#it feels very different for me compared to a gifset because of the time spent i guess?

[ishikawayukis]

my kimetsu no yaiba painting is making rounds again and people are leaving nice tags and i'm like Ah creating truly is so wonderful

[mrs-gauche]

So, I *think* I've calmed down enough to form coherent sentences about this trailer now, after watching this about a gazillion times. 😂 There is just SO much in this and I still can't believe it's all real.. I feel like people have already dissected every single frame anyway, so here are just my poor two cents (that's a lie, it's an essay lol), I'm sure 90% of this has probably already been said lol, but I just had to write my thoughts down, so there you go. 🫠

But first, can I just ask you guys this.. Does anyone else feel SO friggin overwhelmed every time something huge like this drops? 😂😭 Like, I LOVE the collective excitement and freaking out over all this with the fandom together in real time, and maybe it's because I'm not a native English speaker, but I'm watching the trailer live and within like fifteen minutes there are already a bazillion notifications, messages, people have already made hundreds of theory posts, edits, fanart and shitposts, meanwhile I'm sitting here still looking at the FIRST FRAME and trying to process what I'm even looking at. lmaoo Like, it takes me SO long to take it fully in, calm down and look at ALL of it in detail, while I go radio silent for like two hours, making people think I just died watching the trailer, I guess. lmaooo So.. sorry if it takes me forever until I even go on here and look at everything you guys are posting. 💀 <3

Anyway, so first of all, I'd like to just generally say... Everything about this blew. me. away.

Look. After like 20 years of watching BioWare's entire animation catalogue of the same 25 movements in every cutscene, that it would make you jump every time a character but even slightly moved differently than everyone else, we're now getting a game that is SO INCREDIBLY CINEMATIC, SO SMOOTH, unlike any BioWare game before. A game where everyone just moves and expresses emotions like their own person, making everything a hundred times more immersive and impactful!!

Not only that but there's a BioWare game now with PHENOMENAL LOOKING HAIR and REALISTIC HAIR PHYSICS. Guys, do you understand this is HISTORY??? lmao We've been asking for this for YEARS and it's happening!! 😭

And the cinematography? THE CINEMATOGRAPHY?? Just looking at that very FIRST LOCATION SHOT alone. The camerawork, the composition, the fluidity of movement, the shift of focus, the lighting, the use of MoCap, the facial expressions... As someone who spent a *LOT* of time using the flycam to make cinematic gifsets of DAI, where - with all respect to the devs - 90% of the camerawork basically consisted of "zoom in/zoom out"... this. blew. my. fucking mind.

Like, they did it. They mastered the Frostbite engine on all fronts. And it truly hurts my heart seeing people compare this to Fortnite or whatever, when in my opinion this time they actually managed to find a perfect mix between stylized and realism, in favor of making the characters even more expressive and this coupled with the use of MoCap and the incredible cinematography will make these emotional scenes hit SO hard and.. ugh, I just love it so much. 🥹❤️❤️

With this being said, let's dive into it!

Okay, so I know this is super random, but it was literally the first thing I noticed about this trailer. lol Did you noticed that it said "BioWare" *before* "Electronic Arts" in the beginning, unlike that first... controversial reveal trailer, where it was the other way around? 😂 Not reading anything into this of course (or do I? lol), but.. Idk, I thought it was.. interesting. 👀

So we start off with the first of many amazing tracking shots, with the camera orbiting around Rook in this place devoid of color or life. The note at the bottom made me chuckle "Game engine footage with some costum camera angles", I was like "Oh, so they used the flycam to make this?". lol So some shots of these will look different in the final version (what kind of spoilers are they hiding?? 👀👀).

I do hope that next shot DOES end up in the game though, because holy SHIT, that FIRST wide shot already blew. me. away.

Look at the COMPOSITION of this.

Actually, you could probably take every single location/wide shot of this trailer and hang it on your wall. lol But seriously, the way this place just looks... dead. It makes me think of "void" rather than Fade.. like an ancient graveyard. The raw Fade looks generally creepy, but this is haunting even for that. There's no life, no color, no motion. It's all broken and crumbled. Almost like it reflects Solas' feelings. People are speculating if this place might change depending on Solas' state of mind.. This is the Fade after all, but Solas is here physically and this being the place that was supposed to be the new prison for the gods.. It's probably different from the rest of it.

We also see all seven statues of the pantheon from the ritual site again. Solas "I have the high ground", *literally* talking down to Rook, while standing on two separate cliffs (how did Rook even get there, I wonder? lol), like there is quite literally a rift between them (for now..!) and Solas is keeping a distance, as always. We still don't know how that connection between the two even works, I assume Rook can only contact him while asleep? But to think that this is the place where he is trapped now, where he is even more isolated than ever before, is making me so emotional. ;-;

I love how it's just black and white though. It gives the scene a destinct atmosphere that might be important, if this is where we get to see Solas doing a lot of introspection. In the art of filmmaking, the absence of color is often used to force the audience to focus on the contrast, textures, and tones present in the image, which can evoke a deep sense of emotion.

And speaking of emotions...

"You have no idea what you have done."

We had already heard that line before, but something about that booming, echoing effect they used on his voice sent a shiver down my spine!

"The blighted elven gods walk free. And all because you disrupted my ritual."

To me, he *sounds* much more frustrated here than he *looks* when saying that. lol He looks incredibly worried though, and just so tired. A moment ago, he was SO close to achieving his goal after hundreds of years of preparation and then he failed again... and now there is this completely clueless stranger who got him in this situation, but who he has to rely on now to stop these gods, when he's unable to trust anyone, and yet he can't even yell at them too much, because he *needs* them. He must be so exhausted.

And yes, it is kinda funny how they put "elven gods" in quotation marks. lol

Thank god he still has his freckles though. ❤️ We're actually seeing a lot more texture on his face here than in the gameplay showcase. And yes, not only did he get his eyebrows microbladed but apparently he's also sporting eyeliner and lipstick now. 😌✨✨ The only downside to the lack of colors here is that his super purple eyes are not poppin' anymore. lol

"You battle against gods. They will not rest until you are on your knees. Fearful. Cowering. Helpless in the face of such power."

I love how they play this line so early on in the trailer, that it makes you go "WAIT... IS THAT- NO WAY" and not until the end do we get the confirmation with the most amazing entrance ever.

We then get a shot of what I think has to be Treviso in flames and Ghilan'nain symbolically coiling her tentacles around a crow statue's head, as she's probably about to take over the city. 👀 *falls on my knees the second I meet her in the game* lol

Then there's the shot of this horrifying Blight.. lump.. growth thing that has completely devoured an elf (and several other bodies it seems) with a hair style that has everyone wondering if this could be Felassan! 🥺🥺🥺 As much as I would LOVE for Felassan to make an appearance.. I kinda hope this *isn't* him.. because good god, whatever happened to this persom here must be pretty traumatizing (are they even still alive?) and also, how do we get them out of there? lol Either way, seeing as there are Harding, Bellara and Neve accompanying Rook here, this might be earlier in the game (and this is them dicovering that the Blight is already spreading rapidly?) and yet it already shows us that this Blight is on a whole other level than anything we've seen before, and it's taking every living thing.

Then we see another snowy place (or might this be within the same area?) that's also in huge parts taken over by the Blight. You can also see a dead(?) dragon lying on the ground at the bottom right corner? 🥺

Then Elgar'nan literally pops up right next to Ghilan'nain, and btw, I love how I can't even tell where her body begins or where it ends in this shot. lmao What ARE you, Ghili?? 💀

It looks to me like maybe she was struck by a bolt/spear from a ballista or something? The Grey Wardens tried to take her out maybe? Looks like the power of Elgar'nan's mere presence blows the Wardens away then lol, like they're just insects to him.. and in the blast we can see a person that looks like Evka?? <3333 (please don't die here though 😭)

Then we're getting a first glimpse of a dragon that shows up multiple times in this trailer. Also, to me, it looks so much like the dragon from the Golden City vinyl cover, which has me like 👀👀👀👀

Next there are a few scenes from the prologue we've already seen in the gameplay showcase, but it's coupled with new lines from Varric, that have me super worried. :(

"Rook, you've got this. I've seen your work. You're clever, adaptable. And you don't know when to quit.

My first reaction to this was "Oh god no, that sounds so much like a "passing the torch" kind of dialogue to me" as in Varric either dies (PLEASE NO but it IS super suspicious how he's not seen or mentioned in any other scene so far) or retires his role as the leader of this group and hands it over to Rook. And he just sounds... weary. 🥺 I wonder what he means by "your work" though? Is he talking about things Rook has done before Varric recruited them? Or is it maybe later down the line, after Rook has already proven themselves to be a great leader? 🤔

Then we get another shot of that one dragon and our first look at Harding with the bruised face (whoever did this, come fight me!) and some poor person tangled in.. something, I'm not sure. lol

Then there's a super quick shot of the floating building in Minrathous, followed by Rook opening a gate Aragorn style, which leads me to believe that this is actually somethere IN that floating building maybe?

But the fact that Rook and everyone else seems to be wearing casual clothes in the following shots, plus the architecture in the background has me wondering if they might be at the Lighthouse actually? 👀

Especially because in the very next shot we see Rook, Bellara, Neve and Harding all in casual clothes again in front of a giant eluvian and I wonder if that's the mirror that we've read about in the Game Informer article. The special eluvian at the Lighthouse that can take you anywhere? :o

Speaking of the Game Informer article, it also told us that Rook, Harding and Neve went back to the ritual site after what happened in the beginning, which is probably what we're seeing here!

"You want allies to go after the elven gods. I've got places to look."

Well, good thing we have a clever detective on the team that apparently knows people who would willingly fight some gods. lol Notice how Harding's face is still injured in this scene. 👀 So I assume whatever happened to her must've happened at the ritual site? Btw, I love how the trailer makes it look like they're all in casual clothes and the second they're stepping through the eluvian, they're in full gear? 😂 (I'm sure those two scenes take place at different times though.) It's crazy how much different the Arlathan Forest looks now, without the cataclysmic storm and all. I love the lighting, the colors and the soft rain! :3

Then we get another gorgeous location shot to hang on the wall. <3 My guess here is definitely Anderfels, given the landscape and those "pillar ring" things we've seen before (I still have no idea what those are, the funniest guess is still griffon training flight path 😂 But something tells me those things will be important.).

"I'll be damned! A griffon!"

Davrin and Assan!! <33333 And the dialogue makes it sound like this might be the first time they meet each other?? 🥹🥹 Followed by a scene of Davrin taking care of business and what might be the return of children in DA?? 😭 Seeing that little girl made me so happy, because that was actually one of the few things on my wishlist for DA4, because I always felt like children make the world feel SO much more real and immersive and besides Kieran, children were completely absent in DAI.

Am I trippin or does it look like this child is smiling here, while running away from a horde of darkspawn?? 😶 Kids in the Anderfels are build different, I guess. lol

"In war, victory."

CHILLS!!

Then we see Assan again, who is pinning down a.. thing I can't identify. lol I'm very curious about all those cages in the background though.. 🤔

We then get one of the shots that made me freak out the most, because it's a flippin *underwater* shot of elven ruins??? 😱😱

We know it's elven because if you look very very closely, you can see a Halla statue in the distance, to the left side. I'm immediately reminded of the stories about Arlathan having sunken to the ocean floor! There's also still all that mention of Ghilan'nain's grey "goop" that smells like the ocean and another shot later on of a dragon (Elgar'nan?) emerging from the ocean! 👀👀👀

And aside from all that, it's just such a sick level design!! 😍 What do these ruins look like if you enter them in the game? How do we get there?? There's an eluvian in the middle of the ocean on the newest map that's included in the Collector's Edition! 👀👀 If that one flippin theory of mine actually turns out to be true and there are somehow two parts of Arlathan, one on the ocean floor and another in the center of the Fade/the Black City, I'll do a triple backflip. lmaoo

Then Lucanis jumps in with some incredibly smooth fighting moves against the Venatori... and PURPLE WINGS!! So we were right with our speculation about the reveal trailer! Why does he have them? Is it some connection to a pride demon that revived him? 😂 I don't know, but it looks SO cool!! And after showing off, we hear his first line "I'm ready" with that sweet sweet accent, which is just the cherry on top!! <333

What the heck is up with the sky in this one?? My first thought was the Lighthouse?? 😍😍 Because if you look closely, there are a few wolf head ornaments on the walls? 👀 And this could be in the Crossroads and just like a real Lighthouse, there's a light on the top..? 🥹

Then there's Bellara using some magical device, that looks super similar to the things that were next to the big eluvian in that other scene!

Which makes me think that this might be where we help Bellara find this artifact in order to get the eluvian at the Lighthouse to work properly (since it doesn't seem to work right without Solas, according to the Game Informer article).

"I've never seen this before. There's something kind of exciting about it!"

Not gonna lie, that line and that weird looking device gave me Peebee flashbacks from Andromeda, which I honestly wasn't the biggest fan of. 😂 But Ghil Dirthalen (member of the community council) responded to me a few weeks back on twitter and confirmed that Bellara is nothing like Peebee at all. lol So that's a relief. 😂 I'm really looking forward to learn more about her and every time I see her magical gauntlet, I'm reminded that we're *definitely* not in Ferelden anymore. lol

Anyway, we then get a few shots of the Deep Roads?? Kal-Sharok??? 👀👀 And of course, there's Harding's big reveal of her new magical powers! The animation on this looks sooo amazing!!

Like many suspect, the Titans' awakening might have something to do with this! I totally agree with what Ghil Dirthalen said on twitter recently and, rather than this being Harding having Solas' petrification powers, it's actually Solas who has the powers of the Titans/stone sense/whatever Sandal did to those ogres back then lol. (I need Sandal to return and be her "teacher" or something 🙏❤️) We know of Solas' orb, which was likely created by obtaining the heart of a Titan. And if the Titans are connected to the Forgotten Ones, Fen'Harel was once considered their ally in Dalish legends. 👀

Also, if you look closely, you can see that the moment her powers are triggered, we see the blue glowy effect all over her body, like glowy lyrium veins almost?

And that in turn could hint at something in connection to her blood? So that big injury we see on her (which is still visible in this scene btw!) was maybe the moment her blood came in contact with something that awakened these powers? (We need Valta back to explain! lol)

"What is happening to me?"

That delivery gave me chills again... She is frightened. Ali Hillis is so good. 🥺🥺🥺

Next up is the Grand Necropolis and people have already pointed out that the ceiling we see at that entrance hall or something looks like a GIANT rip cage?? 💀 (What kind of creature would be THIS big???)

First look of Emmrich in-game!!! And he's wearing a fancy new outfit!! And I paused at the perfect moment to catch Rook already falling in love with him, clearly. lmao

There are two characters next to the gate that could be anybody, really. Myrna from Tevinter Nights or Joanna from the short story "The Flame Eternal"? The guy on the right is actually giving me Executor vibes?? 👀👀👀

Then there's Giant Skeleton Monster (Manfred's mom?), and don't even ask me what this could possibly be. 😂 I just hope we don't have to fight THAT (we totally will 💀). I got flashbacks of the Human Reaper endboss in ME2. 😭😭

"Let the Fade draw close!"

There's something kinda... posh about the way he says this? 😂 Like, he's not really intimidated by Giant Skeleton Monster and it's just another Tuesday in the Grand Necropolis and Professor Volkarin is just doing his every day job. lol

Then there are two shots of what I think is somewhere in the Anderfels but snowy again, like that area in the beginning where Elgar'nan and Ghili showed up? And a destroyed watchtower that is occupied by the Wardens. Then we get a *third* and final shot of this beauty again.

"Draw the dragon out into the open. Then attack."

I assume that's Taash?? Sadly, that shot of her drawing her weapon is all we got from her in this trailer, but she looks awesome!! <333 We're gonna be Lord of Fortune buddies, even though we might disagree on the matter of dragon hunting lol (look, I don't want to *fight* dragons, I want to be *friends* with them 🫠😂❤️ I want to see them live their best lifes.. for the most part (I get to the Elgar'nan dragon and the blighted "twin dragons" in a second lol))

We see the docks of Minrathous for a split second and then a first glimpse at a romance scene between Rook and Neve? 👀 At the Lighthouse maybe?

"You and me Rook. Maybe that's what scares me."

What does she mean by that exactly? Does Neve have commitment issues? lol Or is this more like a "We're a dangerous match, Rook. We'll be too powerful of a couple. Like Bonnie and Clyde." kinda statement? 😂

And THEN... Well, then we get probably THE most badass looking introduction/entrance of any character in DA yet. lol And YES, I freaked out SO hard.

SHE'S BACK. Returning like the QUEEN that she is. 🙏 And of course, she has to come down a flight of "stairs" again. lol (And no, Claudia Black did not lie, she just wasn't contacted at the time. 😁) Gosh, that transformation is so SMOOTH. I could watch that forever, it's so darn beautiful. 😍 Again, the way this is done, cinematically.. just *chef's kiss*.

In retrospect, it seems almost like a given that she would be back because.. well, everything about the way DAI ended. lol Flemeth wanted her to inherit her "godhood", and she looks more than ever like her mother now. Remember the designer notes on that last scene in DAI.

Flemeth intends to let Solas have the power, so long as she can pass the essence of her godhood onto Morrigan, a gift Flemeth had always planned for her daughter yet one Morrigan misunderstood as hostile possession.

So, what exactly is she now? Did she receive whatever Flemeth sent through the eluvian at the end of DAI? Does she carry Mythal now?? If so, does Solas know (I NEED a conversation between those two technically "half-siblings", because Flemeth/Mythal is both their "Mother"? 😂)?? Remember when I said that this one dragon that appears multiple times here reminds me a lot of the dragon on the vinyl cover with the Golden City, which is very likely Mythal? So my very first thought was that the dragon is actually Morrigan?? lol Just throwing that out there.

It seems to me that she is with the Dalish/Veil Jumpers in the Arlathan Forest now? (Btw, if you look closely, you can see elven mosaics in COLOR in the background? :O)

"These are the times in which legends are born or slain."

That line goes so HARD aHhhh. Also, speaking of slain, that new outfit is slaying too. <33 Her return also means that the Well decision and potential consequences are back on the table, which will definitely keep me up at night again. 💀

That moment right there. She is everthing. ❤️❤️❤️ I wonder if we're gonna see Kieran again?? 🥺🥺

We then get the most impressive tracking shot and choreography of what I think is Teia and Viago fighting some Venatori?? <333333 Like, seriously, the way the camera is following his movements in this shot without a single cut, makes me think of something like flippin Games of Thrones' Battle of the Bastards. 😱 And those hair physics on Teia as she's swinging around?? Absolutely amazing.

