#i never wanted a scene like the casino scene in the show in the first place

[vicontheinternet]

Proud to say I'm one of the ppl who like the movies that don't want the casino scene from the movies in the show

[sabh0]

What's your opinion on the anime? I find it pretty funny, but I can't say that I am not disappointed to see so many scenes missing.

For exemple, I wanted to see Dazai cry laugh at Chuuya's young mistress act, show that it was a joke shared by both of them, rather than one made to us at the expense of Chuuya. They took a genuinely funny moment and made me cringe SO hard for no reason T^T

God i could go on for hours about how Bones ruined this series. I'm obviously thankful we have an anime adaptation but. Well just compare bsd anime to jjk one or smth and yeah.

I will be complaining more under the cut,,

First the overall writing choices:

-Deleting or changing skk scenes to the point im not even shocked when ppl think these two actually somehow hate each other.

-The way they portrayed Sigma. They deleted half of his personality and backstory. And just speedrunned the Sky Casino arc like if seeing that place was giving them nightmares. No wonder he gets mischaracterized now.

-Tachihara's internal conflict about belonging to either Port Mafia or The Hunting Dogs? Bones never heard about it. It's not like IT'S A VERY IMPORTANT PLOT POINT.

-Akutagawa's whole character in the anime is just 'edgy and angry and bad grr'. In the manga he had some 'kind' or even seelf-reflection moments that were ommited in the anime. Like where he realizes defeating Atsushi didn't satisfy him (ship fight, season 1). Or when he gives files about the orphanage Director to Atsushi and says he won't fight him today because he lost someone impirtant to him. Sskk vs Fukuchi fight?? No scene where Sskk r helping each other walk. Instead we get Akutagwa just pushing Atsushi away. Won't even start on that last smile that looked more like another angry expression.

-THE WAY THEY CHANGED "DAZAI'S ENTRANCE EXAM" INTO SOME CURRENT TIMELINE EPISODES. IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY LIKE. THIS NOVEL WAS SO GOOD. Showing both Dazai and Kunikida's characters and partnership so well. But no. Let's just??? Put Atsushi there. Let's delete the fact this thing happened 2 years ago. And let's delete everything that was actually important about it, too.

-also some changes in the Dark Era arc. Like. Lord. Dazai is so much more emotional in the novel. His expressions r described so well. But the anime either shows him from the back at those moments (him finding out Oda was almost killed by a sniper in Ango's room) or just deletes/changes the thing (Oda dying. This scene is so emotional in the novel. From the description u can tell Dazai was crying/on the verge of it as Odasaku died. But in the anime he looks calm and then we get a far aeay frame and he just. Gets up and that's it yeah.) They also deleted the scene of him visiting Oda's grave.

-The way they rushed seasons 4 and 5. Just to give us an episode that goes further than the manga and has the shittiest writing ever when it comes to skk's plan revelation (im so angry about this u guys have no idea. I sincerely believe that if this episode never came out, the manga would go differently bc there's no way that Asagiri who wrote things like Stormbringer suddenly thought that some dollar store vampire make up will fool a guy who's centuries old and literally lived next to vampires. But well!! Seems like these two speeches Dazai gave weren't important at all and now we can just forget about them yippiee)

I could definitely mention WAYY more examples of that but this is already long af. Like guys. I know u cant fit everything in an animated show. It takes time to make it and all but. Bro. The character's in the anime r so shallow compared to their original versions.

.

Now onto the artstyle of the anime.

Lord. U know? It was actually pretty in the first 2 seasons. The official arts at the time were also really nice to look at.

No idea what happened later. Why did Bones suddenly decide that those ugly turtle smiles r gonna become the main thing in the character design. Why so many fisheyes. Atp sometimes i look at the official art and i go oh lord even i could fix it. It really feels like they draw some characters ugly on purpose now (Chuuya being the main victim for unknown reasons).

Tho i must say they have their moments even now. Some last episodes of season 5 weren't really bad, especially the Meursault part (love them for animating Dazai and Sigma dancing so well. And for that 101 animation. And maybe for the heartattack they gave me with 109 and Chuuya shooting Dazai so many times.)

.

On some other things, i really like the music! Bsd openings and endings never miss,,,

[raelle-writing]

DFF Theory: Non's brother is White

Warning that this post will contain spoilers for episode 6 of DFF, spoilers under the break

One of my biggest unanswered questions about DFF right now is: Who is New? And will he play a role in the series in the future?

We don't KNOW that New will have a role in the series, of course, but he's talked about a lot. he could just be there to identify Non as the lesser child while New is the golden child, and show why Non feels like he can't talk to his parent about his problems...

So, what do we know about New?

1. Based on the family photos shown in episode 5, we can see that New is EITHER a couple of years older or a couple of years younger than Non. Non is in 11th grade, so that would make New either around 19 or 15.

2. We know he's studying abroad and his family is sending him money. We don't know where, or what age he is. It's implied that he's older by the comparison, but it's never said specifically (unless there's an honorific that isn't being translated into English). We also know that New needs a lot of monetary support wherever he is abroad, since Non's mom talks about taking out an emergency loan to send him more money.

So then, IF we assume New is part of the show, who is he? I'm going to go ahead and say he's not Phee because we know Phee is the ❤️, wants to be Non's BF, and he's not abroad.

So who does that leave?

The three people I can think of are Tan, Perth, and White.

Perth might be the most likely because we haven't seen much of him yet, but he IS in the background of some of the casino scenes. And maybe it's possible that Perth plays New, and New is actually not a good kid and is in with a gang but has his whole family fooled, and the reason he keeps having to ask for money is because he's in debt or keeps losing it...

But I don't think that's likely, so that rules out Perth.

Next is Tan, who is probably the most obvious choice. But I don't think the timeline makes sense, considering New would be older or younger than Non and Tan is in the same grade as the other main characters. So unless he was able to fake his name, age, and schooling records it would've been impossible for him to transfer into their school in the same year as the rest. It is possible that he could pull that off, but Non's family is shown to not have money, so I don't know how he could've pulled off faking those records. So IMO, Tan is out.

The last option is White, which I will say, DOES fit the timeline. If Non's brother New is actually younger than him and brilliant, he could be studying abroad in an advanced program, and it might also explain why his family keeps needing to send him money since he wouldn't be able to get a job if he was that young.

White is the youngest of the group since he calls everyone there "Phi" and at the beginning, the friend group teases Tee about "tricking kids." White also shows a lot of capability in tense moments, and is the one who is the best with technology.

White acts scared and cries a lot when the others are around, but when left to his own devices he steals the tape, watches it, finds a gun and steals it. He's also the one who is good with technology. He mentions in the first episode that he'll work on boosting the signal of their walkie talkie, which isn't a simple thing to do. He's good with computers, probably too good for his age.

I think that of all the people who we've seen so far in the show, White is the most likely to be Non's brother. The comparisons are a misdirect, so we wouldn't suspect him. White has Tee (who is the person who has screwed Non over the most so far) wrapped around his little finger from the beginning. He plays up being cute and helpless until the exact moment he needs to be capable, then he's capable as hell.

I'm not sure that New is going to play a part in this series, honestly. But if he shows up, I think White is the person who fits the bill best.

[rosepinks-world]

safe place| Simon Riley X Reader

Summary: After witnessing your first death on a mission, ghost comforts you in an odd way.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ

Blood.

It was everywhere. It covered the floor it covered your face, your hair, your uniform and it covered Ghost.

A soldier you and Ghost had been working with for the past month was dead.

Blown up by an enemy grenade.

All you could remember was your ears ringing and your heart aching. Ghost had grabbed your arm and you both set off running to the nearest safe house.When you’d arrived you rushed into the bathroom, Ghost followed immediately.

You both began stripping your now blood soaked uniforms and your clothes underneath. You both didn’t really care about being exposed in front of each other. You just wanted to wash off the blood of your dead friend.

But you seemed to want to more.

Ghost was used to seeing people die so he didn’t really care as much, but you were shaking, trying to pull off your uniform as quick as possible.

You were both in your underwear now and he still had his balaclava on. You both stood awkwardly staring at each other until you turned around allowing some privacy for him and he did the same.

You both stripped making sure to not turn around, yet you both wanted to. To just see what one another looked like properly, to know each other and feel content.

You both stepped into the bath still not facing eachother and the water quickly turned red

You tried to hold it in you really did but it was too much, too fucking much.

He heard your slight sniffles and began to internally curse. Fuck sake.

‘I’m so sorry sir, this is so unprofessional.’

Oh god he didn’t even care. Being professional was completely out of the window, you both were sitting naked in a bathtub for gods sakes.

‘This is my first loss on a mission I’m just not used to it.’

He found this rather funny. You two were so different. He knew loss, loneliness and grief better than he actually knew himself whereas you were the opposite. You’d never experienced loss like he had, until now and this was only the beginning.

He tilted his head up and leaned backwards pressing his large back against yours.

It surprised you.

Simon Riley showing affection?

You moved forward as you were still slightly unsettled, but then steadied your breathing and moved back into the contact.

‘I remember my first loss.’ He started.

‘I reacted like you, just less tears.’

You let out a breath through your nose smiling. You couldn’t laugh properly but you wanted to let Ghost know that what he’d said had cheered you up slightly.

‘It’s fucking miserable to say, but you just get used to it.’

You nodded, even though he couldn’t see you.

He then found himself acting with his heart rather than his head. Something he had not done in years.

You just had that affect on him.

