#just for some vague mentions of future storylines & character arcs

[markantonys]

i'll be interested to see if this holds true for WOT s3 since the s1 finale had so many extenuating circumstances and can't really be included in the comparison, but based off of the s2 finale, i believe that season finales tend to bear the brunt of "It's Different From The Books!" ire because they are the culmination of all the smaller changes made throughout the season.

this turned into a bigger analysis post than i expected lmao par for the course with my blog! read on for exploration of how the 2x08 conclusion of each season-long arc is the the most emotionally satisfying conclusion and/or the most thematically appropriate conclusion possible based on the show's particular version of the story, plus a bonus tangent on the nature of adaptation.

for a finale episode, the writers' prime concern 100% has to be "wrapping up all the season's arcs in a way that feels satisfying with everything that's happened in the first 7 episodes, using the book version of the finale event as the framework" rather than "recreating the book version of the finale event exactly as it is with all the same scenes and themes". the nature of storytelling inherently means that every single person who tells the same story will focus on different themes (just think of how many versions of the hades & persephone story there are), and a good adaptation knows that being internally consistent with its own Emphasized Themes is more important than copying-and-pasting scenes from the source material without making any changes to account for the specific way this adaptation is telling the story.

(but a lot of people can't even get past this first point because they don't understand that this is how adaptations - how storytelling in general - work. like, person B literally cannot tell the exact same story that person A told without putting their own spin on it. it's not possible! unless they're simply reading out the exact words that person A wrote, which can't be done when putting 14 massive books into maximum 64 hours of tv. so many readers like to meet this point with "but why does the books' version of the story need to be changed at all?" which is just a non-starter because a) medium differences require a ton of changes, and b) even if no changes were *required*, they would happen anyway because that is human nature when it comes to storytelling. when it comes to story-listening too! ask a hundred different book fans what WOT is about and you'll get a hundred different answers. rafe & co can't possibly make an adaptation that captures every single reader's idea of What WOT Is About, and nobody in the world could ever re-tell the story of WOT in the exact same way that RJ told it, not even the most die-hard book fan; all rafe & co can do is focus on making sure the show honors the core of the books' story while also telling a good story in its own right, independent of the source material.)

i was a classics major, okay? it gets to me! anyway, corralling myself back on topic.

for 2x08, it's very telling just how far Minority Reader Opinion deviates from the general audience opinion. general audiences fucking LOVED this episode (it's the highest-rated on imdb out of the entire show, currently at a 9.0; most episodes are in the 7-8 range), but a bunch of readers call it disappointing and one of the worst episodes of the show. if it was actually a poor quality episode of television, the general audience ratings would reflect that too (as they do for 1x08, currently at a 6.4 (i personally think 1x08 gets way more hate than is deserved and i thoroughly enjoy that episode, but i accept that's just me)), but they don't.

so what does that mean? to me, it means that 2x08 is objectively a very good episode of television which general audiences found satisfying, but which some readers disliked because it prioritized the emotional & thematic needs of its own version of the story over the exact nature of the falme events in the source material. which is exactly what a good adaptation should do! if you forget the books and just look at the show (which the vast majority of viewers are doing), then every resolution that happens in 2x08 is the most satisfying resolution possible and/or the only resolution that was thematically permitted for that particular season storyline.

egwene: her season arc was about learning to stand on her own two feet and not cling onto her mentor figures or compare herself unfavorably to others. thus, her freeing herself from the a'dam is the most satisfying possible conclusion to her season arc. nynaeve and elayne freeing her in the books is nice, but in the show version, thematically, it would've undercut egwene's Overcoming Impostor Syndrome arc to go "yeah actually it's true that she's not good enough on her own and when it comes down to it she does always need nynaeve to help her out". that version worked in TGH where she didn't have an Overcming Impostor Syndrome arc, but it wouldn't have worked in the show where she did. (but, yes, egwene learning in 2x08 that she doesn't have to rely on others is a double-edged sword, which nicely sets up her later-series struggles with trying to shoulder too much herself and not letting even her friends or partner help her.)

rand: his season arc was about learning to lean on others and not isolate himself or try to protect his friends by withholding his burdens from them. thus, him failing to defeat ishamael until all his friends come to lend aid in various ways is the most satisfying possible conclusion to his season arc. rand defeating ishy singlehandedly in the books is nice, but in the show version, thematically, it would've undercut his Learning That Strength Is In Numbers arc to go "yeah actually it's true that rand is capable of winning his biggest battles all by himself and thus it's no problem for him to push his friends away". given the themes that s2 emphasized for rand, the only appropriate finale outcomes were either success with his friends' help or total failure on his own, and they chose the former. (that being said, rand pushing his friends away is a continuous issue for him throughout the series, so i doubt he's perfectly learned his lesson after 2x08; we shall see!)

interesting to note that rand and egwene have inverse arcs in a way (foils!) and that some elements of their book falme climaxes were swapped, and that the way the show has done it subverts the expected gender roles. typically, men are expected to be Lone Wolves and women to be Team Players, and the WOT books absolutely play into these stereotypes throughout the series (sometimes intentionally as social commentary, sometimes unconsciously as an accepted truth of the world), but 2x08 and s2 more broadly did the opposite with our yin-and-yang co-protagonists. it's egwene who has the arc about learning to be a Lone Wolf and rand who has the arc about learning to be a Team Player. and imo these subconscious gender role expectations are a part of why some readers (esp reddit) got SO heated about "how come egwene can succeed by herself but rand can't", because it feels Wrong to them and Not How Things Are Supposed To Work (they've never questioned why rand can succeed by himself but egwene needs her friends' help in TGH, or all the other times in the books when men succeed by themselves and women succeed by relying on each other). but it's a totally apples-to-oranges comparison because egwene and rand had totally different season arcs and focal themes (but many paralleling & foiling moments within that), and so they each get a conclusion tailor-made to their individual stories.

mat: his season arc was about realizing he's a good, worthy person, finding the inner strength to overcome his worst impulses and temptations, and coming through for his friends after leaving them at the waygate. thus, him getting his Big Damn Hero moment with the horn of valere, getting validation that he is literally a hero, and overall spending the episode doing all he can to support his friends is the most satisfying possible conclusion to his season arc. (but stabbing his bff just as he was flying on a confidence high and trying to save the day was a downer note to end on, so we've complicated his relationship with heroism and set up some more internal issues for him to wrestle with next season.)

perrin: his season arc was about learning to acknowledge his inner wolf but also coming to regard it with fear and to believe that wolf & human sides can't coexist and he must Choose One (.......suddenly being struck by the bisexuality metaphor of it all. nice!) thus, him giving into violence to murder a human to avenge a wolf is.....well, it's pretty upsetting for him and serves to reinforce his growing belief that his two sides can't coexist, but thematically, it's fascinating and sets him up for some really great internal (and external) conflicts in s3. he's just gotten what he thinks is pretty strong evidence to corroborate ishy's claim that embracing his wolf side means embracing the shadow, so he's set up for a season 3 of deep-diving into his relationship with violence and his inner wolf. it's also a neat parallel with 1x08: there perrin's avoidance of violence allowed fain to escape, whereas here his embracing of violence has traumatized him (again), so our poor guy is really feeling conflicted in the pacificism-or-violence question because both sides seem wrong to him right now. huh, i guess perrin's full-series arc is about finding a middle ground rather than one extreme (pacifism/tuatha'an/human) or the other (violence/aiel/wolf). i feel like i've just had an epiphany lmao this is why i love the show! it tells the same story as the books, but tells it in a different way that makes me think about it differently and gain new insights!

nynaeve: her season arc was about learning that she, on her own, as she is today, is not enough to protect her loved ones. this is a tough pill for both her and the audience to swallow! but it's needed for her character, and we see it in the books too. nynaeve has an incredible amount of power, but she's terrified of having that much power and wants to pretend it doesn't exist. she's resistant to change, she's used to being in charge, and she's very "my way or the highway". these are all things she needs to grow out of (or moderate, at least) in order to be able to step up and do her part for tarmon gai'don. she has to learn how to embrace her power instead of being afraid of it or being too stubborn to let other people guide her and teach her, so s2 shows her what happens if she doesn't, first hypothetically in the accepted test (everyone she loves dies because she's blocked and refused channeling training) and then for real in falme (she couldn't help elayne fully or rand at all because of her block). so her 2x08 conclusion being Total Failure is not emotionally satisfying, no, but it's thematically exactly what she needed and will goad her into facing her block head-on next season. thematically, like rand, nynaeve only had 2 options for falme: break her block and succeed, or retain her block and fail, and it was too soon for the former (we gotta let her cook a while longer, plus the story will become too easy if nynaeve, or rand, reaches supernova capability too soon), so it had to be the latter. if the show had gone with a third option of her succeeding without breaking her block, then that would've taught her and the audience that it's fine to leave the block in place and she doesn't need to challenge herself to grow as a person, because when it TRULY matters she can always get around the block.

other characters get appropriate resolutions too! moiraine and lan get to work together to succeed after being at odds and failing on their own all season (rand foils!). elayne gets validation that she is an essential and trusted part of the friend group after feeling like somewhat of an outsider earlier in the season. ishamael getting vanquished and lanfear betraying him only to be betrayed by him in turn is exactly where their mutual mistrust was leading them (and it shows us why it's so important that Team Light be able to work as a team rather than as self-interested individual operators; the contrast between ishy & lanfear looking at the seals together while plotting to betray each other vs. rand standing on the tower with all his friends behind him makes me cry your honor. imagine hating that ishy's defeat was a team effort, could not be me!)

(it's also worth noting that the characters who had the least individual success/victory in 2x08 (nynaeve, rand, perrin) are the ones who will have the biggest individual storylines in s3 (tanchico & moggy, waste arc, two rivers arc), whereas the characters who had the most individual success/victory (egwene, mat, moiraine, lan) are the ones who will be taking a bit more of a backseat (of course they all have their own stuff to do, but none of them is *the* lead character of their TSR/s3 traveling group). this is intentional!)

so there you have it. 2x08 is adored by the general audience, and it's because of this: it gives us some damn satisfying conclusions to all the season arcs (and some exciting and visually stunning battle sequences to boot), and all the viewers who AREN'T beleaguered by "But The Books!", which is most of them, recognize that for the good storytelling it is. i for one will always care far more about the show telling a good story within itself than the show being identical to the books, and rafe & co will too, as they should.

the only downside to the episode is that, yes, it is quite cramped for time because there are a lot of arcs to wrap up. this should be less of an issue in future seasons when the season finale isn't "every single major storyline converges in the same place at once". for example, judging by the "goldeneyes" episode title it seems s3 might split it up so that perrin's conclusion in the two rivers is in 3x07 while other conclusions in other locations are in 3x08, giving each more breathing room. whereas 2x08 had no choice but to stuff everything in that episode into that specific episode because it's not like perrin could just do his falme stuff an episode early and take a nap while everyone else was doing THEIR falme stuff in the next episode, nor could the full falme sequence have been split into 2 episodes since that would have disrupted the flow of the story. the only solution would be for 2x08 to be extra long, which is nice to imagine, but we all know that streaming shows almost never deviate from their set episode lengths and so there isn't much point sighing about "this episode should have been 90 minutes long!" because that just is not on the table, never has been, and never will be. the first step to being able to jive with an adaptation is making peace with the limits of its particular medium!

plus, the only things i might deem "missing" from 2x08 are non-essential (ingtar darkfriend reveal - that is NOT important fight me, it's only important in the books as our first example of a morally-gray shadow-aligned person but the show has already been doing that in spades) or will likely be included in 3x01 (the gang spending some time together to breathe and process and catch up). at the end of the day, the show is always going to need to be paced very very tightly with not as much breathing room as those of us accustomed to entire books dedicated to reacting to the previous book might expect. and 2x08 did manage to pack in a LOT of character work amidst all the action and did a good mix of resolving s2 arcs while leaving some unresolved to carry into s3 and introducing some new arcs/issues/conflicts, all within 70 minutes, which i find pretty impressive. in conclusion, 2x08 my fucking beloved <3

[vvanillavveins]

On the WTNV finale:

Look, i like Brinknor. They helped me fall back in love with Night Vale when i was feeling particularly uninspired. It's hard to put it into words; i have adhd & i struggle to remember big intricate plots unless something reoccurring has really grabbed hold of my attention, and before Brinknor, i was struggling to sink my teeth into anything attention-holding, so to speak. I guess i was becoming less enthusiastic in Night Vale's storyline as time went on, even though i couldn't really work out why. I just couldn't stop tuning out. But, with Brinknor, there came a bunch of shiny new plotpoints- at a faster pace. The show could actually hold my focus properly, and my wtnv fixation was suddenly up & running again.

All this is to say that i know it's just my impatience talking when i say that i wish that the loose ends of those new, interesting plotpoints had been tied up a little more by episode 250. I adore the way they write about Cecil's childhood and his family, and i want Kevin & The Boy's arc to be given the same amount of love, and attention, and time that the Palmer siblings' arc got. The same goes for Tamika. And Carlos. And Lauren, actually. Yes, i know she was a central figure in the last 2 episodes, and i loved that because she's one of my favourite characters. I fucking adore eldritch Mother Lauren. But still, it was all too vague to really learn anything new about her or the desert otherworld. And, above all else, i can't help but think of how wonderful it would've been if Charles and Donovan were included in the finale- especially Donovan.

When Kevin first came back in 2023, one of my silly little hcs as to why he was apparently in the Smiling God's bad books (and why he didn't mention Charles or Donovan) was that because Charles & Donovan aren't from Desert Bluffs they haven't devoted themselves to the Smiling God like the rest of the townsfolk. They wouldn't "smile" properly. One of my darker ideas at the time was the possibility of Kevin having to choose between making them part of his faith, i.e., making them "smile" like the rest of Desert Bluffs (which i doubt he'd go through with after his mudstone abyss arc), or having Charles & Donovan leave town (which i doubt they'd go through with), or, doing neither & keeping quiet about his life with them to avoid drawing attention. If he chose the latter and then got found out, it would make sense that he'd stop being the Smiling God's favourite. Obviously, i never thought any of that was correct- i was just having fun- and i was excited to find out the real story further down the line.

But that didn't happen, and we still don't really have many answers. Everything to do with Kevin, and Lauren, and The Boy got wrapped up in about 10 minutes flat. We've already had an emotional Fatherhood themed episode with Cecil & Abby; we didn't need another one just for the sake of it.

With the context of what we already know about Kevin's father, the ending of episode 250 was just uncomfortable. Sure, Kevin's talked about his father positively before, but that's always been in contrast with the actual content of his memories. It's always been made clear that the script/the writers disagree with Kevin's sunny outlook, and therefore the listeners should too. Those moments are there to demonstrate just how fucked up Kevin really is, and that his positivity is just a coping mechanism. But this time Cecil spoke for him, so we didn't get Kevin's usual sing-song rambling. It was calm, and collected, and matter-of-factly. And this time there were no sugar-coated descriptions of abuse, only genuine praise. We were actually supposed to agree with him this time, and it made the whole speech (and ending) sound hollow and forced.