Followed by Lucanis and.. is that Zara Renata (the character with the best name ever lol)?? Fighting over an ominous glowing staff. lol We know these two still had unfinished business with each other after the Wigmaker Job in TN.

Then we get our first in-game look of my man MANFRED (🎉🎉🎉🎉), proving yet again to be the most fashionable character in the whole game, using his pelvis effectively. lol I love him so much.

Then there's another terrifying shot of Giant Skeleton Monster, which almost looks like it's in command over the crowd of people here, like they're possessed or something? Uhg.. As if this thing wasn't scary enough. 💀

"Our gods are back. Our gods! How do we stand up against that?"

Again, CHILLLLS!! Chills all over. It's gonna be so interesting to hear what the Dalish, Bellara or Davrin think about all these revelations!

Then we see the Wardens again, confronting one of the super duper blighted "twin dragons" we see at the end (more on that later).

We see Neve using a barrier or something against a guy who wears the same armor as her, so maybe the Shadow Dragons are corrupted, too?

Then we see Rook dramatically tossing a sword on a table at Weisshaupt? And holy moly, Davrin in that new armor here looks FINE. 😍

Back in Treviso, we see a cool finishing move from Rook, obliterating a poor Venatori guy. That bow on Rook's back though (I need it)! :O

"I believe in all of us. So let's get it done."

That little pep talk from Rook certainly worked for me. lol Like, whatever it is we're doing here, I'm so pumped, let's gooooo!

Then we get literally a millisecond of a frame, where you can see Ghili lying on the floor.. with the lyrium dagger stuck IN HER CHEST??

EXCUSE ME?? They wouldn't just spoil her death like that, right?? lmao Also, that adds another billion questions about this damn flippin dagger and at this point the list of questions is getting so long that I've completely given up speculating. 😂💀 We see how Rook tries to retrieve(?) the dagger but the power it emanates pushes them back?? What the heeellll.

And then I died. No, really. lmaoo

What can I say.

I cried. I screamed. My soul left my body. It happened. We FINALLY saw him. The Dreaded Wolf, He Who Hunts Alone, Roamer of the Beyond, God of Rebellion. The one everyone's been talking about since flippin 2009. And by GOD, he lives up to his NAME.

He's dreadful, he's horrifying. He's a monster, a nightmare. He's perfect. And just like Solas, he's just a Little Guy and bald. 😭😭😭

...At least in comparison to this dragon!! Look at that friggin SIZE DIFFERENCE. Someone measured the size by comparing them to Rook, who we see for a split second before Fenny leaps in. So, make no mistake, Fen'Harel IS the size of a high dragon, like he was described in Tevinter Nights... It's just that this blighted dragon is HUMONGOUS. lol That dragon, let's call him Elgar'nan, because we all KNOW, right?? Who else could it POSSIBLY be?? He's got the horns, he's the dragon on the vinyl cover with the Blighted Black City, he's ENORMOUS!! I've been saying this forever. Fen'Harel vs Elgar'nan, Battle of Gods was all I ever wished to see and FUCK, I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT WISH CAME TRUE. 😭😭😭

And look WHERE they are fighting!! It's Minrathous, you can clearly see the floating building in the background!! Which means the Dread Wolf is OUT. He's no longer trapped, or in the Fade. Remember Sandal's prophecy "When he rises, everyone will see". And he HAS RISEN. lmao And look at the lighting!! It's the same dim, gloomy RED we've seen at the end of the reveal trailer with the eclipse. "AN ECLIPSE AS FEN'HAREL STIRRED". IT'S HAPPENING. Remember the 2020 teaser MURAL.

Is this the Black City or is it the floating building?? Either way, it's BLIGHTED. In the trailer, Minrathous has clearly been completely taken over by the Blight. "All the world will soon share the peace and comfort of my reign", that's what Elgar'nan said at the end of the 2023 teaser, and what better way to take over the world than to start with the biggest capital in Thedas, a nation which built their own empire over the ruins of Elvhenan, ruled by the most powerful mages!

And I am SO scared. You can see Elgar'nan snapping Fenny. The dragon is blighted, and maybe so is Fen'Harel. He's also clearly been through so much. "The Wolf chews his leg off to escape the trap.", is what Cole said in Trespasser. I don't think he always looked like that. In the murals and the 2022 cinematic, he has a lot more fur. And I can't help but think about the devs saying that Solas wasn't always bald either. lmao How are they connected.. are they one and the same.. are they bound to each other.. we still don't know. But I'm SO. F*CKING EXCITED. TO FIND OUT.

Those few seconds of this scene were breathtaking and whoever made this trailer knew exactly what they were doing, because the editing is so perfect as Fen'Harel charges at Elgar'nan in slow-motion and the music cuts out completely while that beautiful wolf howl can be heard and you can almost HEAR everyone's jaw dropping on the floor. lmao THAT's. how. you. do it. *standing ovation* *sobbing*

Okay. Breathe. Moving on. We gotta get to the end. lol

The very next shot is SO funny to me, because we literally just got to see Elgar'nan, the biggest flippin dragon we've ever seen in DA and it's followed by a shot in which Elgar'nan looks SO tiny next to Ghilan'nain. lmaooo

His ego doesn't allow to appear small though, I guess, so he f*cking levitates to top her in height. lmao These two ancient clowns are already killing me.

What's interesting though is that this is the exact same angle from which we left off in the gameplay showcase. And Solas is nowhere to be seen, so... did he literally just "poof" away right there into that Fade prison?? lmao

We get a quick montage of all the lovely monsters we will face. Like I mentioned, there's the Elgar'nan dragon taking a swim in the ocean, I guess? (I hope he drowns. lol) And a shot of what I think is Irelin (from TN and The Missing) doing.. something with some magical device. Someone fighting a magical "automaton" in the Arlathan Forest. lol Harding doing her THING again, acting like Toph from Avatar, literally bending the flippin earth, like a true Child of the Stone!!

And right before the end, there's one of my personal favorite shots, Rook basically bitch slapping a Pride demon into full K.O.?? lmao

The trailer ends with a final beautiful shot of Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire. lol No, seriously. A SUPER blighted pair of angry dragons, seemingly at the same snowy place that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain popped up earlier in the trailer. 👀👀👀

So, they might have something to do with this? There was a dead dragon lying on the ground in an earlier shot, so maybe the elven gods revived them? If I see Blue and Red, I'm of course immediately reminded of lyrium.. whatever that means. Or, given that they seem to be attacking Grey Wardens in this place... maybe we are looking at an altered form of Archdemons?? Or something similar to Corypheus' dragon? 👀 There is an interesting theory floating around that Ghilan'nain might look like *that* because she somehow merged with her lover Andruil. As I mentioned in the beginning, Ghilan'nain seemed to have been struck by a spear or something.. and in this shot, you can see that the red dragon is pulling a spear out of its body! Sooo... maybe that actually IS her?? And she somehow transformed into two different blighted dragons, representing herself and Andruil??? The tinfoil hat is strong with this one. lol

ANYWAY. The release date is revealed to be 31st of October, making this the best Halloween of all time!! Not only is it perfect because of its origin, Samhain, the thinning of the Veil between the living and spirits.. But also because we all get a chance to dress up as Manfred, walk into the store, buy the game and then go Trick or Treat (but mostly trick) in the name of Fen'Harel, the Trickster God. 😂😂💜💜💜

And that's it!! Now we only have to wait two months before we can all lose our collective shi— NO WAIT, OF COURSE WE'RE NOT DONE YET.

WHAT THE HELL

IS THIS

EXCUSE ME, how do you throw this in there in the background at the very last second, HELLO??? A rocky object, split in half. HUH, WHERE HAVE WE SEEN THAT BEFORE.

Oh, you sneaky sneaky people. The mural depicting a Titan's death.... Remember the description of this place in DAI's files.

"A final eluvian is situated in a beautiful bolt-hole where Solas has painted murals. Fen'Harel was here and wanted to make sure nobody ever found what the other gods were doing. This place was the breaking point for him that turned him against the gods."

Whatever this is... I think it might be the very reason why all of this is even happening. The Evanuris mined the Titans' blood and "something else" before they collapsed and sealed the Deep Roads with stone and magic.

"Terror, heart-pounding, ice-cold, as the last of the spells is cast."

"What the Evanuris in their greed could unleash would end us all. Let this place be forgotten. Let no one wake its anger. The People must rise before their false gods destroy them all."

I'll leave it at that. I'm so so so flippin excited. I want to thank all the devs involved, I'm so full of joy and can't wait to finally return back to Thedas in October. 🥹🥹🥹 (And if anyone wants to get me that "Rook's coffer" collectibles thing for my birthday two days after release, my address is— naah just kidding!! ..or AM I?? 👀😂😂)!! 💜💜💜💜💜

[mazzystar24]

I've been thinkin bout that bt scene. Obviously I might be totally wrong but idk, I feel like T kinda muttered "god I hope so" into his wine glass & not directly at Buck & he was being maybe kinda insecure, like in his head maybe since we assume he's older & more experienced he might think that's why Buck is sticking around?

Like idk, it's a call back somehow to the first date and the closet comment? Like T wants this to work out because he thinks Buck is adorable but you know they aren't really clicking so ya know whatever works? (But eventually it will fully break down)

And the way Buck said "but you think I do?" about the daddy issues is like Buck goin "....wait what?" in his head because his head does tilt a bit to the side like 🤔🤔🤔 And it's showing that they don't fit.

That it was intentionally weird & off putting.

Tho I do think the bit where T says "but your father is alive" wasn't meant to be snarky. Buck then says "Exactly" which I took as Buck being all "exactly, my dad's just THAT shitty and he's not going to change."

Off course then the speech Buck gave Chris is a bit eh, but like two things can be true at the same time. XD

Also I'm def not a bt shipper, Buddie all the way but yeah that's just how it came off to me. Lol.

I hope this makes sense.

I have been swamped with exams and neglected my inbox so 💐💐💐💐💐

Eh I feel like it was definitely more flirty than insecure like I’m tempted to add the gifsets for reference but I don’t want it to show up in the gif makers’ notifications but yeah like as he’s saying it it’s 100% like suggestive vibes rather than self deprecating making a joke about an actual insecurity vibe

Like I think for me this is definitely a horses not zebras moment

I do keep think that maybe the like off putting moments are intentional because so many weird choices have been made with BT

For the your dad is alive I think I wasn’t super clear on my opinion on it but like I don’t mean he said it to be snarky per say more so that the implications behind that line are things like “you’d feel differently if he wasn’t” or “you can fix things before he does” or as if that’s something to be thankful for or recognise when talking about his pseudo father nearly dying

Like the reason I hate this line isn’t that it necessarily has to be cruel intentions on Tommys part but rather that this sorta narrative gets forced down traumatised peoples throats CONSTANTLY (sometimes with good intentions) and it’s such a bullshit rhetoric and it’s even more bullshit to use that line while talking about this found family/pseudo father he has nearly dying

Also yeah that’s definitely what that “exactly” was meant to be like yup a dead dad would at least be less traumatising, a lot easier to explain, and probably easier on my therapist than this clusterfuck but alas

BUCKS SPEECH TO CHRIS- okay lots of thoughts on this because my mom got confused and picked thought daughter:

Do I love that the writers low-key made it sound like he’s comparing Eddie to the Buckley parents? no I hate it but KR was writing for this ep so what did we expect

Do I think a marginally better way to interpret it is that it was more so continuing that theme of paralleling buck and Chris’ issues? Yes

Are the basic and I mean like the very abstract very simple and nothing further parallels there? Yeah like parent not over their grief causes conflict between parent and child

Other than that no not at all Eddie never involved Chris in this, Kim came over with her Shannon cosplay without telling him, Eddie also never intentionally emotionally harmed Chris while the Buckley parents spent bucks entire life intentionally being the absolute worst™️ and emotionally neglectful and were shit parents to Maddie too by forcing her to pretend her brother didn’t exist while she was a child and mourning said brother

But I also think it’s actually very in character for buck to continue to sympathise with them and cut them an impossible amount of slack by trying to draw parallels to this situation like it’s less trying to paint Eddie more like them and more so using Eddie (someone he cares about and loves and sympathises with deeply) as a frame of reference to mentally try to humanise and sympathise with his own parents - idk if I’m making sense but in my head it makes sense

Like it’s actually a pretty common thing you see with traumatised people they’ll sorta draw parallels that aren’t there between themselves or the people they care about and the people who traumatised them because a lot of traumatised people will just constantly seek to understand that perspective more and sympathise with it like hell I’ve seen it with the people in my life doing it and it’s like woah those situations are very different I need you to recognise that

Loved hearing your view of it and it totally made sense!!!

Gonna see if there are any quick asks I can answer before I get back to my revision cos I definitely yapped more than I expected for this

[literateleah]

the paradox of emily prentiss’ audience perception and character design

some of y’all about to be real mad at me, but it must be said:

emily prentiss’ character design makes no sense: my personal opinion + an objective analysis

i think it can be challenging to separate the versions of characters we have in our little brains from actual canon content, but doing so is important for understanding what those characters are truly like, especially within the context of their environment and in contrast to others around them. plus developing a deeper understanding of the media we consume is super fun and interesting! with that being said: emily prentiss should not work for the fbi and here’s why (in three parts regarding who’s responsible: cbs, paget, and fans) (sit down and grab a snack i promise this is over 3k words)

quick disclaimer: i don’t dislike emily at all! that’s my girl, i just looked closer and realized some funky things the writers did and felt the need to analyze her of course: so let’s get into it

part one: what cbs did

cbs set the stage for emily’s introduction on the heels of the departure of lola glaudini as elle greenaway! lola has clarified that she decided to leave the show because filming in los angeles was not the best environment for her personally, and after one successful season on a major network (but not much established long term plot or drama beyond elle’s departure as a character) a consistent ensemble cast was required- particularly because the bau had been criticized for being predominantly male in the first few episodes of the show and not much development was given to penelope or jj yet. enter emily prentiss.

for the duration of seasons 2-3ish, emily was framed as a chip off the block that was elle greenaway, just slightly…richer? in her first few episodes emily was hesitantly polite but ambitious, clean cut, intellectually concise and held her own within the team. she seemed equal parts intimidated and frustrated by her male superiors (gideon, hotch) but certainly proves herself among other profilers. her childhood was explored only within reference to her strained relationship with her mother (which was only ever referenced once more after the fact) and we received a short overview of her educational and career history in her first few episodes. emily fit right into the hole elle had left, and didn’t have many major storylines yet.

seasons 4-6 brought a bit more development and depth to emily’s character! she begins dropping more snarky remarks, one liners, and socially deepening her relationships with the other team members. this seems more within the lines of elle’s design, but emily arguably took more time to grow into her place within the team. during the foyet arc she was vulnerable and supportive, and the doyle arc gave her some independence and agency she didn’t have previously. this era also solidified her appearance and persona as more edgy, which falls in line with general fanon perception of her character (especially when compared to jj or penelope). i can’t address this era or season 7 without mentioning that cbs was actively trying to remove paget from the cast, similar to how they did to aj cook as well. paget has spoken about this instance before, and i believe it slightly affected her portrayal of her character, and “lauren” was somewhat of a goodbye for both paget and emily (thus why she wished for mgg to direct since they were best friends).

season 7: in my opinion, one of the best seasons for emily. she was wisened and deeply wounded by her experiences with doyle, which was understandable of course. she returned to the team she loved and learned to appreciate life in a different way, remaining mature during this time period as well! though her departure was a bit less than graceful and sudden at the end of this season, it made sense compared to some other exits the team had seen.

now *sigh* all the rest.

paget as emily appears in two separate guest appearances (once in s9 and once in s11, and she is referenced offscreen as well) before permanently reprising her role as unit chief of the bau. these appearances were most likely to boost ratings and get the team back together (i.e. 200) or just to pepper in international cases (tribute). emily’s personality remains pretty consistent here, just more mature and comfortable in leadership positions (seeing as she is running an entire branch of an international law enforcement organization). then season 12 hit.

upon the departure of thomas gibson as hotch, cbs reached out to paget to see if she would be interested in fulfilling her role as emily within a longer term unit chief position. i’ll get into why this is wack in a few paragraphs, but the remainder of her time on the show is spent on a mature portrayal that seems very distant from her previous versions. emily is more authoritative, gives orders with ease, and has no qualms about leading a team of agents or even receiving promotion offers as director of the entire bureau.

thus concludes a general summary of the canon content cbs gave us as viewers. now let's talk about what they didn’t give us, regrettably

the primary aspect of emily’s design that comes to mind for many is her queer coding. though not much was to be expected from cbs, a prime time cable tv network, each of her relationships on the show (all with men) seemed oddly forced, and without much chemistry as compared to the SOs of other main characters. rumors of scrapped plotlines have floated around about what may have been, but the ultimate lack of acknowledgement of any queer characters in the main ensemble still leaves a feeling of disappointment to audiences, and leaves more to be desired as for how emily navigates social bonds.

part two (sidebar): what paget did

i think it could be agreed within audiences that paget brewster’s portrayal of emily made the role what it was! her dry witty delivery and emotional prowess combined with sitcom acting experience made her performance a mainstay for years. i think she did the best she could with a confusing and at times flat characterization, and brought the role to life.

paget also heavily contributes to fanon indirectly with her comments outside of the show (press, cameos, twitter etc). her general continued interest and fondness for the role post production affects fan perception, particularly in what she chooses to elevate and comment on. she and aj have both spoken about viewing jemily content, and paget and thomas have both also commented on hotchniss. most cast members feel free to comment on their characters in the appropriate timing, and seem open to discussing fanon ships and theories outside of canon!

part three: what fanon did

as we can tell from this fan space as well as the presence on insta, tik tok and twitter, fans LATCHED onto emily super quickly. she’s remained a favorite over the years, and this fan persistence is what brought her back so many times after leaving (so many times). in my opinion, queer coding and a bolder female trope (in contrast to her female counterparts) are the main pulls because they resonated with so many fans- new and old. with that being said, newer fans of the show in the past year in particular have been heavily influential in fanon, solely because of the large influx of fan content and popularity of it.

fan content began to take coding and bite size moments and snippets from the show as canon, and cemented it into much of the content and discourse they created. these small pieces of emily’s character are significant, but have become magnified by how easily they are to share and edit. for example, a collection of catchy one liners from emily over the seasons makes for a great video edit intro, or gifset! there’s absolutely no problem with this content, it just all combines to create a certain fanon perception no character escapes (this isn’t a phenomenon limited to emily or the cm fandom!)

these droves of content also solidified emily’s personality as much more defined, but at the same time, simplified it in a way that’s slightly harder to explain.

fanon: more emo/goth than canon basis

fanon: more introverted/anti social than canon basis

fanon: more violent/chaotic when canon emily is relatively well mannered and doesn’t start many conflicts (particularly in the workspace)

fanon: much less maternal when canon emily displays desire on multiple occasions (even crossing professional borders) for children, particularly teenage girls (possibly projection)

