#it's so unearned and ruins anything they could have actually said about abuse

[reachermori]

I continue to break my tumblr hiatus for this show because I'm so annoyed with this stupidity and feel the need to put my thoughts into words.

Apologies for the rant. It's a little all over the place, but I tried to put it in a coherent order. It mostly focuses on hating James and on how I think Ted and Jamie's relationship and arcs were wasted, especially in relation to one another.

If the ending scene is indeed Ted's dream, I think it's even worse in regards to Jamie and Beard. Essentially Ted's "happy" versions of them have them close to their abusers, who have done nothing to deserve it.

The idea that Ted's happy ending for Jamie is him reconnecting with his father, who seems proud of him, is pure projection. That's what Ted wants for himself, but he's also inserting his own good relationship with his father. (Which, if we were getting more episodes I might be okay with as it would be interesting to explore.)

The first two seasons really built up Jamie and Ted to have a good relationship, or at least be important to one another, and I still think they could have had a really powerful impact on one another.

While Jamie has grown a lot and that had a lot to do with Ted's influence, I think he could have had that talk with Ted instead of Roy about how having a positive male influence is important to his continued growth. Ted however, could have learned through Jamie and his struggles with his father's toxicity that it's okay to let go.

I have always been happy with the idea of the show ending with Ted returning to Kansas, because I thought it was important for Ted to learn that it's okay to leave and move on. Ted's biggest internal conflict is his inability to quit things, and I really wanted him to accept that quitting isn't inherently bad. Maybe even have an arc with Henry in a toxic situation that he's sticking with because he knows his dad never quits anything to reinforce to Ted how problematic that mindset is, and decide that it's okay to quit Richmond to be with Henry where he clearly wants to be. (Also I disagree with the idea that Ted has nothing in Kansas besides Henry. I doubt Ted Lasso of all people has no one. He built a community in Richmond in only three years. He'd been in Kansas the entirety of his life up until then, there's no way he has no one. Also, even if he didn't, his relationship with his son is more important and I don't fault him for prioritizing that)

This is where I think Jamie could have helped Ted's arc. They could have had parallel journeys in deciding their father's actions do not have to define them, and I think Jamie could have reached this point first and be the one to impart wisdom on Ted for once. You could even keep the "forgiveness" talk Ted gave to Jamie, and then have Jamie come back after the game and say something that conveys "fuck forgiveness, he doesn't deserve that. But I do need to let go of the pain or I'll just hold myself back from growing. Because I'm done letting him have any influence on who I am."

Instead of getting anything with any nuance or something different than every other abuse plot in any show ever, we just had the ghost of Ted all season. He was barely in this season! Especially with relation to the players. We only had one scene of Ted and Jamie talking as people (instead of talking about football strategies or Zava when the coaches just assumed Jamie was jealous instead of concerned about the team dynamics) and connecting, and it was for Ted to tell Jamie about the importance of forgiveness.

Sorry but abuse isn't something you should just forgive, especially since James isn't making amends. He's getting sober, and we don't know if it was his choice, it could have been court mandated for all we know. Also I said this in my previous post, but addiction doesn't just make you abusive, and it especially doesn't make you facilitate your child being sexually assaulted. So I don't see any world where just getting clean makes James worthy of forgiveness. More importantly is that Ted and Jamie don't know that James is even in rehab when they have this conversation!

It's bad enough that we had to deal with the cliche "forgive him for you" perspective, but now we know it either leads to reconciliation, or at least Ted hopes/thinks it should. I'm not sure which is worse, but Ted thinking they should reconcile when he lacks a lot of knowledge about the depth of abuse Jamie endured is just insane.

I really wonder if Ted knowing about Amsterdam would have changed how he handled everything, since that is - in my opinion - the worst thing we know James has done to Jamie canonically. (Or if he knew about him trying to murder Beard...) Though knowing this show and how this season was written, if there was any discussion about this they would mess it up even more. Like I can just imagine a tangent about how many sex workers are disadvantaged, and how they may not have had a choice either, and diminishing Jamie's trauma AGAIN!

However it shouldn't matter what he knows, it's not like Ted is ignorant to the abuse, he's witnessed it twice. The first time he just walked away, something else I wish the show addressed at any point. Ted only saw what James was willing to do in public, and doesn't seem to have ever considered it being worse in private or when Jamie was younger. Bringing up the first Man City match would have been a good way for Jamie and Ted to fully open up to one another and relate to each other regarding their trauma and how they've let it hold them back.

For a show that emphasizes the relationship between father and sons, they really decided to abandon all the father figure relationships they had, especially Ted with Jamie & Nate.

I actually think it works with Nate, since it's clear Nate and his father's biggest problem was that they just could never be on the same wavelength, and while they can't fix the past, they can now create the bond they always should have had. His father actually acknowledged his wrong doings and apologized, and that level of accountability is missing from James' "redemption". Also Nate's father had a good relationship with his wife and daughter, so it makes it more obvious that his and Nate's issues are due to a disconnect and not out of malice. James never had a single good character trait until they decided to redeem him out of nowhere in the last two episodes. If we at least had Jamie say something like "my dad was great before drinking" it would have at least made the rehab stuff seem a little more like redemption. But we only have Jamie and his mother talking about how James has always been like this, and will never change.

Just changing a few things to make Ted and Jamie's relationship pay off in this season for both of them, would have done a world of good.

Anyways this has been a little all over so I'll leave it here, but suffice to say, I disliked the finale...

[sweetcloverheart]

Clover Rants Miraculously: Nope, still hate it

(This is more me venting then anything really. Spoilers below!)

Okay, to properly explain why I greatly dislike “Lila and Chloe are more evil than Gabriel” thing, I need you all to think back to the olden internet days when you would read those fanfics where the writer clearly and obviously wrote one half of their NOTP as a raging jerk/yandere psychopath to justify their preferred OTP/Self-Insert character and fav character getting together.

Did you imagine it? Did you remember how cringey and eyeroll-inducing you found it?

That’s how I feel about the whole “These two teenage girls are more monstrous and capable of greater villainy than the established magical terrorist super villain who emotionally abuses his son”.

Because it’d be one thing if Lila and Chloe becoming a supervillain criminal girlboss duo just for the hell of it was being done as a way to expand on their characters and explore new plot territory - That I don’t mind at all and would 1100% be down with. But instead, it’s very clearly and obviously being used to help hype up Gabriel’s frankly unearned in my opinion “redemption arc” because instead of writing Gabemoth showing actual remorse for his actions and eventually turning himself in or having him have this “too late now” moment that ends in his defeat and the slow realization that he destroyed his and his son’s lives for nothing, we are instead treated to the show repeated screaming at us that the two teenage bullies (both of whom could be very easily dealt with if the adults surrounding them did their jobs and forced them to face consequences for said bullying) are clearly the greater threats here, what with their constant scheming to...*checks plot* ruin the day of a girl they don’t like while trying to steal her boyfriend via lies and one of said girl’s parent’s money, which is clearly leagues more evil than...*checks plot again* magically controlling your son through the ring that’s literally tied to his life, while abusing the sentient cosmic entities you stole (well, actually your teenaged nephew stole them for you, but I digress) as you forcibly use their powers to buff up your magically transformed croonies to help them fight the pair of magical teenagers who’s magical jewelry you’re trying to steal.

It’s so obvious they can’t be bothered to make Gabriel into the 3D villain they claim he is, so their only option is to drag down the other antagonists so they’re “more evil” and make all the terrible and awful stuff he’s done on screen seem “minimal”/less bad than it is. That’s why Chloe’s “worse than usual” and Lila’s collecting moms and alternate identities like pokemon cards - not for actual plot development and character progression, but so that the writers can prop up Gabriel as this “misguided saint” who “only did what he had to for his family” while shoving his “redemption” through the story and down everyone’s throats. Because it’s the only trick they have in their bags for making a character “good” - make one character super evil/mean so whoever they’re propping up looks better in comparison. They did with the Zoe/Chloe comparisons, they did it with Felix’s intro, they’re doing it with Nathalie and Gabriel, they’re doing it with Amelie and Emilie (Don’t think I don’t see that nonsense going on with that “The other Princess wants a magic baby because she was overcome with jealousy over her sister” line), and they’re doing it with this.

Like, mark my words, almost every other episode of Season 6 is going to contain at least one character going “Wow, Chrysalis is so evil! Hawkmoth never did something like this!” or “If only Gabriel had kept the butterfly miraculous - he would never abuse it the way Chrysalis has!”