I really didn't like this episode. It felt rushed. It tried to cover far too much far too quickly, and it failed. But, despite all that, i am hoping that future episodes will bring some sort of clarity about what happened. And hopefully some closure about Kevin and his family, too. I want loose ends to get tied up properly and i believe that maybe, with time, the important ones will be. Slow burning subplots are kinda quintessential to Night Vale's writing at this point anyway. Brinknor definitely missed the mark with this one, but they're still incredibly talented writers and i'm not ready to give up on them like some of the other fans on here.

Besides, i think that some of Night Vale's worst episodes are still incredible pieces of writing in their own right. The bad episodes are only bad in comparison to the dozens upon dozens of absolutely phenomenal episodes that make up the rest of a show that is, for the most part, a joy to listen to. So, here's to some hopefully better episodes in the future, i guess.

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

The Breaking of “Narrative Promises” Through the Lens of Supernatural, Marvel, & More

[Article: x]

The tone shift from Infinity War to Endgame is so jarring that it is metaphorically neck-breaking. [...] Instead of continuing the narrative arc set forth, Endgame relies only on moments that never build into really anything.

One of the most painful narrative promises that is yanked back, for some fans, is the one the audience is offered in their first realizations something has gone wrong when, of all the characters, Bucky Barnes is the first to vanish into dust in front of Steve Rogers.

[...]

The most glaring of these moments comes in the early scenes of Endgame, when Steve is sitting in therapy listening to a man describe the pain of losing his partner to the snap and, in response, Steve is not allowed to use the scene to acknowledge his own pain from the events of Infinity War, but rather discusses losing Peggy. Whether one sees the relationship between Bucky and Steve as romantic or simply intimate, he is the clear choice for Steve’s therapy discussion, as the resonant figure the story has told viewers Steve, specifically, lost to the snap.

In terms of where the story has taken its viewers, Steve lost Bucky to the snap five years prior and is in a discussion group for snap survivors. It is the highlighted thought and the purpose to have the discussion at all. Peggy, meanwhile, who Steve has yet no knowledge of being in the future of his narrative, was lost to natural causes almost a decade before that therapy scene. This moment was kissed with Bucky’s name and would also have been an appropriate place to discuss Steve’s other losses, Sam or Wanda, but the narrative suddenly, sharply implies whatever story the audience had been watching in prior movies about Steve and his future family is gone.

This feeling is underscored again when Steve looks at the compass with Peggy’s image before going to face Thanos. Narratively, she has nothing to do with Thanos. Narratively, this would be a great moment to think about the people Steve lost because of the Titan as motivation for embarking upon his defeat.

And in fact, though Tony, for instance, thinks about Peter from time to time and even tells Steve, “I lost the kid,” Bucky’s name is never mentioned in grief by Steve. The brief emotionality Steve faces is attributed to anything but this. It is carefully given to the overall state of the world, vaguely, to losing Peggy, from out of the blue, but never to watching Bucky fade from his life again, for a traumatic fourth time, the way the death scene in Infinity War whispered that it would. There is never an exploration of that pain while Bucky is gone, and glaringly, a mirror to the loss, a reunion, on the battlefield or off, is never given to the fans that felt most intensely what the story asked of them to feel.

And of course, literally and more harrowingly, the whole promise of Steve’s arc across his many movies is undone by Endgame, as Steve’s project of growth, evolution, and settling into a new life and home in the future is suddenly and determinedly wiped clean to fulfill an arc that gathered dust for a decade.

This is time that was allotted to these storylines by canon, offering an expectation of meaning and importance, offering what results in a promise—not time the fans imagined or made up, not something they feel nebulously entitled to, but time they spent on plots the canon gave to them.

But instead of saying, yes, you spent all this time watching these scenes, feeling these moments, taking this in—you grew with this character, with these relationships (grew in many cases away from the set starting point)—here is your promised meaning, again and again, these properties snatch the rug away and then pretend blithely they cannot understand why “entitled fans” are so upset.

And just to be clear, this is not “just about the ship,” it is about the story. In many cases, the ship and the story are, indeed, inextricably linked, because the story is the basis of the ship. But I promise that not a singular person truly believed that Marvel would make Stucky a romantic relationship in Endgame—not one. But what they did believe was that there would be even a breath given to the meaning of this relationship, after it was at the center of Steve Rogers’ arc for so long—a belief that was promised to them by everything in nearly every part of Steve’s story, by Steve watching Bucky disappear into a puff of dust, up until the last.

But instead of a promised reunion, there was a loss, and then a loss, and nothing—the narrative, the relationship, the friendship, sacrificed on the altar. And, if in the cases of Dean & Cas and Jaime & Brienne, if the fans did truly believe the ship could happen, it is because the story led them there. While it is not “just about the ship,” it does not feel coincidental that the reneging of narrative promises happens to characters and relationships that orbit queer ships so often. In fact, it feels purposeful.

[graymatters]

Fic Rec: Nor All That Glisters by @sweet-s0rr0w

Drarry | Explicit | 110k

Tags: EWE, Post-Hogwarts, Auror Harry Potter, Potioneer Draco Malfoy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, Felix Felicis (Liquid Luck Potion), Squib Rights, Original Squib Character, Quidditch, Draco & Neville Friendship, Draco & Pansy Friendship, Explicit Sexual Content

Content Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, Felix Felicis Abuse and Addiction, Dreamless Sleep Abuse and Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Mildly Dubious Consent (involving Felix Felicis), Withdrawal & Recovery, Hallucinations, Panic Attacks, Blood & Injury, Vague & Fleeting Suicidal Thoughts

(additional tags on AO3)

Summary:

Lonely and frustrated on house arrest, with no prospects for the future, Draco begins brewing Felix Felicis in an attempt to improve his lot. Just in the short term, of course. He isn’t a total idiot.

But before long he finds himself with a thriving business, a nice flat, some actual (albeit irritatingly Gryffindor) friends, and a very satisfying sex life. What’s more, no-one is hexing him in the street. And Harry Potter is single, and gorgeous, and giving Draco decidedly interested looks.

Stop taking the Felix? You must be joking…

My own wild rambling to convince you to read this fic: You know those fics that are just going to rattle around in your head for weeks and weeks and weeks? This is one of those fics.

I'm having trouble deciding where to start so as not to sound utterly incoherent. Ah, how about the Felix? The creativity injected into the use of Felix Felicis throughout the fic is no short of brilliant. The intricacies and complexities of addiction are challenging enough to handle, but throw in a magical substance that has infinitely more complicated consequences and effects -- that's a huge undertaking. But @sweet-s0rr0w managed it masterfully and without sugar-coating or shying away from the realities of addiction, which showed how much care and effort were taken to portray the topic with justice.

That careful consideration overflowed into @sweet-s0rr0w's portrayal of these characters. This Draco is probably my favorite version of him that I've ever read. Full stop. His emotional range and motivations are so well-developed, so complex, and they felt real. Not to mention the beautiful unfolding of his and Harry's relationship, the realities of working through some very difficult issues, and the slow building of trust and love. Extremely well-paced and believable. A stunning evolution of a really intricate and complicated relationship.

I cannot write a rec for this fic without bragging about the lovely OC and Draco's friendships with her, Neville, and Pansy. I absolutely adored this added layer, and the side characters supplemented the story well, bringing their own fun and unique quirks and storylines without serving as a distraction.

And the ART. Absolutely gorgeous art from @deancebra-art and @fantalf that complimented the fic beautifully. Every piece was just stunning, from the larger art pieces, down to the adorable little chapter titles.

Everything in this world felt so well-fleshed-out, carefully thought through, and intentional, written with surgical precision, with not a word out of place. But @sweet-s0rr0w's writing still manages to feel like a warm hug, despite the difficult topics covered. Please take the warnings seriously, but know they are handled with the utmost care and not included for mere shock value. This fic had me crying, laughing, and finding spare seconds between tasks to read a few more paragraphs, and the rollercoaster of this 110k journey made the ending that much more satisfying. When you're craving the redemption arc that Draco actually deserved, Give Nor All That Glisters a read on AO3.

[lovecolibri]

SaL anon here friend and wow, that episode was A LOT. I'm glad we got to see TayKay in her true form, though also glad we didn't see the final break-up this episode since the focus deserved to be on the incredible Hen & Chim friendship. They are the foundation of the 118 and while they've had bits (read: not enough) of their individual stories told this season, I'm really happy to see an episode so focused on their bond (though not gonna lie, that scene with them and Jonah at the end left me

feeling nauseous). Speaking of Jonah, love that the actor had a truly stand out performance while AK continues to "meh" audiences. Anyway also in focus us what feels like nearly the end of Eddie's healing arc, which again was beautiful to see. All the little tidbits we got from his childhood made me 😭😭😭, but the joy of seeing him say he was going to be better for himself was such a fantastic moment. Eddie really has come so far (also Ryan's performance has been amazing) and in a good position to support his future husband next season when Buck has his breakdown era. Other notable things this episode include the welcome lack of L and Bobby punching Jonah. I'm going to predict during his spiral next episode we see Eddie returning the advice Frank gave him when they talked about Afghanistan, particularly about blaming themselves on not seeing the danger when they were focused on healing others. Anyway if there are any complaints i want to mention it is not with the episode itself but with the fact that the entire TayKay and triangle storyline has been such a waste of time. TayKay never changed, we didn't need to know anything else about her for the breakup to work. Why have her crappy "truth is everything" plot, the vague attempt to give her a sympathetic backstory, the dumb cheating plot with her inconsistent characterisation when original recipe TayKay was enough to end BT? At least the event itself looks to be glorious!

Bestie, I am thriving today, though I have to admit to being a little surprised that a lot of people were less than pleased with the episode. I was just too caught up in the euphoria of Hen/Chim bestieism, tay kay’s true self being shown, almost NO L, and Eddie facing generational trauma and walking out of it with him and his dad wanting to do better, to be too concerned about anything else. I’ve got some issues today but nothing that makes this not still one of the most enjoyable viewing experiences I’ve had in 5b. 🤷🏻‍♀️ So lets talk about it!!

Hen and Chim were literally at their BEST all episode! Aisha and Kenny are criminally underused and it’s been particularly glaring in this season with them choosing to write Kenny out while JLH was out, and the pacing this season being a mess so the mains did fuck all most of the time. But this episode had some BANGER moments for them! We got serious talk besties, we got joking besties, we got investigation besties (Chim being nervous about getting caught, PLEASE I want to kiss Kenny on the mouth for every single choice he made this episode), we got absolutely panicked Hen and Chim to the rescue even half dead (twice dead? twice revived?), and my favorite moment (aside from the juice pouch because GOD Kenny is adorable and perfect) was Chim calling himself the comic relief (which people often think he is and forget what an amazing and layered character Chim is) and Hen shutting that down and reminding him (and the audience) that he’s so much more than that. It was SO GOOD to have them back on my screen for most of the episode. Also, not for nothing, but the contrast to their best friend moments and the way they look at each other vs Buddie was...very loud.

As for the Jonah of it all, I was not expecting it to go as far as it did, but by that point I was just *vibrating* with Hen/Chim love and we knew they would be okay, so I made it through okay, but it being SO dark, SO quickly was unusual for the show in general but knowing KR had a hand it in and she was the one pushing the Jeffrey stuff I can’t say I’m too surprised 🤷🏻‍♀️ But I’ll take this storyline ANY DAY over that other one. I have also seen lots of people pointing out the pacing of the episode was weird which I can agree with, it just didn’t take me out of the joy of watching nearly like every second L is on my screen pulls me out and makes scenes nearly unwatchable 🤷🏻‍♀️ I do think if they were going to go that hard at the end, that we maybe should have had more scenes of him leading up to this episode. Not a lot, but maybe just a little bit more than what we got. I’m going to talk about pacing a little more later but I’m with you and also cackling about Bryce being basically ignored (though likely part of the “misdirect” but still. It was way more shady saying nothing about him and then just having him still around for some reason) while the hyped character and storyline has been SO BAD it was almost entirely cut 🤭 

Bryce came out and delivered an incredible performance in this episode but also throughout 5b, being in the background and mostly likable before really letting Jonah’s true self shine, but I continue to be baffled at what both AK and MW are doing with their faces 90% of the time. I’ve never seen either of them in anything else so IDK if it’s just this show, but AK’s line delivery is SO WEIRD and she only had like 2 brief scenes this episode and both times I messaged someone specifically to ask what she was doing with her face in those brief moments because it was just so noticeably off.  The blessed lack of L was nice, though both moments of hers still weren’t even needed because some rando who has never worked A shift asking Ravi what’s going on with Hen and Chim (who have to be a bit notorious even within the 118 if even other houses know about them) and Ravi saying it’s better not to ask would have made more sense than someone who has been working with them constantly for months 🙄 But it was far less than what I was bracing for. I’m still pissed about her presence taking me out of the joy and feeling of May Day, so I was happy to be spared here, and I refuse to think about the finale just yet. 

And then we have MW and her delivery which is...glaringly bad when you see it in gifsets with other characters from this episode. Her “serial killer” and “I can do something” lines were just so bad, but BOY is it nice to get back to the show acknowledging through other characters, especially Buck, how deeply awful she is! I have only half-watched most of her scenes since 4x14 because I was so sick of what they were trying (and failing) to do with her, but this felt so much like 2x06 that I was just eating it up with a spoon. Go girl! Be the Huge Wrench in your own relationship! But I’m with you, this makes the whole L thing look even MORE pointless which I thought wasn’t possible! We knew it always needed to come down to this, that she’s a terrible person and Buck should never have been with her, but did we need to drag it out this long only to be told that she hasn’t really changed and this has all just been a waste of time? Several people have pointed out that this feels like a storyline that was supposed to be in 5a but got pushed and I could buy that. They had to change her personality every 5 minutes and drag Buck down with her just to keep this relationship on life support long enough to make it to the end of the season, only to end with zero outside influence or interference either from L or Buck “spiraling” because his family is missing. At least it looks like we’ll be getting the breakup Buck deserves to have, so fingers crossed they follow through on that! (also “ original recipe TayKay “ please I am crying! 🤣🤣🤣)

Okay this is already entirely too long BUT as much as the pacing was weird and Eddie’s storyline didn’t really fit in this particular episode tone-wise (this would have been a good 2-parter) it was SO GOOD and pretty much exactly what I expected it to be. I love how 911 addresses generational trauma, and Eddie may have stirred stuff up, but he didn’t shut down! He not only let those angry feelings out, but he let himself be vulnerable and at least start talking it out with his dad. And surprise! He found out his dad felt a lot of the same things he himself felt about missing out on time with their kids and they both want to do better! I LOVE this for him. Adult parent/child relationships are almost always complicated because you still feel those childhood wounds and hurt, but you’ve lived enough to know that they’re just people! No two situations are exactly alike and not every parent/child relationship can or should be salvaged, but I like the direction they took with Eddie’s story. It’s not all fixed or all better, but Eddie is really taking what he learned in therapy to heart and it’s helping him so much. Look at him! He looks SO MUCH better and freer already!

This really is too long but quick miscellaneous things

It was weird not seeing Chris but it was likely episode contract related, and we at least knew where he was at all times

Very weird there was no Madney scene at the hospital but JLH just had a baby and the show working around her schedule as a new mom is a good thing!

