#let's hope the second episode follows through on what the premiere gave us

[poipoi1912]

More 19x01 Thoughts

I just wanted to respond to some of your comments on my premiere post (thanks so much for reading that, by the way! You can find it here.)

But first, let me talk about the Sonny/Fin deleted scene (posted here).

Fin and Sonny

I LOVED EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS.

When we first saw that Fin/Sonny pic at the bar, I assumed it was part of a stakeout scene or something to that effect. I didn't dare hope that Fin would actually ask Sonny out for a drink to pick his brain! That was better than anything I could have imagined, because yet again the show acknowledged Sonny's identity as a lawyer, but this time it wasn't in annoyance, like we usually see (e.g. the Rollins scene). This time, another cop actually reached out to Sonny for legal advice! That's a perfect use of a character like Sonny. The others can go to him with questions on matters Barba should be left out of, if only for reasons of plausible deniability. Sonny is a cop, still, so he's on their side (up to a point, because again we saw how strongly he felt about upholding international law), so it’s easier to go to him.

And it wasn't just the setting of the scene. It was also the humor, and the lovely camaraderie between Sonny and Fin (a rather underdeveloped dynamic, even though their team-ups have given us some standout moments in the past few seasons). We got so many good jokes, with both of them landing some decent jabs. Truly, if this episode had one single thing going for it, it was good dialogue. These one-on-one scenes, they can so easily be ruined by bad, out of character or stilted dialogue, despite the best efforts of the cast. Instead, this scene came to life.

And there was a balance, too. Fin joked about Sonny's legal knowledge (or lack thereof), but Sonny teased back (about the Cuba thing, as if he didn’t know, lol) while holding his own and defending both the law and his position as a cop-slash-lawyer. They were on equal ground as characters, as friends, even, and the warm (and hilarious) ending painted both of them in such a positive light. Fin was buying the drinks, Sonny sassed him about being on retainer, and Fin came back with that perfect line about attorney-client privilege. That showed they both knew what this was, and they’re close enough to joke about it, and they trust each other enough to keep it to themselves.

Sonny and the Law, Vol. 2

But we also got Sonny characterization! Fin asked about his law license (and I'm glad he at least remembers Sonny passed the bar, lol) and Sonny very pointedly said it was "gathering dust." Sonny didn't sound particularly happy, even if he wasn't 100% regretful. That line reading, it was just wistful enough to let us know that Sonny is torn between the two careers, and his constant nagging about the law was enough to remind us that Sonny is more than just another cop, but the show didn't beat us over the head with his dilemma. Instead, we got a more subtle way of conveying Sonny's potential dissatisfaction.

I can't wait to see more about that. I'm even a little more excited for the new ADA's arrival, because now I'm curious to see how Sonny might react to him and his more harsh (I assume) approach. So many possibilities!

Squad Thoughts

Despite the fact this scene was deleted (like all the best scenes are, like the Barisi scene from Depravity Standard, or that Rollaro elevator scene, or the Barba mentioning Hamilton scene, etc etc), the new showrunner truly seems to want to cultivate stronger interpersonal relationships between all the characters. In the premiere alone we got Liv/Amanda, Liv/Barba, Liv/Fin, Barba/Fin, Sonny/Amanda, Sonny/Fin, and I'm hoping we get more and more iterations as the season advances. 

Your Thoughts

@avenuepotter said:

ALWAYS love your analyses. I lost myself in a crazy chuckle when I read this part: Fin - rule breaker, fashionable (lol), has negative fucks to give. Can’t wait for next week.                            

First of all, thank you so much, and I always love reading your thoughts as well! Secondly, after watching the aforementioned deleted scene, it appears that Fin just might give the tiniest of fucks, since he wanted to check with Sonny to make sure the guy wouldn't walk. While still being a rule-breaker and fashionable, of course.

I loved that touch. It's more characterization than we usually get for Fin, and it put Ice-T's entire performance in the premiere in context. When he grinned and told Liv "I didn't even know it was legal!" his surprise was because he had actually checked, lol! Now I love that moment even more.

@shadowassassin32 said:

Yay you are back!!!! I love reading your analysis of things. It’s always very interesting.

I have a question for you. When Liv confessed to Rafi about the gun thing and asked “What was I thinking?” do you think that she might finally stop putting herself in dangerous situations for Noah’s sake at least? Curious on what your interpretation of that scene was.

Thank you so much, it’s great to see all the regulars back for this season. We're all still here, somehow, and I hope this season will give us more food for thought. 

As for your excellent question, I don’t know if Liv's realization will affect her behavior as the season goes on. If I'm being honest, I think this was just a tiny seed planted by the writers which will eventually blossom when the Noah custody issue gets explored. There's a chance Brooke Shields will challenge Liv's adoption (I'm assuming), or, at the very least, there's next week's investigation, and I think Liv might momentarily question her situation, especially if she sees that Noah could possibly live in a "safer" environmentin a different, "normal" home. Which is ridiculous, of course, if not offensive (I hate to see good mothers doubting themselves, though I realize it's part of the deal, lol. A good mother always worries. Plus we did get that great Amanda moment, which served to reassure Liv.)

That said, I think a good mother like Liv just might put herself last, and consider the possibility her child might be "better off" someplace else. I think that's what that scene was about. It's true, it's harder for Liv to risk her life knowing she has a kid at home, but then there are so many cops with kids, and they do their jobs every day, and they go home to the little ones. Then again, Liv's stunt was a little too dangerous and self-destructive. It is certainly possible that she'll realize that she needs to stop doing that. It's one thing to find herself in a dangerous situation (like all cops sometimes do), but to actively seek it out? To show no regard for her own life?

Again, this could potentially be offensive (do mothers need to be more worried than fathers? Would this storyline ever involve a male cop, like, say, Nick?) Also, to quote Brooklyn Nine-Nine:

That said, it was something new, at least. Something we haven’t touched on. Original Recipe Liv used to be way messier and more self-destructive (and I loved her for it), but we never truly saw her struggle with that since becoming a parent. So I’m interested to see where it goes.

@extrovertedsparkle said:

^^^^ YES!  I was so grateful for an episode where I couldn’t decide if I liked it or not, and didn’t just hate it outright lol!  Some parts were overacted, omg Carla’s husband but I felt it had a really good pace overall and felt like old times,  as opposed to the mess that was season 18.  

I’m here for the quirk, and the friendship, and the snark of the squad and I cannot wait to see what season 19 has in store for us.

Agreed. I was surprised by how much I didn’t hate it, lol. I sat down to watch it with hesitation, ready to cringe, but I ended up actually liking it. No one knows how the season will play out, but at least this premiere showed potential.

@bensonismymom said:

Yes!!! I’m really glad we have the dynamics back again between characters!!! The scenes with sonny and Amanda / Amanda and Liv / Liv and Fin / Liv and Barba WERE SO GREAT!! I missed having the characters interact with each other again! 

Absolutely. I said it many times, the number one mistake made by the writers last season was the loss of the sense of a squad. We do watch the show for the cases (which tbf were also terribly underwritten and repetitive in S18 as well), but mostly we all love the characters. We want to see how the cases affect them, and we also want to see them interacting with each other, as colleagues, and friends, and family. That's the heart of the show. Otherwise it's just any other procedural.

These characters have been so well-drawn, some (like Liv and Fin) for literal decades, and some (like Barba, Sonny and Amanda) for years, and S18 wasted all that history. Season 19 seems to be doing better already, even one episode in. That gives me hope.

Thanks again, for all your comments.

I love you all <33333

[theliterarywolf]

Alright, so Helluva Boss has finally returned for its second season.

The bloody, raunchy little indie show that could has obviously entranced viewers all over the internet (including some who probably shouldn't be watching it; *glaring at the parents who let their elementary-age children watch it because "all cartoons are totes for children, right?"), but is the series strong enough to hold up a continuation? Or was first season a fluke with an unsteady foundation?

So earlier when I made a bite-sized post after watching the S2 premiere, I had a few people who were unsure of whether my comment of 'that was a lot' was meant to be good or bad. Which is, of course, understandable. I was out and about so I didn't want to make a full post and accidentally end up spoiling people.

However, now that I can make a longer form post, I can firmly state that the first episode of Season 2, titled "The Circus" is definitely a strong opener.

While there were a few pieces of the humor that we've come to know from this production, the bulk of the episode was definitely more grounded and drama-focused due to it following Stolas from his childhood, to the early days of his arranged marriage, and finally the current timeframe (i.e.: where Season 1 ended off)

So, what were the stand-out elements for me?

Paimon - I really enjoyed how Paimon, while being an emotionally neglectful parent, wasn't so in the bombastic, emotionally/physically abusive sense. Oh, he's still not great, but he at least had the wherewithal to, upon seeing his son upset about his 'non-negotiable arranged marriage', try and make him feel better through material means. In comparison to most parents in that trope going the route of 'stop fucking crying, do what you're told, and GO TO YOUR FUCKING ROOM!'

Biltzo and Stolas's initial reunion - While their time together as children was cute, I feel like the reunion was a bit stronger not only because of the setting for it (Stella's "Not-Divorced" Anniversary Party) but also because it gave us stronger context for the famous 'Sorry, I fucked your husband!' scene from the pilot. Stolas's joyous crows of 'That! Was the sound! Of a FUCKING divorce!!' were the icing on the cake.

However, I will admit that there were two elements which, while still enjoyable to watch, weren't executed the best.

Stolas's new song - I felt like it was so much flatter than his last performance. Yes, the moods are different (singing a heartfelt lullaby to your child versus realizing that everything in your life has gone to shit) but it never hit that realm of musical-theatre like 'You Will be Okay' did.

Fucking. Stella. - Okay. *deep breath* Okay, okay, okay. I always knew that Stella's main presence in the series is that of an emotional antagonist to Stolas but there was always the hope in my mind of 'well, she probably has reasons or weight behind her demeanor and actions. While she acts abrasive, there's something else there!'

But... Nope. Spindlehorse has decided that she's literally just a bitch. And I can't help but feel like it's a bit of a wasted opportunity because, initially, there was room for something like 'oh, she's been trying to make this unhappy marriage somewhat presentable for the sake of duty but Stolas cheating on her has just caused her to say 'fuck it' but, no, she's always been violent and angry from birth. So... yay...

Also the thing with her cackling to her friends about 'all he does is lie there in bed, I have to do everything'.

Honey. Your husband is gay. Send for an incubus or some other prostitute to get him in the mood and then push them away for the main deed. Literally, you're rich!! There are ways to go about this, Stella!

Overall, this episode is a strong 7.5/10.

Also, I just remembered that someone on Twitter translated the pages that Stolas was reading during his song and they're roughly along the lines of a recipe for crystals that allow travel to the living world. So, oof, yeah: Stolas is thinking of ending the arrangement he has with Blitzo and its going to be interesting to see how that unfolds.

[thewhitejournal]

doctor’s orders .

(not my gif)

request by @lovely-lady-lumps : Can you do a cute Dean Winchester x reader where they take a shower and she washes his hair for him and it's just a really soft moment between them?

Dean Winchester x Female!Reader Oneshot

the premiere of the newest episode of supernatural this evening got me falling in love with soft Dean all over again, so i felt like now would be the perfect time to write this. hope y’all enjoy!

warnings: cursing, a little smutty i won’t lie

Dean had been moping around the bunker for the last couple of days, sick as a dog. Every day he would feel a tad better, but not back to full health quite yet. You felt bad for him; you were used to seeing the eldest brother witty and full of energy, but this cold was kicking his ass. You teased him, telling him it was because he didn’t eat his vegetables. He’d only roll his eyes and chuckle deeply. The cold gave his voice the ill but deep and sexy tone. It suited him perfectly, but what didn’t?

Ever since the Winchester brothers saved you from becoming vamp dinner about six months ago, you’d grown so attached to them, but in very different ways. Sure, Sam was so intelligent and funny and you couldn’t deny attractive, but Dean gave you a feeling in your chest that nobody had ever made you feel before. His emerald green eyes pierced through you every time you stole a glance at each other, and his lips looked to be softer than silk. You didn’t know that for sure though, neither of you had made a move.

It was getting to be around noon, and Dean was still in bed. Usually, by now you’d at least had heard him use the bathroom or sneeze from your room next to his. You rolled out of bed, sliding on your house shoes, and wrapping the cardigan you wore around your body. The cold, fall temperatures outside weren’t helping Dean feel better either. You walked out of your room, turning to your right to see his bedroom door closed. Your knuckles rapped softly against the old wood. He mumbled for you to come in.

You slowly pushed the door open, seeing that Dean was lying in almost complete darkness, wrapped up in two blankets and wearing a matching long-sleeved pajama set. You could tell he was slipping in and out of consciousness; his eyes looked like they were begging him to shut them and go back to sleep. You sat next to him on the edge of the bed, placing your hand on his chest. He was laying flat on his back. His body heat was burning through the shirt he wore.

“Dean, you’re burning up.” You muttered softly, touching his forehead softly with the back of your hand. His skin was on fire. He groaned.

“I’m so cold though, (Y/N). Snuggle me.” He all but pouted as he said this. You were taken aback; you knew Dean was bold, but never with you. Now it was your face’s turn to heat up. When you didn’t move, he scooted over and made room, then pulled you down to lay next to him. You yelped with surprise, and he chuckled deeply.

His arms wrapped around you, and he exhaled peacefully. You laid your hand on his chest, your other arm hugging your waist. One of his hands rested on top of yours. You snuggled up to him; you couldn’t help it, he was really warm and you were freezing. It didn’t help that he just smelled so damn good too. But not the best, you happened to notice.

“I think you should take a shower.” You whispered. Laughter echoed throughout his chest, followed by a couple of coughs.

“I stink that bad?” You were silent, a smile wavering on your lips. He lightly hit your hand.

“Shut up, bitch.” He remarked.

“Jerk.” You looked up at him; he was looking down at you and smiling. Your gaze lingered on each other, and you thought he was going to kiss you, but he slowly sat up, groaning all the way. You got out of the bed.

“Alright, doctor’s orders. But you need one too.” He smiled up at you, bed head at its finest. You gasped playfully.

“What, me? Never.”

“No, you don’t smell so great yourself, princess. My nose might be clogged up but I could smell your ass a mile away.” You pouted at him, the nickname giving you butterflies. He laughed lightly.

“Might as well take one together and save water.” You joked. His eyebrows rose and his lips parted in surprise. You realized he may not have known you were kidding. “Dean, I was just-“ You tried defending yourself, but he cut you off.

“Sounds good to me. But you have to wash my hair. My arms are killing me.” He threw the blankets off of him, standing up and started unbuttoning his shirts right in front of you. You turned your head instinctively, but his finger lifted your chin to meet his eyes.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to.” His eyes flickered all over your face, voice low and sultry. Of course, you wanted to, you were just nervous. You’d never been with a guy like Dean before; you knew he cared about you and didn’t want to hurt you, that’s what made him special.

“You know I’ll take care of you, right, (Y/N)? Nothing bad is going to happen to you.” His calloused hands held your face. His hot, bare chest was against your sweater.

“I know.” You muttered. He placed a soft, gentle kiss on your lips, and you kissed him back. This was your guys’ first kiss, and it was everything you’d dreamed of. Minus Dean’s cold of course; the thought crossed your mind only for a second that you might get sick too, but you lost any care you might’ve grown to have. He pulled away, smirking at you. You smiled back, how could you not?

He took your hand and led you to the bathroom adjoined to his room, shutting the door behind him. He placed another kiss on your lips, less gentle this time, but you didn’t mind. As silly as it might sound, you felt like you two were making up for lost time; you’d felt like you’d known each other forever, and all the pining made it feel like so much longer. You stepped back from him and slowly pulled your cardigan off and dropping it to the floor. His eyes watched your every move so carefully, eyes growing darker in color and pupils growing wider, like a hungry animal. Again, you didn’t mind. He made you feel like a powerful, sexy, wanted woman; no man had ever made you feel that way.

Your shirt came off your body next, slipping off your arms and onto the floor. You wore no bra underneath your clothes; you were relaxing at home, after all. What kind of person relaxes in a bra? Dean was mesmerized by your chest, but not in a creepy way. He was admiring your new-to-him beauty, eyes flickering all over the freshly exposed skin.

“(Y/N)...you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” His voice was low and had that sickly tone. It was saying a lot though; Dean had been with hundreds of women over the years, but they didn’t compare to you. You were a goddess in his eyes; despite all the flaws you saw in your body, he loved it, from head to toe. He closed the distance between the two of you again, wrapping his arms around your now bare waist. Now you could feel just how hot his skin was. His lips met yours again and he trailed hungry kisses down your neck. You stifled a moan, knowing Sam was around here somewhere. You knew Dean was going to leave marks, but you didn’t care.

He stepped back and pulled his pants off, not wearing any underwear for some reason. He was sporting a bit of a hard-on, which gave you, even more, self-confidence. You did the same, kicking off your pants and underwear to the side. You were both stood completely naked in front of each other for the first time, just admiring each other’s bodies. You smirked.

“Ready for your spa day, Mr. Winchester?” You joked. He nodded his head eagerly like a child. You couldn’t help but laugh at this. He was adorable yet so sexy at the same time. How did he do it?

You turned the water on in the shower and waited for it to get to a comfortable and warm temperature. Your back was to Dean, and you could feel his eyes on you, admiring every inch of your skin. You felt a little self-conscious, but you knew he thought you were beautiful just as you were. You stepped in, beckoning Dean with one finger and a smirk on your lips. He smirked back, following you into the shower.

You stepped back and let the water flow over your body, running your hands over your hair so that it all got wet. You opened your eyes to see Dean in front of you, entranced with you. “What?” You laughed nervously. He didn’t say anything; he just encased you in his arms and kissed you roughly. You felt his hard dick on your leg, making you blush profusely. You even let a little moan slip from between your lips. He returned you the favor.

“Don’t worry about him right now, we’re here to shower. He can wait.” Dean said as he pulled away; you imagined he was referring to his penis. You laughed a tad and nodded. You motioned for him to turn around and you squirted some of his shampoo in your hands, massaging it into his scalp. He groaned, leaning into your hands. You giggled.

“Thanks for doing this, (Y/N). I think I’m already feeling a lot better.” He whispered. You smiled.

“Anytime, Winchester.”

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Dark”

Welcome back, everyone! Can you believe it's been six weeks already? I can't. Something something the uncomfortable passage of time during a pandemic as emphasized by a web-series.

But we're here to talk about RWBY the fictional story, not RWBY the cultural icon. At least, we will in a moment. First, I'd like to acknowledge that shaky line between the two, growing blurrier with every volume. A sort of good news, bad news situation.

The bad news — to get that out of the way — is that we cannot easily separate RWBY from its authors and those authors have, sadly, been drawing a lot of negative attention as of late. This isn't anything new, not at all, but I think the unexpectedly long hiatus gave a lot of fans (myself included) the chance to think about Rooster Teeth's failings without getting distracted by their biggest and brightest production. There's a laundry list of problems here — everything from the behavior of voice actors to the quality of their merch — but as a sort of summary issue, I'd like to highlight the reviews that continue to pop up on websites like Glassdoor, detailing the toxic, sexist, crunch-obsessed environment that RT employees are forced to work in. A lot of these websites requires a login to read more than a page of reviews, but you can check out a Twitter thread about it here. 

