#ignore the oh-so-convenient plot point of getting a replacement so quickly

[purefandomonium]

Part 8: Extended Warranty

Heeeeey more chapters! I got the sudden urge to write a bunch all at once so I can finally start posting again. I'm trying to stay 2-3 chapters ahead before post any. Hope you enjoy!

***

She supposed it was only a matter of time. This must have been the “strange feeling” Red had begun mentioning recently. If only she’d seen it for what it was: foreshadowing.

The GameBoy was done. Toast. The internals had finally burned up from constantly running. The old thing just couldn’t handle it anymore. It shouldn’t have been as much of a shock as it was. And yet…

Now she was left with a burnt out GameBoy and what she hoped was a still-functioning copy of the haunted Pokemon Red. She felt bad for him. He’d likely had little to no warning before his world went dark. The power had been out for at most several hours but she hoped he’d be alright in there until she could get a new console.

Right… It was just a matter of finding one. The spare she’d gotten via trade wasn’t in the best state from all her meddling trying to make the microphone work. She didn’t want to risk plugging Red into that lest he become even more broken. Her computer was an option, but she wasn’t sure putting Red into something that modern and powerful—compared to the GameBoy anyway—would be a smart move. She could check the game store she bought him from, only she doubted she’d find a console cheap. She’d already used up the last of her summer money to buy Red’s cartridge in the first place. She really didn’t want to talk to anyone else in school to convince them to give one up either. The first trade had at least been with someone she was on relatively neutral terms with. She didn’t know who to ask now.

Except for her parents. It was a coin toss as to whether or not they’d indulge her request. Maybe… Maybe they’d feel guilty about never spending time with her? Maybe she could sweet talk Mom, who could then convince Dad…

Leann’s feet carried her downstairs. She took a deep breath and knocked on the door to her parents’ office. They took turns sharing it, as her father tended to most of his business away in an actual office while her mother was more self-made and worked from home the vast majority of the time. She hoped she wasn’t walking in on a meeting.

“Mom?” Leann cracked the door open and peeked inside when there was no answer.

“Yes?”

She opened the door fully as her mother turned to face her. “You’re not too busy, I hope? I need to, uh, ask you something.”

“No, it’s fine. What’s wrong?”

Ok. Now for the fun part. “Well… you know how I spent the summer working odd jobs so I could save up for stuff?” She waited for the nod before continuing. “Well, I used it to get some games and stuff, but now my GameBoy died…” She hoped she didn’t look like a desperate idiot. She certainly felt like one, asking her mother to re-buy her a kid’s toy so she could continue talking to the spirit-entity-thing that resided in one of the games for it. Not that she’d tell her all that. “I, um, don’t have the money to get another one at the moment.”

“Well, how much does another one cost?”

Leann’s eyes widened at her stupidity. Why didn’t she check first? “Um… It… It varies. I was gonna check the same store I went to for any. It just, uh, depends on what type and all that.” She met her mom’s gaze and they just stared awkwardly. “Can I go find out and get back with you? I promise it won’t be too much. I don’t even need anything extra with it. All I need is the console. Please?”

Maybe it was the guilt of ignoring her daughter that made her agree so quickly. Leann would tell herself that for as long as she needed to.

“…Alright. Go take a look and let me know, ok?”

“Seriously?!”

“Mmhmm.” She turned back to her computer.

“Thanks, Mom! You’re the best!” Leann didn’t wait for any sort of answer as she turned and rushed to get her shoes on. She wasted no time bounding out the door and to the game store about ten minutes away if one was walking.

Which she ended up doing after only a couple minutes.

Stepping into the slightly stuffy air inside, she went up to the counter and waited in the short line. Finally, “You wouldn’t happen to have any old GameBoy consoles, would you? Doesn’t matter what kind.” Although an SP would be nice. She always wanted one of those. It had the added benefit of being rechargeable by default too, so no more rigging. Maybe it would last a little longer than its predecessor.

“Mm. I’ll have to check.”

She waited as he disappeared into the back, brimming with nervous energy. It was ridiculous to get her hopes up but she’d spent too much time with Red to give up any opportunities she had to bring him back. The odds they’d have one were slim, and they only lessened at the possibility of a newer version.

It seemed the odds were in her favor when the clerk returned with a dusty box.

“You’re in luck; there’s an old SP. It’s pretty dinged up but it still works great. The damage is just cosmetic.” He let her take a look at it and even loaded up a game for her.

Leann couldn’t hide her grin. To top it all off, it was even red. How fitting. “How much is it?”

“It’s one-eighty-four.”

She grimaced. Probably not terrible, but it was still pretty scratched up. “Do you mind if I call my mom real quick? She’s paying so it’s her say. I’ll be right back.”

He shrugged and set the box beneath the counter while she stepped outside. The phone couldn’t ring fast enough. “Mom!” she barked out with too much excitement. “They have one, it works, but it’s, um, it’s one-eighty-four.” The sigh she received in response was disheartening.

“I’ll be down in a few.”

Leann gasped as the line went dead. This had just become the best day she’d ever had. Now the only thing left was making sure Red was ok.

Five minutes and some haggling later, and Leann walked out of there with a new console and her mom saved thirty bucks. She made sure to thank her immensely on the way home before going upstairs to lock herself in her room.

Her hands shook as she plugged the console into the charger and inserted the cartridge. She watched in anticipation as it booted up and the regular Pokemon Red intro played. Something she hadn’t seen in almost a month as Red grew more and more aware. Her finger hovered over the start button.

Everything froze. The music crackled before cutting off. The images on screen glitched save for a single text box that appeared.

RED: WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!

Leann heaved out the breath she’d been holding as the messages continued to appear.

RED: What did you do?!

RED: Why did you turn it off?!?!

She cursed, realizing she could no longer speak with him, the microphone still rigged to the broken GameBoy. There was no way she was going to risk damaging this one too. Red’s panicked tantrum wasn’t helping and she snapped, “The game died you dumbass!” She hushed herself and tiptoed to her door to poke her head out and see if her mom heard. She could faintly hear her voice, on a conference call no doubt. She shut the door again.

“Great. Now I have to figure out how to talk to you again. Spelling takes way too long.”

RED: What do you mean the game “died?”

She froze. “…What?”

RED: You said the game died. So you didn’t turn it off?

“I… no. Wait… Can you hear me?”

RED: Um, yeah? Did you forget all your meddling?

“Red…”

RED: So how long until you get the charger fixed? I don’t want to go out like that again.

He… How was he able to…?

“Red,” she said again, voice a whisper. “The plug didn’t fall out. The actual GameBoy died. You shouldn’t… be able to hear me right now.” Still, she found herself checking over the SP for any signs of tampering that would suggest a microphone was installed.

RED: …What are you saying…?

“…I’m saying that the GameBoy I was using burned up. It must have overheated or something. The one your cartridge is plugged into right now is a completely different console. I just got it.” Surely it had been fate that had allowed something so convenient to happen. Whatever it was, she was grateful.

RED: …I see…

RED: I didn’t even notice. You sound the same as always.

“I shouldn’t sound like anything though! That’s what’s c—weird about it.” She almost said creepy. That likely wouldn’t go over well and she was glad she caught it.

RED: It’s strange…

RED: I think staying awake for so long has made me stronger somehow.

RED: My head feels much clearer… And I can even hear you without the microphone!

“Yeah…” She couldn’t tell where this was going anymore. It made sense; the longer the game stayed on, the more Red’s mental awareness improved. And Red had been awake for quite some time now. Much longer than he ever had been before, no doubt.

If this kept up, would he eventually be able to free himself?

“Well… I guess I don’t need to worry about rigging a new mic, huh?”

RED: No. There’s no need.

RED: …I’m sorry I yelled before.

“Huh? Why? It’s no big deal.” She had read his initial reaction as fear and panic, not anger. It seemed like Red was used to going into constant comas. Most players probably just turned the GameBoy off when they were done playing. That couldn’t have been good, blacking out like that for indefinite amounts of time. Maybe that was why it had taken him so long to reach this point.

No wonder he’d been so distraught.

She watched the game return to its normal state, Red seemingly running out of things to say. It appeared he’d rather things continue on as normal. She pursed her lips and shrugged, figuring she may as well allow it.

Today had been something else, but at least it was almost over.

Part 7: here Part 9: here

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #30 - The Cybertronian Judicial System is a Friggin’ Joke

Have I mentioned that I’m not a huge fan of court case stories? I think they’re pretty boring, on average, so the last couple of issues have been slightly dragging for me.

Anyway, back to Megatron’s trial. 

Our issue opens up with a full back shot of Ultra Magnus.

Artists take note, he really is built like a capital T.

As Magnus reads out Megatron’s statement retracting his “guilty” plea, we get some decent points as to why. See, telling a guy that you’ll stab him in the brain, so his trial can be over as quickly as possible, maybe isn’t such a hot idea. Megatron wasn’t a huge fan of that, or of how those memories they would’ve yanked outta him would have been used to fuel the Autobot propaganda machine. Why, you may ask?

Well, I don’t know if you knew this or not, but Megatron… doesn’t particularly care for the Autobots, nor the rhetoric they uphold.

I know, I was surprised too!

There’s also the fact that Optimus Prime is the judge on this whole thing. You know. Optimus Prime. Off and on leader of the Autobots, whenever it suits him. The guy who fucked off into space for a year after the war. The guy who threw a hissy fit when someone pointed out that he was compromised the last time they did something like this with Megatron. This guy:

Yeah, there might be a slight conflict of interests here. Remind me again why this had to be a military trial?

Anyway, enough of that, it’s time for a fight scene.

A swarm of Decepticons storm the arena, going after Megatron so they can help him escape. Magnus, though acting as Megatron’s defense, cannot abide by this disorder in the court.

Wild to think there’s a tiny little Pringles man with anxiety in there, isn’t it?

Optimus joins the fray, because there really are, just, so many guys to deal with here. A dude goes to collect Megatron, stating that they brought teleport packs for this little shindig. Megatron isn’t super jazzed about that though, not bothering to grab on before the dude gets shot to death. There’s a brief recess, I guess so the janitorial staff can deal with the mess of corpses littering the courtroom.

Meanwhile, in the present day, Rung’s building a model spaceship in Swerve’s, which is a very brave thing to be doing, seeing how sticky and gross bars can be. Brainstorm’s brought a flask to the bar, and proceeds to pour the contents into a funnel sticking out of his arm.

Our bartender for the evening- I’m assuming it’s evening, but I doubt the concept of time has any real weight in space- is Bluestreak. Bluestreak was stationed on Earth for a while, which is some Phase One stuff, and took a liking to human media while he was there. He’s the guy who handles movie night these days, seeing as Rewind’s too busy being dead to do it, and I doubt Chromedome has the emotional bandwidth to take over for his late spouse.

