#idk my biggest complaint is not telling the actors. like i get it that it might have impacted their performance but still

[ripclaudia]

i know that jesse armstrong is more than capable of knowing when to end a series but the way it was announced that season 4 is going to be the last one kind of made me feel like the whole process behind it is a bit sketchy. they only revealed that s4 is the last one only a month before the premiere, even after posting teaser trailers that never even hinted at the season being the last, and even the cast got the news only during the table read for the final episode. the promotion of season 4 has been disappointing especially when compared to season three. while the actors are not the ones writing the show, most of them have been very clear that they could have seen the show go on for another season and their disappointment over the show ending has been clear as day. while an ambiguous ending will be a very fitting end to succession and i am not against it, i am definitely wondering if the decision to finish with season 4 was something that developed during the filming process instead of it being a clear guideline throughout the creative process of season 4.

[zthesaunatonttu]

Dragon age: Veilguard spoilers below SOME MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW (I am saying what most have already said but kind of wanted to contribute.

Normally I don’t post about things like this, but this is common complaint in the community right now and I don’t have others to talk too because my friends don’t play games like these or at all, but I do enjoy the game a lot. I enjoy most do enjoy the story, I don’t find the complaint that’s it isn’t as dark as [insert game here] or the dialogue is too cheesy or bad [granted in spots it is and we will get to that later]. Sure it gets repetitive but I felt the same way about all dragon age: inquisition and about mass effect. When the story is this long it is bound to happen in my opinion. I find myself smiling at parts and really feeling the story and really getting serious about it. I have feelings of hope, guilt, and love. I see fragments of myself in these characters. Bellara is favorite and bestie. Taash is funny and I get the vibes. Seeing Harding again is great. Manfred and Assan are adorable and rock, paper, scissors is great. I just finally won :,). A lot to people may disagree and that is okay because everyone has different experiences and my experience or positive experience doesn’t discount someone who has had a terrible time/experience with the game and their opinions still need to be respected as well.

The addition of the inquisitor is nice; however, not being able to transfer your saves or choices is odd but it is what it is. Not my biggest grip with the game. I already assumed Varric died but was like oh well then I was like I KNEW IT (I spoiled myself). The plot twists are hard to figure out with Illario and such.

But I think my biggest thing is the romance. The writing. We all knew what happened and went wrong with what BioWare did to their writers and the people who are long-time professional in the field. It made me not want to buy the game and maybe I need to reflect on myself playing it and enjoying it.

But Lucanis is disappointing and though I am still romancing him my first run it makes me sad because that is kind of why I play these games lol. Lucanis voice actor did great with what they had and the scenes with Lucanis are okay. I feel like the romance between Neve and Lucanis is better than Rook and Lucanis or, also from what I heard, Rook and Neve. Which kind of pisses me off lol. Kind of the same with Harding and Taash from what I heard as well. I’ve heard a lot of things lol. I want to restart but honestly I’m so invested in time but I can always afford another play through.

But not all romances are bad though. The romance scenes seem shorter but all the scenes and romance characters seem to have similar lengths but idk what you guys think. Davrin (plan on romancing him my third play through) is great from what I heard and somehow my current rook (who is romancing lucanis) has more vibes with Emmerich (my next play through after lucanis). I think there should have been more romance but no hate on actual workers as a whole because there isn’t just ONE person to blame but a chain of events and the links that made them. The development was long, horrid, and crazy and I can’t imagine what everyone went through.

Anyway I wish everyone luck and even if you want to romance Lucanis don’t let others tell you you can’t. You may not get exactly what you want but the other characters got exactly or almost exactly the same treatment. I may have forgotten something but yeah.

Good luck on your adventures through Dragon Age: veilguard!

[richonnesbitch]

Listen I always had the intention of watching the show to enjoy as much Richonne as they were gonna give us (and never in a million years could have I dreamt this lol) and that’s pretty much it so it’s very easy for me to overlook any complaints I have lol-also, even putting the Richonne of it all aside, I did in fact truly enjoy the show. It was some good tv 🤗

But yeah were I to take a more ‘obective’ and closer look at everything, I think Okafor might be the one aspect of the show that didn’t quite make sense or at the very least where I still have the most/a lot of questions left?

Like how long has Okafor been planing this? He’s been with the military since day 1 and it’s not like the CRM only started being shady 2min ago so… all this time he couldn’t do anything? What was he doing all this time actually? If receiving the Echelon Briefing is so important why couldn’t he himself tell Rick and Thorne what they were going to hear? He clearly heard it himself before? Because if the people you recruit hear it from Beale and it actually takes (>Thorne), now you have a Beale-follower who knows your plan? If you tell them yourself, you can see their reaction firsthand and do what you got to do… Also, I feel like the show has and wants us too to have a too ..generous(?) view of Okafor? And it’s not that he is an outright villain on the other hand either. But seeing Rick post-ep4 still kinda seeing Okafor as ‘his guy’ was… idk. I needed it to be more nuanced. Like, Rick can appreciate what Okafor was trying to do against the CRM but also being like f that guy, he was one of my captors??? Anyway these would be the questions that popped immediately in my mind about that, and I’m gonna stop here cause I rambled enough 😂😂😂

Sidenote: That being said, Im talking specifically about the character and not the actor, Craig Tate f_cking delivered and the. Some. If anything he would be a reason to want more Okafor.

Omg I just do not get Okafor either!!! Like everything you said makes sense to me lol. Like Okafror threatened Rick's wife and daughter and kept him stuck in a place he didn't wanna be. How would Rick ever think of him positively??? Besides you know wanting to change the CRM.

Also, Okafor was deeply horribly wrong about Thorne. She's the biggest B we've ever seen 😭😭 he had too much faith in her

[softpine]

fjksjdskj this is awesome, ily and i love talking about tlou!! i’m splitting your message into pieces so i can respond easier and also so i can put a read more for spoilers :)

this is my BIGGEST gripe with the tv show so far. it bothers me how quickly they jumped into the ellie who isn’t scared of killing / death / infection / destruction. i really dislike how they make her seem unfeeling and even made her ENJOY watching joel beat a man to death. it makes me feel so icky like that’s not my ellie. it’s just not. that’s not even grown up part 2 ellie. idk i was really hoping that as the story went on, i would warm up to it, but it just gets worse and worse. luckily this is my only major complaint, so hey, i’ll take it

well i wouldn’t say he’s gonna die SOON, that’s not until next season. and i’m very excited for it lmao but yeah pedro is doing such a great job!! he brings a different energy to joel, more quiet and reserved (which i didn’t realize it was possible to be more emotionally repressed than he is in the game lol), but i’m here for it! his voice is great and i felt the same way about tommy’s actor - his voice sounds just like the voice actor

same, i’m overall not a huge fan of the changes they made to tess. i like the emotional layers they gave her, so that she’s not just the tutorial anymore and she’s an actual person, but i wish she was just a LITTLE bit less soft. it doesn’t sit right with me that they made her joel’s second in command when the game makes it very clear that tess runs the show. i loved her death scene (yes even the uncomfortable kiss) but i guess i wanted just a little bit more from tess

100% agree!

i actually really like the shaky camera, except in scenes where the characters are sitting or standing still, then it becomes really obvious and dizzying. but otherwise i’m actually a fan. i feel you about the lack of lighting, but i have the same complaint about almost every show i watch these days. everything is so dull and dark now :( i feel like the second and third episodes had more impressive cinematography so i’m hoping they were just finding their footing and it’ll get better with time!

yessss i’m SUCH a nerd for anything regarding fungi and i especially love the mycelium lore. i love that they did their research and it shows

i actually think it was smart to cut the execution scene and replace it with the scene of the infected child being killed and burned, because man... it doesn’t get any more brutal than that. and to see joel throwing him in the fire with no visible emotion.. that was powerful. FEDRA does seem way more capable here. in the game, we see their skeletons everywhere, implying that they’re being picked off easily by the fireflies, but in the show, it feels more like a war going on between them, with both sides being equally powerful.

i really hope they keep this scene the way it is; this is one scene that i really don’t think needs any changes

yeah i’m super curious what he’ll be doing now that his purpose has changed so much! i don’t even have any guesses yet, i’m just waiting to see what happens

assuming you mean dina and yesss i really hope so! i wanted to see glimpses of abby, lev, dina, jesse, etc. but they probably won’t show any of them in season 1 because they didn’t know if they’d be renewed for season 2. but who knows!

overgrown cities and towns are my freaking jammm. i love seeing the earth take over

yes omg tell me how you liked it!! episode 3 was probably my favorite so far because of how unexpected it was. and don’t worry, i will never stop talking fjksjds i couldn’t even if i wanted to stop.. i hope you have a wonderful day too!! 💖

[a-red-panda]

Finishing resident evil netflix as im writing this. I'm gonna be talking about spoilers so if you read this be warned

Overall, its a great zombie show. Not the best resident evil media out there. IMO, this is the worst re adaptation. But I still find it kinda fun. The performances are fucking awesome the actors nailed it! What really threw me off was the subtitles. The subtitles said "younger billie" which told me that she was still alive in the future :/

One way I think they messed up and why people won't like it is the creators said that it was canon with the games. And its really not timeline wise. But once you say that people will go into your show with that expectation. They do nod at canon with a lisa cameo, og wesker dying in a volcano, and mention of the original raccoon city. But that's it. Otherwise not canon especially timeline wise with the newest games

Thinking of it like the show is its own thing, like the 6 movies, its not that bad IMO. The giant monsters/animals where awesome. The hordes of zombies where cool to watch. The twists where fun to watch. The characters have a lot of depth and I can see nearly everyone's side during arguments. Mainly with jade and billie. Both of them are very well written.

My biggest complaint is they flip between the past and future so frequently. You can always tell what time you're in, but the flips are sometimes every 5 minutes or less. That slows down the farther in the show you get. And the last 2 episodes? Personally, I think that's where this show shines the most. It feels a little more like resident evil. I think the last 2 episodes are by far the best but it takes a while to get there

Also bert fucking rules. He carries the last 2 episodes. Overall, unless you're super picky about your adaptations, I say give it a try. As someone who genuinely enjoyed the other re adaptations I find this one fun, but still probably the worst. Idk my expectations with re adaptations are super low and this is watchable and fun so its a good for me!

[spikeface]

why do you think stiles refused the bite? he was lying when he said he didn’t want to be powerful like peter and scott, and he said he enjoyed the strength being possessed by the nogitsune gave him. so i do think he’d like the powers that come with it, but he still doesn’t want to be a werewolf. it’s not that he’s afraid of dying, he’s constantly willing to die for scott, lydia, his dad and malia. maybe it could be that he doesn’t want to give peter the power to control him, but he never asks scott for the bite either. for stiles the bite is always treated as a last resort. idk i’ve always wanted the show to have stiles explain his reasoning!

Peter Hale Can Go To Hell. This only applies to the time Peter offers Stiles the bite, but it’s the biggest reason why Stiles says no in that instance. Peter has been torturing Scott all season, including trying to make him murder Stiles, and just recently attacked Lydia, the girl Stiles has had a crush on since he was in the third grade. Stiles will do anything for the people he loves, and anything to the people that hurt them. Peter could offer Stiles anything at that point, and Stiles would say no. Stiles wouldn’t accept the time of day from him. The next time he sees Peter is when he tries to set Peter on fire. He’s done with this guy.

The question becomes a little more complex once there are other Alphas around, particularly Scott and Satomi. Here are a couple of thoughts on why Stiles wouldn’t want to be a werewolf:

Risk of Dying. This is a big one. You pointed out that Stiles is very willing to risk his life, but also that he does it for other people, which I think is crucial. Stiles places almost no value on his own life compared to the people he loves. To a certain extent, especially after the nogitsune, I think he places little value on his life in general. But he’s also very aware of how dying affects the people who survive you, as we see in his rant to Lydia in season two, so I don’t see Stiles risking death for personal gain—again, because of how much he cares about the people he loves.

Being a Werewolf is Shit. One of my favorite things about Teen Wolf is that becoming a powerful supernatural creature makes you more vulnerable, not less. Yes, you become stronger and more able to heal, but the danger you face from that more than cancels out the benefits. Even becoming an Alpha simply makes you more visible to dangers like the Alpha pack. More humans may die numerically in the show, but a much greater portion of werewolves either die or suffer constant injury (or both). My favorite example of the show subverting the supernatural-transformation-as-power-makeover trope is Erica. Initially, she seems to embody the trope; her physical transformation is tied to a social transformation even more dramatically than it is for Scott. She’s hot, and confident, and powerful. But what does it get her, in the end? Derek winds up being a lot less charming than he was when he seduced her into the pack, and she’s subsequently hunted, captured, and tortured first by hunters and then by other werewolves. I still can’t figure out if she spent more time as a werewolf in the vault or not.