[normal-thoughts-official]

Thoughts on Maryse actually earning a redemption? I liked her character post redemption but the whole arc felt rushed, unearned, and too easy. Especially with her victims (both her children and downworlders like Magnus) forgiving her so easily like she didn't do anything that bad...

oh mood. i actually have lowkey conflicted feelings on the whole maryse thing because like, on the one hand, they didn't do the thing i hate the most with this kind of "arc" - having the character b like "sorry that i was an asshole" and then continue to be an asshole but not on purpose this time and so it's fine now. on the other hand, they did the opposite - maryse did actually change and become a non-abusive person, but it didn't fucking make sense and she basically never bothered to acknowledge that she was a uhhhh terrible fucking person

there's also lowkey projection feelings that make me a little fond of maryse, like, damn, i wish my mom just decided one day that transphobia isn't sexy and completely changed overnight. u know? lmao

but anyway yeah i do have thoughts on a maryse redemption arc that doesn't suck ass. especially because i think there are elements that could make a cohesive story if the show actually, like, bothered with them. i'll warn u that i'll mostly ignore the cheating plotline because 1- it has kinda yikes vibes like "oh she's suffered now so we have to forgive her", and 2- i don't really care about cheating plotlines tbh. like rationally i can understand that it's essentially betrayal of an agreement, but emotionally, i simply don't understand why anyone would give a fuck lol i just can't connect emotionally with it in any way so it feels very abstract and forced for me to write about

so i think the starting point for her redemption would be her being deruned. so i’m gonna start from there, and just assume that everything that went down before the announcement of her deruning was the same

i say the deruning because like.... her entire life, this was her absolute top priority. being a shadowhunter. being a part of that society. upholding these values. being essentially shadowhunter royalty. and now, she's lost that. and she's forced to look back at everything that she did without the looming threat of her losing what she's been working so hard for (since she already did) and it suddenly feels way clearer

not that like oh she never realized how shitty she was! she fucking knew how shitty she was. there's no way she didn't. she manipulated her children, she purposefully humiliated them and withheld affection, she hurt them, she participated in genocide, she killed people, and she did it with the intent of doing all those things. but i think - especially with the part about that her children - that the way she looked at this was always distorted by the fact that the clave/the lightwood name/her position of power and prestige took precedence. also, the constant threat that she would lose that meant that she could justify it to herself saying that it was what she had to do. now, she can no longer do that, because it's already happened. and guess what? life went on now that she's deruned. so she's forced to look at everything that she did for her position as a shadowhunter from a distance this time, because her goals are unattainable now, and that means she can look at it more rationally, especially since she ran out of excuses. and here's the picture: none of it was worth it

and i'm talking about her children specifically. the literal fascism shit is more complicated since like, she is a radical racist and i don't think she would see a problem with that, tbh. she has no reason to care about that, yet

so okay, she's looking back and she realizes not only that her excuses for her behavior were made of paper, but also that her priorities were all fucked up, because now that she's deruned, it isn't that in itself that hurts her the most. it's the fact that she's alone

and again, i don't mean that like, boo hoo, poor her. that was the consequence of her own actions and honestly good for all the people in her life that they didn't feel obligated to give her emotional support when she was out there ruining their lives

what i do mean is that this is what moves her to want to change and mend things, if anything, because she wants comfort

and initially she would be super fucking selfish and shitty about it, because like..... obviously, maryse was selfish. she might have said "lightwood name" this and that, but let's be real here, she wasn't even born a lightwood to care all that much about that. it was about her, her power, her prestige. if overnight the lightwood name stopped being a symbol of status she would drop it like a hot potato, she held it close to her chest because it meant ascension for her personally. she manipulated her children and drew away her friends and supported genocide for herself, not out of some obligation with the concept of lightwoodship or whatever

she would try to "mend" her relationship with her children for herself, and it would show. robert would probably drop her like a hot potato too after the deruning, lbr, and i don't think she cared all that much about him anyway, so i'll focus on izzy, alec, and jace. jace is kind of weird since she was never shown to abuse him, but she also was willing to throw him on the trash when she found out he was valentine's kid, so. but overall i think he would be the one to mend his relationship with her more easily, but also - jace is just as selfish as her and even more self centered, so she wouldn't get a lot of support/satisfaction out of that relationship

so she tries to make things better with alec and izzy and they're both like... lol. especially alec because as we've seen he had no qualms about being completely ruthless with maryse once he broke out of her claws (good for him!) and while izzy had this whole "i don't care about maryse" facade.... she did, honestly. like she was visibly hurt by maryse not hugging her despite that being expected, and maryse's presence there in itself was enough for her body language to completely change. when izzy wanted to prove that she could be mature, she emulated maryse's style. so i think, especially since izzy was obviously the fuckup kid, that a part of her is kind of desperate to get any sort of approval or affection from maryse

but that doesn’t mean that she’s going to humiliate herself for maryse, and she also gets some satisfaction in being able to flip the tables and be the one to reject her, for once. and alec is straight up like... “you never gave us any support, but now that you’ve lost everything, you want it from us? i’m just doing what you taught us, mother”

i think jace would probably be the one to be like “oh, come on, alec, she wasn’t that bad” almost scoffing at the idea and it’s just like... “between what she did to me, izzy, and magnus, she has to work a lot harder if she wants my forgiveness” and maryse is kind of taken aback because tbh up to this point she hadn’t given any thought whatsoever to what she did to magnus or downworlders in general

she’s probably kind of appalled by the idea tbh

but she also starts to like... lowkey... get it? i mean obviously she’s not a downworlder and she’ll never suffer what downworlders went through, but now that shadowhunter society has turned her back on her, now that she’s become depised by them too, she has a tiny little taste of what it feels like, and it’s not nice

especially cuz like, again... robert would drop her like a hot potato lol and like i don’t even blame him cuz she wasn’t exactly a great wife either and maryse would have done the same, i don’t think either of them ever had any illusions when it came to their marriage tbh. but robert uses her exact m.o. against her (since well, it was his, too) and that means that she gets to feel at least a little bit of forced sympathy for the people she’s done the same thing to

so i think she would come to luke (no i’m not going a lukemaryse route keep calm)

and luke is kind of like... well, i was waiting for this to happen. you know, because he is the one to comes closest to having been in maryse’s situation, since he’s also an ex-shadowhunter - except worse because he’s been turned downworlder, not just mundane

and it’s the first time she actually shows some level of empathy because she’s kind of like “i was just wondering... how did you deal with it when they... when all of us... turned our backs on you?” and she apologizes for that and that shocks luke because he didn’t expect it 

and it’s easier for luke to forgive her because 1- it’s been a while; 2- they aren’t super close; 3- luke was also a fascist so like lmao; 4- there is one (1) person who understands what he went through, kinda. again not really because being a downworlder is way worse than mundane but who else comes close?

and look i’m not saying they become best friends or anything but they have a good talk about what it was like, and maryse is again forced to meet her own shittiness dead in the eye because when luke talks about what he went through when he was Turned, well, maryse was there. and now she is basically forced to empathize with him, who was on the other side, and see herself as the tormentor that other people are being to her now

and like again it’s not like she didn’t know that she was a shitty ass person and what she was doing was terrible but now all the walls he had put up to avoid acknowledging that are straight up torn down

she apologizes and he just kind of shrugs because it’s not like he’s gonna be like “yeah np lol” and this is not the kind of thing that you resolve easily, especially after such a long time, so it’s awkward. but again, he doesn’t exactly resent her anymore either, he’s more kind of... neutral i guess. like he made his peace with it a long time ago and an apology from one of the people involved is way more than he ever expected to get, so

also maryse doesn’t cry her woes because she is way too proud for that, which means that luke doesn’t have to deal with her Shadowhunter Tears on top of everything else. it’s more the opposite, really, it’s luke who talks and maryse who listens, and for the first time, luke gets to talk about how he felt about being turned and shunned without... i don’t want to say fear, but like, reservation? because obviously talking about this with a downworlder is worse and more awkward and more painful. because maryse was essentially worse than him, he gets to talk about it without shame, if that makes sense? and he also gets to say everything he’s always wanted to say to shadowhunters/circle members in general, and it does him good

they go their separate ways and luke is left feeling emotionally exhausted from reopening that wound but also like its scar has faded further, you know? and maryse is starting to actually genuinely want to be better, not just to convince people to not leave her

also, luke is by far the one who treated her best up to this point, so she feels a little lighter, even if it was far from a good interaction

i think the next she would go to would be magnus?? kinda?? like not right away of course, this isn’t shtv so i’m going with a long timeline that involves plenty of her living as a mundane and Thinking About What She’s Done and trying to find a purpose for her life now

i guess she would have that fucking shop? so there’s that. and in that time she gets to meet some mundanes and make tentative local-shop-owner/client sorta friendships and talk about what she went through in vague terms and get some advice that might actually be useful

anyway, magnus! so she would go to magnus because he’s one of the downworlders (and her experience with luke makes her think that they are more likely to forgive her since they weren’t close) but mostly because she wants to win alec over and she knows that will never ever happen if she isn’t nice to magnus. she’s racist, not stupid

magnus doesn’t let her into the loft, but he also doesn’t close the door on her face. from previous scenes (mostly max’s rune ceremony thing) we know that magnus is at least willing to try to have some sort of truce for alec’s sake, but there’s that, and there’s maryse marching into his home like nobody’s business expecting forgiveness when she directly killed at least a few people magnus cared about and/or was responsible for protecting

also it’s transparent that she’s doing it for alec, so magnus is like “while it is nice to know that you care this much about alexander... i can’t just forgive you” and she is a little outraged, but she leaves without making a fuss

meanwhile magnus is just emotionally depleted even from this very short interaction with her, because she’s just... too much

lowkey has a depression day after that because that is way too much and he’s just kind of in a slump, feeling empty and reliving the worst memories of the people he’s lost in that war. alec notices and magnus is vague about it, just like “maryse.... visited” and alec wants him to talk about it but magnus is not going to talk about everything alec’s mom did to him cuz she’s like... still alec’s mom. so it’s awkward and heavy but they both lowkey comfort each other for the rest of the day and cuddle and shit

also there’s max! with max it’s a little different because he’s not going to like, straight up not want to talk to maryse, and his relationship with her seemed to be a little different from the others anyway. he was still heavily influenced by her ideals, and even with the dirvorce/distancing/idk, obviously she and robert are still like, sharing the custody. and she asks max about alec and izzy (as well as jace when they get to talk) and max is very blunt about it too, very “they’re still pissed at you” and she’s like gee kid thanks, i know that, but how are they. are they ok?