Bluestreak’s favorite movie is Zulu, a film glorifying the colonialism of the English over the native populace of an African kingdom. Make of that what you will.

Whirl wants to watch À Bout de Soufflé, or Breathless, as it was translated for the English-speaking world, which is a French New Wave film about a criminal who shoots a cop, hides from the police in a journalist’s home, who he seduces and likely impregnates. She eventually finds out what he did, reports him to the police, but then has a change of heart and lets him know what she’s done. He runs, but is shot, and dies in the street. The film is notable for its final scene, in which the following dialogue happens, between the dying criminal Michael, his lover Patricia, and an officer.

Of course, any poignancy would almost certainly be lost on the average comic book reader, and is also somewhat nullified by Whirl praising the film with internet lingo.

Then again, I suppose Whirl would be the type to dismantle any deeper reading of his interest in such a film, lest he be subjected to the horrifying ordeal of being known.

Over with Skids and Riptide, it’s revealed that Megatron’s been teaching classes on the Lost Light, specifically on the Knights of Cybertron. Riptide’s getting an education, because he’s been feeling pretty lost since the war ended- we’ll get to the potential whys of that later on. Swerve isn’t a fan of this community college thing that’s going on, stating that Megatron’s using it as a distraction, so he can devise plots most foul.

Back in the past, Autobot high command is having a talk about what Megatron’s demanding, and man is it a doozy— turns out, since the trial’s happening on Luna 2, the trial proceedings are subject to the laws of the moon. One of these moon laws is the right to request being judged by the Knights of Cybertron. Now, this is a problem, seeing as the Knights of Cybertron have been AWOL for the last several million years, but the law is the law, and you can’t just go ignoring it when someone’s pointed it out.

Bro, your SIC just suggested y’all pull the trial so you could slap it on Cybertron, thus negating any need to pay attention to the Knight law. That’s such a gross miscarrying of justice, it’s genuinely baffling. You’ve got bigger issues going on than flouting. My god, Optimus, you were a cop—

Oh wait, that’s right. Carry on, then.

Back on the Lost Light, First Aid’s checking to make sure that the coffin Rodimus they revealed last issue is true and proper dead. Now, this may seem like a given, but you’ve got to remember that Brainstorm was mostly dead for over a year and a half, and nobody fucking noticed, so it’s probably for the best that they’re checking.

First Aid’s been pretty withdrawn since Ambulon died, so this autopsy is really good for him, since it got him out of his room. Pretty fucked up that it would take a dead body to get him out and about. Has Rung checked in on his poor son of a gun, or has he been spending the last six months getting his professional rocks off psychoanalyzing a genocidal warlord?

Our coffin Rodimus died from having parts of his brain removed, and potentially died screaming.

Yes, that is a Furmanism, thank you peanut gallery, moving on—

Ratchet hands the phone over to Ultra Magnus, saying that a call has to be made, and it can’t be by him, because the callee is mighty upset with Ratchet at the moment.

Oh, I guess he’s fine after all. This must be where the sci-fi bullshit really starts kicking in for the series.

Because seeing your own dead body is likely very traumatic and awful, Rodimus is taking a while to string together his thoughts on the matter. Megatron doesn’t particularly care, because he’s not terribly sympathetic to this sort of thing, and the two get into a spat, where it’s revealed that they’re co-captaining the Lost Light.

Because things weren’t chaotic enough on this fucking ship. Need to mix in some peacocking between the McDonalds twunk and the man who killed half of Beijing.

Back in the past, Optimus Prime visited Megatron in prison to have a little chat. It’s not about that little rescue attempt, though the fact that those Decepticons may have been released from the Lost Light’s brig is certainly interesting. No, Optimus is here to sit way too close to his mortal nemesis on the floor of his room and talk about how Megatron is a sneaky bastard.

You remember the Hellraiser puzzle box from a couple issues back? Yeah, that was a communicube, one that was passed to Optimus to suggest that the trial be held on the moon, so the arena there would be able to hold all the people wronged by Megatron. This seems pretty damn convenient in hindsight, but Megatron swears that the legal loophole wasn’t his only intent when he sent the cube.

Because it’s all about you, isn’t it, Megatron? It’s all about how you’re perceived by future generations. Fuck the guys who had to actually deal with what your personal choices caused to happen.

Megatron wants to make amends with all those who were wronged by him. This doesn’t include being acquitted of his crimes, which, y’know, good- at least he’s being slightly realistic about how this is going to turn out for him.

What he wants to do is find Cyberutopia, so the Cybertronians have a replacement planet, since Cybertron kind of sucks now.

Oh, sorry, did I say realistic? I take it back.

In the present, Rodimus is still bummed out about being dead. Still, the day doesn’t stop just because it’s a bad one, and he calls in the experts.

CHROMEDOME YOU PROMISED TO STOP THIS SHIT

Yeah, no, Chromedome’s fallen off the wagon again, and does his thing on the coffin Rodimus. As he does, Megatron suddenly gets squeamish, Brainstorm pulls out his early early-warning device to lean on the fourth wall, and it’s revealed that the coffin that coffin Rodimus was in was built in the fashion of the Spectralist faith.

All Chromedome can suss out of coffin Rodimus’ memories is the really big important stuff, which includes the speech at Rivet’s Field inviting folks to come join the Knight Quest. Aww, that’s sweet.

With the analysis of the innermost energon complete, the results are in— the coffin Rodimus is a Rodimus. A real one, from the near future. Bummer.

I suppose denial is one of the seven stages of grief, isn’t it?

As everyone argues over whether or not Rodimus is going to die, Nightbeat brings up a good point— there aren’t any numbers carved into the coffin Rodimus’ hand. Rodimus is about to reveal some Ratchet-original wisdom, when things start getting really weird; whole sections of the Lost Light are disappearing.

Over at Swerve’s, Tailgate is regaling his peers with the story of his derring-do against Chief Justice Tyrest. Everyone is very impressed, and this includes our good buddy Getaway.

Jeez, think you’ve got enough antagonist shadows on this guy? It’s almost as if the art’s trying to tell us something about him.

Getaway lays it on real thick, saying that Tailgate could totally be the next Prime, with how courageous and awesome he is, all while completely ignoring Tailgate’s personal space and having a weirdly tiny hand. This seems to seriously bother Cyclonus, who is watching this shit go down from the doorway. Our purple space jet leaves once the drinks start being poured and conversation starts happening. God knows he hates talking about his insecurities.

Then the Pipes is Friggin’ Dead alarm goes off. But Pipes has been dead for a while now, so that must mean something else awful is happening.

Back during the trial, I guess because Optimus has a soft spot for Megatron, he allows him to join the Lost Light’s Knight Quest… even as he says that he could keep the guy locked up until Rodimus and pals find the Knights. However, there are rules to this, and one of the rules is that Megatron must publicly denounce the Decepticon cause.

It is a slow and painful experience for everyone involved, as he reads the statement he was given. It’s an immediate call to action- or rather, inaction.

Geez, think they could’ve made it any more obvious that this was being ghostwritten? I can’t wait to see how long it takes for “Megatron was blackmailed into saying this by the Autobots” to be a plotpoint.

Outside the prison, Ratchet and Rodimus are taking in the brand new Rod Pod, which is genuinely ridiculous in how large it is. Rodimus admits to having taken Atomizer’s list, though he knows that trying to use it to keep those who voted him off would be a pretty shitty thing to do.

Also, no one’s told him about Megatron coming along on the trip. As captain.

Or you could, I dunno, lock him up from the start. Or, if you want to give him a chance to prove himself, slap him into a bottom-rung role, like bilge cleaner, or sewage mucker, or whatever the equivalent would be on a spaceship full of giant gay robots. We don’t have to give the guy any power to hold him to scrutiny— any minimum wage worker will tell you that scrutiny comes far harsher for those who actually carry out orders than those who give them.

But what do I know? I’ve never fought in a several million year war, and I don’t plan to.

Getting back to the list, it seems as if Ratchet and Rodimus are on the same wavelength, in that both agree it’s only going to cause trouble and hurt feelings to keep the thing around. Rodimus destroys it with his usual flare, only to be blindsided by the fact that it was fake this entire time. How does Ratchet know this?

Because his name wasn’t on it.

...Man, that’s gotta sting. No wonder Rodimus was upset enough to not take his calls.

In the present, everyone’s in a panic, as they all bolt for the shuttle bay and start pouring into shuttles. The Lost Light is disintegrating around them, which is sort of a problem. Despite this nightmare scenario happening, Rodimus and Megatron still find the time to be assholes to each other. That’s dedication right there.

As the two bicker, multiple shuttles zip away from the rapidly disappearing ship, including the Rod Pod.

Man, now it really is the Lost Light.

[miraculouscontent]

Talking about the Season 3 finale time!

...yaaaaaay.

So I just want to start by saying how much of a shame it is that “Miracle Queen” was a terrible dumpster fire of an episode, because “Heart Hunter” legitimately had a lot of good things going for it. It had better pacing than usual, let Marinette have fun with Adrien and Kagami rather than be in a constant state of misery (she was miserable a few times, of course, but with good reason), gave Luka screentime and let him actually do things, built up suspense with Hawk Moth taking the Miracle Box, and it allowed Marinette to both have a breakdown and be comforted.

“Heart Hunter” was not a perfect episode, but for Season 3 standards, it was darn good. Its worst faults are things that I’ll get into soon, but most of them relate back to what “Miracle Queen” ends up being. I mean, despite how much “Miracle Queen” tries (and fails) to follow up on what “Heart Hunter” does, the two episodes feel as if they were written by completely different people; it’s like someone wrote “Heart Hunter,” got fired before they wrote the following episode, and someone else who hates Marinette and good storytelling in general was brought on and told to finish what the other writer started with no context as to what that other writer had actually planned.

But, anyway, yeah, just wanted to get that out of the way. Let’s get into the salt.

[Justice Delayed]

I'll just say it outright: I honestly didn't want Chloe to be redeemed. I'm not saying that she was outright irredeemable, but at the very least, I didn't want her getting her miraculous back.

The ultimate problem concerning Chloe is that the writers sent conflicting messages.

"Evillustrator" had Sabrina returning to Chloe, not because she's in a toxic relationship and doesn’t know how to deal with a better one, but because of a complete misunderstanding.

"Antibug" didn't have Chloe apologize for anything. Chloe gave Sabrina a gift instead of apologizing, and that's only because Ladybug brought up their relationship.

"Rogercop" completely ignored the possibility of Sabrina getting mad at Chloe for getting Roger fired.

“Despair Bear” had Chloe trying to be nice, but only to please Adrien. As soon as he was back on her side, she went back to being terrible.