SHIRTLESS CHIM!, 

Bobby decking Jonah, and Athena having to act like she wasn’t about to do the same thing, and sweetly icing his hand for him

Karen being the smartest person in the room as always

Uncle!Buck, ADHD!Buck (the dinosaur! 😭😭😭 I want to smoosh his little cheeks), Hoodie!Buck, Husband!Buck just hanging around watching Eddie pack so Eddie has a sounding board for his worries, Angry!Buck (I am having impure thoughts) just...BUCK. 

“I need a hero” being THE music choice of the episode 

[whoopsies-daisies]

Does anyone else kinda hate what they did to Five's character this season? Not saying that I hate Five, he's still my favorite, I just hate what the writers did to his personal storyline, and I can list plenty of reasons why.

(Season 3 spoilers ahead)

• They literally changed his character completely. He turned down Reginald's plan to stop the apocalypse, literally his only goal in life for almost fifty years, just because his future self told him not to. When he found out that there was supposedly no more apocalypse, instead of continuing to make sure no apocalypses were happening he just... stopped caring. Also, I feel like he should have been smart enough to consider any time paradoxes, given that it was literally his job to prevent them at one point. And he didn't care about how his siblings felt about the new timeline, despite the fact that his main goal was to keep them safe and happy.

• There were plenty of opportunities to explore his emotions and his trauma without ruining the plot, but they just didn't (I could give at least three examples). Whether it was for convenience, or just because they like to downplay his traumatic experiences is beyond me.

• This might be an unpopular opinion, but I feel like they tried to separate him from the plot, despite him being the most plot-driven character in the show. In fact, they made him try to separate himself from the plot. Again, he as a character is literally meant to drive the story forward, as he is the one enforcing the main goal of himself and the rest of the characters.

• I know I mentioned this before, but I really don't like him being the commission founder. First of all, the commission is clearly made out to be the villain, and although it is sort of an interesting idea for the protagonist to have created the thing that's repeatedly stopping them from achieving their goal, it just feels like sort of a last minute reveal for shock value. Second of all, (and this might just be a personal opinion, but then again, most things are,) the commission just works better as a nameless, faceless, evil mystery corporation. Also, I feel like five is smart enough to just... leave a note for himself? To clarify his plan? Instead of just a few cryptic and vague messages? Why tf go through all that trouble when you could just leave a letter of a video recording or something instead. He's definitely smart enough to think of that.

Now, I'm not saying I hate everything about what the writers did to him. There were definitely some good parts, but it just makes me so mad to see basically his entire character and background completely thrown out in favor of, well, everything else.

I have lots of other opinions on Five in general, and some specific examples of things that frustrated me, but this post is just about how much the writers messed up his arc in season three. If anyone wants to hear my other opinions and ideas, just ask, I would be happy to discuss.

[theopolis]

Extremely long, extremely salty Kindred criticism post

Yk the thing about the Kindred storyline is that it failed at being everything it was trying to be.

It wanted to be like DeMatteis' Goblin Junior arc while simultaneously inverting every concept from that arc. Harry is a gentle soul going down a dark path and hurting not only others but himself in the process? No, he's the comically evil mastermind who would throw his friends - Gwen and MJ, who even by his own standards have done him no wrong - under the bus to get revenge! Norman is the looming influence that follows Harry and motivates him to bend himself into who his father wanted him to be? No, he's the repentant, permanently dewey eyed reformed Norman who we're supposed to feel bad for when he gets dismissed and punched around by evil Harry/his demonic clone vessels/whatever the fuck. Peter is the best friend who, despite of course feeling angry and betrayed, believes in Harry's softness and their love and wants the best for him? No, he's immediately and with zero explanation ready to believe Harry is a literal demon all of a sudden and, I quote, "through with helping him". And I don't even think this (later clumsily backpedaled on) change of mind in Peter isn't justified in-universe - Kindred did uh, dig up the skeletons of Peter's loved ones and put party city wigs on them and also smash him with a big rock a couple of times, so there's that. But that's exactly the problem - Spencer set the stage for a story that doesn't actually involve Peter, or Harry, or Norman. He created mostly completely different dynamics between mostly completely different characters, and decided to project that on the the three of them. While also periodically inserting hamfisted callbacks to the DeMatteis stories, as if he didn't just take a giant dump on everything they established.

And here's the thing, even if I did enjoy the idea of Harry forgiving Norman, or the idea of Harry returning to villainy, or the idea of Norman becoming a character we're supposed to root for - which I cannot stress enough how much I don't - the execution of all these ideas was perhaps the worst it could have possibly been. Rushed, convoluted, and hollow.

Norman's sudden goodness is the result of a supernatural, vague process that apparently "freed him of his sin", whatever that means. Like, how do you quantify sin? How can you take it out of a person when it's their moral ideology and conscious choices that make them sinful/bad/evil? What happened to Norman simply reads like brainwashing to me. He is aware he's done something really bad, but he hasn't actually learned anything, and that impression is only backed by the way he talks about his past actions. It's always "oh it's my fault you're like this Harry" and "oh I can never make it up to you" etc etc but does he ever actually recognize his mistakes for what they were? Recognize where the errors of his past convictions lie? Of course not, because Spencer has zero reading comprehension and therefore no clue about the intricacies of Norman's character, his abuse of Harry, or what motivated it, or what he demanded of his son. It's funny how these four panels from a recent What If issue managed to paint a more compelling, if brief, picture of Norman as an apologetic father than Spencer has in a year worth of comics:

Harry's sudden villainy and the way it evolved throughout this story is just a train wreck. He has not had a substantial role in the comics for a long time now, but suddenly he's back AND he's evil! Who cares about complexity? Who cares about how Harry's feeling? Why he's doing what he does other than some extremely vague idea of revenge on apparently both Peter and Norman? Even though he was neck deep in denial about Norman being a horrible father and person at the time he supposedly launched the whole (checks notes) "create clones from Norman's and Gwen's DNA to stick it to his old man AND Peter in the future" plan, which he concocted because he somehow (????) knew his father wasn't gonna stay dead, which begs the question why he was so torn up about it in the first place, and- Look I could sit here all day trying to decipher the whole Gabriel and Sarah Stacy twist. It's impressive what an inconsistent, incomprehensible mess it is considering it was only introduced two issues ago. ASM 74 sort of hinted that Harry was being piloted by Mephisto when he created the clones so they could later become his hellish lackeys? I uhm, think? It's impossible to tell because no part of that retcon makes any sense to begin with. It doesn’t want to make sense because it was written - most likely on a whim - with the sole intent to garner good will for undoing Sins Past. Harry, for this entire arc, was not a character but merely a tool to bait us with an OMD reversal and ultimately do a Sins Past one. And of course, there's the fact that post OMD Harry - one of the only good things to come out of OMD in the first place - was just a clone all along, putting into question how valid all the amazing and inspiring development he went through since his revival was. Thanks a lot.

Lastly, I don't think I have to say how insulting it is to not just use Harry's character as a cheap plot device, but eventually force him to sacrifice his life for the very man who ruined it in every way. The man who abused him since birth, betrayed him on every level, attacked and murdered so many people Harry loves, including almost getting Harry's son killed. Why? Because he’s had a suspicious sudden onset of goodness that Harry has no context for? Norman and clone!Harry have not even interacted for this entire arc, but the sole act of Norman offering himself up to the rabid Kindred twins makes Harry instantly forgive everything he’s ever done. There was no build up to this whatsoever. It’s bad writing. And I don't think the abuse apologism implications of all this are intentional, I think Spencer just thought up the groundbreakingly subversive concept of "what if Norman good and Harry bad" and ran with that. But those implications are there nonetheless, because Harry and Norman's relationship has pretty much always been about abuse, about being mistreated by your parents, about not feeling good enough for them and eventually realizing that you were wronged and you don't owe them anything.

Spencer had Harry, a man who fought for years to rise to his best, most authentic self and fully turn his back on Norman and his legacy, die to save the father who never valued him for that self. And to add insult to injury, paralleled that with Harry dying after saving his best friend who loved him unconditionally. The latter mentioned death being a direct consequence of the actions Harry took to fit the expectations said abusive father had drilled into his head. I feel like that ending explains everything about this plotline.

[mc-critical]

On Hatice’s character, I feel like she more or less was cheated of a better character arc which could’ve made her more likeable or easier to understand (almost everyone I’ve encountered who is into the series has extreme distaste for her character.) Though I don’t necessarily feel any particular form of intensity towards her character I do wish she could have been explored a bit more? I can see why she wasn’t likely due to time constraints/needing to stay consistent with plot lines but it would have been nice to see. I feel like everytime Hatice was on screen, mentioned, or involved in the plot line it was in conjunction to or in relation to Ibrahim. Even after Ibrahim was dead, Hatice’s whole storyline was just..Ibrahim. It was clear that she was emotionally unstable and dealt with attachment issues from the start of the series, likely resulting trauma from her father’s bloody reign. We’re told she was “her parent’s favorite/the spoiled one” according to her siblings, we’re hinted at some sort of past fued between her and Sah but no real context. We rarely got to see her interact with her children. It’s like we only were given tiny bits and pieces of Hatice as her own person and everything else about her just existed to string Ibrahim along. It’s quite sad..what do you think?

Eh, I absolutely adore Hatice as a character and I feel she got a very solid, well-written character arc. I'm pleased with what we got with her in the show and I think that her nuance tends to be massively overlooked.

The center of her character is not really Ibrahim, but rather the line between family and dynasty. And while that seems to be attributed with Ibrahim in the strongest way, it also channels in who Hatice is as a person and her interactions with other characters like her mother, Süleiman and Hürrem.

Hatice has always been the sultana of blood that is closest to the dynasty, but also the one that wants to detach the most from it. As you said, she had lingering trauma from her father's reign /which indeed is only hinted, to be honest, but that's the whole backstory of Selim Yavuz, what we got from his cruelty in the show was basically hints two flashbacks. We were told by Süleiman of his defining deed, we were told by Valide and Hatice that they saw his father in him, but the rest remained pretty much vague, which isn't a problem with Hatice's character. However, it may come off as a problem with SS's character, since more backstory would better explain his paranoia outside of actions of the "suspects" taken out of context, would render Mustafa's death a little more understandable and would highlight even more his character arc, for Selim Yavuz was his "Azraeel", according to him, but that is a post for another day./, but on a more personal note, she has witnessed the death her former husband, which puts her panic and fear over death in another light. Her backstory isn't that focused on, because it's not all that important for her character arc: because while Mahidevran has to get over her past and Şah Sultan tries to consistently set herself for the future, Hatice has to face the events of the present. She's an effective deconstruction of the Princess Classic trope she started up as: an innocent, fragile, kind hearted princess, no sign of trauma whatsoever who strives to create a family of her own, as a bonus. After she meets Ibrahim, she feels like she wants to be in that adventure with him, she not only falls in love with him, but he fills her with hopes and dreams for a better life. Look how when she marries him she wanted to get out of Topkapi as soon as possible and always repeated that she wanted for them to be a family, that she wanted to have piece. Even her love for Ibrahim is much more deep seated than some plain obsession that is only used as a plot device or to prop him up. She's grown with beliefs that have been a part of her life and sometimes she lets them out out of sheer ignorance, no matter how much independence she wants in her personal life. Her whole relationship with Ibrahim is a back and forth conflict between dynasty and family that is only a vector for her arc, not the entirety of it.

It's often ignored how pivotal is Hatice's relationship with Valide. The closeness she has with her, especially compared to her other sisters, shaped up all of Hatice's life long beliefs. Namely Valide is the root of Hatice's love and respect for the dynasty, being next to its female representative her entire life (see also Valide's flashbacks in E58) and witnessing the way she dealt with things, the way she ruled the harem, the way she made decisions. Even Hatice herself considered her as her role model and wanted to be like her. (she told her this in E61) It was as if Valide was a preserver of all the virtues Hatice deemed as worth having. She has a tremendous respect for her and her opinions and this is what brought her to hide her love for Ibrahim more than anything. The respect she has for the ottoman laws and the ottoman dynasty and the ways she got used to them made her to do anything but admitting SS and Valide her true feelings.

Valide is an indirect reason of Hatice's supposedly "inpartial" point of view in the harem that let her judge things more fairly. It's not that Hatice was completely unbiased in her relationships with Mahidevran and Hürrem early on, because oh no, she wasn't, Hatice always was on the dynasty's side in this war, but for her dynasty always advocated fairness and preserving piece and order. She wasn't afraid to call out whoever she thought was wrong at any time and even when her bias had completely (and honestly, rightly in many aspects) impacted her in terms of Hürrem, she wasn't afraid to admit that she was right about Firuze after all. Hatice also has a very reactive personality: she doesn't let anyone provoke her and quickly responds when she's provoked. She's not provoked only about Ibrahim, she's also provoked when it comes to both family and dynasty, overall, seeing Hürrem and Mahidevran quarrel in E11, Fatma and the concubines challenging Hürrem in E47, Mahidevran attempting to kill Hürrem's children in E55, Mihrimah defending Hürrem in E84 etc. Whenever something she cares about is opposed or attacked by someone, she would always spring into action, which is a very consistent trend of her character as a whole.

{There are many reasons why I personally find Hatice sympathetic: she's one of the most ethical characters of the show, acting as a peacekeeper wanting to keep everyone out of their struggle, she's always ready to help, she cherishes love (her wanting to marry Sadıka to Matrakcı), there are so many people she cares about outside of just Ibrahim - Mahidevran, Mustafa, Valide, her sisters and their problems impact her as well, despite of how "self-centered" she may seem at first glance. She, just like MCK Gevherhan, is so humane to everyone she interacts with, trying her very best to empathize with them. (to the point Mahidevran told her in E05 that if she keeps up worrying only about them, she will wither in this palace) Her trauma and circumstance also bring in a lot of empathy for me, because significantly little of it is her own doing, compared to other characters. We see a character that deteoriates both internally and externally often as a consequence of her simply fearing she would lose everyone she loves and that her life would be once again, filled with illnesses and death.}

[Truth be told, I don't get the Hatice hate, like AT. ALL. I don't know about you, but people I've encountered on the Internet couldn't give me a valid reason as to why they hate Hatice so much. They either reduce her to a "whiny", "crying", "spoiled" or "evil" bitch, either say they hate her because she breaks down a lot or because stood up against Hürrem for no reason, which is totally untrue, in my opinion. I genuinely haven't seen one (1) good argument as to why she deserves such ire. They mostly look at a more dimensional version of S03 Hatice and forget everything that set up S03 Hatice, or they hate Hatice exclusively because of S03, which.... eh? I would dare say that there are more reasons to hate Mahidevran than there ever were to hate Hatice (even though the hate directed at Mahidevran is, once again, for all the wrong reasons) and if someone gave me an actually good reason to hate Mahidevran, I would understand, but Hatice? Even her more questionable actions were ultimately provoked by something or someone.]

Her first traumatic experiences in the present is also connected to the kids she's lost. Yeah, giving her more time with her living children and seeing her more as a mother is the one thing I would definetly change in her writing. We didn't get enough of that and it would be a breath of fresh air. But then again, losing so many could've demotivated her and the last time she was pregnant we also had this prevailing, but understandable fear. It also just doesn't play such a big part in her deconstrustion-to-become-flanderization-in-character-development arc.