and again max is a nosy bitch so whenever he sees alec and izzy he’s like “mom keeps asking how you guys are doing. she wanted to know about izzy’s new project” and izzy is shocked like “since when does she know about my projects?” and max shrugs like “idk” 

and again, emotionally exhausting. especially when eventually max starts to say that maryse also asked how magnus was doing, and that hits alec like a billion bricks, because maryse is acknowledging their relationship? without him like, basically threatening her? lmao

cue their own version of depression days/weird coping mechanisms because they don’t know how to deal emotionally with this. izzy would probably throw herself headfirst into work like “emotions what emotions haha never heard of that anyway check out this corpse” and alec... shoots arrows until his hands bleed, as usual

because look, it’s hard, and i say that from firsthand experience. even the thought that your prejudiced parents might change gives hope. and alec had always been so loyal to family, to him, it was family before everything else, and that included maryse. and yes, he was manipulated by her, but he also did value family and he had some good moments, or moments that he saw as good (like the whole guy whose nose he broke thing) with her. so it’s just like... a lot of conflict because he kind of wants to turn his back on her and has been ever since he came out, but there’s a lot of emotions swirling inside of him

again magnus sees his bloodied hands and he heals them softly, asking him what happened. and alec is like “maryse is asking max about us” and magnus is like “oh” and again, alec is not going to go into the details of his relationship with his mom who killed magnus’ people, so it’s a little silent and awkward again, but they can again draw comfort from each other just from being together in silence and cuddling and shit

me? talking about malec cuddling in a maryse post? it’s more likely than you think

for a while alec and izzy do this weird dance around each other where they’re both like “you’re overworking yourself, want a break?” without actually acknowleding it because they know that if they actually tried they would both just keep uno +4 carding each other like “oh so why don’t you talk about how you feel?” “well why don’t you talk about how you feel?” “well but why don’t you talk abou-” 

i think izzy might be the one to break first. if anything, because alec’s Big Brother instincts mean that he doesn’t want to come to her to cry his woes, because he feels like He Should Be The One To Protect Her. and she’s like “alec, i’m not a child, you can talk to me. and if we aren’t going to face this together, who are we going to face it with?” and alec just looks at her with that intense stare and izzy goes, “i feel disappointed in myself because a part of me is so happy that she finally cared about something i was creating” and just like that, alec’s walls are gone

he finally gets to really talk about how he feels with the whole maryse and magnus thing and admit that a part of him is also happy that she asked and that it sucks and he hates it and feels weak, basically 

lightwood siblings mutual support because we are all about that shit! who’s maryse again

anyway max is kinda their bridge for a while, not even intentionally, but alec and izzy get to get used to the idea that maryse is trying because he tells them about it and he gets to see the small changes in maryse’s behavior you know? and so alec and izzy hear about that

it’s also probably because of max that they get to see her again, i mean, they are all family. and they’re both kinda bracing for some emotionally loaded interactions at the very least 

but instead she has like kind of accepted that they don’t feel comfortable with her and that it’s her fault for using them instead of protecting them most of their lives so she leaves them be beyond the pleasantries and they find themselves... relaxing? not enough to talk to her but just to be able to breathe in her presence which is already a lot

so this goes on for a while. also, maryse does end up genuinely trying to help in the anti-valentine crusade, but like, she’s respectful about it? she definitely isn’t taking charge or going after downworlders when they couldn’t trust her, but she has A- intel because she knew him for most of his life and can help predict what he thinks (as can luke) and B- fierceness and willingness to do what he’s told. the fact that whenever a downworlder like luke or magnus tells her what to do she just nods and does as she’s told earns her a lot of points. she also doesn’t demand their trust in any way and doesn’t ask for any information so that helps even if of course it’s still tense for everyone involved. but maryse understands and acknowledges this. in this case the shadowhunter training also helps because she is very used to dealing with following orders, not being told things, and tense/uncomfortable environments lol so that means that she can be there without putting her shadowhunter fragility all over the place or demanding things she doesn’t have the right to

also whenever people ask her why she’s doing this (which happens frequently since you know. why does maryse lightwood care) she says that just accepting her punishment is not enough to undo her mistakes. she is responsible for this mess and it’s on her to help take it down as well as she possibly can

so slowly she starts to gain trust? and slowly her relationship with them both mends

i’m unsure whether alec or izzy would forgive her first. a part of me wants to say izzy because again, i feel like she is really desperate for maryse’s approval, while alec’s whole thing is that he's over needing it. i mean obviously alec is still human and like i said, a family man, so of course he also wants maryse to approve of him and them both to have a good relationship even if he hates that he does. but he’s been working too hard to break out of needing to be on maryse’s good books to start now. in a way, having maryse’s approval is almost triggering because he’s coming to associate maryse’s pride on him with his own suffering

but on the other hand, alec is a family man, and he was closer to maryse than izzy, so i could also see him being the one to forgive her first. maybe he is the one who gets back to talking to her first, but izzy is the one who once starts mending their relationship lowers her guard for real? while alec still has like... snappy and defensive tendencies (which are perfectly valid and healthy of him to have)? you know? like once izzy is like fine let’s give her a chance she actually does, while alec takes a long, long time to lower his guard, and that only happens like, way after valentine is defeated and magnus starts feeling more comfortable around maryse (obviously magnus and maryse won’t ever be BFFs, but over time he can handle her presence, you know? make small talk, have a sorta “i have my mom-in-law but what can we do” dynamic)

and yeah those are my thoughts? it takes some years for them to actually have a good relationship but it builds slowly and maryse does do her homework as much as possible so that’s nice

again, thank you so much for this question and i hope you like my answer

EDIT: here's some more on alec's response to the whole thing. thank you, anon!

[thebookwyrmsnook]

Fate: A Winx Saga

I’m not quite sure what I was expecting for this one. It’s a fine enough story with the Winx name slapped onto it. It’s somehow exactly what you expect, when you finally look past what you originally thought it would be.

More below~

If you grew up watching the fairy fable like I did, you know that Winx was a product of its time. Like many early 2000s shows aimed towards girls, it was all glitz/glamour, boy crazes, magic and overall girl power. It was by no means groundbreaking, but it stole a special place in my childhood’s heart.

So, when I heard through the grapevine that they were going to do a live action show, I was interested to see what they might do! Sure, it would no doubt lose some of it’s glittery charm, but the show had plenty of good characters and themes to latch onto, right?

Well, not quite. When the trailer dropped, the smile I had from the cool logo slid completely off of my face. What I saw was exactly what every other reboot/live action remake seems to do. It was darker, edgier, a very “not your parent’s show” type of thing. Immediately, I knew that Winx had somehow gotten the Archie/Riverdale treatment. 

So how was the actual show? In truth, not bad. Once you looked past the fact that they shamelessly slapped familiar names (both in it’s title and a few of it characters), the story is fine. It’s a fish-out-of-water-protagonist-who-finds-out-they’re-the-powerful-chosen-one story. It’s Harry Potter, it’s Star Wars, it’s Eragon and all those stories we have seen before. I honestly think that that is the show’s biggest strength, and it’s detrimental flaw.

We’ve seen this all before. We have the fish out of water chosen one, we have the snooty popular girl, we have the hot guy that the two previously named girls fight over, we have the cool hipster type that uses music as a personality, we have the sweet and innocent one who finally stands up for herself, and we have the “everyone has secrets” theme. This show is just a million common tropes for young adult media smushed together, but this one is fairy themed~

So what’s the storyline? Well, like the cartoon, Bloom is a fairy who was placed on earth and discovered by someone (in the cartoon it was Stella, establishing their friendship quickly) but in the live show, I don’t think they said who found her. She goes to Alfea to learn magic, and the adventure begins.

Alfea is a magic school set in the “Other World” which are now countries, instead of planets like they were in the cartoon. Also in the cartoon, fairies’ magic attacks were based on specific attributes (fire, sun, nature, technology, music etc);  however, all of the girls seemed to be able to do basic other spells/hexes. In Fate, however, it seemed like there were the three elements (water, fire and earth) with a few exceptions (one electricity fairy, a few mind (mind readers basically), Stella, and whatever the headmistress was). And that’s all they could do. Disappointingly, the show about magic, didn’t properly explain or explore the rules of magic.