He reached down into the now red water and grabbed your hand.

You flinched slightly, not expecting it but when you realised where you were and who you were with you felt safe.

Ironically.

You grabbed his hand back. And you both just sat in the tub for a few minutes.

To anyone else you would’ve looked crazy. Sat in a tiny, dirty bathtub, with blood stained water, back to back naked with your co worker holding hands.

But to the two of you it meant something.

It was a simple unspoken gesture but it made you two feel safe. And that’s all you both wanted to feel, for as long as you could feel.

Safe.

Whilst it seemed like the world around you was burning, you had each other and that’s all you needed.

(reminded me of this scene from casino royale.)

Happy new year!!

[zero-rabbit]

Pirated the percy jackson series and oh my god it is not that good.

Like I get that Rick doesn't like the movies but does he also not like fun?

There are multiple funny and realistic scenes that are cut. It makes Percy and the gang feel perfect and not like 14 year olds on their first quest.

And the casino scene. Is. Bad.

Because Percy immediately notices that something is up and they leave. Which means the Lotus Casino just sucks at its job. If the kid that's been a demigod for a week immediately knows some things up.

And it's not through a bunch of kids wearing outdated fashion (because that requires a character to not look modern in the mystical hotel that traps you) he just knows immediately (and Luke's backstory is given in this episode. Instead of later when Luke is the traitor. Because putting it there makes too much sense)

It is a running theme that Percy knows everything about every threat immediately. Which is stupid. If there is no unknown threat there is no point.

Myths are built on a threat that you do not understand. Especially Greek myths. And to have every character that encounters a threat to figure it out instantly is bad.

Because there is no tension.

There is no how will they get out? How will they win? Because they already know the exact threat they're facing. They already know what exactly to do to win. It feels cheap.

Now the movies are not the best (I don't think they're like the worst thing to come out of the franchise. I actually enjoy them) but at least they were fun.

The Lotus Casino was fun. Sure our characters were being drugged but at least it was fun. Poker face was playing and you could understand wanting to stay there forever.

But by trying to erase the movies completely and not learn what did and didn't work in them the show suffers.

You know how everyone says those that erase history are doomed to repeat it. Well that's not entirely true. By erasing everything from your failure you may have erased the failures shortcomings but you also erased it's strengths.

I have more fun watching the inaccurate movies than the accurate tv show.

Because the movies weren't trying to be the complete opposite of a perceived failure. They were just being some inaccurate fun.

And I think the tv show could learn from the movies. Instead of pretending the movies never ever mattered.

[rxyhiraeth]

thoughts on pjo ep 6

also SPOILERS FOR PJO

i’m just kinda getting all my thoughts out on this episode! it was very interesting and VERY different from the books but not in a terrible way! i trust uncle rick with this show and im more so just curious why some things were changed from the books so much, and im sure a lot of these are going to be answered themselves in these last 2 episodes.

i also love hearing everyone’s ideas about what is going to happen from this point on cause ik even book fans are LOST

no zebra moment! i can’t think of any other moments in TLT that would give us time to learn about percy being able to talk to them, so this is probably going to get brought up for the first time with the hippocampi in SOM which actually works out. i would have loved to see this scene, but i can get that it would have taken up a good chunk of time, and for production reasons probably had to be skipped for now or entirely cut from the season.

clarisse?? traitor?? *LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER NOISE* i have my thoughts on why they did this, but also not?? i figured they did this to balance out the conversation percy and annabeth have with hermes about luke in order to take some attention away from it as to not make it TOO obvious he is the real traitor, but also why even have that conversation about luke in the first place then?? idk. i’m not sure if this is something that will be explained or make more sense with the rest of the season, and if not, i hope uncle rick can explain why this choice was made. there are so many choices in this episode that i would love to hear explained as to why they decided on it!

going off the last point, i do feel like they are slightly forcing the luke is the traitor point for the audience. we never got this much about luke in the books while they were on their quest, and even when he was talked about, nothing really pointed in the direction of him being the traitor. maybe im just an idiot but i remember the luke reveal being pretty shocking! i hope they don’t force it too much and allow everyone to guess it before the reveal even happens! maybe this is just me wanting it to be just like the books, but i guess they do need to hint at it here and there in ways the books didn’t?

also am a little weary about the “old married couple” comment. i hope they don’t speedrun their relationship. this is a SLOWBURN i hope it stays this way!

i get not having poker face in the casino. rick HATES those movies and probably wants to make this as different as possible while still being accurate to the books. honestly tho, dua lipa was a good ass choice. i can’t complain about that.

HELLO I HEAR NICO!!!!

also CAMP JUPITER CAMPERS???? MAYBE???

besides being confused as to why the casino scene itself was pretty different from the books, it was a great event regardless. extremely well produced and was so fun to look at and watch for little details with everyone in the background. that being said, i was hoping for a bit more of a montage type scene. percy and annabeth didn’t get to have any real fun like in the books, it was mostly all grover. i don’t really know shit about production of tv shows and such, but i’m shocked the casino scene was changed this much from the book. but uncle rick i trust you wholeheartedly.

i did love them using the casino card to get a taxi to santa monica, but the hermes taxi in this was better. i was giggling the whole time. percy “i fought and killed a minotaur how hard can driving be” jackson my sweet child. and percy running the taxi into the damn wall because he was busy looking at annabeth??? love them so much

the only two things that REALLY confused me as they are changing major plot points:

1: 4 pearls?

2: the solstice is OVER??

the 4 pearls defeats the whole purpose of them arguing about who is going to stay in the underworld. either this plot point is going to change a lot, OR they are going to lose one of the pearls on the way, but if that is the case, what’s the point of giving them 4 if they are still going to end up with 3? i’m assuming it is going to be the former option, as getting 4 just to lose 1 for the sake of it doesn’t make much sense.

solstice??? over??? i’m very confused on this. this feels like it defeats the whole purpose of continuing the quest, but obviously percy is still determined to get sally (king), so we aren’t just ending the quest. i’m curious to see how these two plot points effect the rest of the season and why these were chosen instead of keeping the original plot!

overall i did really like this episode!! obviously it was very different from the book, but we can’t expect this entire show to be EXACTLY like the book. i would love to hear rick talk about a lot of the choices made throughout the season and why they were done. he has seemed very proud of this show and how it has played out, so i trust him with whatever he decides to do with it.

also if you have thoughts on the reasoning behind any of these changes PLS I WANNA KNOW

[rustedpipe]

things that happened on degrassi but i make them about riverdale

they had cheryl say cuckoo bananas one time, zig novak was heraldo, and also vanessa morgan was mike dallas's baby mama so like clearly there's existing connections here. and just like riverdale and degrassi writers-- i love putting characters into situations. so. without further ado..... things that happen on degrassi (tng & next class) that should've happened on riverdale.

betty pelts dodgeballs at jughead during gym class after he is vague about going on a date or not

dolly zoom on archie's face as fred says "your mom is gay"

betty and gay kevin have a fight while filming a fake commercial for unisex cologne for class

^ this with gay kevin

reggie does elaborate business deals with locker trading so that veronica can have the best one

archie sending veronica flowers with a card that says ”you rock! xoxo archie”

jughead choking and needing the heimlich but refusing to let gay kevin give him the heimlich because it would mean gay kevin has to touch him.

betty getting into an actual violent physical fight with blood with a random girl at school

^ okay go watch this video right now you only need to watch like the first minute exactly. the rest is completely optional. i have several scenarios in mind here:

- idea one is gay kevin having issues with fangs for the billionth time and so when in doubt kiss archie? - idea two is something jarchie related either betty or veronica is the dylan here . - IDEA THREE IS DYLAN=JUGHEAD GAY MARCO=ARCHIE. SO WHEN IN DOUBT KISS REGGIE?! - but also. the very first episode of riverdale is veronica so when in doubt you kiss betty. okay like realistically the scene is not like that but i think they shouldve let betty say "so when in doubt you kiss betty." for me personally. she would not fucking say that but i want her to

veronica and jughead go to the college admissions fair while extremely high.

RAS plays a similar role to kevin smith and gives advice to cheryl about being gay

kangs toxic poker game. what more can i say

veronica: as you and jughead’s closest friends- jughead: oh actually i don’t really like you. veronica: SHH!

natasha bedingfield performs at prom. archie gets to dance his heart out and cry a little to unwritten. and pocket full of sunshine woah oh

toni gets so much into vampire books that she makes out with cheryl and thinks about vampires too hard and bites her on the neck (this would be a great reference to vanessa morgan's time on another canadian teen show my babysitter's a vampire and also i think we should let toni be a little crazy for fun)

lgbt mixer at la bonne nuit. nothing crazy happens on the degrassi episode but i just wish it had happened on riverdale. like maybe veronica and kevin sing same love or born this way. (again that did not happen on degrassi just using the fact they did an lgbt mixer at the teen speakeasy as a jumping off point.)

when jughead gets hired by tabitha at pops, he immediately burns down the restaurant. they then go to a casino in niagra falls and get vegas-style married

cheryl adopts a pig (that later destroys her house) instead of coping with being alone

reggie attends a meeting about homophobia brought on by locker room bullying and someone explains the definition of internalized homophobia and he says out loud "im a homophobe" and starts crying

jughead poisons bret with stuff that makes you throw up. this involves cups being switched and a reference to roman history (but in the riverdale version betty supports and enables it)

jughead writes a story about a girl getting stalked who has a protective boyfriend trying to stop it but he makes the ending be that the boyfriend realizes he can never protect her from the stalker so he kills her. and betty is like dude um what that is insane. and hes genuinely like what it's just a story. later jughead ends up still not being able to figure out an ending and burns the script on stage while having a breakdown

they have to build rube goldberg machines for class. it doesnt matter who i just want this to be something

fp and alice wedding where bughead break up and get back together like five times about it

core four smokes weed during 2x14 The Hills Have Eyes (degrassi had an episode where teens were unsupervised in a cabin. Just Like.)