"Zombizou" had Chloe feel bad, but for Miss Bustier. Like, oh, great, she sacrificed herself, but for what when Miraculous Ladybug fixes everything anyway and now Marinette is led on this idea that she has to be a good example for her bully when it was the bully getting consequences for their actions that made them react?

"Style Queen" threw in the “my mom hates me so i’m sad” card (far too late in the plot) and just had Chloe continuing to care only about the people who mattered to her: Ladybug and Adrien. They're people who are useful to her, and then "Queen Wasp" throws any intrigue into the trash by having her nearly kill dozens of people in a train crash (including Marinette’s parents, by the way) and not even feel bad about it yet still getting the sad sympathy music and the “feel bad for me” camera angles. The episode even goes further into confusing territory by having Marinette make Chloe and her mother bond over being mean to people.

After that, despite Chloe revealing herself to all of Paris, “Malediktator” has Adrien come in and make Marinette feel bad for being glad that her bully is gone, leading Ladybug to give Chloe another chance with the bee which just caused more chaos in “Catalyst” (where she insulted the one who brought it to her because he wasn’t Ladybug) when Hawk Moth used Queen Bee’s identity against her.

Then Season 3 comes along, and it is a mess. “Startrain” and “Stormy Weather 2″ featured Chloe being demanding of her miraculous (similar to “Catalyst” at least), then there was “Miraculer” which finally put the foot down on her only to do it in all the wrong ways by showing flashbacks of Chloe and Sabrina having good times (which might’ve worked had this been an episode trying to redeem Sabrina, showing why she’s attached to Chloe and going deeper into the themes of a toxic relationship with how a few nice things fool the mind) and showing Chloe resist an akuma, which no character has ever done before. It also revokes Chloe’s miraculous because she revealed her identity and not because she constantly acts like a terrible person.

And, might I add, how convenient it is that Chat Noir goes against the idea of Chloe continuing to be Queen Bee in the season where she gets her miraculous revoked. We had Miss Bustier's lesson which is presented like a good idea in "Zombizou," only for nothing to come of it, then Adrien scolding Marinette in "Malediktator," only for Marinette to take the fall for trusting Chloe in the first place.

The show can't do that. I mean, it can, but only if it wants to look hugely incompetent while doing so. This is even ignoring the fact that Ladybug had already said that Chloe was never getting the bee back. "Miraculer" stated, loud and clear, that Chloe wasn't getting it back, yet Chloe continues thinking that Ladybug is going to give it back to her.

"Miracle Queen" is not Ladybug's fault for not picking Chloe because it was Chloe who didn't listen and continued feeling entitled to the bee miraculous.

Like, first of all, Ladybug is not Chloe's babysitter. It's not Ladybug's job to coddle Chloe and give her what she wants. Had Ladybug given Chloe the bee, Chloe would've just continued believing that the bee miraculous was rightfully hers. It doesn’t matter if Chloe was good for the bee or not; they’re temporary holders and liable to replacement. “Style Queen” almost had Alya as the bee, after all, implying more of a miraculous rotation than one person on one miraculous. Even beyond that, no one who feels entitled to a miraculous should get it back, and Chloe not only falls under that category, but she trusted and liked Ladybug rather than the Miraculous team as a whole; that does not make her a viable team member.

(By the way, the fact that they had to cut the bee signal was a glaring issue; why did they not just have Mayura camp at Chloe's spot to prevent Ladybug from giving her the bee? Chloe could've easily been like, "YOU cut the bee signal because Ladybug would've come for me otherwise!" Having Mayura camp at the hotel while Hawk Moth follows Ladybug ensures the retrieval of the Miracle Box and that Ladybug won't go for Chloe even if she picks the bee. Furthermore, it was utterly pointless anyway because Hawk Moth's plan hinged on having the bee miraculous to bribe Chloe with. It banks on Ladybug grabbing a miraculous that isn't the bee - remember, the miraculous Ladybug took stayed with her to use later - and why would Ladybug care whether the bee signal was up or not? Chloe hangs at the hotel basically all the time.)

Secondly, if the issue is that Ladybug didn’t de-transform, she had no choice. Mayura had lingered around the town before, but Hawk Moth doesn't often go outside aside from the bigger battles. Ladybug knew that she’d lost Mayura and had no idea that Hawk Moth was on her tail. Had she gone somewhere to quickly de-transform, Hawk Moth could’ve either figured out her identity or at least suspected her and followed after her just to confirm, which would’ve outted both Marinette and Fu. Narratively speaking, Marinette could not have made any other choice without the show having to deal with the crisis of Hawk Moth knowing Ladybug’s identity.

Thirdly, even outside of Ladybug potentially choosing the dragon due to wanting to get Kagami away from Adrien, the dragon ended up being the right choice in the end. Ladybug had a plan put together with her Lucky Charm before Hawk Moth de-akumatized Heart Hunter, and she didn’t stutter or seem unsure of herself at all. Kagami is also completely unlike Chloe in that she accepted when Ladybug told her in “Ikari Gozen” that she wasn’t going to get the miraculous back; Kagami was even respectful and greeted Longg politely when they met back up the second time.

Kagami is a legitimately good dragon, and was also the only other miraculous wielder that Ladybug currently knew the location of. Plus, Kagami needed to be taken away by Ladybug anyway because Adrien didn’t know that there was an akuma running loose until Kagami was whisked away to help fight. Had Ladybug chosen Chloe, the team would’ve been short one cat.

(Also, y’know, dragon was the right choice again later because dragon is awesome and was used to create the water shield; as far as I’m concerned, that was Ladybug’s intuition kicking in when she picked dragon.)

Point being, I don’t blame Ladybug for Chloe’s akumatization.

Still, the fact stands that it’s all of this just to make a big deal out of whether Chloe is going to turn good or bad. All of these episodes focusing on Chloe and Chloe’s problems and giving her a sad backstory about her mom not caring about her, just to throw it all away and have her go back to the dark side.

No, I didn’t want Chloe redeemed, but even if she had been, my problem is that so much time was wasted on a bully character when the show had tons of other characters ready and willing to wear a miraculous without feeling entitled to it. We already have a rich white blond character with a sad backstory - Adrien - and he’s the deuteragonist of the show!

The reality is that, wherever Chloe ended up in the end, it never could have been properly satisfying because--

1 - There were too many conflicting messages of Chloe having some good in her and her being outright evil.

2 - It took too long to reach the conclusion of her nonexistent arc. Either it was a tedious exercise in making a Season 3 villain happen or it was a redemption that took so long to happen that people stopped caring about it.

3 - Chloe didn’t have any of the necessary steps that a good redemption arc would require (like actually feeling bad when she bullies someone and appreciating Marinette after Marinette went through so much effort to throw her a party). Miss Bustier didn’t promote giving Chloe actual consequences and even “Miraculer” refused to point out that her being a bad person was part of the problem (Chloe can’t do anything about her identity being revealed, but she could’ve done something about her attitude), which would’ve just made a redemption for her feel hollow and incomplete.

I’d rather have a dropped redemption arc than a failed one (i.e: where she’d get “redeemed” but it was too clumsy getting there), but the fact that we had to deal with episode upon episode of this girl bullying people, treating her “best friend” like trash, and constantly going back to her old ways no matter what happened... it’s infuriating, and wasted time that could’ve gone to characters who needed that screentime.

Another weird thing about it is when Miracle Queen is de-akumatized into Queen Bee. I understand that Chloe is rather childish and probably not thinking clearly, but it just goes to show how little time this two-parter has when, instead of choosing to fight Ladybug with Venom, Queen Bee tries to run away with the box, not even using her spinning top to get away.

Then, almost immediately after being tripped up, Queen Bee basically gives up all of the miraculouses except the bee on the spot, not even trying to keep them out of pure spite for Ladybug. Afterward, all Ladybug has to do it pluck the bee from Queen Bee’s head and it’s over; Chloe didn’t even try to fight back or run from Ladybug.

Heck, even the akumatization itself wasn’t satisfying...

[Satirical Queen]

I never liked mind-control akuma.

Like, ever.

Dark Cupid at least did something by not explicitly mind-controlling and just turning people into evil versions of themselves, but after so many mind-control akumas in this entire show, it gets tiring. Akumatization itself is already a form of mind-control, but it at least leaves a semblance of the original personality sometimes. This is just mind-control on mind-control.

Miracle Queen is just the next typical mind-control akuma, and she’s not even good at it. For starters, the aqua powers were already used in the last finale (as was the butterfly sentimonster but that’s not important, only aggravating) and water is the only place that the bees can’t go. Yes, Ladybug and Chat Noir would eventually be forced to leave the water in order to rescue Fu, but it’s just Queen Wasp all over again with (hive)mind-control instead of paralysis

...and a crown.

It’s also just... boring. Like, really boring, not to mention way too easy.

Hawk Moth gets the Miracle Box by beating up an old man (who basically did nothing but got turned into a ping pong ball), Chloe is literally just handed the miraculous and the Miracle Box, and then Miracle Queen can just call for anyone who’s used a miraculous before.

There’s not even any way to break the mind-control. I’ve talked about this over Princess Fragrance too, but it’s just not fun when there’s no way out besides Miraculous Ladybug, especially when Miracle Queen sweeps the city so quickly and puts almost all of Paris under her control in an instant (and she doesn’t even do anything with the civilians).

When it was just “Heart Hunter,” it was fine because we - as an audience - didn’t know the repercussions of what was happening. For me personally, I thought that the Miracle Box would be reclaimed, Chloe would get her miraculous revoked (...again), no identity reveals would happen, and Marinette would become the new guardian while Fu retires.

Nothing overly dramatic, but Hawk Moth had the miraculouses AND Fu. That was enough. Adding things on made the whole situation feel extremely unrealistic because the amount of effort Hawk Moth put into his plan gave him way more of a reward than he deserved.

He got to see the identity of every hero (Nino could be figured out by process of elimination), essentially forced the guardian to revoke his guardianship (which sounded bad on his end but put Ladybug at a huge disadvantage emotionally and just by virtue of likely not having full training), got the entire translated grimoire, and got to fix the peacock miraculous.

All he did was basically leave his house and everything just fell into his hands.

Even Miracle Queen as an akuma is laughable; Chloe in general is a laughable akuma. Antibug lasted about six and a half minutes, Queen Wasp lasted a pathetic four (her Scarlet akumatization did about double that), and Miracle Queen lasted for ten if you cut out the extra instances of Second Chance.

In order for Chloe to work as an akuma, she can’t be taken head-on. Antibug only lasted as long as she did because Marinette was de-transformed and had to renew her energy after fighting Vanisher. Miracle Queen was the same where she had several people fighting for her; as soon as there was an opening in the water shield leading to her, she was basically done.

A massive issue with Chloe’s akumatizations is that she always ends up sharing the spotlight with someone else, which cuts both her time and threat level.