But Alfea also houses the Specialists, a group of non-magical fighters who team with the fairies to fight the monsters and evils of the world. In the cartoon, that was a separate school for boys only, and where the main love interests for the main girls lived. In the live action show, however, the Specialists are open to both genders. Which makes sense, since the show writers had to condense their stories down (including cutting the witches out) into 8 hour long episodes. So if they weren’t world building, what were they doing?

They were delving into the social ecosystem of our main characters. All five of our leading ladies got their own arc, no matter how rushed that made everything feel. Aisha went from Bloom’s protector to a roadblock in her way. Terra (Flora’s little sister?) was the sweet girl who finally stood up for herself. Which I can appreciate, since it’s nice and an easy story to have going on in the background. Plus Terra easily had some of the best dialogue in the show. Musa (now a Mind fairy) had it the worst. She kept pushing people away, and we find out pretty quick that she’s an Empath that doesn’t know how to to tune out her magic, except when she’s listening to music. Which makes sense, and I was ready for that to be her entire thing, especially since that worked really well. But then, in the last episode they threw something else in completely, and ruined it all for me, personally. Stella’s had really good potential. Her mother, the apparent ultimate Queen, had high expectations, and taught Stella in a results-driven way; giving way to anxiety and lack of proper control for Stella. Which is a great story, but this show isn’t really her story, it’s Bloom’s. So, it got pushed to the side.

Bloom’s was the best timed, given that hers took the entirety of the episodes. Like Bloom in the original show, she was trying to solve where she came from, who she is, and just what her powers were. In Fate, Bloom is just a powerful fire fairy, which kind of killed a lot of the original Bloom’s story (given that there’s a reason she’s that powerful in the cartoon). Not to mention that the teachers kept trying to drill “magic comes from your emotions and positive feelings are better” into both our and Bloom’s mind. Which is immediately squashed by the fact that Bloom’s earth parents were kind of... abusive? Anyways, she wants to know where she comes from, but everyone is keeping it a secret. By the end, when she kind of figures it out, I was elated right there with her... that is until it was thrown in our face that the story she was just told was a lie (we know that, but she doesn’t).

That had to be the second biggest flaw to this show. The writers seemed to be hellbent on trying to pull the rug out from under the audience as many times as they could. We learn to trust nobody, not the headmistress, not the teachers, not her friends (except to change their minds every five minutes but we’ll get to that), there was no one we could trust. Meaning, that we never truly figure out the truth about anything, making the resolution feel hollow and unearned. They leave it open to say “I’m happy where I am but I’m going to keep looking for the truth” when we were hardly two steps away from where we had started.

The story could have progressed if her friends didn’t flip and flop so much. While the audience and Bloom are getting yanked around with promises of answers, her friends only see parts of the truth (cause Bloom keeps forgetting to invite her friends to the party) and so they are constantly flip flopping on whose “side” they are on. I honestly got emotional whiplash for that. I’m all about the “good intentions but misguided friends” trope, but that was not a good execution of that.

Overall, Fate is a fine story. It’s cliched and everything you have seen before in a young adult show/movie. It doesn’t world build fully, and it honestly feels like scenes are missing. It honestly left me feeling a little let down. But, some of the dialogue is snappy (namely from Terra), and some of the characters are great (namely Terra). But the original cartoon, despite it’s cheesy-ness, is the clear winner in my mind. 

[danwhobrowses]

10 Things that would’ve Improved the Game of Thrones Final Season (For Me)

So it came to my attention that recently it was the First Anniversary of the Final Episode of HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’. I was taken back to my memory of the BinGOT thing we had at work where we all made predictions of who lived, died and ‘won’ from the last ep (I was in 2nd or 3rd place). And since my mother has started binging it during quarantine I thought in the spirit of that environment I’d discuss a little what I would’ve changed in the final season.

Spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 8 Below, if you haven’t watched it then you’re better off not reading this frankly, if you haven’t been spoiled already at least.

So for starters, the final episode is not the worst tv I’ve ever seen, it just was a sloppy final season in general that really didn’t satisfy the 2 years of hype waiting for it, it’s like with the How I Met Your Mother finale, but that annoyance being more than one episode. But without further ado here are 10 things I would’ve changed about the final season Note: Most will involve the finale. The first 2 episodes were great.

10 - Ten Episodes The Long Night was 1 episode, the LONG NIGHT. A Culmination of the army of living and dead confined into one episode. One of the main problems with the final season was that the pacing was a bit rushed, it made character progression seem unnatural and dropped long-built plot points like water through a sieve. With 10 episodes, which was not a big ask given that this was the usual number and the gravitas of it being the final season would easily allow it to be green lit. D&D immediately backed themselves into a corner by giving a limit they weren’t used to and too much content to put in.

9 - Bite of the Spider Varys’ death was an upsetting start of the penultimate episode, while I would’ve loved him to have survived start to end and potentially ended on top (because he’s never shown to be as cunning or dangerous as he is in the books) there was some sense in him dying. However, Varys was shown sending a letter before his arrest and that never came back up, the finale could’ve used this by revealing to the public Jon’s true heritage, which would’ve immediately undermined Dany’s claim and set up a better conflict. Also we never knew what the voice in the flames said to him...

8 - A More Fitting Long Night While everyone probably popped hard for Arya killing the Night King, myself included, the nature of it was rather abrupt. I don’t think anyone can buy that she sneaked past that entire army. I do feel like the Night King was just a MacGuffin for the Long Night, given that he did so little in the actual fight. This is where a multi-part Long Night would’ve been key as well, going from the Night King being immune to Dragonfire to dying a bit later was not a good pace, and we lacked any conflict with Jon like we teased twice, Arya probably wasn’t the most poetic person to kill him either but GoT seldom did poetic deaths (Joffrey, Cersei, Euron). While the Long Night had exemplary deaths like Theon, Lyanna, Jorah and Beric, the Night King fell among the ranks of Melisandre and Edd in terms of meh deaths. The Long Night should’ve been a bigger bloodbath than it was, half the Dothraki somehow survived remember, we didn’t get to see Ghost fight at all either, no giant spiders, a lot of the tension was lost with the way some fight scenes were filmed; it was too easy to read between the lines and not enough characters had any true ‘oh god this person could die’ scenes.

7 - Resolution for the Characters we didn’t See and Plots unresolved With so much funding and finality in the show, there felt like there could’ve been more stuff that could’ve been resolved; what was the Quaith’s prophecy about? What really happened with the Doom of Valyria? Why does Dragonglass and Valyrian steel kill White Walkers? What is Daario doing after Dany died? Were the Faceless Men really that okay with letting Arya wander around knowing their skillset? Nobody hired them to help in the war either. What happened to the remnants of that warlock dude who stole the baby dragons, they sent one scorpion and that’s it, what happens with the Little Birds now that they’re leaderless? Who was Azor Ahai? What were the spirals about? There are a lot of questions the show kinda just, ignored. 

6 - The Mad Queen So, Dany going from ‘I’ll stop if they surrender’ to ‘Burn them fucking all’ was abrupt for many, the majority of fans were not ready or willing to accept turning on their Kaleesi in just one episode. While I could see the conclusion coming from being jumped, losing another ‘child’ and her closest friend as well as her new boyfriend being her nephew and a legitimate threat to her legitimacy despite already pledging fealty, Dany’s descent could’ve used more time, and less naivety.  While the death of the dragon was a huge shock, the idiocy fell on Dany in thinking that Cersei would play fair and wouldn’t try to occupy Dragonstone while she abandoned it. There also fell inconsistency when the same fleet and rows of Scorpion crossbows suddenly got Stormtrooper aim during ‘The Bells’. Euron is a renowned sailor, he ruined a Dornish fleet in a previous season, he may be an annoying bastard but you have to treat his naval tactics with a bit more respect - and make Dany less stupid with Cersei doing Cersei things. A lot of people definitely needed more time in buying the idea that Dany had lost her cool and that she blamed all of Westeros to justify burning everyone unashamedly.

5 - Proper Redemption We all know who we’re talking about. Jaime, Jaime, Jaime. In the end he just proved Olenna’s point didn’t he? And his turn away from redemption was only to serve as an example point for Tyrion to use to convince Jon to kill Dany. Jaime didn’t have to live, but he didn’t have to die rushing to Cersei’s rescue, or even due to Euron stabbing him. If anything Jaime should’ve died with some Honour, to be the inverse of Ned as he was presented in Season 1.

4 - My Lady does not have to mean M’Lady This is probably the most selfish ones of my 10 but as a shipper at my very heart and soul I wanted one, at least one, ship to survive this entire turmoil and Gendry and Arya were that couple. We almost had it as well, but then for some mad reason D&D decided that Gendry, despite literally saying that “none of it will be worthwhile if you’re not with me”, stayed in Storm’s End. Arya’s character endgame was right in her venturing off not being bound by the fact that she’s a noble, but Gendry spent a lot of time not caring that he was of Kingsblood to basically being his Father’s son. He’ll rule Storm’s End, marry some woman to have kids, but he’ll still have fallen into the same pit as King Robert did. It would’ve been much more satisfying and hopeful if Gendry abandoned the titles and land he never wanted or needed to accompany someone he loves and who loves him back on an adventure into the unknown. She’s not a ‘lady’ if she’s only marrying a blacksmith and love is the death of duty.