Stiles watches this happen. At first, he focuses on the benefits of her physical change, and even uses them as an argument for why Scott shouldn’t interfere with Derek biting people. He also gets to be Batman to Erica’s Catwoman, which calls back to Stiles’ season 1 complaint that Scott’s transformation has turned Scott into Batman while Stiles is stuck being Robin all the time (the same anxiety that Peter preys upon when he tries to win Stiles over to accepting the bite). But, as Scott says, in the end, “no one is Batman and Robin any of the time.” Erica’s life quickly turns sad and bleak, before she’s killed in captivity. I think that would kill any last remaining romance Stiles had about being a werewolf, while his pessimism would be strengthened as he watches Scott and other supernaturals be targeted over and over again.

Conviction That He Is Bad (esp. Post-Nogitsune). Stiles’ mother is convinced that he’s evil. It’s a formative moment for Stiles, and one he internalizes, as we see in season 2, when Stiles hallucinates his father telling him that he killed his mother, and now he’s killing his father as well. This conviction that he is secretly evil or dangerous would make him even less likely to want the inherently violent power that being a werewolf brings. The conviction would also be made much worse by the nogitsune. Stiles does say he enjoyed the feeling of power that possession gave him, but he also feels enormously guilty about it, which is one of the themes of 5a. He hates how much he “enjoyed” being possessed, i.e. feeling what the nogitsune felt. He hates that Donovan’s death made him feel “good,” however briefly. He’s terrified of what he’d enjoy as a werewolf.

Role as a Human. I think Stiles is too anxious to ever be fully comfortable with his role as anything, anywhere, but we do see him, after season 1, start to think about what it means to be a human in the pack. In season two he wrestles with it, but afterwards, he picks the bat and the Jeep as symbolic of his human status (though the Jeep means other things too), and becomes obsessive about his role as the pack’s detective. He’s also there for both Scott and Liam during the full moon, and is aware of other times when it’s an advantage to be a human, like when there’s a line of mountain ash. I believe this is something the actor has discussed as well, for what that’s worth.

The Show Ignores Human Physics. This is an external factor, which I wouldn’t usually include, but it annoys me so much that I can’t help it. Stiles should have had so much more physical damage than he did. He mentions a bad elbow once, and has the wound from Donovan, but that boy gets knocked out so many times. Way too many. He should have such brain damage. Lydia makes his ears bleed. He gets stabbed in the chest with a piece of glass. He gets thrown against walls constantly. A realistic depiction of the physical trauma Stiles goes through would have been the biggest argument for him to become a werewolf—and indeed, the only time he really considers it is when he thinks he’s got a terminal illness. Because the show ignores that, Stiles can exist as a relatively unharmed human and the benefit of werewolf healing is undermined.

I’m sure I’m not the only one to speculate on this, so please feel free to comment or reblog with your thoughts or links to them!

[wherearemyglassesbro]

i saw that you play genshin impact, so i’m kind of curious... what’d be the axis and allies’ vision and weapons?

Uh oh...now you got me started. Be warned, it’s a long one cause I have no self control

Some key terms for those who don’t play genshin impact and want to be included!!

Cryo -> ice, Hydro -> water, Dendro -> nature, Geo -> rock, Pyro -> fire, Electro -> lightning

Hilichurls: a common enemy found in the wild. Despite looking like hairy trolls, they have a district language as well as texts, art and song that they share together making them an advanced species!

Ruin guards: another enemy. Giant, scary robot...they scare me...

Knights of Favonious: an organization of knights within Mondstat that keep order and peace :) very nice guys and gals over there!!

Mondstat: modeled after Germany

Liyue: modeled after China

Alfred: pyro, claymore, Springvale Mondstat

Alfred would be a super heavy hitter in battle but his drawbacks are that despite his energetic nature, he’s slower because of the weight of his weapon

He blows stuff up a lot and sets all of the grass around you on fire so if you fight with him...His teammates will take damage from him Jeez Louise!!!

Since we don’t have all of the nations of Teyvay unlocked, I don’t know where he’d be from! I’d have to explore to get a sense for it so for characters that don’t have a place on the map yet, I’ll mark them with an asterisk from now on! :)

Idk where he lives but I do know that he’d be a devoted member of the adventurers guild! He’s always willing to offer a helping hand to anyone in need! Wether it be helping Granny Ann make hash browns or taking comissions to go kill a huge ruin guard who’s terrorizing the town!! He’s always leaping into new jobs! He isn’t even in it for the money or rewards! He just loves helping out!

Arthur: Dendro, archer, Mondstat

Artie is a beast in battle! Shooting vine Aries at enemies to tie them up or temporarily blind them??? Sick as fuck. Keep in mind, Genshin doesn’t have any Dendro characters that are playable yet so idk how they’d fight but I think I can guess :)

Artie is technically part of the knights of favonious because he works in their library. He translates books written in ancient texts into the standard language so historians and others can read what the old civilizations had to say

Instead of having normal eyes, they’re slit like snake eyes. And he has leaves instead of hair :)

He has a little seelie that floats around at his side. He talks to it but it doesn’t really do anything but provide company to a lonely guy :’) he needs more friends

Matthew: Anemo, catalyst, *

It’s always good to have a catalyst on your team! Ningguang is a great example of an underestimated catalyst cause she can do INSANE damage man!! So I think Mattie would be the same way

Matt isn’t violent and doesn’t enjoy fighting so his in-game voice lines would say that lol

Mattie is an alchemist! Well...A student alchemist. He didn’t take up an interest in alchemy until like, 3 years ago so he’s got a lot to catch up on still! He’s doing his best!

He gets very annoyed with Alfred since Mattie is detail oriented and gentle...Alfred is not any of those things. But he still loves his brother and on rare occasions, he’ll assist him with his commissions

Ivan: Cryo, catalyst, Liyue(temporary)

Ivan would be a support character for sure but he’d do a damn good job of doing it

He’s buff but he doesn’t do hand to hand combat, he’s mastered magic for a reason

Ivan spends most of his time studying hilichurls. He writes books about them, translates their texts and acts as a peace keeper when he can. He gets information from them about the Abyss Order in return for free reign of small portions of protected land where they can live without fear of being killed

Because he’s from Schneznya(spelling?) he’s kinda expected to be a bad guy but he left a long time ago. But he still sounds like he’s from there and...He’s super pale too so there really is no mistaking where he’s from

Ivan can’t stand how ignorant humans are towards hilichurls so he does everything he can to advocate for them. He’s covered in scars from when he first started engaging with the beasts. A huge scar runs down his face but he doesn’t mind it

He’s got big, sharp teeth!! So he doesn’t often smile cause he thinks he looks weird

Francis: Hyrdo, long sword, *

Fran is underestimated when it comes to combat (like Kaeya...I see you slandering this man) but he has so much potential!

Since he’s a hydro, he is so useful for elemental reactions! If he’s paired with a cryo or pyro user, he’d totally boost them!!

Fran is a traveling entertainer, he goes between the 7 nations as a singer and actor for small stage plays. He has a crew of friends who travel with him, they’re one jolly bunch!

He always acts all nonchalant and stuff but once he’s in a battle, he’s wild. Especially if the abyss order holds up his crew on their way to their next tour destination “We need to be in Liyue Harbor in four hours you are NOT holding us back!” *tidal wave*

He’s a regular tavern hopper! A very recognizable face since he’s been banned from a handful for getting too rowdy

He can make not one, but 2 special dishes :0

Yao: Dendro, polearm, Liyue

I just imagine him as a shorter, richer and cooler version of Zhongli

He’d do that kick move that Zhongli does with his polearm oh man that looks SICK dude!!!

Yao would shoot vines out and they’d strangle enemies for a few seconds before disintegrating but if he’s leveled up enough, they’ll totally strangle those stupid hillichurls lol

Yao sells rare gems and other miscellaneous items for very high prices in Liyue where he grew up. His shop is upstairs by the Fatui bank. Rich people enjoy looking at what his shop has to fifer and will argue prices with him. They’re getting scammed for sure. He’ll list a set of cor lapis earrings as $50,000 and the rich will be like ‘I’ll pay $25,000, no more than that’ and he’ll take it!!....Cause thise earrings are worth $5000 at most >:)

Hes close with a lot of the higher ups in Liyue and is often invited to fancy lunches or dinners where they discuss policy, contracts and vendor permits. He doesn’t really get a say in any of that but he benefits from listening

Kiku: Electro, claymore, *

Kiku would be SUCH an awesome electo user are you KIDDING me??? I can see it now, him swinging that huge sword around, purple lightning bolts flying all around and he looks like a total badass? Amazing vibes

When paired with cryos???? He’d do an insane amount of damage fr

Kiku runs a small restaurant where he...runs the place...but doesn’t cook. His restaurant is extremely exclusive and people often throw fits when they can’t get in cause the wait list is over 5 years long. He’ll rest his hand on their shoulder and smile ‘is something wrong? I’d love to take a complaint if you have one’...No one has even dared to complain to his face lol

Behind the restaurant front he deals with the Fatui, buying and selling minerals or artifacts. That’s where his knowledge is at, not with food. He pays his staff to ignore what goes on behind the scenes and the locals are too busy enjoying the restaurant to question what goes on after dark

Gilbert: Pyro, long sword, Mondstat

Gil would be one of the free characters given to you at the beginning of the game but hey, I’m not complaining

He’s highly destructive and very chaotic in battle, he can do that spin move even though that’s meant for claymore users

He’s Mondstat’s biggest trouble maker. He runs an underground gambling room that sits underneath a tavern. He isn’t really into gambling but he makes a lot of money by running it

The only knight who knows is Ludwig which is not good cause...Gil pretty much bribes his brother into not telling the knights of favonious (peace keepers of Mondstat)

Gil never got his gliding certificate cause he kept flying into buildings. He broke his nose doing that lol

Lovino: Pyro, catalyst, *

I can’t add anymore images so imagine a floating, red and black orb. Lovi doesn’t get a book catalyst cause he doesn’t read :) That’s the catalyst thing I’m talking about 😅😅

My guy has the angriest in game voice lines, he’s inconvenienced by every battle, every enemy is ugly and a fuckin disaster. He’s just. Angry.

He’d be a super weak character if he needed to rely on hand to hand combat but he learned magic for a reason babey

He owns a flower stand in his country and makes all kinds of beautiful flower arrangements. He even picks his own flowers in the fields when he can (but usually pays the town’s children to do it for him to ‘teach them the value of hard work’).

Everyone knows he’s a total hothead and will piss him off on purpose just cause it’s funny lmao. But then somehow...Their hair or clothes will just...catch on fire. So is it really worth it to tease him? :/

Feliciano: Hydro, archer, Mondstat(temporary)

I feel like Feli would also be a free character, not cause he isn’t good or anything! But you always need an archer on your team!

Feli has healing properties for his team and doesn’t do an insane amount of damage but when given the right resources, he’d be a pretty sick healer

He moved to Mondstat to join the church there. He leads prayers in front of the church and sings in the choir inside.

He is the sweetest and has never committed a crime in his LIFE but he’s afraid of the knights lol he’s terrified that he’ll get in trouble and be kicked out of Mondstat forever! That would never happen but he’s a worry wart cause of his brother

Ludwig: Geo, long sword, Mondstat

Lud is the only one that I could really think of as a Geo but Geos are awesome :)

He’s a hard hitter but has like...No shield so he’ll take damage fast if you don’t give him those artifacts with shield in them or whatever lol uhhhh I wouldn’t know anything about that cause I suck at building my teams ;-;

He’d totally be in with the knights of favonious! (I think that’s spelled right lol) but he’d take his duty as a knight very seriously!! He’s a familiar face around Mondstat, the elderly absolutely adore him and the local teenage girls swoon over him which he finds super embarrassing lol

He has to work hard to keep Gilbert in check cause even though Gil isn’t a knight, his actions reflect negatively back on Lud very often... :(

Please ignore the spelling errors and terrible photo cropping on my part lol this was so fun!!