(again, nothing wrong with this interpretation at all and it still varies! This is just a generalization based on most of the popular content i have seen)

part 4: why it doesn’t work

let me start with this: emily prentiss does not like her job.

we don’t receive much in depth information about emily’s internal feelings and thoughts towards her mother beyond resentment. this stems from wanting to make it on her own, as a professional and as an individual (cough cough college deposits). this makes emily’s insistence on proving herself to authority figures in her earlier seasons is interesting to watch in different circumstances. she cites her experience and denies help from her mother when justifying her placement in the bau to hotch, she is extra vigilant about being helpful on her first case with gideon, etc. nevertheless, emily forges her own path outside of diplomacy and becomes a successful profiler and agent, with the help of her privilege, wealth and name whether she likes it or not. but if we read between the lines and fill in the blanks cbs neglected, these ambitions may subconsciously be oriented towards pleasing her mother.

example one: emily’s authority issues go further than just “rebellion” or “anarchy”, she frequently questions the ethics and sustainability of the work that the bau does. every team member does this, but emily much more so than anybody else.

in “amplification”, emily almost breaks federal protocol to inform civilians of anthrax threats. she butts heads with both hotch and rossi on this front, and ends the episode with having a conversation with rossi about the ethics of lying in their line of work. emily resigns to a solemn “it be like that” and moves along, accepting this reality.

on multiple different occasions emily laments to derek about the darkness she sees on the job, and it’s shown that this gets to her quickly on particularly bad cases. this is another contradiction of the design that she can supposedly “compartmentalize” better than others on the team, when she cannot unless the lives of others are at risk (doyle arc, s7 finale).

emily also responds in this way to many cases involving children, a similarity to jj many don’t notice upon first watching the series. “seven seconds” and “children of the dark” come to mind, during the latter in which emily is prepared to cross multiple professional lines to adopt a teenage girl left orphaned by the case, until hotch stops her and establishes that her emotions can’t rule her judgement on the job. regardless of hotch’s thoughts about her attempted caretaking abilities, these actions and impulses deeply contradict the typical bureaucratic pathways of the work the bau does.

the looming reputation of her mother’s diplomatic history hangs over emily, and after going to law school and working for the cia, she most likely did want to forge her own path as far away from being a socialite: being a spy. her inner nature doesn’t always reflect this profession, and leads me to believe that with her knowledge of psychology, law procedure and care for children: emily prentiss might be more inclined to working in social work, placing suffering children and teenagers in homes they deserve.

and finally, the hill i will die on: emily prentiss was an bad unit chief

this wonderful post touches on my general sentiment, but there were many reasons as to why emily prentiss’ career arc makes little to no sense (plot holes included).

first: her background. emily attended chesapeake bay university as well as yale and achieved a ba in criminal justice. keep in mind that though timelines evidently don’t exist in the cm universe, emily prentiss is ONE YEAR older than aaron hotchner (for context). in her first episode, she professes that she has worked for the bureau for a little under ten years in midwestern offices- something the audience laters knows to not be true. emily worked with the cia and interpol as a part of a profiling team and undercover agent up until roughly TWO YEARS before her canon introduction. plot holes and time gaps aside, this makes me wonder, why didn’t she just say the cia was a backstop without revealing the highly confidential nature of her work with doyle (similar to jj’s state department backstop and cover story)? penelope or hotch could have easily accessed her file and seen that she did not in fact have experience with the bureau in midwestern offices recently, and given the fact that erin strauss set up her bau placement, i’m presuming these formalities or references were overlooked.

second: her experience within the team. emily worked as a part of the bau with the bureau for roughly 6 or 7 years. after this, she is invited to run the entire london branch of interpol, one of the most renowned international law enforcement organizations. i’m surely not the most knowledgeable on requirements or standard timelines for such matters, but with the fact that emily had never led a team in her life (not in the bau or interpol previously) and had roughly 10 years of field experience, i don’t believe she would have ever realistically been considered eligible to run the whole london department.

third: her return to the bureau. fanon depiction of their relationship aside, if you believe aaron hotchner’s last wish before going into witsec was to entrust his team to emily prentiss, you’re dead mistaken. bringing emily back was clearly a pull for ratings after the loss of two main characters (hotch and derek), but logistically a bad decision. let’s suppose emily has had 4 or 5 years of experience in london now, this established authority position would be unlikely to change at the drop of a hat, even for old teammates or friends. also considering how close they were after a decade of working closely in bureaucratic and field contexts, i firmly believe hotch would have referred jj for the job of unit chief but that’s another discussion for another time.

emily’s reign as unit chief is odd, because of the many chaotic storylines crammed into it. but amidst bad writing and viewings plummeting, emily’s character is completely flattened. completely. emily is unrecognizable, both in appearance (that god awful wig) and personality. at times she acts as a complete wise authority, giving orders and delegating local authorities as hotch did. but at other times she makes multiple illegal, emotional, and incorrect judgement calls based on personal circumstances that lead to further chaos (deleting the recording of her and reid’s mexico conversation and reprimanding luke in “luke” for the exact same thing she did in season 6 even though she enabled her to do so come to mind).

i’m not sure if this is due to paget trying to find her footing in the role again, or the writer’s bad decisions towards the end of the show wrecking any previous design for their ensemble. then, there’s the infamous “wheels up” scene in s13e1. notoriously cringey, this seems like a vague caricature of something rossi would say many years in the past (the same goes for her pep talk in “red light” in the hunt for diana reid). these moments are meant to mature emily in the audience’s eye, but instead completely removed her from who we understood her to be, and made her an unreliable leader.

part five: and why it does

in theory, emily was a bolder foil to jj, similar to elle who she arguably replaced at first. she came into her own, and stands as a more uniquely developed character than almost any other in the main ensemble. she isn’t as maternal or domestically inspiring as canon jj, less bright and sunny than penelope, not quite as stoic or intimidating as derek or hotch. And yet at the same time, she’s a fairly blank slate. stripping fanon content away entirely, canon emily has few defining traits (all of which are constantly changing), and that may be the key to why we love her so much.

[cillianmurphy]

GIFFING 101 - YOUR ULTIMATE GUIDE ON HOW TO GIF

I have gotten many, many asks before about how I gif and I finally decided to make a tutorial. This is going to be very long, very image heavy and with a lot of details and examples. I mean it, I’m going through every, single aspect of giffing that I can possibly think of. From start to finish. And please read the disclaimer at the very start.

* I use a macbook pro but this should probably work on windows too!

I hate doing this but if this helped and you want to, please consider donating to my ko-fi or if you want, commission a theme or page from me at @amaanat <3

tutorial under cut, I hope it helps!

★★★★★

- CONTENTS 

disclaimer

what will you need to create gifs?

how to download videos?

extracting your scene from handbrake using VLC / built in video player

opening in photoshop

trimming, cropping and resizing videos

sharpening

colouring and psds

masks 

adding subtitles

editing frames / timeline speed

multiple gifs in one grid. 

actions

exporting the gif

last minute tips and extra links. 

★★★★★

- DISCLAIMER

First off, this is not meant as a post where I am saying look here, this is the only and perfect way of giffing. Not at all. When I started out, there were many tutorials available that helped me figure out how to gif, and I slowly developed my own style and I would like to create an in depth tutorial that helps you grasp the basics. Heck, make your gifs whatever way you want, go absolutely crazy on colours or whatever, this tutorial is just here to guide you through the process of gifmaking, because I know it can be very intimidating to people who are just getting into it. That is why I made this and why I spent 8 hours writing this, because I want others to know too and this is the kind of in depth tutorial I needed when I was starting out 4 years ago. Thanks for reading, hope it helps and go crazy ahhh go stupid. 

★★★★★

- what will you need to create gifs?

photoshop. I use photoshop CC 2020 on a mac and I pay monthly bc of student discount. There are many, many links you can find on @completeresources for downloads. You can use any photoshop you like, as long as you have the timeline option. 

Handbrake. This nifty program is used mostly to convert MKV files to MP4, but I also use it to quickly extract the part of the video I want, because opening an entire movie in photoshop can quickly clog up space bc of cache and it’s a pain to find that one second scene you want with that tiny scrollbar. Download it from here.

your video (downloading explained down below)

extras: VLC, just to find how many seconds the scene is at, so we can input the time in Handbrake. You can use any other player though for that step, I use VLC or Quicktime. Download VLC from here.

★★★★★

- how to download videos

Ok so I will quickly go through a few methods here for getting your clips. 

1. t*rrenting.

This is the most popular method for getting your film or tv episode. I personally get my t/rrents from rarbg dot to or if I am having trouble finding one, I go to 1337x dot to, because they compile them from different sites. I copy the magnet link and go to the qbittorrent application, import magnet link, choose the files I want and it downloads. Remember, the higher the seeder leecher ratio, the quicker it will download. 

But which file should I choose?? there’s so many? Well yes there are many many files for different movies. On RAR, I found more than 40 t/rrent files for Endgame. I think that generally, the 4/5 GB 1080p copies are just fine. I have compared giffing with a 60GB Interstellar Remux (which is directly ripped from bluray) file to giffing from a 4GB 1080 file, it literally gave me the same quality and the 1080 looked crisper. So yeah don’t kill your computers space, just go for those 3/4/5GB files. 

hot tip - don’t download from yify, the quality is way worse.

2. movies from twitter accounts such as logolessHD.

these accounts post MEGA links to movies and shows, but you will have to request to follow them to be able to get the links. Then you can download the movie from there. The accounts you can get these links from are here: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4. The quality can be a bit less though compared to t/rrents. Here is a link to a tumblr blog with these kinds of downloads too. 

3. downloading from youtube.

ok, use 4kvideodownloader for this. It is incredibly easy to use, you just need the youtube link. Always Always go for 1080p, if you can’t then 720 at the most because otherwise quality gets really bad really fast. 

4. netflix / screenrecording

If you don’t want to download / can’t find something, try using netflix and screen recording. In my experience, SC only works on google chrome and not safari so jsyk!! Here is a tutorial on how to screen record on mac (or for quick access, click command+shift+5) and windows. 

NOTE: quicktime screen records at 60fps, which is nearly thrice the frame rate of movies and shows, so at the end you may end up with duplicate frames in the timeline of photoshop, so you will have to delete those frames one by one sorry. 

★★★★★

- extracting your scene from handbrake using VLC / built in video player

muahaha here’s where the magic starts to happen. Open handbrake and import your video. For this part I am going to use a scene of Keanu Reeves from the 2019 movie Always be my Maybe. I will demonstrate with that scene up until colouring, because then I will show how I colour different scenes!

So when you have opened the image in HB, you get this layout. (link to imgur)

it is a bit intimidating, I know. So basically, first, click on where it says chapters near the top right and click seconds. then, input the time you want to extract from the entire video. For the Keanu scene, that scene starts at 00:57:18 and ends at 00:57:21. These are not exact timings, I usually add an extra second so the entire scene is captured and I heavily recommend you do the same. 

Now down below, you can click browse and edit where your new video will be saved and you can also change the name of the new clip. Always ALWAYS remember to keep the .mp4 ending do not cut that part out!!! If the ending says .m4v change it to mp4!!

Ok then I undertake the following steps to ensure the video that will be exported is of the highest quality possible: 

Firstly, I uncheck all these three boxes: 

Then you see this bar here right? Well I will edit the dimensions, filters and video now. You don’t have to do anything for audio, subtitles or chapters so leaving that alone is best. Lets go to dimensions first.

Here are my settings for dimensions:

The storage size depends on if your file is 1080p or 720p. Most movies are shot in a ratio of 2.35:1, so if it does not say 1920x1080 like a 1080 file should be, don’t fret. The cut off parts are just the black bars you see when watching the movie. Handbrake doesn’t recognise nor convert them so that’s one less thing we have to worry about. 

Now onto filters. Literally do NOT change anything there. Leave the settings as they are, which is like this:

Finally, go to video. You will see this kind of window and these are my settings (imgur)

Firstly, leave video encoder at H264 or 265 depending on how your video is encoded. For the FPS, choose same as source for the framerate and click constant instead of variable!!! This will ensure your video is smooth. For quality, bring the slider all the way to the right. RF0 means it will be at the best quality possible. I didn’t edit the settings at the bottom at all so just leave them be.

Now click this green icon (imgur) at the top and your video will start encoding! It does not take long at all and then your video is ready to made into a nice lil gif!

★★★★★

- opening in photoshop

woohooo we got our video!! Ok now open photoshop. Click on file -> open:

now search for the file you extracted from VLC and import it! Now your screen will look like this (imgur). With a different video, of course lol. 

★★★★★

- trimming, cropping and resizing videos

ok so firstly, we will trim the video. As you can see in the image I linked in the step before, the screencap you see is of someone else in ABMM, not Keanu, like I want. So use this slider:

and click and drag it to where your scene begins and shows up in the window. Then, click the following button to split at playhead. 

This will split the clip and so the timeline and layers section will look like this (imgur) (mine has three sections because there was space before and after the keanu scene so I cut two parts which made three clips)

so now all there is left in trimming is delete the layers of the video you do not need! For me in that image it was layer 1 and 3!

cropping and resizing

This depends on the kind of gifset you want to make. This picture is a handy guide for resizing:

This post is also very very useful for resizing info

Ok now I will crop my gif. Click on this tool:

and now my interface looks like this. I am using the ratio 6 by 4 but you can use whatever you want. 

Ok now you may need to crop some black bars but since I don’t have to, I just moved the crop area around a bit and clicked enter to crop it. Just play around with sizes and whatnot, and get a feel of what you like!!

cropping tip: crop as close as you can to the edges. The more you zoom in, the more pixels that will be visible and it will make your gif extremely grainy!!

So now for resizing, go to image -> image size or click command-shift-i

and you will get this window. 

A LITTLE NOTE - I personally do not use automatic but a friend who shared her sharpening psd would prefer if I kept it secret, but automatic is what most people use and it is what I used up until november 2019 and it worked just fine.

Ok anyway now I want to make my gif 268px wide so I will input that as width and make sure you click this!! It makes sure your height and width are proportional!

ok now we have this. After you’ve done that, click ok!

congrats, you just resized a gif!! Your gif probably looks smaller now in the main window once you click ok, just zoom in to it! don’t worry about it looking bad quality, sharpening is next!

This is how my gif looks with trimming, cropping and resizing (with 0.05 speed)

★★★★★

- sharpening

Now we sharpen! Make sure your layer is selected Go to filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen and this window will pop up:

These are my settings which most people use. Just remove gaussian blur

I have more accurate and use legacy checked too!

click ok! Now ... your gif might look a bit oversharpened. That’s why we use a bit of gaussian blur. Go to filter -> blur -> gaussian blur.

now I think most people also use a 1.0 radius so set that and click ok.

But now your gif looks too blurry. Lets fix that. Double click the icon below in the layers panel

and adjust the opacity! My go to is between 25 to 35, just so the gif looks smooth!

Now we’re done with sharpening! This is how our gif looks with sharpening with 0.05 speed:

sweet right? Now .... the best and hardest part ... colouring!!!!

★★★★★

- colouring and psds

First I will shortly talk about psds. They are photoshop files, that save the entire document which means you can share it with someone after uploading it and when they download and open it, they can edit the layers, tweak things just like they made the file in the first place. Many people upload psds of gifs with colouring so others can use that colouring. You can find so many psds on completeresources (I only linked gif psds but they have psds for icons and headers too) or allresources. I do not use psds but colour from scratch every time so I will not be explaining them further, sorry. 

So for colouring, I will go very in depth into different styles. Here are the main types of colouring I have noticed people use on here:

simple - I normally use this for scenes with people in it

vibrant, bright - I use this for scenes with lots of colours in them

pale

black and white

gradients - I use this to spice scenes up a bit

colour palette 

I only go for simple, vibrant and gradients and never do cp, pale or black and white, but I will link a few tutorials by talented creators who do and after that I will explain the three ways I colour by showing you three different examples :)

Some useful tutorials I have found for pale/bw/cp colouring are:

this pale tutorial by @samecoin​. Especially useful read because Tippy explains how to avoid whitewashing in pale edits.

this pale tutorial by @kateausten​. Very easy to read and to follow.

this colour palette tutorial by @freddyfreemen​. They explain the basics and provide a psd too.

this colour palette tutorial by @stenbranlons​. Very image heavy which guides you through every step of the way.

A blog dedicated to pale resources is @finesources​ and is definitely worth checking out!

this tutorials page by completeresources has many many tutorials on how to do different kinds of styles

Btw, this is a useful website that explains all the different adjustment layers in photoshop if you’re still getting the hang of them

ok now onto my examples for the colouring. I will first do simple colouring for which I will use the keanu gif. For vibrant and gradient I will use two different gifs. I usually put my colouring into a group so first, close the video group layer and click this to make a new group which will contain the adjustment layers for our colouring:

SIMPLE COLOURING

First I will brighten the gif up with some curves. That is this tool:

Then you get this window:

As you see, I have selected that white eyedropper tool. Using that I will brighten the image. Basically, you want to click on the whitest part of the gif using that tool. This is because wherever you click, the eyedropper will turn that part into white and adjust the entire gif that way so if you click somewhere dark, you’ll get this white bright fuzzy mess. So I clicked on the lightest place which imo is the white specks near the glass in front of his hand and now my gif looks like this:

Ok now if you look at the above image, there is a black eyedropper two steps above the white one. You want to use that to click on the darkest place of the gif bc it’ll turn that to pure black. Here is my gif when I did that:

not a massive difference but it balances things out. Now I will add some saturation. Click this icon:

which brings up this window. I have already set saturation to around 15 to make it a bit warmer:

and the gif looks like this now:

I think it looks nice, but I would like to add something extra. That is why I am going to play around with selective colour to make the background pop a bit and make the black colour more dark. So click this icon:

and you get this window and these colours (imgur). You can play around a lot with selective colour and manipulate colours! So if I turned the black dial on reds to +100, they would become wayyyy darker. However because I want the background to pop, I would use the colours magenta and blue (and black for the final touch). For those my settings are this: 1 - 2 - 3 (imgur). So now my gif looks like this:

And now i think we are done! For comparison, this is what the gif looked like with absolutely no colouring or sharpening:

And that was all for simple colouring!! Lets move on to vibrant colours!!

VIBRANT COLOURING

For this I will use an example from Thor: Ragnarok bc thor is my soft bb. I did not do much for this first example except play around a lot with selective colour and I used the exact way of adding saturation and curves as shown before. Honestly just playing around with selective is the best bet to get vibrant colouring. The gif without sharpening etc was this:

the gif after colouring and sharpening is this:

pretty sweet huh? Just play a lot with saturation, hue and selective colour and channel mixer and you can create a lot of styles that way!

