove.

“yeah n/n?” he shouted.

“yamaguchi told me about a party at ours to celebrate the meet tonight, so we might have everyone over by 11,” you mumble the last bit, “is that okay?” you glance over your shoulder for a second before putting your eyes back on the food in front of you.

“of course hunny,” he pops his head back into the kitchen.

you smile at how sweet he was being because he always noticed when you felt yourself behaving differently because of how odd you felt. yaku always understood.

previous episode ‧₊* ‧₊ masterlist ⋆·˚ ༘ next season

CREDITS —

translations 🪇 : yo mira arriba por tu = i look up for you ; mirare desde arriba = i will watch/look from above ; te apoyare = i will support you ; adios amigo = goodbye friend

🗒️ : this is definitely my longest episode, so i succeeded my goal, ive spent all day writing this because ive been working for the past week 😭😭 this felt stressful but also like an escape. i have nothing else to say except now im tired 😭😭 ENJOY THIS EPISODE!!! last episode of season 1 !!! WOOOOOO !!!!! i hope this reaches beyond expectations !!!

🏷️ : @mjustag1rl @ast4rg1rl @empress-pug-pug @softpia @yuminako @kagtobis @tsukistopglazer @yessimo @spicana @juie13 @whosmarjj @spicyhyunn @g-l-1-t-c-h-3-r @gravetomb @wearecooler @punkhazardlaw @theycallmenanamisgirl @mimisweetz @zahrawr-writes-fanfics @jojo23allegra @rory-cakes @ghostgoosygoose @hycuye @walllflowerrrsss @axquella @brithedemonspawn

[nogoodsheepstealing-greatgrandma]

HOTD S1: Aegon serially rapes servant girls and watches flea bottom children fight in the pits for his entertainment - his own illegitimate child among them. We follow Ser Erryk and Arryk on a tour of the worst of Aegon in a Green-centric episode, dedicating a huge chunk of the episode to building up to Erryk's moral decision to back Rhaenyra as Queen instead, choosing her not just out of duty but out of a meritocratic comparison.

TG: B-But it's because his terminally ill evil dad didn't love him 🥺 And he doesn't know what rape is, it was just a misunderstanding! And WHY is it his responsibility to look after an illegitimate child he didn't want 🥺 ANYWAY this was just Mushroom slander the show is just anti-Green and pro-Black and what do you mean Daemon didn't kill his wife in the book? What do you mean Aemond killed Luke on purpose? What do you mean Alicent bullied a child? What do you mean Criston groomed a 7-year-old? Did MUSHROOM tell you that-

HOTD S2: Did you know Aegon cares about the SMALLFOLK? He cares about the SMALLFOLK. Have we mentioned how much Aegon cares about the SMALLFOLK yet? He really does care about the SMALLFOLK- and he's a really really really good dad-

TG: 😍 SEE he's trying really hard and he cares about the SMALLFOLK! 😍 I bet Rhaenyra doesn't care about the smallfolk (when Aegon lands HIS dragon I bet they don't run away screaming, they know Aegon has a nice friendly dragon who wouldn't hurt a fly and is a nice nuke, unlike other evil nuke dragons that the evil bad coloniser targs ride 😡). And he's such a good dad he loves his son so much he's a good dad - and when he was watching the flea bottom children fight for his entertainment he didn't know one of them was his child so that's alright then-

Meanwhile Aegon III and Gaemon Palehair: Are we a joke to you?

Queen Alicent had reluctantly agreed to the betrothal of her granddaughter to Rhaenyra’s son, but she had done so without the king’s consent. Aegon II had other ideas. He wished to marry Cassandra Baratheon at once, for “she will give me strong sons, worthy of the Iron Throne.” Nor would he allow Prince Aegon to wed his daughter, and perhaps sire sons who might muddy the succession.

“Cut off one of the boy’s ears and send it to Lord Tully. Warn them he will lose another part for every mile they advance.” “Yes,” Aegon II said. “Good. It shall be done.”

“I mean to give the small folk peace and food and justice. If that will not suffice to win their love, let Mushroom make a progress. Or perhaps we might send a dancing bear. Someone once told me that the commons love nothing half so much as dancing bears. You may call a halt to this feast tonight as well. Send the lords home to their own keeps and give the food to the hungry. Full bellies and dancing bears shall be my policy.”

King Aegon himself, when asked, put forward his cupbearer, Gaemon Palehair, reminding the regents that the boy had “been a king before.”

Aegon seemed to have only one companion he cared about. Gaemon Palehair, his six-year-old cupbearer and food taster, not only shared all of the king’s meals, but oft accompanied him to the yard, as Ser Gareth did not fail to note. As a bastard born of a whore, Gaemon counted for little in the court, so when Ser Gareth asked Lord Peake to make the lad the king’s whipping boy, the Hand was pleased to do so. Thereafter any misbehavior, laziness, or truculence on King Aegon’s part resulted in punishment for his friend. Gaemon’s blood and Gaemon’s tears reached the king as none of Gareth Long’s words ever had, and His Grace’s improvement was soon marked by every man who watched him in the castle yard, but the king’s mislike of his teacher only deepened.

"And if I will not, who will you punish, ser?” King Aegon shouted down at him. “You may beat poor Gaemon’s bones, but you will get no more blood from him.”