By the time you’re seeing this, ive already made full outfit red sheets for everyone mentioned above!!!! :D

[lizacstuff]

Edser / Sen Cal Kapimi ep 30+ asks

(Asks under the cut)

@jan31 Hi Liza, in the fragman Selin was in a white dress, was it a wedding dress?

Hello! I don’t think so. I think that’s what she was going to wear to the dinner she’d planned for the four of them (from the fragman, Eda, Serkan, Deniz and herself) but BOOM goes the MELO. Thank you Melo, lock that witch away so Serkan and Eda are not haunted by her evil presence, and can maybe spend some time together. 

Though, you know, I wouldn’t mind if it was a wedding dress. We know Serkan ain’t gonna marry her, so if they go so far as to put her in a dress, then we’re on the precipice of her humiliation and departure which can’t come too soon for me. 

jan31 Hi Liza. Please can you explain to me the fireside scene. It was so beautiful, emotional and just what we needed. Were the lights going out representing his sub conscious and the darkness he feels, reaching out for Eda instinctively without realising why. And the lights coming on was the reality that he did not remember anything. Or am I completely going in the wrong direction? Oh and the music gets me every time 😢😢

That scene fired on all cylinders!! I definitely think you’re on to something thinking the lights coming on represented the reality of him still not having any memories back. I think the whole scene was Serkan trying to reconcile this one flash of memory that has been playing in his mind like a movie. He was re-enacting what he saw in his mind, trying to figure out if it was a real memory and if the real memory was about Eda.   

I really liked that it was Serkan who asked if they can talk without arguing. Being the calm, rational one is his role in their relationship, how many times have we heard him say “sakin” so it was comforting to see him taking those reigns for a few moments. Also for him to realize that almost all their exchanges had been heightened and fraught with explosive emotions and wanting to talk to her without that. 

Both Eda and Serkan with their eyes filled, brimming with tears really got to me. Serkan not really understanding as his heart took over and tried to make sense of what his confused mind couldn’t. Eda’s complete heartbreak when he still didn’t remember anything. However, though, she might not know it, he certainly felt something.

He’s already so drawn to her and he can’t compute why that is... why he fell in love with her during the time he can’t remember, but he’s slowly starting to see how it could have happened. This was an important scene for bridging that gap between them. So freaking beautiful, one of the best acted scenes of the entire series, and the scene that made this episode worthwhile. 

Anonymous said: if that scene in front of the fireplace made me so emotional and it was just him trying to remember.. trying to recreate that one moment he was flashbacks of... i cant imagine what the actual scene of him remembering will do to me. both their acting in that scene was something else.

Hande and Kerem were both absolutely fantastic in that scene. Really stellar. Their chemistry never disappoints, but here they were both right in the moment, very raw, very real. I’m impressed with the emotional range they both showed, kudos to both. If nothing else this story is giving them a lot to chew on as actors.

Anonymous said:  memory loss doesn't bother me that much if we can have beautiful scenes like the fireplace one. but the main couple is separated again, dating/fake dating other people and they don't have scenes enough to fall in love again

Well they made huge strides in two episodes. From Serkan not willing to even contemplate remembering her, to him sitting down and asking her to tell him a memory of their relationship and saying he wants to know about her and their love. And them having an absolutely beautiful, emotional, heartbreaking moment together. 

Serkan made other leaps as well. He went from wanting Eda out of the business to admitting she had talent and freaking out that she was planning to take a vacation. He was already coming up with every excuse to keep her in town and working. They argued as they did in early days, he had moments that obviously hit him as familiar (”I hate you Serkan Bolat.” “The feeling is mutual, lady.”) plus lemons and crusts. 

Don’t you worry, he’s already falling in love with her again. 

However, I wouldn’t judge what they’re planning too much by this episode. It felt like a transition episode and was pretty unevenly paced. Perhaps the claims of rewrites on this chapter had some truth to them. Because the last 4 episodes were pretty well written, narratively solid, and well paced, and this one was not. It was boring and everything not directly related to a scene where Eda and Serkan were alone was lackluster. 

Also I feel like some things were changed and perhaps removed to make allowances for Hande’s injury. She had a strained neck and was in a brace for almost the entirety of the filming of this episode. For instance, I’m pretty sure they did fewer takes with her in several scenes. Specifically you can tell in the scene where Serkan picks her up and carries her back.

We go no full wide angle shot from the front of him carrying her to match with the scene in episode 5. I’m sure they wanted that, but I’m guessing they really had to limit the takes of him picking her up so they couldn’t do multiple camera set ups.  The still photographer on set was able to capture it from the front, it’s a shame they couldn’t get the full hero shot for the show, but poor thing was injured and these things happen when you shoot on such tight timelines. 

So some of the lack of Edser could have been scenes that were shortened, cut, and amended due to that injury. And others could have been changes in the script perhaps as they figure out if they’re getting another ep order from Fox. 

Anonymous said: idk what they’re doing with Ceren but I really need them to keep Deniz as a genuinely good friend. He’s perfect and I don’t want them to make him sketch. Not sure if you’ve seen OTH but that’s the only other show I’ve seen with a great male-female friendship. Other parts of the show are messy to me right now but I’ve been loving this.

I guess my opinion would be unpopular with you, but I am not as enamored with Deniz as others seem to be.  Dude was putting a LOT of pressure on Eda to move on and forget Serkan. Serkan has been back approximately 3 days! HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD AND HAS AMNESIA. Can the woman have a chance to catch her breath and assess the situation, before her “good friend” is pressuring her every which way to forget him??  And planning romantic getaways under the guise of friendship? That’s not being a friend, that’s being an opportunist, looking for his chance to slide in there. 

So, yeah, I’m not as impressed as most seem to be with Deniz. He made me uncomfortable with that. I hope it was not a harbinger of things to come. 

As for OTH, I haven't really watched, but its a fav or my bud @echoapothecary so she might be willing to discuss that show.

Anonymous said: Any chance they decide to throw Melo and Ferit together? I don't care about any of the other side romances going on but these two still have their rights in my book in regards to Edser and they seem like genuinely people?

Let’s do it, baby! I’m on board They both are genuinely good people, and I’m with you, I don’t care about any of the side romances at the moment. Piril and Engin put me to sleep this episode. 

Ferit certainly deserves better than psycho Selin, but he also deserves better than petulant Ceren. And while her behavior escalated to WTF levels this ep, she’s always leaned a little this way. I think it was episode 18 (because the girls were in the library before Serkan finds Eda there) that Ceren was furious at Ferit all episode and I honest to goodness had no clue why or what he did. 

Anonymous said: at first sçk was about women supporting women and we have one best friend turning against the other FOR A MAN. I'm so disappointed the writers are destroying characters one by one.

No this show has always been about the love story between Eda and Serkan, but it did have some nice female relationships as well. Can I tell you a secret? While I really like the girls dynamic, and hope they don’t destroy Ceren and Eda’s friendship, I really only care about 2 characters, and that’s Eda and Serkan.

So while I get your concern, and Ceren acted OUT OF HER DAMN MIND this episode, if she needs to be a casualty to keep things moving, so be it.  I mean I reserve the right to roll my eyes over it, but I’m not going to get too worked up about it. From the beginning Eda and Serkan were the only two characters that matter and they still are. 

Anonymous said: I'm kinda concerned that they're actually going to say the next episode takes place on Valentines Day because this would be the biggest timeline error yet. I know we've already been suspending belief here after they touched on New Years so quickly but umm, yeah....

I think you have to just give over to the timeline on this show and not do any math or calculations. We already had July to December take approximately 2 months in straight linear storytelling, LMAO.  

Also, if it is valentine’s day and that’s going to be their excuse to give us some actual romance, then I will take it, no complaints. To me that’s one of the easiest things not to be concerned about, because its never going to make sense. I’ll take the holiday themed episodes over strict adherence to the calendar any day. 

[uselesstimetraveler]

It's been over a week now since the AOS finale and I still haven't had the heart to rewatch it, so I'm just gonna share with you my opinions from that night (I wrote most of this the next day, just haven't posted yet lol)

It was next level excellent, overall, but I have A LOT to say, this is gonna be long

YES TO EVERYTHING DANIEL RELATED!!! The thing I loved the most was that they made him so useful, he wasn't just helping Daisy or doing whatever people told him to do, he actually had a great idea and executed it with Mack’s total support. He went to action and it gave me LIFE!

Another thing that gave me life was the philindaisy moment at the bar. I’m a sucker for them. When Daisy got there and hugged Coulson I was AAAAAAA and then she went to hug May and you see her stop, like, “oops, should I?” AND THEN MAY HUGS HER HERSELF!! Now, you can argue that May is an empath and felt Daisy’s emotions at that moment, but lemme tell y’all THAT WAS NOT JUST DAISY’S FEELINGS, THAT WAS MELINDA MAY'S GENUINE HAPPINESS FROM SEEING THAT HER DAUGHTER MADE IT BACK SAFELY!!! Try to convince otherwise and fail miserably. My family is just perfect like that.

The Fitzsimmons reunion scene I WAS SOBBING from the moment she realised the key was her ring!!! AND THEN FITZ JUST xkskdxkkm COMES BACK LIKE THAT kxsmkdsms I CAN’T djkskdsjsms I WILL NEVER EVER GET OVER THAT!!! That whole thing was genius, honestly. They were truly able to take a hard situation in which an important actor wouldn’t be able to be there for most of the season and used it amazingly to their advantage. And then Fitz HELPED HER REMEMBER BY TELLING THOSE STORIES = MORE TEARS. That whole scene was beautiful. AND WHEN SHE REMEMBERS ALYA OH MY GOD by that point I was screaming. Btw, I love how they chose their daughter’s name, it’s beautiful and has an even more beautiful meaning for them <3

Since I’m already talking about Fitzsimmons I’m just gonna go ahead and say that their ending was so well deserved. They suffered a lot, literally every season some shit would happen to them. I’m so glad they got their happy ending and are right now living their best life as a family <3 fitzsimmons family = everything to me. (are there any Fringe stans in here????? Did y’all notice that parallel at the end? If not, let me explain: aos: jemma sitting on the grass seeing fitz and alya playing together and smiling. Fringe: olivia sitting on the grass seeing peter and etta playing together and smiling. BOTH ON THE LAST EPISODE!! And both episodes were number 13. This is too much for my heart.)

About Deke: I really love that he was the one to “sacrifice” himself for the team. I’m not really a fan of Deke, but I was glad that he did what he always wanted, in a way; Contribute significantly to the team and be acknowledged as part of said team. It felt to me that by doing that he was doing what he often tried, but no one ever really took him seriously enough to allow him to do. I think he was selfless and then ended up finding his true place, after all. Nicely done, if you ask me.

On that note, and shifting back to Daniel once more: when he said he was gonna be the one to stay behind I was like “NO YOU’RE NOT! Don’t even think about it. You, buddy, are going with Daisy.” What was he thinking? (I know what, and I know it was brave and selfless of him, but just let me have my moment, okay?) 

Now the answer to ending the war was empathy?????????? GENIUS!!! Mojed, you went beyond terrific there. I love everything evolving May in that part of the finale, how she dropped from the ceiling calling herself The Calvary (talk about character development!!!) to philinda fighting together and exchanging looks, to her saving the freaking world with her empath abilities!!!! I have some serious goosies just remembering. 

Something else that was just genius to me was that they were the ones at the temple, THEY CARRIED MAY OUT OF THERE, I did NOT see that coming. WHAT?! 

OH! And what about what Piper asked for??? She asked for Davis!! That’s adorable! That had me crying too, I love their friendship.

Now Kora. I was a little bothered about how fast things happened for her and Daisy on the sister bonding thing. Like, don’t get me wrong, I like that her and Daisy ended up working on the same team for SHIELD and that they were in a good place in their relationship, but what I’m saying is that Kora hated Daisy’s guts on one scene and Daisy had literally said a couple episodes ago that she did have a sister, but it was Jemma, and then Daisy died, and I liked that Kora saved her, is just that I got a vibe off of them in that scene that seemed like they had the best kind of sister bond for ages. Was that just me? Maybe, but hey ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

That’s not really a problem, I'm just saying.

Btw, when Daisy died for, like, two seconds, I was out of my mind!!!! I couldn’t even scream, I just froze in place. Thank God or whomever that she was brought back to life. I wouldn't be able to continue without my baby.