Now, I want to be clear: I'm not bringing this up as a way to shame anyone enjoying RWBY. This isn't a simplistic claim of, "The authors are Problematic™ and therefore you can't like the stuff they produce." Nor is this meant to be a catch-all excuse for RWBY's problems. If it were, I'd have dropped these recaps years ago. I'm of the belief that audiences maintain the right to both praise and criticize the work they're given, regardless of the context in which that work was produced. At the end of the day, RT has presented RWBY as a finished product and, more than that, presents it as an excellent product, one worth both our emotional investment and our money (whether in the form of paying for a First account, or encouraging us to buy merch, attend cons, etc.) I'll continue to critique RWBY as needed, but I a) wanted fans to be at least peripherally aware of these issues and b) clarify that my use of "RT" in statements like, "I can't believe RT is screwing up this badly" is meant to be a broad, nebulas acknowledgement that someone in the company is screwing up, either creatively (doesn't have the skill to write a good scene) or morally (hasn't created an environment in which other creators are capable of crafting a good scene). The real, inner workings of such companies are mostly a secret to their audiences and thus it's near impossible for someone like me — random fan writing these for fun as a casual side hobby — to accurately point fingers. Hence, broad "RT." I just wanted to clarify that when I use this it's as a necessary placeholder for whoever is actually responsible, not a damnation of the overworked animator breaking down in a bathroom. Heavy stuff, but I thought it was necessary (or at least worthwhile) to acknowledge this issue as we head into the second half of the volume.

Now for the good news: RWBY has reached 100 episodes! For any who may not know, 100 is a pretty significant number in the TV world because, when talking about prime time programming, it guarantees syndicated reruns. Basically, networks don't want audiences to get burned out with a show — changing the channel when it comes on because ugh, I've seen this already, recently too — and 100 episodes allows for a roughly five month run without any repeats, making it very profitable. RWBY is obviously not a television show and doesn't benefit from any of this (hell, modern television doesn't benefit from this as much as it used to, not in the age of streaming), but the 100 episode threshold is still ingrained in American culture. Beyond just being a nice, rounded number, it is historically a measure of huge success and I can't imagine that RT isn't aware of that. Regardless of what we think of RWBY's current quality, this is one hell of a milestone and should be applauded.

All that being said... RWBY's quality is definitely still lacking lol.

Our 100th episode is titled "Dark" — keeping with the one word titles, then — and I'd like to emphasize that, as a 100th episode, it definitely delivers in terms of plot. There's plenty of action, important character beats, and at least one major reveal, everything we'd expect from a milestone and a Part II premiere. The animation also continues to be noteworthy for its beauty, as I found myself admiring many of the screenshots I took for this recap. There are certainly things to praise. The only problem (one we're all familiar with by now) is that these small successes are situated within a narrative that's otherwise falling apart. It's all good stuff... provided you ignore literally everything else surrounding it.

But let's dive into some examples. We open on Qrow starting, awoken by the thunder outside. Robyn has been watching him and makes a peppy comment about how none of them will be sleeping tonight, followed by a more serious, "Sounds bad out there." Yeah, it does sound bad, especially when they all know — thanks to Ruby's message back in Volume 7 — that this is due to Salem's arrival. I think a lot of the fandom has forgotten that little detail because people often discuss Qrow as if he is entirely ignorant of what is going on outside his cell. Even if we were to assume that he's forgotten all about the pesky Salem issue (the horror of Clover's death overriding everything else, perhaps) he still knows that Tyrian is running loose in a heat-less city with a creepy storm going on and, from his perspective, the Very Evil Ironwood is still running the show. So it's bad, which begs the question of why Qrow (and Robyn, for that matter) hasn't displayed an ounce of legitimate worry for everyone he knows out there. Thus far, their interactions have centered entirely around Qrow's misplaced blame and Robyn's terrible attempts to lighten the mood, despite the fact that a war is raging right beyond that wall. It's another example of RWBY's inability to manage tone properly, to say nothing of balancing the multiple concerns any one character should be trying to juggle. Just as it rankles that Ruby and Yang don't seem to care about what has happened to their uncle, Qrow likewise doesn't seem to care about what might be happening to his nieces. When did we reach a point where these relationships are so broken that someone can be arrested/chucked into a deadly battle and the others just... ignore that?

So Robyn's otherwise innocuous comment immediately reminds me of how badly the narrative has treated these conflicts and, sadly, things don't improve much from here. We are thankfully spared more of Robyn's jokes when Qrow realizes that what he's hearing can't be thunder. A second later, Cinder blasts through the wall — called it! — and Qrow instinctively transforms. 

The only downside to this moment is that the whole ceiling falls down on Qrow and the others because APPARENTLY these cells don't have tops on them. Seriously. As far as I can recall we don't see the stone breaking through the forcefield somehow and this looks pretty open to me.

If it is... you're telling me these crazy powerful fighters who practice landing strategies and leap tall buildings in a single bound —

— can't just hop over this mildly high electric fence to get out? Qrow can't just fly away?

We're, like, two minutes in, folks.

We transfer to Nora's perspective as she wakes up, seeing Klein giving her the IV. He tells her not to worry, that "you and your friend are going to be just fine." What friend? Penny? Klein went upstairs prior to Weiss hugging Whitley or Penny crash landing outside. I had thought them bursting through the door with another unconscious friend was the first time he learned what the big bang outside was, but apparently not.

Penny is, obviously, a mess. While I now understand the choice to make her blood such an eye-catching color when that's crucial to the Hound's hunt, I still think it looks strange visually. Like someone has taken a copy of RWBY and painted over it. It doesn't look like it fits the art style. More than that, it implies some rather complicated things about Penny's humanity, especially in a volume focused around her being a "real girl." Real enough for Maiden powers, but with obviously inhuman blood that isn't even referred to as "bleeding." Penny "leaks" instead.

Toss in the fact that she's literally an android who is made up of tech — recall the running gags about her being heavy, or it hurts to fist-bump her, to say nothing of keeping things like multiple blades inside her body — yet Klein says that her "basic anatomy" is the same and he can "stitch up that wound."

I'm sorry, what? Whatever Penny looks like on the inside, it's not going to resemble a human woman's anatomy, and Klein might be able to stitch the outer layer of skin she's got, but that won't do anything to fix whatever metal bits have been broken underneath. Penny isn't a human-robot hybrid, she's a robot with an aura. Penny has knives in her back, rockets in her feet, and a super computer behind her eyes. When our clip introduced that Klein would be the one to help Penny, my initial reaction was, "Seriously? He's a butler and a doctor and an engineer?" But RWBY didn't even try to get away with a Super Klein explanation, they just waved away Penny's very obvious, inhuman anatomy. Yeah, I'm sure "stitching up" an android wound is just like giving Nora her IV. I hope the surgical sutures he used are extra strong!

In an effort to not entirely drag this episode, I do appreciate that Whitley is allowed an "ugh" moment about the non-blood covering his shirt without anyone calling him out on it. That felt like the sort of thing the show would usually try to make a character feel guilty about and I'm glad that, for once, he was just allowed to be frustrated without comment.

Then the power goes out and May calls, which raises questions about what state the CCTS is in and when scrolls are available to our protagonists vs. when they're not. But whatever. She's checking in because she just "saw another bombing run light up the Kingdom" and —

Wait. Bombing? Salem is bombing the city? I know we've seen explosions in the sky, but I'd always just attributed that to evil aesthetic. Why does this dialogue sound like it's from a World War II film and not a fantasy sci-fi show about literal monsters launching a ground attack?

May looks pretty against the sky though. I like her hair color against that purple.

I'm admittedly grasping at positives here because we finally return to her "You have to choose" ultimatum and — surprise! — May has pulled back completely. Ruby says that once they've helped Penny, "We'll...we'll do something!" which is once again her avoiding making a decision. Ruby still refuses to choose, instead falling back on generic, optimistic pep talks. They'll figure out how to stop Salem later. They'll think about the impact of telling the world later. They'll choose who to help later. Ruby keeps pushing these problems into the future where, she hopes, a perfect, magical solution will have appeared for her to latch onto. When that continues to not happen, others pressuring her to actually do something and stop waiting for perfection — Ironwood, Yang, May — she panics and continues stalling for time. Wait an episode and the narrative supports her in this.

Because initially May was forcing Ruby to decide. Now, May enables her desire to keep putting things off. "Don't beat yourself up, kid. At this point, I don't know how much is left to be done." That's the exact opposite of what May believed last episode, that there was still so much work and good to do for the people of Mantle. This is precisely what the show did with Yang and Ren's scenes too, having people call Ruby out... but then return to a message of, 'Don't worry, you're actually doing just fine' before Ruby is forced to actually change.

None of which even touches on May calling her "kid" in this moment. That continues to be a convenient way of absolving Ruby of any responsibility. When she wants to steal airships or Amity Tower, she's an adult everyone should listen to, the leader of this war. When the story wants to absolve her of previously mentioned flaws, she becomes a kid who shouldn't "beat herself up." I said years ago that RWBY couldn't continue to let the group be both children and adults simultaneously, yet here we are.

So that was a thoroughly disappointing scene. Ruby gets her moment to look sad and defeated, listing "the grimm, the crater, Nora, Penny" as problems she doesn't know how to solve. Note that 'Immortal witch attacking the city I've helped trap here' isn't included in that list. Ruby is still ignoring Salem herself and no one in the group is picking up where May left off, challenging her to do more than wring her hands over things others are already trying to take care of: Ironwood is fighting the grimm, May has gone off to help the crater, Klein is patching up Nora and Penny. Ruby, as one flawed individual, should not be expected to come up with a solution to everything, but she does need to stop acting like she can come up with a solution to everything when it matters most (office scene) and rejecting others' solutions when they ask for her help (Ironwood, May).

If it feels like I'm dragging the flawed, traumatized teenager too much, it's not in an effort to ignore those aspects of her identity. Rather, it's because she's also the licensed huntress who wrested control from a world leader and violently demanded she be put in charge of this battle. Ruby, by her own actions, is now responsible for dealing with these problems, or admitting she was wrong and letting others take the lead, without purposefully derailing their plans. She doesn't get to suddenly go, "I don't know," cry a little, and get sympathetic pats.

But of course that's precisely what happens, courtesy of Weiss.

During this whole scene I kept wondering why no one was celebrating Nora waking up, especially when Ruby outright mentions her. Have they just not noticed given all the Penny drama? Because Nora absolutely woke up.

Aaaand went back to sleep, I guess. What was the point of that POV shot? No worries though, she'll wake up again in a minute.

Willow arrives and announces that they can fix the power (and Penny) using the generator at the edge of the property. I'm convinced RT doesn't actually know what a generator is because the characters are acting like it's some super special device that only richy-rich could possibly have. Whitley says that it's the SDC executives who have their "own power supply" and that it's "extremely unfair." Now, don't get me wrong, a good generator powering large portions of your house can run you 30k+, but you can also get one that plugs into your extension cord and powers your fridge for a couple hundred. There's absolutely a class issue here, just not the one Whitley and Weiss seem to be commenting on. They make a generator sound like the sort of device that only a politician-CEO could possible have and it's weird.

Likely, it sounds weird because it's a choppy way of getting Whitley to bring up the wealth disparity so he can then go, 'That's right! We're crazy rich with a company housing tons of ships! We can use those to evacuate Mantle.' Awkwardness aside, I do like that the Schnee wealth is being used for good purposes, but... evacuate where? To the city currently under attack by a giant whale? In a RWBY that wasn't determined to demonize Ironwood, this would have been a great plot point during the office scene instead, with Weiss offering her services to Ironwood, even if the group decides that a continued evacuation still isn't possible.

Instead, we get it here from Whitley. Do I need to point out the obvious? That Whitley is the MVP of this episode? He's done more good in an HOUR than the group has managed in a year. Give this kid some training and make him a huntsmen instead.

We're given a (very pretty!) shot of the shattered moon because it wouldn't be RWBY if we weren't continually reminded that gods once wiped out humanity before destroying part of a celestial body... and absolutely no one talks about that lol.

Blake's coat might not make any sense for her color scheme, but it does make her easy to spot as she and Ruby run across the grounds. Oh my god, they're actually doing something together! It only took eight years. They even get a lovely talk where Blake admits how much she looks up to Ruby, despite her being younger, and once again I'm struck at how much more I would have loved this scene if it had appeared elsewhere in the series. It is, indeed, as sweet and emotional as all the RWBY GIF-ers are claiming... provided you overlook that this is the exact opposite of what Ruby needs to hear right now. She doesn't need to hear that she's more mature and reliable than her elders when she's functioning under a "We don't need adults" mentality. She doesn't need to hear that not knowing what to do is totally fine, not when that led to her turning on Ironwood, despite not knowing how to stop Salem. She doesn't need to hear that "doing something" — doing anything — is a strength, because Ruby keeps avoiding the big problems for smaller ones she's comfortable with, like standing by Penny's bedside instead of deciding between Mantle and Atlas. Blake's speech is heartfelt, but it's a speech that suits a Beacon days Ruby who is having some doubts about her leadership skills, not the girl whose impulsive — and now lack of — actions is having world-wide repercussions. Everyone is babying Ruby to a staggering degree. It's like if we had a med show where the doctor is standing by the bedside of a coding patient, fretting between two treatments. 'Don't worry,' their colleague says, patting their shoulder. 'I've always looked up to you. You'll do something when you're ready' and then they continue to watch the patient, you know, die.

Also: who does Ruby look up to? Everyone talks about how much they depend on and trust Ruby, but who does Ruby look to for guidance? A number of her problems stem from the fact that she has rejected the advice of everyone who has tried to help her improve: Qrow, Ozpin, Ironwood, even Yang. Ruby is presented as the pinnacle of what to strive for in a leader, rather than a leader who has only been doing this for two years and still has a great deal to learn.

Anyway, they get the generator on and the Hound shows up.

I am begging RT to just make RWBY a horror story. All their best scenes the last three years have been horror I am bEGGING —

Anyway, while Ruby waits to be eaten we cut to Willow and Klein, the former of which is reaching for her bottle, pulling back, reaching again, all while her hand shakes. This is good. This is what we should have gotten with Qrow. Which isn't to say that their (or anyone's) addiction should be identical, but rather that this is a far more engaging and complex look at addiction than what our birb got. Willow tells us that she doesn't drink in the dark despite bringing the bottle with her; tries to resist drinking when she's scared and ultimately fails. Qrow just decided to stop drinking after decades of addiction, seemingly for no reason, and that was that. Why is a side character we only met this volume written better than one of the main cast?

Blake manages to call Weiss about the Hound and she asks if Whitley can handle the airships without her. I mean, I assume so given that Weiss is looking at the bookshelves while Whitley does all the work lol. He makes a teasing comment about how he can if she can handle that grimm and she comments that they still need to work on his "attitude."

No they don't. Weiss stuck a weapon in her kid brother's face. Whitley made a joke. Even if Weiss' comment is likewise meant to be read as teasing, it's clear that we've bypassed any meaningful conversation between them. That hug was supposed to be a Fix Everything moment even though, as I've laid out elsewhere, it didn't even come close.

We cut back to Ruby getting thrown through a wall into the backyard and the Hound creepily coming after her. She's freaked out by this clearly abnormal grimm and Blake is weirdly... not? "It's just a grimm. Just focus!" Uh, it's obviously not. Have we reached the traumatized, sleep-deprived point where the group is sinking into full-blown denial? I wouldn't be surprised. They've been awake for like... 40+ hours.

Because the Hound knocks Ruby out with a single hit. Just, bam, she's down. "Focusing" is not the solution here.

Weiss calls to warn the others about the grimm, telling them to stick together. Willow (understandably) starts freaking out and flees the room (classic horror trope!). Klein is left alone when Penny wakes up with red eyes. Oh no!

Don't worry. You know nothing meaningful happens.

She shoves Klein before (somehow?) resisting the hack, her Maiden powers going wild in the process. Just when it looks as if Penny might cause some serious damage, Nora wakes up, takes her hand, and says, I kid you not:

"Hey... no one is going to make you do anything you don't want to do... It's just a part of you. Don't forget about the rest."

Okay. I want to re-emphasize that I love hopeful, uplifting, victory-won-through-the-power-of-love stories. Istg I'm not dead inside, it's just that RWBY does this so badly. I mean, what is this? It has similarities to the character shouting, 'No! Resist!' to their mind-controlled ally, but this is not presented as a desperate, last-ditch effort by Nora. She just speaks like this is the most obvious truth in the world. If you don't want to have your mind taken over... just don't! It's that simple. The problem definitely isn't that Watts has changed her coding and has implemented a command she can't override, it's that Penny has forgotten about the "rest" of her personhood.

And this works. Granted, not for long, but we leave Nora having successfully calmed Penny down and until her eyes unexpectedly go red again scenes later, we're left assuming that this is a permanent solution. That, imo anyway, is taking the Power of Love too far, overriding the basic reality of Penny being hacked. It’s not a personal failing she must overcome, it’s an external attack. I would have rather had Nora react to the scars she saw on her arm, or have a moment with Klein, or get some love from the group. Not a wakes up, falls asleep, wakes up again to save Penny with a Ruby level 'Just ignore reality' pep-talk, then back to sleep again.

So Penny isn't attacking her allies, or mistakenly hurting her allies with wild Maiden powers. Not that the group doesn't have enough to deal with, but still. Weiss arrives to help with the Hound and attempts a new summon, only to fail when two minor grimm burrow up into her glyphs. I really enjoyed that moment, both for the wing visual and the knowledge that Weiss' glyphs can fail if you break them somehow (which makes sense). Also, I just like that she failed in general? Weiss is, as per usual now, about to demonstrate just how OP she is compared to the rest of the team, so it was nice to see her faltering here.

The Hound tries to make off with Ruby and Blake does an excellent job of keeping it tethered. Ruby finally wakes, only to realize that the grimm is actually after Penny since it's staring at her power up through the window, no longer trying to escape. Moments like this remind me that there's someone on RT's writing team that knows what they're doing, at least some of the time. The assumption that the Hound is after Ruby as a SEW, the surprise that it's actually Penny, realizing it holds up because Ruby is covered in Penny's blood and Blake is not... that's all nice, tight plotting. More of that please!

The Hound drops her and Ruby's aura shatters when she hits the ground. I want everyone to remember this moment as an example of how strong the Hound is. The group may be tired, but unlike YJR they've been sitting around in the Schnee manor for a number of hours, regaining strength. We saw the Hound hit Ruby twice — once through the wall and once to knock her out — and then she falls from a not very high distance for a huntress, yet her aura is toast. That's the level of power and skill the Hound possesses. Decimating YJR, knocking Oscar out, same for Ruby, avoiding Blake and Weiss' hits, soon to treat Penny like a ragdoll. Just remember all this for the episode's end.

Blake tells Weiss she'll take care of Ruby, you go help the others. Yay breaking up the duos more! Bad timing though as the new acid-spitting grimm pops out of the ground and Blake is now left alone to face it.