We gain a gradual, broader perspective into her a bit later in the narrative, and perhaps that eventually broken first impression would cause disappointment - Hatice could be prideful and while she wants to detach from the dynasty for her family, she values her own position and the rights that are offered with it. She could be easily offended by remarks made to startle her. She could be demanding sometimes. But that existed along with her good traits. Hatice was the most reasonable and morally unproblematic character of the main cast overall and by S01/2, that truly showed.

If we refer only to S03 Hatice, it would make a tiny bit more sense for people to not find her that sympathetic. Because while she underwent a good flanderization arc, it's still flanderization and some traits of hers seem to be more present than others in that season, especially knowing the trajectory of said arc. It may look like there isn't a sympathetic reason to do what she does, as if she's like this all of the sudden. But here's the rub: season 3 wasn't supposed to give this much context to Hatice's actions, it's the pay-off of a build-up, the peak of her arc that leads to a resolution. Season 3 wasn't supposed to repeat stuff that has already been established, all Hatice is doing there, has been set up for an entire season, if not more. We already know what's driving her, we already have the sympathetic reasons. That's why all the attention is given to her actions that bring her to tragedy, not to introspective scenes.

Back to Ibrahim's relation to Hatice's character: A common affirmation I hear is that Hatice's rift with Hürrem was caused thanks to Ibrahim and Ibrahim alone. There's so much more to it than that! While we had the scene that started the build-up and the one that ended it be about a possible/already a fact infidelity of Ibrahim's as a parallel, these are only a part of it, not it in its entirety. Keep in mind that the one thing that fully set the upcoming enmity in motion during S03 is Hürrem taking Valide's chambers. And at first Hatice wasn't about to blame Hürrem for it all when she went to tell it to his majesty (her saying to Gülfem that it doesn't matter who told her about the affair) with her claiming that Hü ruined her life only after their confrontation for Valide's chambers. And here we return to the center of Hatice's character: thing is, whether we liked it or not, Hürrem always was a threat to the dynasty in Hatice's eyes. Şah asked her the infamous question: "The dynasty or Ibrahim?" when she was asked why is Hürrem a threat in E81, but I think both are in conjunction, yet independent of each other here. Hatice values tradition just like her mother and Hürrem breaking them all would cause some kind of disturbance. She got distraught right after she was freed and married, claiming that it had to be stopped before it happened, look also how she told Afife Hatun that Hürrem had to be gotten rid of because she caused unrest in the harem! Not only Ibrahim's death, but Valide's death impacted her so much, she thought someone had to supposedly protect the dynasty for what is to come before everything goes haywire and that's what she attempted to do the entire time. In S03A personal motives clearly ran together with the apparent protection of the dynasty (I sometimes like to parallel Hatice's dynasty with Kösem's state in my head, despite that Kösem's urge to protect the state comes more with her role as a ruler and regent and measures out of necessity, while Hatice's comes from willingness to preserve balance and harmony in a more personal level.) and she considered Hürrem as a threat to everything Hatice believes in. She seems to also take on her mother's footsteps in that regard, in a way, using common for Valide methods like sending a concubine to SS etc. She considers Hürrem a threat for her own stability and well-being and that isn't limited to just Ibrahim.

Her relationship with SS is the one that is probably the most connected to Ibrahim, judging by their first more "nuanced" scene for me (him deciding to marry Ibro and Hati) and fallout (the confrontation for Ibrahim's death), but that could be also connected to what Hatice has previously experienced and genuine respect for him as a brother before all the rocky stuff happened. And interestingly, her deep resentment and then despise of him is targeted at him bringing Hürrem to their lives, not simply just killing Ibrahim, though that was also an intensely strong motivator of hers.

Hatice's bond with Mustafa is also strong even before she fell in love with Ibrahim. She also considered him "the future of the dynasty", played with him in the gardens, comforted him in tough times when she could. They didn't have as many scenes together, but the relationship added a good amount of flavor to her character.

A reason why I think Hatice's relationship with Mahidevran is so precious and criminally underrated, is that this is the relationship least centered on Ibrahim, second only to Hatice's with Valide. Their scenes early on is mostly them being there for each other and being happy with each other's moments of good time. They're very bound to each other and are very good friends that still have a dynamic relationship. The temporary S02B fallout between them has everything to do with Hatice's disappointment and disbelief of Mahidevran's own failings. She also threatened something Hatice cared about and did something she didn't expect of her. And that isn't barely noticeable, Hürrem even remarked that Mahidevran is becoming alone in E58. (oh my, I hate this scene with passion, but anyway.) After that their dynamic then remained basically intact for S03, expect that they could act more like allies than friends. But that's a given, due to the more intense events in the palace and the tonal shift of the show.

I find her dynamic with Şah fascinating due to their contrasting personalities and strained, yet loving relationship. The feud between them had enough context given to us through Beyhan's words to Şah in E83: that Hatice not only was Valide's favorite, but she apparently had the life Şah wanted to have, which explains Şah's ambition and supposed distance and secrecy well enough. More backstory would mean destroying the interesting duality in the relationship and wouldn't make Şah's motivation half as interesting and uniquely presented as it was, to be honest. Which is why I find her dynamic with Hatice way more interesting than her dynamic with Hürrem (which is good, too, but pretty generic), but that's also a post for another day. But Hatice is actually the more open person in this dynamic and the one more revealing her feelings. Şah wanted her to move on from her losses, but Hatice objects so strongly because it all has gotten to a completely personal level, with Şah trying to redecorate her castle, it would look like she's trying to change her from the outset, her as a person, which is something Hatice would never agree with. But then again, it's clearly shown that deep down Şah cares about what Hatice wants and is trying to do the best for her in her own way. And the emphasis is again put on family: they still get along and reconcile, setting their differences aside.

Many of Hatice's introspective scenes were with Gülfem and while they talked about Ibrahim many times, we could still see the amount of powerful support between them. Hatice shared everything with Gülfem, it was as if they knew everything about each other. They were each other's comfort.

She showed moral support to Beyhan, as well. That is another familial relationship that shows both casual and profound interactions. It's not there as much, but that's more because of Beyhan's limited screentime, not because of something to do with Hatice.

Even her arc with Ibrahim isn't all about him, but is also tied to the core of her character. The line between dynasty and family drives their whole fallout and if it wasn't there, the conflict between them wouldn't ever take place. Hatice ultimately forgiving Ibrahim is more about her getting out of her own dynastic outlook, which is a relevant character development of hers that happens along with her flanderization. And that plot-line is as important as the flanderization, even more so, and it pushes it forward. It was a resolution of the conflict with family and dynasty in Hatice, not exactly forgiving Ibrahim just for Ibrahim. (that is also a factor, no doubt, because she loves him and he is a part of her character, but not all her character.)

Overall, for me Hatice is a multi-faceted, amazing character that is actually very fleshed out in the span of three seasons. I don't find much issue with her writing: everything that happened with her is logical and well-explained if you look closely enough and I don't want more for her arc. It was original and outstanding for what it was, both as a character concept and a dynastic sultana of the franchise.

[wardens-stew]

The Bone Season - unpacking Paige’s card reading!

To pass the time as I obsess about the imminent release of The Mask Falling, I’ve been thinking about when Liss did a card reading for Paige in TBS - and Elspeth elaborated on it in TSR - and felt like going back to it to see what’s been revealed and what we might glean about what’s yet to come. 

1 - Five of Cups (past)

CONFIRMED - Paige’s father mourning her mother

“You lost something when you were very small. There’s a man with auburn hair. It’s his cups that are spilled.” “My father,” I said. “Yes. You’re standing behind him, speaking to him. He doesn’t answer. He stares at a picture.” 

2 - King of Wands (present)

CONFIRMED - Jaxon’s hold on Paige 

“He controls you. Even now, you can’t escape his hold.” “Warden?” “I don’t think so. Still, he has power. His expectations of you are too high. You’re afraid of him.” Jaxon.

3 - The Devil (future); 4 - The Lovers (what to do)

LOW-KEY CONFIRMED - The Devil as the darkness within Paige; The Lovers as Paige and Warden

“This card represents a force of hopelessness, restriction, fear—but you’ve given into it yourself. There’s a shadow that the Devil represents, but I can’t see its face. Whatever power this person will have over you, you will be able to escape it. They’ll make you think you’re tied to them forever, but you won’t be. You’ll just think you are... The next card will tell you what to do when the time comes.”

I looked down at the fourth card. “The Lovers?” “Yes.” Her voice had dropped to a monotone. “I can’t see much. There’s tension between spirit and flesh. Too much.” 

Elspeth and Paige unpack this in TSR:

Two naked figures were on either side of the pedestal, bound to it, and by extension, to each other, by a silver chain. 

“The two figures in the Devil card closely resemble the couple in the Lovers card, which comes next. They could almost be Lovers... The Devil controls them. Manipulates them.” 

The words left a fine sweat on my brow. Controls them. Manipulates them. The Devil could be Terebell. Both Warden and I were chained to her: Warden by his loyalty, me by my need for her money. And we were also bound to each other by a chain, albeit a chain of gold.

“Someone stands over the pair in the Lovers card, too, though there’s no chain.” Elspeth pointed to a winged figure above the man and woman. “I’m not certain what the figure represents in this instance, but... someone is always watching this couple.”

There’s a good deal of evidence that the Lovers refers to Warden, as Paige points out, but she still isn’t sure:

“As a Rephaite, Warden was the pivot between spirit and flesh. We had always felt watched, knowing the consequences of discovery. If he represented the path I should be taking, then by trying to distance myself from him, by telling him we had to part, I had gone astray; I had turned my back on the counsel of the cards.

And yet, he could so easily be the Devil himself... or a puppet-master in its service, keeping me chained to it, to Terebell. Was he meant to be my lover or my downfall?”

She remains ambivalent, but there’s that important moment towards the end, with Jaxon:

“You will understand that all of us are devils in the skins of men. You will become the monster that lives inside us all.”

I started away from him. This wasn't the first time that his words had sounded like a prediction. The Devil. Had it been me all along? Was it the devil in myself - the devil deep beneath my skin - that I was meant to resist?”

She doesn't really arrive at a conclusion, but I think this theory is pretty convincing! I’m not quite sure if it lines up with the idea of the Devil manipulating and controlling the Lovers, though - does it make sense that the dark instincts in Paige are manipulating her and Warden?? It would fit more easily if the Devil were a person rather than something abstract.

I also think there’s more to be said about Elspeth’s observation that “someone is always watching this couple.” Paige attributes this to her general feeling of being watched in her clandestine relationship with Warden, but Elspeth’s remark suggests that something more deliberate and concrete is going on. That’s quite unnerving - the possibility that someone is literally watching Paige and Warden. I think it may be part of the larger role that their intimacy is playing on the world stage, although they’re not yet aware of it.

5 - Death, Inverted (external influences)

NOT YET DETERMINED

“Death is a normal card for voyants. Usually it appears in the past or present positions. But here, inverted—I’m not sure.” Her eyes flickered beneath their lids. “This far ahead, my sight gets hazy. Things are vague. I know the world will change around you, and you’ll do everything in your power to resist it. Death itself will work in different ways. By delaying the change, you’ll prolong your own suffering.”

Ok, I think this is definitely alluding to the possible events of TMF and Book 5 and the furthering of the Prometheus and Pandora parallel. I did some digging about the divinatory associations of the card:

DEATH.—End, mortality, destruction, corruption; also, for a man, the loss of a benefactor; for a woman, many contrarieties; for a maid, failure of marriage projects. Reversed: Inertia, sleep, lethargy, petrifaction, somnambulism; hope destroyed.

The card, drawn in reverse, can be interpreted as stagnation and the inability to move or change.

In the Mythic Tarot deck, Death is depicted by Hades.

Shit is going to get real!! “Death itself will work in different ways” -  This supports @growingstronglikeahighgardenrose‘s theory that Paige might end up going to the underworld in a Persephone/Eurydice parallel and someone will be forced to stay in the underworld for a period of time - likely Warden. The association with Hades also suggests that Warden will be involved, possibly put in some sort of slumber. I could definitely see Paige resisting this change and the ensuing separation from Warden. 

6 - Eight of Swords (hopes and fears)

NOT YET DETERMINED

“The card showed a woman, bound in a circle of upturned swords. She wore a blindfold. Liss’s skin glowed with sweat. “I can see you. You’re afraid.” Her voice trembled. “I can see your face. You can’t move in any direction. You can stay in one place, trapped, or feel the pain of the swords.”

A little info on the eight of swords, thanks to Wikipedia:

The Querent is in a situation where they're afraid to move. If they move, they'll get cut. However, the ropes that bind them and the blindfold over their eyes are their own fears, keeping them immobile. Therefore, the longer they stay, the more they constrain and entrap themselves. Ever been in a situation where you're afraid to say anything, so afraid that you second guess yourself, end up saying nothing, tying yourself in knots? But speaking up is going to get you cut to ribbons? That's this card. The Querent must have the strength to endure the cuts or they will stay trapped. They must move, for the longer they let the situation continue, the worse it will get.

Ok this is pretty far off so it’s hard to make sense of it. But it seems that Paige is going to be trapped and needs to free herself, though she will suffer for it. I have the feeling that this situation will be fairly literal, especially if the Persephone & Pandora myth holds - Paige could be stuck in some weird state maybe in the netherworld or in a dreamwalking state from which she needs to escape. Not sure if the suffering refers to collateral damage - like Warden will be hurt if she tries to escape - or if she herself will be hurt or changed by freeing herself. It’s all pretty abstract and theoretical at this point.

7 - ?????

The big mystery! I have absolutely no clue how this series will end, and it’s pretty difficult to speculate. But it’s worth thinking about what kind of ending would make sense in terms of the mythology and the larger arc of this story. I’m really anxious about whether Warden and Paige and their relationship will make  it through intact - this doesn’t really seem like the kind of series to end super duper happily like somehow everyone’s problems are solved and the world is utopian - but I also can’t see how an ending in which they were separated/dead/irreversibly damaged would be a satisfying one (pls Samantha Shannon just let them be happy!!!). This is mostly just me trying to convince myself that it’s not going to be some Allegiant-type shit - Samantha Shannon is obviously comfortable inflicting pain on her characters, but I doubt she’d do that kind of fuck-you ending where everyone is screwed. I have faith that it’ll be a satisfying and meaningful conclusion. 

Random sidenote, super bizarre and probably meaningless, but Samantha Shannon once mentioned in an answer to a Tumblr ask that there was a pregnancy storyline in TBS when she initially planned it, but she figured Twilight already did the “immortal hybrid baby thing” and eventually decided she didn’t want Paige to have kids. Then she says, “I won’t rule out writing a fun ‘what if’ chapter once the series is over, though. I just wouldn’t make it canon.” SOOOOooo.... what I’m hearing is that Paige and Warden both make it through to the end of the series alive and in a position to have kids?????

[redvanillabee]

MCU Phase 4: S.W.O.R.D and the Collapse of the Multiverse

I’ve been seeing a lot of theories about Phase 4 floating around, and with the finale of Agents of SHIELD, I reckon I’d collate all the theories here, as well as add in a few of my own theories, and get a feel of what Phase 4 might hold for us.

WARNING: contains slight Agents of SHIELD S7 spoilers.