GRADIENT

for this I will use another clip from Thor, but from The Dark World. It is a bare clip where it is raining and I will add a gradient on it. This is the gif without colouring nor sharpening:

now we will do the sharpening and colouring. I already applied a basic curves and saturation layer so now it looks like this:

It looks a bit better right? Ok lets get that gradient applied. Click here:

and click on gradient, NOT gradient maps bc those are different things and I honestly dont know how maps work. 

now this is what will appear, I haven’t changed anything to this yet:

What style, colours, angle you choose is up to you. I personally am going for 0 angle because I want it going right. Now, to choose colours, double click on the colour shown next to the word gradient. This window will show up:

The fun part is you can do what you want here. Just experiment, click the buttons, adjust opacity etc. When you click at the bottom of the bar somewhere another stop marker appears meaning you can have even more colours! Just click on the bottom markers and edit to your hearts content! Use the top button to adjust opacities. Personally I went for this gradient:

Ok but now we have a problem because our gradient is fully covering the image and you can’t see anything. That is where blending modes come in. Right click on the gradient layer and click blending options. This window will pop up (ingur). When you click blending mode, these options appear (imgur). 

Here is a good guide explaining the blending modes

I just recommend playing around seeing which one suits you. I went for overlay, which makes my final gif look like this:

and that was that on colouring!! Let me know if u have questions about it! Onto the next part, masks!

★★★★★

- masks

I will not go in depth here, but instead I will link some tutorials but the amazing @thepunisher​ who has explained it much better than I ever will be able to. The tutorials are all in this link. If you have any questions do lmk but idk how I could explain it. 

★★★★★

- adding subtitles

although we wish we could, we can’t all lip read so we need subtitles also I’m hard of hearing and need them anyway but yeah, I will quickly highlight how I add subs! I use the font Arial Rounded MT Bold Regular.

I will first link to this post because it helped me a lot and may explain stuff better than I do. 

Lets take the keanu gif we had earlier. In it, he says ‘fish flakes’. Now what I do is this. Click on this icon:

and drag a box around the gif fully. Add your text. Mine looks like this now:

Well that ... does not look like a subtitle. BTW my settings are:

*when there are two people speaking I change the colour of the second person to #ffff00 - also for 540px gifs I usually use 12/13px text.

Ok now I will add the stroke and drop shadow. Right click on the layer of text, click blending options and change your stroke and drop shadow settings to this and this (imgur). Now just click the move tool or hit V on keyboard to select it and drag the gif down wherever you want. Now my final gif looks like this:

Ok, now if you have two gifs and you want them to be the same distance from the bottom, right click the text layer of the first gif document, click duplicate layer and you will get this window:

now click on destination and depending on what files you have open in PS, you will get this window:

now just choose where you want the text to go and if the gifs are the same sizes itll appear exactly where it did in the first one and you can edit the text for the second. You can do this with adjustment layers, groups etc too!!

Now text is done! Off to the next part!

★★★★★

- editing frames / timeline speed

We are done editing, now time to convert to frame animation and edit the speed! 

Ok click on the four bars on the right side of the video timeline. It will bring up a menu. From there, select this:

This will make individual layers of every frame into clips. Now, click this at the bottom left side of the video timeline:

This will convert your video timeline to a frame animation timeline. Now it looks like this (imgur). you’re probably wondering wait where the heck did my layers go well don’t fret, lets click the four bars on the right side again and click this:

now look! We have got all our frames into the timeline! Just delete the excessive frames at the front. Now click the four bars again, select all frames and then click the number at the bottom and change it to 0.05 or 0.06 or whatever speed you want:

Now we are done with this step!

★★★★★

- multiple gifs in one grid

I myself am not going to explain this, instead here are links to a few amazing tutorials that will help you further

this tut by @brolinjosh​

this tut by @futurist​

★★★★★

- actions

Now actions ... man they make everything so much easier. Basically actions are a sequence of steps you undertake in photoshop that are recorded which you can then save and use on multiple files. This makes the giffing process much much faster!!! For instance, these are the actions I have saved (mind the doubles lol I am experimenting a bit!)

As you can see, I have one for undertaking the entire video timeline to frame animation process and one for sharpening and the subtitles. It has saved me around 75% of the original time I put into creating sets before which is a lifesaver. 

I cannot explain how to make actions bc I am really bad at explaining stuff, but here are some tutorials:

- https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/creating-actions.html

- https://completeresources.tumblr.com/post/66560261468/how-make-action-%D0%B7 

- https://completeresources.tumblr.com/post/50583786863/how-to-use-an-action

- https://completeresources.tumblr.com/post/50362731526/how-to-use-actions-on-gifs

https://www.creativebloq.com/adobe/create-own-photoshop-actions-61411918

★★★★★

- exporting the gif

now we’re at the final stage! When you have your gif ready, go to file -> export -> save for web legacy

ok now the next window is this which looks intimidating I know

Well basically, those are my settings above. Make sure the looping option is set at forever. Also on the left size you see how big your gif is, make sure it is under 8mb but tumblr is unstable so keep it under 5MB and it should be fine. 

I use different exporting types at times. Sometimes I use selective and pattern, sometimes diffusion or adaptive+dif. Just remember that the gif size depends on which you choose so keep that in mind. Here’s the difference (if u can even spot it). 

selective + pattern

selective + diffusion 

adaptive + diffusion

Personally I mostly only use selective + pattern!

btw make sure your matte is at NONE!!! This is because otherwise you have those whitish transparent borders on your gif, esp noticable on dark gifs, like shown in this tutorial by the talented @joewright​ !

And congrats, you have officially made a gif! Now go experiment, have the time of your life and do whatever the heck u want with your gifs. And if you want me to see them, tag me!! I track #usernums !!!

★★★★★

- last minute tips and extra links

man idk what to say here really but here goes:

@completeresources​ and @allresources​ are amazing places to learn more about gifmaking, pls take advantage of the opportunity

reminder: quicktime records at 60FPS, so unless you want a laggy gif delete the extra duplicate frames in the frame animation timeline!!

When opening import video frames to layers, do not click skip every second frame!! do not!!!!

Do not steal gifs. Try making them. I know it takes time and it can get frustrating but don’t post someone elses gifs as your own. Even the ugliest gifset in existence made originally by someone is better than a stunning set put together full of stolen gifs from various users. Don’t be that person

Don’t be afraid to ask for help pls just go on anon if u want!!

use the tumblr dimensions!!! I cannot stress enough how important this is because if you don’t, your gifs will look stretched af and lose quality so like .. don’t do that

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

I am curious: what are your favorite scenes from your main ships (date, dair, derena...)?

scenes involving milo don't count, sorry!

for me, it's really not just scenes, but body language & just in general, how they are with each other, you know? dan and serena grin at each other and hug SO much, you can tell that being around each other in s1 made them both so happy, and even after that glow fades the way they look for comfort in each other... top level stuff. the way blair looks at dan... we never see her as radiant at any other point. she was not looking at anyone else like this. and gosh, dan and nate. they're both so comfortable around each other that there's absolutely nothing weird about like. discussing that one ex girlfriend whom they both share AND both were in love with. there is literally no other duo who trusts/enjoys each other's company so much that they're comfortable in a love triangle. (probably because they're more in love with each other than with the girl, but that is not the point. or is it?)

anyway, more specific answers. under the cut. this is one of the longest answers i've ever written on this blog possibly but you KNEW that would happen when you sent this ask, didn't you? (affectionate)

derena: i tagged one of my ds reblogs as 'the grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one' and like. look at them! this hug from 1x10 kills me in the best way. they are both the literal embodiment of :D when they see each other! i love 1x10 as a whole moment, their entire thing at cotillion is so sweet and they're both so happy. the fact that he is talking about his chemistry teacher during this kiss in 1x07. that bit at the end of 1x05 when they talk about their siblings (being there for their sibling because of fallible parents being a derena parallel makes me simultaneously really sad and really soft, tbh). 1x05 gives me SO MUCH SECONDHAND EMBARRASSMENT but the way they walk off together arms around each other does something to me - these are two people who are still getting to know each other but who really like what they see, and who trust each other and. are just having a good time together! back when derena was my OTP, the 1x11 "your story's about me?" was absolutely a fave, too, and i still adore it, albeit in a different, more nostalgic way. i like a dan who writes cute stories about serena. no empty shell sabrina van skoneker bullshit. she is so much like you, daniel! you'd be shattered if she did this to you. don't do this to her. tbh, most derena moments from s1 are just A+ romance. the bit in 2x02 in the jitney is so funny, they're SO bad at being exes. the bit in... 3x03 i think?? i don't remember... on the contrary. when they're talking about dan's fling w/ georgina and serena's relationship with carter, the ease with which they talk and how happy/supportive they are of each other's new relationships... yeah. love to see it.

i also really like any instance of them having honest/open conversations. 1x13, talking about how serena is concerned about blair. 1x08, serena talking to dan about feeling jealous of vanessa. this bit from the touch of eva or whatever that episode is. 4x04 i think. this is the conversation everyone is trying to get dan to have and he's avoiding EVERYONE else. derena interactions in 3x21 (can't find a gif right now) - the fact that dan is with serena when her dad abandons them, the fact that he goes all the way there with her. 2x07, "i'm really glad you're nate's friend. he really needs someone like you right now" (though i'm cheating, that's technically a d/n moment too klhdflkgf). there's a bit in s4 where he's advising her against having an affair w/ colin, i don't remember the ep number, but the way he takes her side so easily and naturally and puts due blame/responsibility solely on her professor... yeah. 4x10 i think this ep is?? idk. but like my tags say, im sentimental about this moment because while what dan was doing was irresponsible, sneaking her out of the ostroff, he was the only person in this episode who was actually talking to her and listening to her and taking her seriously. nobody else was doing that!!

i probably have more moments i'm not remembering, but we're only 1/3 into this answer and LOOK AT THE WORDS, good lord, i'm sorry.

dair: my favourite dair episode is hands down despicable b (5x21) which i have heard is an uncommon answer. i just love the conflict resolution of it all, okay!!! 1x04 & 2x08 are like. standard answers any dair shipper will give, and i'm no different. i love dan being able to give blair advice and blair actually taking his advice even though they're not friends yet!!! be right back, yelling at the intimacy of it all!! 5x16, with their getting together (this little kiss and dan being so startled by it), blair admitting a flaw she genuinely does have and dan saying it's not awful because it's her, which is just. romance at its finest. those vows, good lord. 5x18.... they're having fun! blair showing up at the loft in lingerie for dan... the delight on her face.... (i know this moment blows up in their face but when she's there she looks so happy and proud of herself and this was like THE moment when i was like. oh. dair is really the heart of this garbage show huh).

i think for me, the thing that really sells dan & blair together is the serena of it all. both of them love serena more fiercely than anyone else, and that is what brings them together. (fwiw i definitely think nate loved serena this much and this deeply, too; the writers just wanted to pop the serenate balloon, which even i think was extremely unnecessary and ooc.) but (& i have so much meta about this) their relationship grows beyond serena. their entire s4 arc is SO good. i love how comfortable around each other they are, in such an adult way, in the sense of like. they both bring so much stability to each other? morgan tagged this edit "the marrieds" and like. yeah. b offers to help him shave. they're having breakfast & reading the paper together.

all the love declarations we got that weren't a simple 'i love you.' be your charming wonderful self (how could she not love you/ tell me what would make you happy, dan) i told chuck he doesn't have my heart anymore (you spent your life earning the keys to set you free when you were free all along!!!!) dan's pep talk to blair in 5x21 (already linked a gifset earlier, here's another one if you want i guess). there's definitely more... but honestly, the way the dair arc was executed was so good - while i do have my complaints, i also think keeping those aside, it was SO close to perfect. i love dan & blair's banter and gradually becoming closer and closer and closer. it felt very organic and real and GOSH. the way penn & leighton looked at each other while playing dan and blair...... it's just SO MUCH.

date: this is the hardest, because it's. *screams*. maybe you saw me losing my mind over those 2 seconds of nate handing dan a waffle? i love almost every scene with these two, even the hellish s6 breakup scene. my favourite episode for d/n (& also favourite gg episode in general) is 2x06 - i love the homoerotic subtext of it all. nate pretending to be dan because dan's name is the first name that came to his head. dan flirting w/ nate while tied to that thing, in his underwear. them becoming friends. and 2x07 as a follow-up to that! dan getting nate to live in the loft with the humphreys for a while. i am so soft.

4x09 is a terrible episode in general, especially for serena my beloved, but the d/n moments in that one? off the CHARTS. this weird overly macho flirting, in some ways THE most iconic d/n line. this entire finish each other's sentences nonsense. someone (i think it was ana but im not sure?) compared the energy of those scenes i just linked to the book blairenate love triangle resolution, blairena choosing each other over nate in the books, date choosing each other over serena in the show (if only! RIP.) after the saints & sinners ball, this cute little moment of 'youre the only one who understands me. please tell me they went home together. i mean. how could they not have.

3x07, them watching vampire porn together. a tag i used on ao3 (& also on here, once) is 'nate brings out the himbo in dan'. here is a prime example. 'is she levitating?' i don't fucking know, dan, what do you think?? (i was telling my partner that that's what i love abt dair vs date. around blair dan is an intellectual, a librarian, an art historian, a museum curator. around nate it's like dan is competing to be #1 himbo on the show. can my girlfriend actually fly? i don't know, dan. i can't believe you're seriously asking such a question.)

3x12 pep talk. (sorry about the shitty quality!) essentially nate telling dan that he (dan) is hot and that he shouldn't talk himself down so much.

dan making nate gay in his book. you know. his book from which blair found out he was in love with her. nads (who i will not tag in this billion word long gushy meta, because i value her sanity) once called inside "wish fulfilment' and. i mean. yeah

nate checking dan out at the derena wedding continues to be hilarious. hilarious in the same way as dan sexually fantasising about nate. canon really went 'let's give ivy some special easter eggs' and i appreciate them a lot!

i love the way they are around each other - so quietly attuned to each other. i showed my sister my date!husbands gifset, and she was like. yeah they're so married. and it's just stuff like how dan looks for nate over his shoulder, it's not even an active action, it's as easy and natural and intuitive as breathing, checking to see if nate is still there.

oh, that wasn't as hard as it could've been! okay. cool. im SURE there's more things i could scream about, because it's DN, the fact that they're non-canon makes me THAT much fiercer about them than dair/derena, to be honest. so many dots to connect!! anyway.

[todorokih]

i was tagged by vero @nitsumii​! thank you~

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works you created in the past (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

i dont want to dig too far so im only going to put edits i’ve made after i came back from my most recent period of hiatus, which started from around the end of may. this was very fun to do, i love sharing my editing life struggles!!!!

01. tsukishima - i literally made this yesterday kjahsdlgkj. i wanted to make something from what is already in my laptop, and hq s3 was one of few anime i have. and ofc i chose this gold moment!! tsukki is my best boy and hearing his YOSHAAAA,,,, i am moved to tears. anyway i think this one is pretty neat? i love the typography, the gifs are good, the colors are pretty nice too. even though this was born out of impulse its probably one of my faves right now lmao.

02. goro - made this for his birthday! i do not know how to make graphics (please can someone teach me). i was solely driven by the amount of love i have for this boy and the need to celebrate it. but in the end i think this one is quite nice! i like the colors i used here, and the black borders are so good. the 2 top pics are my favorites. i can only make minimalist gfx because i have no textures saved and even if i do i dont know how to use them haha... ha......

03. orange - a very simple edit but i love the colors so much!! it is so warm and 'orange' lol. i like how the 1st and 3rd pics turned out. i remember spending some time in the 4th pic because idk what to do with the amount of empty space i had, and in the end i just added a flower from a brush set akjsdgk (does anyone remember that set i think it was pretty famous back then). simple and neat if i do say so myself.

04. psycho pass ed - i spent more time trying to get this to appear in the tags compared than actually making it. i had to remove a makishima gif im sorry you didnt deserve this. i made a gifset of this ending years ago and this time i wanted to try something different, so i tried making every gif have a different color. bless hue/saturation adjustment layer for making this possible. i think this turned out good, and some people said the gifs are hq which i kinda agree with haha.

05. mafuyu - i finished watching the entire season of given in 2 hours at 2 am. after i wake up i started making given gifs and realized i do not vibe with the anime's coloring, its just hard for me to color?? i do not know how to color mafuyu nicely. i scrapped multiple colorings for this gifset because they look bad. in the end this is what i achieved. i thought it looked bad when i posted it (i was Tired) but when i woke up the next day i was like huh. this aint too bad.... kinda soft and the red/oranges are pretty nice..... yeah i kinda like it asklgdjalsk. 

+ honorable mentions: bsd ed, chrollo, persona 5 masquerade, kogami.

tagging: @katsukls @mafuyuh @katsukes @25th @shoto-doroki @krshima @svmeragi @monsteous @noxdivina @klavoir @emperanas @koujis @ohreigen and anyone who wants to do this. as usual, feel free to ignore! 

[aprincessofdaxam]

So here's the thing. When the Supergirl S3 finale aired, I absolutely hated it. And it took me nearly a year to be willing to watch it again. Because not only was I just flat-out upset because I ship Karamel and because my two favorite characters were written off the show (although at least they have each other - wait, do you hear that sound? It’s the sound of Imra screaming from the 31st century as Mon-El and Winn drive her nuts) ...

But Mon-El’s final scene? With the speech about how for a minute he thought maybe, just maybe, this was his place? Gutted me. Absolutely gutted me. We all get set off by different things, and I kid you not, that scene gave me a wicked surprise attack of homesickness and I literally cried until 4 a.m. (sometimes I hate you and your emotive acting, Chris Wood).

(complete gifset from @the-karamel-blob here)

But you know what, a year down the pike? I don't hate it. Don’t get me wrong. I'm still pretty bitter about the Karamel bait-and-switch, I still miss our outer space stray puppy terribly, and I call total BS on the "it was always a two-year arc" thing, but I actually think it was a really beautiful and meaningful send-off for Mon-El in that moment.

And anyway, it's been awhile since I've written a literal essay about Mon-El and our space puppies so LET'S CHAT. Novel on the S3 finale beneath the cut, for dash prettiness.

(also included: Why I still think Karamel is endgame, why I think Mon-El will be back, what I really think went down behind the scenes, and what Winn's appearance in S5 might mean)

Tagging @peggystormborn and @facepalming-since-chernobyl because why the heck not, you all like character/plot analysis

When Kara first creates her superhero identity, she spends a LOT of time comparing herself to Clark. And others also compare her to Clark - and she internalizes all of it.

"What, Metropolis gets him, and what does National City get? Some rookie superhero?"

"It's funny - that was the first thing he did. Save a plane, I mean."