Scarlet Queen Wasp was basically irrelevant but like--

Antibug had to share her episode with Vanisher,

Queen Wasp had to share her episode with herself (i.e: Queen Bee),

and Miracle Queen couldn’t even get an entire two-parter to herself; Heart Hunter was the akuma in part one and then Miracle Queen brought in her Miraculous Henchmen as soon as she could while she did nothing in the background.

At least in “Mayura,” even though not splitting the akuma up into groups was a mistake (would’ve made the plan look more thought-through and easier to follow visually), Hawk Moth was at least the mastermind of it. Miracle Queen is just Hawk Moth’s lackey, so it’s like getting a downgrade.

And... okay, while I know this doesn’t have anything to do with Miracle Queen’s competency, I have to ask: why didn’t Hawk Moth akumatize the Miracle Box? Why akumatize one superhero’s weapon when he could’ve akumatized the box that contains the things that make the superheroes what they are? Hawk Moth doesn’t try to keep the Miracle Box away from the heroes anyway because Miracle Queen keeps holding onto it, so it’s not like he was trying to protect it from being taken back.

It also would’ve given us potential mind-controlled kwami, which is far more interesting than standard human mind-control. There’s no need for identity reveals if the kwami (who can’t say their holders’ names; Miracle Queen and Hawk Moth would be very frustrated by this) are the ones who deliver the “infected” miraculouses (which then cause mind control) to their holders and possibly force them to transform under Miracle Queen’s command. Heck, maybe it’s a matter of purifying the miraculouses in the light of Ladybug’s yoyo or it being the power of de-transformation that “fixes” them, and it becomes a matter of slowly evening out the playing field as the infected heroes start to switch sides (bonus if Ladybug and Chat are working hard to protect their teammates’ identities so they have to choose wisely and lure the hero to someplace discreet first).

The other reason I’d be for akumatizing the Miracle Box instead is that it means we don’t get a season finale villain that’s just an edit of Queen Bee.

I mean, sure, Miracle Queen is technically the most creative compared to what the original form was, but that’s not saying much of anything, and it leaves “Miracle Queen” with a villain who isn’t even new-looking. It’s just more typical “akumatized miraculous holder that’s supposed to be a crazy special event until you realize that they just turn into recolors and edits of themselves” stuff. The new material in the episode is mainly Dragon Bug and Snake Noir and...

*sigh*

[Bad Things Come to Writers Who wAIT TOO LONG TO DO THEIR JOB]

Remember “Kwamibuster,” where all plots meshed together seamlessly because they were all created by one action (Ms. Mendeleiev seeing the kwami, leading Adrien and Marinette to have to protect their identities, which led to Marinette using a new miraculous to accomplish multiple tasks)?

Yeah, the two-parter doesn’t do this. Fitting the continuation of the romance plot in is coincidence at best and contrived at worst.

For one thing, Luka and Kagami are taken out of the plot as soon as “Miracle Queen” hits. Luka pulls a Chat (i.e: “let me shield this person with my body”) to protect Marinette instead of acting more thoughtfully like in “Captain Hardrock” (the bakery is literally right next to them), which makes no sense because it requires one of the bees to be ahead of all the others, thus stabbing only one of them and giving Marinette time to react to Luka being mind-controlled while also being able to get away. If Luka had demanded that she run and then picked up his guitar or something as a weapon to try and keep the bees away from her for as long as possible, that’d be different, but it just doesn’t seem very “Luka” to shield Marinette like that without doing anything else.

Kagami’s is more believable, but it’s still a matter of one bee being ahead of the others to give Adrien time to react. Adrien could've just been running away and glanced behind him to see Kagami getting mind-controlled.

It’s also a weird trade-off in general. It’s like the writers thought that Viperion appearing in part two made things equal between him and Ryuko despite the fact that Viperion was under mind-control at the time. (I acknowledge that Viperion appeared in “Party Crasher,” but that episode was literally just an excuse to throw all the male heroes together and Viperion didn’t get to do much anyway nor did Luka get any significant screentime.)

It means that both Luka and Kagami have no proper involvement with the plot going on despite the fact that they play a huge role in the romance side of things and the fact that both dragon and snake are used in the battle against Miracle Queen.

At the very least, Miracle Queen could’ve ordered Luka and Kagami (in civilian form) to fight Dragon Bug and Snake Noir, which could’ve led to a realization moment between Marinette and Adrien over just how much they really care about their alternative love interests due to just how unwilling they are to fight them and how much it hurts to see them under enemy control.

For two, I question both Dragon Bug and Snake Noir’s appearance in general. Like, just on Snake Noir, “Desperada” happened in this season and showed that Adrien wasn’t good at using the snake. While it’s totally possible that he was better at it because of the situation change or because he felt more confident having an aggressive miraculous to go with it, it’s jarring seeing him not only use the snake without question, but succeed in using it after failing at the snake so many times before.

(Also, just saying, snake and cat is a terrible combination considering that Cataclysm can destroy miraculouses and the hand used to flick the snake head is the hand that’s used for Cataclysm; the animators clearly noticed this as well and had Chat put the miraculous on the wrist that the turtle miraculous would’ve gone on.)

And while I don’t doubt that Marinette can use the dragon skillfully, it seems like the water shield - and a shield that forces out Miracle Queen at will too - is somehow a power gained by using the dragon and ladybug together, which... doesn’t really make sense? “Water Shield” screams dragon and turtle, not dragon and ladybug. While the yoyo can be spun to be used as a shield, it’s not the same type of shield that Dragon Bug creates. It could’ve been the same disc-shaped shield that the yoyo creates, but just hovering above them and making it rain over the battlefield for protection; Miracle Queen could’ve still been too afraid to intervene since she’s too valuable.

It’s also just a woefully missed opportunity that Luka and Kagami didn’t get to fight alongside Ladybug and Chat because it would’ve been a beautiful team. Chat knows both Ryuko and Viperion’s identities, so it would’ve been a team where Ladybug and Chat have the same information and it really feels even.

Unfortunately, the opening to “Miracle Queen” just summarizes how out of the main plot Luka and Kagami are forced to be. “Heart Hunter” seemed to really care about both of them, giving them sweet moments with their respective love interests (though, granted, I would’ve liked it if Luka was free after riding Marinette to the hotel and joined her in helping, so he got to participate in the fun too; would’ve been amazing as a callback of sorts to “Frozer,” showing how the interactions have changed from way back then), but as soon as “Miracle Queen” kicks in, both Marinette and Adrien recoil from them and watch them get stung by Miracle Queen’s bees soon after. Luka and Kagami go from being a comforting presence in the story to being an afterthought.

And it’s just made more confusing by things that are either dropped or added between the two parts. One would think that Chat’s line about having a girlfriend would come back in "Miracle Queen” (like, he and Kagami actually getting together and him proclaiming cheerfully this time that he really does have a girlfriend), but it’s just there and gone as if the audience needs a reminder (we don’t) that Chat can be really petty with getting Ladybug’s attention. On the opposite end, Luka playing Marinette’s song seems like typical “Captain Hardrock” Luka in “Heart Hunter,” only to turn into some sort of metaphor in “Miracle Queen.” The two parts are just so disjointed compared to the other two-parters, not helped by the fact that previous two-parters maintained focus on one/two akuma (Stoneheart in “Origins” and then Catalyst + Scarlet Moth in “Heroes’ Day”). While “Heart Hunter” and “Miracle Queen” do forward the plot in a significant way, they feel more like “Style Queen” and “Queen Wasp” in terms of execution.

Or, rather the failure in execution, along with both two-parters heavily featuring Chloe.

Speaking of Chloe, actually, the romance plot suffers from the same problem that Chloe’s did; the episodes dedicated to it weren’t given the treatment they needed. In order to save the next step of the romance plot for the finale, the show meandered around the topic, keeping Luka strangely away from Marinette during episodes where it didn’t make sense (”Gamer 2.0″) and having “Ikari Gozen” happen late so the show could dance around the topic of Marinette and Kagami’s relationship (like, just throwing this out there, but it would’ve been nice to have that “we’re friends but I still want Adrien” conversation to happen in another episode).

It’s... yeah, it’s not great. “Heart Hunter” almost succeeded in making the romance plot more relevant to the main plot by having the akuma be love-based (Kagami’s line after the fact almost makes that connection, in fact), but it was ultimately just a piece of Hawk Moth’s plan and not based on anything, like Mayura learning in “Ladybug” that Ladybug already liked another boy. The two-parter ends up feeling more like two stories going on at once and fighting to see whose turn it is, rather than one cohesive plot that ties everything together.

It’s also weird to have the Adrimi ship be in the position it is by the end of “Miracle Queen.” There were multiple episodes showing a significant attraction between Adrien and Kagami, and “Heart Hunter” had Adrien readily leaning in to kiss her and not flirting with Ladybug when Ryuko was around, but then “Miracle Queen” gives completely mixed messages by having Adrien pull away and feel conflicted by the almost kiss, only to then have him lovingly caress Kagami’s cheek by the end of the episode. “Heart Hunter” and the end of “Miracle Queen” scream “ADRIMI IS CANON,” but that one part where Adrien pulls away leaves things in the dark and hurts Kagami’s feelings because Adrien keeps doing all these things with her (HI, “FROZER”) but they don’t go anywhere romantically. It feels like a last-minute change where Adrimi was meant to be an official couple by the end of Season 3, but it was decided against because... I don’t know, they wanted it to be on roughly the same level as Lukanette by then instead?

I have no idea, but it’s a weird decision. “Miracle Queen” is full of weird decisions.

And also, you know, really dumb decisions too.

[Remember to Write (Well)]

So...

Okay, now it’s time to talk about Fu; both Fu in general and “the thing” that happens by the end of “Miracle Queen.”

For Fu in general, ever since he’s been on the run, it’s been a confusing experience figuring out what exactly he’s trying to accomplish. Hawk Moth knows his identity apparently, yet Fu - an old man who can hardly defend himself even while transformed - continues holding onto the Miracle Box, doing odd jobs here and there while Marinette undergoes guardian training...

I presume, anyway, because we literally don’t know. Basically all of Marinette’s training (both concerning the Miracle Box and overall) has been off-screen, and most of Fu’s appearances post-”Feast” were just him handing off miraculouses that Marinette needed.

I say this because Fu could’ve passed on the Miracle Box to Marinette and just visited whenever he needed to train her. Sabine is Chinese, so Fu could've easily struck up a conversation and made friends with her, giving him an excuse to visit.

Would it have stopped Hawk Moth from trying to steal the Miracle Box? Maybe, maybe not, but my point is that a guardian who can’t guard is essentially worthless and just ends up placing a giant target on their head.