1. Leaving Endgame: unresolved issues

The infinity Saga (Phases 1-3) ended with Avengers: Endgame. Regardless of how you feel about the narrative, the film wraps up the story based around Thanos’ encroachment on earth. So that should leave no loose threads, right? No world-bending problems left to resolve?

WRONG.

Avengers: Endgame actually left a lot of paradoxes and loopholes. There are objects remove and added into different points of time, characters killing their past selves, etc.

These problems with their Time Heist can’t just be left there, unattended. These paradoxes also can’t be brushed aside simply with a “new timeline” theory. As we learnt in Agents of SHIELD Seasons 5&7, while time can indeed be changed, there will still be paradoxes, which will result in anything from confusion to deaths and destruction.

Are the Marvel execs that stupid? That they would painstakingly explain the logistics of time travel to the audience in the film, then blatantly break all their own rules? Even mass-market films aren’t that stupid. Especially not ones by a studio that is known for planting Easter eggs and somehow planned a whole 10-year, 22-film franchise.

Rather, I believe this is a pantomime moment. Remember, the Thanos storyline--the Infinity Saga--may be over, but the MCU is far from it. I believe they are leaving behind these gaping holes in the spacetime continuum, luring the audience to point at the screen and shout out the inconsistencies, to name the problems themselves. So let us peel back the story, and identify those time-travel and inter-dimensional problems ourselves.

2. Far From Home is our primer for Phase 4

Here’s the funny thing: Far From Home is classified as the last film of Phase 3, with Black Widow as the first film of Phase 4. But narratively, it seems odd to class FFH as part of Phase 3, stringing it with the rest of the infinity Saga. Apart from the plot thread with Tony Stark, what does FFH have to do with the main premise of the Infinity Saga?

This awkward position of FFH might make sense if we view it not just as part of Phase 3, but as that transition instalment between Phases 3 and 4. On the one hand, FFH continues its legacy from the Infinity Saga, by physically having Peter inherit something from Stark, arguably the lead star of the Infinity Saga. At the same time, FFH melds that with a whole new element that will bring us forward: the idea of dealing with threats from not just different points in time, but different realities altogether. Even though Mysterio isn’t really from another dimension, Pandora’s Box is now open. This idea has officially been introduced into the MCU, and as we will find out later, there are heavy suggestions of the MCU going in the direction of inter-dimensional threats.

FFH also bridges the past by reintroducing to us the idea of an overarching organisation governing or monitoring the actions of the superheroes. As mentioned above, MCU superheroes have been freelance superheroes since Apr 2014, with the fall of SHIELD in Winter Soldier. However, with FFH, we see a return of... well, some kind of SHIELD, with the intervention of Fury and Hill. Granted, this is not really SHIELD. Fury and Hill, as we find out in FFH, are impersonated by Skrulls. Regardless, an authoritative organisation has been reestablished in the MCU. The return of ““SHIELD”“ also gives FFH the feel of Iron Man 2/ The Avengers (2012), harkening back to the early days of the Infinity Saga, which I would say is rather appropriate for opening a whole new arc. And, as I will explore below, we might be seeing more of SHIELD in MCU’s future.

(Incidentally, is Peter Parker supposed to know that, for what it’s worth, Nick Fury is supposed to be “dead”?)

FFH is not the first time MCU has played with alternate dimensions, of course. The Ancient One has introduced the idea of borrowing powers from alternate dimensions going as far back as Doctor Strange (2016). But during that film, they have left it at a tease. However, it seems that we might finally be meeting alternate versions of our known reality.

3. Black Widow: Taskmaster is a little too familiar

While we still haven’t seen the Black Widow standalone (damn you coronavirus),  based on what we know from trailers, BW will likely follow FFH’s angle of bridging elements of the past (e.g. a secret organisation with Fury at the helm) while introducing elements from the future (alternate dimensions), But this time, Mama Spider is going to kick it up a notch.

Firstly, it seems that BW might be introducing a nemesis to the SHIELD-equivalent in Phase 4. In the Infinity Saga, the main villain--at least when SHIELD was a thing--was HYDRA. With the fall of SHIELD, the last of the HYDRA bases are also wiped out of the MCU at the start of Age of Ultron.

(If you go with Agents of SHIELD, Thanos is very very vaguely connected to HYDRA, what with him being known to/ part of(?) the Confederacy, who are working with HYDRA).

So what will be the main villain in Phase 4? BW trailers focus very heavily on reconnecting with the past, which reminds me of how FFH calls back to Fury being in charge of the big picture. But in BW, it seems that a reconnection is also made with shady characters. There is a lot of discussion about Natasha’s Red Room past, of other Black Widow graduates. There are grey areas, and the focus on reconnecting to the Red Room reminds me of the “the other Winter Soldiers” arc from CACW, as well as the Dottie Underwood arc in Agent Carter season 1. Will the Red Room be our new HYDRA? Or... are they just a smokescreen?

Because there’s the Taskmaster, and they are very strange indeed. We know nothing about the Taskmaster--their motives, their affiliations, their goals--but they already strikes an eerie chord with the audience. They seem to be an amalgamation of so many notable heroes in the MCU. Why would a villain just... happen to be a combination of so many MCU heroes? Or could the Taskmaster be paving the way to how the Madness of Multiverse “may reportedly feature alternate-reality versions of known MCU characters”?

First Mysterio, and now the Taskmaster. The threat in Phase 4 is gaining steam, and is gearing up to be a force that can only be defeated if the superheroes are once again brought together. The Avengers was initially designed by SHIELD, but were brought together by Loki’s invasion (and Coulson’s death). But where are they now? Who will take up the mantle of the fallen? Who will be there to unite the forces needed? 

4. SHIELD, TVA, and SWORD

For those who only watch the films of the MCU (like myself until recently), SHIELD has not been a legal organisation since April 2014, and has been completely out of the picture in the MCU since April 2015. However, the organisation has actually been hard at work behind the scenes since.

The actual events in Agents of SHIELD, being so separated from the MCU, are not strictly relevant to the discussion and prediction of Phase 4. What we need to know is that: following a series of events that turned them legitimate, then illegitimate, then legitimate again, SHIELD should be a legitimate organisation again by the time of FFH.

(Side note:

There is some debate as to whether Agents of SHIELD is still taking place in the same timeline as the MCU. I personally like to think yes, AOS is still taking place in the same timeline as the MCU. Some have argued that the Snappening never happened in AOS, and when Daisy stopped Talbot from destroying Earth at the end of Season 5, that launched AOS into a branching timeline. However, I would argue that they are in the same timeline because Daisy stopped Talbot. Based on the words of the alien Confederacy, it does not seem that the Snappening and Talbot are two inter-dependent events. If Talbot had cracked the Earth in half, it wouldn’t matter what the outcome of Infinity War was, because, well, there’d be no Earth. There’d be no Endgame. So in my opinion, Agents of SHIELD, as it closes in 2020, is in the same timeline as the MCU, at which point the Avengers would have been moping about losing half of Earth’s population. As for the fact that none of the AOS team got dusted... the OG6 Avengers also didn’t get dusted, and the AOS team was small. I think we can let that slide.)

(Besides, if timelines really are going to be fucked up, as we will see below, then it really doesn’t matter if AOS and the Infinity Saga are in the same timeline. They can just cross over into each others’.)

But SHIELD’s reach, after all, is limited. Even Fury did not have a handle on Carol Danvers as she spent 23 years (1995-2018) just roaming the Universe as a space vigilante. With the jurisdiction of the MCU heroes now extending beyond time, space, and dimensions, we will need authorities in space. Maybe some kind of... ambassadors from earth.

In the Agents of SHIELD series finale, Marvel threw us a bone. As the team part ways after their final mission together, Daisy, Sousa (yes that Sousa from that Agent Carter), and Kora take to space, as some kind of SHIELD representative. The showrunners teased the audience by having Sousa describe their little unit as the “Astro Ambassadors”, but the audience immediately know what to ask for: SWORD. SWORD, according the MCU Wikia, stands for Sentient World Observation and Response Department, and is a “subdivision of SHIELD”. In fact, I believe we will be seeing more of SWORD in Phase 4. And with the release of the latest WandaVision trailer, we know that SWORD with Monica Rambeau as one of its agents is definitely going to be a thing.

Even if, EVEN IF, SHIELD and SWORD aren’t going to be a thing in Phase 4, we still have another authority that will be very interested in all these alternate dimension business going on around Earthlings. In what little we know of the Loki standalone TV show, it seems the Time Variance Authority will be part of it. Time, space, dimensions, these will all be threatened in Phase 4.

5. Steve Rogers and Corrupted Timeline Theory

By this point, if we are keeping score, we know space and time in the MCU is fucked up. Timelines are messed up, left in paradoxes, and people are just travelling everywhere and anywhere they fancy. Loki. Natasha. Astro Ambassadors.

And then there’s Steve Rogers.

Since the end of Endgame, a theory has been gaining steam that the actual Steve Rogers is stuck in the Quantum Realm, and whoever/whatever Old Steve is, it is a corrupted version of him. Please click through and take a look at the brief post about how Steve may be trapped in the time stream. It is an excellent analysis on how Steve could be a central indicator to all these time/space/dimensional tomfoolery.

6. What to expect

Here’s what I think is going to happen:

Following the primer that is Far From Home, Black Widow will continue to push the idea of interdimensional threats a notch further. Things that should be resolved, things from the past, are coming back to haunt us. Things start to get uncanny. The Taskmaster’s powers are too familiar. It’s all a little eerie.

Meanwhile in Marvel TV land, things go from “still earthly” to downright insane. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, in all likelihood, will be the most earth-based of the Marvel TV shows, kind of like how the Cap trilogy is the most earth-based, with the least amount of sci-fi invention compared with the Iron Man trilogy and Thor saga. However, since Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes are the two people closest to Steve, one literally inheriting his mantle, it might be in this show that we see more signs of reality being corrupted through iterations of Steve.

WandaVision is a result of both anomaly!Steve, as well as the many timeline problems left in Endgame. In WandaVision, Wanda and Vision find themselves flung through so many alternate realities. The anomalies in spacetime catches the attention of the authorities, in this case, Monica Rambeau and SWORD. We officially have our overarching authority for Phase 4.

The madness in time and space goes even further when Loki, now armed with the Space Stone and somehow looking like his Thor 1 (2011) self again, just... Loki-s it all up. Making jumps. Causing chaos through human history. General Loki shenanigans. The disturbance that this causes alerts an authority higher than SWORD: the Time Variance Authority.

This is also an excellent time to reintegrate the Marvel TV Universe back into the MCU, after having them split off from the MCU in 2013 and 2015. There is a very special cameo in Endgame, an Easter egg reserved only for those who have watched the Marvel TV spin-offs. “James D’Arcy’s cameo as Edwin Jarvis in Avengers: Endgame marks the first time a Marvel Cinematic Universe character introduced in a television production has crossed over into the films.“ Of course, there is no promise that just because they have brought Jarvis from Agent Carter over to Endgame, that they will bring others into the MCU in a similar fashion. But with Marvel Studios/Disney+ branching officially into making their own TV shows (instead of collaborating with ABC/Netflix), we can expect more crossings between the TV shows and the films. With the door now open with Edwin Jarvis, characters from AOS can rather easily be integrated into Phase 4 shows. And, if Daniel Sousa, a character that was last seen in 2016, can somehow be brought forward in a miraculous time escapade, there is no reason why other Agent Carter elements can’t be.

Time, space, dimension, reality, are now all fucked up beyond recognition. The hints of alternate reality characters? They are now coming in full-swing. There will be “alternate-reality versions of known MCU characters“. Marvel’s What If? cartoon ties into this as basically some kind of MCU fever dream: what if skinny Steve had an Iron Man suit? What if Peggy Carter was Captain America? It’s all out of the window by this point.

Captain Marvel 2, being likely set between earth and space, can easily fit into this whole development. Arguably, same for Thor: Love and Thunder. The events in space can rather easily tie into all these inter-dimensional madness. (And if Marvel Studios stop being a coward, they will let Carol Danvers date Dr. Thor).

Fun fact: SWORD was apparently mentioned as early as a deleted scene from Thor (2011).

With the world on the brink of universal collapse, we finally enter Doctor Strange: Madness of Multiverse. In the first Doctor Strange film, we’ve only seen one alternate dimension: Dark Dimension (Dormammu). In the Madness of Multiverse? Get ready for the Actinaria Dimension. The Grass Jelly Dimension. The Flowering Incense Dimension. The Mandelibus Dimension. Btw I’m not making these dimensions up. They are all introduced in the Marvel Studios Visual Dictionary.

Endgame may have ended Thanos’ arc, but it is only the beginning for a whole new chapter of the MCU. Years ago... probably around the time of CACW, I read a meta that discussed how Marvel might be taking the MCU in the direction of a “collapse of the multiverse”. That was predicted to happen in Infinity War/Endgame. While the Universe did not implode in Endgame, the world also doesn’t... necessarily settle into peace at the end of Endgame. To borrow what a friend of mine said,

Aren’t the other timelines just as doomed as the OG timeline where the Thanos snapped ... and the stones [are] gone in the end?

Like if we assume that they came up with the same idea for every other fucked timeline, then we would just end up with even more alternate timelines, and even more fucked timelines

and it becomes endless

Is this why it’s called Infinity War lmao

As we learnt in Agents of SHIELD Season 7, if a timeline is mucked up, actions must be taken to help it settle, if not restore it to its original form, otherwise there will be grim consequences. Between the milieu of timelines created by the Avengers and the Agents of SHIELD, I think Doctor Strange has his work cut out for him in Madness of Multiverse.

Madness indeed.

-----

Further Reading

‘I’m a storyteller, I know when I am in one’ — John Watson, Series Four, and Authorial Intent 

Pantomime moments of the storyteller leaving gaping holes for the audience to point out are very common. In this piece, I explore how that technique is used in BBC Sherlock’s Season Four. While it looked like the showrunners are breaking all storytelling rules, they are doing it for a very sound reason.

Don’t Mourn — Avengers: Infinity War and the Five-Act Structure

Aka that time I wrote 7k words on the narrative structure of the Infinity Saga that is somehow still gaining clicks and reads on Medium.

[d-pennants]

Spoilers for the Dragon Prince Season 4 and beyond.

My collated notes of all the hints about what is coming up in the Dragon Prince, from interviews, AMA, ComicCon panels. Updated with stuff from Through the Moon.

There will be 7 seasons of 9 episodes each total and possibly some side projects. The story will be in three arcs with a time skip between the arcs. Books 4 & 5 makes up the next arc, which may be called the Mystery of Aaravos. Book 4 is Earth.

Side projects have been confirmed to all be part of canon and include a video game set in Xadia, an tabletop RPG game called Tales of Xadia, a possible feature film of the Orphan Queen and a possible side story set during the reign of Sol Regem featuring Sir Phineas the Cursed and his travelling companion an elf professor Delilah Geel (Who wrote the Secrets of Xadia book).

The video game was in play testing in October 2020, and Wonderstorm was still hiring staff to work on it. After S3 came out they said there was going to be an announcement about the game in 2020, but things may have been delayed due to Corvid.