3 - Sansa is NOT Smart (and gets what she actually deserves) Right. So I really, really didn’t like Sansa. Like, I get it, she got held hostage by the Lannisters, watched her father get beheaded, got accused of murder, learned that her brother and mother died, watched the guy who fancied her mother and kissed her kill her aunt and then got effectively sold to an abuser in an arranged marriage. But Sansa is not the smartest player in the game, it was annoying that they tried to portray her as one, she had one idea that anyone could’ve told you ‘don’t be stupid against Ramsay Bolton’. She spent all of Season 8 mainly giving side eye like a petty bitch, completely trying to undermine Dany despite the two being very very similar (remember Dany was raped, sold off in an arranged marriage and watched family members get killed too) to the point where she was conspiring for Jon to usurp her. And in reality she took her ball and left, she was so pissy that the leaders didn’t pick her to be Queen of Westeros that she literally pointed out her own brother’s infertility, claimed that the North wouldn’t bow to a monarch, then declared herself Queen.  Hide the ‘Yas Queen’ goggles for a sec, this wasn’t empowering she was throwing her own brother under the bus because she wanted to be queen, and she learned far too much from Littlefinger and Cersei’s playbook to actually be a just one. The North is allowed to be an independent nation, but Sansa’s ‘victory’ was more earned by virtue of a lot of shit happened to her than her actually demonstrating qualities to be queen.

2 - Bran Stark can’t come to the Phone right now... While we’re on the subject of Stark children not being fit rulers, Bran. What a cockamamie decision that was. I was 100% behind the destruction of the Iron Throne, but the chorus of laughter with a democratic rule was a bit of a slap in the face. Of all the choices though, Bran had to be near the bottom, it felt completely unearned that he spent literal seasons disconnecting from the world even to the point where he told Meera and Sam that Bran Stark is no longer here anymore only for Bran Stark to magically resurface when a crown is in waiting. I think it defeats the whole Three Eyed Raven thing too, the guy isn’t really one for the people, which is the problem every other ruler before him failed at. If you can’t pick a just person to lead, then why not a council instead? Just using Bran was a poor and messy decision.

1 - THE MOTHERFUCKING VALONQUAR One of the few expectations across all of Game of Thrones was the wondering over whether Cersei was gonna get what’s coming to her, the Maggy the Frog prophecy was going along quite well up until the Valonquar bit, where the younger sibling that was going to choke the life out of her was: bricks. BRICKS! Of all the long-winded prophecy foreshadowings to drop this one was the worst, Cersei (and Jaime) died in underwhelming, thoughtless fashion, the lack of fanfare on killing off one of the best and most ‘love to hate’ villains in the show only cemented the fact that the finale was not able to live up to the hype. True, most of these are small changes, but it’s worth remembering that there was some good coming out of the final season and it was the lack of those little things and attention to detail that led to the season ending on an underwhelming note.

We did however get a good ton of memes out of it, and at work a long-winded discussion on who should get the ‘winner’ 5-points (compared to the 1 correct points) since we had technically agreed that the 5 points goes to “whoever correctly guesses who sits on the Iron Throne” XD I still can’t believe I was right in Drogon melting the throne though that was one in a million

[clexa--warrior]

In the earliest days of the Trump crisis, just about a month after the inauguration, I received the horrifying news that my best friend and podcast partner, Chez Pazienza, had died of a drug overdose.

This article was originally published at Salon

It was the evening of Feb. 25, 2017, and the shock still hasn’t quite worn off. In fact, I ask myself nearly every day what Chez might’ve said about the most recent atrocity committed by the chief executive. I’ll never know for sure, but there’s something comforting in that exercise, imagining how he’d frame this dark ride with equal parts Gen-X angst, stinging Bourdain-ish erudition and artistically worded blue streaks that would’ve made George Carlin applaud.

I’m convinced, however, that it wasn’t really an overdose that killed him. Sure, it was the weapon of choice, but it wasn’t the ultimate cause of death. Chez possessed the ability to foresee this Trump crisis stretched out in front of him — maybe not the specifics, but a general concept in his big brain for the horror show that was awaiting us. I believe it was the crushing reality of not only being force-fed a Trump presidency every day but also covering it professionally that forced him to drift back to his old addictions to ease the pain. And I wish more than anything that I could have stopped him.

Nevertheless, Chez could clearly see the incoming abuses, the crimes, the ungainly nonsense, the recklessness, the racism, the petty vindictiveness — all of it.

In 2015, he accurately forecast that Trump, if elected, would spitefully withhold federal funding from regions that refused to support his cruel whimsy. Naturally, we’ve watched this play out with Puerto Rico, California and most recently Pennsylvania, where Trump, this week, threatened to withhold funding for the commonwealth because of Gov. Tom Wolf’s COVID plan. In Trump’s view, responsible leadership is worthy of punishment because it makes him look bad by contrast, while incompetence, mainly his own, is routinely lionized.

Trump’s blinding dumbness in the areas of history, the Constitution, the presidency and democratic institutions has infected him with an ugly, bastardized view of his job description, inflamed by his own biases and whatever he’s picked up from watching cable news. He’s a presidential dilettante, even now, nearly four years into the gig.

His wafer-thin understanding of presidential leadership contributes to his most self-defeating misapprehension: that he’s only the president of the red states. Everyone else is the enemy, even more so than our actual overseas adversaries — surely more than Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin, whom Trump praises more often than many of his fellow citizens and colleagues. The rest of us are only useful to him as punching bags and targets for his screechy, obscene, misspelled tweets and, more recently, his fascist police force. The upside of his deformed view of the presidency is that if he loses this election, it’ll partly be because he refused to expand his support beyond his loyalists.

This is one of the reasons why he felt compelled to cheat in the 2020 election by attempting to blackmail the president of Ukraine into smearing Joe Biden — a plot that ended with Trump’s impeachment and trial in the Senate. After all, how could he win re-election with only 40-44 percent popular support without making up the difference … somehow?

His relationship with his disciples is a match made in hell, given that his Red Hat fanboys have an equally stunted view of the presidency. I assure you, they’d never allow Trump-style behavior from their doctors, their kids’ teachers or, hell, their airline pilots. If they hadn’t been so badly brainwashed by the conservative entertainment complex, they never would have gifted the nuclear codes and the immense power of the presidency to such an unstable, erratic, incompetent political tourist who has utterly failed to grow into the job and rise to the occasion — who has failed to accept the intense gravity of his post. As Barack Obama said in August, “It’s because he can’t.”

At no other time has that been more evident than in Trump’s response to the pandemic. For the first two years of his presidency, many of us sat on the edge of our seats wondering when Trump would be seriously challenged either by a military threat, a terrorist attack or a global pandemic. From the moment Hillary Clinton conceded, I suspected this buffoonish greenhorn would be put to the test and fail badly. I never imagined that his reaction, untethered from experts, would be quite this calamitous.

His response to the hurricanes that collided with Puerto Rico represented a harrowing preview of how he’d handle the pandemic. I was convinced at the time that he was at least temporarily unaware that Puerto Rico was even part of the United States. I mean, how could he have been so thoughtless and unsympathetic to actual Americans? Turns out, he probably knew — he just didn’t give a shit. Never before has a modern president behaved so callously toward a devastated population of his own people, hurling paper towels at their heads as if he were firing a T-shirt cannon at a college basketball pep rally. Today, the island territory continues to rebuild despite Trump’s reprehensible indifference.

America is better than this. We’re better than him.

There have to be consequences for his indifference to the destruction in Puerto Rico as well as the 225,000 casualties of COVID-19 (and counting). Neither should have happened here. But this is what it looks like when the president and his people fail to do the paint-by-numbers things in response to a crisis — things that so many other presidents managed to achieve. Had Trump listened to the experts at the CDC and WHO, thousands of Americans would still be alive today and we might have been free and clear of this blight by now. Instead, Trump listened to the entertainers on Fox News, not to mention the shrieking voices in his head, convincing him to abandon the effort at exactly the wrong time — in April, at the initial height of the infection curve.

Before giving up, he applied travel restrictions to China, but it was too little too late. Forty thousand people arrived in the United States from China by flying through Europe and landing in New York, magnifying the catastrophic outbreak there. After that, Trump did nothing else to slow the spread, making George W. Bush’s 2005 response to Hurricane Katrina look masterful by comparison. Now, eight months into this disaster, Trump continues to ignore the rules, ignore safety protocols and ignore the experts, holding maskless, undistanced rally after rally, fueling his own ego, even after being infected himself. And there’s no end in sight.

Win or lose, his bungled, herky-jerky reaction to the pandemic will be remembered as the defining failure of his presidency, and it’s the No. 1 reason why he deserves nothing but ignominy and prison.