Weiss re-enters the mansion, knowing the Hound is somewhere nearby, but not where. Suddenly, Willow's voice sounds through her scroll with an, "Above you!" which... doesn't keep Weiss from getting hit lol. But it's the thought that counts! Willow has accessed the cameras she's set up throughout the manor, watching the Hound's movements, and I have to say, that is a WAY better use of her separation from Klein than I thought we were getting. I legit thought they'd have Willow run away in a panic, meet the Hound, die, and then Weiss could be sad about losing her mom.

It does say something about RWBY's writing that this was my knee-jerk theory, as well as my surprise when we got something way better.

The Hound runs off, uninterested in Weiss, and she asks Willow to keep tabs on it. It heads for Whitley next (also covered in Penny's blood) and very creepily stalks him in the office with a, "I know you're here." Whitley is seconds away from being Hound chow before one of Weiss' boars pin it against the wall. He runs, then runs BACK to finish deploying the airships, before finally escaping assumed death. Goddamn this boy is pulling his weight.

I assume all these ships are automated then? I hope someone takes a moment to call May. Otherwise it's going to be super weird for the Mantle citizens if a fleet of SDC ships just show up and hover there...

I don't entirely understand how Weiss saved him though. She's nowhere to be seen when Whitley leaves and he runs a fair distance before he and Willow encounter Weiss again. We know her summons don't have to keep right next to her, but are they capable of rudimentary thought, attacking an enemy — and an enemy only — despite Weiss being a couple corridors down and unable to see the current battlefield? I don't know. In another series I'd theorize that this was a deliberate hint, a way to clue us into the fact that Willow, someone who we currently know almost nothing about, had training in the past and summoned the boar herself. Weiss and Winter certainly didn't get that hereditary skill from Jacques. Hell, we might still get that, Weiss reacting with confusion next episode when Whitley thanks her for the boar, but I doubt it. That scene with Ruby and the Hound aside, the show isn't this good at laying groundwork and then following up on it.

Case in point: Weiss says, "I didn't forget you" to Whitley after he gets away from the Hound, the moment trying to harken back to her promise to Willow. Key word is "trying." Because she absolutely forgot him! Weiss threatened and ignored Whitley until he proved his usefulness. I also shouldn't need to point out that, "Don't forget your brother" does not mean, "Don't let your brother die a horrible death by abnormal grimm." Weiss acts like her saving him is a fulfillment of her promise, rather than just the most basic of human decency. And also, you know, her job.

So that part is frustrating. The entire Schnee dynamic is a mess, from Weiss making a joke of her father's arrest, to Willow (presumably) fixing their relationship by putting a hand on her daughter's shoulder. Okay.

Then Weiss cuts off the Hound by summoning a giant wall of ice. My brain, every time this happens:

YOU COULD HAVE FIXED THE HOLE IN MANTLE'S WALL.

Moving on, Blake's fight against the acid... thing has some great choreography, including Blake using her semblance which we haven't seen in AGES. 

I really like the fight itself, just not what Blake is shouting the whole time. "I need you, Ruby! We all need you!" This has really gotten ridiculous. Ruby is presented as everyone's sole savior despite failing time and time again. It's not that I don't think Blake as a character should have faith in her leader, it's that I don't think the writers should be crafting a story where everyone puts their unshakable hopes in an untrained, disloyal, impulsive 17 year old. I mean, Ruby is currently unconscious, yet Blake is acting like if she doesn't wake up — she, as an individual, if Ruby Rose does not re-join this fight — then all is lost. If Ruby doesn't save them, no one can. Which is, of course, absurd on numerous levels. Blake doesn't need the passed out, aura-less Ruby right now, she needs the still very healthy Weiss pulling out multiple summons and an ice wall! Use your scroll and call for backup again.

But of course, Ruby wakes up and kills the new, terrifying grimm with a single hit. It's a preview of what's to come with the Hound and it's just as ridiculous here as it will be there.

Speaking of the Hound, am I the only one who thought this was... cute?

I can't possibly be the only one. That head-tilt is exactly what my dogs do and my brain instinctively went, "Aww, puppy!"

Murderous puppy.

The Hound realizes none of the Schnees are who it's looking for and runs off. Penny, meanwhile, has been fully taken over because, well, that's just what's convenient now. She resists long enough keep Amity up, then succumbs, then resists to apologize to Ruby, then succumbs, then resists because Nora asked her to, then succumbs once it's time to knock her out. If RWBY was willing to commit to consequences, Penny would have been taken over and that was that. The characters would need to deal with whatever outcome happens as a result. Instead, the show very carefully avoids any of those pesky consequences by having Penny successfully resisting at key moments, despite no explanation of how she's managing that.

She shoves Klein again (Klein is having a Bad Time) and starts walking down the main steps. When Whitley wants to know where the hell she's going, Penny mechanically responds that she must "Open the vault, then self-destruct." I suppose the change Watts made was the self-destruct order? Ironwood obviously wants the vault open, though not necessarily Penny's death. Think what you will of his moral compass, she's a damn powerful ally — a research project, perhaps — and a Maiden to boot. At the very least, her death may give the powers to someone even worse.

God, please don't let them have brought Penny back and made her a Maiden just to kill her again.

The Hound arrives though and, as said, knocks Penny out. We're back to square one with her, then. Note though that this attack is near instantaneous. She grabs its hands one second, is hanging limply the next. Wow, the Hound sure is a terrifying antagonist!

Not for long.

"That's enough," Ruby says and one-shots it with her eyes.

Now, I want to talk for a moment about the implications of that line. "That's enough." Obviously Ruby is #done with this situation and emotionally unwilling to let the Hound kidnap Penny (congratulations, Nuts and Dolts shippers), but there's a meta reading here as well. Not intentional, but glaring to me nonetheless. Basically, the idea that the Hound has, from a plot perspective, done enough. It has served its singular purpose. It kidnapped Oscar and now it dies. Never-mind how insanely powerful we've established the Hound to be, never-mind how Ruby's eyes also work or don't work according to whether anything of actual import is on the line. From a plot perspective "that's enough" and the Hound can be disposed of instantly. It got Oscar and gave us an episode of filler creepiness. Move along now.

The idea behind Ruby's eyes isn't bad, but the execution absolutely is. RT has undermined a huge portion of the stakes by giving their protagonist an instant kill-shot that always works precisely when she needs it to. Starting with the Apathy, we have yet to get a moment where Ruby's eyes fail to save the day when she really needs them to, no matter how incredible the challenge. The Hound was very intentionally written to be a grimm outside of the group's current power level. It thinks, it talks, they literally can't touch it. This creates the expectation that the group will need to grow stronger — or at least become smarter — in order to surmount this new obstacle, yet Ruby's eyes undermine all of that. The group hasn't grown in years, the show just makes enemies weaker as needed (Ace Ops), or has Ruby pull out her eyes as a trump card. It wouldn't be that bad if we'd at least gotten a good battle out of it, one where the group gets close to defeating the Hound on their own, but needs Ruby's eyes to finish it off. Instead, she literally walks up without any aura, announces to the audience that this antagonist's time is up, and blasts it out a window.

Granted, Ruby's eyes don't completely finish it. The Hound pulls itself to its feet and we see this.

Yup, that's a guy and yup, those are silver eyes.

I would like to issue a formal apology to the "It's secretly Summer!" theorists in the fandom. I mean, I still think it would be ridiculous (and at this point highly improbable) that Ruby's dead mother has actually been a grimm mutant this whole time, just hanging out in Salem's realm while she waits for the plot to start before attacking the world, and then sends some no-name faunus dude after the group instead of their leader's mother for extra, emotional torture... but you all were definitely right about the “It's a person” part! I... don't know how I feel about this. Admittedly, it seems to be a logical continuation of the other grimm-human hybrids we've seen — namely Cinder and Salem herself — and it finally explains why Salem wants Ruby alive (even though it actually doesn't because WHY did she want more SEWs for Hound grimm when she wasn't even attacking back then? And already has all these other insanely powerful tools??), but at the same time, it feels like it's complicating a story that doesn't need further complications. The group fights monsters and has an immortal enemy. You don't need to add 'Some of those monsters are secretly human' to the mix.

It doesn't hurt that this twist is giving me Attack on Titan vibes, which, ew. A dark time in my fandom life, folks.

The Hound staggers a few steps before Whitley and Willow dump a suit of armor on it. That's all it takes to kill the most dangerous grimm we've ever seen: a single flash of silver eyes and some heavy metal. This also wreaks havoc with the implication that Salem wants SEWs alive because they create such powerful grimm. Obviously not. I mean yeah, normal huntsmen are going to have serious  problems, we’ve seen that this volume, but any other SEWs nearby will take a Hound out instantaneously. For a villain with so many other powerful abilities — immortality, magic, endless normal grimm, her nifty soup — Salem would be much better served just killing SEWs straight out. Clearly, creating Hounds isn't worth the effort.

The Hound leaves some bones behind and Ruby collapses to her knees, overcome with the knowledge that this was once a person. Again, uncomfortable Attack on Titan parallels.

We finish our premiere with Cinder clearing away rubble to reveal Watts. Honestly, I like that we ended on this because her rescue is hilarious. She just slings him over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes and blasts off with her magic fire feet. Fantastic.

Note though that with this scene we've seen almost everything from the clip and the trailer. What's to come in the rest of Volume 8? No idea. Outside of Winter leading the charge with the bomb, we got it all here.

Time to update the bingo board!

I'm crossing off "Introducing new grimm that are quickly abandoned." Between the Hound and acid-dude both falling to a single blast/cut from Ruby, we've more than earned this square.

It doesn't look as if we'll get another Watts-Jacques team-up now that he's left, but you never know.

Maria's got me worried. I feel like her Yoda fight against Neo is the one thing she'll be allowed to do this volume, but given that we didn't see anyone except Ruby's group this episode, we don't yet know whether the story is now ignoring her and Pietro, or if they'll re-appear in another episode like YJR.  

Qrow is free. Will he get a drink before trying to murder Ironwood? Perhaps.

Still no bingo :(

All in all, the episode was by no means horrible. I think there were lots of horrible parts, but also some legitimately well executed moments, fun action, and scenes that I can easily imagine as squee worthy if you lean back and squint. Everything is comparative and in the growing collection of bad RWBY episodes, this one isn't securing a top slot. Which doesn't mean I think it's good, just... not as bad as it could have been and primarily only bad due to long-running problems, not things this specific episode has done. That's my bar then, so low it has officially entered the underworld.

Still, RWBY is back and a part of me is eager to see where this volume takes us, for better or for worse.

Until next week! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

post-relapse penelope’s hands: a study in stellar acting

because season four premieres tonight, it was time for me to finish this set i had in my drafts!! justina machado deserves all the emmys for her work as penelope alvarez and that’s true for lots of reasons, but i’m particularly obsessed with her body language in these scenes and how much you learn from it that she never has to say out loud.  

for starters, this is the most physically restrained and even awkward we’ve ever seen penelope be around schneider. throughout the entire show, she’s a very open person, free with affection and casual reaching out. in their very first scene together, she reaches out and pats his hand after she teases him, and she greets him at her dinner table by tapping his shoulders as she walks by, two episodes later. even before she considers him her best friend, she’s comfortable around him.

but thanks to her past with victor, she’s more than aware how volatile addicts can be, and also…schneider lied to her face. more than once. he was drinking while he was around her family, her kids. it’s not clear in the episode if she knows that he shoved alex, but either way, trust has been broken.

so much happens between the dialogue in these scenes when you narrow your focus to penelope. she watches in complete silence while the family rallies around him. she shifts out of the way when he walks past her. when he’s so close his shadow’s blocking the light, she can’t even look at him. there’s something deeply unsettling about watching resident badass penelope alvarez fix her eyes on the floor, making herself just a tiny bit smaller. 

she’s been through all this before. and even though lydia knows schneider well enough to check his pockets and alex was smart enough not to leave him in the laundry room...it’s probably penelope who’s most vividly reliving the times with victor when he seemed bad-but-not-that-bad, when he swore he saw the light now and was gonna get it together. she knows that schneider’s words to the family come too easily, that his first reaction to getting caught was to try to move the process of reconciliation along so he could go back to drinking in secret. 

i wonder if she had already planned to confront him alone, as soon as he disappeared from his apartment, or if she realized she was going to have to while she was standing there watching the others comfort and forgive him.

knowing how ‘reactive’ she can be, i can only imagine how hard it was for her to hold her tongue until she got everyone else out of the apartment. all that energy and emotion she’s keeping a tight grip on comes out in the shuffling of her feet as he passes between her and alex and the wringing of her hands while she waits to confront him.

that’s the only time when penelope lets herself go for a second--when she spins around, family safely away from the house, and makes it clear that she thinks he’s still downplaying what’s been going on. in that moment she’s gesturing as she talks, she’s letting herself show all the feelings she’s been holding back. 

but then when it’s schneider’s turn to talk? she pulls back again. this is the part that really kills me...her hands during his side of the conversation. schneider tells her what he was thinking when his relapse began, and you can watch her uncertainty, her hands going to her pockets and then moving away. he physically removes the symbol of his inclusion in her family from the hallway, and she pulls her hands from from where they were secured as she follows him, worried--but she doesn’t reach out to him.

in fact, the whole time they talk before sitting on the couch, she’s got her hands in her pockets or pressed flat against her jeans. which is unusual for her, and seems deliberate. she reached out for him after her anxiety attack, holding on while he hugged her, and she reached out to hold his hand while she talked to him about his father. reaching out for him that way is a different level of intimacy than they had in the first two seasons.

now, at this point in their relationship, it’s harder to hold back from him than it is to reach out. but she does, even while she listens to schneider explain and beat himself up. it’s only after he explains why he removed the chip, after he makes it clear he understands that the trust between them is broken–and he explains why it matters so much that he had earned that trust in the first place–that penelope physically relaxes a little.

she bends enough to tell him he hasn’t lost her family forever, that he can work to get what they had back, and they sit on the couch. now, she’s finally able to be close to him again, the way they usually are, without any real need for personal space. though she still keeps her hands pressed against her lap. 

when penelope finally does reach out, it’s to add emphasis to her insistence that he’s not alone, and that she believes in him. it’s an offering, rather than the kind of forgiveness the others gave him. 

the hug that follows is important to me because it’s the first time we’ve seen penelope be the safe harbor for schneider that he always is for her...but the gentle way she touches his neck is more important because it’s the first time she’s touched him at all since she found out about his relapse. it’s proof that she means what she says...that all hope is not lost. 

and that’s when schneider leans against her for the hug. accepting the offer. they’re having an entire wordless second conversation underneath the one they’re also having out loud, and as an autistic person to whom nonverbal communication doesn’t come naturally, watching the actors portray that so well is just amazing. 

‘you really fucked up,’ she tells him with that single touch, ‘but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve us anymore. keep trying. i’m here.’ 

[kari-a-la-tari]

The (Unneccessary) Lore of the WG Spanish Dubs

Aka me being like this meme for an entire post

OKAY so a couple of weeks ago I had just learned that there existed a Spanish version of Wordgirl called “La Chica Supersabia” which is honestly super cool cause who doesn’t wanna hear their show in a different language?

But alas, this ended up taking me into a much deeper rabbit hole than I was expecting and it’s honestly pretty interesting so I thought I’d share it with y’all!

DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert by any means nor do I intend to come off as one, this is simply an elaborate essay of what I’ve found through my informal research. I will also be translating anything in Spanish to the best of my extent, so I apologize if I mess up a bit with the wording since it’s not my native language.

So then *places a baseball cap with glued lightbulb on my head* let’s get started shall we?

Okay so first things first, there are a couple of select episodes of La Chica Supersabia (I’ll use LCS from here on) available on the internet. The most reliable source that I’ve found is on an old Facebook account here where a fan would upload LCS episodes based on when they aired. However, the only episodes available are a select few from season one.

Now this got my mind thinking “Hey, what if there’s more episodes?” So naturally, I started scoundering on Google (like the rat I am) to see if there was indeed more. And according to this one site there are only two seasons of LCS that were dubbed.

Translation: In Latin America, the first season premiered on Discovery Kids August 3, 2009, while the second season premiered on the same channel January 11, 2010, being the only two seasons issued. (Source)

However, later on I discovered that there was some mislead in that info because someone else found a Spanish episode that was from season 3, which doesn’t make sense because why would there be another season available when it clearly says that they technically shouldn’t exist? (Btw I tried finding it myself cause I did see that episode before but for some reason now I can’t find it dhdvvdbdvd 😭)

At first I thought maybe this is just some info added from a fan. After all, that statement was posted on a Spanish Wikipedia page so it is possible. So I began looking for other articles that talked about the Spanish dubs, but they all said the same thing. Well, until I came up with this site that said two very intriguing things:

Translation: The series actually had 3 seasons and is dubbed in Caracas, Venezuela. On May 2012 the series stopped running on daytime hours and was removed from the programming one year later, on June 17, 2012. It is unknowns if it will be aired by another channel or come back to the Discovery Kids programming, besides only the two first seasons were dubbed in Spanish. (Source)

I was a little bit confused here with the wording because it still didn’t confirm my original questions; if anything it left me with more. But then I read the next section below which got me completely off track.

Translation: The series received negative critics and complains on behalf of parents of families in Latin America that claimed that it wasn’t appropriate for the objective public of Discovery Kids. Without doubt in the U.S. the series had been well received and even won an Emmy award for Jack D. Ferraiola, writer and coproductor of the series together with the creator of the same show, Dorothea Gillim, who declared the following in respective to the series: (Source)

Now this one took me by a whirlwind: WTH why was this version hated by people in Latin America while it’s adored by everyone in the U.S.?? And I watched some episodes of LCS and while the dubbing is pretty funny (lol) there wasn’t anything inappropriate about it. For the most part they stuck on script with the original episode they had to dub.

So I dove even deeper...

And o h m y g o d there is an answer to this.

Translation: The program premiered in Latin America on August 2009 on the Discover Kids channel, aiming at pre schoolers. Although the channel gave a lot of promotion for the show during the final months of 2009 and the majority of 2010, at the end of the year they decided to change the programming to nighttime hours because the show received a lot of critics from parents saying that the show was too “violent” and that it encouraged kids to lie to their parents (due to the obvious fact that Becky had to give an excuse everytime she had to leave to turn into WordGirl and save the day), and they complained constantly on the message boards now deleted of the channel. The program was eliminated completely on June 2012, without doubt, PBS maintained the Spanish dubs so that they would use for SAP (Second Audio Program) in the U.S. in a different studio (Dubbing House in Mexico and later Lorry Post in Miami, FL), but the program no longer returned to Discovery Kids until August 2014. (Source)

And DUDE no y’all this was just a complete hilarious yet ridiculous slap to the face. I mean..what the, why was that the reasoning as to why it was hated so much? Just cause of some literal PG kid friendly cartoon violence? And what do parents mean when they say it teaches them to lie to their parents?? I mean with all due respect, who was Discovery Kids target audience they had in mind vs. what it actually was? Because if there actual audience was very very young kids, they okay sure I can understand the need to point fingers at them in that sense. But if it was for slightly older kids (8-10 years old), then I think that parents can probably show kids at that age the reasoning behind why Becky lied in the show (not to mention that most kids at that age can understand what’s going on for the most part).