Now back to philinda and probably the only "complaint" I have: Let us agree, despite wanting them to be together in the end, there was very little chance of that really happening, right? Because he’s a robot now. But I did have a lot of hope, those episodes >>gave me<< a lot of hope. Y’know, in episode 12 they had that moment talking in the hallway, the explosion happened, he protected Melinda... I was like, “that’s my couple right there, you guys”. Then at the fighting scene they exchanged some looks at the end that really left me “it’s coming, people. Their happy ending.” It didn’t come. I took another blow to the face. A blow that was expected, yes, but a blow nonetheless. 

I wasn’t all that excited about Coulson’s ending at first, you know, him just traveling the world, but I understand what they did and why. He’s still getting used to his new self and rediscovering his life, so it makes sense that he would need time to do that. That last scene with Lola was simply EVERYTHING TO ME tho!!!! 

But May’s ending… the thing is, I had a lot of expectations for how she would end up. Throughout the seasons something that was very clear to me was her desire to be a mother and I know that she built that relationship with the youngest agents on the team, but I kinda expected, aside from philinda endgame, more of that. But my biggest problem here isn’t even that, is that I really, REALLY don’t see Melinda May giving lectures????? Melinda May? The woman who now calls herself The Calvary, teaching theory or history or whatever???? I’m not saying she can’t, I’m just saying I never thought of that as a possibility for her, it sounds more like a Coulson thing to me. But then again, that’s all they showed us from her life. They gave us very little details about how she (and everyone else, honestly) is living and I think in a way I like that because it lets us imagine whatever we want. So she could very easily just be there at the academy for one lecture, she could be training (physically?) new agents instead? IDK. Also, Flint was there, they could have built a relationship. Mentor\mentee like hers with Daisy at first or even mother\son? I’d like that. I like the “found family” thing. 

I have two ideas of fanfiction out of the finale. The first one is a Dousy that I had already thought of and completely fits with one thing that Daisy said, and the other is basically a Philinda fix it because, well, I want to. I'm very lazy when it comes to my writing, but I really wanna do these two, let's see how that turns out.

[cherrymoonvol6]

hey i just finished watching julie and the phantoms so here’s a quick “““““review”““““ on it. lmao

this show is VERY disney channel esque. once you know that, it’s easy to enjoy it for what it is, but if that’s not your thing there’s not a lot to enjoy for you, sorry.

the fact that most of the high school kids look like actual teenagers really cement that last fact lol but i do appreciate that they got a bunch of kid actors to portray the characters. like, i just love looking at nick and realising he looks so much like fellow teenager streamer tubbo, that shit fuels my soul. in contrast though, the guys from sunset curve give me whiplash. luke is supposed to be 17, which i’m guessing is 1-2 years older than julie’s age in the show, but he just looks like he’s on his mid twenties and it never fails to take me out.

because of the amount of kid actors/disney channel vibes, the acting ranges from mediocre to good. the standouts for me were alex and willie. despite being the “sober” one of the three, alex’s delivery was on point and he got the most laughs from me for that exact reason. willie is quite standard most of the time: i think his first scenes with alex made him feel real to me, sort of charming but also a bit awkward and giddy. he stepped up his game on that scene where he finally tells the band what’s actually going on. for the first half of that scene, he came off to me as stressed, if not a bit embarrassed/guilty for the bad things that he caused. it was at that moment where alex pushed him and he says that he really cares about him, that the emotional impact of the scene really struck me. like, up to that point i didn’t see how much that stress actually came from the anxiety that willie felt from getting these people that he genuinely cares about under trouble. it completely shifted the scene from me and it’s like i felt the same whiplash that alex, luke and reggie did, and i was surprised that it landed so well for me. but yeah, anyways. er, all actors do a good job in the emotional scenes, which is just enough, so in general i’m pretty okay with the performances (excluding all the disney channel laugh track esque moments that didn’t land at all for me but, eh)

the pacing of the show was good for the most part: just when it feels like it becomes aimless, a new plot thread begins and gives the characters something to do. i also liked that the stakes were pretty high by the end of the season, despite not keeping the tension for long enough imo. although the show doesn’t waste that much time with dumb, inconsequential plotlines, the whole liar thing with flynn was extremely annoying despite being resolved quickly and rather lightly as well. it’s just, blegh, excuse for a new song and also filler for the episode. i think the show did a much better job with the subplot of julie’s brother finding out about the ghosts, since the scenes are always charming and don’t really put the plot on hold like flynn’s part did.

i also wish the show did something... interesting? with the archetypes of the disney channel characters it presents. i think the sharpay evans clone (CAN’T remember her name </3) had something going on for her when she said that it was unfair that julie was getting so much attention since she put all the effort into her project from the start, but her complaints seem so stupid when it’s revealed that her dad is the fourth member of sunset curve. like, she’s just some spoiled brat that has everything handed out to her, why is she mad? if she was in julie’s situation she’d find it even easier to get back in the music program or whatever it’s called, due to her daddy’s influences. why am i supposed to feel something for her when she claps for julie at the end of the show, out of the blue? she’s literally been an asshole in every other scene. likewise, nick simply doesn’t have a personality. he just humors julie from the start and makes it kinda like he’s always had a crush on her, and there’s like no scene in which he looks actually happy to be with his gf. why is he even dating her? why hasn’t he tried to be with julie all this time? he’s likeable yeah, but only because just as the audience he likes julie and wants to get closer to her, and doesn’t offer anything interesting - which is a shame because i do think him and julie have some chemistry. lastly, caleb is a textbook classic disney villain (flamboyant, evil to the core, queer coded, fucking gay and evil, did i already say flamboyant). surprisingly i’m of the opinion that he’s exactly what he needed to be lol. i like that the show gives him exactly the amount of screentime that he needs, and presents a big threat and a nice expansion to the ghostly part of the universe of this show. he’s also the best vocalist in the cast so all of his performances are a blast.

i also feel like they underused trevor’s character. idk, there could have been a lot more to him than just stare in amazement/fear whenever he sees the dead members of his former band singing with julie. i think julie’s dad filled the quota of sorta-incompetent adult just fine and we didn’t need him to be like That. it would’ve heightened the emotional impact of the death of these guys and maybe him apologizing for erasing sunset curve’s legacy could work as a nice character moment AND a red herring for their “unfinished business”, idk.

about the songs, i feel like the creators wanted an excuse to bring the 2000s pop-rock vibe back and i wholeheartedly support that decision. my favorite one is probably edge of great, but there’s not a song in the soundtrack i truly dislike. also for the love of god please give alex more solos </3 his voice is my favorite.

watching this show was a reminder of what i hate from first seasons/movies lol. i’m always afraid of the creators making it so these 10 episodes are only an introduction of themes and situations to be resolved and explored in other seasons. i feel like the biggest offender of this category is (netflix’s) ragnarok, and 3% is as usual the one who did it right. i’m conflicted as to where does jatp fall in this category. i wouldn’t exactly say that the focus of this show was on julie’s reintroduction to music after her mother’s death: like, she literally starts singing by the end of episode 1. the show clearly wants to follow up with caleb’s business, which is also the chance for the band to meet other ghosts who are in the same situation as willie. and the last scene where caleb possesses nick’s body shows like, how willing they are to go into that route lol. just the comparison of those stakes makes it..... blegh. i think at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter, right? i enjoyed this show for what it is and in terms of personal entertainment, i’d still give it an 8/10. good stuff. fun songs, cute characters. looks really good!

[gizkasparadise]

cdrama rec/review: le coup de foudre

KDRAMA AND CDRAMA MASTER LIST OF REVIEWS

Series: le coup de foudre / love at first sight / i don’t like this world, i only like you Episodes: 35 w/ a special Genres: then & now, slice of life, high school to adult life, romance, reunion/getting back together, working with the ex Spoilers in the Rec: for set-up/light ones for character backgrounds If You Like, You’ll Like: the reply series, sad-looking dogs that are loved very much, because this is my first life (VERY similar male lead), sibling love, my sunshine but if people were nicer and had significantly better hair, multiple couples that are all a lot of fun

Rank: 10/10

PREMISE

flashback to 6-8 years ago (because the OP here can’t remember lol): it’s desk selection day in qiao yi’s classroom! a very dramatic moment for all high schoolers, qia yi has to select who she sits next to. because she’s at the bottom of the class ranking, she gets last pick, which essentially narrows down her choices to that creepy kid who writes love poetry to every female student in the class and yan mo, the scary genius student who has placed 1st in their class since...forever.

taking a gamble, qiao yi goes with yan mo. yan mo eventually agrees to tutoring qiao yi outside of class and they become friends. then...friends? if you know what i mean. it’s very sweet and cute. only problem is that yan mo is both a genius and from a Family of Means, and so is already planning on attending cambridge (yeah, fucking cambridge) after graduation. not wanting to separate, yan mo asks qiao yi to come with him and she agrees to study hard so she can get accepted to a university in the UK, too.

but then, well, bad shit happened. 

qiao yi ended up staying in their home town, yan mo left for cambridge, and we got two v heartbroken teenagers on our hands.

4 years later, yan mo returns after studying in the uk, and by chance they end up bumping into each other. angry because qiao yi hurt him, yan mo puts up an ALOOF AND COLD AND I DONT CARE AT ALL front that she sadly buys. but after he leaves for the big city to pursue a business opportunity, qiao yi harnesses some amazing big dick energy to go after him, in a sort of inverse DONT LET HER GET ON THAT PLANE! move. very abba. 

the plot bounces between their (and their friends’) high school years, their lives as reunited adults, and their future lives as married folks. i love it very, very much.

MAIN CHARACTERS

zhao qiao yi

as a high schooler, qiao yi was a quiet girl with low self-esteem, who consistently ranked at the bottom of her class and was always attempting to retreat into her school tracksuit like a turtle. despite this, qiao yi has some solid friends and is always kind if somewhat shy or uncomfortable in certain situations. as a adult, qiao yi works as a television producer and is clearly more confident. 

she buys truly awful graphic t-shirts as thank you gifts that one feels obligated to wear. falls for scams easily. will help you fold 1000 paper stars for your boyfriend even if she hates your boyfriend because she’s ride or die like that. look at how cute she is no one is allowed to be mean to someone as cute as this.

yan mo / “frank”

if you liked se hee in because this is my first life, you’re in luck because here is a 10% angrier version. at first, yan mo seems cold, aloof, snobbish, pretentious, arrogant...

okay, but he’s ALSO got a lot of feelings and will help people out. well, at the start of the show, he’ll help two people out. but that expands to like 10. so, progress! in high school, he falls for qiao yi in the typical Cannot Spit It Out fashion, buying her sentimental cans of coke, PUTTING IN ONE EARBUD SO SHE CAN LISTEN TO THE BEATLES WITH HIM, feeling Weird about her tying his tie, and single-handedly ruining a for-profit afterschool tutoring business in about 30 seconds, because they weren’t teaching qiao yi anything, and he knew he could do it better. tbh he completely fucking destroys a lot of things and people in under a minute. #ruthless

he’s very protective of qiao yi and rather than explain it, here is a clip from the special episode where yan mo confronts another student who left a love confession meant for qiao yi in his desk by mistake (subtitles have to be selected under settings, but it’s subbed in english):

zhao guan chao

zhao qiao yi’s twin brother, who has always placed 2nd in their classes after yan mo. despite his high grades, he comes off as a laidback teen heartthrob and has a reputation for being a flake and a playboy. BUT he’s legit a chill dude and clearly popular for a reason--he gets along with (almost) everyone. he loves his sister and is extremely protective of her, especially since she’s so shy and has low self-esteem for Reasons That Will Be Explained in the Tragic Backstory. he’s such a good brother. the best brother. also looks out for qiao yi’s best friend, wu yi. understands the value of shoes.

hao wu yi

qiao yi’s best friend, and another classmate of The Crew. i say this with so, so much love, but she’s got a lot of chaotic dumbass energy. struggling along the bottom ranks with qiao yi during high school. she has the worst taste in men as a teenager, falling for the guy who literally bullied her in like. ep 2. thankfully she’s got qiao yi and guanchao.

the trio are close, and that doesn’t change as they grow up. wu yi ends up becoming a novelist who writes pop and steamy romance novels and has a significant teenage girl fanbase. it’s amazing. 

fei da chuan

my boy. another classmate, he, qiao yi, and wu yi make up the official Dumbass Trio of their high school class and have adorable adventures + solidarity in it. he’s also yan mo’s uncle. somehow. because rich people families are wild. while he’s got a place to live, he more often than not crashes at yan mo’s, who Does Not Like It. but da chuan does not notice or care. 

abrasive but 100% sincere about everything and toward everyone. people will think he’s an asshole or a gangster but then he’s secretly feeding abandoned kittens in the corner or something. as an adult, has the best business casual outfits. serves as a big brother figure to a lot of people, but qiao yi in particular. cannot, cannot fucking do math.