Rather than accepting the challenge and rising to meet it, as any other president would have, he’s spent all these months of national stress, uncertainty and illness not comforting or proactively leading the American people, but whining, whining and whining some more about how COVID ruined his presidency. Solving the pandemic could have been his greatest achievement — but Trump always makes things worse for Trump. Undermining himself and then playing the victim when things go sideways is the only thing he’s good at.

He possesses the most brittle ego of any president since Richard Nixon — one of many character flaws that undermine his self-identification as a manly alpha. Indeed, he’s nothing more than an easily-ruffled snowflake who constantly bellyaches about how “unfair” the world treats him — you know, the alleged billionaire president. So unfair.

Donald Trump has redefined what it means to be an empty suit. He talks an enormous game, but in reality his entire record is composed of failures and stolen successes. He claims to understand things he’s never able to explain openly or in any detail. Accordingly, he’s obsessed with repealing the Affordable Care Act, but only because it was Barack Obama’s signature achievement, not because it’s bad policy — and it’s not bad policy, he just says it is and his fanboys believe him.

If challenged, I’d wager a year’s salary he couldn’t name anything in the law beyond the mandate and the coverage for pre-existing conditions. I’m sure he doesn’t know about the myriad consumer protections or the mandatory benefits, or how the low-income subsidies work or the Medicaid expansion or the marketplaces — none of it. Yet he’s seeing to it that the entire thing is obliterated mid-pandemic when Americans need coverage the most. He definitely doesn’t know that coverage for pre-existing conditions is made possible, for example, by placing caps on premiums and co-pays, while banning rescission and lifetime limits on coverage. Worst of all, he doesn’t know that many of his own voters are covered today because of the ACA.

Between the pandemic and the possible repeal of the ACA, America is physically sick. And because of Donald Trump, we’re spiritually sick, too. He doesn’t understand that the president sets the tone for the nation. He’ll never grasp that the way he communicates influences the way we communicate with each other. His constant firehose of crapola encourages others to let their hatred, racism and obnoxious, crazy-eyed antagonism fly freely — playing out in our public spaces and on our social media platforms every damn day.

Trump has debased the presidency, replacing decency and humility with unearned self-praise and horrendous sadism. Our nation’s most cherished values and institutions have been randomly crushed by this 90-foot kaiju monster for too long. His constant antagonism has turned father against son, mother against daughter, family against family. Over what? The damaging misadventures of a political fraud — a garish old brat who bankrupted his businesses, defrauded Americans with his sham foundation and university and is currently bankrupting the U.S. treasury while establishing himself as a Putin-style kleptocrat.

In 1860, our nation nearly crumbled under the weight of slavery and secession. Today, our nation is on the verge of collapse under the weight of a painted-up clown whose performative fascism has led to the extrajudicial murder of American citizens on American soil; the use of Homeland Security as a secret police force tasked with assaulting Americans in advance of awkward photo-ops; the use of the Department of Justice as a personal law firm; taxpayer revenue as a personal slush fund; and, worst of all, the construction of internment camps for Central American migrant children, where some have been raped by American guards. Rivaled only by the pandemic response, the Trump Cages are the most disgusting and unforgivable aspect of this presidential crisis.

The 2020 election is about ending all that, while beginning the process of a second Reconstruction — rebuilding our government in a way that guarantees this will never happen again, while convening a Trump Crimes Commission to hold the perpetrators accountable. Part of that process is about remembering what happened here, in this era. There will be voices who insist we should move on and forget about all this ugliness. We would do well to ignore those voices. The minute we forget the damage he’s inflicted upon us all, the next Trump will be waiting to strike.

Indeed, the only way to move on is to punish the crimes and plug the holes. We have no choice but to use this dark ride — one that took my friend Chez and many thousands of others — as an opportunity to repair the gaping Trump-shaped craters in the system exposed and exploited by this unqualified, disgracefully unpresidential and obviously unglued president. If Joe Biden and Kamala Harris successfully oust Trump, a week from today, the Trump crisis will be on its way to ending, while the hard work of cleaning up the mess will begin. In both the election and the aftermath, we cannot fail. Everything depends on what happens next.

[lizacstuff]

Anons 7x06

Lots of anons in my inbox, a few under the cut. The tone of most asks is not complimentary towards the season or episode, you have been warned. 

Anonymous said:Seems like there must not be a lot of Regina fans out there, despite the ER making a lot of noise. Demos held steady. 

I wouldn’t count those numbers before they’re hatched.  Sound like the show was preempted in certain markets (Boston, a huge DMA, for one) so the numbers should be adjusted for that when the nationals come out on Monday. Right now OUAT is getting credit for whatever replacement programming the affiliate put in it’s place. 

Anonymous said:I'm seeing that for some areas the episode got pushed back till early Saturday morning. Do they take into account when figuring out the ratings? I'm already seeing ERs complaining about it and saying if the ratings are bad that's the only reason why. 😒

See above. The overnights (today's ratings) include viewership for whatever aired in OUAT’s place.  Monday they should adjust to reflect more accurately how many people watched the actual episode. They are right, though, in it negatively impacting the live numbers. However, it shouldn't really impact the L+3 or L+7 numbers. 

Anonymous said:Is it bad that I laughed outloud when I saw that Regina gave everything Ivy she needed to cast her curse? Just like the time Regina pushed Lily too far and she turned into a dragon and endanger the town? Or the time she told Zelena to go after Hades and change him and refused to listen to anyone's concerns and everyone almost ended up trapped in Hell? I'm surprised the writer's still don't see the pattern like fans do.

Even without malicious intentions, she’s a disaster who ruins everyone’s lives. It’s bizarre that the writers continually follow the pattern, but never have Regina question her own judgement when she’s doing it. Whatever else happens, Regina makes emotional, unilateral decisions that usually end up biting other people in the ass. 

Anonymous said:Why would Regina stop henry for having a tlk with jacinda to break the curse? they don't have chemistry but they have been written as tl, at least make them kiss to destroy this stupid season one for all

Because Ivy did something, that Regina remembers, that will put the people that Regina “loves” in jeopardy if the curse is broken.  We don’t know who is in jeopardy or how. 

Anonymous said:So the reboot it's all Regina's fault? Why am I not surprised? Having Henry all for her and without snowing and captain swan, obviously a villain like her was behind this

Regina isn’t being purposefully villainous, but her stupid choices have landed them in this position.

Anonymous said:So regina thought she never adopted a child and its now forced to live with him not knowing her and can't break the curse?? Also her soulmate still dead and she is away from sb and her "family"&"friends"? Hahahahahaha karma is a beautiful thing!!! So she is alone and miserable and childless? Jefferson, snowing of the early seasons and the whole ef1 is laughing and partying

I suppose she is getting a little bit of karmic retribution, but I wouldn’t consider her knowing Henry is her adult son, and still being close to him even though he doesn't know, as quite the same thing as orphaning Emma and Snowing missing out on raising her or knowing her for 28 years.  

Anonymous said:Its weird since I thought Shoe Believer had an okay start in the beginning. It wasn't anywhere near CS or Snowing but they were still okay. With every episode they just feel more and more dull and forced.

I always thought it was forced, particularly in the pilot, but I thought it might grow as the season progressed. I’m not feeling it.  They are telling us it’s true love, not showing us.  Unlike CS, Snowing or RB where we saw those relationships develop over time, this feels completely unearned, and a TLK would be like  Zades or Red Warrior where it feels like complete out-of-nowhere nonsense.  CS had to go through multiple seasons of trials and tribulations, both proving they would go to the end of the world or time for one another, before the show would even whisper True Love at them.  The writers have lost their mojo when it comes to writing a love story.

Anonymous said:After this weeks episode I'm more thankful than ever that Regina is far away from Captain Swan and everyone in storybrooke. They don't need to suffer the consequences of someone who has failed as a queen and a mayor.

Honestly, it being canon that Regina and Rumple are out of Storybrooke, is the silver lining to S7.  

Anonymous said:I’m kind of confused , since 7x02 I’ve been trying to keep up with show . But I haven’t been paying that much attention ( I usually just put it on the tv while I’m on my computer or something, so it’s really just background noise ) but I do have a question, who is that hag in lady tremaine’s basement thing ? And also ..... can you list the people who are aware that there was a curse / who’s now awake . Cuz I can’t keep up

That’s the witch.  Right now I think the only characters awake are Ivy, Regina, and sometimes Alice when she isn’t on medication.  I could be wrong though, because my ability to stay focused during this show has not been great. 

Anonymous said:I stopped watching s7 after 7x02 but as someone who still watches it/keeps tabs on it do you know if the timeline is explained like now that Lucy is born and is 10 years old does that mean captain swan's child is around that age or is Emma still pregnant cause time moves differently?

They haven’t really answered that question yet as far as I know. My gut is that very little time has passed in Storybrooke and as we speak Captain Swan is preparing for their baby. But that’s my gut, not fact. 

