#i wish a show with this premise existed. i'd watch the shit out of it

[karleksmumskladdkaka]

It's time to wrap up the Grand Edition special booklet with the second short story (๑•̀ㅂ•́)ง✧

In this one, Yui and the Mukamis spend three nights investigating the rumor going around Ryōtei Academy about a ghost haunting its premises. Using the tried and true "Let's Split Up, Gang!" method of investigation, a reluctant Yui is paired with a different brother each night as they attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Enjoy (ﾉ*^∇^)ﾉ♡

[thegeminisage]

tng liveblog of the day, because, plot twist, we went ooone more evening. this evening's episodes were "the battle" and "hide & q."

i thought "the battle" was GREAT actually. 38 minutes into this episode i told cathy it was watchable and i had to STOP so she could watch it with me but i was genuinely invested and i thought the premise and the effects were generally very cool. even wesley only had one annoying moment that was 5 seconds long. EASILY my favorite tng episode so far

things i loved: introduction of the picard maneuver, the implication that he had maybe fucked up a lil bit (even if they didn't have the spine to follow thru with it), the ferengi first officer relieving his captain of duty when he realized the guy was bonkers, the "ghost" effects during the flashbacks, the SCORE, the empty burned out little spaceship ambience!!

it was actually giving conscience of the king a little bit - something set entirely aboard the ship concerning the dark past of the captain. i really wish they had leaned harder into solving the mystery - i had to rewatch to understand that picard's "confession" voice log was indeed the one faked, and we never found out why the ship picard destroyed attacked them to start with

i feel like whether or not they had had a good reason, picard showing more genuine remorse to the feregi captain for having to take his son's life, especially if we knew he had lost some of his own people, would have really brought together the emotional arc they were trying to sell. it was really REALLY good compared to the other episodes so far it just felt like it needed another ten minutes

also i'm having this problem, and this IS a me problem, this is not any crime tng is committing, but whenever tng DOES do anything good i'm like "damn imagine if this had happened in tos" and so i'm now just imagining that the father of a captain of a ship kirk destroyed came back and gave him ptsd flashbacks to cause him to fire on the enterprise as a means to revenge and bones keeps trying to treat him and gets told to buzz off so he goes to spock behind kirk's back and then when kirk is brainwashed and crazy spock has to decide on whether he should FIRE BACK or LET THE WHOLE ENTERPRISE BE DESTROYED and and and and and.................

and i get lost in my mind palace wishing for an episode that doesn't exist. sigh. big task they had, those tng writers. i bet the housewives were doing this too.

"hide & q" was not good at all, although they had the bones for a good episode in there. i think hide & q could also have used another ten minutes at the end, but actually they did have the time! they just wasted it all on q wearing funny costumes and napoleon aliens. which. sure.

almost all of my problems with this episode could have been fixed with another ten minutes. for example: after getting q powers will went nuts too quickly. i think if he had gotten them at the start of the episode and remained steadfast and not cracked until they found the dead girl i would have believed it much more.

AND ANOTHER THING: giving everybody their heart's desire. this was easily the best scene in the episode and we rushed right through it. the worf stuff was fucking horrible - this snarling woman in fishnets who gets slapped around and has no dialogue - but his line, "that world is now alien to me," was REALLY intriguing and we got nothing else about it. also we got a throwaway line talking about the klingons being defeated? girl since when?? i'd looove to know anything about worf ever. unfortunately.

it's a particularly cruel trick with geordi and data - data at least got to refuse and explain why (i did love his momentary panic though), but geordi's whole shit got rocked. he's gonna be thinking about those 30 seconds of sight for the rest of his life and kicking himself for turning it down. if this episode had leaned into that moment of cruelty, even done with good intentions, it would have held up the moral a lot better. instead we got weird klingon sex rituals and also whatever was going on with tasha

here's the thing. i kind of like that she cried despite being so stoic all the time otherwise bc it gives her depth, right? in spite of how horribly they treat her she's definitely my fav female character rn. but firstly the reason she cried was kind of dumb and SECONDLY when picard was like "tears on the bridge are excused when one is in the penalty box" in the kindest most fatherly tone ever and REALLY endeared me to both of them they immediately ruined it by having her FLIRT with him???

anyway, that episode could have been better. conceptually it kind of fucked. execution wise it sucked. also lmao riker didn't grant any of the women's wishes <3

[victoriousscarf]

i'm probably one of the few people you've pulled into charmed and i really want to hear about your thoughts on Chris and Wyatt. I know you have intense thoughts & feelings about both of these two and I'd love to hear more about it.

Oh boy. Do I. 

I mean be careful what you wish for because you might just get your way is the fanfiction thesis I’m currently in process of writing but I’m pretty much down and willing at any time to start yelling so like buckle up here.