SUPPORTING

“alicia” / cheng youmei. an old family friend of yan mo’s who is very posh and rich and dignified. studied abroad with him at cambridge, and is cold toward qiao yi after arriving back in china. cosplays B)

teacher gao. everyone’s high school teacher who later owns a bar that seems to be there only for dispensing advice. seriously. there is no way this bar is economically sound as the only customers you ever see are gao’s students coming in one at a time for Wisdom and you never see them pay for anything. also the bar has no fucking roof and is directly above traintracks. i have hang-ups about this bar

lin shu. yan mo’s mother. very sweet and pretty and a ballernia turned program director. is almost never home but clearly loves her son. du chaun’s sister. somehow.

zhao suyin. qiao yi and guan chao’s mother. one of her kinks is roleplaying condor heroes characters? okay okay okay

tian weimin. qiao yi and guan chao’s stepfather who works as police officer. best dad award. he’s so sweet and corny and peak dad humor. he loves them kids & they love him back

grandpa. yan mo’s dog in high school. a very old basset hound with sad eyes:

dollar or d. i cant tell you anything about him, other than he used to be a stray and yan mo says he’s ugly, which, rude.

DRAWBACKS

plot...hm. there’s SOME plot, but this is about characters + romance + friendship + family. if you’re looking for scheming mothers-in-law or tragic car accidents or secret destinies this isn’t the one for you. similar in vibe to Reply 1988 (they even watch the show in the show :’D / make references to it)

OKAY SO every plot summary i’ve seen says that yan mo is in a relationship with someone else when he gets back to china. no he is not. i say this because it was a huge turn off for me/initially put me off watching the series. he is definitely a one-and-only type. there’s no cheating in this show. lmao, hell, neither of the mains are even interested in anyone else but each other

i liked du chuan and his love interest a lot, but they definitely didn’t get as much screen time as the others

while it’s clear qiao yi + yan mo are the mains, another couple gets a lot of screen time as well. this might be a skip if you don’t like multiple couples/secondary relationships in a show

i surprisingly enjoyed the high school storyline a lot more than the adult one? which is super weird for me, but idk i was sad when it was over because it was so cute.

some...weird technical decisions. every once in a while, the camera will have like a nostalgia filter and then it disappears and then the edges get a bit blurry and idk it feels very film school 101 to show that what’s on screen is a ~memory. the soundtrack/music is sometimes also too loud--to the point where it can drown out the actors (particularly janice wu in the high school arc, since qiao yi is soft-spoken)

REASONS TO WATCH

the lead actors (janice wu + zhang yujian) are legit two of my favorites and they have great/easy chemistry. all the actors are amazing. everyone’s loveable

SIBLING GOALS the zhao twins are amazing and they’re both each other’s biggest fans. gaunchao had some really heartwarming brother moments

i love love lmao. this spoke to a lot of my favorite dynamics: exes reunited/having to work together, childhood sweethearts reuniting as adults, “gangster” and princess, childhood friends turned lovers, bickering couples, cold man who actually has a lot of feelings, lots of people being overprotective, idk. everything was just great. 0 complaints on any of the ships.

i genuinely liked every character other than that one piece of shit poppa zhao. even alicia, who’s put into the stereotypical rich bitch role, was actually really fun and subverted a lot of expectations for this trope

it’s just. real cute y’all. probably my favorite cdrama and definitely in my top 10 (maybe 5?) dramas overall.

FINAL THOUGHTS

i love them ;;

[linkspooky]

Your analysis on shigaraki's worldview is 😍😍😍. Who's your fav bnha character btw, and what kind of manga are you into? (i mean as in genre, but my phrasing is terrible at times so idk how to put it all in the last sentence)

My favorite manga in the whole world are the manga that run in Weekly Shonen Jump. I read almost everything that runs in the magazine from week to week. I know that’s not technically a genre, but let’s not arguen semantics. 

And now because no one asked for it, my opinion on all of the manga currently running through Jump that I read. 

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba usually manga in shonen jump slowly get worse over time as they try to stretch their stories out, but Kimetsu no Yaiba is a story that continues to develop on itself and improve the longer it runs. 

The art is phenomenal and has a good balance of when to be silly and when to be drop dead gorgeous. It’s more of an ensemble piece tied together by a big brother trying to save his little sister, and because of that almost every character Tanjirou interacts with is fun and really immediately attention grabbing. 

It’s also a pretty heavy story that deals with death, grief and loss and trying to find life beyond a world that has suffering like that. I’m actually planning to make some meta of it soon, especially with the interactions between Domi and Shinobu. My only real complaint is that it’s deep but not too deep. Usually the demons are always bad and the demon slayers are always good in the end, even if sympathy is expressed for some of the demons. Once again though it does so well in the technical aspects of telling the story it wants to tell. 

My Hero Academia it’s pretty obvious that I like it. The biggest draws for me are the art style and the characters, specifically the villains. Also the idea of a reverse X men world where what are basically the mutants now outnumber normal people and dominate society is a fantastic idea for world building with a lot of options. 

I’ve actually followed Horikoshi’s work for a long time. His two previous works, Oumagodoki Zoo and Barrage both ran in Shonen Jump for a short time before they were cancelled which I find really unfortanate because they both had a lot of potential as well. 

I love both the hero kids and the villains, though sometimes I feel like the villains are more connected to the central conflict of the story than the heroes. It would be nice to see Deku evolve a more radical philosophy then just wanting to save people right in front of him, or protecting the status quo. The heroes should ideally act in response to the villains to create a better world and resolve a problem the villains brought up, but if say the League of Villains were wiped out now another League would be created later because the central problem of the story has not been dealt with. 

Dr. Stone this is a series that almost got cancelled, but was saved by a main character switch. Senku is really likable and unique as a character, kind of a mad scientist archetype who turns out to be the good guy and the hero of the story.

He reminds me a lot of Yoichi from the writers previous work, Eyeshield 21. In that they’re both laughing mad eccentrics who seem like they have little scruples for how they use and treat other people, and yet are surrounded by friends and act as the leaders of their team. They also both have a tendency for strategy over brute strength and like to outwit their opponents. 

The only thing I can say about Dr. Stone is that while the characters are a fun little group of oddballs, they rarely get any deeper than that. The most interesting thing is still figuring out the central mystery of the world and what happened to turn everybody to stone, which is why having Senku as a main character was a really smart move on the series part. 

Yozakura Family This is a new series that I actually really like and hope beats canellation at the two week mark. It’s kind of your basic romantic comedy characters get married in the first chapter promise, but also there’s some really strong character writing with the older brother. He’s one of the few examples of the obsessive and overprotective brother type that was portrayed as actually abusive and damaging for seeing his younger sister that way. 

The premise also reminds me a lot of Katekyo Hitman Reborn, just suddenly getting sucked into the underworld of spies and crimminals when you’re an unlucky loser with no social skills. If the character writing is as strong as it is for the brother I can definitely see a lot of improvement and staying power. 

The Promised Neverland the smartest written series in Shonen Jump write now with the best ideas. The Promised Neverland is all about theme, theme, theme, theme, which is why someone like me who devours stories for their nutritious value and content loves it. 

While there are only about three major characters with arcs that matter to the plot, Norman, Ray, and Emma they are some of the deepest characters in shonen jump currently and the complexity of their relationship and the way they all foil each other is superb.

It’s a story about children trying to escape a neverland where they can never grow up, and live in a world that never wanted them alive. Not only is it just about them though, it’s also about adults who are still inside the system and gave up at one point or another and decided to just live in the evil world rather than change it. It’s a deep story but it’s also undeniably shonen jump, the central theme is about not giving up even in a world that is determined to deny your existence. 

Act Age If you’ve read Chihayafuru this manga has a lot in common with that, because both of them are about very singleminded girls with complex emotions that they themselves don’t understand, finding themselves completely enveloped in a niche hobby to the point of obsession. 

Act-Age is a story that’s primarily about storytelling and the nature of stories themselves, with each arc focusing on an adaptation of either a movie made up for the sake of the story or a pre-written play ie, Journey to the West, Night on the Galactic Railroad. However, it’s also bout the nature of stories, as understood by the perspectie of an actor. 

There are only a few major characters but they all get intensely developed in their arcs. My absolute favorite relationship is that of the main character, quiet on the surface but with deep emotions that she uses for her acting talent with her rival an actress that’s much more like a pop star or idol. Rather than having deep talent she instead uses her ability to read people to appeal to them. She is cheerful and lively on the surface, but empty inside. The way they envy each other and learn to grow from each other because each of them has what the other one desires. 

Jujutsu Kaisen reminds me of really early bleach that was just Ichigo and his teenage friends fighting Hollows. This is one of the manga I definitely reccomend, because it’s one of the lesser known manga in jump currently. The art style has this scratchy look about it which really adds well to the horror aspect of the series. It’s a demon fighting anime with some of the best demon designs, more attention is put on making them look grotesque and scary then in series like KNY where the demons for the most part are pretty good looking still. 

The main trio is very solid, a reckless idiot who swallowed a cursed finger in the first chapter and is continually dealing with the consequences of that, the shadowy, quiet type cool headed one who almost never talks about his past or his true feelings on the matter, and between them the cheerful girl whose a tad on the merciless side. 

Not only are the characters good, but it’s one of the few series where the fights and lore are super interesting. Rather than dealing with demons directly Kimetsu no Yaiba style we deal with curses, which are generated from the human subconscious. 

For exmaple one of the villains Mahito is the embodiment of the fear humans have for other humans, that is the anxieties of life, and the fear and suppressed feelings that go hand in hand with humanity. Because that he’s much like a child curse quickly learning and progressing with a human intelligence. 

The fights, the powers of characters, they’re all used to further develop a really interesting world of curses and the people who live dealing with them that it feels like we’re only scratching the surface of right now and desperately makes you want to figure out the system they have in place for this entire world. 

Yui Kamio Lets Loose - I find it to be a really sweet romantic comedy about a stuck up boy obsessed with appearances and what other people think of him falling in love with two sides of a girl, the uncontrollable Yui that beat him up and constantly gets into fights and trouble, and the perfect demure girl who can only ever be helpless and kind and needs to be protected. It has a feel of a lot of classic 80s high school romantic comedies. The only real problem is that it needs to acquire a plot fast, because it’s at risk for cancellation which makes it hard for me to get invested in a series that might end soon. 

Double Taisei - One of those shonen manga that had a really interesting beginning chapter, but then failed to do anything with it. I think it would work well as a character piece between two personalities who act like brothers in the same body, but the characters aren’t strong enough quite yet to work that way. I do like the character design… 

Tokyo Shinobi Squad - It looked like a ripoff at first but the main character is actually fairly different from Naruto, and the manga itself is uniquely its own thing. I just hope it learns to utilize it’s cyberpunk setting better, because ninjas fighting in a cyberpunk dystopia is a very tropey premise and the story needs to utilize those tropes in order to work. I do like the fact that the main character starts out pretty powerful so it’s not a typical shonen formula about a main character slowly learning to gain power, instead it’s him taking in and being responsible for a kid. 

Manga I don’t read - One piece, Yuuna of the Haunted Hotsprings, Chainsawman, Samurai 8 the tale of Hachimaru, Beast Children, Miitama Security Busters. 

[whoslaurapalmer]

alright guess who’s rolling in a smooth fifteen and a half years late with some 2004 movie takes because I just rewatched it

i mean we’ve all seen the 2004 movie none of the following words are going to be new or anything but it gave me something to do 

-for the record, the last time I watched this was…..2016 or earlier???? I would put it on in the background sometimes because it was the only snicket media content available -but as referenced in my backstory post, I did indeed see it in 2004. -i BEGGED my parents to take me to see it. they did not. -we were out to a late lunch/early dinner right after it came out, and I kept grabbing my mom’s watch and telling her how far away we were from the next showing and since the restaurant was so close to the movie theater that we could definitely make it in time. -we still did not go. -but, as per the post, one of my best friends had a birthday party where we all went to the movies to see it. -probably because our librarian had read us the bad beginning, but my class was SUPER into the series. there was one kid who wrote all his creative writing assignments in lemony’s style. -i wonder if he’s still into the series……..