"If she's anything like him, she's a hero."

"What are you waiting for? Superman would've blown it out by now!"

"Why do you keep criticizing Supergirl for trying to save the city? When Superman started, it was he, he, he. Him, him, him."

"My cousin didn't have a get-out-of-jail-free card when he first started. Neither should I!"

"I was supposed to be the one saving him, not the other way around. How am I supposed to really become a hero if Superman has to keep saving me?"

"If I was in Metropolis, Clark and I could protect the city and keep each other safe. And there's still so much I want to learn from him."

Now, this isn't about whether it's valid to compare Kara to Clark, or about the layers of problems that come in when you start comparing women to men - that's a whole other essay. It's about Kara's feelings, how Kara defines being a hero, and the standard she feels she needs to live up to as a hero. And since this show is built around Kara, Kara's standard for heroism become the show's definition of it, and the standards the other characters in the show should be held to in their various pursuits of goodness in the world, as well.

And that creates a very interesting comparison between Kara's arc through the first two seasons of the show (S1-S2) and Mon-El's arc in the two seasons he's appeared in thus far (S2-S3).

When Kara starts out in her journey, at the start of S1, she is in this headspace where she is constantly comparing herself to Clark. But she learns so much and accomplishes so much and shows so much strength, that by the end of S2, they have moved her to this point in her hero's journey where she is Clark's equal or superior - not only in terms of physical strength (when she defeats him after Rhea brainwashes him with silver K), but in emotional strength, as she chooses the greater good over her own personal self when she has to let Mon-El go. And her status at that point is by Clark's own admission - the person she was trying to live up to all that time.

"I think it goes far beyond 'the right thing.' I couldn't have done it, Kara. I'm humbled by you. Yeah, I'd like to think that if it came down to a choice between Lois and the world .... but I don't think I could."

So how does that relate to Mon-El's journey? Because there are a lot of parallels between Kara's hard decision at the end of S2, and his hard decision at the end of S3. And if, at the end of S2, we're supposed to see Kara as a fully-realized hero, a true champion, then that's how he's sent off as well (I'd definitely argue that Mon-El showed brave and heroic qualities even in S2, even while on a steep learning curve, but go with me here, because the parallel is really meaningful when you get to it)

Just as Kara held Clark up as her bar for being a hero, Mon-El holds Kara up as his ideal and his definition of a hero when he starts off on his journey - to the point where he eventually founds the Legion in her image.

"And whether we're together or not, being near her, it makes me a better person. It makes me the person that I want to be."

"I think we could all stand to be a little more like you. More optimistic and brave."

"I mean, you do that every day. I don't even understand it. You make it look so easy to do the right thing that you wouldn't even guess that it's that hard. But it's hard. You sacrifice a lot for everyone else, and I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record here, but I admire you.

"I promise I'm going to be the man that you thought I could be. I promise."

You inspired me. So when I founded the Legion, I chose to use you as an example of what we could be. Of what we aspire to be."

"We base the entire philosophy of the Legion on Supergirl. Have you considered that she might have the right approach here?"

And just as Kara faces that harsh decision at the end of S2 that she needs to give Mon-El up for the greater good, Mon-El faces an identical decision at the end of S3. And, just like Kara (who made a decision Superman himself says he couldn't have made, who is a true champion), Mon-El makes that hard call.

And just as Clark told Kara when she made that hard call that he was humbled by her, validating her admiration of him, Kara gives Mon-El her hero's blessing of his decision, too. Now, I don't think these writers are particularly clever or good at continuity :P But they use the word "admire" so consistently between Karamel that I have to believe it's a deliberate choice. Mon-El tells Kara throughout S2, as he's learning, how much he admires her. And his journey takes him to a place where Kara is able to return that word to him, sincerely and meaningfully.

"There wasn't much to inspire me on Daxam." "What about the prince?" "He wasn't worth admiring. But I wanna be."

"I mean, you do that every day. I don't even understand it. You make it look so easy, to do the right thing that you wouldn't even guess that it's that hard. But it's hard. You sacrifice a lot for everyone else and I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record here but I admire you."

"You wouldn't be the man you are, if you did. The man I admire so much."

(Tacking on to this because there’s plenty of other things to read and link to here - there was an excellent discussion we had a long time ago about Kara’s emotions and reactions during this scene where @emarasmoak and @i-am-aci01 had some great catches)

The other thing that strikes me as a parallel between Kara and Mon-El in those two season finales is the dissonance between the two of them, who have made the hard, heroic choices, and everyone else.

At the end of S2, everyone seems happy except Kara, who proceeds to isolate herself. Alex and Maggie get engaged. J'onn and M'gann are (temporarily) together. Winn and James are currently successful in their vigilante superhero forays. Clark goes home to Lois.

And at the end of S3? Mostly, our characters are happy. Kara says she's decided where her true home is, but knows her mother is safe. Winn is setting off to the future, where he knows he's important and needed. Imra has her sister back. Alex has her new role and plans to pursue parenthood. J'onn has lost his father, but is setting off on his new path. James reveals himself as Guardian. And Mon-El makes a decision out of duty that guts him. @sweeter-than put it very well: "Everyone else in this episode got an optimistic season’s end coda. Meanwhile, Mon-El is leaving the love of his life to go fight a dangerous war. ... [He] is the only character framed as being separated from his ideal destiny, where the destiny and the obligation have no middle ground."

Now we've talked about what this show wanted to tell us here. Are they saying you can't have it all - which, in Kara's case, is an inherently more complicated discussion because she's a woman? That heroes are always doomed to sacrifice? That work-life balance is a joke?

I think what's MORE IMPORTANT though, and the real message, is what Cat tells Kara (and hell, the title of the S2 finale itself). It applies in both cases. It really applies.

"You, my dear, are on a hero's journey. And yes, you have hit an obstacle, but you will soar right over it."

That's the message.

MOVING ON!

.....

I think that applying that statement to Mon-El is part of why I feel so strongly that his story isn't over yet. Because he's on a hero's journey. The story the show was telling with this character was someone evolving into a hero, someone who is a sympathetic character, someone we're supposed to root for. And how could the final picture of him we have at the moment, where he's so sad and so weighted down, be our final picture of that character? Yeah, the innermost cave, belly of the whale, whatever you want to call it, is part of the hero's journey. But just as Kara goes into those depths and then emerges to find triumph and happiness again, I have to believe they're not going to leave another character they spent so much time investing in that unhappy. We're going to see him again, and they'll give him a happy ending. Or, if they can't work out another appearance for him, because we're talking about real people with a lot of moving parts, we'll get some sort of confirmation he's happy (more on that in a second). They're not going to leave him at loose ends if they can help it.

Now when I talk about them investing in the character - think not just about the storytelling, with this slow burn they had going with Karamel throughout S3, but about the level of promotion during that season, especially the back half. They had Mon-El in the CW midseason sizzle reel, and in a number of promotional posters/photos. They built up to the red-and-blue suit SO MUCH, and why do all of that if it was something you were only going to use for a literal handful of episodes? Some of those pieces of evidence, plus the slow burn/abrupt shift storytelling, plus how open-ended they left things with the relationship, makes me call TOTAL BS on the "it was always a two-season arc thing," and makes me keep believing Karamel is still endgame.

IMHO, Karamel has always been written with that endgame-ish type of storytelling - enemies-to-lovers trope, true love's kiss, spending so much time re-building the relationship between them, etc, etc, etc. You all know what I'm talking about. ((And please note, even though this could be another essay entirely, just because I think they're endgame doesn't mean I think neither character should ever be in another relationship again. I think you LEARN things from every relationship you're in, and Mon-El and Kara were both relatively inexperienced relationship-wise when they got together - Mon-El came from a planet of hedonists where he had flings, not relationships, and Kara had crushes that she couldn't really act on because broken noses, amirite? There were things I genuinely loved about Mon-El and Imra. And I'm not freaked about the possibility of a midgame LI for Kara - it wouldn't lessen my feelings about this being endgame))

Anyway - the story they were telling throughout S3 pointed to Karamel reuniting. They really dialed it up through the final episodes with the robot-cockblocked conversation on Argo (actually everything on Argo - Mon-El with the kid and Kara's heart eyes, the double date, etc, etc, etc), Mon-El pulling out the necklace at opportune moments to remind the viewers he never forgot her, Kara’s multiple conversations with Alura about him (there’s a cut scene from the finale, as well, where Alura tells her that love stories are never simple), Mon-El’s conversation with Winn about not being able to lose her again. They point at it, and then do an abrupt about-face in the finale. I really think that they were heading toward a reunion. We’ll never know exactly what happened behind the scenes, and I know people have different theories, but my gut feeling is that they were discussing behind the scenes whether or not Chris would be back for S4, the writers headed toward their planned ending (a Karamel reunion and a relationship in S4) while hedging their bets with the slow burn, and Chris ultimately made the decision to leave late in the game, and so the writers threw the switch in the finale.

Again, this is entirely me speculating, but I think that Chris made the call to leave not only because he's a multifaceted person who had other behind-the-scenes things he wanted to pursue in the field, but because he walks the walk with his own mental health, and we all know there is a LOT of bullshit that flies around with this show on social media, etc. I'm reading a LOT between the lines here, but the S3 finale aired on June 18, 2018, so I'm assuming they were doing some editing and locking down of the things in May. Chris posted this the first week of May 2019. Excerpts -

"Well look at that: it’s Mental Health Month again! And what interesting timing for me, personally… let’s talk about it. This year has tested me in so many ways." "And while you’re at it, use this occasional toxic and negative platform for something positive and good." "Sending love and kindness to everyone, even the trolliest of trolls out there."

BUT ANYWAY.

Faced with the resources they had and the information they had, the writers still chose to leave things SO OPEN between Karamel. The original draft of the finale - which was shared by @emarasmoak + @snarkymonel ages ago, had a line from Mon-El, “Part of me will always mourn that our paths did not align … But I will always cherish knowing you.” That, to me, suggests a much more FINAL goodbye - and that line was cut, in favor of what we got - where there wasn't really a goodbye, because it might not be one. And the ring and the “In case you ever need me” is definitely a door left WIDE the hell open. The ring is a deus ex machina in case they ever want to use the character again.

My gut feeling - and again, with no inside information - is that Chris didn't want to be a regular anymore, for a number of reasons, but that he didn't leave on bad circumstances, and that he'd be happy to do a guest appearance because he wouldn't be walking into an ONGOING shitstorm (especially if it was something toward the end of the series run).

And regarding the other news we're starting to get about S5: I don't think the fact that Winn and Mon-El left together, and we've heard about Winn coming back but not Mon-El, means he WON'T be back. They could be dribbling out information a bit at a time to keep people interested as a marketing strategy - the Crisis crossover is the most ambitious thing they've EVER done, and you know they'll want to keep ramping up the excitement up all the way from now until December. They could have finished negotiating with Jeremy first while they're still working on Chris for that, or for another event down the line. Supergirl has a lot of "big event" potential coming up, between the crossover, the milestone 100th episode, Melissa's debut as a director, and they've got to be thinking ahead down the line to the eventual end of the series. All of those are things they'll want to really build up excitement for and maybe have some familiar faces around for.

I DO believe that Winn's appearance will tell us something about if, or how, they intend to use Mon-El again at any point, however. Look, the two of them are close. I wasn't that cranky when Brainy didn't mention Mon-El much last season - I got the impression they were more coworkers than friends, things were tense between them for a solid chunk of time over Brainy's role in Imra's secret plan, and then there was some SERIOUS snark thrown between them in the S3 finale in a cut scene (as for Brainy's one mention of Mon-El and his comment about "microagressions," we all dissected that here). I will be cranky if Winn, who has always been a close friend to Mon-El and is coming directly back to the story from working with Mon-El, doesn't mention him. But again, I think that mention will tell us a lot about the future of the character. He could tell the Superfriends (and thus, the audience) that Mon-El has reconciled with Imra, or has moved on to someone else (side note - in the comic canon, Mon-El's pet name for ShadowLass is "Shady" and I think that's adorable). He could even have some sort of tragic news about him, which seems less probable to me, because why go through the trouble of bringing him back from the dead in the S3 finale and then leaving things so open-ended if you were going to kill him offscreen? On the other hand, if Winn tells Kara Mon-El says hey, or he misses you (she misses him too!) or if they have some sort of heartfelt conversation about him, then that's obviously a positive sign.

I mean, who am I kidding, I have epic trust issues from their bait-and-switch with this story and I don’t trust any of the writers/showrunners as far as I can throw them and I am about three inches from FLIPPING OUT over this entire situation :P But I don’t feel so bad after some deep analysis.

[bisexualalienblast]

47 for the gif making ask

47. Any advice for novice gif makers/people who want to start making gifs

here’s alllll the things I wish someone had told me or I had realized when I started out!

1. Invest (or download or something) in GOOD software. I use Photoshop because I cannot find anything else that makes comparable gifs. The free programs will technically make gifs but they have lots of limitations in terms of color/layout/etc. Do yourself, and your art, a favor. 

2. Ask for help. Lots and LOTS of gif makers have made tutorials and there are endless amounts of youtube tutorials that helped me in the beginning (and still do! there’s still LOADS of things I don’t know how to do). Find good tutorials and follow them -- as you progress, you’ll find other ways that you like to do things but in the beginning, trust the tutorials! 

3. Don’t be afraid of color! That’s the whole point of gif making in fandom -- this is art. This is expression of creativity. EVERYONE has a different style and I’ve seen breathtaking gifs that are very muted in color or are black and white. Try new things. This is literally creativity at its finest so try new things. If they don't work, they don't work and you’ll get better.

4. If you have a favorite gif maker? Reach out, ask for advice or help. The worst they can do is ignore you (which would be rude but that’s the worst!) Use them to inspire you (don’t COPY them but use them as inspiration). 

5. Don’t get discouraged! Fandoms, especially ones that have been around awhile, sometimes feel like they have “established” gif makers and there’s no room for other people. I spent many nights feeling devastated and down because my first fandom felt like this sometimes. That’s ok -- keep going and keep practicing and I promise, people will notice! 

6. Learn to tag things for your fandom! Most fandoms will have an “edit” tag or tags that people follow so that they can still see new content without all the wanky shit that happens in main tags (for example “malexedit” is a good tag to follow if you don't want to follow the main “malex” tag. Eastenders has “eeedit”,etc. Tag pop culture gif blogs. Worst they could do is, again, ignore you lol that’s it! But there are ways to spread your art and you should. 

7. Don’t overwhelm your followers (or your fandom) with gifs (I STILL have a problem with this; when you love something you want to make stuff all the time!) Better to make a FANTASTIC gifset let’s say once a week then crank them out and tire yourself out. (exceptions made for multifandom blogs or for right in the middle of a season -- that is a crazy time with gifsets everywhere! Jump in!)

8. If you notice your gifsets aren't getting the notes you want, see what you can do to improve! I do this a lot. That’s when I experiment with color or cropping or lighting. Get high quality downloads and go nuts. 

[pass-the-bechdel]

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend season one full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

100% (eighteen of eighteen)

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

44.4%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Eleven, over half the season. Six of those are over 50%, and two of those are over 60%.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero, unsurprisingly.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Thirty-seven. Ten who appeared in more than one episode, four who appeared in at least half the episodes, and two who appeared in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Forty-four. Twenty who appeared in more than one episode, four who appeared in at least half the episodes, and two who appeared in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Mostly good, if a bit wonky; there were a lot of acknowledgments of real issues (particularly women’s issues), but sometimes it felt more like they were just shout-outs for the brownie points rather than genuine efforts to explore something meaningful. There were also a few problems with characters/relationships that the show never called out as wrong and therefore seemingly endorsed as normal, which makes it feel less self-aware than it appears to be at times (more on that under the cut). Altogether though, it’s never egregiously upsetting, and there is one subplot (ironically, one which has nothing to do with women) which was a true unexpected joy to behold (average rating of 3.05).

General Season Quality:

Fluctuates. It has a tone problem which can be confusing as it is unclear how information is intended to be interpreted, and the discomfort can seriously damage the comedy. When it is good though, it’s very fun, sometimes touching, and weirdly addictive. 

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

I noted when I reviewed the very first episode that this is Not My Usual Flavour in terms of plot conceit, and if it weren’t for all the recommendations/requests I got to include the show on this blog, there’s about a 1% chance I would ever have watched this for my own amusement (that 1% comes from a very charming gifset of a scene which I presume is from the latest season; I’ll tell you what it was when we get there). One season in, I can say this much: I’m not mad y’all got me on to this. It’s weird and different, but it’s not painful (except, often, when Greg is around - we started on such good terms in the premiere but at this point I honestly loathe him). Against my better judgment and typical inclination, I am interested to see where it all ends up, working with the idea that as much as the driving force of the series from the outside appears to be romance, internally it’s really about these messy characters figuring themselves out and and changing their strange little mundane lives for the better. The first step on the road to improvement is self-awareness, on which subject...

...the main barrier I encountered in really getting into this show and relaxing to enjoy it is the issue of narrative trust, which is all about believing that the story is going to unravel and analyse its own content in a thorough, intelligent, and valuable way. Narrative trust is essential regardless of context; the same as you need it in order to sell the viewer on extravagant bizarro world-building for an intergalactic sci-fi story, you also need it in order to convince them that it’s worth exploring the comparatively small-fry and banal character motivations in a prescription rom-com. As a part of its initial conceit, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend promises to deconstruct its own deliberately-inflammatory title (it makes this promise at the beginning of every episode, in its annoying opening title sequence); Rebecca’s mental state and the journey it takes her on is the core of the narrative, and we are being asked to trust that the show will follow through on the unraveling and analysing of that content. For the most part, it does follow through, but it also intermittently falls short in two key arenas which lead to the damaged narrative trust: tonal consistency, and secondary character reinforcement.