In addition, while we don’t know the extent of the other kwami powers outside of the miraculous, I don’t understand why Wayzz didn’t at least try to protect Fu himself. Would the shield have been too large? The only case of a kwami using their powers outside of the miraculous is Plagg, the kwami with possibly the least self-control, and even he managed to save Adrien without destroying the city in the process, so I’m sure Wayzz could do it.

Anyway, even beyond that, I’m stunned that Fu didn’t notice Mayura’s ill state and realize that the peacock miraculous was broken (presuming that he didn’t know it was broken before). It could’ve been a great moment where Fu talks about the dangers of wearing a broken miraculous, then shouting that information to Ladybug and Chat Noir. It would’ve helped in finding Hawk Moth because they’d know to look for those kinds of symptoms (looking at you, Adrien, please get involved here) in order to find the peacock holder. Even if Gabriel still fixed the peacock miraculous in the end, I doubt that the illness just goes away, because that’d mean that Emilie would be alive and kicking by the start of Season 4.

I mean, just in general, if Fu was going to leave by the end of “Miracle Queen” anyway, why not have him and Hawk Moth engage in a battle of wits? If this was going to be Fu’s last stand, why not have Hawk Moth beat him down, taunt him, boast about how he’s a pathetic guardian since he doesn’t have all the miraculouses, then give Fu a single shot at touching the Miracle Box before promptly sending an akuma at it?

Fu doesn’t have to actually get fully akumatized - he can resist it (though considering “Feast,” the man seems terrible under pressure) - but STILL, GIVE ME SOMETHING.

Instead, Fu just kinda... goes out on a whimper. “Origins,” “Syren,” and “Feast” teased Fu’s transformation into Jade Turtle, but when we finally see it, it’s Fu hiding inside Shell-ter for the entire time.

It’s so disappointing. It’s Fu’s last chance to do anything, but in the end, he renounces himself as guardian which does... something, I guess?

Like, let’s just actually look at what happens for a moment.

Miracle Queen is defeated. The mind-control bees that Hawk Moth probably planned to use on Master Fu are gone. The best he can do is either kidnap Fu, use him as a hostage (either of these options being once the shield is down), or continue beating him senseless.

But the heroes can, like, jump. Queen Bee might have the Miracle Box, but she’s not doing anything about it; the kwami aren’t even listening to her because she doesn’t know their names. There’s no reason why Dragon Bug and Snake Noir can’t go up to Hawk Moth and Mayura and take them on face-to-face.

Yeah, Hawk Moth beat them up in “Mayura,” but they’re wielding two miraculouses now. Ladybug also wasn’t afraid to take on the butterfly sentimonster head-on in “Mayura,” so it can’t be that they’re too scared to fight it.

Hawk Moth and Mayura are literally just... chilling on the rooftop. Hawk Moth had to jump up there himself to join Mayura so like--

why not go fight them?

And while Snake Noir dismissing Sass makes sense because Second Chance was already used, Dragon Bug dismissing Longg makes no sense whatsoever.

The dragon still had two powers left in it: wind and lightning. The dragon also seems to give enhanced speed (judging from Ryuko in “Ikari Gozen”), so Dragon Bug can just rush up to everyone and take them on directly.

But instead, Dragon Bug dismisses Longg for no verbally explained reason, thus leaving Ladybug twice as helpless to stop what’s happening. Multimouse handled multiple miraculouses and was just fine, so it can’t be that two miraculouses was too much strain on her (I’ll forgive Chat warning Ladybug about unifying with Longg since he doesn’t know that she was Multimouse).

Furthermore, now that Miracle Queen is de-akumatized, she presumably can’t order around the remaining mind-controlled heroes, yeah? I mean, Queen Bee doesn’t even try and they’re just standing there motionless (Sidenote: this is why Ladybug is actually overpowered in the sense of saving people. It’s one thing to heal the damage an akuma caused, but it’s another thing for basic stuff like mind-control to not wear off unless Ladybug uses Miraculous Ladybug; that’s messed up).

Anyway, Fu is still protected in Shell-ter. Nothing is stopping Ladybug or Chat from grabbing the horse miraculous off of Pegasus, feeding Kaalki, unifying, then teleporting inside of Shell-ter to grab Fu.

Like, there, done, mission accomplished. Now Fu is back with Ladybug and Chat at the very least.

I mean, Fu renouncing the Miracle Box doesn’t even seem to do anything. Yes, it gives the ownership to Ladybug, but Queen Bee doesn’t even try to open it back up and she’s in the same state as before where she has all the miraculouses but doesn’t know the kwami names to use them.

Hawk Moth also seems to know what Fu was doing, and... I don’t know why? Yes, Hawk Moth took the tablet (we’ll get to that soon enough, just you wait) and it has the translated grimoire on it, but we never saw him read it. Like, was he doing some light reading conveniently off-screen?

This show just has a terrible habit of not showing things before they come into play. Queen Bee makes a big deal about the Miracle Box changing, but we don’t know what difference it makes. Hawk Moth and Mayura are apparently too afraid to even try to fight Ladybug and Chat even though both heroes are on a timer already, so my point about them rescuing Fu with the horse stands even stronger (plus, if Viperion and Ryuko had been there, would’ve given reason for Hawk Moth and Mayura to retreat, fearing that they’re outnumbered).

And all this - ALL OF THIS - just so that Fu can get his memory wiped because that’s the “fate of the guardians” apparently; to get their memories erased to protect the secret identities of the heroes.

Like--just...

I have a few questions.

...Sorry, did I say a few?

Because NO, I HAVE MANY, MANY QUESTIONS.

Question number one: Wasn’t Fu the one in “Feast” who said that he was trashing the guardian traditions? If so, why go for the memory wipe at all? Again, it does nothing, we had no idea that Hawk Moth would know to give up on Fu (seriously, a shot of him reading the tablet and taunting Fu about it would’ve sufficed), and the bees were gone, so Hawk Moth had no way of forcing the information out of Fu (that line was so vague, it was irritating; what, is Fu seriously going to give in to a little torture?).

Question number two: Do all guardians throughout all of history do this since Wayzz said it was a rule? How is that efficient, like, at all? What happens if a guardian trains their protege, gives up the box, and that protege dies soon after, leaving no one who would know where the box is? Are there literally guardians in the temple who just know all this guardian knowledge and keep passing it down to other guardians who will never own a Miracle Box because they just need to know it in case the guardians of a specific Miracle Box die or lose the grimoire?

Question number three: Following up on two, what happens if a guardian perishes before they’re able to relinquish the box? What happens to the box? Does ownership go to the next person who touches it?

Question number four: If the guardians’ memories are erased to protect the secret identities of the miraculous holders (according to Wayzz), why does everything else about the miraculouses need to be erased too? Hawk Moth was making a big deal out of using Fu to tell him their identities, but was Fu good for nothing else?? Marianne still presumably knows about all this miraculous stuff and there’s no big deal made about that. Heck, she even seems to know Marinette’s identity too since it was Marinette, not Ladybug, who dropped Fu off at the station.

Question number five: Why do guardians have to erase their memories if there’s no danger involved and they just need to pass down the box due to old age, especially if there’s no one else who knows about them being a guardian? Like, “better safe than sorry” or whatever, but why have a rule that basically forces them to relinquish valuable memories? If their protege is the only one who knows about them being a guardian, it’s not like the guardian would be useful at all since they already trained their protege. Thus, even if their protege went bad, there’s no need to go after the guardian.

Question number six: What if there was something important in those memories? Like, seriously, Fu didn’t even know who Ladybug and Chat were; if Fu went walking around the street not even knowing basic facts about the heroes of Paris, people would deem him senile and put him in a home or something.

Question number seven: Is renouncing the Miracle Box like, the last thing a guardian learns? If not, what’s stopping salty guardian teenagers from constantly renouncing the Miracle Box in hopes that the temple will give up on them? Fu knew about the memory loss, but did he learn it from the grimoire, and if so, where are the hints of him realizing what he’d have to do? He clearly had plans to get back together with Marianne, so what gives?

Question number eight: With how much gets erased when renouncing the Miracle Box, it ends up leaving such a risk of putting the guardian in a state of cruel confusion. Journal entries they can’t explain, pictures of people they can’t remember... it’d be a mess.

Question number WHY: How is it a good system to take people who are basically children, essentially force them to be guardians, have them waste their lives away learning all this stuff they might not even want, and then expect them to follow the rules and not be resentful of the fact that they’re going to lose a giant chunk of their memories when they pass the box down? If you ask me, that’s just begging for villains to happen.

And this whole memory loss nonsense is just character death in disguise. Fu has vague feelings towards people like Marianne and that’s it; he has no memories of even the love of his life.

It’s a cheap excuse for ANGST and nothing more. It’s supposed to be the big tear-jerker of the episode yet I’m too busy seething at how utterly lazy and stupid it is.

Like, for something that’s supposed to be so magical or whatever, the actual memory loss process is extremely basic. There is no reason for the memories to be completely erased when they could just as easily be adjusted.

For example: instead of Fu remembering Ladybug coming to him for miraculouses, he remembers her coming to him to ask if he’s okay since there’s an akuma on the loose. Instead of Fu remembering talking to Marianne about miraculouses over tea... he just remembers having a pleasant conversation with her over tea.

But instead, the Miracle Box - apparently the laziest magical object in the universe - just erases the memories completely and leaves only the strongest feelings behind, casually having Fu forget all the terrible things he did and all the lessons he learned because of those things.

Oh, oh, oh, and then there’s the tablet that Hawk Moth and Mayura stole. The one with all the grimoire information on it.

Did Fu seriously not have any security on that tablet? Like, at all? If we’re going off the logic that Hawk Moth knew what renouncing the box meant because he read about it, I can only imagine the look on his and Mayura’s faces when they expected to have to do some serious hacking, only for the tablet to open right up and them to be like, “Oh, that was way easier than we thought.”

Nathalie even said right at the end of the episode that the tablet had the method to fix the peacock in it, so they must’ve already read through it (because, with just knowing that the grimoire is on it, there was no guarantee that the miraculous-fixing method would be in it).

And this episode leaves so many things vague that we don’t even know if Marinette has any of that information. As stated before, we never even saw Fu train her to be guardian.

Does she know the grimoire by heart? Did Fu email her all the data just in case something like this happened? Fu was even the one to give her the potions, so what happens when her supply of macarons and cheese run out?

Outside of Nathalie mentioning that they have the translated grimoire, the episode just leaves us hanging. Just like how “Mayura” ignored Marinette and Fu talking about the peacock being active now, this episode ignores all the things we should be aware of so we know exactly how screwed the heroes are going to be starting next season.

It’s not leaving us in suspense; it’s leaving us questioning things that we should already know.

“Miracle Queen” fails as a follow-up to “Heart Hunter” because, instead of building on the things that “Heart Hunter” chose, it dumps every single thing it can think of onto its audience while leaving no time to explain any of them.