-you know all this time later I still don’t know how I feel about the littlest elf. how do people feel about the littlest elf?? like props for pulling an unauto reference but……...littlest elf -but I did just notice one of the elves is holding a SHOTGUN

-okay the feel to this though. like…..god the aesthetic is so good in this movie -the gears and the clocktower and the fog and that beach and just…….fuck -oh no my mind is spinning. like I know this isn’t the reason but those trees poking out of the water is just giving me massive ‘clusterous forest after it presumably flooded’ vibes -i think the movie, for all it fails re: most of the emotions, really gives a sense of emptiness and loneliness though, the city and the landscape feel small and contained -i like jude law’s voice and I like what they did with lemony in this movie but I love and will always love patrick warburton. -the spyglass doesn’t work here either because it never got the chance to pan out because there was only one movie and it’s still too early and forcing it right away because there’s no timeeeeeee

-i like jim carrey a lot better when he’s not being, jim carrey -you know what I mean???? -like he’s so good in eternal sunshine, I love eternal sunshine -like I like nph a lot as olaf but I also feel…..it’s very nph. like I don’t look at carrey’s olaf and think ‘that’s 100% olaf’ but I don’t look at nph’s olaf and think ‘that’s 100% olaf’ EITHER there’s something still very much of the actor about both their interpretations as if they both leaned too much into the absurdity that was in olaf (carrey acting for the troupe and like 80% of his mannerisms in the movie, nph in slippery slope and the musical numbers) but not hard enough into what made olaf olaf -idk -i think they both had really good menacing!olaf moments though – nph in hostile hospital, carrey threatening violet at the end, those are ones that still really stand out to me, and that’s really important to olaf’s character, he was a villain and he wasn’t always that smart but he was capable of such cruelty just as much as absurdity -but not enough for me to look at either and say ‘that hit everything I wanted someone to hit in olaf’ -and it’s not even a matter of them downplaying the cruelty to hit you with it later for mood whiplash or anything, there wasn’t enough of all the parts of olaf to give that whiplash 

-i have nothing to say about the troupe I just don’t even want to go there

-i’m getting ahead of myself here in the movie but like, we all know that klaus takes a lot of violet’s moments in this movie, especially her biggest one in the marvelous marriage climax, and thinking about that makes me mad about all the netflix moments in s3 where klaus did more than violet too, and now I’m like, really incredulous that that happened in netflix too

-the lil fort scene has always stuck in my mind ever since I was a kid

-weird props to the movie for having their names on the custody document as ‘sunny, klaus, and violet’

-‘last chance superette’ okay well that’s something

-the car and the train has also been something that stuck with me a lot -like…….i actually really like this scene a lot and I’m trying to, explain why -it’s a really scary scene!! there’s a lot of tension and I appreciate that a lot!! it’s not canon but it’s remarkably well done and I think it honestly fits really well, it’s something olaf would do, and the fact that poe is upset because sunny was driving and not that olaf wanted to kill them, that’s, at least there’s that -(i really like the books pulling out when klaus remembers something too) -like I really don’t know why but I like it framed like this. I LIKE the movie framed like this. that they get taken away from olaf so quickly by something so absurd that isn’t why they should be taken away but wind up in his hands again at the end and then they get away again and typing it out makes it sound so….repetitive and stupid and like it doesn’t make sense but idk. idk!!!! there is something about it I like -like repetitive for the movie, because it’s, contained as itself as one movie, but, maybe a little close to the books -hmmmmm -still can’t word this right -i guess just, in terms of the movie!canon, it was styled well, for how the movie was structured -(of course it falls apart when klaus has to do violet’s stuff at the end of the movie that just fucks it all up. but right here. I did like it.)

-the movie’s “there’s always something” vs netflix’s “i’m gonna fix this”……….both are good

-monty brought the strongest vfd vibes in this movie didn’t he re: spyglass, lost his wife in a fire, violet remembering the song monty sings -i’ve said this before and this is completely unrelated but I don’t think going to peru was intended as a vfd recruiting thing -oh no wait this is very related, here??? in the movie???? “we’ll be among people who understand us” who value clever children or whatever, oh yeah movie!monty was gonna do it -(i need to think more about monty re: vfd and his experiences because, there’s a lot of possibilities here, honestly, and I think because we don’t see monty in atwq and he’s so early in the series proper that I don’t consider him in vfd and what that meant for him as much as I should)

-both versions of like the physical reptile room inspire such adventure and excitement……….i love that….those big windows and all the reptiles…….

-the sanctuary theme would be better in a different movie because like, the series isn’t about ‘sanctuary’ per se -it’s about something close to that but not ‘sanctuary’ for sure, like that’s such a weak, barely skimming the surface reading of the themes

-you know???? netflix!gustav was good. -like I don’t want to just compare the movie to the netflix show the whole time you know because they ARE separate entities although based on the same source and just have completely different takes and for both some of those takes were good and some of them were bad, but I never did like that image of gustav -i did like the dart in netflix though. a one good moment…. -(it’s also hard to compare them because 1-3 is all we got with the movie and 1-4 were some of the only books solidly done by netflix)

-klaus saying “everything happens for a reason” that’s never been a favorite saying of mine

-“it is a curious thing, the death of a loved one” is a line that’s pained me so much the older I’ve gotten and I care about it a lot because it’s so true, and I think it works better as narration than josephine saying it (I thought it was out of character for her to say it in netflix actually) BUT I ALSO get so pissed that the movie leaves out “as your mind tries to adjust to the way things are now” or however the rest of the quote goes

-reptile room in netflix after monty dies though is real top-notch and I love it a lot, this one is just, it’s decent but it’s rushed -i could say that about the whole movie, it’s decent but it’s rushed -the thing about the movie though is that like. it hits the major overall notes of the plot of each book just in a very quick and short and therefore low-key manner and because it’s a movie and an hour 48 minutes and they have to rush so netflix, spacing it out in two episodes, had more time and could do it better -and yet. at the same time. -we all know that one of my top complaints about the netflix show is that they too rushed a lot of scenes that I think should have been slower, that were slower in the books -and it’s not like I think the movie did a better job. because the movie fails in a lot of ways, and doesn’t go anywhere into the trauma or any of the real sadness -and even though it fails like that and cuts so much short. there are moments where I think it works better -and I’m trying to tell myself this isn’t just because I’m still living the ‘incredibly outraged at netflix even now, especially lately’ life and I’m not just picking one over the other because I don’t want to -and I’m trying to think of a moment more than just the letter at the end that the movie gave time to the kids to feel something and I can’t (and I can’t count the letter because it’s, the letter) but -i do think the movie let things stretch for even a second longer -it could be the aesthetic because I love the aesthetic of the movie a lot -i don’t know I think….both of them have strengths, netflix had more time but the movie hit a closer aesthetic, at least to me -and netflix didn’t USE that time, is what I’m getting at, and somehow the movie had just a tinier bit more time even though it was shorter, but that probably is just because, the aesthetic, I am a sucker for it -i think this part has something to do with my feelings about netflix’s vfd subplot, that’s probably, where this is coming from, and sometimes I think the clothing and the scenery in the netflix show especially in s1 was very colorful which is fine really that’s such a petty thing to dislike

-“doesn’t it strike you as odd that none of our relatives are related to us?” is still top notch

-although josephine has the pictures I still think monty does have the stronger vfd vibes. -i love the way that window curtain opens!! fucking terrifying!!!!! -i think of jane lynch turning around and saying “is this a bad time?” even now that’s still hilarious

-okay this is it. -this is really truly the one thing the movie did better than the netflix show, and a lot of people feel the same way about this -hurricane herman. -(it was so…….kidsy and kind of charming in the show. and even in the books it wasn’t charming. it was a lot shorter, but not charming.) -like this is legitimately terrifying and how all josephine’s fears come true is one of the most PERFECT things -don’t TEMPT me by saying “[ike] was investigating fires” because I don’t have the time to have ike thoughts right now because that almost lines up with a wip I have, so fuck you -(when I fell asleep to this movie the other day I thought to myself ‘gee hope I don’t wake up during the hurricane scene’ I did in fact wake up then and had to turn the volume down.)

-i think when it was 2004 and I was watching this in the theater I did not watch the leeches, ten year old!me wasn’t having it -there’s a lot of fear in this movie, I’ll say that though, it doesn’t hit the sadness but it hits some of the fear

-here we go, back to bad beginning content -“and what about what I want?” he got the creepiness really good though ugggggg

-okay as many things as I think are not okay but decent in this movie, f u c k  y o u for giving klaus the grappling hook and rescuing sunny!! fuck you for having him burn the paper and not letting violet do the left-handed thing!!! why even change that????? why e v e n there’s no reason to change it -how dare olaf say “rapscallion” in this that’s one of my favorite words -god the soundtrack was so good though………... -“right hand please” yeah I will slap you -klaus is the only one who gets these sad flashbacks god movie I was giving you, some, benefit, of the doubt, watching this as an adult, until this part, when I just, nah man -“these children tried to tell you but you didn’t listen” this is NOT the speech for OLAF to give -movie you were doing okay but you just REALLY fell apart here. none of this is okay -even the ‘these happy things happened! no they did not because the world doesn’t work that way’ falls flat against how lemony would say that in the books, seeing it ruins it -it actually reminds me of the ‘look at all these side characters having happy endings’ in s3 though

-i did always like this scene too though. where they go back to the mansion at the end -i liked the staircase, too. -i will say, there is something….very emotional, about finding something from a loved one, after they’re gone, that you didn’t know they did for you, or that they did at all, and to find it so suddenly. I think the spirit behind the letter in general, not the content and not the weird optimistic ending it leads to, but just the spirit of the letter, is close to violet and klaus and sunny reminiscing on their parents in the books

-the movie was before the beatrice letters but, lemony hanging out in a clocktower with these pigeons and bea’s letter having been delivered by pigeons…….

-ultimately, yes. it was decent, but rushed. -it wasn’t as ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE as I remember saying it was a few years ago, if I think about it as a self-contained sort of thing, there were some things I liked or appreciated, the costumes and the scenery and the soundtrack fit my mental image of the books -although you know what???? you know something i did not consider until the movie was over??? that could just be, I DID see the movie when I was first reading the books as a kid and it may have just stuck with me as The Image I Had And Sometimes Still Do For Parts Of The Books, huh   -but in terms of how it translated the books, like if I think about 1-3 and what they contain, on more than just a surface level of going through plot beats, yeah, it failed hard, and missed the mark a lot -the last like half hour made me a lot more pissed than ever, though, ugggg -i’d put it on in the background again, though.

[calliecat93]

Top 5 Dislikes of Red vs Blue: Season 1

(Top 5 Likes)

So back a few months ago, in the lead up to RWBY Volume 7, I did a Top Likes/Dislikes list for all six volumes. I also did this for RvB Seasons 16 and 17, so… why not do it for the other fifteen? Especially with RvB18 on the way? Not only gives me an excuse to rewatch everything, but I get to have some fun~ So I will be covering RvB seasons 1-13 and 15. S14’s is gonna be a little bit different. But anyways, we’re gonna begin with the one that started it all, Season One~

Honestly though, critiquing Season One is hard. Mainly because this was a season made when RT was just a back bedroom with mainly Burnie and Geoff doing the machinima. We’re a long way away from RWBY-level quality. In the Blood Gulch Era,  it was just a bunch of friends making dumb stuff. Quality dumb stuff, but dumb nonetheless. So the five Dislikes are honestly minor and I don’t even really consider them bad. If anything, they show how far the show has come. So take the Dislikes list with a grain of salt, ut I needed to do it for the necessity of the list. So then, let’s get started~

#5. Not Fully Fleshed Out Characters

This is on the bottom because it’s really not that big a deal. The characters are kinda just somewhat exaggerated versions of the people that Burnie cast. They certianly have character, but aside from really Matt with Sarge, it’s just the cast playing exaggerated versions of themselves. It does kinda stand out because here, the characters don’t really have any defining personality traits or roles. We know a few things like Simmons being a kissass to Sarge, Grif is more out of shape, Caboose is a little dim-witted compared to the other Blues, etc. But when you look at all the future seasons, the lack of fleshing out is very noticeable. Especially for characters who are nothing like they were here, like Donut. I mean I don’t think he spouted even one innuendo here, it’s weeeeird.