gay kevin does a gay musical production of romeo and juliet.

some film guy that jughead adores comes and does a guest lecture and so in order to impress the guy he smokes weed with chic and makes a terrible insane short film to show said film guy

timeskip jughead does mdma at an artsy party where people are very high and painting with their bodies on the walls and floors. in order to avoid his problems.

gay kevin wears a beret at least once

^ bughead texts

veronica sings triangle tra la le la by patsy cline while in the midst of one of her 'reggie or archie' moments

betty gets really into axe throwing with lesbians (the pretty poisons) in the woods

unfortunately i cannot find a video uploaded of gay tristan performing it but. gay kevin voice riverdale you make drama look! so! good!

veronica trying to tank her father's mayoral campaign by being gay with betty and outing hiram as a homophobe

reggie: for the last time i'm not gay. or homophobic. just missing my best bro....

jughead won't shut up in class so cheryl cuts off some of her hair and then asks jughead to hold the scissors for a sec. and then she raises her hand and tells the teacher jughead cut her hair

beronica has a heartfelt moment about admitting feelings for each other and in the middle of it reggie walks up to them with saddest look on his face and says "am i hotter than archie? be honest. actually don't." and then walks away

veronica comes out to avoid political backlash and the word gets around to hermione who tries to comfort her by saying "no one's gonna believe you're gay. it happens to all powerful women. even hillary"

cheryl and veronica have a fake trial in class over twitter beef

cheryl auditions for a boy part in a play directed by gay kevin. gay kevin initially says no, but cheryl points out that it should be about relating to the pain of the character, not gender. gay kevin agrees and says that he is going to play the part himself because no one understands what he's going through better than him, right?

i'm constructing a reality where fangs is dating gay kevin when he is in the infamous bus crash but instead of dying he goes into a coma. and gay kevin is loyally by his bedside until he snaps like three months in and hooks up with moose. the night he does that, fangs wakes up from said coma.

veronica, speaking to reggie: even though we're a toxic couple, i really miss you and i want our break to be over.

betty has a terrible reaction to weed and someone finds her sadly eating slices of bread from a bag saying “i thought the bread would make me less high but it isnt working”

and finally, and crucially, they should've done a shark in the water style promo for at least one of the seasons. thanks for tuning in.

[heavenbelongstociaran]

me and my wilmon playlist

i like to think of myself as the second coming of christ when it comes to making playlists right, and i have this completely reasonable in length young royals playlist and i feel like i nailed it, in terms of the general vibe of the show AND scene specific themes.

ANYWAY, the reason i'm bringing it up is because i think there are a few songs that are very season specific that are in there.

season 1: visions of gideon by sufjan stevens

I KNOW everyone and their mother would agree that this song is very tragically wilmon.

"I have loved you for the last time

Is it a video? Is it a video?

I have touched you for the last time

Is it a video? Is it a video?"

giving very much episode six, when simon and wille were saying goodbye just before wille left for the palace. even though simon was being reassuring, comforting and encouraging (calling him brave, saying the royal court couldn't force him to do something he didn't want to do), wille (imo) didn't seem to believe him. and i think the way they kissed just made it seem like wille had already made his mind up, even though he said that he wouldn't lie about the video. it felt like he knew he was going to do it, and that it would inevitably be the end of the relationship, hence the lyrics being "i have loved/touched you for the last time."

honourable mentions include:

i'm your man by mitski

on and on by djo

favourite crime by olivia rodrigo

love in the dark by adele

it almost worked by tv girl

hurts me too by faye webster

take me home by pinkpantheress

let light be light by lizzy mcalpine

season 2: crack baby by mitski

gonna start with the honourable mentions first because there are loads:

i loved you by sunday cruise

thursday girl by mitski

why didn't you stop me by mitski

capable of love by pinkpantheress

genuinely, there are so many more but these are the ones that popped into my head as i was scrolling through the playlist.

you know that one saying that's like, "you never know how good you had it until it's gone" or however it goes? that's how season 2 felt.

both simon and wille were trying to recreate what they had or could have had with other people (marcus and felice, respectively) and realised that that would be impossible.

"Crack baby, you don't know what you want But you know that you had it once And you know that you want it back Crack baby, you don't know what you want But you know that you're needing it And you know that you need it bad"

said realisation definitely hurt wille incredibly, considering he said he wished it hadn't happened. it made him realise what life could be like, but he threw that away because he thought he was doing the right thing by denying the video ("protecting" simon). i actually have no idea how to explain this but like, trust me bro.

season 3: too many to name.

heaven by mitski. these fuckers were so in love this season, it was quite sickening (/affection). thinking about season three wilmon makes me want to cry, ignoring their communication issues, and other things that had a negative impact on their relationship.

a part of that by anna kendrick. HERE ME OUT. so, the song is from the movie adaptation of the play "the last five years" and anna's character, kathy, is watching her husband succeed and do all these amazing things in his life and is wondering where she fits into all of it. in season three and maybe the whole series, there's the topic of where the big five fit into the society or positions they're placed in and their positions in each other's lives. wille's struggle w/the monarchy and wanting out, august wanting in (for example).

dark circles by ryan beatty. this has simon written all over it.

casino by ryan beatty.

capable of love by pinkpantheress. goes with what i yapped about regarding season two. whenever they break, or rather when simon breaks up with simon, they seem to feel like this is the be all, end all of everything and that they won't love anyone ever again. in capable of love, pinkpantheress is saying that people pretend that the bond that she has with her love interest doesn't exist, ie people ignoring the fact that simon and wille were together at one point and only acknowledging wille when he got with felice BUT she also says that that doesn't matter, considering everything they went through to get to where they are now. she goes on to say that she'll never be able to love anyone the same way if they were to ever break up and i think that, throughout the series, this has shone through.

ribbons by ryan beatty. https://genius.com/31122186/Ryan-beatty-ribbons/Whos-gonna-hold-you-while-you-sleep-well-its-brave-to-be-nothing-to-no-one-at-all

little faith by ryan beatty!!!!!! (quite frankly, the entire album, Calico.)

general

there are a lot of songs that could encompass the show. capable of love. literally any loyle carner song about struggling with your identity and familial relationships and breaking cycles (polyfilla). sufjan stevens (mystery of love, everything that rises). so on and so forth. but wilmon and the young royals are not one dimensional enough to be described by one or eighteen songs, they're a whole catalogue. that playlist on paper is the most random thing i have ever crafted because fo&o, boygenius and brockhampton have no right to be in the same playlist, but hurt like we did, cool about it and any way want me absolutely deserve to be together; in a cool way, i think that's literally what simon and wille are like: on paper, they don't make sense. the crown prince of sweden, white and privileged and a gay brown boy from a small town who just happens to be an antimonarchist, but if you take that all away, they're two boys trying to find their place in the world, making mistakes.

feel free to give feedback and song recs !!!

playlist links:

apple music: https://music.apple.com/za/playlist/young-royals-but-i-made-the-soundtrack/pl.u-6mo4ZzvSBedVApW

spotify: (i haven't updated it on there in at least six months): https://open.spotify.com/playlist/25Pf9bDFBl6vtXOH9cvJC5?si=0b8a0ff36bb5435e

[metalandmagi]

The differences in Aspec representation

(and why variety is important) I didn't know what to title this, but since it's pride month, I wanted to talk about two books that I just read and the different approaches they take to aspec representation....mainly because no one I know would read these and I just wanted to talk about them lol

Book 1: Attached at the Hip by Christine Riccio.

This is a New Adult romcom where our main character, an extremely co-dependent 23 year old woman named Orie competes in a Survivor type reality TV show to prove to her family that she is totally not co-dependent (and you know, to win the prize money and stuff).

This book is what I like to call "accidental" or "sneaky" aspec rep. What the fuck does that mean, you ask? I call it that because the author includes a scene in the book where Orie is talking to another character about her view of romance, and the other character makes the comment that it seems like Orie is demisexual or demiromantic or aspec. And since Orie is not the kind of person who thought to ever google her sexuality, we're kind of just left to sit with that. So even though the main character never calls herself demi, the readers know that she is. And more importantly, the themes in this book are so attuned to the aspec experience it's not even funny.

Remember how I said Orie is co-dependent? Well, the main conflict of this book is Orie coming to terms with being able to do things by herself and struggling with the fear that her family and friends will all abandon her one day because she feels like a perpetual burden or third wheel. She wants to find her perfect fairytale romance, but she has a hard time connecting with people that way, so for a while she thinks it's best to stay with her boyfriend that she clearly feels nothing for, just because she feels like she's supposed to. By the end of the book, Orie feels like she must pivot into being able to do EVERYTHING by herself because she might be forced to eventually. Sound familiar? I can't speak for everyone, but this is something most aspec people struggle with their entire lives. Yes allo people can have this fear too, but I feel like it hits us differently. Because the world doesn't treat platonic friendships as importantly as it should, and because we don't view romance or sex the same way as most people, we are left with that fear of exclusion all the time!