“Now is this actually true?” some of you may ask, which is understandable since this is coming from a wiki page. Well, I think it’s about time I put another disclaimer: sadly for the most part, the majority of these sources that I’ve attached have broken links when it comes to their references. And the ones that aren’t broken don’t mention anything about the topics that have been discussed here. But there are some smaller sources I’ve found here (look at the last three comments) and here that do indeed confirm that the show was canceled due to the force of parents.

However, the current grey area I’m in still is on the Spanish dubbing listing. See, I originally thought that there were three different dubbings according to this one post below (M&M Studios, Dubbing House and Lorry Post). I even thought I cracked it since according to this chart below the rest of the seasons were under the Dubbing House studios! However, it turns out that one of the studios Lorry Post doesn’t actually exist. Like nothing related to dubbing came up at all when I searched it up.

Translation: Dubbing Studio 1 - M&M Studios (Seasons 1-2). Dubbing Studio 2 - Dubbing House (Seasons 3-8). Dubbing Studio 3 - Lorry Post (Season 8 - final episodes). (Source)

And then that’s when I took a harder look at this website and realized that it’s part of a Spanish Wiki page called “Propuestas de Fans de Doblaje” (Fan Proposals for Dubs). *insert facepalm emoji* And just...I honestly feel so dumb that I didn’t notice that detail when I did my initial research cause that would’ve saved me a lot of time 😤. Anywho so that explains the Lorry Post mystery, but then lies the other question: do the other dubs exist?

Well, this is where I draw the line. See, on that same wikipage, it mentions that LCS had completely different voice actors for each of the dubbings. The first dub (M&M) is from Venezuela and after looking at the VA’s, they can be traced back to LCS. But after looking at the VA’s for the second dub (Dubbing House) in Mexico, there is nothing related to them and LCS or WG. Not even on movie databases.

“Now are you gonna give up on this idea?” you may ask. And the answer is......

No.

Why? Well, it’s mainly because there is a compellingly set of evidence that proves that the first two dubs do actually exist, which is...

THIS VIDEO, which shows that there were not one, but two variations of the LCS Spanish theme song. The first one is the Spanish version, and the second one that plays is the Venezuela version. And if you can remember, there were 2 dubbings of LCS; one located in Mexico (Dubbing House) and another In Venezuela (M&M Studios)!

Anywhosole, that is where I conclude this elaborate essay of mine. There are still a couple of loose strings here and there that I wanna check out myself but I’ve already tired myself out with this essay. I hoped you liked seeing me lose my mind speculate on the LCS episodes! This was honestly pretty fun ngl, maybe I’ll try doing this again in the future if something else interesting pops up! If you have anything you wanna add or maybe point out something that I may have forgotten, please by all means bring it up!

[thefirsthogokage]

Why did you rage quit the rookie?

(this turned out longer then I meant it to be, but I kept remembering reasons why I hate this show now)

The writing went down the drain. Hard. I was so pissed because it started off well in season one. Granted, it had a couple big ridiculous things that happened, but overall it was pretty good. Especially for a freshman show. One of the best I'd seen in years.

Then season two came along and it became progressively/exponentially worse.

Obviously going for shock value over good content with extreme circumstances in most episodes, often not making sense (why the fuck did Nolan's son and his girlfriend go to that trailer park?)

poor plot lines with female characters (Lopez and Wes getting engaged after only being together a few months, Lopez trying out to be pretty damn toxic and "I was poor, you should have been happy you were rich" and "sorry you're embarrassed of me (which is the same abousive shit my mother would pull), Grace going back to her ex because they had a kid even though their marriage sucked and it was outlined earlier in the season that was a bad idea, Jessica killing that one guy and that was never followed through on and her being psycho and following Nolan around and that never being addressed, Chen never given psychological damage she should have absolutely had even of she did self-therapy, Rachel getting her "dream job" in NY and the writers couldn't even take the time to tell us what said dream job was.)

Poorly planned plots in general (stunningly so)

Most characters not feeling like a proper continuation of who they were in season one. Going a ong with that, Chen and Bradford being way too close basically over night when that isn't natural progression from season one

I was for Chenford after season one, but they escalated it in a very cheesy and non true to character way, which also happened way too quickly. So many of their interactions felt too romantically tinted when they shouldn't have been there yet. HEART EYES ALL THE TIME! Like, I stayed watching the show for them until I couldn't tolerate anymore. Then I tried staying for Nyla and just gave up because I hated the rest of the show so much

obvious lack of research (the serial killer with pathology that made no sense, never finding out the connection between him and the lady, the guy apparently also got a job a prison with a stolen social security number from a disabled person - both of which would have been flagged in a background check!!! Such a genuinely poor writing episode and the season just went even more downhill from there)

Nolan being the hero even more in most of the episodes, and his intellect or lack thereof being a plot device

not letting Chen actually suffer from PTSD like she should have and just had her basically quickly move on in an impossible way (I am including this twice, thank you)

throwing her into a relationship with a guy who was a jackass and went all "leave my woman alone" on Bradford when she absolutely didn't need help

Jackson going to a very public premiere with his actor boyfriend even though he was an active cop. What the actual fuck were they thinking with that? Jackson isn't that dumb, he would have never done that.

this show clearly is not keeping a a continuity or character bible of any sort, getting basic facts of their characters wrong (especially Tim, I just can't remember the specific thing that it was, but it could have been inconsistencies in his wounds. Now that I think about it, Chen said something about him getting shot more then once and stabbed and the only time we ever saw evidence of any injury was after he was shot in episode one. Which actually brings me to my next point...)

they never had Tim have a scar from his gunshot wound

Tim getting his 12-year-old-acting girlfriend out of trouble when she bats her eyes at him. He shouldn't have even been dating her in the first place. No way Tim would have ever dated a friend of his rookie. Completely unprofessional of him, in a way that was not believable for his character.

No way Chen could have been an undercover cop after that documentary episode. And if that episode was mean to be a stand alone, it should have never been in the show. That episode also had continuity issues, and that's not including the absolute insanity of whatever the fuck they did to Stirling. (That poor actor, he really wanted to come back and continue the story with his character and Jackson)

THE WHOLE FUCKING BULLSHIT TIMELINE AND PACING OF THE SHOW! examples: They made the stupid thing current to whatever the real world year was. The problem with that was they had an in-universe schedule set up. The first two seasons should have spanned from like October 2018 to October 2019, and yet, in the episode where Wes got stabbed (earlyish season 2), it was November 2019 when it should have been around like May, 2019. They said it was 2021 early in S3 when it should have never been around that time. Infact, it was supposed to be during their last 30 days of their rookie year, meaning THAT should have been October or November 2019. The time pacing of this show is so bad. They should have done a real time skip in season 3, instead, the first NINE FUCKING EPISODES WERE THOSE LAST 30 DAYS! And, according to someone else's math, because of the bullshit with the timeline, Lopez was pregnant for 11 months. Absolutely fucking insane. Timelines and timetables that are so thoroughly screwed up in a show that it's THAT obvious they are flying by the seat of their pants are just impossible for me to stand. That is so dumbfounding to see on any tv show and alone enough for me to rage quit. It's so bizarre they stuck to a timeframe in-universe, then so obviously screwed up what year it was every damn season at least once (in S3 2-3 times).

Just such piss poor writing. No real planning ability. No writing talent left in that writer's room after season one. Just people who throw words down on paper and hope that people will like it. Which so many people still do for some reason?

There are so many other things wrong with this show, but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. Granted, a couple are second hand because I stopped watching after the rookies did stuff with the DEA. I couldn't watch that. That was such and insane idea. OH AND THEM GOING ON A FUCKING SECRET OP? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!

And that's not including what I've heard was their "After School Special"-style take on fighting racism in the police force.

And I don't always pick up on these kinds of things specifically. I generally don't pick up on missteps like that in plot or timelines or whatnot or just things that even someone who doesn't have much specified knowledge in certain things should miss (the "job at a prison" thing I mentioned earlier). I'm good at telling the chemistry between actors, - or lack there of, - not the other stuff. When it's so bad I - of all people - am noticing things that are normally pointed out to me, a lot of fucking up is happening. In multiple departments. Like, normally when anything happens in other shows, it isn't as blunt, on the head, painfully obvious, and frequent as it has been in this show.

So, yeah, if you made it though my rant, congrats. If you don't get irritated with the show and bullshit that happens in it now, power to you I guess.

I really wished I could still hate watch this show, but it checked way too many "this is exceptionally poor craftsmanship: tv show edition" boxes for me to put up with it anymore. It was so promising at first, even with it's various hiccups (that I didn't notice until later on all of them) but I hadn't seen a show crash that hard in quality before. I mean, since then I had to experience the travesty that was Supernatural going from 15x18 to 15x19 and 15x20, but that was after I gave up on The Rookie.

Anywho, I would say I hope that answers your question anon, but I have little room for doubt that it didn't.

[galvanizedfriend]

Fic: Speed Dating

KC Bingo 2020 by @klaroline-events

The prompt is: Losing a Bet

This is fluff inspired by an episode of House. I have no idea how successful this first endeavor into unknown territory was, but @itsnotacrimetoloveyou assured me it’s good and also confirmed that it is, indeed, fluff! Also, thank you for beta’ing this and for laughing at all the jokes! lol

I hope you guys enjoy it! :) Reblogs and comments are very much welcome!

______________________

There is something fundamentally wrong, Caroline thinks, in pitying the white, rich, genetically blessed art gallery owner she lives with. It feels like a waste of empathy. Klaus has the whole world at his feet. Wherever he goes, doors open, red carpets roll out, champagne bottles pop left and right. Which makes his brooding and scowling and antisocial behavior all the more inexplicable.

He isn't always like that, truth be told. When Caroline first moved in, Klaus was out and about all the time. Opening nights, exhibitions, soirées, premieres, parties - you name it. There were weeks when Caroline would barely see him. If he wasn’t at some event, then he was at the gallery, if not at the gallery, then locked up in his studio. As far as she knew, he was pretty much living the dream.

"He's never there," Rebekah said when she pitched the idea of rooming with her brother to Caroline. She used to share an apartment with Elena, but her friend had decided to take the next step with her dumbass of a boyfriend and since it was her name on the lease, Caroline was the one having to find a new place. Her money was short and so were her options. "Nik has this huge apartment all to himself and no one to really watch over it. All the plants I give him die within a week. He could use a roommate, honestly, and you'd be perfect."

"Is he looking for a roommate, though?"

"Not yet. He will be, when I tell him to."

"Rebekah -"

"Just come and see the place, ok? It's worth it."

It made no sense that a guy with his lifestyle and bank account would want to share an apartment with a complete stranger, and Caroline had the very strong feeling the idea never even so much as crossed his mind. Judging by the spirited spat she overheard between the two siblings while she waited outside, it was exactly the case. On her request, Rebekah went in first to talk to him; Caroline would only follow if he agreed to it. She didn't want to see the apartment of someone who wasn't looking for a roommate. She was about to sneak out through the stairs and pretend she'd never been there when Rebekah wrapped a hand around her arm and pulled her into the apartment. Before she could even manifest her exasperation, her snake of a friend walked out and locked the door behind her, leaving the two of them there to stare at one another in complete astonishment.

"I think we've been set up," she said, affecting an awkward smile.

"Rebekah has never learned the meaning boundaries, I'm afraid," he said, not nearly as fiery as he'd sounded a moment before while arguing with his sister.

"Look, this was not my idea, ok? I was just looking for a place, and Rebekah said — You know what, doesn't matter. I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

Klaus looked at her — really looked at her — assessing her with such sharpness it stole the wind off her chest. Mikaelsons... they're an intense bunch.

"Since you're here," he said after a moment. "Can I offer you a drink for your trouble?"

He opened a bottle of wine that cost more than Caroline's previous rent and gestured for her to make herself comfortable on the giant leather couch in his living room. He wanted to know what she did for a living, how she knew his sister, why she was on the market for an apartment, what kind of place she had in mind, what her routine was like. It was all obvious questions you'd expect from a prospective roommate, but it never felt as though she was being interviewed. Conversation simply flowed, such an easy back-and-forth she didn't realize what was happening until it was hours later and Rebekah was back with a few shopping bags in her hands and a triumphant smile on her face.

"So, when do you move in?" she asked.

"Whenever she sees fit," Klaus replied, albeit glaring at his sister.

"Wait– what?" Caroline blinked, eyes cutting from one sibling to the other. "What do you mean?"

"A spoiled brat though my sister may be, she does have a point. This apartment could use another soul. If you feel so inclined, you can bring your things whenever it is convenient. The guest bedroom is furnished, but I can put it all in storage if you'd rather have your own set. There's also plenty of room for your personal things in the common areas, you can make it more to your liking. All I ask is that you don't replace the art on the walls. I rather fancy them."

Caroline's mouth moved wordlessly for a long time. "You... I thought you didn't want a roommate."

He shrugged nonchalantly, pouring himself another glass of wine. "I'm known to be rather volatile."

"But I can't — I mean, we didn't even discuss rent and expenses. I'm a med student, I can't afford this place."

"Nonsense. It's mine." Caroline drew the breath in for a righteous protest, and he added, "We can share the bills, if you insist."

And, well. It's not how Caroline likes to do business, way too sudden, with none of the meticulous in-depth analysis she usually applies to absolutely everything, from buying dish sets to choosing a new hairstyle. Moving in with someone she didn’t know at all seemed like way too big a deal for her to simply skip those vital steps. She didn't even compile her pros and cons list. But…

The neighborhood was fantastic, the type where she'd never afford to live in as a student, it was so conveniently close to school, and Elena was pestering the hell out of her to move out so Damon could move in. She'd been to four apartments already: two were incredibly dirty — which told her everything she needed to know about the people living there; another had a single bathroom shared between four people, and the last had a creepy guy across the hall. The floor to ceiling windows alone in Klaus' living room would've sold her the place, and paying next to nothing? It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. The conversation with him had been rather nice, if she was honest, and he was Rebekah's brother, so if anything went crazy, she knew exactly who to call.

For the first so many months, the Klaus-is-never-home story was very true. After a while he started inviting her to tag along to some of his events, which she did in a few occasions, especially after he learned she could not say no to puppy eyes. "These people will bore me to death, love, please, save me." Klaus can be such a dramatic baby. The parties were great and the vernissages fancy as hell, but she didn't complain. Going out with him was fun. They got along well, the booze was always A level and Klaus enjoyed taking his time to explain stuff to her. Living with him, she got to learn more about artistic movements than in all her life before. It's more interesting than she ever gave it credit. Or Klaus made it seem so, anyway. The accent kind of goes a long way.

What Caroline came to learn about him after a few months, however, was that not everything was rainbows and unicorns for Klaus as it seemed at first glance. Nothing threw him off quite like his family. He only ever spoke about Rebekah, the only sibling who lived closed by and stopped for visits, even more so than usual after Caroline moved in. She did overhear him on the phone with Elijah a few times, too. The other three, though, Freya, Finn and Kol, Caroline only knew about through Rebekah.

"Nik doesn't get along with our siblings," Rebekah told her when she asked why he never spoke of the rest of the family. "I don't blame him. I don't know what mother nature was thinking when it gathered us all under the same genetic code, we're far too screwed up to be all in the same Thanksgiving dinner."

That was an understatement, in Caroline's opinion. Whenever Klaus went back to England to visit his parents and the rest of his siblings —- something he avoided like the plague but was apparently forced to do — he came back sullen and with a temper from hell. His sour moods could last for weeks. He'd stay locked up in his bedroom or at the studio for days on end, making Caroline slightly guilty for thinking she was the thing keeping him from circulating around his own place.

"Don't be ridiculous," he snapped at her once when she suggested she could move out if he'd changed his mind. "If you move out, I will hunt you down and drag you back here."

It was perhaps slightly too aggressive an answer to be sweet, but Caroline gathers that was Klaus' way of saying he didn't want her to go.

She stayed and learned how to navigate the storms caused by his occasional family reunions. Let him do his thing, don't ask about his parents, offer him food from time to time. They make do. But it still bothers her to no end. Like right now.

It's been a month since he came back from London, more upset than necessarily angry, and he has barely set foot out of the apartment. He stays in his sweatpants and ink-stained Marc Jacobs shirts all day, wavering between having too much coffee and too much whiskey. He hasn't even been painting, which points to an all-time low.

When she walks out of her room all dressed up, putting on her earrings, he's sitting in front of the television, flipping through channels nonstop. His eyes are so unfocused she doubts he even knows what he's doing, his finger just pressing the button mindlessly.

Caroline checks her wristwatch and sighs. Bonnie is gonna be furious if she's late, but Klaus sitting on his ass like that is a waste of a perfectly fine eligible bachelor.

"What are you doing tonight?" she asks.

"Watching a movie," he says flatly after a moment, the information that he'd been spoken to taking a second to register in his brain.

"You mean porn."

He turns his face to her, eyebrows lazily arched. "If you want specifics. I'd ask you to join me, but people are already talking."

She gives him a look and then bends forward, fixing the straps of her high-heeled sandals. "Don't you get tired?"

"Who gets tired of porn?"

"Of watching porn?" He just shrugs. "Men," she puffs out with an eye roll. "Come out with me tonight. I'm going speed dating."

"That's so very boomer of you. It reeks of despair."

"It's old school, so what?" she counters, checking herself out on the antique floor length mirror. She turns to one side, then the other, tosses her hair back. "Is this cleavage too slutty? I don't want to look too slutty."

"What are you aiming for? Moderately promiscuous?"

She turns to him. "I want to say hot but with class, not I have nicknames for my boobs."

He snorts. "You look stunning, sweetheart," he says, his eyes lingering perhaps a bit too long on her décolletage.

"Thanks," she says, crossing her arms in front of her chest, suddenly self-conscious. "Back to the subject."

He sighs, turning back to the television. "Haven't they invented an app for that?"

"I'm tired of apps. It's cold, photos are almost never consistent with the truth and when you ask for a real-time one, all you get is dick pics."

"I hate to disappoint, but you're fooling yourself if you think men won't lie to your face, too."

"You can't blame me for wanting to stay hopeful that men aren't all as cynical as you. I'd have to give up sex forever if I thought that."

Klaus' lips quirk into a lopsided grin. "Well, I wish you good luck on your endeavor."

"I think you need to meet somebody, too," she insists. "You're turning into a couch potato, Klaus."

"I refute that."

"When was the last time you had a date?"

"I don't do dates."

Caroline rolls her eyes again. She has never seen him with the same girl twice, and very few have actually made it to his apartment. Mostly, he's the one who spends the night, not the other way around. He laughed at her face when she tried to tell him he didn't have to worry about bringing friends over on her account. "That's sweet, love, but I don't bring people over unless I have no other option."

"Why not?"

"Because when they know where I live it's harder to get rid of them. Besides, it's such a bore when they decide not to leave in the morning. Women can be rather spiteful."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You are so full of crap. Typical. Sweet-talk women into sleeping with you and then call them crazy when they expect a minimum of respect in return."

"I respect them fine; I just don't want to have breakfast."

"Because that is such a commitment."

"It's far more than I'm willing to commit, yes."

"We have breakfast all the time. What, am I special?"

He simply smiled, the annoying dimples he uses to lure women into bed cutting into his cheeks.

"Fine," she says, stomping her foot. "Your last one-night stand?"

"Should I be flattered you're keeping such close tabs on my life?"