Like I said though, this isn’t that big of a deal. The characters still have character and are still funny, it’s just clear that they hadn’t been fully developed. It’s a first season of what was originally meant to be a comedic miniseries and is very forgivable in that regard. It’s honestly fun to rewatch this season and then say Chorus and see how far the characterizations have come. Still, it is a tad noticeable and I needed five picks, so I’m gonna put it here. But again, it’s honestly fine. As is our Number FOur pick…

#4. The Voice Acting

These guys, aside from like… two or three of them, were not actors. They hadn’t done a bunch of material like they have now either, so this is again very forgivable. But it does make the voice acting lover in me kinda cringe when I hear it. You can tell that they’re trying, but as I said, this was still in the early days when no one really knew what they were doing. The one who did the best were either already actors (Joel, Yomary) or had more of a character to play with (Burnie, Matt). Everyone else, as I said, was pretty much given an exaggerated version of themselves and I think it kinda shows in the voice acting. They were all okay, but compared to their later performances and when they are given more characterization, this was not their best work.

But again, this is not that big of a deal. This was the early days and as I said, you can tell that they were trying. I think ti honestly adds tot he charm of early RvB. A bunch of friends making dumb stuff with a video game. I mean Gus outright recording his lines over the phone while living in Puerto Rico, he and the others were clearly dedicated to this thing. It’s not the stuff of legends, but given the tone of Blood Gulch, it works. It’s a dislike because like I said, it annoys my voice acting loving self and it’s weaker to their later performances. But still, it’s very enjoyable… even if some of the voices some chose are kinda jarring. Speaking of…

#3. Sarge’s Voice/Not Fully Fleshed Out Character

This one is super nitpicky, but it bothers me! We all know Sage and his overly exaggerated Southern accent, right? Well… in this one, he is much, much more subdued. Like I said, the characters weren’t fully fleshed out and so Sarge isn’t quite the same as we know him now. The voice reflects this. Here, Matt plays him like a stereotypical Nasty Drill Sargeant. IDK why, but the voice just… bugs me. I guess it’s just because I’m so used tot he current one, but it jarred me so much I had to check if Matt had been the one doing the voice in Season One. Sure enough…

Yeah, this one is very nitpicky and again reflects how I don’t feel the characters were very well fleshed out. I mean even comedic wise, Sarge didn’t really stand out and was really just there to give Grif a hard time. Even his hatred of Blue isn’t really there. Fortunately, this would be fixed in Season 2. Every time I look back at this though, it just takes me out for a minute cause ‘OMG this is not the Sarge I’m used too!’. So a nitpick, but a dislike nonetheless. But hey the fact that this is a minor issue speaks of how much I enjoy this season, haha!

#2. The Afterlife Scene

OH GOD THIS SCENE! IT CONFUSED ME ALMOST AS MUCH AS THE S3 TIME TRAVEL SCENES DID! ALMOST!

So… Blood Gulch is very weird. I mean it had Ghost Church, is this a surprise? But that wasn’t even the weirdest part of this season or even the entirety of the Blood Gulch Chronicles. No, that honor goes to this scene where, after Caboose shot Sarge when Church was possessing him, Sarge found himself in the afterlife. Church and Shelia are also there. Now, fortunately, Sarge comes back via Grif using CPR… on a bullet wound… yeah… but God this scene was the first time the show made me go ‘WTF am I even watching?!’ especially since unlike Chruch’s ghost thing, it never comes up again. Church having been an AI the whole time didn’t help.

Now I know it kinda got explained later as part of Recovery Mode, but it still leaves a lot of questions. Why was Church there? He got kicked out of Sarge’s body when he got shot. Maybe he went back in hopes of making it work? IDK. But maybe we can just say that since Church was possessing Sarge, he left some kind of trace and the Recovery Mode picked up on it. Cool… then why was Shelia there? Sarge wasn’t even at the canyon when Shelia was unleashed. Did Recovery Mode pick up on that from Church too since it was so recent? I guess that makes sense? And yeah I know that when they wrote this Church wasn’t intended to be an AI so maybe it really was the afterlife, but that’s no longer a possibility, so… AAAAHHHH!!!

Yeah… this is why I don’t try to think through Blood Gulch stuff too much. Doing so does nothing except make my brain hurt when I try to go over how it makes sense in canon. Don’t get me wrong, the scene was funny especially with Grif and Simmons trying to revive Sarge. Kinda feel bad for Grif for getting scolded when he just saved Sarge’s life, but it’s Sarge. Of course, he would. I also like the more muted colors int he afterlife and the weird wavy effects with the scenes in the world of the living. It’s a funny scene, just one that hurts my head whenever I try to make sense of it. Stupid me and my stupid need for logic…

#1. The Audio

This was by far the biggest thing I noticed, including back when I started this back in 2017. The audio is… not good. I think this might help explain some of the amateur voice actings because half the time, the filter effect distracts you from the performance. Now I actually do like them using the filter since it makes sense that they’d use mics int heir helmets to talk, but I think that they tuned it up a little too much here. The whole reason they did this was to hide the fact that people like Gus, Jason, and all the guys in California had to record their lines over the phone. It’s one of the better decisions that they made, but like I said, in this season it is super distracting.

The only thing maybe worse is the mixing when it comes to explosions. There are a lot of explosion effects in this due to all the guns, grenades, and tanks. They are loud. Really loud. Like I remember watching the scene where Church dies. I was watching it on my laptop with headphones and I had the volume at a fairly modest time. The explosion noise made me jump. It can sometimes also overpower the voice acting like I think there were a few times I couldn’t fully make out what the Reds were saying when Shelia was firing at the end. Add that tot he voice filter and… yeah.

The audio wasn’t bad. Like I could tell what characters were saying. The effect was just distracting though and clearly they needed some work on audio mixing. Which they, fortunately, did by the next season. I think Burnie even mentioned how annoyed he got at the constant complaints about the filter int he Season 2 commentary, but hey he listened! Still, for Season One, it was by far the thing that annoyed me most and while I know it’s because they didn’t have quality equipment, it still distracts me when I rewatch. So it’s going to be my Top Dislike for Season One.

Final Thoughts

As I have tried to make clear, I don’t view any of these as major issues. Heck aside from Audio, IDK if I’d even say I disliked them. Thrown off by them sure, but not outright dislike. It honestly helped the show I think. It’s certainly mature and kinda crappy work, but it added to the charm and appeal to the show. It’s why they still use stuff like and photoshops, it’s endearing. Even with the improved production quality and while they have maintained a lot of what made RvB such a fun series, the original seasons still have this unique charm that despite how stupid it is, you just wanna tune into it over and over again. So these may be Dislikes, but they’re ones to be proud of. But hey I’ve still got plenty of Likes to talk about, so stay tuned for that~

[almaasi]

reaction post typed while watching JIBcon videos (part 1 of ?)

Cockles panel

in which Misha still has an unapologetic pee kink and Jensen is way more submissive than I remember him being

03:44pm (may 24th nz)

i legit don’t know if i have the energy to watch and type about this but i’ll try. might pause and come back a different day if i need to

watching this first

“JIB10 - Jensen Jared and Misha panel part1″

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRPKIAeNoFA&ab_channel=thiniassk

-

03:54pm

needed a break already but hi i’m back feeling less sick

LET’S BEGIN

-

03:55

misha: “he was like “let’s do this”... and i went on stage and... jensen went to the bathroom”

pfft

-

FINAL JIBCON??? OH NO??????????? OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

;n;

i’m sad now

aw

-

danella: “some issue backstage, we don’t talk about what happens backstage”

misha: “did he not MAKE it to the bathroom?”

misha !!....

mishaaaaaaaaaa

i wanna squish his face between my hands and just sigh lovingly

kinky little asshole, i love him

-

seriously he’s been on stage less than three minutes, jensen’s not there, and he’s already pulling stories out of nowhere implying that jensen pissed himself 

i can’t even

-

04:02pm

https://youtu.be/fRPKIAeNoFA?t=2m54s

jensen: “do you need help?”

his voice is so gorgeously deep and warm

-

misha: “do you need a pair of dry pants?”

i can’t think of words but

//clutches my head and whines

does jensen have context? does he just get on stage and the first thing he’s asked is whether he needs fresh pants??? whY DOES HE THINK MISHA IS ASKING

-

jensen: “i’m not wearing any pants”

T

THEY

ALL THEY DO IS FLIRT

-

04:08

this was such a soft and submissive hug??????????/ jensen just??? slid up and???? aWWWH

-

AND THEN HE JUST

“I LOVE YOU”

RIGHT OFF THE BAT

OKAY

OKAY I’M ON BOARD

GIVE ME MORE OF THIS X10000

-

jensen: "and there’s a reason i haven’t told you that today”

misha & jensen: “”’cause you/I don’t”

STOP THIS

jensen: “I’M KIDDING”

CEASE AND DESIST

misha: “about what”

EXACTLY

misha looks at jensen like., oh man. :c he laughs after but he’s a tiny bit jilted there. love is always a joke ;<

but also misha gets it, jensen’s a wee bit awkward in front of an audience but he’s MAKIN’ AN EFFORT DAMMIT

-

04:14

they’re sitting so close

-

jensen: “alright, driver, what are we listening to?”

DID HE JUST

(i mean, driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole, obviously)

jensen just gave misha the driver’s seat

he’s so goddamn submissive????? i just

i haven’t watched or seen anything with fresh jensen in like. months. MONTHS. maybe a full year since the last jibcon. and i completely forgot he was like this

especially with misha

i know i often interpret dean as submissive but actually?? in comparison to jensen those lil occasional traits are nothing. jensen’s just openly and unapologetically putting misha in charge with words and with the way his body moves

he’s so soft.

SO soft.

-

and when misha doesn’t answer for a few seconds, jensen looks over, first into his eyes, then down to his lips, checking his expression

misha was kinda stiff before but he got stiffer, ponderous

i honestly, HONESTLY didn’t think i’d be analysing body language this time round but i can’t help it, its so obvious to me, more obvious than it ever is with ANYONE else

these two just give off MASSIVE signals, all the time. maybe because they’re actors and they’re not currently acting, but are performing their own selves, so they perform a heightened version of their personality. but there’s so much to see

plus like. you can see in the background how jensen holds the mic. both protective and phallic at the same time. flirty and nervous and relaxed

-

and THEN MISHA SAYS “we’re listening to the song “why are there so many songs about rainbows”

everything is not-so-secretly gay

this is a rainbow bullet train heading for rainbow city and there’s no stopping it

-

04:26

https://youtu.be/fRPKIAeNoFA?t=5m5s

misha pushed the mic down to whisper to jensen, then jensen’s like “no~. no~!!” and then flirty and winky and “teeease”

WHAT DID THEY TALK ABOUT

maybe about how far they wanna go on stage idk. THIRD BASE MAYBE

or how much of season 15 they can talk about

either way misha was tryna keep it private and jensen was literally broadcasting his answers into the mic. jensen is 100% an exhibitionist.

you know what, i love that look he gets in his eyes when he’s flirting with misha in front of people. you know the look. dark eyed, uncontrollable smile, head set a little down. really open shoulders, probably swaying hips, if he’s standing. ugh i love that

but like. i’m pretty sure he flirts different if nobody’s watching. i think if nobody’s watching (or if he doesn’t realise people are watching) he’s just a regular guy talking to his best friend/wife. except his wife is sometimes misha. some of that big smile, definitely some unnecessary touching and preening and back-of-neck-holding

the crazy thing is i’m essentially making that up, but we all know his movements and behaviour with misha so well i don’t think any of us would struggle to imagine it was true

idk

-

04:37

i will never get tired of seeing them lay their heads on each other’s shoulders

also sidenote: in my opinion this is the best beard + haircut combo jensen has ever had

-

04:39

jensen: “misha......... what’s your latest dad joke?”