When I was five episodes in, I discussed this show with a friend who had watched for a while (he wasn’t sure how far in he got, in the end) before eventually giving up; at that point, I wasn’t sure what to say about the show or even if I considered myself to be enjoying it, and my friend agreed that the problem I was having was the same problem that made him quit the show: tonal confusion. Part of that is about being unsure at times whether you’re being invited to laugh at Rebecca, or just at the situation; at times the show seems to make light of extremely serious emotional issues, and at others it is very sympathetic to Rebecca’s struggles; sometimes disturbing behaviour is not framed by the narrative as being worth calling out, and then sometimes, the chastisement Rebecca receives feels undeserved, over-the-top, or unfair to the wider context of her mental state. The inclusion of musical numbers can occasionally contribute to the tonal inconsistency in a big way, as some of the more shoe-horned in pieces come out of nowhere, do not revolve around topics of vital importance to the episode, or the style of the music itself can be un-ironically incongruous with the mood of the scene (and sometimes it’s just...a bad time to interrupt with a song). Basically, tonal inconsistency can nullify standard narrative conventions and the expectations we are trained to associate with them, because we can’t predict intention; is this cliche meaningful, or incidental? Are they going to acknowledge it at all, and if they don’t, is it deliberate, or an oversight? Are they going to subvert it, or play it straight? A consistent tone means that we can trust the narrative to handle content in a specific way, and in turn we can decide if that’s something we want to return for episode after episode, or not. This is also something that can significantly impact the perception of the show’s approach to social issues, as the spotty follow-up on acknowledged challenges for women can give the impression of paying lip service rather than actually delving in to the problem; you just don’t know if this is gonna be an episode that could be bothered to analyse its own content, or if it’s gonna brush it off; and if it does brush it off, is it because the creators don’t believe that issue is really important, or is exploring it just inconvenient to the story they’re telling right now? You just can’t trust the answer to be the same twice in a row, and consequently, the reaction to a new plot thread or subject is more likely to be apprehension at not knowing where this is headed, instead of engaged interest in going along for the ride to find out.

A big contributor to tonal inconsistency (and a victim of the same, in a feedback-loop kind of way) is secondary character reinforcement, by which I mean, the reinforcement of themes or behavioural standards for the protagonist as reflected by secondary characters. Paula is the character who most fully exemplifies this, as she encourages Rebecca’s worst impulses (including getting angry with her or ignoring her wishes when Rebecca tries to exercise self-restraint or break unhealthy patterns), she commits various criminal acts (some with Rebecca, but also some without Rebecca’s knowledge), and she invades the privacy of almost every character involved in the situation and even takes steps to manufacture their behaviour without their knowledge. Paula’s obsession with Rebecca’s love-life is often more terrifying and troublesome than Rebecca’s obsession with Josh, and while the show at times acknowledges that Paula is being outrageous, it pretty consistently fails to actually call out that behaviour or brand it as Bad News on the same level as anything Rebecca does - Paula’s behaviour is mostly put forward as overzealous but, eh, normal enough. The show holds Rebecca to a completely different standard of behaviour, and narratively punishes her for overstepping those bounds even as the character next to her leaps straight past the same barrier without a word. And Paula isn’t the only one - Greg is the other big sinner in terms of unchallenged poor behaviour, and his smug self-righteousness and tendency to be packaged as some kind of down-on-his-luck ‘complicated intellectual’ (as if that earns him special allowances for being a total prat) is what makes me so much more infuriated by his character (also, it’s a sexist double-standard to allow Greg more moral leeway for his ‘issues’, most of which are just self-generated prideful whinings). And then there are issues like Rebecca’s mother being let off the hook for intense life-long emotional abuse because she said she was just doing it to toughen Rebecca up, as if that makes severe psychological damage acceptable, or Valencia’s abusively controlling attitude with Josh, which I spent the entire season waiting to have explicitly denounced only to end up with her dumping him for not delivering the marriage proposal she had decided she deserved (something which the show kinda approached as reasonable, as if Josh ‘owed’ Valencia marriage after they’d been together for so long). When the show calls out some behaviour but is curiously mute on others, and when some characters are held to different standards to the rest, consistency takes a hit, and narrative trust runs a little short. If you’re left frustrated by hypocritical or contradictory attitudes and you can’t tell if some things are going uncontested for a reason or just out of ignorance, that’s not a good state to be in when you’re trying to also enjoy something. And in the context of this blog, the lack of narrative trust often led me to dismiss progressive-sounding lines or moments because I had no faith in the idea that the show meant what it said or was gonna follow through with relevant action.

As is often the case with complaints, the above probably sounds like a more dire flaw than it is in practice (I say probably; depends if they fix the issue or not, because if it persists across the series it could be crippling). The good news is, there was still plenty to like in season one, some good character development and emotional exploration that I hope is bolstered in the long-term as the show continues, and there was that one thing which really genuinely surprised and impressed me, which was Darryl’s bisexual coming-out. I figured the show would give us a token gay (and I’d picked White Josh as the one long before he was revealed to be so), but I did not expect that to be paired with the revelations of a second queer character, let alone that the journey of that character’s sexuality would be so low-key and wonderful. Darryl wades through some ugly internalised homophobia in order to make peace with himself, but that conflict doesn’t create drama; it creates hesitance. White Josh accepts no shit and protects himself from being hurt by Darryl’s discovery process, but he is also unfailingly understanding, highlighting the issues with Darryl’s thinking without getting personally offended or losing his temper, giving Darryl the tools to mend his problems on his own terms without ever revoking his support in the meantime. Because the subplot is so undramatic, it’s easy to overlook just how healthy it is, and it is able to dig in to a variety of real troubles that people may often encounter in actual life, but without painting those troubles as all-encompassing soul-destroying growing pains inevitably associated with coming out and/or living as a queer person in our society. We really need more of that in the world, more acknowledgment of the nuance that goes beyond garden-variety open bigotry, and especially more queer stories that are complicated without being depressing. The tact and attention to detail in Darryl and White Josh’s story is the single thing, above all others, which gives me hope for the future of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. It may yet earn my trust.

[joanna-lannister]

Meta: Will the Lannisters end like the Targaryens?

WARNING: possible mentions of spoilers/leaks

@fcrncody Thank you Ana, my partner in crime, for being my beta reader! 💖

First of all, this theory is purely for the show, not the books (even if I'm gonna use some quotes from it). I do believe the fate of some characters will be different, I could be wrong tho.

"History is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again." I'm quoting G.R.R.M here but as a big History nerd, I always say that History repeat itself and I think that what's going to happen with the Lannisters : their downfall will be a parallel to the Targaryens one at the end of Robert's rebellion. I have this theory in mind for almost 2 years now and since I keep thinking about it, I needed somewhere to write it down.

During the rebellion, we had 4 Targaryens still alive : Aerys, Rhaella, Rhaegar and Viserys (plus Dany and Jon on the way). I'm not sure if I should count Maester Aemon since he took the black and I don't count Elia and Rheagar's children since he disinherited them. Now for the Lannisters, we have Cersei, Jaime and Tyrion still alive, plus baby!Lannister on the way. I think their deaths or possible survival will be a mix of how these last Targaryens died or survived.

First, the Lannisters have always been connected with the Targaryens one way or another:

Tywin wanted Cersei to marry Rhaegar and she wanted it to

Tyrion and his obsession with the dragons

Jaime killed Aerys

Tywin used to be friend with Aerys and his Hand

Cersei and Tyrion both used wildfire

Joanna was harassed by Aerys

And I could go on...

But one of the biggest connection we can make between the two houses is the incest. The perpetual incestuous marriage between the Targaryens slowly brought their house to the extinction and Cersei and Jaime's relationship caused the war of the five Kings and thus, their own downfall. They have been compared to the Targaryens more than once, by themselves or by other characters.

The Targaryens wed brothers and sisters for 300 years to keep bloodlines pure. Jaime and I are more than brother and sister. We shared a womb. We came into this world together. We belong together. - Cersei, S01E07 You Win or You Die

Tyrion: Sins? The Targaryens... Cersei: Wed brother and sister for hundreds of years, I know. That's what Jaime and I would say to each other in our moments of doubt. It's what I told Ned Stark when he was stupid enough to confront me. Half the Targaryens went mad, didn't they? What's the saying? Every time a Targaryen is born, the Gods flip a coin. Tyrion: You've beaten the odds. Tommen and Myrcella are good, decent children, both of them. - S02E07 A Man Without Honor

You think I disapprove? Why? Because people disapprove of that sort of thing where you are from? They disapproved of Oberyn and me where you are from. Here no one blinked an eye. 100 years ago, no one would have blinked an eye at you if you'd been named Targaryen. - Ellaria, S05E09 The Dance of Dragons

We could marry him to Myrcella, once we've sent Sansa Stark back to her mother. That would show the realm that the Lannisters are above their laws, like gods and Targaryens. - Jaime, ASOS

"I am sick of being careful. The Targaryens wed brother to sister, why shouldn't we do the same? Marry me, Cersei. Stand up before the realm and say it's me you want. We'll have our own wedding feast, and make another son in place of Joffrey." She drew back. "That's not funny." - Jaime, ASOS

Then, we have Tywin and his ambition. He wants to outshine the Targaryens and build a dynasty that could last 1000 years.

The future of our family will be determined in these next few months. We could establish a dynasty that will last a thousand years. Or we could collapse into nothing, as the Targaryens did. - Tywin, S01E07 You Win or You Die

Cersei wants to emulate her father.

I understand we're in a war for survival. I understand whoever loses dies. I understand whoever wins could launch a dynasty that lasts a thousand years. - Cersei, S07E01 Dragonstone

The parallel is clear here, I have even made a gifset. The funny thing in that conversation between Tywin and Jaime is the fact that Tywin points out they could collapse into nothing when it's already happening, because of his own children. And again, he compares himself to the Targaryens. Foreshadowing?

Before talking about each characters, I want to say that if this theory is correct, I don't think Jaime and Cersei will die together. This show is full of plot twists, irony, parallels and yet, anti-parallels and the characters don't get what they want, this is not a Disney fairytale. And dying together is something they both want, they expressed it numerous times, in the show and in the books, maybe too much?

Bronn: How do you want to go? Jaime: In the arms of the woman I love. - S05E04 The Sons of The Harpy

We've always been together. We'll always be together. We're the only two people in the world. - Cersei, S06E06 Blood of My Blood

I cannot die while Cersei lives, he told himself. We will die together as we were born together. - Jaime, ASOS

We will leave this world together, as we once came into it. - Cersei, AFFC

If he were dead, I would know it. We came into this world together, Uncle. He would not go without me. - Cersei, ADWD

It's so obvious, as viewers (and also readers sometimes), we expect it to happen. The cast keep telling us how unpredictable the end is, I honestly take everything they say with a grain of salt but I think I'll make an exception for this time. Also, the writers omitted the Valonqar part in Cersei's prophecy. On purpose? So we are going to be surprised if Jaime is indeed the Valonqar? I find it weird when it's already obvious like I said and when they dropped clues back in S7.

Cersei:You murdered your own brother. Euron:You should try it. Feels wonderful. - S07E01, Dragonstone

Olenna: She'll be the end of you. Jaime: Possibly. - S07E03, The Queen's Justice

But I could be wrong and the writers will choose the easy path... However, while it's tragic for Jaime and Cersei to die together, killed by each others, I think it would be even more painful for their characters to die apart. Like us, they expect to die together. They are twins, they spent their whole life together and they think it will always be that way, Cersei only feels complete with him... and ripping Jaime away from her? Yeah, sadly poetic.

And now for the characters...

JAIME: ↳ Rhaegar / Aerys

I start with Jaime first since I think he's going to die first.

Source: (x), (x)

In the first still (from the 8x02?), he's wearing a Northern regular armor, similar to the one Robb used to wear. In the EW promo, the armor is almost the same but more more redish, more Lannister, and looks a little like bit the one Podrick used to wear back in the previous seasons.

I presume the costume change will happen after the battle in 7x03. My guess is that battle will not be the last. Wrapping the White Walkers storyline in 1 episode? No, impossible. The war will happen in two times: first that battle, Winterfell is destroyed and the White Walkers are still a threat, Jaime comes back to King's Landing (with the Starks?) [if I remember Nik was spotted on the King's Landing set, could be for this or something else] and then another battle and Jaime dies during this one by the hand of Night King.

Why the Night King? Simple. One of the most important moment in Jaime's life was when he killed the Mad King, a man obsessed with fire. He was mocked all his life for breaking his vows, nicknamed Kingslayer, when he took the right decision.

And then when the king turned to flee, I drove my sword into his back. "Burn them all," he kept saying. "Burn them all." I don't think he expected to die. He ... he meant to... burn with the rest of us and rise again, reborn as a dragon to turn his enemies to ash. - Jaime, S03E05 Kissed by Fire

Most people in the fandom think he will kill either the Night King or the Mad Queen, I bet on the other way. I admit I also thought about Dany becoming the Night Queen and killing him, a nice parallel since he killed her father but I don't see her branding a sword even if she becomes the Night Queen so I stand with the idea of the Night King, a creature made a ice. Honestly, a Kingslayer murdered by a king? What an irony... And, A Lannister always pays his debts.

That was for the Aerys part, now for the Rhaegar part. They are both warriors and if Jaime dies in a battle, it will already be a parallel with Rhaegar dying at the the Trident. Nik also said that Jaime's obsessive love for Cersei "follows him until his very last scene of the show". At first, I was; okay my theory is wrong but then I remembered that quote about Rhaegar:

Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman's name. - Daenerys, ACOK

We don't know for sure who was the woman Rhaegar mentioned but Jaime murmuring Cersei's name would completely fulfill the parallel with him. And again, a bit ironic here since Cersei wanted to marry Rhaegar.

CERSEI: ↳ Rhaella / Aerys

Now, Cersei, the next who's going to die, in my opinion. I think she will behave somehow like Aerys at the beginning of the season but her death will be a total parallel to Rhaella, and by extent, Joanna and possibly Lyanna.

Source: (x), (x)

Like Jaime, with the costume change, Cersei is wearing the Lannisters colors again. Someone on tumblr (I don't remember who, I'm sorry) said that her grief is over and it could mean she will subvert the villain trope or something along the line. I do agree with the grief part, that's why I don't think she will lose baby!Lannister. Why would she wear her house colors if she had lost her child?

Source: (x), (x), (x), (x), (x), (x)

Notice she has the Lannister sigil back too, as a necklace. It was a link with Myrcella and after Tommen's death, she never wore it again. Only as embroidery on her gowns. The pendant is strategically placed on her "bump", it fits her character; she's (was) a mother, she's pregnant and that child is the future of her house. Also, some people said we can see a baby bump. I personally disagree, I believe it's only the dress.

I know part of the fandom will scream at me that she's not pregnant or she will have a miscarriage because of the prophecy. First of all, I do believe she's pregnant (or at least she thinks she is) and of course, a miscarriage is still a possibility. Second of all, prophecies are tricky, ask Melisandre. The prophecy was already debunked back in S1 when Cersei told Catelyn about the black haired boy she had with Robert.

I lost my first boy, a little black-haired beauty. He was a fighter too... Tried to beat the fever that took him. - Cersei, S01E02 The Kingsroad

Yet, Maggy still mentioned 3 children:

Maggy: The king will have 20 children and you will have three. Cersei: That doesn't make sense. Maggy: Gold will be their crowns. Gold their shrouds. - S05E01 The Wars to Come

Since she was also pregnant with Robert's child in the books, we know pregnancy doesn't count for that prophecy to work. Now, in the show, she gave birth to that boy. He was sick, or got sick, but was alive. My conclusion is that the birth doesn't count either. The only fact that matter is if she raises the child. So Cersei could carry her pregnancy to term and give birth to an healthly, surviving child if she dies in in childbirth or soon after. Which brings the Rhaella parallel.

And again, I know most Cersei stans (and JxC shippers) hate that idea. I confess I wasn't pleased at first but now, the more I thought about it the more it feels like a full circle. Motherhood has always been an important theme in Cersei's journey.

First, her mother: Cersei was a little girl when Joanna died in the most gendered way. She was traumatized by her death and she grew up resenting her little brother for this.

Second, her love for her children: one of the main reason that drives her to do some... things. She repeated countless times how much she loves/loved them and tried to protect them and yet, they all die. Cersei "sacrificing" her life for her last child and giving him a chance to survive is not so far stretched.

Now, how it's going to happen... Maisie said :

After reading the scripts I went back and watched season 1 again, because so much of it refers back to that season. There are so many scenes that will look similar. And also I watched just to remind myself of the arc I've taken already. I wanted Arya to go full circle and try for some kind of normalcy like when she was younger.

I'm not sure if Maisie is only talking about Arya here, however we already know we are going to have a parallel with Jon and Daenerys arriving at Winterfell like Cersei and Robert back in the season 1. Then, if the leaks are proven to be true (Euron forcing Cersei to have sex with him and her saying she "enjoyed" it as much as she did with Robert), we can assume their relationship will be similar to the one she had with her previous husband. I think Cersei will lie and pretend that baby!Lannister is Euron's child just like she did with Robert and Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen.

Jaime: Who will you say is the father? Cersei: You. - S07E05 Eastwatch

Remember that? I'm pretty sure it was a red herring for Cersei playing Euron in the season 8. Now, we all know what happened to Robert before he had the chance to learn the truth so I bet on Cersei killing Euron in the middle of the season, maybe during the 8x04? Or maybe Jaime. Could be another parallel with:

Ned: Has he done this before? Cersei: Jaime would have killed him. - S01E07 You Win or You Die

After Euron's death (or shortly before), I predict the Starks (moslty Jon) coming to King's Landing to seek refuge or an alliance because Winterfell is destroyed and they have no other choice. Lena and Kit were spotted on set (and I think Sophie too). It could be a decoy but let's say it's a real scene. Jon looked like he bent the knee to Cersei, I believe we will have a replay of the famous scene with Ned in S01E07.

You must be gone by then ... you and your children. I will not have their blood on my hands. Go as far away as you can, with as many men as you can. Because wherever you go, Robert's wrath will follow you. - Ned, S01E07 You Win or You Die

I think Jon will propose the same deal to Cersei : giving mercy to her and her child (and maybe Jaime and Tyrion) if she leaves King's Landing/Westeros after the end of the war if she accepts to help them (bet we'll see Qyburn's scorpion again). I see her somehow accepting it unlike the first time and maybe that person who said she will subvert the villain trope was right, after all we have that quote:

You love your children. It's your one redeeming quality. That and your cheekbones. - Tyrion, S02E01 The North Remembers

Once the war is won, and Jaime probably dead, the Starks break their promise and want to judge the Lannisters for their crimes, which would be a little parallel with Aerys, when he opened the gates of King's Landing and let Tywin take the city. And like Rhaella, she will escape to her ancestral home, maybe with Tyrion and the help of Qyburn.

You'll be queen. For a time. Then comes another, younger, more beautiful, to cast you down and take all you hold dear. - Maggy, S05E01 The Wars to Come

It would fit the prophecy. She has nothing left, no power, no crown, her brother/lover is dead... She loses the throne and survives the game. Again, a bit ironic since she's one of the biggest player since the beginning and the one who instaured the famous:

When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground. - S01E07 You Win or You Die

And then, she dies tragically giving birth... Yeah, full circle.

TYRION: ↳ Viserys / Maester Aemon?