"See? You're becoming this insufferable creature that I can barely tolerate that answers everything with sarcasm. Soon enough, I'm gonna have to move out and I don't want to because I like this apartment."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Come out with me. This way you get to meet twenty somebodies at once."

"Is that why you're going?"

"Last two dates I had were exclusive two hours of complete disaster I will never get back. At least this way I speed up the process of elimination."

"Over five-minute conversations," he derides.

"Five minutes is more than enough time. If they can't impress me or at the very least make me intrigued, then they're definitely not worth a second date."

"You make it sound oh-so-alluring. Like a meat market."

"Klaus," she says, slowly, planting herself between him and the random Discovery Channel show on the TV. "It's dozens of women literally just waiting to be hit on. Your odds at a happy ending are much better than if stay home and watch porn."

He regards for a beat and then sighs in defeat. "How can I say no when you make me out to be a wanker if I refute your argument?"

 x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

 "You brought a date?!" Bonnie cries out with indignation when Caroline arrives at the bar with Klaus on tow.

She considered giving her friend a heads up that he'd be tagging along, but she knows what Bonnie would say. She has been saying it for a while, any opportunity she gets. Just make a move already, Caroline! Fuck the guy's brains out and get over it or stop talking about Klaus all the goddamn time.

The fact she's brought him out to meet other people should probably tell Bonnie that she does not want to bang her roommate. Not that she wouldn't, because Klaus is obviously, you know... Alluring. Annoying, sure, prone to mood swings, but also witty and smart and refined and incredibly attentive when it comes to her, not to mention the whole exterior package thing. But they live together, she's friends with his sister, and it would be a totally stupid idea to ruin it with casual sex. Caroline sweeps the whole tension under the rug and keeps Klaus firmly on the realm of healthy, platonic friendship. But Bonnie would've found a way to claim otherwise if she'd said he was coming.

"He's not a date," she counters. "He's a dater."

Bonnie gives Klaus a pointed look. "Blink once if you were coerced into being here."

Klaus makes an effort of blinking, and Caroline gapes in protest. "I did not coerce you. Our couch has a permanent imprint of Klaus' ass. He needed to dive back into the pool. I'm just being helpful."

"I'm here for the drinks, mostly," he offers.

"Well, you just ruined these poor men's lives," Bonnie says, bobbing her head towards the line of guys standing around them, waiting for the thing to start.

She hadn't really noticed, but they're all staring at them. Not at her, or at Bonnie, but at Klaus, with looks that go from mildly concerned to openly hostile.

"Tough luck," she says with a light shrug. "Look on the bright side. They're gonna be forced to bring out their A game."

"Ahh," Bonnie says, smiling at last. "I see your plan now. That’s actually smart."

"What the bloody hell are you two babbling about?" Klaus asks.

Caroline cocks him a disbelieved eyebrow. "Seriously? You can't tell?"

"Look around, Klaus," Bonnie says. "All the girls are checking you out."

"Not uncommon," he replies matter-of-factly.

"And the guys are shooting daggers at you," Caroline adds.

He purses his lips. "Also not uncommon."

"Exactly. This is competition."

"It's not a beauty pageant, love."

"Life is a beauty pageant," she retorts solemnly.

"Let's put it this way," Bonnie cuts in. "Little girls who kiss frogs expect them to turn into you."

Klaus puffs out a laugh. "Why, thank you, Bonnie, for the rather flattering image. But I don't think I'm that good looking."

"Now you're just playing dumb, which is not sexy, by the way."

He turns to Caroline, cocking his eyebrows in doubt. "Yes, you are, Klaus." A sly smirk breaks onto his lips, and she realizes he'd just set her up into singing his praise. Before he can follow up with a snarky and probably inappropriate remark, she slaps his arm lightly. "Oh, shut up."

"I bet you'll walk out of here with everyone's phone numbers," Bonnie says.

"Except for ours, of course," Caroline adds.

"Why not yours?" he asks, somewhat offended.

"You already have my number."

"Not in this context."

"Yes, because I already know you and all the nasty little bits of your personality. These women, on the other hand, don't."

"So you're attributing every relationship I've ever had to my looks?"

"I thought you didn't do relationships."

"Not normally."

"Well, not the whole relationship," she muses. "Just the beginning."

"The rest are the dimples," Bonnie remarks with a serious nod.

Klaus shakes his head despondently. "And here I was thinking women aren't as vain as men."

Caroline turns to him, putting her hand out. "Wanna bet? You can't tell anyone you're a trust fund kid who runs an art gallery. You're unemployed. Don't pay attention to everything they say, pretend to be distracted. And lose the accent. One hundred bucks says you walk out of here with at least… Twenty names. And I'm being conservative."

Klaus narrows his eyes at her. "You brought me out here to get laid and now you want me to jeopardize my chances?"

"On the contraire. I'm saying you can make yourself out to be as interested as you really are, and still get laid."

He finally takes her hand on a firm shake. "You're on."

A gong rings and they all turn to see a woman with a bright smile beckoning them all to approach. "Ladies and gentlemen," she starts. "The fun is about to start. Ladies, please, take your seats. There's a table for each of you. When I strike this gong, each man should sit at the first table they've been assigned to. When I strike it again, date's over, move on to the next."

"Wish me good luck, then," Klaus tells her as they turn around to order a drink from the bar before moving to their respective spots.

"You won't need it, buddy."

 x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

 "Hello, sweetheart," Klaus says pleasantly as he slides into the seat across from her.

Caroline lets out a weary exhale. "Hi, number..." she reads the tag on his chest. "26. What do you prefer, a weekend on the mountains or long walks on the beach?"

"Mountain, easy. Too much sand on the beach, it gets in all sorts of awkward places."

Caroline snorts into her martini. "That's actually the best answer I've had to this question so far. Or to any question, really." She raises her glass on a toast. "How's it going?"

He purses his lips. "I've had to answer that question unironically more than once, so I'd say not stellar."

"I'm sorry," she says around a chuckle.

"You don't look sorry."

"Because I'm not, really. It would be unfair for me to suffer alone. Seen anyone you like, at least?"

The smile on his face turns mysterious. "There's one so far."

"Just one?"

"It's hard to speed date when you're pretending to be slow, uninteresting and American, to be honest."

"You could just tell them the truth. That you were dragged here by a friend who took pity on you sitting around, watching porn all day. That would sure scare some of them away. Although some would probably ask what kind of porn."

"What about you?"

"I don't want to know what kind of porn you watch."

He rolls her eyes at her. "I mean, how's your night going?"

"Oh, you know," she shrugs with a lot less enthusiasm than she'd expected to have by this point in the evening. "A couple of contenders, I guess."

"Oh?"

"Still early."

"Forgive me for pointing it out, but you don't seem particularly excited."

She puffs out in frustration. "Every time I tell them I'm a Med student, they ask what kind of doctor I want to be, and when I say oncologist, they start listing every member of their family who's ever died of cancer. What am I supposed to say after a guy tells me his mother died of breast cancer? I'm sorry, would you like to talk about it?" Caroline glares when he erupts into laughter. "Not funny."

"I'm sorry, it's just that sounds like an awfully interesting conversation."

"Why is dating so hard? Am I too picky? Is it wanting a meet-cute too much? To wake up one day and ta-dam, the guy is there, right in front of me."

Something about Klaus' eyes soften just then. "If only it were that easy," he says, an almost wistful tone to his voice that gives Caroline pause.

Before she can dwell on it further, however, the gong sounds and it's time to move on.

"Here I go, then," he says in his American accent.

When her next prospect sits down, she's laughing at Klaus greeting the woman on the next table with a Hey, babe.

 x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

 "Here's to making the 1% 100 dollars poorer," Caroline says, raising her shot in the air before knocking it back.

"Cheers, I suppose," Klaus says dully, sipping from his bourbon.

"Oh, come on!" She bumps her shoulder against his as they sit side by side by the bar. "Don't look so gloomy. That's literally a pile of women in front of you," she says, nodding her head towards the cards sitting on the counter. "How many again?"

"Twenty nine," he grumbles.

"Twenty nine out of 40! That's more phone numbers than most guys will get in a year. Be proud."

"Of my deep cobalt eyes or my sultry lips? Yes, I heard both tonight."

Now it's Caroline's turn to explode into laughter while he just shakes his head helplessly.

"You don't have to be ashamed of your genetics, Klaus," she says. "It's not your fault some women are awkward flirters."

"Tell that to my stepfather." His tone visibly changes as he mentions Mikael, the dark clouds coming back to hover above his head.

Before it can get any worse, Caroline prods on. "So. How many of them are you going to call?"

"None."

"None?!" she gapes. "That's at least a month of guaranteed sex. A month where you won't have to watch porn, you can actually perform porn."

"Alright, you're making me sound like a deranged pervert," he objects. "I do not watch that much porn. That was one time and it is not my fault you lack proper etiquette when walking into someone else's bedroom."

Caroline chuckles. She did walk in without knocking, but, in her defense, it was 3 o'clock. What kind of person watches porn in the middle of the afternoon? She was blushing furiously for weeks before she decided to start teasing him instead as a way to diffuse the guilt. Luckily, he hadn't actually been doing... Anything. Although she did notice the suspicious volume in his pants. It was... Interesting.

"It's nice to make fun of you, though," she says. "That was the closest to a blush I've ever seen on your face."

"Whatever makes you happy, love."

"Seriously, though. Why are you not calling any of them?"

"These women think I'm one step away from being a caveman. It says more about them than it says about me that they're willing to give me their phone numbers."

She scoffs. "Don't be such a snob. They came here to get laid, too. You can't tell me you didn't like any of them."

"Well, there was one. But she didn't slip me her phone number."

Caroline' eyebrows crinkle together. "Really? That's kinda hard to believe."

"I guess your theory was flawed, after all."

"But it has been proved nonetheless. Which reminds me..." She lifts a hand, asking for another round. "I'm gonna drink all your money."

"My whole life has been a lie," Klaus says contemplatively. "I thought I had an enthralling personality, an interesting aura, that my wittiness made me charming, and now I find out I'm nothing but a pretty face."

"To be honest, you're also an endless pit of money." Klaus gives her a side eye, knocking back his drink. Caroline scrunches up her face in mock-pity. "Oh, boo-hoo. It's so hard to be handsome. Why are you so upset about that?"

"It's different when that is all you are. I've been deluding myself."

"Who said that's all you are?" Klaus turns to her with a pointed look. "No, that's not what I said. I said women would want to date you after five minutes because you're pretty, not that pretty is all you are." When he sighs, asking for another drink, still obviously unconvinced, she continues. "Look. My first real boyfriend was a total douchebag. He came across as funny and charming and thoughtful, but it was an act. He saw something he wanted and he knew he had to act a certain way to get it, because even at 17, I liked to think I had standards, even though I clearly didn't."

"Are you saying I'm also manipulative?"

"I'm saying, figuring out who people really are takes time. It takes twice as long if they're trying to impress you. You can take from this that all your relationships have been superficial and physical only, or you can believe that people came for the appeal and stayed for the content."

"Except no one has stayed. My temper seems to have a rather short expiration date, it drives people away. Just ask my brother." He punctuates his sentence with a wan smile, and Caroline understands, at last, that this is all somehow related to his family again.

She suddenly finds herself desperately at loss for what to say. Rebekah would offer something outrageous and mildly offensive that would still hit the nail on the head. Caroline just wanted him to have some fun, but instead she ended up pushing him right back to his bad place.

She considers apologizing, saying it was just teasing and she never really meant it, but what she winds up saying, however, is, "I'm still here, aren't I?"

Klaus looks up at her, a mix of surprise and something else she can't identify flickering through his eyes.

"Is that how you rationalize your relationships?" he asks.

She huffs out a little laugh. "I don't think that highly of myself. I'm a tall, long-legged blonde. That ticks some boxes, but it hardly makes me irresistible."

"I beg to differ, love. You're an exquisite beauty."

Caroline laughs a little, thinking he's obviously saying that just to be nice, but then she catches the look in his eyes, that intensity that always seems to rattle something deep inside of her. There's not a hint of condescension about him.

"I... Well..." she stammers, her cheeks burning hot. "Thank you."

"But that's not all you are. You're also strong, fierce, full of light. Anyone who fails to see what's underneath your stunning exterior is a fool." Caroline freezes under his stare, something almost reverent in the way he says it, a spark lighting up his face for maybe the first time in a month. It sends Caroline's pulse racing. She's suddenly very much aware of how close they are, the air around them simmering with energy, releasing a fresh batch of butterflies in her stomach. The room is a dozen degrees hotter than a second before, and Caroline doesn't know what to do, what not to do, thinks maybe she's had enough to drink already because her sense of reason is getting all fuzzy.

And then Klaus says, "I heard that on PornTube," and the tension eases off of her as the two of them crack up laughing together.

[inmyarmswrappedin]

hello you probably already talked about this but why did you drop robbe season?

Hi anon! 🧩 I have mentioned it before, yeah, but I don’t mind talking about it in a bit more depth.

Admittedly Robbe’s season was already a hard sell for me before it even premiered. I have watched every Eva season, and that has always given me an indication of how things are going to go for the Isak season. Like, even though remake teams tend to go all out for their Isak season, and try harder than with their previous seasons (and I don’t think it’s controversial to say remake teams know their Isak season will majorly increase their viewership, even fandom has pointed this out as a reason Skam NL should’ve stuck it out for VDH’s season), you can already get a good idea in s1 about what they want to keep from Skam and where they’re going their own way.

I love Eva and I also tend to like her remakes. Honestly, I find Eva’s story really interesting, Jonas a good character when handled well, and I’ve generally enjoyed getting introduced to yet another iteration of the girl squad. I like the familiarity of the story beats. I also think how Jonas’ ideas are handled is a good indicator of how politically minded the team is, and how they plan on using their platform. 

And the thing is, despite all this, I found Jana’s season a struggle to get through. I had to try twice because I couldn’t get through the first time. At first, I thought it was because the writers had been super lazy with the adaptation. I loathe what they did with Jonas’ character, how little Jens knows about social justice. I was really put off by how, since they couldn’t write Yasmina into parties, they gave the drink throwing moment to Luca instead, but then more or less kept to the original storyline. Even back then, I was really concerned by how aggressive they made Moyo during the cabin trip clips. But then a friend binged the season after me, and brought up how terrible the pacing was (with Friday clips being moved to other days, destroying the momentum Skam builds through the week), how most of the actors sounded like they were literally reading from a script, and the utter spam of meaningless social media pics (with very few texts to go with it). And so I realized that this season I generally enjoy bored me, because Wtfock is generally just slapped together carelessly. 

Another issue I had was... Well, I’m not sure this comes across given my rabid love for David, but I actually think Skam s3 is as close to perfect TV as it gets. I don’t think this is a season that needs fixing. And as the Isak seasons succeeded each other, I realized I didn’t care for an Isak season that pretty much just took Isak and Even and put them in another country. I prefer the Isak seasons that did something Skam s3 never did, because they were never going to improve on Skam s3, and to do the same thing would just remind me how much better the acting, the music, the photography, the writing, etc. was in Skam. So I was hoping that maybe Wtfock’s Even would be a moc and they’d touch on racism for a change. However I knew the chances of Wtfock casting a trans man or a moc for their Even were slim to none.

But at the time it was kind of unthinkable that there would be an Isak season dropping, and people would not watch. And I in particular was a bit of a completionist, like I haven’t watched most Noora seasons, but I’ve watched all of the Eva seasons, and all the Isak seasons except for the last few episodes of Lucas L’s. These days I’m comfortable not tuning in (esp after trainwrecks like Arthur’s or Kato’s seasons), but at the time it felt kinda wrong to not give a season a chance, you know. Besides, a lot of people whose opinion I trust said s2 was great! Zoe and Senne one of the best noorhelms, if not the best! They really had fixed everything that was wrong with noorhelm, their social media game was so good, etc... I mean, you were there for s3 I assume, you know how people were hyping Wtfock at the time. And, for instance, Druck majorly improved in s2 after a more or less okay s1, so it’s not like remakes had never fixed their shit before.

So I started watching, but right away, I didn’t like the way they introduced Noor. She almost kinda seemed like the actual love interest in how cool she was, and how happy Robbe was hanging out with her that first night. I posted this, speculating about why Wtfock would introduce her that way. I should note that I posted that link on twitter as well, and Bram Renders liked my tweet... not too long after his tweet complaining about fans who read too much into the show would surface. 😂

Since I enjoyed writing that post, I thought I’d post weekly reaction posts in the style of Nat (@lightsandlostbells) and some others. The problem is that I’m just really good at procrastinating (I’ve been promising reaction posts in the same style for my favorite Skams seasons for... years now lol). And I wanted to keep my reactions fresh, so I stopped watching in real time. My plan was to watch the clips when I had enough time to write. This was like... Middle of week 2, I want to say. At the time, Sander hadn’t even been introduced yet!!

Even though I wasn’t watching, I still followed Wtfock-related accounts, like translators and subbers, so I still kinda knew what was going on. I was actually really let down by the way Wtfock didn’t take advantage of having Robbe and Sander in the same location for an entire week. Like, Sander was sticking a sandwich in Robbe’s mouth in a ~sexy way a few hours after exchanging their names, and yet it all kinda simmered down? No tension over social media really. Idk, I just feel like if Isak and Even, or Cris and Joana, or Matteo or David, had been stuck in the same house for an entire week shortly after meeting, Skam, Druck and eskam wouldn’t have let us forget about it for even a second. 

In the end, I never did write those posts, and I ended up washing my hands off the season because the tone of the discussions around the show was legit starting to get to me in a bad way. Like how LGBTI people were attacked for disliking the gay bashing scene. Or the discussions over whether the shower scene had gone too far or if Julie Andem had exploited Tarjei Sandvik Moe just as much. I disliked Moyo but also disliked the way white fans were writing about him. And the Britt bashing was just so gross. I was getting irl upset about a season I wasn’t even watching or following, so I put it out of my mind. 

[maddiethebull]

May I request a scrnario with leviathan with an s/o who's a closet otaku (like she rlly tries hard to hide it from him lmao) and how would he react when he manages to discover her otome/male idol merch (like enstars, tsukiuta or a Idolish7 lololol) hidden in some part of her room/closet

Levi (Obey Me!) - Prompt - Being with a secret otaku MC

Sorry that this took fucking forever, I had my Mid terms which was a ride and a half, but heres the story. I used the power of my own weeb knowledge to write this, hope you love it!! Thank you for making a request

You, Satan, and Asmo were sitting in the living room watching The Real Housewives of Devildom when you all heard an ear shattering seemingly female scream. Asmo jumped like a baby into your arms while Satan, who was off in his own world reading a detective novel since you got so caught up in the show that you weren’t even looking at your Spells notes anymore, looked up and straight to the source. It came from your room. The biggest problem was that you guys had no idea where Lucifer fucked off to so you couldn’t ask him to go check it out. 

Asmo quivered in your arms, saying, “M-MC, go check it out.”

“WHAT? Me? You want me to check it out?” You? The weakest of the bunch??

Satan spoke up, “why don’t we all go check it out, that way we’ll have MC with us to make sure she’s okay and have two demons to protect her.”

Reluctantly, you and Asmo got up to follow Satan’s lead.

-Five hours ago-

Levi was so far ahead of you in Mario Kart : Journey into Devildom ™ that he passed the finish line nearly a minute before you. 