Anonymous said:I'm so mad - this was the last drop for me with this show. I have been watching S7 for Colin (I'm a Nielsen family and my viewing does count for the ratings) but what they had Henry say last night was the last straw. Swan Believer and their amazing dynamic in season 1 was what kept me watching the show (until CS came along ) and to have to see the writers IGNORE what was once the backbone of the original show (Emma/Henry) to prop an abusive mother/son relationship is absolute bullshit.

cont - previous ask about Swan Believer. I feel sorry for Colin and for the cast and crew, but from now on I will not be watching the show anymore. Nothing about it excites me/makes me happy. It feels like a chore. And these writers do NOT deserve to get renewed nor to get anymore chances to ruin their own canon of what was once a beautiful show.

Describing it as a chore is pretty spot on. I understand you wanting to watch for Colin (especially as a Nielsen household) but you gotta do what’s right for you.  That line seemed completely unnecessary. There were a lot of ways they could have had a nice mother/son moment without going there. 

Anonymous said:I just saw a gifset of Regina waking up from the curse. So that's really the reaction she chose to go with? She really hasn't seemed to grasp the subtleties of acting, has she?

No, she has not. However, I have to say that Lana’s acting as Roni in Hyperion Heights this episode was the least of the episode’s problems. 

Anonymous said:Did you see any of Lana's answers to her fans on Twitter? Besides laughing at the idea of her wanting to do a remake of Silence of the Lambs and play Clarice, when she was asked what she's learned from Bex she said that red heads have more fun than blondes. I imagine in this situation you answer these questions quickly and don't contemplate on your answers, but wow did that seem like a dig. And if you look through the comments all of her rabid fans seemed to think so too and were loving it.

I thought a more accurate tweet would have been  “Red heads kiss my ass better than blondes."  ‘Cause Bex has had her lips permanently affixed to her ass for years now, just the way Lana likes it. 

Anonymous said:I'm indifferent about Wish Hook, and I wouldn't mind if his daughter was Alice and they got a storyline together, but they got nowhere in this episode? And going by the promo, the mess of the wish realm strikes again as Wish Hook was realm-traveling apparently. How did a non-wish Rapunzel from a separate realm come across someone who didn't exist until present-day 6x10? This is unexplainable.

Do we know that Rapunzel is from a separate realm and not from the Wish Realm?  It would be unbelievable to think that WishHook left the WISHAU before it was created with EQ’s “wish” in 6x10.  I think looking for any sort of logic or even in-universe fairy tale logic to make sense of anything to do with the WishRealm, including WishHook, is an exercise in futility.

It simply doesn’t make sense, and each episodes they change the rules to accommodate anything they want to do.  Of course I think it’s nonsense, but I’d still rather this and have CS safely tucked away from this ridiculous season, than have them using the real Hook this season.  Because honestly I don’t care about the integrity of the storytelling in S7, I only care about CS. (though that doesn’t stop me from poking fun at it.)

Anonymous said:I honestly was not one bit surprised when Colin said he was still under contract this season, but at the same time I do believe he enjoys playing this character and I'm sure he feels loyal to the show, it has been his big break. But I have to believe with the storylines and the material he's given, if not already, then by the end of filming he'll probably be in the same mind frame as Bobby. 100% only there for a paycheck. I just hope his agent is actively seeking better opportunities for him.

We really don’t know what he’s thinking or feeling, but low ratings have got to affect things on set in some way, so it sucks if he’s in any kind of stressful environment.  Even if it’s just them getting pressured to send out scripted PR tweets for each episode. On the upside, other than 7x02, he’s been in these eps so rarely, that I’d guess he’s not working more than 1-2 days per episode, which probably means a lot of time that he can be home with his family and newborn.  It might be a blessing for them right now. As I said we can’t know, but I just wish the best for him and his future career.

Anonymous said:Was there something wrong with the Rogers' scenes? I thought they were pretty decent, especially his interactions with Alice.

To all my anons wanting to know about Rogers scenes, you’ll have to come off anon if you want to chat about it. 

[sweetcloverheart]

I posted 12,154 times in 2022

That's 2,054 more posts than 2021!

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I tagged 8,738 of my posts in 2022

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Longest Tag: 126 characters

#more like bruce calls up clark and goes ''hey i think lex is trying to clone you again have you been to fawcett city before?''

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Clover Rants Miraculously: Nope, still hate it

(This is more me venting then anything really. Spoilers below!)

Okay, to properly explain why I greatly dislike “Lila and Chloe are more evil than Gabriel” thing, I need you all to think back to the olden internet days when you would read those fanfics where the writer clearly and obviously wrote one half of their NOTP as a raging jerk/yandere psychopath to justify their preferred OTP/Self-Insert character and fav character getting together.

Did you imagine it? Did you remember how cringey and eyeroll-inducing you found it?

That’s how I feel about the whole “These two teenage girls are more monstrous and capable of greater villainy than the established magical terrorist super villain who emotionally abuses his son”.

Because it’d be one thing if Lila and Chloe becoming a supervillain criminal girlboss duo just for the hell of it was being done as a way to expand on their characters and explore new plot territory - That I don’t mind at all and would 1100% be down with. But instead, it’s very clearly and obviously being used to help hype up Gabriel’s frankly unearned in my opinion “redemption arc” because instead of writing Gabemoth showing actual remorse for his actions and eventually turning himself in or having him have this “too late now” moment that ends in his defeat and the slow realization that he destroyed his and his son’s lives for nothing, we are instead treated to the show repeated screaming at us that the two teenage bullies (both of whom could be very easily dealt with if the adults surrounding them did their jobs and forced them to face consequences for said bullying) are clearly the greater threats here, what with their constant scheming to...*checks plot* ruin the day of a girl they don’t like while trying to steal her boyfriend via lies and one of said girl’s parent’s money, which is clearly leagues more evil than...*checks plot again* magically controlling your son through the ring that’s literally tied to his life, while abusing the sentient cosmic entities you stole (well, actually your teenaged nephew stole them for you, but I digress) as you forcibly use their powers to buff up your magically transformed croonies to help them fight the pair of magical teenagers who’s magical jewelry you’re trying to steal.

It’s so obvious they can’t be bothered to make Gabriel into the 3D villain they claim he is, so their only option is to drag down the other antagonists so they’re “more evil” and make all the terrible and awful stuff he’s done on screen seem “minimal”/less bad than it is. That’s why Chloe’s “worse than usual” and Lila’s collecting moms and alternate identities like pokemon cards - not for actual plot development and character progression, but so that the writers can prop up Gabriel as this “misguided saint” who “only did what he had to for his family” while shoving his “redemption” through the story and down everyone’s throats. Because it’s the only trick they have in their bags for making a character “good” - make one character super evil/mean so whoever they’re propping up looks better in comparison. They did with the Zoe/Chloe comparisons, they did it with Felix’s intro, they’re doing it with Nathalie and Gabriel, they’re doing it with Amelie and Emilie (Don’t think I don’t see that nonsense going on with that “The other Princess wants a magic baby because she was overcome with jealousy over her sister” line), and they’re doing it with this.

Like, mark my words, almost every other episode of Season 6 is going to contain at least one character going “Wow, Chrysalis is so evil! Hawkmoth never did something like this!” or “If only Gabriel had kept the butterfly miraculous - he would never abuse it the way Chrysalis has!”

67 notes - Posted December 4, 2022

#4

Does Chloe still work as an Antagonist?

You know, I’ve come to the realization that one of the main issues with Chloe being an antagonist isn’t simply that Thomas doesn’t really use her unless it’s to have the episode follow her around with a big fat giant “Hate this character!” sign (much like he does with Lila and Felix too, I realize, but we might end up off topic so let’s move on), but the fact that once you go past season 2-3, Chloe has...basically no real role in the story anymore as an antagonist

Like, when the plot was contained to the Akuma-of-the-day formula and the slice-of-life stuff, Chloe was a spectacular “villain”, because everything was still very much small scale in terms of stakes, enough so for her to seem a big enough threat to Marinette daily life. After all, Chloe is a titular mean girl, the rich kid school yard bully who just had to flash a credit card or call in daddy dearest to make everyone miserable and leave Marinette and Adrien worrying about what person she’ll end up ticking off bad enough to turn into a Akuma next. It made you hate her, revile her, wish that she’d eventually get her comeuppance (and usually, she did, depending on how the episode ended)

And it worked, because that’s what she was built for, where she fit best.

But then the show expanded it’s stakes by bringing back Lila, who ends up having more influence and doing far more damage than Chloe usually would with her bullying (Like, Chloe for all her threats and insults, is more bark than bite. Lila actually had impact with the trouble she brought to Mari’s door). Then they expand again by introducing Felix, who ends up deepening the whole Gabriel plotline while being an active thorn in his and the heroes side (where as Chloe mostly just existed and was slowly becoming regarded as a nuisance). Then the show actually tried to give Chloe depth and a character arc (which they end up aborting because screw breaking the status quo I guess), showing the reasons for her behavior and that she could actually be decent when given the chance and right motivation. Then season 4 kicks off bringing in Chloe’s half-sister (who we only hear about just that episode) taking her place as the bee hero while Marinette deals with her new responsibilities of being the Miraculous Guardian while Felix is trying to sniff out Gabriel’s secret and - well, you get the picture.