-

jensen: “we’re telling stories about CARPOOL now”

i love that they already know each others’ stories and jensen’s like OOH THIS STORY and comes back to sit down to listen

-

04:41

crowd: “we love you misha”

jensen: “thanks, misha’s mom!!!”

and then he looks at misha so softly and so lovingly, he’s not joking any more, he just loves misha as much as the rest of us, maybe more

someone called “we love you jensen” but he didn’t react at all because he was appreciating misha, didn’t even blink

(also as i re-read this post i realise he said “misha’s mom” in a way that’s like “hey stop flirting with him, he’s mine” not in a “dear misha’s mother, thank you for giving us misha”)

-

jensen: “you speak in more puns as a dad. yeah~”

the way he says that with a smile and a nod. like he observed that in misha and also in himself maybe

but he just finished misha’s sentence

they are MARRIED

but i for one ADORE puns and even if i was the only one in my year 10 economics class who laughed at my teacher’s puns i STAND BY THAT LAUGH

-

“when salmon spawn in a stream, and then they die, and an otter eats the carcass”

HE’S TALKING ABOUT HOW HE MAKES MORE PUNS NOW

AND HE’S RELATING IT TO THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

MY LOVE FOR HIM GROWS BY THE HEARTBEAT

-

04:48

there we go, hand on the back of the neck/shoulder

-

THE FIRST QUESTION WAS “can you maybe take a sip of the apple juice”

GET DRUNK !!!

AND THEN MAKE OUT !!!!

yes please

jensen looks at misha checks with him, and then says “no!!!!!”

because he knows flirting will happen

BUT THEn MISHA

GETS UP

GET THIS BOY DRUNK

HELL YEAH

nesnej is much flirtier and we all enjoy it

but like. jensen said no but then he shuts his eyes and shakes his head when misha gets up, knowing what’s gonna happen. ‘cause like. he could say no again. but he already consented to misha leading this thing, right? and if misha hands him a drink he’s gonna drink it. that’s just what’s gonna happen.

and he knows misha’s not getting up just to get himself a drink. there’s something very specific about getting jensen drunk. he knows what he’s like drunk. and so does misha.

i just need to enjoy for a moment how jensen’s vehement resistance to getting himself a drink is immediately completely overridden by misha’s choice to get a drink for him, and jensen gives zero argument. the moment misha moves jensen’s gives over to knowing he’s gonna get tipsy

i have literally never in all my life seen anyone as easily and happily submissive as jensen is with misha

-

05:00

HE COULD SAY NO. HE COULD SAY NO

BUT MISHA DOESN’T EVEN FORCE HIM HE JUST OFFERS IT AND SAYS NOTHING

AND JENSEN GOES “awww mannnn” buT THEN TAKES IT with an “alright~” before he’s even done complaining. as though the complaints were all a farce to begin with and he was eager to say yes?? maybe he likes being drunk and flirting with misha, no surprises there. maybe the look he gave misha before saying “no!” was a permission look saying “yes but only if you make me”? they clearly communicate a lot unsaid, i wouldn’t be surprised by that either

i swear to god this is a sex scene. i’ve written this but with water instead of booze. nobody can convince me they don’t do this in private, drink a lot so they need to pee and get drunk and flirty. *o*

and i am kind of reeling right now. i should sound like i’m making this up but OH BOY THE WAY THEY TALK. THE WAY MISHA OBSESSES WITH PEEING (and has done so consistently for years, especially with jensen). THE WAY HE JUST HANDS JENSEN AND DRINK AND JENSEN TAKES IT. misha wants jensen flirty and REMEMBER THAT TIME HE WAS DIRECTING AND HE MADE JENSEN DRINK THE SAME DRINK ON CAMERA 20 TIMES OVER

-

jensen watches misha drink first

and then he drinks

-

i’m so wrecked by all of this right now

legitimately

their energy is so sexually charged??? and so comfortable and so loving

this is not at all the same aggressive sexual energy jensen brings to the stuff we see in the gag reel, i.e. “pranks” i.e. flirting. but it has equal magnitude imo, it’s just quieter because he’s being himself, not dean (and jared’s not there)

misha knows jensen so damn well and even that bullshit about whether or not jensen loves him was understood to mean “i do but i’m self-concious about being firm about it in front of an audience” and then jensen shows his love instead of saying it (but even then he made a point of saying it straight away)

but oh LORD the biggest thing i’m getting from this so far is that jensen is indeed misha’s princess-slash-cabin boy. and we should never ever doubt that misha used those terms in an affectionate, dominant sort of way. (on the one hand i’m wary about the use of a ~feminine~ term as a means of domination, in general, but on the other hand, I AM SOOO INTO IT for them specifically. maaaay have written "princess” into a destiel fic that one time)

-

anyway where was i

oh yeah jensen just agreed to get drunk because misha wants him to

-

05:25pm

you know what, i’m gonna stop here and come back maybe tomorrow. i didn’t finish this video yet but there’s still a part 2 of this panel, and then other panels and i’m definitely not getting through them all today, these last 11 minutes of footage have taken me almost 2 hours to watch

i’ll post more of my reactions under #Elmie watches things so ... stay tuned!!

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

HIStory’s ranked (no one asked, but here i go)

so i was sittin here, talkin to myself about the HIStory series’ and was like ‘hey, i should rank them’ (which i’ve seen a few other people do, but mines a lot more rambling than there’s because i can’t shut up lol) 

so here’s my views lol (ordered from worst to best, imo):

6) My Hero (HIStory1) -

probably universally acknowledged as the worst episode, and i’d be inclined to agree with the masses on this lol... not only is the tone and humour of this series so weird and disjointed, but the entire story line literally makes no sense lol?? it’s unclear who the audience should be rooting for (especially as it goes out of it’s way to paint our protagonist as really unlikable lol, not to mention the love interest is the dullest character ever conceived like ???), as well as this the ending feels completely unrelated and bizarre... 

i think this concept /could/ have worked if the guy the woman was inhabiting (which sounds weird without context, but like she’s dead lol) was somehow also inside his head? or if she got to see his memories or whatever & tries to adjust her personality to match the guy’s, causing love interest!dude to fall in love with the guy... (like i could go into more detail, i basically hav an entire au written in my head lol, but yh...)... that way, her letting go of him in the end would feel so much more well set up? especially if she was generally more understanding and likeable.. 

i think overall this series just fails in telling a decent story lol... & the cringe is even beyond what i can handle lol

5) Obsessed (HIStory1) -

people might be surprised to see this one so low down, especially since i know a lot of people really love this series (& if u do, no hate to u btw, ur allowed to like whatever u want idc), but i realllllly don’t like this series... like at all ...

the plot is weird anyway, which isnt inherently a bad thing, but then u add on the really bad couple and it’s just...... bad lol... like everything about their relationship is built on lies and deceit, and even more so than that it’s built on a lack of mutual respect and fundamental trust for each other! tall guy (i don’t know names soz) feigns memory loss in order to get closer to short guy (btw, the scenes with them being domestic were really sweet, & i firmly believe this could have been an alright series for the actors if the story line wasn’t so bad), short guy’s whole existence in that universe was a lie lol (like i know there’s no easy way to tell someone ‘lol well i’m technically from the future’ but still), then there’s the whole resolution at the end & it’s just so ??? frustrating lol!

nothing bugs me more than seeing conflict in relationships (on screen or irl) that could be solved simply by TALKING TO EACH OTHER GODDAMNIT & isnt lol... my other issue with this series is the fact tall guy 100% forced himself upon short guy in the tent & like we’re just supposed to accept it cos ?? he’s saying no and pushing away but actually he wants it because he loves tall guy ?? like fuck no i’m not accepting that lol! 

basically, bad & bizarre story & characters, & gross tropes just makes this hard for me to watch and enjoy lol... i think, like in my hero, this could’ve done with being a different story altogether lol... (maybe tall guy actually did lose his memory & he falls for short guy all on his own with no predatory intentions?? idk something like that)

4) Right or Wrong (HIStory2)

this one & my number 3 are very much tied tbh, but this one is just slightly lower just because i’m not as big into the couple as i know a lot of people are... & it’s not necessarily the age gap, cos i dont actually mind age gaps in pairings (just as long as the younger one isnt a minor, obv... and also i think any gap that’s 30+ years is a bit weird lol..).. i think my big problem with this is i dont really see why younger guy (again, i have no idea of any of these characters’ names lol) would fall for the older guy? like the older guy is obvs going thru some issues, and hasnt been taking care of himself or his kid properly because of them, but like we dont rly see a lot of why he’s a great guy? like we get the sense young guy is attracted to him, but like love is more than just thinkin they’re hot lol... idk lol this might just be me tbh i just couldnt see why he’d be interested lol

i did like the whole family side though, and showing how a man who was previously with a woman can still end up with a guy (bisexualityyyyy (or some variation of that thereupon)) is something you dont always see in media, so i thought that was pretty cool! (even if the ex-wife thing was kinda lame lol...) 

i think overall i see what this series was going for, and that it actually did an alright job in some parts... the biggest problem is that it’s kinda just forgettable lol... maybe that’s why people like obsessed so much lol? maybe it was a train wreck but ohh boy at least u wont forget it in a hurry lol!

3) Stay Away From Me (HIStory1) -

i’m a bit torn about this one, cos there are parts of it i actually really like (them going from rivals/enemies to being good friends to being more), and other parts i really didnt (the stereotypical squealing yaoi fangirl friend)... & tbh, i kinda wish this had just been a show about the budding friendship between the 2 guys... it almost feels too forced to me that they’re made to ‘fall in love’ when i actually think them both becoming less selfish and learning to respect each other as step brothers & friends is actually already a really great story (& i know that it doesnt fit with the whole ‘HIStory’ thing, but stories of platonic brotherhood/’bromance’ are just as important as gay representation... isnt a /substitute/ for representation, don’t get me wrong, but it’s always so beautiful to see decently portrayed non-toxic friendships between guys... ok this is a rant for another day tho shhh)

i think maybe why i like this one more than the other HIStory1′s is because kinda nothing happens lol... it’s not overly complex with weird unexplained magic things happening, it’s just a simple story lol... is it still tropey as hell? of course lol! but i think the ‘realism’ of the world really helps, and i def think this was incorporated more into HIStory 2, which i’m really glad about...

overall, this is a relatively harmless series & is actually quite sweet at times... the kiss is awkward as fuck tho (there, i said it lol...)... it suffers the same forgetability as right or wrong tho... 

2) Crossing the Line (/Boundary Crossing) (HIStory2) -

ok, so here’s a series i 100% love & totally agree with the hype around lol! i hav no interest in volleyball (or any sports tbh), but the way this show handles the friendships and dynamics between the characters is really well done, especially for a series that’s only 8 episodes long! i also really love that none of the characters really fall into any stereotypes (which is a great improvement from HIStory1 i can tell u lol), and are given the space to actually have some growth & nuance at times?! 

(nuance? in MY HIStory series?? it’s more likely than you think!)

the main couple have really amazing chemistry, and the way they get together doesnt feel too out of place or that it’s going to fast, it just sorta flows really nicely... even the side couple are pretty well done (though i wasnt that big into them on my first watch, just cos the whole overbearing older brother thing was kinda annoying... i liked them more as the series went on tho...)

i kinda dont have any major complaints? which is bizarre cos i always hav complaints about things lol... maybe my complaint would be that they all look way too old and attractive to be whatever teenage age they’re supposed to be lol... (but tbh that doesnt take anything away from the story so i’ll forgive them lol...)... i think maybe i wouldnt consider it my favourite because the story line didnt grab me like the number 1... but i really cant fault it in terms of what it delivers lol, legit such a well put together series!

1) Trapped (HIStory3) -

lol i think anyone who’s been following me for the past few months aren’t in the slightest bit surprised this is my number one... i just love it too much lol!

from the incredibly well written and well acted characters, to the interesting and engaging (even if a bit ridiculous) plot, to the beautifully told romance , it really has it all doesn’t it!!! & i think even if this wasnt an enemies to lovers thing (aka one of the most godtier of all fanfic tropes), there’s so many things going for this series that make it worth watching! i have a few complains about editing choices and a few bad trope plot points which were just unnecessary (plus the fact we missed out on a lot of background info on some major characters lol...), but like despite everything this series rly struck a chord with me deep down in my soul lol

i could go waaay more into detail (and maybe i will one day lol... tho not rn, i’m v tired), but the gist of the matter is: i really love trapped lol

(conclusion)

Even though i’ve complained quite a bit here, i am so grateful for the HIStory series’ for bringing really interesting, and a little mad, stories with gay characters and story lines, with a big emphasis on happy endings! there are so many lgbt stories/characters in things that end up dying or just have bad endings, which just sends this horrible message that lgbt people aren’t worthy of having happy endings, which is completely untrue! 

So i look forward to future HIStory’s, even if some of them are gonna be bad (& maybe none will live up to the trapped!shaped bullet firmly lodged in my heart lol)

fin~