This book is the aspec experience, whether the author intended it to be or not, and it actually hit me much harder than I thought it would because I was completely blindsided by it. It's a super funny, heartwarming romcom, especially for fans of Survivor. I loved it because it made me feel even more seen than a coming-of-age grapple with sexuality like Loveless did. And I don't even know if it was on purpose. I've followed Christine Riccio for a very long time, and idk if she is some form of demi, but her characters and themes (even in her other books) make it seem that way.

Book 2: Aces Wild by Amanda Dewitt.

As you can probably guess, this book is completely, unapologetically ace in its representation. The plot revolves around a group of aspec teenagers who rob a casino in Vegas. Which means that yes, it's basically a modern AU Six of Crows fanfic where the author wondered, "What if Kaz Brekker grew up as the rich heir to a casino empire?"

I promise I don't mean that like an insult, because I actually liked the book a fair bit, especially the writing style. It's hilarious and fast paced, and as someone who is extremely familiar with casinos, this is the kind of book that makes me angry because I should have written it first.

The thing about this book compared to Attached At The Hip is the fact that the characters are aspec is completely irrelevant to the story. AND THAT IS TOTALLY OKAY! AUTHORS DO NOT OWE IT TO PEOPLE TO MAKE EVERY QUEER STORY A COMING-OF-AGE STRUGGLE WITH SEXUALITY! This book is a fun romp, and the fact that the characters are aspec doesn't really make a difference to anything at all. The main character still has a crush, and there is still romance just like any typical YA romcom. HOWEVER, my only real problem with this book stems from the side characters feeling like cardboard cutouts with no reason to feel like they're all friends. Their interactions aren't bad, but the book relies on the fact that our main group is all aspec to convince the audience why they're friends. We get a little bit of backstory about how they're all nerds who met in a chat room, but not much depth to them. There are too many side characters and too few pages for anyone (except the main character) to feel fleshed out. It's because of this that it feels like the aspec rep is sort of...an afterthought. I don't know if the author is aspec (and it shouldn't matter either way) but I don't like it when characters (especially ace characters) feel like afterthoughts. We get enough of that in real life.

But that doesn't change the fact that this is the only book I've read (or media I've encountered in general) where the majority of the characters are aspec. It's a hilarious good time, and this type of low stakes representation is just as important! It's important to show that aspec people exist without needing to fit a "coming to terms with your sexuality" kind of narrative.

So yeah, this was just my excuse to get my thoughts in order, and to try and convince people to read these 😅

[dflogerzi]

Okay here goes. My Mikhail Baryshnikov Story.

Full disclosure... I am not a huge fan. I adored Rudolf Nureyev who was not as gifted as Baryshnikov technically when I saw them... but he could enter a stage, strike a pose and he was all art. I was so honored to meet him. He would just hang out and talk to anyone. What a man he was. Soooo... the story will start when I first started seriously dancing. A bit later than most. 

Before I enlisted in the Navy I spent two years as a cocktail waitress at Harrah’s Casino in South Lake Tahoe. I know right? Like who does that? OMG I have a ton of stories about those two years. Anyway, I had always sort of danced. But here is what happened to me. There was a show called Bedazzle, and I had made friends with someone in the show. They actually had a daily ballet class... because, ballet is the root of everything. They invited me, I braved it and showed up. These were professional dancers mind you. And they welcomed me. I went immediately on pointe. We all just paid for the studio time by putting a dollar in a jar and I am not kidding. 

To let you all know... The show moved to Reno and the dancers wanted me to try out and go with them. I chose a more serious path. I have never regretted it. 

So after I got out of the Navy I continued to take classes. And I taught ballet as well. I one day found out about tryouts at the Shrine Auditorium for extra work for American Ballet Theatre. I was going there as if my life depended on it. Ballet mad. So I went, and what.....? They hired me. I did it for three years folks. And loved every second. I have so many stories. But you are here for the funny one with Mikhail.

So here it goes. No wait... I have a funnier story first of when he yelled at me. Yes I got yelled at by him. How funny is that? You have not lived fully unless Baryshnikov has yelled at you. So this one first. I was in a rehearsal for the ballet Sleeping Beauty. There was this scene where we had umbrellas. And we had been told to drop them and close them BEHIND us. OMG. I kept dropping mine and closing it in front of me. I got a Russian chewing out believe me. He was the artistic director and I was not making him happy. ha.

So here is the story of me almost knocking the man down. This was Sleeping Beauty third act. I was dressed in this Marie Antoinette style of gown. I think I was hired those years for my body style. So I had this gown, we got these huge wigs, and then feathers on the top. I would have been welcomed in Versailles. This one performance I was late, blame it on the dresser. At the Shrine there is this small door between the stage and a backstage type room. I think it is where they held banquets once upon a time for the Oscars etc... So I am late for my call and rushing and boom... I ran into Baryshnikov straight in the doorway, in all my towering glory... and he bounced off me. 

So embarrassing. 

I am Forrest Gump. Yep. I have more stories. Forgive me for it. Going to post this and if there is mistakes in spelling etc. sorry. I try to do good work. x

[abooklover]

Rewatching the first two episodes of the Percy Jackson series for like the fifth time like any sane person and just wanted to make a comprehensive (and I mean comprehensive so bear with me here) list of all my thoughts, however unhinged they may be so here goes.

EPISODE 1

Walker’s monologue at the beginning gives such great background and I’m not gonna lie it destroyed me hearing ‘look I didn’t want to be a half-blood’ as the first words. Not to mention the fact that half of that monologue is pretty much word for word from the book which is something I die over whenever it happens

Blackjack looking out for Percy - we love a bit of foreshadowing

The light that comes into the picture when he says things changed when he met Grover. This is literally everything to me, I am so glad even just in the first two episodes they’re showing how strong of a bond they have. Also let’s not forget that they have Mythomagic cards

Sally Jackson (my goddess) imparting words of fucking wisdom - ‘not everyone who looks like a hero is a hero and not everyone who looks like a monster is a monster’

Also her explaining to Percy the story of Perseus (his name sake) - like I am sorry but the centring of the mother/son relationship which only amplifies once Percy loses her is something I don’t know how to explain how much I love (like her even prays to her over his father who is a literal god but we’ll get to that later). ‘hold fast Perseus, brave the storm that was made to break us for we are unbreakable as long as we have each other’ 😭

‘hang on to that, it is a mighty instrument’ - oh yeah it is

Grover spouting scientific facts about bullying - ‘childhood trauma, feelings of inadequacy’ - like he’s written a research paper on it 🤣

Percy and Grover swapping things on their sandwich like they’re siblings

‘I was thinking more like shoving Nancy in the nearest dumpster’ and there mischievous smile afterwards - oh I love you Percy

Grover saying ‘If there’s one thing I know about bullies, you should never stand up to them’ and Percy saying ‘that doesn’t sound right’

I was a little underwhelmed with the whole Mrs Dodds encounter. I don’t know I think I just expected something longer and with the whole drama of Mr Brunner throwing Percy the pen but I think maybe in hindsight it makes more sense cause it’s easier to convince Percy that it didn’t happen

Gotta say that the first time I watched the scene in the principals office I did not even realise Rick was in it but now I can’t not see him

Grover ‘betraying’ Percy was heartbreaking cause you know Grover doesn’t want to do it but knows that he has to and you know that Percy feels like he has lost the only friend he had

Actually really glad that Eddie is a nice sympathetic guy not one of Gabe’s poker buddies

Still disappointed by Gabe - I still think he needed to be a bit more grimy and disgusting (and the way he talks in the scene was just not right for me, don’t know whether it was the acting or the script but it was a no from me). Though Percy’s ‘Losing at imaginary poker’ line was funny

Logical and Sally Jackson. That is all. Just know that I actively sob every time I watch this. Also her sitting in the rain so contentedly will never not hit me, on a personal level knowing how certain things can just provide peace and an escape from life otherwise but also more contextually with her and Poseidon (bottom line: water is the ultimate comfort)

Of course Sally believes Percy and brings him blue candy. Keeping the most important themes of the book. The mother-son bond (which I will to more later) and the blue

I always thought Brunner was pronounced runner but with a b in front of it

D’Angelo’s - yes I will take any peace of nico that I am given (fingers crossed for the lotus casino scenes)

My kin sally Jackson crying in a car while watching her son sleep knowing what lies ahead, nope sorry but I’m not okay and neither is she

‘You fell in love with god, like-like Jesus?’ - oh Percy my love. If nothing else this is who Percy Jackson is.

Percy fully believing that something is wrong with him because that’s what he’s always been told

‘What is he doing here, I don’t want to see him’. Grover and his impeccable timing and panic. Don’t get me started on why I think the ‘You didn’t tell him about me?’, ‘You’re early’ exchange between Grover and Sally is the funniest thing to me.

‘Why is there half a goat in your pants?’ and ‘Why is it wearing underpants?’ - Percy asking the important questions here

I honestly don’t know how they didn’t figure out Percy was Poseidon’s son after the whole Nancy no of it and then Clarissa like it was quite obvious

‘I’m actually 24’ oh Grover we know you bleat when you’re anxious

Sally’s goodbye to Percy - I am a sucker for sadness

I do agree that riptide should be bigger but the only thing I can think is that maybe it’ll grow with him

EPISODE 2

‘You drool when you sleep’ the iconic line. It kinda disappointed me not going to lie.