With every raised stake and furthering of the plot, Chloe’s mean teen bullying kind of becomes small potatoes when compared to everything else going on in the show. Who really cares about her taking over a group film project or her trying to get out of playing in a class soccer match when the cast is busy trying to deal with Hawkmoth creating magical sentient doppelgangers, Master Fu getting amnesiaed, Marinette getting stressed out with all her new Guardian responsibilities, who will become today’s temp hero, the overarching mystery of Emilie Agreste and the wedding rings, and Adrien causing the apocalypse (again). Most shows at this point would have their bully character get sent “to military school” or move abroad with a distant unknown aunt, but there Chloe stands, still thinking she’s one of the big kids while the show desperately tries to keep her relevant despite her no longer having a miraculous and no real involvement in the Akumas attacking everyone (actually, now that I think about, Chloe isn’t even responsible for 2/3rds of the Akuma during season 4). We’re suppose to think of her as this powerful malicious force on the same level as Hawkmoth that’s ruining Marinette and everyone’s lives with her very presence because...well, the show says so. Did you not see the giant sign they’re holding over Chloe’s head saying “Hate this character!”? That means you have to hate her no matter what, even when there’s other things to focus on outside of hating her.

Not to mention she’s...very much irrelevant to the plot now. Sure, she still has that “crush” on Adrien/interference with the Adrinette side of the love square, but it hasn’t been a thing or plot-focused in forever, and Lila and Felix (much like with Lila’s bullying) are having and had more effect of that relationship progression than Chloe did. And as said, Zoe taking her place as the Bee hero has removed her from the temp hero plot (unless they plan on having a Chloe VS Zoe battle now that Hawkmoth’s stolen it), and her becoming friends with the rest of the cast had basically edged Chloe out of most of the slice-of-life stuff since “no one likes her anyways”, so there’s no point in involving her in activities they can invite her more “likeable” and nicer half-sibling to (and yeah, Chloe could force her way into those plots, but that’s what it’d end up being - forced). The only real connection she could have to everything still is Sabrina (Who gets barely any screentime as is! She finally becomes a temp hero too once, and is immediately replaced by Felix in the finale episode), and that “budding” relationship with Lila (that is literally last minute with no real build up. I want to say they’ll likely show them becoming “friends” in the fifth season, but knowing the show, it’s just gonna be Chloe playing the Sabrina role to Lila’s Chloe with no real self-reflection or interesting character dynamic exploration...). Hell, despite her betraying Ladybug for Hawkmoth at the end of season 3, almost no reference or callback is made to it, and everyone seems completely unaffected by Chloe brainwashing almost all of Paris considering they’re treating her like normal (in fact, if anything, they only seem just slightly more annoyed with her and her antics now - just not for the reasons stated previously)

And it’s sad. When I see Chloe pulling her usual stunts in the later seasons, I don’t feel the urge to hate and deride her like in season 1. When I see Chloe still trying to be the big bad mean girl bully in a season that had the show’s second apocalypse, sentimonsters being revealed as sentient beings with feelings (and one of the main cast potentially being one), families getting held hostage, and Hawkmoth successfully (with help) grab almost all the miraculous, I feel more bad for her than the other characters, because it’s clear that the show is just simply putting her through the motions since they don’t know what else to do with her now. It’s like watching a parent force their child into a costume that clearly doesn’t fit anymore to do a dumb little performances they liked to as a kid that they’ve clearly outgrown now.

And now we have Season five to wait on (and it’s likely going to be a long wait with all the protests going on about Zag not paying VAs Edit: Congrats to the VAs for succeeding in their protest and getting their raises), where Marinette’s going to be laser focused on getting the stolen Miraculous back, alongside the Emilie plotline still being a thing and Felix’s betrayal opening up a huge can of plot-theory worms - not gonna be much room in there for pull her “wait till my father hears about this!” shtick and leave an impression like before.

Honestly, if Thomas really hates her as much as he claims, he’d of just sent her off to New York with her mom now that they’re “Besties” (by the show’s word) or have her sent abroad for some sort of “fashion scholarship” or something. At this point, Chloe’s run her course as an antagonist and should be retired if they really have no plans of redeeming her or anything.

67 notes - Posted April 3, 2022

#3

I can’t wait for Season 6 of MLB to open with Lila burning down a children’s hospital or kicking puppies or some other wild nonsense before Thomas heads to twitter and posts “So we all agree we don’t like Lila anymore right? :)”

77 notes - Posted November 30, 2022

#2

Clover Rants Miraculously (Because no this actually bothers me)

(I’ve decided to put all my Miraculous salt/complaints under the tag #Clover Rants Miraculously from now on. I’ll go through all my old UOT tag to add the new one to any Miraculous related post)

I love how Felix can screw Marinette and all of Paris over for “Senti-rights” (Despite the fact that Marinette clearly wasn’t even aware Sentimonsters were, in fact, sentient living being, that it’s mostly Gabriel’s fault since he’s specifically making Sentis to die fighting Ladybug and co and has “killed” more than they had (but sure, give him all the Miraculous for the Peacock, dude’s totes earned it), and the one that was “too far” for him was destroying Paris), and get rewarded for it with a shiny new hand-me-down girlfriend and getting to be Marinette’s new good-aligned ally by the end of s5 if the spoilers are to be believed (and with no accountability for any of the nonsense he’s pulled since his intro), and that Gabriel will basically have all evidence of his Hawkmoth activities erased and be given a free pass by the narrative via Ladybug/Marinette keeping his secret to return to his old civilian life (despite learning nothing considering he purposely throws away the Butterfly to spite her despite how merciful she was being to his ungrateful ass)

Meanwhile, Lila and Chloe are basically labeled the most evilest beings on the planet (with the former basically taking the Hawkmoth mantle) not for the actual awful stuff they did (getting Marinette falsely expelled for Lila, near crashing a train for Chloe, and teaming up with Hawkmoth purposely for both), but because...*checks bible* Lila lies, Chloe is a brat, and they both have the audacity to get in the way of Adrienette - ‘Cause only real monsters get in the way of the perfect teen romance!

Just...fantastic. Really loving this guys!

88 notes - Posted October 15, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Things Adrien will never know since he’s not allowed to find out his father’s Hawkmoth

That Gabriel has purposely gone out of his way to upset Adrien’s friends via unfairly punishing him/limiting his freedom solely so he could have an Akuma to use (”Bubbler” and “Chat Blanc”)

That Gabriel once tricked him into believing he had upset his father so he could akumatize himself and keep him and Ladybug from realizing his real identity (”Collector”)

That after akumatizing Gorilla (“Gorizilla”), that he purposely put Adrien’s life in danger and had him thrown from on top a building just so he could find out if he was actually Chat Noir or not (and only changed his mind after Adrien had been thrown and it looked like he wasn’t about to transform to save himself)

Had noticed via his akuma butterflies when Adrien is upset/depressed but did nothing about it

Openly threatened his cousin (Like, feel how you want about Felix, Gabriel still threatened a child)

Has had Paris nearly flooded/burned down/deleted/eeby-deebied/brainwashed/zombie invaded several times while Adrien was outside the house with no idea if he had gotten/might get caught up in the attack (and not seeming to care)

That the few time he did arrange for Adrien to not be around when he was planning something (NY and Shanghai specials, “Risk”, etc.), it was specifically so he could hurt his friends, and usually done at Adrien’s own expense

That Gabriel almost caused WW3 by threatening the world with nukes (NY special)

That his father murdered someone(Or at least had their murder arranged via a gang hit) (Shanghai special)

That Nathalie’s health dove into the negatives specifically because she was helping him with his supervillainy (Yeah, she chose to become Mayura and everything, but this is still someone Adrien considers family here)

Everything about the Grimoire

Went out of his way to manipulate Chloe in “Heart Hunter” (Again, feel however you want, Gabe still purposely made it so Chloe would think Ladybug didn’t want her so he could get her on his side more easily)

Purposely put Lila and him together so she could “keep an eye on him” at his behest

Was the one who instigated Lila into enacting her plan in “Ladybug”, which ended up with Marinette expelled, and all because he considered her a “bad influence” on Adrien

Had twice Akumatized Adrien after he found out about him being Hawkmoth and his mother’s actual fate, just so he could get Ladybug’s miraculous (“Chat Blanc” and “Ephemeral”), which led to the world ending and everyone being dead in one of these scenarios

Has been magically manipulating him into obeying his will (If Senti!Adrien proves to be canon)

Made a deal with Felix to get all the Miraculous the latter stole ( “Strikeback”)

Deliberately chose to focus on stealing the Miraculous instead of taking the opportunity given to him to save his mother and Nathalie from their respective ailments (“Evolution”)

Purposely had him Cataclysm his arm, and near risking making his son a murderer/orphan (“Destruction”)

Kept the Kwamis he stole/kidnapped in cages and called them “slaves”

That the whole “Alliance Ring” nonsense was specifically to help mask his activities as Hawkmoth

And that he mainly just cares about his rivalry with Ladybug now.

169 notes - Posted October 24, 2022

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