#kay liveblogs

[owenhcrper]

genuinely i want to know if paul or prue could make these technicals without a recipe because somehow i doubt it

[kayzero]

oh Hunter. sweet baby boy.

i sympathize with you So Hard. no one told you the rules for social conduct so you have assumed that everyone has the same level of enjoyment for everything you do without proper communication.

it’s just. So Fucking Painful to watch.

[neenack]

go sit at the kiddie table

the kiddie table:

[graceful-not]

????? LITERALLY TOXIC MARRIED STRAIGHT COUPLE "you should apologize for cheating on me in my dream >:(!!" ENERGY???? HELLO????????? THIS IS SO FUNNY I FELT LIKE HE OR KAI WAS GONNA SHOUT "THATS IT IM GETTING A DIVORCE" EVERY 2 SECONDS OF THIS SCENE

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

Anyway bringing this back, courtesy of @thepursuitoflaziness reminding me of it

[agnesandhilda]

honestly idc about whatever scandalous criminal past is being cooked up for mr miyagi in this season. "he was a THIEF who participated in UNDERGROUND FIGHTING" I don't think you understand how sexy that sounds

[jinxed-ninjago]

"maybe you oughta crawl into your crib for a nap buddy" I NEVER WANT KAI AND LLOYD'S DYNAMIC TO CHANGE LMAO

[edenprime]

I despise Kai Leng and his pathetic faux foil role in ME3 so much. It would've been so much better if it had been the Virmire victim and honestly- it would've made the Cerberus storyline so much better. It would've turned "Shepard becomes an idiot every time some guy with a sword appears" into "Shepard is blindsided by seeing their friend back from the dead". It also works with the foils dynamic and more:

Both brought back by Cerberus. Shows Shepard the other side of the coin - how they could've been if Cerberus had actually messed with their head. Shepard also makes some comments about themselves that make it look, in a way, like they do have some lingering doubts at the very least about coming back. When you look at the Shepard VI and they ask if they are really like that, when they ask EDI if they are transhuman or cyborg, when they refuse to talk about the clone situation every time it's brought up on the DLC, when they keep comparing the clone to themselves... I know we have the child dreams as our show of Shepards PTSD, but this could've added another layer to it.

"And for every soldier you [the reapers] add, your enemy loses two: the one you converted, and his buddy on the other side who can't pull the trigger on a friend." -> we could see this! Javik aludes to the same, but we never see it on screen. It's just a hypothetical, the only people who become indoctrinated are villains, Cerberus, or their allies. This would've shown that, it would've been some cool foreshadowing. As it is, it's just a loose end.

Shepard spat in Cerberus eye when they left, especially if they destroyed the Collector base. Using the resuscitated and indoctrinated friend against them would've been an incredible way of spitting back at them. It would've been an amazing show of power. It could've demonstrated that Shepard wasn't the first, that Cerberus was already experimenting with life and death even before the success of the Lazarus project.

It gives more credibility to TIM's claims that he can control the reapers, and it's a nice setup to the reveal of what's actually going on in Horizon and Sanctuary.

And even then, no Kai Leng and no Virmire victim would've been better than Kai Leng. Everything stays the same but that plot-armored jackass doesn't exist. Cerberus attempts a coup with regular agents, they steal the data from thessia with regular agents, they show up as regular agents on Horizon, etc. Because Leng doesn't work at all in the story. He doesn't.

Regardless of how well it was executed, the entire Cerberus plot line is supposed to be a "coming full circle" moment from me1. We had the indoctrinated Saren leading the indoctrinated geth (synthetic) in me1. We have the indoctrinated TIM leading indoctrinated humans (organics) in me3. We end up with a "showdown" between saren/TIM in which depending on how persuasive we were during our previous talks, they (now deformed by reaper tech) shoot themselves in the head.

Where does Kai Leng fit into all of this? He doesn't! He's just... there. He's got no room in the story.

[21st-century-ninja]

“Miss those days, just fun, not having to worry about saving the world”

LET 👏 MY 👏 MAN 👏 RETIRE

[protect-namine]

thinking about the manhua still. I love that it explores aspects of the story that the show doesn't (or hasn't) delved too deeply upon, and it's also more like the first half of S1, which is my favorite format for link click.

I'm really enjoying how it explores the idea of how a client "sticks" with cheng xiaoshi, their regrets and obsessions linger in his thoughts and dreams post-dive, and how lu guang tries to take care of him through that. there's more thought put into post-dive "aftercare"

also them doing odd jobs like this:

the cases are much like S1 cases, and they're interesting to me. I like that they do missions that extend beyond the actual photo-dive, where a dive is just a part of the plan and not the whole plan itself. like, there's a clear difference between S1E2 shiguang who keep diving in photo after photo to find a noodle recipe, and manhua!shiguang who does like, internet searches and talking to people as part of their job helping a client find an old video recording.

manhua!shiguang........... oh man. lu guang acts way more, hmmm, how should I put this. feels like manhua!lg will jump through hoops to make sure cheng xiaoshi avoids feeling bad about a dive, while S1!lg either has a little more trust in cheng xiaoshi on handling himself and following his lead in unsavory situations, or he just straight up panics when he realizes that cheng xiaoshi is about to do something reckless.

like, lu guang's character has always been a tug-of-war between being extremely careful about handling cheng xiaoshi to the point that it can be seen as controlling, and being more trusting of cheng xiaoshi in how he handles an operation, even if it risks danger to himself. S1!lg is pulling on both ends but manhua!lg is definitely more on the careful side. kinda feels like manhua!lg has asked cheng xiaoshi if he's absolutely sure he wants to do a dive way more than I've seen donghua!lg asked that question.

some interesting characterizations:

love that we get some lu guang pov.

lu guang is still very principled (when he's not being a hypocrite) (for example, him telling cheng xiaoshi not to dive in a dead person's photos out of respect for their privacy) but it's clear that they have different priorities. cheng xiaoshi gets invested in the missions; lu guang is invested in cheng xiaoshi not getting fucked up by a mission.

it leads to fun moments like this where cheng xiaoshi is doing detective work from the get go, meanwhile lu guang is out here not really caring yet and preparing their sleeping bags (tbh I am soooo here for more detective-ing and operation-leading from cheng xiaoshi)

it's actually like. insane to me how palpable it is that manhua!lg cares little about their clients beyond fulfilling their primary objective of helping them (compared to S1!lg). like, he does care, but he really only acts when he sees it's upsetting cheng xiaoshi that they can't help out more. I think donghua!lg at least cares a little bit more about their clients than that (live action version is on the extreme end and cares way more than the first two, at least from the episode I've seen).

you can feel that manhua!lg has Gone Through Grief more recently and is channelling all of that into devotion lmao.

anyway. manhua!shiguang........ oh cheng xiaoshi you are so beloved in every universe

cute siblings moment:

[eurydicees]

it's fucking crazy how like. haikyuu started more than ten years ago. and now it's only occasional special one-shots that come out. and yet furudate has yet to miss with any single panel. every chapter since 2012 has hit and i am not joking.

[owenhcrper]

mary berry would never make them do this

[kayzero]

i don’t like adrian graye

[neenack]

Why did he inhale so hard????

[therealkaidertrash21]

He's just eighteen years old. He's barely an adult. And he just lost his father, and now he's forced to look after an entire nation AND partly the rest of the planet.

the problem is not that he's not smart or strong enough, the problem is that HE'S JUST A KID WHO'S GRIEVING.

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

"Never cry over dick, ever."

-Gill Bake Off