“Hah, normie!!” he said. 

You had been not only defeated, but defeated so badly that you silently declared Mario your arch enemy. You looked to Levi, 

“Hey, that level was really hard, okay?” you said with puppy dog eyes, hoping to avoid his taunts about your gaming abilities. 

“Nahhhh it wasn’t you’re just such a normie that you couldn’t finish it in first place like me.” He said it with a taunting smile and a sly look in those orange eyes. 

You decided to repay his taunts; you stood up and then kneeled, your hand on your heart, 

“Forgive me, your weeb highness.”

You grabbed his hand, you were going to kiss it to really drive the whole weeb highness joke in but he tugged away immediately. He was blushing the color of a fuji apple. He put his wrist over his mouth and avoided eye contact, he was slightly embarrassed from your joke, but it was you grabbing his hand that sent the flush to his cheeks. Of course, he would never admit that to you, so he said, 

“H-hey, you don’t have to make fun of me.”

“You just called me a normie, Levi,” you said, looking up at him with a beaming smile. 

He blushed more, “G-get up MC, it’s w-weird l-looking at you like that.” In a desperate attempt to hide his blushing cheeks, he wasn’t even looking at you now. This is why you loved teasing him back, he would always become so flustered when you teased him back and seeing him blush was the cutest thing you could ever imagine.  No matter how much Levi called you a normie or made fun of you for being bad with the video game controller, you never turned down a chance to give him a taste of his own medicine. He didn’t even know the best part. You were totally an otaku! Just like him – well, maybe not just like him, you left your room much more than him and another tiny detail is that you had gone to the ends of the earth to hide your otaku side from everyone you came into contact with. 

“Hah,” Levi laughed, “when you were being all butthurt about being a normie, you sounded like Suki from My Heartless Father Threw Me Out At Birth But It’s Fine Because He Died and Left Me With A Fortune But My Angry Mother Tried To Kill Me But I Killed Someone, Who Is It? When her heartless father threw-”

“I understand Levi.”

Realizing that maybe the name was a little too forth-giving to the plot, he tried a different reference just so he could see you not understand it. 

“Okay what about this one, you sound like SHEba at the final battle when she gave a speech to the dog-humanoid overlord.”

“Pfft, no I didn’t, she was way more worked up okay. And that was the same day that she found out her father was the villain so that’s two people betraying poor SHEba. Also, what was with the ending, was that a set up for a sequel or something? I think that a sequel would be dragging it on too much just like when ‘Did She Do It?’ came out after ‘Do What I Say! : Should We Have A Courtship?’”

Levi was looking at you, mouth hanging open, “Uhhh MC, you’ve seen ‘Bone Catcher: The Planet of the Dogs’? AND ‘Do What I Say!’????”

“Oh, uh, no, not really, only a little bit of it. Just some snippets because you were talking about it so I watched like five minutes, not really my thing………”

“ASDFGHJKL only this meme can describe how I’m feeling.” It was a deep fried meme written in ancient devildom language over the picture of what seemed to be a demonic pikachu with its mouth open. 

You sigh, “Levi I can’t read that.”

“Hm, maybe a NORMIE (lolololol)  like you shouldn’t read it!”

You laughed, “okay, Levi.” 

To this he smiled, you didn’t know why but he smiled nonetheless. In truth, he was just happy that he could have a conversation with you like this. You were the only person he’d ever met that went to such lengths to hang out with him, I mean Satan sometimes came around to watch dramas and Mammon came around to ask for money, but you didn’t want that. You wanted to hole up with him, hear his voice, see his smile, play the games you weren’t accustomed to. You just wanted to be with him and that was the most profound realization that came upon Levi after you two first began hanging out like this. You were his first best friend and his first romantic interest that wasn’t 2D, so it was a big deal when you came to hang out in his room.

He didn’t want you to leave so he spoke,

“So, wanna play another game so you can lose?”

“Very funny,” you said, giving him a smirk.

“For reals though, I have this new game and it’s a two player.”

You stretched your arms out as you stood up from where you were sitting on the ground, “maybe tomorrow, I have a big test coming up in Spells class and I really need to study for it.”

He looked down to the controller that was still in one of his hands, “oh, okay, just do your normie studying but tomorrow you have to be here to play it with me, like blood oath promise me.”

“I feel like a blood oath is a little too serious for this situation, pinky promise,” you said holding out your pinky.

He couldn’t help but blush at the thought of touching your hand again. 

“Pffft, w-what a lame normie thing to do, l-let’s do a pinky promise t-then.” 

“Okay,” you linked your pinkies together and looked into his eyes that were surrounded by a rose color that crept up to his entire face, “I pinky promise you that I will be here tomorrow so I can be your player two.” 

He blushed even harder, “okay, w-whatever.” And you were on your way out, but just before you opened the door, “oh, by the way, I lost my headphones at R.A.D., can I borrow some earbuds for tonight?”

“Hmph, okay but JUST for tonight, the premiere of Generic Anime Name is gonna be on Devflix tomorrow morning and I can’t miss watching that.”

And with that, you were off to study in your room until Asmo yanked the headphones from your ears,

“Hey MC, guess what show is on?”

“Asmo I’m trying to study,” you put Levi’s headphones in your pocket as to avoid further ear pulling. 

“But it’s ‘The Real Housewives of Devildom!’ Remember how you promised me last week that you would watch the new episode with me?”

“Asmo, not now, I need to study for this test

“MCCCC, you SAID you woulddddd you prommmisssed”

“Ugh fine but only if we bring Satan along to help me study during commercials.”

“Yayyyy!” 

Meanwhile notification beeped on Levi’s D.D.D.,

“As a present we’ll be releasing the premiere of Generic Anime Name a little early for our loving fans

Levi rushed to your room and walked right in, not bothering to knock. It was a good thing you weren’t there because you would’ve punched him in the face if another person had come in while you were studying. He wondered for a second where you had gone, but that wasn’t the issue at hand, he HAD to find his headphones. He rummaged through almost your entire room. ‘Where would they be?’ ‘Maybe she dropped them and kicked them under the bed?’ So, he went looking under your bed and found tons upon tons of anime and otome merch. He saw a body pillow of Gavyn from Mr. Passion: Monarch’s Decision and that’s when he lost all composure and let out a scream. About five minutes of digging through your stacks of posters and T-shirts and yet another body pillow, the door was nearly busted open by you, Asmo, and Satan. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He was hurt, really hurt you could tell because he didn’t even have the strength to call you a normie. He figured you didn’t tell him because you didn’t think he was cool enough or hot enough like Gavyn. Maybe you even didn’t like him at all. 

“Uhhhhh, I’m going to leave now, bye,”Asmo said, sprinting out of the awkward situation and Satan soon followed seeing that there wasn’t some ghost wandering about in your room. 

“Levi-”

“Are we friends?” This caught you off guard, why the hell would he think you weren’t friends? He was your best friend and at the same time your biggest crush. 

“Of course, Levi, we’re friends,” your head hung low, you felt slightly ashamed of hiding this side of you from him. 

“Then why did you hide all of this from me?”

“Because I was scared of how you would react. In the human world, there was a guy I used to really like, he was my only friend at the time, but when I showed him these things, he stopped talking to me; he wouldn’t even look at me in the hallways. I felt so alone. He thought it was weird and childish and- and he said I was creepy. I just-” tears began rolling from your eyes from remembering this and realizing that Levi was nothing like that guy. Levi, even though he didn’t show it much, actually cared about you and he was even into some of the same things you were but you were just too damn scared of something like that happening again.

You choked back your tears, “I just didn’t want to lose you.” 

He stood up and walked over to you, “MC, you don’t need to hide from me… I would never stop talking to you, even if you were into stuff I didn’t like. I just like being around you and having a friend to play video games with and watch anime with and you listen to me talk about Ruri-chan and- and,” his voice shook. Now both of you were crying as he pulled you in for a hug, you were both such softies that you couldn’t help but get worked up over your emotions. Neither of you wanted to lose the other, and Levi didn’t want you to feel like you needed to hide any part of you from him because, after all, you were his player two. 

“Y-you should never leave your player two behind,” he said with his face buried in the crook of your neck. Lucifer gave a passing look in your room when he got back to see that you were alright but saw two emotional weebs crying and hugging instead. 

“MC, Levi, I beg of you, whatever it is that you’re doing, just finish and go to sleep.”

You and Levi separated but instead of going to his room, Levi stayed with you to watch that new anime premiere episode. You shared the headphones even after you nodded off to bed and Levi was just sat next to you, listening to whatever was on his computer while smiling gently at you, studying your features as you lay peacefully asleep. Finally around five in the morning you were both asleep as Levi unconsciously held you close, in his arms, never wanting to let go of his Player Two.

—————————————————————————————————-

[innotherlands]

This week has been a constant back and forth for me in regards to whether I think Bellarke will be canon/not canon, and I just don’t know what to think anymore.

I was feeling pretty negative up until the episode yesterday and then made a complete 180 back to believing in Bellarke endgame after I saw Echo’s Roan apparition. It appeared to me that what we have been saying about B/echo’s relationship this whole time, i.e. It is not equal and Echo sees Bellamy just as another master (and frankly, that Bellamy also does not value her opinion like he does other people’s *cough* Clarke *cough*) is finally being addressed and will hopefully lead to a breakup and result in E/cho finding an identity as an individual rather than a follower. I saw that and thought, okay here we go, they’re finally taking the necessary steps to get to Bellarke canon.

At least, that’s what it seemed until the second script to screen came out with low key romantic vibes between Clarke and G/aia. Lines such as (I’m paraphrasing) “more personal” “they moved apart” “and Indra senses” indicate that scene was trying (emphasis on trying) to portray a budding romance between the two. The thing is, when I watched that scene I saw nothing but friendship. I don’t know if I interpreted it wrong, they failed in translating what they really wanted to say from script to scene, or if it was just a weirdly worded way to say that they are developing a friendship and respect for each other. When I read that script my stomach sank, and so I went back to thinking that Bellarke isn’t happening.

At this point I honestly don’t know what to think. I was so sure before the season started (before the Bob/Bellamy drama) that Bellarke is going to be canon. The season premier just seemed to be communicating two different things at the same time.

Yet every time I think about it, I see Bellarke endgame as inevitable. It goes against the story that they have been telling for 6 seasons to end any other way, especially after the obvious romance in season 6. I was not at all confident in canon Bellarke post season five, but season six managed to completely change my mind. I just can’t see why they would write what would be interpreted as blantantly romantic scenes in any other couple and the foundations of a B/echo breakup if they weren’t intending to go there. Things like:

Clarke looking high key scared when Bellamy mentions the radio calls, and visibly relaxing when he reveals that Madi told him; what, pray tell did she say in those calls that she was so scared of Bellamy having heard? A love confession?

Paralleling Bellamy and Clarke with Gabriel and Josephine - they literally ended the season in their clothes

Bellamy dismissing every idea that E/cho suggests while championing Clarke as a leader/ agreeing with her suggestions

Emphasizing that E/cho doesn’t care about “doing better” like Bellamy and Clarke

Clarke listing “leaving Bellamy in Polis” as her biggest regret. She’s had to do so many terrible things, and that’s her biggest regret? Even though it all turned out okay? I see you girl.

Showing that B/echo don’t really know each other, even after spending 6 years together on the ring (although we don’t know how long they’ve actually been together, all we know is that he forgave her after 3 years; they read as a relatively new relationship to me) - Bellamy had to tell E/cho that Octavia got arrested at a party, which she should have known as it’s pivotal to his character. E/cho also has been lying about her past/identity (and I once again ask, how did he even forgive her if he didn’t know anything about why she was actually so loyal to Azgeda?)

The consistent blocking and framing of E/cho between Bellamy and Clarke. In the first episode Clarke even completely blocks E/cho from the camera’s view while Bellamy and Clarke gaze at one another

The absolutely adoring way that Clarke looked at Bellamy when he brought Madi back to her

Bellamy picking a fight with E/cho over not being emotional enough just after having an emotional and cathartic conversation with Clarke (and watching her dance with another dude)

Clarke understanding what Bellamy needs re: Octavia, juxtaposed with his obvious annoyance with E/cho’s attempts to get him to forigive her

Bellamy being the first one (and only one without help) to figure out that Clarke has been body snatched.

E/cho spending an entire episode worrying about Bellamy while he was - at the same time - ready to burn sanctum down over Clarke and forgo a peace deal without sparing a thought for E/cho (and the rest of his family)

“Don’t you remember what it’s like to lose someone you love?”- Russel talking to a Josephine about (presumably) Gabriel

Paralleling Russel and Simone to Bellamy and Clarke (remember when Simone said Russel uses his heart, implying that she uses her head? Or when Bellamy and Clarke exited the Sanctum bar the exact same way as Russel and Simone had moments before (if I had a gif I would use it, but believe me it’s obviously intentional when you look at it)

The camera moving from Lexa (her past love interest) to Bellamy (her current love interest) in Clarke’s mind space

Clarke’s unwillingness to face Bellamy in her mind space for fear that he hadn’t actually forgiven her for her actions

How Clarke gave up on herself when she thought that Bellamy had given up on her.

How Bellamy was the first person to realize that Clarke was still alive, through Morse code no less. How attentive to somebody do you have to be to notice something like that?

Bellamy abandoning everything at just the slightest chance that Clarke could be alive; he knew that taking Josephine!Clarke would anger Russel and likely lead to a perilous situation for his family and girlfriend, and yet he did it anyway. There are so many variables that could have lead to failure, i.e. running out of time before Clarke and Josephine merge, Josephine herself, the CoG, the location of Gabriel, whether or not Gabriel would actually help him, etc. Bellamy had everything to lose if he didn’t succeed, but he ultimately decided a loss of Clarke is worse than risking his entire family’s safety over the long shot of saving Clarke.

Bellamy staring angstly at Josephine!Clarke and waiting what felt like forever to say “I won’t let you die” (which we and likely Josephine took as “I love you”).

How Bellamy instinctively knew when Clarke had returned in the cave

“Clarke, you gotta run” “No, I’m not leaving you!”

The CPR scene. There are so many things here: Bellamy finally admitting he needs Clarke after denying it during the red sun, including himself and Madi as the people that need Clarke (not Abby?), the repeating of the head and the heart (the symbolic representation of their relationship) as almost a mantra, Bellamy’s words inspiring Clarke to fight back (we all know his crappy CPR didn’t do the trick), Bellamy beating Clarke’s heart for her - symbolically being her heart when she was stuck in her head, the way that everybody thought they were going to kiss after she woke up (we know our girl wanted to, but she’s not a cheater), the fact that Octavia tried to tell Bellamy that he should let Clarke go but he wouldn’t accept it, how Clarke literally nuzzles his shoulder after she wakes up.

Gabriel saying “I have to let you go now” and Bellamy later saying “I won’t let you go” - it’s a symbolic passing of the torch and proof of Bellamy’s devotion to Clarke

The music during the CPR scene being the same (albeit more emotional) as when Abby was doing CPR on Kane

The increase in intimacy the episode after Clarke was revived: Bellamy’s hand on Clarke’s thigh, the gazing into eachother’s eyes, the casual touching, Bellamy’s “I didn’t protect you” and obvious guilt over choosing to save Clarke over his family’s safety (not that he regrets saving her - his guilt is his acknowledgment that he chose Clarke over everybody), his adamant refusal to let Clarke go into danger even though it was the best way to save their friends, Gabriel’s intrisic knowledge that Bellamy wouldn’t want Clarke to be put in danger, the way they stared at each other after Clarke took off their gags, etc.

“E/cho’s in trouble too, I’ll do what I can for her” followed by a less than emotional stare and the stark realization that he actually has a girlfriend and her name isn’t Clarke

The absolutely lovestruck way that Clarke stared at Bellamy when he was giving his speech about the primes

The way E/cho and Bellamy reunited after he heard she was in danger and we Clarke’s bittersweet reaction to the hug but not E/cho’s face. Also, a pat on the back and no kiss? That’s funny.

The emotional Bellarke hug(s) at the end of the season where they are shrouded in golden light and are silhouetted with sun spots reaching over their entwined bodies - this is a tried an true romance trope and the director had to have known when shooting the scene

All of this happened in season 6, and that isn’t even mentioning the stuff from previous seasons like “a traitor who you love” “the hostage taker and his girlfriend,” the radio calls, “I’ve got you for that!”, “we can’t! lose! Clarke!”, etc. that just scream Bellarke romance. I look at all of it and just think that the story can’t possibly end any other way than Bellarke canon. There’s too much evidence supporting a Bellarke romance and B/echo breakup. E/cho could find herself away from Bellamy and Clarke will go to the ends of the earth to save him. But with the potential C/laia stuff now I am so anxious and stressed. This season could honestly go either way, and I wish I could skip forward to the ending so I could just know once and for all. These next months are going to feel like forever. For now I’m going to watch and hope for the best, trusting what my eyes have been telling me all these years to be true. I just hope Jason can follow through.

[popculturebuffet]

Loud House: 11 Louds A Leapin Review or It’s My Bobby in a Box

Happy Holidays errybody! Christmas returns to this blog after a bit of a break to tie up some loose ends, and celebrate my birthday with a return to the loud house.  It’s honestly good to be back. While it can be a struggle to cover a pure comedy, I genuinely like the show a lot, even with it’s flaws i’ve gone into, and my regular reviews gave  me a running gag in my hatred of rusty and a new respect for the show. It’s just with a buiser schedule and me not actually trying to have something resembling order to things, I kept shoving Banned Together back despite really wanting to see it since.. you know.. Luna episode.. until it ended up sliding into ANOTHER set of episodes. It’s things like this why I have a queue now: while it’s not set day by day, in case I want to do more than one i na day, it is there to keeep some semblance of order and keep me on track so this dosen’t happen again.  So with all that being said.. why did I choose to do A DIFFRENT loud house episode for the second time in a row before getting back to the current season? Simple.. i’ve been putting this episode off personally for even LONGER. I meant to watch 12 louds a leapin back when it first came out at the start of season 2... and just never got around to it. And just kept never getting around to it, wanting to watch it at christmas but then forgetting to do so for the last 4 years. Spare a thought there.. 4 years. In that time 80 years have passed, an era of marvel movies have come to an end, a tick series has come and gone, She Ra has come and gone, ducktales premiered then annoucned it was ending.. my point is way too many shows are ending too soon, and i’ve let this slide for far too long. So I bumped this one up to finally take a look at it, as i’ve waited this long and didn’t want to risk missing it a fifth fucking time. So yeah i’m taking look at what’s probably a classic episode in the fandom with fresh eyes. Let’s see what I thought shall we? It’s Christmas Eve at the Loud House and Lincoln is once again Zach Morrising it up .

Not what I meant.. whatever that is. It’s been 30 years since that episode aired, probably a good 12 since I first saw it and I still have no idea why they did this or if it was giong to end in a three way before the girls showed up. We just don’t know and the greatest minds in the country are baffled.. and you know working on the vaccine and making sure it’s safe. 