PETER JOHNSON-pretending to be Percy’s father-PETER-using Percy to break the rules Dionysus introduction and pipeline (oh he is horribly perfect)

‘Yeah but did you’ persassy is in the house and I hope he never leaves (one of my favourite lines and the way walker delivers it is perfection)

Camp looks incredible. I know people have issues with the grandeur of it all but that’s the way things work in the film industry and I personal adore it

And can we talk about Chiron’s injured back leg. Like am I forgetting something (probably) but I don’t remembered him being injured

For those who don’t know, finding out that like is the bad guy is probably gonna destroy them. Charlie bushnell really was like I’m gonna make everyone love me only for them to be crushed (and even though I know I am still gonna hurt - yes I have a soft spot for Luke)

I was so confused when Grover went into the woods and saw the council (it was the only part that I was like what in the world is this, this wasn’t in the books)

Luke being the one the comfort Percy and show him around - oh a genius choice narrative wise but I do miss my girl Annabeth

Introduction to Clarisse was everything - Dior is my goddess

‘Should I try again’ and the resounding ‘NO!’

‘Is there a Greek God of disappointment. Maybe someone should ask him if he’s missing a kid’ - Percy Percy Percy stop making me love you more than I already do like I don’t think my heart can take it

Then Chris’s lovely little tangent and Luke going man why the fuck are you saying this and reassuring Percy - you go storyline building up the loveable Luke (I’m already hurting)

‘They like the smell of begging’ - top teir line

‘You burn what you’re gonging to miss the most’ flash forward to Percy taking this and burning his blue candy praying, not to his father who is an actual god, but to his mother (I cannot handle this, like this kid knows that his mum is the real goddess)

Walker’s voice breaking on ‘well’ - I am sobbing

And the fact that he says he made actual friends - the narrative damning us to inevitable torture

The resentment in his voice when talking about his father - I am so glad they leaned into this

I kinda loved the bathroom scene. And how we are first introduced to Annabeth in this and how she is her blunt self (still don’t know how they could not have known)

Like calling Annabeth his little sister and saying he will always be on her side (I am hurting even more - we never get to see Luke’s perspective in the books and this, this absolutely ruined me)

Pronunciation of Thalia is still going to take some getting used to

Chiron forever in that suit jacket and fence is just not sitting right with me - doesn’t fit the whole trainer of warrior vibe he should be giving

‘Not you sunshine’ - honestly better than seaweed brain

Percy tripping over the branch and Annabeth just standing there and her facial expression (on Leah you are everything)

‘When it’s time he’s going to be ready. I know it.’ Cut to a montage of Percy doing the most 12 year old things possible, including but not limited to flossing (which I thought was kind of out of place and cringe) and petting a random gecko (which I thought was out of place but one of the most hilarious things ever so I’ll give it a pass) while his helmet and weapons lay discarded

Percy I thought you were meant to be proving yourself to your dad to get his attention or something, telling people where the flag is to avoid a fight is not exactly how to do that

Honestly any time Dior is on my screen is a good time - her manic laugh and anguished scream Dior is the moment

Annabeth’s bluntness will always be everything to me - ‘listen, Percy, I’m sorry’ and Percy’s ‘what is wrong with you’ (top five moments of the show)

The reveal - Percy Jackson son of Poseidon

‘I am Sally Jackson’s son’ yeah you tell them Percy (you will always be first and foremost Sally Jackson’s son)

[magnorious]

Review: ‘We Take a Zebra to Vegas’, Percy Jackson Episode 6

***Spoilers Ahead for all books and show. TL;DR at the bottom***

After episode 5 I was starting to wonder if episode 3 was a fluke. Here we have the potential for the only non-book reference I wanted in the entire show: Would Nico cameo in the Lotus Casino?

Small, I know, but book fans were robbed of ever seeing him on screen once already when Titan’s Curse was never adapted and with his massive popularity, I was almost certain he’d be here. The closer we got to the Lotus Casino, however, the more I wanted to be wrong. Almost none of the characters look like they’re supposed to, many of them with inconsistent personalities to match. I went from hoping for a blink-and-you’ll miss it reference with a little scruffy 10-year-old that book fans would be able to tell is Nico by his appearance alone to hoping they’d not touch the matter with a 10-foot pole.

After the absurdly dramatic and angsty episode 5 that was supposed to be semi-dangerous and funny, there was a chance to have both the whimsy and wonder of the Lotus Casino, and the rather chilling escape. Before that, the conversation about conservation in the back of the zoo trafficking truck. There was a lot of opportunity for more quiet character moments as well as the adventure and absolutely no need for more nonsense filler.

Onto the episode and given that Hermes is in the thumbnail, are we all in agreement that he only exists here because he’s played by Lin Manuel Miranda? That’s the reason, right? He barely exists in the first book otherwise.

We start right off the bat with more interesting changes. Instead of IM-ing Luke in some random car wash, they do so in the zoo truck. The scene in the book was funnier, because it existed in the place that it did to be funny and the pay-to-pump water gave a clear time limit. But more importantly – they decided to scapegoat Clarisse… for reasons.

Why? Just why? In the book they spend 99% of their quest accusing the wrong person, Hades, and don’t realize they’re wrong until it’s too late. Everyone in the book was like “it’s Hades, it’s gotta be, his kids were Nazis” (a detail I still can’t believe exists, wow). Chiron said it was Hades, everyone said it was Hades, based on ancient biases that Hades spends the entire series proving wrong. He is the best godly parent by a country mile by the end of Book 5 and all of that groundwork started here, when Hades was just as much a victim of the Master Bolt nonsense as everyone else.

Clarisse is neither here nor there, because the writers didn’t have the foresight to script or film any scenes at camp of this random arrest that’s supposed to be important now. The jump cut from ‘the animals have a plan’ to them stopping traffic on the Vegas strip was funny, but it robbed the scene of the seriousness it should have had. More powers Percy doesn’t get: His ability to talk to horses and horse-adjacent animals.

Once they make it to the Lotus Casino, the script does this incredibly irritating thing where it removes the tension of the unknown from every hurdle they meet. Percy’s trapped alone against a mysterious monster in the book and has no idea how to beat it? Nope, Annabeth exposits all over it. They enter a seemingly-abandoned, mortal waterpark and only get suspicious once it’s too late? Nope, Annabeth figures out immediately that it’s a godly amusement park and they must be careful. Two twelve year olds and a satyr are immediately charmed by the glitz and glam of the lotus casino and get trapped for almost the rest of their time limit for the quest? Nope, Grover exposits all over that, too, ruining the mystery and any danger or threat.

Why?

The show also does the irritating thing where it creates problems just to solve them later and before you go “that’s the point of conflict” I mean it creates meaningless problems through meaningless contrivances, like every horror movie cliche that forces its characters to make illogical choices so they don’t just run away from the horror.

And another irritating thing! Spoiling bigger mysteries before their time: We didn’t learn about May Castellan until book 5. Why is this here? What purpose does this serve? Percy realizing he didn’t even know Luke’s last name for five whole years meant something to him. Seeing Luke’s tragic, mortal mother, after hating him for five years *means something* to Percy and to the readers. The gods damned Lotus Casino was absolutely not the place to discover any of this. Why did they do this?

Also, who tf is Augustus? He’s fine. Grover’s random side quest is fine. Every consecutive episode leaves me more and more annoyed with him, but it’s *fine*.

They do actually forget their purpose in the casino, thank the gods. Or, Grover does. Annabeth continues to give away May Castellan exposition like Halloween candy, smack-talking Hermes in a way that she’d never dare at 12 years old. Hermes is still only here because he’s played by Mr. Miranda. He’s fine, he’s just not Hermes. His “woe is me, loving mortals is so damn hard” speech exists. The sentiment is four books early, but it exists.

I understand why it’s here. They’re trying desperately to capture Percy’s internal conflict over whether or not the gods and his dad care about him, if he should let himself be disappointed presuming that they don’t. Problem is– in the book, Poseidon didn’t send a naiad to give him false promises of a clandestine meeting. In the book, the naiad told Percy there’d be a vague “gift” in Santa Monica, and Percy was never naive enough to think that gift would be his dad.

The entire season so far has tried to give nuance to both sides of the “do the gods care and should they be expected to” argument and it’s just not a very well written attempt. Why? Because it had five entire books to give both sides, and they’re shoving as much of it as they can here like they’re afraid they won’t get renewed for season 2. In doing so, they’ve made a tonal mess.

Once Hermes is gone and done randomly and spitefully sabotaging their quest, Percy, unseen, figures out that they’ve lost time and lost Grover. Also, Annabeth pick-pocketed the God of Thieves? Funny, but no. The script has its weird Mitichlorian moment sciencing lore by adding in the detail that lotus nectar or whatever is pumped in through the air, a question no one had and a plot hole that didn’t exist.

They do manage to keep the fear and unsettling realization that they’ve lost time, but their amnesia is inconsistent and confusing, considering that they overexplained how the casino works. Then they’re gone using a God of Thieves’ Car gimmick.

No Nico, thank the gods, unless he was one of the VR kids in the background. It would have been wonderful to see him in a better script.

In the book, they get instantly dazzled by the food, the video games, the nice clothes, nice suite, all things Percy could never dream about growing up poor. There is no Hermes and he only figures out something’s wrong when he meets other kids displaced from time and has to shake Annabeth and Grover from the illusion. They use their casino cash cards with infinite money to hail a cab all the way to LA and it’s funny.