Tyrion... Oh Tyrion... He's the one I'm on the fence, for every theory that I have, honestly. He escaped deaths numerous times but all good things come to an end. I feel we don't have enough clues about his future death or his possible survival. Of course we have that famous quote:

In my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a maiden's mouth around my cock, at the age of eighty," he replied. - Tyrion, AGOT

Or that one:

One day, after our queen has taken the Seven Kingdoms... I'd like to have my own vineyard. Make my own wine. The Imp's Delight. Only my close friends could drink it. - Tyrion, S06E08 No One

I don't think that's gonna happen but if my theory is right, I assume he will take Viserys place, mixed maybe with Maester Aemon, but like I said, I'm not sure if I should count him as a Targaryen. We still have moment that tho:

Jaime: Tell me you're not thinking of taking the black. Tyrion: And go celibate ? The whores would go begging from Dorne to Casterly Rock. I just want to stand on top of the Wall and piss off the edge of the world. - S01E02 The Kingsroad

If the White Walkers are defeated, I see no reason to build another Wall and no reason to have another Night's Watch, I think it's more like a metaphor for Tyrion being casted away from Westeros and going in exil, and raising his nephew/niece.

Source: (x), (x)

Unlike his siblings, Tyrion's new costume is more subtle. He doesn't seem to wear the Lannister colors and yet... In the first still we got for the S8, he is wearing the usual outfit he has since he joined Dany Team: same shape, same colors... and in the EW promo, his clothes doesn't look really different at first because they are still black and he still has the Hand of the Queen's pin but they are! The shape of the jacket is similar to the one he used to wear in the first seasons, the clips are back and golden and the sleeves have hints of gold.

Source: (x), (x)

The patterns aren't the same tho but we can guess the connection with his family will be back once he comes back to King's Landing after the destruction of Winterfell.

Like I said for Cersei, once the war is over, I believe the Starks will want to judge him for his family's crime. Not sure if he's going to escape with his sister, it would fufill Viserys parallel but I think he will be captured/imprisoned for some time like he was during the S1. Then, he either escapes or the Starks send him in exil with baby!Lannister.

Now, why would he raise baby!Lannister? I think the clues are in the S7 finale. When Tyrion learned Cersei was pregnant during that emotional scene, they made a secret pact. No one know what is it about, neither the viewers or the characters (including Jaime). The only thing we can speculate is that this pact will ensure the safety of the child. And maybe the throne.

You say you can't have children, but there are other ways of choosing a successor. The Night's Watch has one method. The ironborn, for all their many flaws, have another. - Tyrion, S07E06 Beyond The Wall

Our child will rule Westeros. - Cersei, S07E07 The Dragon and the Wolf

During the S7, Tyrion was concerned by the possible lack of heir after Dany's death, now he has a potential one. The fandom think Cersei betrayed the pact by not sending her troups in the North and that Tyrion is too naive for believing her but... is it true? Yeah, Cersei said to Jaime she didn't trust their brother and she was lying the whole time but nowhere she informed him about the pact and the fact she broke her promise... Why? I always wondered if Tyrion wasn't the one behind the idea to not send the soldiers North. And from the leaks, it looks like he's trying to buy some time. And honestly, look at his costume in that episode:

Source: (x), (x)

Like for EW promo and the previous seasons, the jacket have the Lannister shape and the pattern, while slightly different, looks similar to Tywin's jacket. Everyone always screamed how Cersei's gowns was inspired by Tywin but here...

That pact is gonna bite him in the ass, but maybe not the way we can imagine. I mentioned above a possible parallel between Cersei and Lyanna and it wasn't only about the "dying in childbirth" trope; it was about Cersei asking Tyrion to take care of her child, like Lyanna did with Ned. Unlike Lyanna and Ned, Cersei and Tyrion have a complicated relionship; they hate each others but yet, I think deep down they somehow "love" each others. And Cersei knows her brother loves(d) her children (except Joffrey but that's another story).

I loved them. You know I did. You know it in your heart if there's anything left of it. - Tyrion, S07E07 The Dragon and the Wolf

I don't want to destroy our family. I never have. - Tyrion, S07E07 The Dragon and the Wolf

Cersei: I only care what it cost us. It cost us our future. Cersei: If there's no future, then why are we here? Why did you allow me to come? - S07E07 The Dragon and the Wolf

She knows her child will be safe with him. Add the fact: Cersei asking the man; she blamed her whole life for the death of her mother and dying the same way, to take care of her child and Tyrion, who was considered like the black sheep of his family, raising the future of his house: again full circle.

BABY!LANNISTER : ↳ Daenerys / Jon?

I'll be quick here. While I do think in the books that child will never exist, if this theory is correct, in the show, I believe he will survives and take either Daenerys or Jon role, but mostly Dany. If Tyrion dies, then I assume the Starks will raise him and he will not know who are his real parents like Jon but seriously, a blond baby? LOL. If Tyrion survives, then Dany.

We already have a little parallel with Dany and her conception during the 7x03, even if the circumstance are a little bit different. And if Cersei dies like Rhaella, it would be a complete replay of Dany's birth.

Then, Tyrion raises him like Viserys, but in better way, you know. I don't remember if D&D spoke about a flashforward for the end of the show but I could see that happening: the Starks living happily and the last scene is baby!Lannister being introduced and saying he wants to avenge his family/take what should be is. What goes around, comes around... for the Lannisters, for the show.

TIMELINE :

I have made a little timeline of how I think these events are going to happen but some of them can switch, I guess?

Great battle in 7x03, Winterfell is destroyed

Jaime comes back to King's Landing

Euron dies

The Starks seek refuge/an alliance with Tyrion

End of the war - Jaime dies

The Starks betray the alliance

Cersei escapes to Casterly Rock and die giving birth

Tyrion takes care of baby!Lannister

I'm not sure if my post makes sense, it feels more clear in my mind to be honest and I feel like I forgot a bunch of stuff but I really wanted to post it before the premiere. Now, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who have that theory in mind and if you have read all of this, first thank you and second, you probably think I'm crazy so I'm gonna hide under a rock...

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

I’m just curious but why is season 6 your least favorite? My favorite is season 6. I’m so interested in knowing how people view content so differently so I would really like to know! :) I hope your having a good day/night!

Hey! First of all, thank you for being so lovely and respectful to ask for my opinion. I’m exactly the same as you and love to find out how/why people view things so differently to me, it’s all part of the fun! 

There isn’t one specific reason season 6 is my least favourite, it’s a combination of factors really, so please bear with me, because this will be long and probably messy because I suck at structuring my thoughts cohesively in posts like this.

I think the biggest reason season 6 is my least favourite is that it’s so sloppy. Continuity was never the show’s strong point but season 6 felt like it was lacking in direction. When I was making the gifset of the season for the 30 day challenge I struggled to choose gifs because I couldn’t find specific ones that best displayed the overall story and main plots for that season. The main story-line that carried throughout season 6 was Chris’ and that’s another reason why the season is my least favourite.

I know that a large part of why season 6 is so popular is because fans love Chris’ character, but I think his entire story-line was handled terribly. It had a lot of potential, but it was so obvious that the writers didn’t really know what to do with him and didn’t have an actual plan, they were just making it up as they went along. That’s where the continuity issues come into play. There were so many plot holes in this story-line and so much ambiguity about the dark future that Chris came from. If Piper died when Chris was 13 (or 14, I can’t remember exactly) and Leo was never around who took care of him? If Wyatt was evil and living in the manor where did the rest of the family live? How the hell is it that the sisters didn’t find a way to save Wyatt? I just don’t believe that in any version of any reality the sisters wouldn’t find a way to save him. Every obstacle the sisters ever came up against they defeated and there’s no way they would have ever given up on Wyatt. We saw how much they worked their asses off to keep him safe in seasons 5-8, so it made no sense. Chris’ actions and behaviour also made very little sense and came across as bad/evil. Why did he send Leo to Valhalla? Just look at the damage doing that caused, it teared his family apart, broke his mother’s heart, left little Wyatt without a father and put the entire family in jeopardy. Why did he use Gith to create alternate realities that put all of the sister’s lives in danger once again? There was nothing to gain from doing that and even if he didn’t intend for them to die and tried to save them, his intentions are illogical and hardly pure. Everything about the way Chris handled things was flawed. If he was coming back from the future to stop Wyatt turning evil as he claimed why not come right out and tell the sisters and Leo that? He clearly wasn’t capable of taking on such a huge task by himself and he needed their help. It’s not like them having knowledge of the future was harmful, because they found out in the end anyway, so there was really no reason for Chris to withhold the truth in the first place. Generally, the story-line just wasn’t very well thought out. 

Because it wasn’t well thought out, I also ended up disliking the way Chris was treated by the family and the relationships that he developed with them. The family treated him like absolute shit until they learned who he really was and suddenly they loved him unconditionally. Why did he have to be their blood before they started treating him with love and respect? The show tried to force Chris to be a part of the family and show us that he finally found a place he belonged, but I never believed it. It felt rushed and un-organic, and all of those issues Chris had due to the life he’d lived were never really resolved. He was so damaged due to Leo’s abandonment, Piper’s death, living in Wyatt’s shadow, growing up in a life consumed with evil that he wouldn’t just magically be okay the way he was. It was lazy to write him that way. Also, the ending to this story-line was incredibly unsatisfying and rushed. After everything Chris went through he died. Just like that? What the hell was the point of that? Essentially, the season was coming to an end and the writers had no further use for him so knew they had to get rid of him, but that was a very harsh ending. Not only did he die, he literally faded into nothing. Where did he go? If they saved Wyatt from evil that means the future changed and technically that version of Chris never existed, so he quite literally just stopped existing. That’s too sad. 

Moving away from Chris and his story-line, I also disliked the sisters individual character arcs. Paige spent the entirety of season 5 trying to discover herself, but season 6 started out the exact same way with her temp jobs. Why give her the exact same arc she had in season 5? I did like that she got more in touch with her whitelighter side in season 6, but once again, she’d already started to do that in season 5 in Sam, I Am. Her relationship with Richard was pointless and did nothing for her character. From the very start that relationship felt volatile and unhealthy. Richard had too many problems and instead of trying to heal himself, he projected it all onto Paige by trying to make their relationship perfect to act as a band aid for how broken he was. Phoebe’s arc in the first half of season 6 felt exactly the same as season 5. It was about her career and relationship with Jason. Hyde School Reunion was probably the best Phoebe episode in terms of showing us how far she’d come, but Phoebe didn’t get the attention and time she deserved in season 6 at all. I also disliked what they did to her in the second half of the season by taking away her powers and making her obsessed with having children. I have no idea where that sudden obsession came from and it didn’t seem to fit with Phoebe’s character at all. Piper’s arc was what you’d expect of any female character that is a mother and was very wrapped up in Wyatt and Chris, which I can’t criticise. However, I don’t like what happened to her relationship with Leo. I was furious that she didn’t tell Leo she was pregnant with Chris and I generally didn’t like the complete lack of communication between them in season 6. Even if they weren’t together, they were parents and I feel like Piper and Leo were both the kind of people that would prioritise that above everything. Remaining on this subject, Leo was completely OOC in this season. Are we really supposed to believe he would be an absentee father that didn’t bother with his kids? I don’t think so. Yes, he was an honourable person that was duty bound and that’s why he left to be an Elder, but when push came to shove Leo was the kind of man that would give up everything in a heartbeat for his family, which The Seven Year Witch proved. I do like what they did with Leo in regards to making his character darker, and in fact, I think that was the best character arc of season 6. Leo was always such a level-headed character, but after what he went through in season 6 it made sense for him to go to the dark side, especially since it was connected to his children. Leo was a fierce father first and foremost and that consumed him in season 6. 

Some other things that make me dislike the season - the introduction of Magic School (again, a good idea in theory, but it just didn’t fit and appeared out of no where), the treatment of Darryl (I still can’t watch Crimes and Witch Demeanors, it upsets me too much) and the lack of sisterly moments (the sisters are at the heart of the show for me and this is the first season I felt that was sidelined and forgotten). I don’t know what it is, but I just don’t like the entire vibe of season 6. It doesn’t feel like Charmed to me. There was a lack of togetherness and the sisters didn’t feel like themselves. I am also guilty of making comparisons between season 6 and the previous season. I love season 5 and what was built in that season - Piper and Leo’s relationship was strong and happy and they went through a beautiful process of becoming parents after wanting it for so long; Phoebe finally moved on from Cole, launched her career and matured in a new way; Paige found her place within the family, honed her craft and rediscovered herself. The family were a strong, cohesive unit that were loving and supportive, and all of them had their own journey’s in that season. When I compare this to season 6, season 6 didn’t manage to achieve any of that and actually derailed the development and progress that had been made in season 5. 

Lastly, season 6 is my least favourite season simply because it has the episodes I enjoy the least. Every season of Charmed has it’s brilliant episodes and it’s not so good episodes but season 6 has the highest number of episodes that make me go “meh.” The only episodes I actually like watching from season 6 are: Valhalley of the Dolls, Little Monsters, Spin City and It’s a Bad, Bad, Bad World.

So yeah, that’s why season 6 is my least favourite season of Charmed. Thanks for stopping by to ask my opinion and I hope I didn’t bore you too much haha. I’d be interested to know why it’s your favourite season. Perhaps you can help me to find more positives in this season and see something in it that I may have overlooked :)

[haljathefangirlcat]

still thinking about that “we Have To Talk about how quips are ruining fandom by destroying meta and turning all fic into shitposts” post @ms-demeanor wrote a great rebuttal to, and about the other posts she wrote about it and about the You’re Doing Fandom Wrong attitude in it, and about the notes on those posts. not gonna reblog or reply to any of those because my thoughts are admittedly kind of random and jumping from place to place and probably OT to the point of the discussion, but you know. still thinking.

so, uh. not trying to start wank or anything but enjoy the ranting that got way out of hand under the cut.

so, like... that one “we can’t just block everyone who quips and shitposts because some of these people also write actual meta but then they unfortunately go back to Not Engaging With Canon by writing quippy shitpost-y stuff” line, or however it was actually phrased? besides the blatant entitlement with the “you have to fandom ONLY in ways I like, I can’t just engage with the part of the content you create that I’m interested in and scroll past the rest” thing (which kinda reminds me of the whole “you can’t CNTW on some of your fics, I should be able to read ALL of your fics” thing, in a way) and the ”I refuse to curate my fandom experience and I’ll make it some stranger’s problem” thing (which... reminds me of a few other things, but tbf it has probably been around since the very first days of fandom), what if someone doesn’t even see meta and quips/shitposts as fundamentally different and mutually exclusive approaches to fandom? what if they see them as just two ways to be interested in a specific fandom and interact with it, and maybe even closely linked together, so going from one to another is actually very, very easy for them? hell, what if they (gasp!) even mix quips and meta together sometimes?

I have a few posts about what I think Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese might have been doing with mythological references and themes in Dark, and about what I got from the series finale. some are meme-like, phrased in a joking tone, probably even shitpost-y? another one is literally just a gifset plus me having intense Feels in the tags, and the last one is an edit of the kind I’ve seen people complain about as “those cringey unoriginal tumblr aesthetics that all look the same” in at least a couple of occasions. does that automatically mean I only wanted to “win” at fandom (with my hard-earned prize being... a handful of notes in a fandom that’s not even that big compared to others) and that I haven’t actually spent probably way too much time thinking about the significance of Martha’s Ariadne play as a commentary on character interactions/plot/narrative themes (and honestly still do from time to time), or that I don’t occasionally read the captions under other people’s gifsets and suddenly feel very much enlightened about why the Ariadne play mentions the myth of the Flood of all things? that I didn’t start reading posts and comments and reviews and theories about the series finale as soon as I finished watching it? that, just because I didn’t write 10K+ words of Perfectly Serious Seriousness about all that stuff, I simply refused to Engage With The Text? 

... and if I said that I feel a little irrationally self-conscious at the idea of writing down all of my (often rambling, sometimes jumbled) thoughts about a series that to me actually does feel very deep and complex, so adding memes and humor to that or finding different means to put my ideas out there makes me feel more comfortable expressing myself while also taking off the (admittedly made-up) pressure of having to write a whole coherent essay where I have to find a clear and explicit way to explain where every single thought comes from and how it leads to the next like I’m gonna get graded on it? or that a lot of those thoughts stem from memories of spending five years of high school translating and analysing ancient Greek poetry and reading and watching and discussing every available interpretation and reinterpretation of it from Nietzsche to Vernant to Dürrenmatt to Christa Wolf to Pasolini to a lot of others and from certain things in Dark violently hurtling me back to those times without even asking for permission, so a part of my self-consciousness is actually “I probably don’t actually know/remember enough about this to base a whole in-depth analysis on it even though I do think there’s something there” and another part is “shit I’m too lazy to dig through all of my old textbooks and homework and additional readings to hunt for the thing I feel the desperate need to reference or figure out who might have said it, so no extended explanation here either”? I guess in the end it would all boil down to “there’s an amount of effort and physical and mental energy I’m willing to put into fandom but I also have limits to stop something that makes me feel happy from becoming a chore”, which. considering the whole “you have to put all your resources into constantly pouring out 100% serious meta and nothing else because that’s what I like, no deviations allowed” thing? yeah, I can see saying stuff like that would still make me a blight upon fandom. and/or Not Engaging.

which, I realize, it’s a thing I keep coming back to. but that’s because I really, really, really hate it? seriously, what even counts as Engaging With The Text correctly? not shitposts, and not quips either, apparently. Regardless of the fact that humor and crack have existed in fandom since forever and that it’s actually not uncommon AT ALL for them to be born out of looking at canon from different angles, pointing out whatever the fan in question finds surreal/strange/implausible/convoluted/awkward/just kinda funny about it. 

also, not canon divergence/what if fics motivated not by a desire to “fix” something that made us feel bad when it happened in canon but by a desire to actually fix what we felt was objectively a poor writing choice from the author, because we shouldn’t Engage by analysing the text to criticize it or to think over how and why certain aspects of it don’t work for us or how we think the structure of the text itself could be modified or even improved, we should Engage by... writing meta and/or writing canon-compliant fics with perhaps a little allowance for slightly-to-the-left-of-canon-compliant missing moments fics, I guess? 

from what I’ve gathered from reading other fandom discussion some time ago, AUs are also out, especially Modern/No Powers AUs, because those are always just an excuse to slap your fave’s name on your OC/disguise your original fiction as fanfic to get comments/ignore all that’s interesting about canon to write yet another dumb syrupy high school or coffee shop AU, even if I’m honestly not sure what kind of AUs people are even reading to never get to the “there’s no supernatural threat so let’s focus entirely on the fucked-up family dynamics and blatant mental issues in a world where you can’t just ignore them by marrying off your daughter or sending your son to be someone’s squire” AUs or the “this is pretty much what happens in canon but adding new dimensions and different outlooks on the themes by moving everything to a new context” AUs. seriously, I could rec you a pretty great “this guy would be a horrible father and treat his children horribly in any world, it’s not just the feudal society around him, it’s him as a person” AU and that’s literally just the first thing that came to my mind. but, hey, maybe Engaging is only engaging with the canon plot and setting and nothing else, what do I know.