I can’t remember if it was in response to you or someone else that I mentioned on one hand I’m really disappointed that Chris and Wyatt even exist, because it just shows the sorta evolution of the show about three sisters who happen to be witches to a show about witches who happen to be sisters and all their boyfriends. Plus by season 6 the writing has pretty much tanked (Though it will still have room to get even worse!) and so it’s sad that that’s when we finally get into this. 

But like.

Like I have been obsessed with wild messiah figures since like idk, middle school? No, it was even earlier because for some reason someone decided elementary school me was ready to watch the Sci-Fi channel’s Dune miniseries. I finally actually read Dune for myself in middle school but the point here is, I have a total weakness for messiah figures, especially those who turn out to not be the messiah people were hoping for. Frank Herbert summarized the point of Dune and specifically Paul as “beware of heroes” because even the hero figure you think you understand (Paul, bringing revolution and then water to the desert) because chances are you shouldn’t have trusted them. And sure it’s a bit weird the deeper you dig into it but like, good god, what a phrase. Beware of Heroes. 

And what is exactly what Wyatt is. He’s presented pretty much from the moment he’s conceived as the magical world’s messiah. He’s “twice-blessed” and powerful from the womb. He’s going to carry Excalibur and he was born on top of the Nexus (which is a whole thing because like, Phoebe was also born in the house and she talks about how the Nexus can be good or evil and how she sorta lays some of her own flipping between the two on her connection to the Nexus. And Wyatt has that too!! Which is super important considering the two Wyatt’s we see are radically flipped to one side or the other). From everything we’re told about him, from everything we see, the magical world is excited to have this messiah figure (Which on one hand, it’s never made clear what he’s supposed to be the Messiah FOR, and it really undercuts the original premise of the show which was that the Charmed ones were supposed to be the most powerful crew but like, so it’s frustrating too but). 

And then he breaks. And then he goes dark.

And I am a sucker for messiahs that break the bounds of what they were supposed to be! Who look at the narrative and say well fuck you. Who are the last thing those who longed for their arrival expected. And like we only see Dark!Wyatt twice in the whole show. We only see the world he created out of his own terrible purpose once. And like on one hand having so many questions is great because it allows for so many theories and so much world building, but on the other hand it’s maddening. 

But like, we know a lot about why he goes dark and I’m utterly fascinated by all of it. Because like they point to when he was kidnapped by someone he trusted, betrayed by all that was supposed to be good, and then spent months wandering the underworld before he was even two years old, surviving among fire and demons and dark twisting caverns. Like that’s enough to drive anyone to distrust, to believe power is the only answer, but it also allows for the question of, what did he actually see. What did he do to survive. Is it as simple as they make it sound or is there always the possibility of something else, that was down there in the dark? 

And like in a weird way, I’m not even sure that he would have needed such a dramatic push. I mean, he vanquished his first demon before his first birthday. Holy shit. He vanquished his first demon before his first birthday, in the arms of his mother with both his parents approving. That is completely fucking nuts, and I would have been interested in a smarter show exploring how much maybe changing one event didn’t completely change him but okay. 

But at any rate here you have the ultimate Messiah figure, broken from the time he was a child, furious and raging and obsessed with power and that’s like the best catnip you can give me but oh wait! It gets worse!

Because enter stage left Chris Halliwell. 

Look one time I did an online quiz that was like, chose your ultimate fanfic trope. And it was like matching up two tropes and choosing which of the two you like more until there was only one standing. 

Let’s just say the last trope standing on mine was loyalty kink. 

Give me a character who looks at another and decides to be loyal beyond the point of reason, logic, or love and I’m like yup sounds good to me I’ll take five. 

And the show could never quite decide how Chris felt about Wyatt, except we know he went back in time to save him. He didn’t fight his brother, he didn’t try to kill him as a child. No, instead he looked at his brother who literally had the power to reshape reality and used it to crush the world under his hands and went oh I’m going to save him. Like sure, he says “If I can’t save you I’m going to stop you” but he never actually ever loses his faith that he’s going to save him. We never see what “I’m going to stop you” would look like. And sure, like most things in the later Charmed seasons, they might not have just had any of the smarts to like, think any of this through. But at the end of the day, what we know is Chris was willing to die to save his brother’s soul. 

And that’s not even on top of the fact that Chris has mile wide insecurity issues, a shaky sense of morality when it comes to achieving his goals, and a desperate desire to be accepted and loved by a family that doesn’t even know who he is. Every time Leo snaps something about “you’re not family” and Chris looks away I clutch my chest and scream, even when I’ve already watched this episode several times. 

Plus he’s got that snarky and vulnerable streak that is like a+ good. 

So yeah. The best summary of “wow you have a lot of feels” is wild, reality shaping messiah and the snarky brother who would change reality himself just to save him.