No Linc is talking to the camera about it being christmas while gearing up to go sledding with his sled big red. Meanwhile the rest of the louds are doing their usual christmas activities which we get introduced to as Lincoln gets ready. The girls sub-plots here are, outside of Lori’s., less plots and more running gags, various shenanigans by the girls tying into their personalities and christmasy stuff. It works perfectly.. while it’s a bunch of gags.. the gags are funny and it’s neat to learn more about just how the girls celebrate christmas and what they get up to every year. It’s part of what’s to love about holiday specials as you get a once or twice in a series chance to see how our heroes celbrate the holiday and thus a look into stories, gags and character stuff very unique to the holiday. It also uses the fact LIncoln was the protaganist at the time very well, using him as our viewpoint to set up all the christmas goings on as he makes his way out of the house, so we can cut back to them later as his plot goes on. It’s really good stuff. So what are the girls up to? Let’s go down the list by age shall we?

Lori: Lori has the most involved plot anyway so it’s best to start here. Lori and Bobby are having their first christmas together... though it does bring up the fact that they’ve only been dating 2 years at most, yet plan to get married.. I mean that is a lot but your also 18. Then again time is nigh incomprehinsiable to unpack in the loud house, and at least 3 years passed in the one year it took to get them all aged up, so I wouldn’t think about it too hard.  Lori, still being in huge bitch mode as she was early on, pressures bobby to get a good gift. She later gets said gift but despite being told to open it immideitly, her siblings chide her on her habit of tearing presents open and thus get her not to open it. So that’s a runner through the special, with Lana even putting her on a leash at one point, which I found hilarious. Less hilaroius is the conclusion as it turns out in the box on christmas day.. is BOBBY, who understandably is not looking so good...

Thankfully bobby’s not dead or they all would be, but still the poor boy missed christmas eve with his mom  and sister for this stunt. I mean I get it’s his fault, he’s apparently LITERALLY too dumb to live it turns out and should’ve you know made a noise sooner and probably didn’t want to ruin the suprise.. but we still nearly got an episode where a 4 year old had surivviors guilt for letting her older sisters boyfriend suffocate in a box. That’s dead santa from gremlins levels of fucked up. Thankfully Lori loves it and I assume bobby’s worried family joined them for christmas eve. That image fills my heart with hope. But seriously bobby never again we can’t loose you. At least not before Sergio. 

Leni: Leni’s is very simple it’s just a running gag of her taking various christmas things, making them into outfits then saying shhhh to whoever’s around when she hears, or in later cases is right there, with the person asking. Just a funny bit.  Luna: Is working on a christmas song. It’s one of the weake runners as the failed songs just aren’t that funny, but the payoff for the main plot makes up for it. WE’ll get to that.  Luann: Has one of my faviorite bits, her 12 puns of christmas which is both really adorable and leads to an adorable moment with her dad. Always loved their relationship. 

Lynn and Lucy: Are teamed up this episode which makes me genuinely miss how the two would be used as a pair ocasionally earlier on but just .. arne’t anymore> The rest of the girls status as roomates is used liberally but not so much these two. IT’s just weird and disheartning to me. That being said their plot is simply the two digging around to find where the presents are hidden, which I never got as why would you want to know weeks ahead of time. You can’t use any money to buy the stuff you dind’t get or they’ll know and they usually figure out you knew ahead of time and it just brings thigns down. But from a kid’s perspective I guess I get it and while it’s weird to have Lucy be one of the ones following I like it, as it shows that benath her gothy demanor she’s still just an 8 year old girl excited for christmas, and that’s adorable. A decent enough runner. 

Lana: Gets  a good one: She keeps accidently catching people, and a passing car in one case though she has a jack to help, in her reindeer traps. Its not only funny but really adorable especially since she dosen’t care about trapping SANTA persay, she just wants her own pet reindeer and frankly who wouldn’t want a rideable woodland critter who can fly. Dammit now i want one too. 

Lola and Lisa: Lola gets a fairly standard one tha’ts still pretty damn funny; She wants to get offf the naughy list by playing good for a day. What makes it funny is that last part.. that instead of doing it over a few days like most of this plot she’s trying to cram it all into one day while also trying not to strangle Lisa, who keeps showing up to say santa’s route is impossiuble. As ducktales covered he slows down time.. also you know.. not every kid celebrates christmas so ther’es probably a good number of houses he dosen’t have to cover in one night.  Lily: Just randomly pops out of stockings a bit. it’s precioous as it sounds.  The Parents: It had honestly been so long both since i’d seen a season 1 episode, and since the two had been both given actual names and fleshed out considerably, that i’d forgotten Rita and Senior had their faces obscured for all of season 1. It’s REALLY weird and jarring to go back to after getting to know them as fully formed people of their own over the past 3 seasons, and especally gorowing to love Senior, as he’s a loveably goofy dad but without the incompetence of most comedy dads. He can bumble but he’s also genuinely supportive, talented and pulls his weight in his marriage and family.  We do however start to really see their fully formed , full member of the cast perosnalities here: Rita is clearly tired from the sheer amount of shit she has to juggle, but is also nice and warm and while Lynn Sr.’s goofiness was established already, here it’s tempered into his current shape and his love of cooking and through role as the family chef is established. While he was established as cook earlier he goes from someone who’d use frozen food just to get by to a master chef who probably does use a lot of frozen stuff but can make anything taste good and will eventually have his own restraunt. It’s really fascenating to see them slowly emerge. They don’t really have plots themslves, and Lynn’s only real gag is wanting everyone to try his figgy pudding. 

So with the rest of the family covered let’s get to our main plot. Lincoln is sledding.. on the slide out back.. for some reason. 

The reason is simple.. his sled ends up in the yard of Mr. Grouse, their neighbor and old man who yells at louds. Lincoln explains grouse keeps everything that ends up in his yard and has taken a lot from the Loud Kids over the years. So lincoln.. uses the slide to sled.. DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF HIS YARD. 

I’ve been wanting to use pigtail kim since I made that one recently. But her points stands. What?!. I mean Lincoln can be stupid, he’s  only 12 it’s allowed, but usually more out of not realizing what he’s getting into or using kid logic. He’s not this brain dead. That’s Leni’s job. It just feels like plot contrivance. Just have him build some sort of contraption as a makeshift hill and tell the audience he’s doing this because his family dosen’t want him going to an actual hill on christmas or is too busy to take him. There are easier ways than this half assed rube goldberg machine of a setup. So naturally his sled ends up in the yard.. and he calls on Clyde to help....

Now if you’ve been reading my reviews for a while, you know that reactoin is normally reserved exclusivley for this guy. 

But since Rusty was in his larval state with only a few apperances and hadn’t emeerged from his coocoon as the douche I know and love to take pot shots at, there was actually something WORSE. Something more obnoxious. And with far far worse implications. And that my friends was seasons 1 and 2 Clyde.  Clyde in the early seasons CAN be fine, and the self we know now. In fact I wish he interacted with the sisters more as the slumber party episode early on gave him a nice dynamic with all of them and the episode with him and leni was terrific. The problem one there was running gag with him, one character trait that utterly sucked the joy out of the room at best and made him into an unlikeable little shit at worst; HIs crush on Lori.  When she’s around at BEST he has a Master Roshi nosebleed, stammers her name and passes out, something that wasn’t funny the first time and quickly became grating the 80 other times they did it. But at worst, as he is here? He’s creepy, obessevie and worst of all. .a real dick to bobby. Who as we’ve established is...

So that was NEVER going to go over well and even ignoring that is still very bad. The little creep just constantly treats Bobby with hostility, which given this is Bobby, he dosen’t realize is going on. Any time their relationship is threantned Clyde’s main goal is to swoop in during the aftermath and win lori over. He constantly wants Bobby out of the way, The ONE TIME he dosen’t come off as a massive dick is when Lincoln thinks Bobby might be cheating, and that’s because Clyde isn’t planning on swooping into the wrecakge of someone’s relationship to get a girlfriend, but to punch the guy out for cheating on her. Bobby wasn’t and Clyde obviously isn’t capable of that, but it’s a bit more understandable and even CLYDE wants to make sure there’s evidence first. But more often than not he’s just under the assumptino Lori will be his despite the massive age gap, her having made it obvious she’s not intrested, and her being in  longterm relationship she’s really happy in with someone else. And this was season 1 lori who reacted to this, so the fact she’s not being the queen of all bitches about it only makes him look that much worse. And to add to that, Bobby not only KNOWS he has as crush on Lori but is suppportive of clyde, cheering him on when she kisses him once for doing something noble, and generally treating “Clydsdale” like he would any of Lori’s blood siblings. It was excurating then to sit through this every few episodes.. and it’s even worse now because the gag’s complete dissaperance from Season 3 onwards really paints the picture that this gag was entirely because series creator Chris Savino thought this was FUNNY and no one else did. And given he got fired for, you know, HARASSING WOMEN  AND NOT TAKING NO FOR AN ANSWER  you kinda see how an already bad bit was made worse. So yeah while the sled thing is bad this.. is objectively worse and drags the special down more. It’s thakfully not omniprescent but man is it hard to watch.  Clyde being in full dickhead mode is trying to get a kiss from lori and is using a missletoe hat for it.. And can we just agree that while Missletoe can be used well in stories, to help two shy people finally kiss or to ramp up romantic tension or what have you, that it’s often used by creepy douchebags to get kisses they don’t deserve both here and presumibly in irl before the plauge hit? We can? Good. But yeah that’s his plot, no suprise he gets one, bah hum bug. He also throws in some Bobby bashing by fantasising about him ending up in the yard and clyde ending up with lori since Grouse keeps bobby.. even though instead Lori would just ignore clyde, storm over there and rip an old man’s spine out mortal kombat style. 

So yeah Lincoln wants his sled back, but he can’t do it alone as the old man scares him, hence Clyde coming in. They make an elaborate plan using some careful blueprints. 

Their real plan is to have Clyde disract grouse while Lincoln grabs the sled but it fails and mean mr mustard finds it and takes it inside. Desperate, Lincoln prepares to do some crimes and head into his house. Clyde is afraid he’l end up in jail and never get to visit because only family can. Clyde you are family. Plus Prison visits aren’t limited to relatives only, any show with a character in jail storyline will tell you that. But Lincoln makes a valid point that Grouse stole his property.. I still dont’ think this is the right way to handle it and his parents should just go over and ask the loud, irate asshole to give the kids stuff back he stole to be a dick, but this is a kids show and again we wouldn’t have a plot but unlike last time my head dosen’t hurt from this. He’s desperate, he knows that probably wouldn’t work and again he’s 12. 12 year old logic is fine.  Naturally he ends up getting caught as Grouse didn’t leave for long, though having found a photo of Grouse with a sled as a kid, understandably fires back on him that he wasn’t always like this. Why he like this. He also has the much farier point that again, it’s his property and “My yard my rules” is about as much a legal rule as a note saying “I can do what I want, ron”. But Grouse understandably, hey he’s a dick but the boyd id be and e, makes him clean up and after Grouse fails to get the loud parents Lincoln, via a comination of a charming family photo and Grouse talking to his sister on the phone, finds out the real reason he acts like this: He misses his family and being on a fixed income can’t visit them often as he tells his sister he won’t be home for christmas to see his sprawling family. 

And while it doesen’t excuse his actions.. it does explain why Grouse is so bitter: you would be too if you had a massive family who clealry loved you and your on good terms with.. but through no fault of your own and presumibly despite working hard toa fford retirment you just.. can’t see them. Their there and you have the phone, but you don’t know how to work the internet and it’s just.. not the same as seeing them. Your just seperated from them and can’t be near them or hear their voices or get hugs. Which.. given the current pandemic i’m sure MANY of you can relate to that.. to being seperated from your loved ones and trapped, and especailly many people mr grouses age are facing that. While this special is good even without the context of seeing it this year it especailly resonates and i’m glad I waited this long simply beaause it came at just the right time. Grouse tells him to leave not planning on calling his parents.

So in christmas special fashion, Lincoln is touched byt his story, and feels bad for the old curmudgeon. Sure they don’t get along and the bastard broke his sled.. but again you’d be bitter too in his shoes. The guy has nothing and is alone.. and Grouse has done nothing to deserve that, even with his actions resulting from it. No one should be alone on christmas.  So Lincoln tells his sisters, all of whom rally around him, including Luna whose writer’s block is broken as she finally realizes... 

And not singing about that was holding her back. Luna has her song and Lincoln, as expected has a plan.  And we soon see that plan as Grouse gets a knock on the door.. and finds the Louds, parents included, and The McBrides all there singing him a christmas song. It’s pretty decent and the first time we really get to see Nikka Futterman sing and i’ts beautiful> Ther’ed be better, and worse luna songs to come but this is still pretty neat and sweet. THey came to offer him deocrations, dinner, company.. and a one way bus ticket to his family... presumibly the family will pay the other way or he can easier the day after christmas. Point is he’s touched, and genuinely and sincerly thanks them and invites them in, with Grouse’s actor John DiMaggio REALLY selling it hard. 

So our heroes gather for Christmas Eve all together, and under Grouse’s roof with Grouse giving the kids their stuff back having had a change of heart. Sure he misses his family.. but the Louds and Mc Brides have shown him he dosen’t have to shut everyone out as a result. And while Grouse apologizes tht his sled is gone.. Lincoln’s fine with it he got something better.  So the next morning we end on the kids opening presents, and Lori saving her boyfriend from axphisxiation, seriously between this and strife of the party i’m really starting to sour on lana. Regarldess Lucy finally belivies in santa both due to gifts nd seeing him last night, while Lincoln finds a sled from santa.. and then goes outside to see Mr Grouse off, recognizing he’s the one who played santa in  a really sweet and senitmental bit. The two part on good terms even if Lincoln breaks another window. Things have changed if not that much.  Final THoughts:  If it wasn’t obvious, I REALLY loved this one. While it has it’s flaws, and Chris Savino sucks dirty ass in thunderstorms obviously.. it’s still a really sweet, well constructed special and I really recommend checking it out. It’s on the nick app if you have cable and on CBS All Acess if you have that. Until next time merry christmas to all and to all a good day. 

And if ther’es an episode of the loud house you’d like me to review leave it in the comments or you can comission a review of it for five dollars. Just direct message me to work out the details or send an ask for my discord. 

[murderborn-of-vengeance]

Czarna Wdowa 2021 Cały Film Online

Welcome back everyone this is going to be my new  marvel black widow movie video there's a bunch  of announcements about what disney is going to be  doing disney and marvel with the actual release of  the movie people been asking about them putting it  on disney plus apparently there's some news about  that now so i'll explain what's going on and a lot  of it has to do with what warner brothers is doing  with their movies in 2021 and what's happening  right now 

 The world just in general with movie  theaters so if you're new to the channel be sure  to subscribe to get all the videos we're obviously  in the middle of Wandavision i'm doing episode  videos for all that we're going to have falcon  and winter soldiers starting in march so there's  a lot of really really cool marvel stuff coming up  we're doing that disney plus memberships giveaway  all you have to do to enter is be a subscriber and  just leave all your predictions about the black  widow movie on the video so if you didn't see the  news in the past week there's a new report from  variety's insights team which is a very insidery  business report that they publish about the movie  and tv financials studio politics them releasing  movies and tv shows and in it they talk about how  disney is making some changes to their plans for  the black widow movie release date because of  what's been happening the last couple of months  and now at the beginning of 2021 in january you  may have seen that a lot of studios just delayed  all their big movies pretty much up through april  and last week kevin feige was doing a bunch of  interviews to hype up the wand division episodes  during those he talked about everything from  deadpool 3 to the fantastic four movie to their  new rebooted x-men movies they're doing in the mcu  but he also talked about what's happening with  the Czarna wdowa film online because now everybody's  wondering if they're going to have to delay  it again you probably saw when all the movie  delays were happening people were making jokes 

 In their timelines like just wait for it disney's  going to announce they're going to delay that  black widow movie one more time it's already been  delayed almost as many times as the new mutants  movie last year when a lot of things got delayed  they figured that by this time and by march april  2021 things would be better theaters would be open  but so far that has not been the case the uk is  currently under a big lockdown the u.s has been  under a big lockdown there's still a lot of other  places around the world where theaters are not  open and won't be open for a while that's  why warner brothers came up with their  real grand plan to release all their 2021 movies  on hbo max last year like we need subscriptions  and it doesn't look like things are going to get  better so why don't we just put all of our movies  on hbo max and in some theaters on the same day  for all of 2021 but in terms of the Czarna Wdowa film  right now just nothing beyond april has  been delayed again so there's still a chance  that they could hit that may release date 

But the  big problem that marvel has that a lot of other  studios don't have with their movies is that if  they delay black widow again they have to delay  every other marvel movie into like 2023 like  pretty much every future marvel movie one of  marvel's biggest strengths the connected nature  of its movies also becomes a big problem too like  we're at the beginning of marvel phase 4 right  now all the movies happen in a certain order for  a reason because each one tells a little of the  overarching infinity saga style story that helps  connect everything building up to avengers 5 it's  like you're watching a tv show that's serialized  and each of the episodes cost 200 million dollars  so they delay black widow again it means they'd  have to delay the shang chi movie which is coming  this summer the eternals movie then spider-man 3  doctor strange 2 thor 4 love and thunder and so  on the dominoes keep following well into 2023  most of you who are still in school right now  if they kept delaying movies you would probably  be married with children by the time avengers 5  rolls around but back last year in 2020 when the  lockdowns first started happening after the first  few movie delays everyone just started asking why  don't you just put black widow on disney plus why  not put the movies on disney plus disney pretty  much has infinite money and they can just take  it on the chin a little bit for a couple movieswhat do we have here there's also that extra  thirty dollars that they charge for some of their  disney premier movies like the mulan movie where  you get it on disney plus but you have to pay an  extra thirty dollars to get it early they're also  doing that again with another movie raya in the  last dragon in march so i'll talk about that in  a second too that's another quote-unquote hybrid

  Release movie that they're doing and apparently  the reason why marvel did not do that with the  black widow movie last year because originally  they were going to release it in november didn't  have anything to do with them being worried about  losing money because yeah they'd lose a little bit  of money according to the rumor it had more to do  with the specific clauses in scarlett johansson's  contract that prevented disney and marvel from  releasing it on disney plus like apparently  scarlett johansson's contract for the czarna wdowa  movie has some special terms in it about how  they're allowed to release the movie and how she  earns a ton more money from a theatrical release  from the box office earnings than from streaming  earnings so apparently disney and marvel were  legally obligated under the terms of her contract 

 To have to release the movie in theaters in some  way they couldn't just put it on disney plus even  if they wanted to what's changed recently though  why there's all this renewed talk about a hybrid  release for black widow then putting it on disney  plus and in theaters on the same day has more to  do with what happened with the wonder woman 1984  movie that was the first real big comic book movie  this past year to do the hybrid release this last  christmas releasing the movie on streaming on hbo  max the same day that they release it in theaters  where theaters are open around the world because  there are some places where theaters are open  so warner brothers is doing this hybrid release  strategy for all of its movies in 2021 the big  difference between what warner brothers is doing  and what disney is doing is that warner brothers  isn't charging the extra 30 dollars premier access  money that disney is charging for some of its  films but per this variety insights report disney  and marvel are starting to feel like delaying the  black widow movie straight up will just cause more  problems than it will solve so they're thinking  about a hybrid release strategy to fix everything  they get to release the movie with no more delays  meaning we get to see shang qi this summer and  eternals in november no more delays for marvel  movies because right now just based on the rate of  how fast the virus situation is resolving itself  most summer movies seem like they're going to be  fine like theaters will mostly be open by later  this summer and per this hybrid release strategy  because they'd be releasing black widow in some  theaters 

Even if it's not a ton it would be enough  to keep scarlett johansson from suing disney  for the tens of millions of dollars she would  potentially lose out on also on the side they'll  probably pass her some extra change like here  please take a couple extra million dollars don't  sue us warner brothers kind of had to do that with  gal gadot and patty jenkins when they released  wonder woman 1984 on hbo max they gave him a bunch  of extra money up front because they weren't going  to be earning a lot of extra money on the back end  you probably saw patty jenkins making a huge stink  about all this christopher nolan got really pissed  off about this too when they announced their big  2021 movies plan in fun fact 2 all the newer  marvel phase 

5 movies that they've announced  like the fantastic four reboot movie the deadpool  3 movies ryan reynolds marvel is apparently also  altering all their standard movie contracts with  everyone to allow for streaming releases if things  like this happen in the future so actors directors  producers can't sue them if a big problem comes up  or another big pandemic and they have to release  movies on streaming so if you're wondering why you  didn't see a lot of disney movies on disney plus  last year it's not so much about them losing money  it's more about lawsuits from people in studio  contracts the next big disney plus test that  they're running is for the raya in the last dragon  movie is basically disney's version of avatar the  last airbender they just released a new trailer  for that this morning as i'm posting this video  that's going to be released the first week in  march so we won't have to wait too long to see  what happens with that but they're charging the  extra 30 dollars for the disney premier access  just like they did with the mulan movie so if  they're doing that for a pixar movie then you  can bet that they're going to charge an extra  30 for the black widow movie this may if they  also go with the hybrid release strategy like  variety is saying they will what will probably  happen you'll see in the next couple of months 

 Is marvel will wait till the last possible second  that they have to before committing to an actual  release strategy like they'll just wait till  april to see if things get better and they don't  have to worry about it and they can just release  it normally in theaters like they originally  wanted to right now everyone's assuming that  things will mostly be back to normal by the summer  so may is just sort of that in-between period like  kevin feige himself is hopeful that things will  be fine but he also said that he's trying not to  make too many assumptions before we actually get  to may so let me know in the comments if you think  that marvel is going to pull the rip cord and do  a hybrid release strategy for black widow in may  or if you think the theaters will be fine by then    thank you so much for wriging everyone stay  safe and i'll see you in the next post!