... fuck, thinking about it, I’m not even sure if by “not shitpost and not quips” I should even mean humor/crack? because it’s not like the OP was clear about it in any way? maybe it’s just all that’s weird and tropey and not-canon-compliant? I can see the “everybody gathers in the main character’s stuff to smoke weed and weird shit happens” fic I got a chuckle out of some time ago being one of the dreaded tumblr-born shitpost fics that are supposedly ruining fandom by ensuring that fans stop thinking (?), but what about the “everything is the same but this one character is a catboy, not for any particular reason but just because” fic I’m currently following and loving? people have been joking and shitposting about catboys a lot on tumblr lately (I distinctly remember that the last catboy joke to pop up on my dash was the “I’m your catboy gf and I’m stuck in a wall” one...) and finding an always-a-catboy!AU initially got an amused smile out of me, so is the mere premise enough to make the fic just a joke/just taking a trope and running off with it/just part of a shallow trend? even when the author literally goes “oh shit just realized this is all a metaphor for neuodivergence and masking” in the story notes? unless writing a character who’s never explicitly stated to be neurodivergent in canon as a being literally or metaphorically neurodivergent in your fic is always shallow projecting or posturing issuefic... instead of, y’know, looking closely at the text and Engaging with it by interpreting it that way....

I feel all this ranting/venting might end up plunging into Why We Slash discussion territory now, so I better stop here.

anyway, in short, good to know I’ve been in fandom for years yet I’ve always been just a Fake Fan who Can’t Think and is constantly Doing It Wrong (by Not Being Transformative Enough, possibly). gonna do my best to stay exactly like that in the future <3

[legitimateluffy]

Gif Tutorial!

Since I’m sure some of you are wondering how to make some nice gifs (and since I’ve seen a few people want one), I’ve made a gif tutorial! It’s really, really long and that’s probably because I do it an inefficient way but hey it works. So let’s get started!

Before starting off, the programs that I use are VLC and Photoshop CC 17. I’m also using a mac so some things will be found via different means. You don’t have to have the exact version be be aware that some things may be placed just a little differently depending on the version.

Starting off, once you have VLC, open it up and it should look something like this:

You want to go to preferences located towards the top left hang corner after clicking VLC (in bold). Something like this should then pop up:

Click onto the ‘Video’ tab and select where you want your frames to be saved. Next move onto the ‘Hotkeys’ tab and find ‘Take video snapshot’ and ‘Next Frame’, setting them to which ever keys you like. Mine are set to E and ` (for no particular reason)

When making a gif, you’ll obviously need to have a file of whatever you wish to gif (since I’m an OP blog I’ll stick to using OP as an example). The website to torrent these from is nyaa.si. This is what it looks like:

(Me being the horrible OP nerd that I am have all episodes and movies downloaded....)

Once you have the desired episode you want, open it up in VLC.

Once you reach the part you want to gif, click your ‘Take video snapshot’ hotkey. This is what should appear once you do so:

Next, you’ll have to click your ‘Next Frame’ hotkey and go through all the frames, snapshotting the ones you desire. I know it’s a really long and tedious process, especially if you’re doing large gif sets but it helps in the long run. Chuck on some tunes as to not get bored!

All of your frames will save in the desired folder, with the frames being individual images. 

Now to put them together! Open up Photoshop and go to File>Scripts>Load Files into Stack.

Don’t go to Import>Load files into frames (or something like that) as this makes the whole process a lot more difficult. When going through this way, you are only limited to 500 frames which can limit what you’re working on (especially if it’s a large gifset with more than 500 frames). When importing through Scripts, it will allow you more than 500 (I haven’t hit a limit yet so I’m not sure if there is one or not but so far I haven’t experienced one).

Click ‘Browse’ and find the folder with your frames, selecting all of the ones you wish to convert into a gif and click ‘Open’ and then ‘Ok’. It should look something like this:

Next, we want to display the ‘Timeline’. To do this, we have to go to Window>Timeline

A grey box should appear on the bottom of your page. Click the little arrow where it says ‘Create Video Timeline’ and click ‘Create Frame Animation’

When done, click on the little box to the right hand side of the timeline window and click ‘Make Frames From Layers’.

Because of the size of the file, it’s too big and is lagging down Photoshop a bit, plus we need to adjust the sizing for Tumblr. To do this, go to Image>Image Size

Make sure that the width is at 540 pixels (not cm, inches, etc.) if you want a standard size. (I don’t remember the exact dimensions for Tumblr but if you want to know, do a quick google search). Also be sure to click the link to ensure it is fitted proportionately and click ‘OK’ once done.

Once again, click the little dropbox on the top right hand side of the timeline window and click ‘Reverse Frames’ (only if your frames have loaded backwards which mine always do although this may be different to you, to check just play through the frames)

Play around with timing to how you wish. I usually have mine at ‘0.08′ seconds. You can change the time down next to the small arrow where it has ‘0.00′ (Make sure all frames are selected if you want all frames to have the same time delay) Remember that when played at 0.00, it may appear normal but once saved it is a lot faster so be sure to change it

Now we want to select all frames in both the timeline and in the layers, this is important for the next step. Once selected, click the small icon at the bottom of the the left hand corner (next to ‘Once’)

Once this is converted to a video timeline, go to Filter>Convert for Smart Filters. This essentially merges all your frames/layers together and still plays as a video in the timeline. It also allows us to edit the batch of frames together instead of going through each individual frame to edit it.

This bit of editing really helps blend colours together which helps in saving them later on. It does get rid of details here in there depending how you apply it. Go to Filter>Blue>Surface Blur and experiment around with the settings. 

I usually keep mine at Radius: 5 and Threshold: 10. I recommend not going too far from these numbers. 

Because the surface blur has blured the colours together slightly, the defining lines of the character are slightly lost. To fix this we go to Filter>Sharpen>Smart Sharpen.

I tend to keep my radius quite low and the amount relatively low as well, it depends on the gif I’m making.

I tend to see this a lot when people make gifs and that is that they oversharpen their frames which can be quite jarring to the eye and it also doesn’t look very nice. An example of oversharpening is when white pixels surround the black like this:

Less oversharped but still so:

It makes the lines all jagged and unsmooth which is what we want to avoid.

That’s a lot better (and it could be better but notice the distinct lack of white pixels)

Now you can play around with different filters and such! I definitely recommend using some sort of filters, the anime colours are very dull and unsaturated. Once you’re happy, save your gif by going to File>Export>Save for Web

This is what the next window will look like. You can experiment with either Diffusion and Pattern. This is how the pixels on your gif will appear. I usually alternate between the two, depending on what works best with the particular gif I’m making. In this case, I’ll use Diffusion.

When saving, make sure that the size of the gif is no higher than 3mb, that is tumblr’s restriction on the size of gifs (as of making this tutorial). Also make sure that Looping Options is selected as ‘Forever’. Click ‘Save’ when you’re done! And there you go, you have your gif!

Filter 1:

Filter 2:

Filter 3:

Anime:

Notice the different palettes you can create? If you only wanted to make a gif, you’re done! However, if you want to know some more tricks, keep on reading! (I say as if this tutorial isn’t long enough)

This part is if you want your gifs to look more clean and crisp. 

If you notice in my example gifs, they all have these square like patterns on there. That’s because Photoshop can only allow 256 colours, so to make up for those lack in colours, it adds pattern/diffusion to essentially replace them (or something like that lol)  To fix this, go back to your gif (before saving) and select the lasso tool and select the colours that are most important in the frame.

Once done, click Image>Mode>Indexed Colour (make sure you have the history window ready)

Make sure your settings are set like this (they may be by default but I don’t remember) and click ‘OK’

Now go back and save it as if you were saving it as a gif by File>Export>Save for web. This time, click the drop box and click ‘Save Colour Table’ and call it table. It will ask if you want to replace it, click ‘OK’. Once saved, click cancel and return to your gif.

Click on the history window (if it’s not there, look under ‘Window’) and undo the ‘Indexed Colour’. When we did this, the layers all merged together and the frames have gone, meaning no more motion/movement. Make sure to undo this step!

Click the same little icon when we were saving the colour table and click load table, and select ‘table’. Similar colours will come up however now they are the most important ones. Play through the gif to ensure the colours look nice and look smooth. if not, delete some colours on the colour table by selecting the colour you wish to delete and the little trash can in the bottom right hand corner. To add colours, go to the ‘original’ tab and select the colour picker, clicking the little page icon left of the trash can. This will add the colour to the table.

This can be incredibly tedious but it changes the colours on the gif and makes it look as if it is straight from the anime. Gifs like this one needs a lot of time since the colours in the back change quite a lot.

Before:

After:

It may not look like much to those who don’t make gifs (or any difference at all) but things like these can help increase the quality of the gif. It seems like a really long and tedious process (to which it is trust me) but I think it’s worth it in the end! 

For comparisons sake, here’s diffusion (first) compared to pattern (second)

If anyone has any questions regarding this tutorial, feel free to message me and I can try help you out!

If you read this far, thank you so much! I spent a lot of time on this tutorial so I’m grateful if you took time out of your day to read this. Have a good day!!

[swan2187]

Show, Don’t Tell: Hope

I keep seeing gifsets and quotes from The Last Jedi talking about how “the rebellion doesn’t die today--it is reborn” and “Hope!” and reviews mentioning the hope that we find in the very end...and I just sit there thinking “Where?”

Because for a movie that is supposed to be about hope (the theme of every Star Wars movie since ever), it does a really pathetic job of providing it. They can talk about it all they want, they can pretend that there are reasons to be optimistic about the future (besides, you know, the fact that these are movies and good is going to defeat evil simply because it’s a narrative mandate, maybe), but if you don’t show me a reason to be hopeful, I’m not going to feel it. You can’t just say “be hopeful!”, you have to illustrate it.

And since this movie wanted to be Empire Strikes Back so badly, let’s look at the glorious classic film and see what it did right.

The first true moment of Hope in Empire comes with the infamous line: “The first transport is away! The first transport is away!” We are treated to a dramatic scene of a menacing Star Destroyer approaching the planet, then a calm woman giving the fire command to a massive ion cannon, which fires several rounds into space and disables an entire Star Destroyer with three shots. 

We watch the transport soar past, the music of John Williams swells, and the call goes out: “The first transport is away!”

The men cheer! The rebellion lives! We won!

...then the battle itself takes place, and suddenly, rebels are dying. Speeders are exploding. The base is collapsing. Space is still thick with star destroyers, TIE fighters roar after our heroes, and worried generals start talking about how much more desperate their situation is becoming. Even though the transports are away, even though the rebellion is surviving, it is still obvious that the rebels are dying. Throughout the rest of the movie, we focus on our main characters as they struggle to elude the Empire--and fail. 

Then at last, we come to the end of the movie. Luke’s training has lost him his hand and his lightsaber, Han is gone, the Rebel fleet is scattered, and everyone is sad. 

But Lando still smiles as he punches in the commands on the Falcon’s controls. “We’ll find Han. I promise.” Though Han is lost, they’re on their way to rescue him. You can still find that spark of hope.

Luke, Leia, Threepio, and Artoo are together. Leia and Luke are worried, they’re shaken, there is no medal ceremony or applauding crowd, but there is a beacon of light in the distance--the light of the galaxy, the light of hope. They stare into the light of billions of suns, quiet, concerned, but perhaps daring to feel a slight twinge of hope. John Williams does his thing...

...and we watch the Rebel fleet swinging off into deep space. The Rebellion lives on. Hope lives on. We know this entire fleet is no match for the Super Star Destroyer that’s still out there, but it could be enough. There’s more to come. There are still so many of them.

Now let’s compare this to The Last Jedi.

In this movie, we watched the Rebels escape at the beginning...only to be tracked down again. We watched them run and slowly fall, one ship at a time, to the inexorable, irresistible First Order fleet, until there was one ship left. Then, our heroes Finn and Rose returned to save the fleet--but their mission was betrayed, and once again, failure occurred. Transports began being blown up--all of the optimism we felt at Holdo’s escape plan was dashed by fresh attacks. Then, Holdo did the one thing to save everyone: blew herself up and most of the First Order fleet. 

And that was amazing, don’t get me wrong.

But the First Order still had more ships. The Supremacy still flew, even without half of its structure. They brought the hammer down on the dying Resistance with its clunky remaining speeders. The Resistance put out the call for help--but no one was coming.

Not “no one is going to get here”--”No one is coming.” They slowly accepted that hope was gone and the war war over...but then, Luke Skywalker appears! He saves the day! He stands alone against the army, and promises that hope is reborn! The Resistance lives, and there is a future!

...and then he just goes and dies.

They frame it with the hope of the binary sunset, we see our heroes all escaping on the ship--one ship--and we hear hope! Joy! We made it! Finn and Rey are together!

But then...that’s it. There’s no rebel fleet at the end, there’s no promise to bring Luke back, there’s nothing except a quiet assurance that Luke was happy when he passed on, and the crushing loneliness of Kylo Ren. Also, Rey has the books (that were...apparently just books? Not that important? Disparaged by our mentors, Luke and Yoda?). A little white boy in the middle of nowhere shows off his Force Powers.

The First Order still has hyperspace tracking. They still have fleets of Star Destroyers. They still have Kylo Ren. They still have the six Knights of Ren. The galaxy is being conquered by Nazis. What we saw at the start of The Force Awakens--villagers being rounded up and massacred--that’s happening everywhere. There was no hint of a power vacuum in Snoke’s death, no hint of further resistance throughout the galaxy...Carrie Fisher is dead, so we don’t know what Leia can do in the next movie...the Rebel fleet is gone, the Republic fleet is gone, the First Order still has all of the worlds they came from, Luke is gone...so where’s the hope coming from?

Are we supposed to trust that they can do it? This entire movie spent its time repeatedly belaboring that your hope means nothing. You want to take down a dreadnought with some really cool bombers? Too bad, all the bombers are going to blow themselves up. You want to escape to hyperspace? Nah, they can track you. You think Rey can bring Kylo back from the Dark Side? Nope, he’s just doing this because he belongs to the Dark Side. You think DJ is going to help save the fleet? No, he sold you all out. You think Luke lives? Nope. Time and again, the movie dangles hope on the end of a string and pulls it away...so why should the end be any different?

[princessarya]

Season Seven Opener : DRAGONSTONE

Because I love visuals so much, I have rarely voiced any opinions about the show or the books on this blog. I have always wanted to avoid ~discourse, and honestly, I just love gifsets and pictures so much. However, this season I have decided that since I have an active blog I would like to talk a little bit about my feelings on each episode for what that’s worth.

So if you would like my thoughts on the season opener, it’s below the cut!

First let me just say that yes I have read and adore the books. But in my mind, they are  almost two different stories, and I value each of them for different reasons, so I am not going to spend a lot of time talking about the differences or comparing them to one another.

That said, let’s dive on in!

Overall Score : 8/10

What I Liked :

I loved the opening scene. I know a lot of people don’t care for the logistics of how this happened both in the finale of season 6 and I am assuming in the opening scene as well, but I am livinnnnngggg for Arya’s revenge.

LYANNA MORMONT CONTINUES TO SLAY. I love her as a character, I literally get excited whenever I see her on screen. She really epitomizes being a northerner for me and she’s just 12/10.

Ed Sheeran! We knew he would be appearing and I think they did a great job of sliding him in there. That whole scene was completely brilliant and serves as a great reminder that the Game of Thrones is really hurting most of the common people. Plus, we get to see how human the Lannister army is and how rich they are are at least still portraying themselves to be because the armour was so high quality.

Jorah inquiring about Daenerys was a really nice touch, and obviously we are supposed to make some connections between curing greyscale and the dragonglass that is so abundant on Dragonstone.

THE GIANT WHITE WALKER! Whenever I see the white walkers I get goosebumps! So that scene where they are just marching toward the wall right after that huge Arya scene - I was practically all goosebumps. I cant wait for the battle scenes we will be treated to later in the season.

I enjoyed seeing Bran and Meera. I think Brans may be some of the most interesting scenes this season which I am very excited for.

I love those dragon statues outside of Dragonstone. it felt so good for me to see Daenerys in the place she was born. I don’t believe she was born to rule the seven kingdoms, but she was born a Targaryen, and it feels good to see her at her family seat.

What I Didn’t Like:

Why did they spend three precious minutes on Sam emptying chamber pots?? We get it - he’s unhappy. And why does Gilly get to stay with him? I know logic is not this shows strong point, but I just could have done without most of the Sam content in this episode.

I hate that Arya is headed to Kings Landing. Like most people in the world, I am desperate for the remaining Starks to make it back to one another. I don’t think Arya will be successful at killing Cersei so I really hate that she’s being wasted again when we just got her out of a huge plot suck in Braavos. She specifically mentioned she was going home - did she just mean Westeros? Surely by now she would know the Starks had taken back Winterfell, why would she not at least stop there before making the revenge journey? 

To be honest, I am losing interest in Jon really fast. I was VERY put off when Jon just assumed the KITN position over Sansa, whose I believe it rightfully is, but I was willing to overlook it because I have been so invested in his character. I get that he has actual leadership experience and I get that he is a male, and I get he is a battle hero, but honestly Sansa has been nothing but right in my opinion. Maybe I’m biased towards her? He literally says “be smarter by listening to you?” and I’m screaming at the TV “YEEEEEEESSSSSSS”. The thing about Sansa that makes her such an asset is that she really does personally know most of the players in the game and she knows them well. Not to mention she has literally spent the entire series learning from her mistakes and learning to play the game. Jon doesn’t know how to play the game and he doesn’t even realize it. Anyway, the least he could have done when Sansa disagreed (and the room supported her) was say “okay, ill take it under consideration and decide at another time”, even if he wasn’t really going to. I know thats not good TV but, that is way more respectful to his sister. And then to turn around and say she is undermining him. I don’t know I could go on and on about this situation, but to me it’s so toxic and it actually makes me root for Littlefinger which is just ...wow.

I just felt like the scene with the hound was a little too long. I could have gotten the same idea in way less dark screen time. I’m all about his redemption journey I just felt like it was a long scene.

What I am hoping for next week:

I would be really bummed if Arya spent all this time in the Riverlands and didn’t even catch a glimpse of Nymeria. I would love for the wolves to be a bigger part of the show, but I get that most of them are dead now so :/

I think we all hope to see Gendry at some point!

I am actually hoping Jon leaves the North sooner than later now because idk I think once he’s out there on his own trying to negotiate with these people he’ll realize what an asset Sansa is.

If you made it this far, thanks so much for reading! if you’d like to discuss any of these things my inbox is always open! I only ask that you respect my opinions because I will certainly respect yours!

Enjoy your week and I’ll post another one of these after Episode Two!