Adrien pulled away from Kagami’s kiss, but the endcard implies that he’s still going forward with his crush on her over Ladybug despite there being no discussion on this at all. Where is the turning point of Chat deciding to give up on Ladybug even though he wasn’t ready for Kagami?

All the heroes got their identities revealed, but what does that really mean anymore? Mayura can’t camp at everyone’s houses waiting for Ladybug to throw them a miraculous. Also, it was Chloe who did this in the first place, so is there any evidence or hints that there will be repercussions for her actions outside of getting her miraculous revoked yet again?

Hawk Moth has the grimoire, but even though Marinette’s first thought should be on it because she’s guardian now, we have no idea how much she knows or even if Fu had a backup plan for something like this happening.

Ultimately, Fu losing his memory was for shock value. That’s why it was never discussed even in the episode itself until it happened, and if angst needs that shock value to touch its audience’s hearts, it’s not doing its job.

Oh, and let’s not forget the effect this has on Marinette.

[Fool’s Marigold]

...I’m baffled.

Just... truly, honestly baffled.

I’ve been doing critiques of so many episodes of Season 3 because, honestly, most of them torment Marinette in someway, but...

Geez, if this isn’t just a culmination of all the misery she’s been through, put in a blender and set to ‘high’...

Let’s begin with “Heart Hunter;” specifically, how the episode throws blame on Ladybug for not de-transforming. Outside of, again, Ladybug really having no choice narratively (because Hawk Moth was following her and really, how was she supposed to know that when there was nothing out of the ordinary with that akuma?), it’s just ridiculous to toss even more stuff for Marinette to fret over.

Marinette has already been through more than enough this season, and there was build-up for Fu to be the one to make the mistake instead.

Like, Fu has a history of not trusting Ladybug. There’s “Feast” and also “Kwamibuster” where Fu is doubtful of Marinette’s capabilities while Wayzz has to be the voice of reason. The exception is “Queen Wasp,” but since that’s in Season 2, one could argue that something made Fu nervous about trusting Marinette (perhaps “Malediktator”? Marinette was convinced by others to give Chloe another chance, but Fu doesn’t know that).

Even in "Heart Hunter” itself, Fu questions Ladybug’s choice in the dragon. Like, yes, Ladybug may be choosing it for reasons outside of the akuma, but again, dragon ended up being a good pick in the end and Marinette has almost never failed before, so what right does Fu have to ask?

Anyway, point being, it could’ve been a matter of Fu being too anxious - too nervous about Ladybug’s capabilities - and he ends up leaving his hiding spot (maybe believing that dragon was the wrong choice), which then allows Hawk Moth to swoop in and swipe the box.

I mean, hey, if Fu’s going to just forget everything anyway, why does it matter what mistake he makes? Marinette can still blame herself for it and there could even be a lesson about thinking things through and not blaming oneself for everything (A LESSON THAT MARINETTE DESPERATELY NEEDS).

And this is basically the moment that sets everything else in motion; Ladybug accidentally leading Hawk Moth to Fu is the moment that causes all the identities to be revealed (excluding Ladybug and Chat Noir’s) and causes Master Fu to both lose his memory and make Marinette the new guardian.

It’s extreme, and--like--look. Regardless of how much Ladybug is at fault, the punishment given for it is far too severe for such a small error. Had this been almost any other episode where Ladybug went to Master Fu, there would’ve been no issues with Ladybug forgetting to de-transform.

The fact of the matter is that Ladybug is a 14-year-old girl who just gave up the person she saw as the love of her life to someone else, and even when she was trying to have a good cry about it, it’s almost immediately interrupted by Heart Hunter showing up and forcing her into action. Then, while she was heading towards Fu to get a miraculous, the show found it necessary to have her coincidentally swing by the exact two people that she didn’t want to see, throwing her off entirely. 

After seeing that Fu is no longer around, she finally gets to break down and be comforted by someone who actually knows what to say to her, but her quiet moment is interrupted yet again by an akuma.

She just finished having a breakdown, and it was already time for her to swing back into action after watching as the person who comforted her got mind-controlled because he protected her.

I could really go on and on about all the mental stress Marinette goes through in Season 3 alone, but the point is that needlessly guilting Marinette when she already has the weight of Paris on her shoulders isn’t constructive.

It’s sadistic, only serving to pile on the angst and make Marinette miserable. She has a total of four moments where she’s either breaking down or about to break down, which is insane for a proper story but also completely understandable with everything she’s going through.

The breakdown in which Luka was comforting her was the closest thing to dignity she got, but she’s not able to vent to Luka about what the actual problem is, so when she sees how bad everything really is, of course she breaks down again.

But... well, Chat...

Chat is bad at it. Like, really bad at it.

The episode tries to present both of Chat’s comfortings as touching, but they both fail and fail hard.

The first time, Ladybug is venting about what happened and how she forgot to de-transform, apologizing and calling herself a failure. Chat’s response, essentially, is to remind her of their current mission, tell her how they need her focused.for it, and to request that she just forget about it for the moment.

The second time, Ladybug is freaking out about how she can’t figure out the Lucky Charm, apologizing again and calling herself useless. Chat’s response this time is to first tell her to focus, then simply place his hands on her shoulders and say, “Ladybug, no.”

Neither of his comfortings involved him telling her that she either wasn’t a failure and/or wasn’t useless.

And just by the way, I have a serious bone to pick with that Lucky Charm she summoned. This somewhat correlates with what I was saying about shock value, but why would Fu keep that key with him? Why wouldn’t he give it to Marinette at the very end of “Feast” and go, “if something happens to me, you’ll need this”? It’s banking on Ladybug either summoning the key as her Lucky Charm (and Fu recognizing it, because apparently he can’t remember the woman he shared his guardian secrets with but he can remember that he has a key to a locker that contains the thing he kept the Miracle Box in), or that Marinette/Ladybug happens to be there when this happens to him and he happens to have just the right prompting to give her the key in the first place.

And for another thing, the Lucky Charm is just another excuse for Ladybug to freak out and self-deprecate. Of course Ladybug would have no idea what to do with it; she doesn’t even know what it’s for, which is something no other Lucky Charm has been established to do.

Now, if the Lucky Charm had been seen by Fu, giving him the realization that he needs to renounce the Miracle Box, that’d be different, but that’s not what happens. Instead, Ladybug is looking around frantically for a way to make a Lucky Charm work when it’s not supposed to work, and either way, Fu had no way of knowing that she’d hold onto it long enough for his amnesiac self to see it and know what it was.

And Ladybug clearly didn’t know about the memory erasure. Hawk Moth and the kwami were the ones to react to Fu preparing to renounce the Miracle Box.

This means that Marinette has been training to become guardian with no knowledge of eventually having to give up her memories. Unless Fu had a plan (perhaps involving the box being revoked to Ladybug instead of Marinette, but in the moment, it seems more like something that just made sense for the sake of protecting her identity), he essentially gave Marinette no warning about this when he started training her, subjecting her to the same fate that he didn’t want himself.

And this just furthers the idea that Ladybug isn't allowed to feel anything because the slightest missteps end up causing disastrous consequences. Marinette has to constantly bottle up and suppress how she feels because it means either getting akumatized or the universe fighting back against her, which just leads to her feeling more emotional down the line because that way of thinking is unhealthy no matter how necessary it might be for her to do her job.

Now, if I were Marinette, the FIRST question I would have after becoming guardian is if I'll have to erase my memories too, but we all know that it'll either never be addressed or come out of nowhere if/when Marinette has to renounce the Miracle Box herself.

And while I feel terrible for the poor girl, she doesn't deserve to have all of those memories scrubbed away when there are valuable memories in there. It's sad that she's going through this, but it'd be sadder for her to be forced to let go of memories that she might want to hold onto.

Not to mention, it's all this just because she was hurt that she had to let go of the person she loved. Fu even acknowledges it as her mistake without putting any semblance of blame on himself, so the plot clearly blames Ladybug for this.

Because of her, the identities of all her temporary heroes became known to Hawk Moth.

Because of her, Hawk Moth has the translated grimoire that she might not even have herself.

Because of her, Fu renounced the Miracle Box and gave up his memories in the process (oh, and of course they have to add in a line where he says that he'll never forget about her; twist the knife even more, why don't you?).

Because of her, she now has the role of guardian and has to keep the miraculouses protected. She was sobbing in "Heart Hunter" over all the responsibilities she had and how she couldn't be who she truly was, and the show's apparent solution to that is to give her more responsibilities and take away the one person who knew her secret,

Because, let's be honest, Marinette can't talk to Marianne about this. It's apparently all Marinette's fault that this happened, so Marinette can hardly throw any of her troubles at her when this whole situation caused the man Marianne loved to forget about her.

And Tikki doesn't even do anything. Even when Marinette is all alone, reading Fu's letter, Tikki doesn't come out to offer comfort or just generally be there for her holder. The show chose to have Tikki do nothing while even more weight is being put on Marinette's shoulders. Yeah, maybe Tikki is busy mourning the loss of Fu, but we don't know because they didn't show it.

And just thinking about it, the show literally punished Marinette for doing the right thing.

All throughout the series, Marinette has been repeatedly punished for trying to make progress in her life. Attempts to drop Adrien as a crush led to her friends arguing about it, and attempts to confess to Adrien either ended in failure or embarrassment. Her being happy that Chloe was gone led to a scolding from Adrien, and when she tries to give Chloe a chance, it doesn't work out for her. When she then tries to respectfully revoke Chloe's miraculous, she gets stabbed in the back by Chloe allowing herself to be akumatized so the identities of the temporary holders can be revealed. When she tries to out Lila, she's yelled at and told by Adrien not to do anything, eventually leading to her expulsion that was only reversed because Adrien did just enough to get Lila to undo the damage.

Marinette knew that Adrien had feelings for someone that wasn't her; he told her as much. She recognized that Adrien and Kagami had a bond and decided to let them be together because it was the right thing to do.

And she was punished for it. She was punished for having a reaction; for having feelings.

We don't know what Season 4 holds for her, but judging from how she's treated in Season 3, it can't be anything good.

Buckle up, people.

[maple-writes]

WHG 14: Behind the Scenes (Ginger)

whg tag list: @ratracechronicler @concealeddarkness13 (Thanks for Triel!!), @nightskywriter , @rhikasa , @the-moving-finger-writes , @aeslin-writes @knmartinshouldbewriting , @pen-of-roses @timefirewrites 

###

The college had been quiet, muted, since the reaping. Not many of the regular students would have known Asher yet, but at this point much of the faculty did and he would have started working along teaching staff the next coming semester. No one really seemed to want to say very much about it, but I could feel the way they looked at me, when we spoke of everyday business and they walked a line between ignoring the obvious and trying to express their sympathies. I’d overheard students talking too, about Cirrus. He’d only been working at the campus convenience store for a few months, but now that he was gone… It was hard not to notice the absence of the seemingly unfriendly and blunt cashier who would sometimes cover the cost of their cheap coffee when they looked like they were having a particularly rough time. Not to mention how now, whenever Millie took his place she didn’t smile anymore.