They create more problems that didn’t need to exist by forcing Percy to drive a taxi and okay, that was genuinely funny. I am shocked, though, that Annabeth’s pride let him drive.

The episode comes to an end with them supposedly by the Santa Monica Pier… in a thunderstorm. In southern California. Odd choice, but okay. I'd say the storm exists because Poseidon's pissed but I really think it's there beacuse "dark and stormy night" fit their new vibe better than bright sunlight.

Maybe in live action it was tricky trying to make him both dry underwater and still plausibly underwater and not just rotoscoped in with a hazy green filter. For all their love of exposition, they never actually told non-book watchers about that, or that he can breathe underwater and control some currents. It’s also supposed to be night time, and yet he’s lit as if it’s high noon far above on the surface – they could have just written the beach scene at noon.

Then the naiad he was supposed to talk to in St Louis drops the bomb that the Summer Solstice deadline already passed, Poseidon got too impatient to wait for Percy after the casino delay, and the gods are now at war.

What the fu…..?

Percy resolves to keep going despite armageddon already happening apparently. She gives him exactly the right amount of pearls that he needs, not three, which would force him to choose, and then cut to black.

—

How is the best part of this episode Annabeth’s completely deadpan and exasperated Dude when Percy asks her not to make fun of him? That, and Percy driving the taxi.

Once again, to all the set designers and VFX artists and costumes and makeup and foley and music and score and everyone in between – you’re amazing, keep up the great work. To the actors, you were given a bad script and bad direction and you did the best you could.

Having just come off watching Game of Thrones for the first time and seeing little Arya, Bran, and Rickon Stark’s actors doing donuts around these three just goes to show that it’s not that child actors’ lack of experience that’s the problem. Heck even Baby Percy is better than these three. It’s how much or how little help they get in conveying what they’re supposed to. These kids were thrown to the wolves.

I don’t watch the teasers and I stay away from all marketing for the show. I don’t know who’s been cast to play any characters we haven’t already seen so what Hades and Poseidon look like are a complete mystery that I do hope pays off.

With two episodes to go they have the following left from the book to adapt: Crusty’s water beds, the DOA studios, the entire trip to the underworld and Cerberus and Hades that took two hefty chapters, the Ares fight, Percy’s trip to Olympus, Luke's betrayal and reveal, and the return home to find Hades had paid his debt.

Suddenly the mini series with an episode to burn in St Louis has to sprint to the finish line.

Maybe if they hadn’t spent ten minutes expositing with Hermes they could have at least crammed in Crusty and the DOA, but it looks like armageddon is already upon us so who knows? They might’ve just tossed out the rest of the book to write their own ending.

TL;DR This show is a mess and this episode actually has me nostalgic for the brevity of the horrible movie because they didn’t even try and it’s fun to make fun of. This is just disappointment stretched out across seven hours instead of speedrun in 90 minutes. The skeleton of the book (mostly) remains intact and to all those who keep saying “at least it’s not the movie,” you’re right. Enjoy.

[help-me-find-a-name-please-lol]

CM HOTCH/REID HEADCANONS

My headcanon about Hotch leaving in Season 12, Reid's reaction, and trying to have it make some kind of sense.

Disclaimers:

This is the first rewatch of the later seasons I've done since it aired on TV, and I've only just finished Season 12 episode 4 (I do, however, know the early seasons ridiculously well).

From LDSK onwards, I only ever really watched it for Hotch, Reid, and the Hotch/Reid dynamic. I didn't really watch it after Hotch left, but caught bits and pieces because my roomates did.

Yes I know why Thomas Gibson left the show and why they had to suddenly wrap up his character. No, I don't condone violence in the workplace. I also never dove deeply into the behind-the-scenes lore of this show, cast and crew interviews, etc etc. This will purely be relating to the show as it was depicted on screen, and my love for the characters as their own entities.

I am not going back to fully source which eps all my observations come from, cos I'm supposed to be working on an assignment rn and CM transcripts are a ducking nightmare. I just wanted to put this idea out there cos I think we all need a bit of self-soothing after the crap they fed us to write Hotch out of the show.

Also fun story I just came back to finish writing this after being interrupted by what I though was someone trying to break into my house at 4am (heard a noise, gate wide open, can't see anyone but damn, scary. My town's big on crime, too). SO my thoughts may now be even more disorganised thanks to the adrenaline crash headache I'm currently experiencing.

So anyway like I said, just finished watching S12E04 Keeper, during which Reid gets a call we don't hear, is visibly upset by it, and takes a bit of prodding to discuss it with JJ and Rossi. He then reveals that he was just told his mother left her care facility on her own and was found wandering confused around a casino. He takes minimal convincing to head back to Quantico and lines himself up another couple of days off to visit his mum (yes I'm Australian, this is how we spell it lol).

MY HEADCANON: This is when Hotch called Reid to tell him that he was going into witness protection and wouldn't be coming back. (Exactly how much was discussed on the phone vs possibly being discussed/explained later in person is of course open to interpretation, but enough for Reid to know Hotch wanted to say goodbye and to not tell the rest of the team).

I know that his mum's issues are an ongoing valid storyline. But this is why it was also a plausible excuse for Reid to come up with on the spot as to why he was upset.

Another thing that makes it entirely plausible that the phone call was about Hotch is the long, significant staring Reid did at Prentiss as she walked away after they discuss what supposedly happened with his mum. To me that could scream that Reid was actually dealing with something team-related, and was already grieving how it would affect the other members of his team that he's keeping it from. He could have gazed down or elsewhere to communicate his worry for his mum to the audience, but he specifically turned and watched Prentiss leave, looking all angsty.

What's a heck of a lot less plausible:

His mum, who has been in care since Reid became a legal adult, suddenly escaping her care facility, despite having been in care for well over a decade and who now needs even more supervision due to Alzheimer's on top of her Schizophrenia. Yeah, escapes happen, but to make it all the way into a casino and being found in a confused state? When this didn't happen before Reid flew up and got her diagnosed her with Alzheimers? Even though she'd been getting some increased freedoms for doing well on her new meds prior to her sudden worsening with the Alzheimer's onset?

Hotch leaving without saying something directly to Reid first. Yeah, I'm a shipper, and I know Hotch has his son to think about, but I call BULLSHIT. Hotch knows all about Reid's abandonment issues and there is no way he'd want to end up on the same mental list Reid keeps alongside Reid's father and Gideon. When Gideon went AWOL, Hotch returned from suspension, despite the fight he knew it would cause with his wife, because "the team" needed him. Then Haley stressed "no, they need Gideon". Fully believe this was all just about Reid (I also kinda low-key believe Haley had an inkling about Hotch's thing for Reid but anyway). Hotch, Reid and Morgan functioned as a team while Gideon was on leave after the bomber case, Morgan didn't even really want Gideon to come back and would not have been that thrown by his absence. Reid however we all know was very emotionally-involved. And it's Reid that Hotch pulls aside to get his head back in the game (and who then gives them a breakthrough in the case shortly after, at Hotch's encouragement). When Gideon had officially left and Hotch addressed the team about it, he mostly directed what he was saying towards Reid, when he said that he couldn't explain why he'd left the way he did, etc. And when Hotch was trying to decide whether he'd take over as section chief after Strauss left, again he was addressing the team but pretty much turned and spoke directly to Reid when he said something along the lines of "if I decide to leave the BAU, you'll be the first to know". He also saw how much it killed Reid to be lied to about Prentiss (and you can see he felt like shit about it during Reid's assessment). This man. Would NOT. Have left Reid without saying goodbye. That's the hill I'm dying on. On top of that, Hotch is always the most emotionally-compromised whenever Reid is in danger, and he knows it (he let Gideon know he was currently a terrible example of "handling things emotionally" while Reid was being held by Hankel, resulting in Gideon's weak reassurance of "We'll get him"; when Reid got on that train with Elle he tried to stop it then immediately went to chat with the sniper; when Reid was in the cult compound he had to hand off negotiations to Rossi; when Reid was protecting Owen Savage; heck he practically yeeted Morgan out of the way when Reid was trying to talk down Maeve's stalker and they heard a gunshot. Etc etc.). And whenever Hotch gets emotionally affected by other things (eg that defence attorney for amnesia/coma guy, or regarding his brother), Reid is the one who can break through that and keep him steady. Reid is VERY IMPORTANT to Hotch and I don't see him hurting Reid in what to him is the worst way someone could do it.

Reid being so chill about Hotch suddenly leaving without saying goodbye. Goes without saying, yeah? But I'll say it. I get that they've been trying to paint him as more emotionally-mature and that he was able to handle Morgan leaving, but it is SO not the same relationship or circumstance and Reid would not have taken Hotch's departure in stride like that. I get that they also wanted the show and its characters to move on as quickly and as apparently unaffected as possible, but it still clearly flies in the face of proper characterisation. Reid is brilliant and back when he was being held by Hankel, I'm sure he could have found any number of ways to communicate with a specific team member at that moment, but he chose Hotch. He knew Hotch would be the only one capable of putting his ego aside at being "picked to die" and to listen properly to the rest of Reid's message. Once he confirmed that his message was correct and that he was in a cemetery, Reid was so sure that Hotch understood his message and would be coming to save him that he let his guard down for the first time. I think he only picked up that gun and shot Hankel with it in the end to just superstitiously make sure that the bullet never did reach Hotch (and to "free" Tobias, or whatever. Either way Hankel wasn't going for the gun or to use Reid as a shield when he turned to face off with the FBI and any of them could have taken him down easily). They've only been getting closer and closer over the years, on-screen and off (Fist-bump anyone? Always standing close together? Plus Reid's been teaching Jack magic tricks and was the one to get him smiling and laughing after Hotch got arrested by SWAT, which you know would make Hotch even more gooey for him). They're 100% an army of 2/hyper-competent power couple (take for instance the way Hotch and Reid were mirrored against Garcia and Kevin when she referred to her own pairing as the President and Vice-President after the bank blew up?) who can probably achieve 90% of the team's success level on their own. That super-serial-killer chick may have talked about Reid losing a "protector" in Morgan, but Hotch has always been the one Reid has come to or looked to. He was pretty distraught about the idea of Hotch leaving to be Section Chief, not that long ago, too. Also, constant super-crush behaviour which I could list but this post is already very long. Reid would not just immediately go "Prentiss is our leader now, this'll be great!". FFS.