Through the Moon graphic novel is set between seasons 3 and 4. It feature’s Rayla, Callum and Ezran having returned to Katolis and receiving a request from Lujanne to go the Moon Nexus  for a ritual at new moon and bring Phoe-Phoe’s ghost feather. While there Rayla seizes the opportunity to use the lake’s power as a portal between life and death to try an answer the questions that have been plaguing her about the fate of her parents, Runaan and whether Viren is truly dead.

There will also be a second graphic novel set between seasons 4 & 5.

Reminder - stuff said in interviews, AMA & so forth is subject to the team changing their mind when it comes to actually putting stuff in the show or books. They’re still planning things out. So take things as “the current idea is this, but we’ll see how it pans out”

There’s no word on how long the time skip between season 3 and 4 will be, however, Through the Moon starts 3 days before new moon and S3 ended 2 days after full moon, which is only 11 days. About 17 days pass in TTM. The Tales of Xadia TRPG is also going to fit in between these season too. AE said a vague ‘lots of weeks.’

Season 4 will include the hero trio trying to address how to heal and start to change things in the world, however there are scars history has left that will impede them. Aaravos will bring those scars to bear, though the creator did say that Aaravos himself didn’t cause those scars, he ‘brought it out’ in the people who did.

There’s a big theme of understanding what’s happened in the past and how it affects what’s happening now. Questioning what their fore-bearers have done, admitting fault and forgiving mistakes. (BTW, this is on both human and Xadian sides).

“Ezran is the key to everything.” Ezran’s empathic ability will allow him to play a role in the world no other can as he can connect to non-human beings. Though the circumstances of S1-3, who his parents are and his strong compassion, Ezran is in a unique position to cause real change.

Callum will learn more Sky magic spells well as obsessing to work a connection to another arcanum - he is dedicated to being the best mage he can be. Callum will always have a conflict between what do you want to do with magic and what will you do for magic. One hint given is that Callum cannot perform healing with his Sky magic. On an Instragram Live AE admitted he was trolling a bit, but said a betting person would pick Callum being the first human archmage. On an AMA there was a hint that historically there may have been elves that learned a second arcanum. (However, interview stated Aaravos’ mastery of all the primals is just him - he’s special).

Callum’s ‘destiny’ is tied in with the Key of Aaravos Rune Cube. It will be very important coming up. The Key is being pulled towards a location in Xadia. The closer it is to the location, the stronger the pull. (Reminder - it previously belonged to Aaravos and unlocks a great power in Xadia). In Callum’s Spellbook it says that once Zym has been returned Callum intends to find out what the Key does and make Harrow proud.

Writers have been very cagey about whether Callum being able to learn an arcanum means other humans can. “Callum learning Primal magic means that Callum learned Primal Magic.”

They’ve referred to him as the first human to learn an arcanum. However, another interview indicates that humans may have been able to connect to the primal sources in the past - thus Callum relearned something that has been forgotten for over a thousand years

Are non-magical species able to evolve into one that can use magic?

JR: There have been humans long in the past that could have AE: Yeah, right JR: They’re like [waves hand], but modern day he’s a phenomena. Like nothing is done like this no longer. AE: Yeah, I mean if Callum is developing the ability to do Primal magic do you believe that Callum is special because he’s the only human who’s able to do it or do you believe that that Callum is special because he’s the first human in forever to realise it is possible for humans. You know that kind of a little bit the question - I mean he’s special either way and right, but is he special because he’s realising that that maybe those limitations weren’t true or is he an exception to to this limitation.

Cartoon Universe interview

Though they did point out there’s not been much incentive in the last 1000 years for humans to learn Primal magic, given that Dark magic is both easier to use and more powerful.

Rayla will have an inner conflict about her future as a Moonshadow elf that she needs to figure out. Including how being friends with humans and wanting to be a protector rather than the assassin she was raised to be will affect her relationships with her people. (Plus, the whole being ghosted and ghosted parents issue needs to be addressed). Update info from TTM: Rayla ends TTM by going on a quest by herself to locate Viren. Her clues are the Storm Spire, a cave and... a giant cocoon.

There is an unspecified but important storyline involving Runaan. But the coins will get addressed at some point.The coins would require very powerful magic to release the trapped elves and it may not be possible for Primal magic. However, Viren is capable of releasing people he has coined.  Also, Rayla knows something happened to her parents, but doesn’t specifically know about the coins. Viren showed Rayla a pouch and mentioned adding her to his collection. AMA answer suggests Callum didn’t see what Viren did in the history spell - he just know Viren did something to Rayla’s parents. TtM seems to confirm Callum’s spell didn’t show that part. Whether Gren saw Runaan in the coin seems up to debate - in the novel he knew Viren used magic on Runaan came out holding something small, like a button or coin.  (PS. They also confirmed Runaan slew Harrow, and Harrow is dead dead).

Soren has a complicated future ahead of him as he’s lost the only support system he’s known his whole life. He has a lot to learn and many places to go.

Claudia is going to get a lot worse and there’s a long way to go for her, though they did hint that there’s hope for her in the end. Her motivation is love and family, not power. However, she is willing to go to great sacrifices for her family... Also, her hair will get whiter. 

“When we get back to her in Season 4, there is some amazing stuff, just in the first few episodes, which by the way are also funny and quirky and all the things we’ve come to love about the character, but she becomes a very critically important driving force of the narrative in Season 4.”

Inverse interview.

It will be explained in S4 how Claudia was able to perform the resurrection spell. It hasn’t been used previously because she either a) didn’t know it - as in Aaravos taught her it - or b) didn’t have what was necessary to cast the spell.

The story about how Claudia managed to find a supposedly extinct for a 1000 years unicorn and capture it will be addressed in S6.

According to Claudia’s VA -  Racquel Belmonte - Claudia will likely have a protege dynamic with Aaravos. She will change her mind a bit on disliking all elves and open up a bit on seeing Viren’s connection to Aaravos.

They have a backstory about why Viren treats Soren so harshly compared to Claudia (though he’s manipulative of both), though it’s not indicated when this backstory will be shown. New info from the book said that Viren used dark magic to save Soren from dying of an illness. This ravished his appearance and whatever he did scared his wife, Lissa, into leaving him. Also Viren wanted a son who would carry on his path and is disappointed Soren isn’t like him. Viren feels some resentment towards Soren that he refuses to acknowledge.

AMA confirmed that Lissa will not be making an appearance in S4 or 5. There is a possibility she may be included in S6, but it’s just a potential idea. Early mage fam life involving Lissa will come up in the novels.  (BTW she currently lives in Del Bar and was in no danger from the smoky assassin as she has nothing to do with the leadership of Del Bar)

Viren became a bit of a card carrying villain in season 3, however in season 4 & 5 some of the complexities behind his actions will be revealed. (His VA said that Viren had understandable reasons in S1 & 2, but was a villain in S3, however, he’s happy with how S4 & 5 will develop Viren. Also he gave a strong hint that Viren will have a kind of “fresh start” thing going on, and “do a 180″, and his story is apparently kinda wild). 

Viren and Aaravos: Viren didn’t take Runaan’s warning that “you found something worse than death” seriously enough. Viren is ‘in hot water’ in his dealings with Aaravos. The question over time would be - “Wait, am I making my own choices or am I being led to choices you wanted me to make, Aaravos?”

This current era will be known as the Return of Aaravos. Apparently in S4 & 5 Aaravos is going to be very... mysterious. In fact the arc could be called The Mystery of Aaravos.

“The next two seasons are about understanding who Aaravos was, who they thought Aaravos was, how they realized what was happening, and imprisoned him.” 

This is tied into the Orphan Queen storyline, for more info see this post. Parts of this storyline will feature in flashbacks S4 onwards.

A lot of Aaravos’ motivation comes from a relationship he had with a character whose name is featured on the map from the novel. (Candidates are Skall’s Hook, Ruins of Elarion, Mount Kalik and Eboreus. They said on a Q&A that Elarion wasn’t referring to a person, just the city).

Aaravos has a speech coming up in S5 that explains about the history of magic and why he’s interested in humans. Summed up - Over 5000 years ago there was only one kind of magic, deep magic, and it was very difficult to wield, then something happened that split magic into the 6 Primals Source and gave every creature and plant a connection to one of the 6 Primal Sources, which were much more practical magics. Except humans. 

When asked what was coming out of the cocoon an interviewer gave “Aaravos’ physical form” and some jokes options. Ehasz replied, “I’m gonna say none of the… well, I’m not gonna say.” TtM update: In the world between life and death the cocoon held a corrupted version of Viren - a month after Viren was resurrected at the end of S3. Rayla says Viren is caught between life and death, but in the living world.

Janai is Queen Khessa’s heir, so she should be the next Sunfire Queen. Janai also has a brother. (Sunfire elves also have a Light Being form with healing powers that’s even rarer than the beserker Heat Being form. This fact has come up a couple of times so they’re likely going to introduce a character with this form - could be Janai’s brother). 

Janai will find out that Aaravos whispered something in Khessa’s ear before he killed her.

Also on Amaya and Janai:

Also, they did a reveal page for Janai's mount, a Twin-Tailed Inferno-Toothed Tiger, with some interesting info. These flying firecats are believed to only tolerate those of pure-heart and aggressive to those of ill-intent. You can't give a factoid like that and not use it somewhere.

Tales of Xadia will feature storyline content that bridges the gap between Season 3 and the newly-announced Season 4 of The Dragon Prince,” according to Fandom’s press release. “Players can explore the ruins of Lux Aurea, try to restore the corrupted Sunforge, and fight to stop the spread of the evil monstrosities it radiates. This off-screen story will come alive in game supplements—as well as in organized play events—prior to Season 4’s release.

Forbes

Sol Regem will be in season 4. (No character makes me think of “scars of the past” more than this character. He is not going to be interested in reconciliation between Xadia and humanity).

There will be a new elf character - Terry the Earthblood elf. Has similar powers to Toph from Avatar tLA and is said to be very funny. For reference this Earthblood elf is from Callum’s Spellbook;

Also a new dragon in season 4 - Rex Igneous (Fire King) the Earth Archdragon, who lives underground but comes up every hundred years. He’s appeased by food he hasn’t tried before (looking at Ezran and his jelly tart habit here);

They mentioned that both Earthblood and Tidebound elves will be introduced in seasons 4 & 5.

There’s another archdragon who has been mentioned at SDCC and in the novel, Luna Tenebris, who reigned between Sol Regem and Avizandum.. Ehasz said that the end of her reign is being explored in S4, but no current intentions to explore the beginning.

JR mentioned that the territory of the Skywing elves will be visited at some point, and how having a small portion of the population that has wings, and a even smaller population that can magically manifest wings, has an affect on their culture. (The three types apparently have different outlooks - with winged elves being known for moving on when they don’t care to deal with things).

They’ve mentioned a character that will be introduced in the video game will make it into the show. AE & JR were talking about how they were currently writing stuff for S5 and how this character just got their moment, so I think this character is due in S5.

Core novel Book 2: Sky will introduce a very important Dark Mage character not yet featured on the show.

Also, as a tidbit from AE - there’s a scene in S5 where someone makes a sacred promise to Bait.

Sarai will feature in the show again. AMA confirmed Callum’s father is “fully human.” His father may come up in the novels.

In the novel new lore about unicorns was introduced. This lore will be incorporated into the show at some point.

The reactions to elf/human romantic relationships will be a thing.

Aanya will be featured again. Ezran and Aanya will be friends. 

Queen Fareeda of Evenere actually survived the smokey assassin’s attack - she just went missing for a bit. Her story may come up later on.

Captain Villads and Berto are likely to be featured again, but not confirmed. 

They do have some stories about Callum’s father they want to tell, but it’s likely to be in books rather than making it into the show.

Crow Master has scenes coming up. The Crow Lord is real but that’s all they’re gonna say.

Some very epic beings will eat jelly tarts in the show.

And a finishing note to put the fear in you - possible major character death.

PS. It has been confirmed that Rayla, Callum, Zym (and Bait) are the main characters for all seven seasons, so this leaves... Soren, Claudia, Viren and Amaya. 

[augustheart]

1, 9, 15, 20 for the writing ask meme!

This time around all of these are for fics by the way.

1. Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

Like I said in the last ask at any given time I have a stupidly high number of projects I’m working on but I will take this time to talk about the ridiculously long one I’m putting most of my energy toward now! (The tab is open right now and it is taunting me with that “last updated yesterday at [...]” notification and its 32,427 word wordcount.)

I won’t say exactly what it’s about even though it’s not that hard to figure out and several people already know exact details but progress is generally pretty good! Not the fastest I’ve ever written because I write in fits and starts but it’s going pretty good! (Just jinxed it though for sure.) I’m working on chapter five of a planned ten, and I really hope I don’t overshoot that by accident. It’s fun! It’s definitely more like the things I used to write when it comes to like... the actual angst/“whump” part because there’s a lot of that here, and I’m very really mean to readers with a couple of these cliffhangers. Chapter two and chapter four are especially rude, sorry.

I love all of it. I love that I get to write about people overcoming hardship and coming together and also beating the shit out of people who hurt their loved ones. I genuinely love what I’m writing now and I think it’s probably one of my best works and I’m glad that I decided to write it all out in advance before posting it because I feel like that gives me time to really perfect it. It also makes it easier to go back and seed plot elements through the prewritten chapters, which is helpful because I keep forgetting about a character and going back to make sure that they get to be there because they’re, y’know, the main protagonist of the show. (Don’t worry there is still a character arc and a story she has, it just gets lost in the shuffle a little because there are like... six storylines going on at once that need to intersect. I think six, anyway. There are a lot. Jeez, I think it may be closer to seven, counting the villains...)

Anyway please [Eric Andre “let me in” voice] show me support when I finally post it because I imagine the fandom will be relatively in brumation when I finally do all things considered. 

9. Are you more of a drabble or a longfic kind of writer? Pantser or plotter? Do you wish you were the other?

I refuse to write really short things, it has to be at least 1,000 words for some reason, but I do both! I prefer my longfics, I think they give me more time to write plot and flesh out characters, but I’ve found that a good median wordcount for me is...like...6,000 words? That’s usually what I fall on when I limit myself to something under 10,000 that has the potential for more than just 1-2,000 words. But I do like to read and write both! As evidenced by some of my current projects shaping up to be over 50,000 words at least if they haven’t already left that count in the dust by now (hi, Half Light, you stupidly long son of a bitch). 

And I am the hellish combination of both! I usually know at least how I want it to end, but the entire journey from A to B is a complete mystery to me. Sometimes I’ll have elements I want to incorporate or characters I want to include and I’ll plan for them but I will never, ever write down my outline. The only time I write down outlines it’s when I need to know the concrete timeline for something that’s set in the past or is taking major divergent choices or both (i.e., I made a timeline outline for Heartless leading up to when Eric approaches Dorothy, a timeline outline for Two of Spades when I eventually actually work on that, a timeline outline for what I nicknamed the “I’m no longer baby I want power AU,” etc). Literally every other time I am absolutely flying by the seat of my pants. I don’t know what I’d do without Hedgi who helps me plot at least half the things I write (at least for the fandoms she’s also in), usually after I try to write them and immediately get stuck like a puppy who tried to jump into a lake and found out the shoreline was actually just a bog.

15. Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)?