Charlotte’s office was open, the door ajar, but still I gave a couple knocks before poking my head in. She looked up from her desktop computer, surprise crossing her face as I slipped inside and closed the door.

“Ginger,” She greeted me as I pulled over a spare chair to sit in front of her desk. “I wasn’t expecting you, what’s going on?”

I crossed one leg over the over and leaned forward in my chair. Best to just get straight to the point. “I’m thinking of attempting to rescue Asher and Cirrus.”

Charlotte tensed, eyebrows furrowed and lips pressed tight. “What? Ginger I don’t think that’s possible. I know how hard this must be for you, but I don’t know about this.” She sighed, leaning back in her chair, exhausted. “Why don’t you take some time off? You can have my cabin for a week or two if you like.”

She looked like she could use it more, but I stored that away for later. “Hear me out. There’s rumour I’m not the only one who wants to snag tributes from the games. Remember the games a year or two ago, how there were rumours of something going on behind the scenes?”

I paused, but Charlotte seemed confused. Maybe she didn’t remember, or maybe those rumours weren’t as widespread as I thought.

“Well,” I continued. “Some people think there was a successful escape, and some tributes who are officially dead were among the escapees.” If it were true, it was genius really. How would the Capitol explain if they were to start searching to people who they’d told everyone died in the games? “So what I’m saying, is that it’s not an impossible feat.”

Charlotte paused, thinking. Then she shook her head. “That’s a lot to bet on rumour.”

I rested my cheek on a propped-up hand. “Oh absolutely. One hundred percent.” I smiled, wide enough the points of my fangs just barely showed under pink lipstick. “Which is why I’ve set up a meeting with someone who claims to be attempting to pull it off again. I’ll ask some questions, get a sense of legitimacy, and we’ll see how it goes.”

“I’m not so sure about this…”

“Oh, I’m not asking permission. I just wanted you to know what was going on and why I might be gone for a little while.” I shifted, crossing my legs the other way with a wave of my hand. “After all the work we’ve done with him, after all he’s been through, doesn’t it seem like injustice to let him go without a challenge?”

She sighed, closing her eyes and massaging at the side of head. I didn’t expect she would like the idea, and I’d almost decided against telling her anything at all, but she deserved to know.

Something clunked in the corner as her office printer whirred to life. Charlotte turned in her chair, watching as it spat out a single piece of paper. She plucked it from the tray, read it, then slid it across her desk to me.

Ginger’s right. Besides, I liked having him around.

Warmth brushed across my arm like a summer breeze, barely noticeable if I didn’t know what it meant as Cynthia settled in beside the wall. The founder’s late daughter had seemed to have taken a shine to him ever since his enrollment.

“Thanks you Cynthia.” I grinned at Charlotte. “Looks like even if you did have a say you’re outnumbered anyway.

“There’s no way I can change your mind, is there?” Charlotte gave a reluctant smile. “I wish you luck, you’re going to need it.”

##

This had to be the right place, a small, quiet bar mostly out of the way from too many eyes. At this time of day there didn’t seem to be too much traffic. I paused in the foyer, searching until I found a woman with a large hat and long coat seated at the bar. She looked to be well past a drink or two. She had to be my contact.

I shouldered my purse and made my way towards her. “Are you Triel, by any chance?”

She turned with a wide grin and a tip of her hat. “The one and only. Have a seat. Drink’s on me.”

How sweet. I smiled and took one of the stools beside her. “Thank you for the offer but I’ll just steal one of your empty glasses if that’s alright.” I set my purse down and dug out my pink leopard print bottle. “Not that I don’t trust you, it’s just been a long time since I’ve been able to handle this stuff.”

“What ever works for you.” Triel shrugged. “So, you wanted o discuss a proposition you had?”

I smiled. “Wonderful.” I slid her glass towards me and filled it about halfway with chilled blood. Maybe it would be best to keep things vague for now, just in case. “I hear there’s plans to do something interesting, so to speak, during the games this year, is this true?”

Triel tipped her hat down like a drawn curtain over her face. “I want to get as many tributes as I can out of the arena. I have an airship and a genius engineer who has made machines that keep us invisible to the eye and to the Capitol’s radars. You want in?”

“Wow, you really are prepared!” Thank goodness. If this had been a dead end, it would be over. I took a drink and nodded. “I’m in if you’ll take me. What do you still need?”

For a moment, Triel only watched, looking me up and down. “An alibi. A way to make a clean escape. Even if we avoid all of the Capitol’s eyes, they’ll know if was us pretty quickly. It’s too big of a heist to hide well. At least, unless we have something that proves we weren’t there. Do you know of anything that could help? If not, I won’t reject you from joining. We always need extra hands, especially with the amount of tributes we’ll be rescuing who will probably be injured. It’s a small hope that we’ll make a clean getaway.”

“An alibi eh?” I rested my cheek on my hand. An alibi… “How many heads are we talking about here?”

“Sixteen tributes. Ten people on my crew, not including whoever you’re bringing in with you like I said, a big heist.”

She wasn’t kidding. “I wonder…”I dug through my purse until I found my planner, flipping through to this month. Not a whole lot planned. I flipped back to last month, and my notes from the last faculty meeting. Charlotte had suggested we branch out and be more a part of the community at large. Other departments sometimes put on public lecture series, and she’d once suggested I think of doing something similar.

“What if I hold a seminar or something like that, one that for all intents and purposes you all attended for the entire duration? It could be entry level, maybe even open to non-students, I could label it as public outreach and education.” I closed the notebook and slipped it back into my purse with a smile. “I’m sure I can convince a few old students to attend and back up the claim you all didn’t just arrive for a photo at the end.” Whether or not they knew Asher, at least a few of them could probably be convinced if I could track them down. Luckily for me the students sent my way usually tended to be the, well, unorthodox type to say the least.

Triel smiled back. “That sounds fabulous. I can even lead two of my crew to be there and pretend like we passed notes back and forth the whole time. They’re great at forging writing.” She smirked and leaned back, downing the rest of her drink in one go. “Even though it will be unfortunate I can’t attend your lecture, since you’re so cute.” She held out a hand. “I think this proposition will work.”

I shook her hand with a grin. So she was clever and charming. This plot was in good hands. “Maybe I’ll record it then, just for you.”

She laughed, holding her empty glass in a toast. “A capital idea.” She smiled, as if to her own joke. “We can work out the details in a more private setting. I am happy for you to join this heist.”

Good, I was in. After a brief goodbye, I slipped out back into the quiet street. Should I tell Charlotte? No, the less she knew the better. If she knew what I was up to, and somehow word got to Striker who knew if she’d be able to keep him from trying to track me down. He had far more to lose than I did and I intended to keep him in the dark as long as I could. In fact… I found my phone and pulled up his contact info. I could memorize it by morning, and then delete his number, anything I could think of. I should probably get rid of Charlottes information too. It could always be replaced.

[achingforthestars]

some things i liked and did not like about the rise of skywalker ***spoilers***

now having seen it and having had the time to sit and talk and collect my thoughts, i have a list of the things i didn’t enjoy and, amongst all this negativity, the things i did. 

contains spoilers of course!

things i did not enjoy:

finding out about palpatine off-screen

so stupid! this was one of the things i disliked the most because of what a cheap, lazy writing choice it was. i wanted to see the characters have to put it together, have to work for it and then when facing palpatine, have it be on their terms instead of his? instead we get him announcing his presence and kylo meeting him in the first 3 minutes. 

treatment of characters

i made a post about this. just so much wrong, so many deserved better, most of all rose, rey and ben. a lot of the characters were treated as afterthoughts. 

implied finn having feelings for rey

dumb. overdone. tired.

knights of ren

felt cheap and underused. learned nothing about them, it was something i was waiting 3 movies for and the final chance to show them was wasted. 

the resistance is back to perfect! 

i understand that this was due to the timeskip, which i guess was necessary, but i felt that it was kind of cheap to not show any sort of struggle. a year has passed and BAM they’re right where they were in TFA. the losses faced in TLJ very much felt erased. 

the pacing

awful. just awful. things felt too rushed or too slow pretty much through the entire movie. 

the visuals

much less well-done than TLJ. the use of colour and light was much weaker in my opinion, the locations more generic, and the imagery lacking. that said, palpatine’s lair was so fittingly creepy, and the reylo moment on kijimi/kylo’s ship with the black and white juxtaposition - those were nice. 

irrelevant or convenient plot elements

zorii bliss was not a necessary character. chewie was conveniently on another transport. d-0, while super cute and funny, was also just a deus ex machina. hux being a spy - could have been entirely removed but oh, finn and poe need to get off the ship somehow. rey’s return to ahch-to was rushed, her interactions with luke could have been on any other planet. she did not need to pilot luke’s x-wing specifically but they forced it. lando - lando was basically a consolation prize for chewie with little relevance. pryde literally could have been replaced with hux and made for a more interesting narrative. 

snoke clones

what the fuck was that?

the fleet

somehow the entirety of the fleet was magically stored, 100% operational and with fully functioning crew, under the crust of some random planet? and every single one of those ships has planet-destroying capabilities? 

the other “fleet”

where the fuck were these allies in TLJ, huh? i get that it’s the last stand and maybe more people showed up because of that but damn. 

leia’s absence was felt

i understand this was not in the control of the creators but truly, i felt like there was a gaping hole where leia should have been. 

the Trio

i enjoyed their banter but it felt inconsistent through the movie. rey and poe didn’t get along one minute, the next they’re fine. if this had been introduced and pushed in previous films, it would have made more sense and felt less hollow. as it stands, it felt like a forced attempt to call back the OT vibes that just fell flat.

rey palpatine

ugh. let’s reduce strength to a bloodline and in the process ignore what was set up in the last movie. yay! also, palpatine fucked someone at some point and that is utterly disgusting. 

rey skywalker

felt forced. she did not need to take the skywalker name.

kylo’s transition to ben.

before anyone jumps on me, i want to clarify that specifically i am referring to the speed of his transition from ruthless supreme leader to full on ben. i loved his redemption, i just wish i could have seen him do it more gradually and with a bit more struggle? he just goes from “i will find you rey and turn you dark like me” to “i am ben solo” so quickly that i found it a bit jarring? 

palpatine’s constantly changing plans. 

kill rey, no wait, take the throne rey, no wait, let me kill you both and take the throne myself. pick one you crusty fuck. 

force dyad

honestly why establish it if you’re going to ignore it in about 2 seconds?