Anyway we all know the way they wrote Hotch off was bullshit, hence the suuuper-long monologue to explain everything that's apparently happened off-screen, and yeah he'd totally enter WITSEC without even telling the team (until he decided to resign) when Peter Lewis had already hacked it once and killed the person on it before the team figured out who he was after and got there 🙄. All of it is super implausible. But to me, nothing more so than Reid's poor imitation of shock/surprise and almost total lack of emotional reaction. Him knowing beforehand, because Hotch already said goodbye to him, is the only thing that will ever make me be at peace with this crap from an in-universe POV.

This could all be shot to pieces in the next ep lol, but for now I'm just glad my brain has a way to make sense of it.

[2offayyo-kzt]

Why Sean is a "sad" and "empty" character :

(a far too long and elaborate shitpost)

based on this post by @hellsmell

I used my over analysis skills dating back from my BSD era, if you're familiar with my account, nothing I've written will be new to you.

I insist, it's a huge shitpost, not to be taken seriously !

A marriage on the rocks :

Obviously, this argument only applies to the period before the Brain Scramblies ep, but given that the Rinaldis renewed their wedding vows, it means that the couple had reached an important milestone in their relationship.

So their marital life had probably been going badly for several years already, particularly in terms of communication and mutual respect.

Trust issues and low self-esteem :

Sean seems to have major self-confidence problems, and therefore frequently lies to his wife for fear of disappointing her.

His low self-esteem became particularly apparent when his entire memory was erased, and his first reaction to learning that Charmaine was his wife was "I wish".

And their couple went sour probably the moment Sean took Charmaine's presence in his life for granted.

However, Sean still has doubts, even years after having won Charmaine's heart; even if his wife has agreed to renew their marriage vows (an act that shows the love she still bears for her husband)

When Sean might have been seriously financially ruined during the Casino episode, he confided his fears to Laszlo : "She's gonna leave me Laz... She's gonna leave me."

Sean believes that if he can't provide Charmaine with financial stability, she'll leave him at the first opportunity.

Psychologically and physically abused during his childhood :

Sean doesn't seem to have had a very easy childhood, even if he never seemed to lack in terms of money (studying at a private school, owning a car at a young age) his father (Franklin) was particularly harsh with his son.

As a child, Sean wasn't allowed to watch programs on PBS.

He was also forced to kill a deer at the age of 14, which can be impressive if you're a sensitive person. And he still seems traumatized by the event, or at least it left a deep impression on him :

"First time I ever saw something die. But it wouldn't be the last."

And in the Sunrise Sunset episode, it was very strongly implied that Franklin was even physically violent with his son supposedly to "settle" conflicts :

"Now, I'm gonna count down from three. When I say go, start swinging. First one to tap out, other one's head of the household."

All that scene also indicates that Sean was forced to take on responsibilities that he was not supposed to have.

A character who can't allow himself to show tenderness :

We can assume that this rough, probably macho education made Sean feel compelled to keep up a tough facade.

Anthony Atamanuik (Sean's actor) said Sean was perpetually either "confused" or "aggressive"

And Anthony would have liked, in one episode, for Sean to show a softer side of himself.

"But Anthony if you had to pitch an idea, what's an idea or storyline you think might be Seanie's"

"It would be fun to discover, something like soft that Sean does. Like some secret soft thing. Like he's part of a quilting group, or that he rescues birds in a Wildlife refuge in Staten Island. I think I want to find one piece of him that's like gentle."

And maybe that's where his obsession with Ocean's 12 comes from, to have a support that can serve as a healthy coping mechanism but that doesn't make him "vulnerable" in the eyes of the world and is easy to justify.

A character who abuses himself :

This idea mainly comes from what Anthony said during an AMA on Reddit, where he shared his personal theory on why Sean resisted to the frequent hypnosis :

"You know, it's like if you met someone who had a very hard life, they maybe self abused a lot when they were young but then they got clean, they got like sober right. Let's say they did a lot of toxic substances in their system when they were young. Sometimes those people just have a resilient immune system for some reason cause they like... abused themselves so much when they were younger. So I wonder if Sean had, sort of, you know, he drinks all the time, and seem not to care of himself that well, so maybe he's immune to the brain scramblies because he abused himself so much that he's immune to it."

But this is also reflected in the show, where Sean drinks a very large number of cans of beer.

He also suffers from a gambling addiction and is objectively an alcoholic.

Suicidal ?

So I'm extrapolating a lot, but it's interesting to note that when the Jersey Devil threatened his life, instead of shouting "help me" he shouted "kill me".

He also told Laszlo "You're my main man. I'd die for you."

So, obviously, it's to be taken with a pinch of salt, but it's perhaps indicative of his disinterest in living.

Parallels with the Joker :

So I'm bullshiting big time here, but I find it interesting.

When Sean was dancing at the Pride Parade, Anthony did his best to "march like Jack Nicholson's Joker"

In the 2019 Joker movie, Arthur took care of his mother in the same way Sean took care of his mother who suffered from dementia.

Note that the Joker's mother, let her son be abused : "Much like her son, Penny suffered from an unspecified mental illness. She was responsible for letting her former boyfriend abuse Arthur in his childhood"

To conclude, I think Sean gives me Sad Jester vibes, a comical character, but more profound and tortured when you take a closer look.

//

I can't believe I wasted two hours writing that lmao

[armchairaleck]

Twin Peaks/Dragon Prince thoughts

Okay so I was never going to write a post that combined two of my sorta diametric interests - namely The Dragon Prince cartoon and Twin Peaks, even tho I've low key considered it.. but then they literally put out a fricken dream scene with Viren, Kpp’Ar, Sparklepuff and Opeli explicitly mirroring Twin Peaks.. so now I guess I will ramble on for a long time about this despite not really having anything sensible to say…

First up – massive spoilers are ahead for both Twin Peaks and TDP Season 5… Twin Peaks is in my view one of the most weird and interesting television shows ever made - like it's very David Lynch, so I guess you'd have to like that vibe - BUT if you haven’t seen it and are at all interested in watching it, and don’t want very essential plot elements spoilt please don’t read below this cut.. IT WILL SPOIL STUFF!

Not sure anyone will be left at this point, but a very condensed speed run of the twin peaks plot for the sake of drawing out some parallels later:

Laura Palmer is found murdered in her small home town where a veritable list of ner do well characters who are possible suspects also reside. Call in special agent Dale Cooper to solve the crime, so far, so police procedural…

This is when the plot starts to go a little left field - as well as the drug smuggling, illegal casino, insurance swindles, arson, doubling crossing, false murders, real murders, faked deaths, real deaths that are just part of everyday life in this quaint little rural US town, a portal exists to a place called the red room or the waiting room and to the white and black lodges which by and large represent forces of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and hold within them certain denizens who might help or hinder, or just be completely bizarre and unintelligible depending on their inclinations...

One of the evil denizens is Bob - Bob is pretty much the representation of pure evil, he possesses people and encourages them to fill his own base desires.

After a certain amount of investigation the original crime is solved, the presence of Bob and the lodges is revealed and the show gets a whole lot weirder as it moves through the rest of the second series and the third (set 25 years later)

At the end of season 2 the good Dale Cooper goes into the red room and gets stuck in there while an identical version of Cooper emerges but this one not so wholesome and possessed by Bob.

There’s a lot more to it, but I’ll get into the relevant points and possible, tho probably very tentative TDP parallels as they come up.

Anyway to break it down.. in the short scene we see we have Kpp’Ar - here I believe framed mirroring the role of the one armed man, Mike, he could also be framed as the giant theoretically but given the arm/bandage motif I’m going to say he’s the one armed man..

The one armed man used to run with Bob until he saw the light and changed his ways, and he cut off his arm to do this a little drastic perhaps? because he had a tattoo on the arm that linked him to Bob. So a possible parallel here to Kpp’Ar having also realised his dark magic/blood tie with an ancient evil entity and trying to rid himself of it through cutting it out of his arm, go, go my guy. The one armed man acts as one of several pretty obtuse guides for good Cooper in the show.

Will Kpp’Ar come back and do this for Viren? Eh probably not, I can’t even speculate on that sort of thing, so let’s leave that parallel there.

Right, Sir Sparklepuff also gets a little cameo as the the arm/the man from another place.. a cryptic clue giver who speaks unintelligibly and also has some natty dance moves..