Oh, it really depends. I’m alright at nailing tags down, unless there are categories I want to use that don’t already have a set tag, but sometimes when I think of the concept for a fic it comes ready-made with a summary and I don’t have to think about that at all, or I’m directly inspired by a phrase/lyric/etc and I can just use that for the title and spend hours deliberating on a summary. Luckily for the project I’m working on now the conceit can just be the summary, and the title took a tiny bit of research but I knew what I wanted the bare bones to be and I just needed the actual names/terms. I do think in general, though, summaries are a smidge harder than titles for me. 

12. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

I really, really want to answer this one to talk about the different hidden references, relationship development, and foreshadowing that I baked into damn near every level of the big project I’ve been talking about because it’s in literally everything right down to the chapter titles (and there’s a hint to pay attention to them when you read, especially once we get to chapters 6-10, which I am extremely pumped to write), but I also really don’t want to spoil anything, so... time to be as numbingly vague as possible, I guess.

I’m foreshadowing that a character will develop powers by the final act, of course, but I’m also foreshadowing that a different character will not only develop them but use them to basically save the life of another character--and related to that, there is intense foreshadowing of a character using certain things to save someone else’s life at around the same time, which is not subtle at all if you know what you’re looking for (mainly because I slipped it into plain sight) but is part of some nice red herrings if I do say so myself. It also really makes me laugh that I decided to do some, um, “homophobia-shadowing,” where I just... imply that a character is homophobic. I dunno why I just think that’s a funny thing to do even if it has real repercussions for certain characters later. 

There’s some character development mixed that I’m really excited for because it allows a character to go in a completely different direction than they do in canon but in a way that I think still feels really right for them. This happens a couple times, actually, but this one in particular is something I knew had to happen the second I realized how to tie this plot thread back into everything else. I think it’s exactly what the character could’ve needed if this had gone down and I’m really excited to write it. The other character should’ve just been allowed to do this in canon because I think it would’ve fucking ruled.

Also, in everything I write that’s comics-based, whether it’s fic for the comic directly or for a show/movie using comics as source material, everything is a reference. That number code? That could be anything from the first time someone appeared in a comic mixed with the publishing date of the comic itself (i.e. if someone appeared for the first time in 1964 but the comic began publishing in 1959 I’ll use 6459 or 5964) to the creator’s date of birth. I think that I use famous writers of the character/potential creators of the character as street names or last names or aliases whenever I need to bring them up is a lot more obvious. Same with how I use writer/artist initials as “random letters” if I think a code would realistically have one mixed in--I just checked a document for an example of this and found “ADBP5519MWGK6419.”

I also reuse direct lines of dialogue if I think they fit the situation--for example, in Butterfly Effect I lifted the “World War I chic” line directly from Giffen’s Doom Patrol run, which I mentioned in the author’s note, and there’s dialogue in my current big project that’s a direct reference to/play on the “I wish you’d died instead of Mom” line in the JSA Infinite Crisis tie-in (Johns is a fuckin’ hack for that one though and it made no sense for what he used it for, a better line would’ve been “I bet you wish I’d died instead of Mom,” but we don’t have time for that), and I’ll probably directly reference dialogue from JSA/JSA at some point in chapter nine or chapter ten. (Think really hard about how that arc opens if it’s one you’re familiar with, lmao, and remember--there’s no time travel to undo things here!) 

[shadowsong26fic]

Some Precipice updates!

Not an actual chapter, sorry--I know it’s super late <.< But this post is just housekeeping.

(There’ll be a full Coming Attractions post on Monday, where I might restate some of this or just link this post, as well as talk about some other things, but. This post is also spoiler-free in terms of canon content; the Coming Attractions post will not be.)

So, we have about...three to four chapters left in the current arc, which consist of wrapping Anakin’s plotline up, touching on the Last Batch question again, and setting the stage for a key plot point in future arcs.

My goal had been to finish it by the end of the calendar year which...well, obviously didn’t happen XD So, revised goal is this--finish by the end of January (at least in terms of writing it, even if I decide to space out posting; depends on how quick I finish things).

At that point, as I’ve mentioned before, Precipice in and of itself will end--but not the overall storyline/verse. The next seven arcs will be split off into a separate fic, entitled Protectors (though I miiiiiight go with Promises instead, which is the working title for the final seven arcs which are much more vaguely planned out, lol--if anyone has any opinion on that, I’m willing to listen!

For a little bit of a hint/preview of what’s to come...

These seven arcs will take place after a six-year timeskip, and cover a much tighter four-year timeframe. Some new (and familiar!) characters will be introduced as well. Palpatine’s sixth and final apprentice will probably be around for the full seven arcs, but I’m not sure how active a presence he’ll be since there’s A Lot of other stuff going on.

The other thing I want to mention for the upcoming seven arcs is that my current plan does involve a Major Character Death in Arc 14. I’m...waffling on that now, actually XD I may decide to keep this person alive instead. (There are people who I have absolutely declared as Safe. In the interests of protecting the relevant potential spoilers, the only people I’m going to mention that are on this list are Padme and her children. There are also other deaths planned, but these are more or less aligned with the parallel canonical deaths and/or plot-necessary ones. I.e., Palps will finally bite it, I have no problem mentioning that XD) Like I said, I might change my mind on the subject, for a variety of reasons, but I wanted to get that out here. (I will tag the story for the potential death unless I absolutely for sure decide against it before I start posting, because I like tagging to be safe, but I’m not 100% sure how to clarify that this is an Evolving Storyline and might change...)

I’ll also be doing a sort of...Arc 7.5, tentatively titled Preludes, which covers a few things during that six-year timeskip. I feel like there isn’t quite enough content/cohesiveness for a full arc of its own, and I may not do it in exact chronological order, hence separating it out like this. But there are a few things I should probably write out more formally than as Bonus Content--some of it involves Rebels content/characters in the altered timeline, because I need a couple of them for something I have planned for arc 13/14, some of it involves Apprentice #5, etc.

...anyway, all of that preview/etc. aside...

Once the current arc finishes, due to writing my big bang and a few other fanfic projects/commitments as well as my work gets Super Busy in March, Precipice will probably go on hiatus until April, and then pick up with Protectors/Promises/whichever title I go with.

...that’s about it, I think! Thoughts/comments/questions? Prompts for bonus content? I’m interested to hear what y’all think!

[annavolovodov]

ya girl saw the downton movie and has some Thoughts

if you followed me at all from 2011-2015 then you'll know i am firmly Team Downstairs and did not want this movie to happen, just so you all know what position i'm coming from here.

everything below is gonna be spoilery af. if you haven't seen it yet and want info just hmu. if you have seen it and want to talk about it please message me bc i’m always up for chatting about Downton.

okay but the title sequence with the music building and cresting as we come up over the hills and get our first shot of downton... goosebumps. tbh i don't know shit about film making but i can't fault the technical aspects (costumes, music, cinematography). the impact of the increased budget was felt from the very first second.

for the plot i’m gonna split things by character to make it easier. i’ll probably go to see it again and maybe after that i’ll have some deeper Thoughts but i missed being able to liveblog during the film so enjoy my rambling first reactions.

upstairs peeps

everything with violet was iconic. i'm glad that they didn't neglect her relationship with isobel and ofc maggie and imelda played fantastically off each other. pretty much everyone has already highlighted the scene with violet and mary at the end and it tied things up perfectly between them. violet and mary are so so similar and violet has been pushing for her to inherit since before S1. the movie showed us that mary is basically running the estate even if she doesn't get the the title and i can totally see why violet is confident in the future of downton now. that being said, i don't think violet will actually die. maggie has been talking about leaving since 2012 and fellowes obviously put this in as a get-out clause for her should she want to go, but i reckon they’ll convince her to do more. if carson's palsy can be mysteriously cured, so can violet's conveniently vague illness.

i already knew that robert and cora weren't gonna be in it much, but i wish we could've seen cora finding out what was happening with edith and helping her out. it wouldn't surprise me if there was a deleted scene there cause that whole storyline felt a little disjointed. i completely forgot that cora knew about the pregnancy and was so confused at how the queen foud out about it all. i don't think we got anything in robert and cora's bedroom, or anything with cora/baxter and robert/bates, which would've also been very welcome but i guess they can only fit in so much.

onto mary: this may be an unpopular opinion but god i miss her long hair. yeah i know it wasn't the style of the time but her wig in this one was tragic and they need to fix it. i absolutely love that t*lbot didn't exist for a solid 95% of this movie and mary got her rightful place ruling downton. i wouldn't say i’m the biggest mary fan but her arc felt like one of the more satisfying ones of the movie imo.

as someone who has been firmly #teamedith from day one i am delighted to see my girl happy and successful. literally all her outfits were A+ and not to be gay on main but those scenes of her in her nightclothes getting ready for bed gave me my rights. i’m sad that she seems like she's either given up her magazine or has less of a role in it now based on what they said outside???? she did seem unsatisfied with aspects of her position so hopefully she'll go back to doing some writing and publishing cause that was a good fit for her, and if edith and bertie are “modern” enough to travel without servants surely edith moving away from traditional grand lady duties and back to her magazine that wouldn't be an issue. 

the mention of sybil being gone seven years? yeah. thanks for the pain. tom accidentally saving the monarchy on no less than two occasions is the ultimate "congratulations you played yourself" moment but the fact he thought the army had sent someone to check up on him is the level of republican i'm trying to be on. i'm a bit ehhhh on his relationship with lucy, mainly cause i'd rather the screentime given to the newbies had went to established characters. but like sybil/tom was a wholeass epic romantic slowburn spanning several years through a war and across class divisions n shit and meanwhile lucy/tom have known each other for forty eight hours and had three conversations in a hallway so like obviously that’s just gonna pale in comparison????? like it just is???? i guess i don't hate it but it just was a bit unnecessary and the time coulda been spent on better things.

isobel didn't have all that much to do on her own but i appreciated her scenes with violet and i love that she was the one to figure out that lucy was lady whatever's daughter. penelope wilton's facial expressions during some of the exchanges with violet were great. i see lord merton has also undergone a miraculous recovery from his apparently serious anaemia but he also didn't appear much which was a big win for me!

team downstairs aka the ones i turned up to see

as a downstairs supremacist who has watched the screentime distribution in previous fifty two eps of the show, it’s fair to say i had low expectations going in. i expected a grand total of 10 minutes for the servants combined and i think that's why i was unexpectedly happy with what we got. ideally we would've ditched the subplots involving the personal lives of the royals and all the stuff w imelda staunton and her maid but oh well it could’ve been worse and i'll take any breadcrumbs i can get. anyway i'm eagerly awaiting the team downstairs cut of the film one of yall will hopefully make when the dvd comes out. the only part that was far, FAR too upstairs heavy for me was the last sequence of the film after the royals left and i think we would've benefitted from rounding things off with team downstairs after the ball.

so i guess retirement magically cured the palsy carson had, but i guess after matthew’s miraculous recovery anything can happen at downton when it comes to health. Fellowes is getting a free pass for retconning this one cause i cba with more death/loss. mary going to carson for help and him immediately coming to her aid was very sweet. kinda wish we'd find out what he was up to post-Downton (except for his gardening) tho.

i was expected zero carson/hughes content in this movie and yet !!!! and yet!!!!!! we were somewhat well-fed. like carson (incorrectly) thinking he can control the other servants and mrs hughes' "oh that went well charlie, start as you mean to go on" hdjksjs i love them. and the lil scene in their cottage ugh. also we got more of them using their first names and yeah i guess that makes sense given they've been married for a while now but as i said, i had low expectations.

mrs hughes is still like the best person ever but wbk. her vs. the royal housekeeper = iconic. i kinda felt bad for royal whatsherface in some ways because she clearly didn't know who she was up against THE elsie hughes who has vanquished much scarier foes in her time. the other servants were never gonna win that battle.

the 0.5 seconds of baby bates *chef's kiss* perfection. god i am slightly bitter it was only 0.5 seconds given the fuckin multiseason journey leading up to his birth. tbh we should've ditched everything involving the personal lives of the rando new characters and let baby bates have some of that time but fellowes loves upstairs too much to let that happen. the small interaction was adorable though and i'm glad the mention of his name was subtle enough that we can retcon it cause i truly believe anna and bates would've came up with a more creative choice than that. genuinely i'm so curious about their whole living situation and how they cope with a smol child while working full time but i doubt fellowes even considered that so y’know. what can we do. i enjoyed the breadcrumbs but i wanted more.

i did go into this film with the mindset of "something awful will probably happen to anna or bates," cause that's what usually happens in these things but plot twist!!!! we saw them smile on multiple occassions!!!! what a nice change for us all! i swear every time anna bates smiles an angel gains their wings. her scenes with mary were good and i'm happy their friendship made it into the film. you know what else i was happy to see? the EXTREMELY UNDERRATED brotp between anna and baxter. there was a couple of moments with them standing next to each other or talking to each other and it warmed my heart. like yass two of my fave people are friends. it's a big win for me. 

i'm sure i read something about brendan being involved in another project which meant he couldn't film too much (i'm curious to whether this impacted the lack of baby bates scenes?) and while it's true that bates didn't have a ton of scenes, i didn't feel like he was absent which was good.

thomas had the best storyline imo. i don't blame him for being angry that mary brought in carson and it was actually very iconic of him to go off in the library like that. i found it hilarious that while everyone else was panicking at downton he went off on gay adventures. i really wish we'd gotten this "thomas makes a gay friend then discovers the village's underground gay scene THEN gets a boyfriend" in the show cause that would've been SO MUCH BETTER than some of the other stuff that got stretched out across the last couple series (like the love quadrangle with daisy/ivy/alfred/jimmy). like, imagine thomas’ movie plot as a series-long arc. the impact. i liked the guy that was his maybe-boyfriend and i hope any continuation keeps that relationship going.

mrs p and daisy continue to be the mother-daughter duo of the century. i thought both of them were supposed to be moving to the farm post-S6 but i suppose that would've meant they wouldn't be in the film hence why it didn't come to fruition. i guess they could all move once daisy and andy get married. mrs patmore didn't get a great deal to do but i still feel like i saw her a fair amount. comrade daisy was awesome and is definitely me when i see any monarchy-related stuff. somewhere over the last few seasons she's developed into one of the most interesting characters in downton and we don't talk about that enough. andy trashing the boiler was immature af but at the same time i feel like it completely makes sense for daisy to take that as a compliment. it’s just such a daisy thing to do?????

now, there is one thing i kinda fucked up here. while i went into the film with low expectations for everyone else, i fully expected baxley to be A Thing because how could i not and boy did i come out looking like boo boo the fool. i guess baxter and molesley have continued the tradition of Agonisingly Long Downstairs Slowburns which would be okay if we were still getting one season per year but is quite frankly rude when we're on rationed content like this. the first half of the film i thought it was gonna be revealed that they were together or something but then that scene at the end implied they're dancing around each other and my god is it frustrating. i would give so much to trade tom and lucy's romantic subplot for a baxter/molesley one but once again i know that's an unrealistic dream.

definitely not enough baxter in general but that one shot of her, anna and mrs hughes standing in the same frame was worth the price of my cinema ticket. still love molesley even tho he's a monarchist.

in terms of the overall downstairs stuff, i'm euphoric at seeing all these people interact with each other again. as we all know, found family is the best trope and since the servants are literally the epitome of that every moment focussed on them is like chicken soup for my weary soul. was the revolution against the royal servants realistic? no. was it realistic for the two people who came up with most of the plot to be the ones who went to jail for doing literally nothing wrong and would therefore want to avoid stuff that could get them in trouble with an all-powerful family? also no! however, seeing downstairs all working together for a common goal is content that appeals directly to me and i am thankful.

shoutout to the last scene which is the best way the movie could've ended it for me. use of first names AND walking home together? thank u fellowes.

tldr; team downstairs fan who was strongly anti-movie, went in with low expectations, was pleasantly surprised.  there are a shit ton of things i’d change but i just really loved seeing these characters who all mean so much to me again. obviously the only reason this film happened was for financial reasons rather than a desire to continue the storyline (cause the finale tied things up perfectly imo) but i wish they'd done a two-part miniseries instead to ensure everyone gets some screentime. two ninety minute specials every few years would work much better if everyone wants to keep downton going but i guess that doesn't bring the cash in like a movie does.