inadequate expression of star wars main themes

the ideas of hope, of redemption, of love and of family - all central to star wars, and none properly delivered on. 

ben’s death. 

heartbreaking. he deserved love and happiness and a life. that’s all i can say about that. however, in a transition to things i liked: if he had to die, i’m really pleased that it was with an act of love. he chose to make a sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice, for his soulmate. i don’t like that he had to die, but i can find peace in the way it happened - on his terms, on the light side, in the arms of the woman he loved.

things i did enjoy (a lot actually):

babu frik

was so fucking funny. that is all. 

c-3po.

also surprisingly funny for a droid i’m usually annoyed by?

jannah

i surprisingly really loved her character. i thought she might be an addition like zorii bliss, but i enjoyed naomi ackie’s acting a lot. she felt much more genuine. however i do think there was a missed opportunity in working on her and finn’s shared background as ex-stromtroopers.

force healing abilities

i thought were super cool! i really liked healing the serpent, it was a nice subversion of the expectation to be trapped and outrunning a monster through a labyrinth of corridors. loved how when rey healed kylo, she healed his scar too. just also it’s always nice to see new things being done with the force.

force fighting. 

it was lovely to see force techniques being used in the lightsaber battles (as compared, for instance, to the throne room fight of TLJ); and also to see force-aided physical feats like jumps that don’t look like naruto-style ninja backflips. definitely felt more real.

poe’s moment in the x-wing

taking in the damage and destruction all around him. i felt the weight he was feeling in that moment.

rey picking herself off the ground

after palpatine drains her and kylo’s life force. i loved her moment of peace and centering, gathering the strength to do what comes next. while i didn’t love the voices of the previous jedi, it made for a lovely sequence of “i’m not done with you yet” and showcases her strength.

the moment with ben and han

gorgeous scene echoing han and ben’s last interaction in TFA. just an amazing callback with such different emotion and the final turning of ben back to the light. i really loved this bit.

adam driver’s acting performance in general.

absolutely the best, the most amazing, performance of the film. if nothing else, the switch from kylo to ben, despite having zero dialogue, should speak for itself. he managed to convey a completely different personality through his mannerisms, physicality and visuals alone. oh, and the death/ressurrection scene! the absolute desperation with which he crawls to the woman he loves. the infinite depth of emotion adam manages to transmit through only his eyes and his facial expressiveness. he deserves an oscar nomination for this in my opinion. 

reylo kiss

i don’t even need to explain this. the smile. the pure happiness, the tender touch, the moment of just love and joy and letting themselves be together, finally. i could not have asked for more of a beautiful first kiss. we’re ignoring what comes after. 

overall impression

tros fell flat. i lived for ben’s redemption and reylo, but this was not enough to make up for the mistreatment of most of the characters, the poorly coordinated and frankly rushed structure, and most importantly, the failure to deliver on its themes of family and hope. i felt like it tried to do too much and achieved too little. 

[memaha19]

Gotham 05x11 “They Did What?”

The penultimate episode of Gotham! And it has a weird title! I’m gonna miss this show, guys.

Also, side note, this is the second time I’m writing this post because I just finished typing all my thoughts and my freakin’ internet freaked out and closed my browser window and deleted everything I wrote. 🙃

SECOND SIDE NOTE: I wrote this last week but was at a work training all week and forgot to post. So I haven't seen the final episode yet either. 🙃

Anyway...spoilers below!

It feels like it’s been 84 years *cue that Titanic GIF* since the last episode

Just a note before we begin: this episode, like the last, feels like it has some weird pacing problems and makes me wonder, again, how this season would’ve panned out if they had been given the normal number of episodes. There were a lot of things that felt like they just happened so quickly/easily/conveniently, for no other reason than the time constraint. Jim and Barbara took Nyssa down pretty easily, Bruce and Selina defeated Bane pretty quickly, Bane and his groupies gave up pretty easily at the end, etc. I just wonder how some of the plot would’ve been handled if the show had gotten the chance to sloooooow down this season.

I thought for sure at the end of that last episode that Alfred was going to die (even though I also knew he would be fine?) so I’m glad he’s okay, just a little worse for wear.

It looks like someone taught David how to say “Ra’s” correctly in between last episode and this one because he finally said it right!

There’s just something about Nyssa/her actress that I don’t enjoy and that makes me glad that she’s only in a few episodes. Is it her voice? Her line delivery? Her (lack of) acting skills? Her giant lips? I’m not sure. 

Barbara looks great for being just a few hours postpartum. Like you know that if this wasn’t Gotham, she’d still be lying down in a hospital bed but instead she’s looking fierce in her coat and stilettos like she didn’t just push a baby out of her lady parts. 

Also the baby is suffering from the syndrome that many TV/movie babies suffer from, where they’re played by a baby that is several months old and we’re supposed to pretend that this GIANT baby was just born.

Everyone in the GCPD and the army must be terrible shots...? They’re fighting in such a small, uncovered space and literally no one is getting hit by anything. 

Except Oswald. But he’s gotta get that monocle somehow!

One of my favorite funny moments was Oswald asking Ed how his eye looked and Ed trying to tell him it wasn’t that bad and choking in the middle of his sentence.

Barbara snapping that guy’s neck with her leg is making me question my sexuality.

This is the Jim Gordon that I like. The one who is kind and who makes good decisions and who isn’t like “imma take the baby and raise it with Lee and Barbara is going to jail” and who doesn’t drop Barbara like a hot potato the second Lee shows up.

The Jim/Babs scenes in this episode are so soft and lovely and friendly. I love seeing them team up. It almost makes me able to forget and forgive the travesty that was “The Trial of Jim Gordon” that was so all over the place that it seemed like it was written by someone who had never seen the show. But OH WAIT it was written by the lead actor.

Also this episode has made me change my mind and I’m back to my initial opinion that Jim, Barbara, and baby make a cute little family and Lee needs to gtfo.

Speaking of Lee, I’ve liked her more in these last few episodes than I’ve ever liked her before, but I still don’t like her. I just feel like...what is she here for? She’s this weird cardboard character that is always in the scenes, but what does she really add? All the sudden she’s concerned about the Narrows? Even though she’s abandoned them this whole season. And then she heads to the GCPD to “help” but all we see is her bossing other people around. LEE, YOU ARE THE DOCTOR, DO IT YOURSELF. And then she abandons the Narrows people and leaves Barbara to take care of them and goes outside to die with Jim? It’s like they don’t know that to do with her and haven’t known for a long time but she’s banging Ben McKenzie so they can’t make her go away.

Barbara was able to just find a baby sling somewhere in the GCPD for her giant newborn. 

That Barbara/Lee hug...eh...

Okay, so. While I am thrilled that it seems like Barbara is going to get to be a mom and isn’t going to have the baby taken away from her, the strange throuple of Jim/Lee/Barbara is one of the parts of this season that I feel is being wrapped up a little too neatly. It wasn’t that long ago that we had to sit through that lovely episode where everyone was like “oh yes, Lee, YOUR baby” and Barbara was going to run away and Oswald was telling her that Jim would never see her as anything other than a dangerous criminal trying to keep his child away from him. And now, a mere TWO episodes later, Lee and Barbara are hugging. And Barbara seems to have changed her mind about not wanting Jim to have anything to do with the baby. And Lee and Jim seem to have changed their “Barbara is a dangerous psychopath” opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I’m so happy to see a story in which Barbara gets to keep her baby and I loved the scenes between Jim and Barbara, but this is definitely one of the parts of this season that I feel could’ve benefited from more episodes at a slower pace. I’ve been saying for awhile that the writers seem unable to write Barbara consistently and her story line and her relationship with Jim once she found out she was pregnant has been up and down like a roller coaster. I’ll be re-watching Gotham from the beginning once this last season gets put on Netflix so I’ll be interested to watch all the episodes at once and see if the inconsistency is as bad as I remember.

I think part of the problem is that the way that everyone was treating Barbara and talking about the baby in “The Trial of Jim Gordon” is throwing off my general picture of the season. That episode seemed so off base and out of wack. I think I can believe that the current Jim/Lee/Babs relationship is a little more possible if I ignore that episode. 

 I’ll be interested to see the throuple in the last episode, since the preview made it look like they’re all still chillin’ together. I’d like some scenes of them all awkwardly co-parenting little baby Babs.

The bats! The spooky moon! The music! Batman is here!

That must’ve been one moving (and quick!) speech that Barbara gave the Narrows people to have them all come outside and stand with the GCPD. And also it seemed a little too easy, like, NOW the army is having second thoughts about killing civilians? NOW they realize they can overtake Bane & Company? This is one of those plot points that I feel was wrapped up way too easily after all the build up.

That line where Jim asks Lee if her disobeying him is going to be a regular thing is very CRINGE. Ew. Like I don’t even like Lee but I was still like “ew Jim you don’t own her”

The weird little cuddle Selina tries to give Bruce while they’re sitting on the stairs at the GCPD was strange.

So Ed wasn’t able to pilot the submarine by himself but are we supposed to believe that Nyssa could and escaped with Edward the Dog? 

Barbara Lee Gordon! Maybe not a big fan of that middle name, but...also I like how Barbara told Jim that she named the baby “Barbara” and Jim’s first reaction was “...oh” before she told him the rest of the name. 😂

Also I’m really glad that Gotham went the “Barbara is just That Bitch that names her baby after herself” route instead of the “Barbara dies in some dumb way and Lee and Jim name the baby after her to honor her after her death” route; I was afraid for pretty much this entire season that all of Barbara’s crazy story lines would just end in her dying in some martyr-like ending that I breathed a deep sigh of relief to see that she’ll make it to the end.

Commissioner Gordon! That seems like that happened fast!

I normally really like Ed but something about that last scene where he’s talking in a Batman-wannabe growl and staring at himself in a mirror was weird.

Also, Gotham, come on, not again with that BROTHERS stuff.

Gotham just did BatCat real dirty. Like, Bruce just leaves Selina a note?! He knew he was gonna leave and they just have him leave her a note?! He can’t even say goodbye in person?!

“I never tried to replace your parents. But I want you to know, Master Bruce, that you are the only son that I’ll ever have, and I could not be more proud.” I was in tears during this scene. And the Batman-esque music was perfect.

(LOL remember when my first Gotham post for this season was only like 10 bullet points long. They just keep getting longer. 😂)

Anyway, overall, I thought this episode was really good, and it’s because we finally had the return of nice!Jim Gordon and some nice moments between him and Barbara. There were some weird pacing problems and some things that felt like they resolved a little too conveniently, but I enjoyed it overall.

The finale is soon! It’s gonna be a little weird to not have some of the younger actors in the flash forward, but I’m excited to see how they’re gonna wrap everything up and what our favorite Gotham residents are up to 10 years later

Also I’m living for ginger!Barbara.

One more to go. ❤