So the arm is a fairly ambiguous character, he hangs with the evil denizens, he hangs in the waiting room, he helps, or he doesn’t, it’s pretty vague.. he is the part that was cut out to remove the evil influence, but I’m not sure where that could go if anywhere… Onto Viren, who is framed taking the role of FBI agent Dale Cooper, Cooper goes into the red room for good reasons, he wants to save his girlfriend Annie… unfortunately he doesn’t and instead he gets stuck in there while his doppelganger possessed by Bob escapes and goes on to run merry havoc for the next 25 years…

Bad Cooper is a corrupted figure who can give corpse face Viren a run for his money annnd… he also has black eyes… nice…

This is just how your eyes go when you're evil.. so err.. stay good kids

On the other hand it does look like you have a lot more fun going feral

Meanwhile the good version of Cooper has to escape from the waiting room, and trust me, it takes a long time…

Then we have Opeli as the log lady.. now the log lady, also called Margaret Lanterman, we are given to believe was once abducted as a child by aliens (there’s a pretty strong interest in conspiracy type stuff in twin peaks without it ever completely leaning in and going there, well I guess it does, let’s just say there are a lot of things beneath the surface) Margaret grows up just fine though, but on the eve of her wedding night to a fireman there is a fire in the woods, and hubby to be goes and gets himself killed fighting the flames. Margaret takes a log from the scene and caries it round with her ever after with it being heavily implied that the spirit/soul of her almost husband is in there and passes her messages with regards to some of the goings on in the town.

Hey Opeli guess what? Rayla's breaking into Viren's study... ahem..

Like anyway why did Opeli get this role? I have no idea, she's the only available female character?? Anyway Opeli says backwards the line - the jelly tart you like is going to come back in style.. the log lady does not say this in the show, but there is a pivotal scene where all the murder suspects in the Laura Palmer case are gathered together and the guilty party is approached by a white lodge denizen and told that gum you like is going to come back in style.. that's how they find out whodunnit.

So the premise of Twin Peaks is that the guilty party is also shown to be possessed by evil entity Bob and it raises some interesting questions within the fandom regarding an individual’s culpability for their crimes or whether the possession was the root cause of them and I feel like I can’t really dance around it anymore so I will say again if this show sounds interesting and you want to watch it unspoiled with regards to the murder STOP READING HERE.. also I will be going onto the darker themes of the show and you are warned they are kinda dark…

...

Right okay it was her father, Laura’s father, Leyland, possessed by Bob raped and abused her for several years and then murdered her and others when it became clear she knew it was him.

Now every time Laura was abused in the show she sees the face of Bob not her father. There is debate whether this is trauma projection, whether it is in fact evil entity Bob controlling the father’s actions… I mean there’s a lot of interesting stuff to go into, but I won’t, because I only want to look at the possession angle here.

Okay, onto the topic of possession and free will, specifically with regards to Viren and also dark mages in general.. so we have seen Aaravos possess Callum explicitly, based on one use of dark magic, whether he was able to do this due to Callum’s proximity to the mirror... not sure? He also possesses Viren very obviously on a couple of occasions, but they also have the blood tie... so it's likely that dark magic allows Aaravos to exert his influence on those who practise it as has been explored by others.

Anyway there is another factor I have kinda been low key wondering about - whether the staff of Ziard has certain possession/persuasion potential.. now I’m not going to come out and say the staff holds sway over Viren and tells him what to do because this puts a certain absolution on Viren’s actions that I don’t think is justified by the narrative BUT I do also think it would be kinda cool if Aaravos with his links to the stars and future predictions had a way of seeing what might happen and engineering his own deliverance through the push/pull of the staff.

Not betting any hard cash on this theory...

We don’t know when Viren first gets the staff, I have to re-watch that dream sequence and possibly wait for puzzle house because I have at least some thoughts it might be what Claudia finds in there.. but he doesn’t have it in the Puzzle House pages I’ve seen and he does before Magma Titan because he takes it with him..

So... I don’t know if there is a slim possibility that while the staff might not possess a mage it might subtly lead them towards an end goal - slaying an archdragon say, who holds the mirror window into Aaravos’s prison, and thereby allowing the dark mage to come into possession of said mirror and thereby setting the whole train of freeing Aaravos in motion..

Now fine, this is a bit of a stretch, could easily be Viren is simply fuelled by his desire to kill a dragon out of revenge/hubris a desire to rekindle his relationship with Harrow (ahem) but I kinda like the idea that there is a very subtle pull leading him in that direction through the staff, and Aaravos does at least seem pleased to notice that staff in his possession, while Viren visibly shies from it throughout much of s4…

This could mirror a little with the possession/influence themes of Twin Peaks - there is a ‘good’ Cooper and a ‘bad’ Cooper, but they are really the same Cooper and it is the flaws in the good that allow for the evil influence of the bad to take hold - Cooper has a weakness for trying to save women in peril, it gets him in trouble… Viren seems to have a weakness for power and doing anything for his family, however dangerous, however vile - personally I don’t really like to read stuff purely in terms of a good/bad white/black dichotomy.. but I do like character flaws leading to the wrong path and imperilling your soul.

This all inclines me towards the Aaravos is pure evil and the Prometheus and even Lucifer stuff was just a bit of a tease. In Twin Peaks the unleashing or at least the amplification of evil in the world is linked very explicitly in one episode to the dropping of the atomic bomb, this is framed as a cataclysmic event during which mankind press the button on their own potential annihilation...

s3 episode 8 - I don't think will ever be surpassed for am I hallucinating or is there something very weird on my tv at 4am vibes

I know there have been some links between dark magic and nuclear power parallels made by other people but I can’t remember the details and it has always been something I’ve kinda chewed around a bit without having any specific thoughts or beliefs on, other than ouch corruption looks a lot like radiation burns… but I can see an analogy for something that is created to both serve humanity giving us a fairly unlimited power source, while also giving us the ability to pretty much obliterate ourselves and the planet which - tbh best not to think about how close that has already been...

Dark magic is clearly a force that can be used to benefit humanity, healing, feeding 100,000 people etc, etc.. but it is also being lined up as something that holds its own peril, that probably isn’t a power to be wielded by inconsistent, unreliable and sleep deprived humans, and it’s been given to them by Aaravos? Like I think that has not yet been explicitly stated in cannon but the signs are all there.. so hmmm..

Anyway all told this has led me down quite a few lines of thinking that I don’t really have any definitive conclusions for because they are by definition not issues that can be neatly tied up with a bow... at least not by me.

Then Viren is pretty much comatose for the rest of the season much like Coop/Dougie is season 3 of Twin Peaks.. rip my guy...

Viren having the standard reaction of anyone trying to work out wtf is going on in Twin Peaks

Anyway I have never seen any fellow Twin Peaks fans out in the Dragon Prince wilds, but if you’re out there please come and rip this to shreds if you want.. I have a sieve like memory and I’m usually pretty wrong about most stuff, plus I wrote this after 4 hours sleep due to the drop time, sooo please excuse any mistakes...

[jinxed-sinner]

I've come across a few tiktoks that are basically "taking the main out of the main cast of Hazbin Hotel" and it never fails to be funny to me. Every single character design, whether they're a main character or they show up for less than 10 seconds, is super elaborate.

It's not like My Little Pony where the background characters aren't as interesting to look at as the main characters, so "taking the main out of the main characters" doesn't work. For the sake of showing what I mean, here are some of the background demons seen in Hazbin Hotel:

None of them would feel out of place in the main cast, frankly. Maybe in terms of color palette, but in terms of general design? They're no more or less designed than Angel, Alastor, Charlie, Niffty, Husk, Lucifer, or Vaggie, and their designs make you want to know more about them. Why does the first guy resemble an imp? Why is Vox's assistant an amphibian-like demon? How did the guy in the middle end up with a pocketwatch for a face? They're fun to look at because we have an idea of how Sinners get their demon forms, which makes Sinners fun to theorize on.

In addition to this, I think it's really fun to look at the background designs of Sinners because it allows you to analyze how they died and what they were like in life. In the main cast, Angel's a spider because his family were a mafia family (making the fact that they're all spiders a crime web joke). Al's a deer because he was killed by a hunter who mistook him for a deer while he was burying someone he'd killed on deer hunting grounds. Even taking minor characters where we know how they died, Baxter for example, Baxter's design is based on an anglerfish because he drowned on a ship in the 1910s (I read that Viv initially intended for him to have died on the Titanic, but didn't want to associate Hazbin with real-world events, so Baxter died on a ship similar to the Titanic in the 1910s). Personally I'd love to know how and when this one died.

(I think it'd be cool if she died from rabies in the late 2000s when scene culture was at its peak tbh. Died from rabies then ended up with an opossum form in Hell because opossums are resistant to rabies).

There is no "taking the main out of the main characters" in Hazbin Hotel because this is what the background characters look like. Even the simpler designs, like the first guy? Angel's white with pale pink highlights. Most of what makes his design is his outfits because he looks kinda plain without them.

It also makes Hazbin Hotel characters fun to design. I put so much thought into both Hazbin Hotel characters I've designed so far (those two characters being Juno and Psalm) and it's a really fun exercise in making every part of the design mean something. Juno is meant to be a husky because he died in Alaska, and he has a lot of blood motifs because he died from hypoxemia while skydiving (which is also why he has wings and feathers over his normal dog tail). Psalm is an axolotl because he died from a salmonella infection, and his outfit is because he worked at casinos Husk owned as an Overlord. Psalm's hair is also inspired by emo hairstyles because he died in the 2000s, when emo culture was at its height.

There aren't a lot of background character designs in Hazbin Hotel that don't make you wonder how they died, and I love it. I think it makes the show better, honestly.