[bemused-writer]

VNC Chapter 38

Ohh, this was a good chapter. So much happened and it should go without saying this particular analysis will be spoiler heavy, so under the cut the major ones go!

First thing, I’m glad the fight between Noé and Astolfo was put on hold for now because it allows the arc to move forward in a smoother fashion. If they’d continued to go back and forth between Vanitas and Noé I think it would have made for too much confusion.

As Noé and Astolfo make their way to the tower we see Noé call out to Jeanne and Jean-Jacques briefly. He’s torn; he wants to save Jean-Jacques, he wants to stop Jeanne, but ultimately the only thing he can do is find Vanitas.

Vanitas has a pretty good understanding of the situation. The only thing holding Jeanne back is that she thinks she’s fighting Chloé. She has absolutely no investment in Jean-Jacques and I think it pains Noé to acknowledge that--he’s seen the way he’s suffered and he knows Jeanne is in the wrong.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the battle in the tower is going poorly. I’m honestly a little surprised Vanitas’s spine didn’t snap when he hit the wall. Considering how immobile Vanitas was for the rest of this chapter he’s definitely injured though; I guess we’ll see how bad it is in future chapters.

This did lead to a glorious scene with Noé throwing a pipe into a machine though. These battles go a lot better with the two of them--Vanitas isn’t great with straightforward fights but he is good with strategy and I think now that we have both of them in the same room we might begin to see some progress if any can be made. However, it’s not just Noé and Vanitas who are fighting although it’s easy to forget that as the other characters are shoved into the background:

That’s not a critique; we need to hone in on our protagonists and Chloé right now.

Speaking of Chloé, it sounds like her plan was phenomenally bad and we’re given a vague reason for why that may be:

Vanitas: Don’t make Naenia remember who she is! No vampire can kill that!

There are two specifications Vanitas makes here that I find interesting. 1) He refers to Naenia as “that.” This implies that whatever she’s becoming it’s not a vampire or a human; it’s something else. 2) No vampire can kill her. My guess is that humans are so incapable of killing this thing there’s no point in even bringing them up. By specifying vampires it also implies that manipulating the world formula won’t do anything either, which means every single person in the room right now is completely useless. 8D

Regardless, Naenia does start to remember and the first thing she remembers is Ruthven:

The next thing she remembers is the setting. We see Ruthven reaching out for her, presumably about to kill her or work some sort of formula. To the left, I would say is Veronica. At first I thought it might be Dominique but we don’t see her in the following montage, so I suspect that’s not the case. Regardless, it’s a safe bet the de Sades are involved in this and that doesn’t bode well.

To the right... I want to say that’s either The Shapeless One or Loki. You can just make out that he’s wearing a hat and he’s holding something, possibly a cane, so I’m leaning toward The Shapeless One. That would mean at some point he and Ruthven were working together, apparently to seal Naenia away/usurp the throne.

Having said that, Loki is still a solid possibility, especially since he seems to actually reference the event.

Loki: ...That woman. After we went to the trouble of smashing up her corpse for her.... So the old wreck was still rotting, was it? Huh...

Now this right here raises some questions and I’m surprised I didn’t wonder about them before. What have we been told repeatedly happens to a vampire’s corpse after they die? It turns to dust. What didn’t happen to the queen’s? We see her corpse (or her body?) lying in bed; Luca talks to her. She’s definitely not dust but she does look decayed.

Loki sounds surprised she was still rotting--this seems to indicate that her making a return wasn’t unheard of. Why didn’t they cremate the body? At any rate, what is the queen if that is something she can do? Is this because she may have been a curse bearer? How did she become a part of Charlatan otherwise?

When Naenia regains all her memories and her body forms all the vampires hear it, even those that don’t appear to have any real connection to her such as Amelia. There are two individuals that are a little harder to discern:

My guess is that this is the Shapeless One. His form is a little wonky like his was sometimes. Still, the bats aren’t a typical theme for him and he seems to be missing his top hat, so it’s hard to say for sure.

I’m almost positive this one is Misha. The hairstyle is right and the collar matches the one we saw him wear before: 

As a side note, the scenery to the left of him is connected to Loki, not Misha, so still no clues as to where Dominique may be....

However! What’s interesting about this is that Misha doesn’t fit in with the rest of the people who are shown as hearing the queen’s return. Every single other person is a vampire. Is Misha also a vampire? This could indicate he is. On the other hand, it could be that people who were cursed by Vanitas of the Blue Moon have a certain connection to the world formula and therefore can also hear this.

So, Naenia was the queen (at least that’s what it looks like) and we now have two bodies related to the queen. There’s Naenia who’s in the tank that Ruthven watches and there’s the rotting (?) body in the queen’s bed. What is going on here? Is this some kind of reincarnation? Or was the queen’s consciousness sealed into another body?

I don’t know but the tank Naenia’s physical form was in reminds me of one of the first things we learned about Jeanne: that she was placed in an induced slumber. We still don’t know why but something like that could easily have been in a tank.

We’ve learned a bit about Jeanne’s connection to past events in this arc and her connection with Chloé. Perhaps we’re about to learn of a further connection she has with Charlatan.

One last note on Vantias and Noé. The last time they had a fight scene with insurmountable odds it was a lot worse for them as far as pacing went. Everything was moving fast, Vanitas was immobilized, and they had no idea what to do. Now Vanitas is only kind of immobilized and they still have no idea what to do. 8D Granted, I suspect next chapter we’ll also see the speed of the battle increase, so maybe things will be just as terrible. XD

Their interactions during both fights so far are both similar and different. As I mentioned above, Vanitas is somewhat immobile in both. The difference is that Noé is quieter now and Vanitas is more willing to lean on him (literally and figuratively). 

Before, Noé just wanted Vanitas to get with it. Now, he’s just expressing concern. Here is a comparison of what I’m referencing. 

The Catacombs arc:

And our current arc:

Is this especially relevant? As far as what we’re learning about the queen and predictions for that particular storyline, no. But as far as these two interacting with each other, yes. It’s a subtle difference and it’s mostly in their physicality but it matches up with the changes we’ve been witnessing in their relationship more generally.

Before, Noé just needed Vanitas to get back on his feet so they could save a vampire. Vanitas allowed the support but neither of them lingered near each other for very long.

Compare that to now where we saw Noé subconsciously think of Vanitas as his light and Vanitas purposefully reached out to clean Noé up. We’re seeing a subtle change. Noé isn’t trying to encourage Vanitas to do anything. He actually seemed concerned when Vanitas tried to move even though in both arcs Vanitas was flung bodily into a wall and nearly knocked unconscious.

As for Vanitas, he doesn’t rush to pull away from Noé. If anything, he leans into him further. 

I’m really impressed with how subtle yet telling this method of storytelling is; it’s easy to miss but quite significant if you’re paying attention. This whole arc has had parallels to the catacombs arc and I’m very curious to see if that continues.

As for some final predictions for our next chapter: I’m guessing the fight is going to be way, way worse. Apparently, Naenia is now something they can’t kill. Also, how long before Jeanne realizes she has the wrong person? At some point she’s bound to notice what’s going on in that tower or she just might be flung into it during the battle itself. I suppose we could get some kind of monologue next chapter as well. Honestly, I’m not sure; I never would have guessed Naenia was the queen. XD Or maybe she’s simply heir to the throne? Now that would be something... Guess we’ll find out!

[pynkhues]

I’m not really sure what I’m expecting to happen in season 3 but I’m keeping my expectations low. I will be extremely disappointed though if we still don’t get any scenes with Rio’s POV. I feel like at this point they have to give us a bit more from his perspective and have him have scenes outside of Beth and the girls but I honestly don’t know if they will. I’m just tired that we always has to headcanon things about Rio’s character bc the writers don’t give us much when it comes to him.

I think that’s all fair, anon. I’ve had quite a few asks in the past about people wanting a Rio POV, and if I’ve ever answered them, it’s usually been pretty vaguely, because honestly? It’s a bit of a loaded question for me - although probably not for the reasons that you think. So I figure it’s finally time I actually sit down and answer it. As always, this is just my opinion, and I’m not trying to invalidate anyone’s feelings or theories in the process of this, it’s just me. Talking, haha.

The reason this is complicated for me is that it requires a bit of a reconciliation in my head between Sophie the Viewer and Sophie the Writer, because honestly as a viewer? I’d really love it too! I find Rio a compelling character and Manny’s performance excellent, and I want to see more of him, and obviously I ship him pretty hard with Beth, and think Manny and Christina perform magnetically together, and I do think he’s a bit underutilised in the narrative sense.

That said, as a writer? I think it not only makes sense, but is important in terms of the narrative structure and the rules they have established that he hasn’t been a POV character up until this point. Up until the finale, he hadn’t connected in a meaningful way to any other character beyond the scope of the girls, meaning that it would make no sense to have him as a POV character. I actually think that for all the damage 2.13 did, we’re actually set up really, really well for that to change.

Beth, Ruby and Annie are, of course, the focus of the show. That’s not exactly new information for anyone, and the suite of supporting characters – namely Rio, Dean, Stan, Greg, Nancy, Boomer, Marion, Mary Pat, Noah and Turner (phew!) – are ultimately defined not just by their relationships to the girls, but by the points where their worlds intersect with the girls’. Whether you have characters like Dean or Stan who are intersecting due to sharing a domestic space / a life with them, or a workplace / job like Boomer or Mary Pat, or a mission like Turner, we only ever really see them in terms of how their stories interconnect with, or disrupt, the girls’.

And yeah, the most common argument I see around this is that Boomer has been a POV character quite a lot, but the thing is Boomer is also a bridging character, which is the main thing that I want to talk about here. Boomer is a character who connects a lot of the story worlds – he brings us to Annie, he brings us to Marion, he brings us to Turner, and then he brings us to Mary Pat. As much as he is an antagonist and, of course, a character in his own right, he’s also a narrative tool who’s being used to smooth transitions between scenes, and connect characters in unexpected ways, and in doing so he drums up dramatic tension, can be used to pass information between the characters he connects with (we saw that early on with him seeing Rio, taking the picture, and showing Turner, thus connecting Beth and Turner), and can plant seeds for future plot points (i.e. recognising Annie’s tattoo during the robbery in the pilot, the pen cap, his ‘death’, etc).

And it’s not just Boomer either. The show has established that supporting characters really only get their own POVs when they intersect in some way with other supporting characters. Think about Stan. He was not a POV character in S1. We never saw him acting as a security guard, and we only saw him at work at the police station when Ruby visited him (and again – Stan became a bridging device in that moment between Ruby and the news of Eddie’s arrest), but by taking the pen cap in S2, his world collided with not only Ruby’s in a way it hadn’t before, but with Turner’s, and he became a POV character. Even those scenes with him though, as much as they were about his own character arc and his own stressors, we wouldn’t have seen them if they weren’t essential to Ruby’s character arc, and to her conflict with Beth. Same with Mary Pat and Boomer. These are C plots that ultimately influence the A narrative – which is about Beth, Annie and Ruby trying to Do Crime and Survive.

Even Dean is the same. With the exception of his new job in 2.12, he’s only ever a POV character when he’s somehow connecting with another supporting or minor character – usually Amber or Turner, in a way that drives Beth’s arc – the former of whom is integral to Beth’s internal journey, and the latter to the pressures dictating her external one. Hell, we didn’t even see Dean take the kids! We didn’t even see him interact with his mother. We saw Beth interact with Judith, not Dean. That’s because the show isn’t about him, and the time that we spend with him is ultimately about the ways his behaviour is going to effect (and usually hurt) Beth.  

The problem with Rio as he existed prior to 2.13 is that he was, narratively speaking, an island. He couldn’t connect any of the subplots, because he wasn’t connected to anyone else.

Rio operates in a world that is almost completely removed from the ones Beth, Annie and Ruby live in. It would make no sense to have him suddenly have a subplot with – say – Mary Pat, or even with someone like Stan. The collisions of those worlds wouldn’t serve the narrative, it wouldn’t reveal anything about the girls, and it wouldn’t be authentic to the overall story. We know that he’d kill Mary Pat, and that storyline would instantly be over. We know that he already has a mole inside the police station, so what use would Stan be to him?

Think about it this way. If Rio was a POV character right now, and he wasn’t interacting with the girls, what would he be doing? What would we be seeing? Likely, it would be his operation, right? Which would require a whole new set of worlds and sets, a whole new suite of characters, likely unique subplots, which would ultimately take us too far away from the central arc. His world does not crossover enough with the girls’ yet to make narrative sense. Hell, we saw that when they did it the one time in S2 – it introduced the country club, and it introduced Gretchen, because he doesn’t otherwise intersect with the girls’ world.

It would be a narrative detour.

(I mean, maybe he could’ve intersected with Fine & Frugal? But I think the fact that Boomer didn’t recognise Rio in S1 means doing so is way below Rio’s paygrade).

That’s why I think that 2.13 establishes us really well. It is deliberately linking Rio and Turner, while also likely positioning us to explore more of the crime world through Beth trying to set up her own kingdom, which will create a narrative overlap in Beth and Rio’s worlds, giving them many more ways to intersect, which pulls Rio closer to the A Storyline. It’d also have the benefit of introducing us to it at the same time Beth is introduced to it, keeping us in line with her perspective, while also opening up the chances to explore other points of view, including Rio’s.

Which hopefully they’ll do! I guess we just have to wait and see. 😊

Phew! That got long, anon, haha.

And for the last part of your question – in terms of the headcanons about Rio’s character – look, I think it’s more obvious that we know so little about him because so much of fandom is heavily invested in him, but we actually don’t have a lot of information about any of the supporting characters. Hell, even our knowledge of Beth, Annie and Ruby’s pasts are sprinkled in very sparingly. We only have a one-off mention for instance of the fact that Ruby has brothers, and we have no idea what’s happened to any of their families except that Ruby’s dad passed away. We know nothing about Stan’s history, or Greg’s, or hell, even Boomer’s. The amount of legwork 2.08 did too in terms of telling us about the girls’ history was massive, given prior to that we actually knew next to nothing.

Honestly, I’d like more backstory for everyone! But that’s only because I’m hungry for every kernel of history this show flicks our way, haha. But yes, more Rio backstory would definitely be nice too, and hopefully S3 positions us in a way we might get some.