You can see this video here:

https://myfilmyonline.pl/caly-film/czarna-wdowa-2021-film-online/

[winchester90210]

The BH 90210 Rewrite. Bonus #2: The E! True HollyWood Story

Rewrite Masterlist

My work is not to be reposted and/or edited without my expressed written consent. (Reblogging is fine and encouraged!!)

Chapter Summary: E! News has made a documentary on you, following Shannen's. Although it may seem like the full story, remember-- media is still media and there's still things that need to be uncovered. Italics are the narration.

Warnings: mentions of drugs, addiction, sex, adultery, divorce, rumors, tabloids.

Word count: 2,500

A/N: Like the other bonus chapter, this isn't necessary for the rewrite itself, but will supply background knowledge for the reboot! Hope you guys enjoy :)

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July 19th, 2008. E! True Hollywood Stories.

America's sweetheart. The girl who played with fire. An old interview of yours pops up on screen, from when you were promoting season 4 on 90210.

"Shannen's a lot more... headstrong than I am, for sure. She gets me in trouble from time to time," you laugh. Y/N Perry. She blew audiences away with her portrayal of Y/N Y/L/N on Beverly Hills, 90210. But she wasn't always the wholesome 90's starlet.

Jason Priestley, "Y/N was one of my best friends. I've never met anyone with a bigger heart." Her romantic and musical exploits made her a tabloid heavyweight. But her friendship with notorious bad girl Shannen Doherty was what made her a target. This is the story of Y/N Perry. The E! True Hollywood Story.

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Y/N wasn't always the romantic we knew her to be, but that charming sparkle in her eye quickly became a trademark for her.

June 20th, 1972, Y/N was welcomed to James and Carol Clark's upper-class home.

A man, Kevin McLaren comes on screen with the title "Entertainment Journalist." He speaks, "Y/N was born into a catholic family in Columbus, Ohio, and they had her working in commercials by the time she was eight." Her family then located to Encino, California. From there she joined a Children's drama group where a talent agent immediately took notice. Not long after, she was introduced to TV star, Tom Selleck.

Mary Murphy, senior editor of TV guide, "Selleck sort of... discovered her. Her teacher at the theater group introduced them and he seemed to see something in her. He was her mentor, she really looked up to him. He even got her her first major acting job." She had a 3 year stint on Magnum P.I. as Carol Baldwin's spunky and outspoken niece. She later won the role of Diane Court in the 1989 classic Say Anything, opposite John Cusack which was what began her lift to stardom. The buzz from the romantic comedy hit veteran TV producer Aaron Spelling, who was currently auditioning actors for a new series.

Aaron Spelling, 1993, "We went through hell with casting. It took weeks to pick everyone out. Then, Tori came to me one night talking to me about the lead girl in Say Anything, Y/N Clark. She was telling me "She's perfect, you have to hire her." and I told her uh, we'll see." That show was Beverly Hills, 90210. And in February of 1990, Y/N landed the part of Y/N Y/L/N. But she had originally gone for a different part.

You, an Arsenio interview in 1995, "I was called in to read for Brenda at the beginning, Y/N Y/L/N didn't exist. I didn't get the part obviously, and I was totally crushed. But then a few weeka later my agent called me to let me know that they had written a new character, and they wanted me to play the part. This was after they had filmed the two part pilot, which was why I'm in the second episode." The cast included several unknown actors, including Spelling's daughter Tori, Jennie Garth, Ian Ziering, Luke Perry, Jason Priestley, and established actress and Y/N's soon-to-be best friend, Shannen Doherty. The cast bonded immediately. And while Y/N would continue to become closer with the entire cast, she was instant best friends with Doherty, both of them bonding over their similar family lives and careers.

On October 4th, 1990, Beverly Hills 90210 premiered on the fledgling Fox network. The series clicked immediately with teen audiences, and so did the hot young cast. 17 year old Y/N Clark was center stage. She was a magnet for paparazzi, but she didn't understand how wanted she truly was until leaving a night club with Tori Spelling and Shannen Doherty one night, when they were immediately surrounded. The night was heavily publicized-- magazine covers and gossip columns.

You, 1992 at the red carpet with Tori and Shannen for the MTV Video Music Awards, "Just don't believe everything you read, tabloids are nasty and they only want to twist the truth and bring out the worst in people. They'll dig anywhere they can to get something that shows in the worst light possible." 90210 was becoming the most famous zip code in the country. You, 1992, sitting down for a casual interview on Howard Stern, "I don't think anyone expected the show to take off like it did. No one is quite used to it yet, at least I'm definitely not. On one hand, the attention is flattering and I'm grateful for all the love, but on the other... it's definitely a little scary." 90210 originally centered around the Walsh Family as they tackled their new surroundings. But as the show carried on, it turned into an ensemble show.

Mary Murphy, "They all had different opinions about the switch. Shannen was definitely happier when every episode was going to be about Brandon, Brenda, and Y/N. She didn't like the shift in attention at all, and she wasn't afraid to speak her mind. Y/N, though, wanted to keep to herself and was willing to go where the show took her, wherever that was." During the very beginning of the first season, Clark would become infatuated with castmate Luke Perry, but he immediately rejected her, due to her being barely 18 at the time. Things heated up later for her though, when she and Jason Priestley began dating near the end of filming the first season.

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Tori Spelling, for the documentary, "Y/N and Jason were so crazy about each other. It was so sweet. If you ever look at behind the scenes stuff from the show, they're all over each other. I think their chemistry really translates on screen, and that's what made Y/N and Brandon so great."

You, the Today Show, "Our relationship was so wholesome. I was so in love with him. I had been eighteen for a while and he'd just turned 20 or 21, we were total babies back then!"

Jason, "I remember the night we got together. She'd been flirting with uh, Brian-- Brian Austin Green the entire night, it was a cast Christmas party and I was grumpy, unbelievably grumpy. And I couldn't figure out why. Ian Ziering had to pretty much spell it out for me because everyone else knew why and they were pretty fed up. I was head over heels for her from the start."

They would continue to date for almost five years. But romancing Priestley and befriending Doherty would prove to be an unlucky combination for her.

Joe E. Tata, 2001, "When the tabloids got ahold of her and Jason, they had a field day. They followed them on dates, to clubs. Everywhere." Shannen and Y/N continued to fuel the fire with non-stop partying and clubbing.

Kevin McLaren, entertainment journalist, "After working non-stop since she was a child and being 21 and newly exposed to things like drugs, alcohol, sexual freedom, she certainly fell prey to it all." 1993 was just on the horizon. But little did she know it would become her most dramatic year yet.

Charles Rosin, producer of 90210, "We do know, during 90210, when there was a lot of coverage on the tabloids that we had people in our own crew spreading stories and feeding them information."

Jason Priestley, 2001, "It was horrible. We felt so violated. I remember Y/N/N being absolutely destroyed. And that made me feel awful, because there was nothing I could do, nothing she could do. We had to sit there and take it all."

Clark would continue to be slammed with press, her partying habits only elevating as the tabloids became more and more vicious. Rumors of her being pregnant with other castmates babies, cheating on Jason Priestley, sex tapes, and an oxycodone addiction.

You, filming an MTV interview, 1998, "Media loves to make you and break you. They build you up, and they tear you down twice as hard. It's... ridiculous. But it comes with the job description, I guess. For a while I just felt like I couldn't do anything right." Her frequent club nights came to a crashing halt, as Jason Priestley became fed up with it, and managers and agents became worried of her further tarnishing of her good girl image.

Jennie Garth, "Her and Jason were a real fireball together. Jason adored her, so when he saw her start to spin out of control he gave her an ultimatum. Either she settles down and stays away from the party scene, or he leaves. She was crazy in love with him, so she had no other choice." But her image and her drama didn't stop her from bonding closely with yet another co-worker. Luke Perry. Despite being rejected early on, Y/N maintained a friendly close relationship with Luke and as those two became closer, so did their characters.

Heidi Parker, Playboy, "Y/N, Jason, and Luke were very close. Although Y/N got along with everyone, those boys loved her, and she loved them. It was a really strong, intimate friendship. Despite Jason and Y/N being in love, that didn't stop people from insisting Luke and Y/N were seeing each other. I mean, when you saw them on screen, it was completely electric and everyone caught wind of that. It spawned some awful rumors. This girl hadn't done a thing to anyone, but her mere association with Doherty was what dragged her in to begin with. Y/N was known for being a total sweetheart on set, yet she was still getting pummeled. It got out of control. Everyone who knew her loved her and everyone who read about her hated her."

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At the end of 1996, Jason and Y/N parted ways. After almost 5 years of dating, Y/N moved out of their shared condo and into a Beverly Hills apartment with Tori Spelling.

Jill Ishkanian, US Weekly, "Everyone was surprised when they split. They had talked marriage, they had talked kids. But she left him after they had gotten in a fight about Shannen. Jason did not want Shannen around as often as she was and Y/N wasn't willing to let Shannen go that easily. She was Shannen's main support system, especially with all of her relationship struggles. Two failed marriages, a handful of abusive relationships. Y/N was the only stable thing she had. So, she dumped him, packed her things and left." Y/N went on a few dates with Ian Ziering a few months after, but they quickly decided they were better as friends and they kept it professional from there on out.

You, late night with David Letterman, 2000, "Oh, everyone hooked up with everyone. I definitely wasn't one to stray from that. We were so young, everyone was so attractive on that show, I mean it was kind of inevitable."

Clark and Spelling would live together for two years, with Spelling being a shoulder to lean on during the fallout.

You, 1996, "Look, it's not a pretty scene for anyone and I really just need... privacy right now. It would be great if people could stop asking me about it." As the couple fought in real life, so did their characters.

Jennie Garth, "When Jason and Y/N broke up it was chaos. There was a good period where they didn't even want to be near each other, let alone make out all day at work, y'know? They weren't exactly fighting, but they wanted nothing to do with the other, they were miserable. Luke had been gone at that point and the producers were freaking out because they had planned out this whole thing with Brandon and Y/N and they had to scrap it, because with them butting heads it just wouldn't work. So they switched gears and had their characters fight too. I think it was just cathartic enough to get them close again." They repaired their damaged relationship slowly but surely, just in time for things to heat up with Clark and ANOTHER 90210 alumni.

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In the winter of 1997, Y/N and Luke Perry embarked down a romantic path, sharing their first kiss at Tori Spelling's casual New Years Eve party with their friends and families.

Tori Spelling, "When they started dating it was like everything fell into place. It dawned on everyone how perfect they were for each other, I know Jason wasn't thrilled about it, but we were all genuinely happy for them."

Jennie Garth comes onto the screen. "Luke and Y/N/N have always made sense to me. They're both very humble, well rounded people. And they always had this really flirty element to them from the start, I'm surprised it took that long," she laughs. A year and a half later, they tied the knot with a small private ceremony at their shared home in Beverly Hills, California. Costing only $20,000, it was the cheapest wedding of all of the 90210 clan's. And in June of 1999 they welcomed their first child, a baby girl, Sophie. Selling their 3 million dollar home, they moved into a 6 million dollar house outside of Hollywood, accidentally moving in next to none other than Jason Priestley.

Thankfully that caused no serious drama between the two families. But the finale of Beverly Hills, 90210 caused a stir that no one could have expected. Priestley made a surprise guest appearance that reportedly caused more drama off screen than on.

Jennie Garth, MTV, 2000, "It's so ridiculous. Everything was just weirdly timed. Jason being on the show had nothing to do with his divorce and it has nothing to do with Y/N's pregnancy, either. People love to make stuff up and cause drama that wasn't there to begin with and it's probably so exhausting for her."

Shortly after appearing on 90210, Priestley filed for divorce, ending his 8 month long marriage. Around the same time, the Perrys announced their second pregnancy. Tabloids began to say that Y/N had caused the divorce and that she was secretly pregnant with Priestley's baby.

Tori Spelling, "Those were so awful and so fake. Her son is a carbon copy of Luke, I'd be floored if Jason was the father..." "I think that part of Jason will always be in love with her... and that shined through in the finale a little bit and that's what people are picking up on. But her and Luke are soulmates. She has a good head on her shoulders, a lot of integrity."

Shannen Doherty, the Rosie O'Donnel Show, 1997, "Y/N's my best friend in the entire world, we went to Ireland together last summer and everything. Yeah, her and I have always been close."

Jennie Garth, "She's incredibly intelligent, super funny. Easily one of the strongest women I know."

Join us tomorrow when we air Tori Spelling: The E! True Hollywood Story. Only on E!

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Taglist: @be-patient-be-good @mpmarypoppins @bevelyhills90210 @blueoz @harleylilo88 @princess-ghost-alien @hueycat2004 @l4life

[rankakiu]

Thoughts of the Droid: Miraculous Ladybug Season 4 spoilers.

Hello, people of Tumblr! How have they fared in life? As always, I hope very well. People, a couple of days ago I learned about the existence of spoilers that reveal details of the fourth season of the Miraculous Ladybug series. Truth be told, these spoilers not only give me a bad feeling but also show in their entirety the creative problem that writers are going through, who, apparently, have run out of good ideas.

For example, we have that the characters of Kagami and Luka will be akumatized… AGAIN. What reasons will they have to be akumatized? And why precisely them, when basically there are other adolescents and even adult characters that we have not yet seen transformed into temporary villains? Not only that, but they also mention that it will finally be revealed which shipping will "win" in the future: whether Adrinette or Lukanette. Interesting detail, since at no time is Adrien and Kagami mentioned, giving you to understand that our favorite Japanese will end up losing. If you ask me, this “amazing” spoiler is everything, less amazing, for the simple reason that everyone in the fandom knew from the beginning that Marinette and Adrien are destined to be together.

But, most striking, for me, without a doubt is that they have announced a new character that will replace Chloé as Queen Bee. For those who have followed my blog and read some of my previous posts, it is no longer a secret that Chloé is one of my favorite characters in the series. So you can imagine my feeling when I hear this news. Basically, it felt like a good blow to the testicles (sorry for the expression).

It bothers me, yes, but more than anything I feel disappointed and ripped off with this change.

Why?

Well, I have the whole reasoning behind and this is where I will expand as much as I can.

First, the leaked video, even if they don't show an image, we have a lady (who I imagine is an animator or screenwriter ... or both) who describes the new Queen Bee as "She is sweet, she is not mean."

Who told you to say that line? Thomas Astruc!?

Returning to the topic, this is where I wonder: Is it really a mandatory requirement that the superheroes of this series are all sweet, kind and faultless people? (The latter is in doubt, seeing past chapters) Apparently yes, since people dislike superheroes who are dark vigilantes (Batman) or antiheroes who fight evil under their very dubious moral and ethical code, almost nonexistent (Venom, Spawn).

Oh, wait, those characters I just mentioned are popular, they have been since their beginnings and even though decades have passed, they are still very dear characters in popular culture.

With Chloé we had a bratty superheroine, pretentious and at all times she kept showing off and having a very high ego ... but still, she was a superheroine who was really able to risk her life for a common good. In addition, her personality made the dynamics of the team more interesting and entertaining. On the one hand, we had a Chloé who wanted to be a superheroine because of the emotion that it entailed. She sought to be a heroine for the attention and fame she obtained. Obviously, those two points are not commendable reasons to be a superhero, but these were eclipsed because more than anything Chloé sought to be a heroine to help Ladybug and feel useful, making a difference in the world for good. And now, with this new sweet girl, this dynamic will be forgotten.

Second, the spoilers mention that there will be more "secret siblings." That being the case, there is a possibility (remote but after all) that the new Queen Bee is a sister or cousin of Chloé. Here I will be honest and I differ with the majority of opinions I've seen about it: I would like the new Queen Bee to be Chloé's sister. It is one of the few ways I would accept, almost without questioning or protesting, this new heroine. The other way I would accept this new character is to not share any biological trait with Chloé, but to get to interact at a very personal level and, above all, to interact in a very good way, that is, despite their disparate personalities, get along very well and even be friends. Why not risk presenting this interesting scenario?

Right, the writers of the series do not like to take risks.

Third, the spoilers mention that Chloé will be akumatized… AGAIN. Which proves what I said above paragraphs: Writers are running out of ideas. If you ask me, it is already tiresome to see the same characters being akumatized over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Of course, they change the reason why they are akumatized and the name and design change, but that does not help to make it more interesting, to the contrary, it creates the problem that the characters do not grow emotionally and with that, there is no real development of their characters.

Bitterness aside, I'm really intrigued to know the reason why Chloé will be akumatized again. And even more so if it will be a different fourth Akuma or one of its three previous forms will return. One part of me wants her fourth akumatization obeys the reason to be replaced by a new heroine. If you ask me, it would be a good reason.

Fourth and most important to me: Replacing Chloé with a new heroine will cause the little development she has had to be thrown away. Those who are fans like me of the character, will not let me lie and it has been frustrating and a disappointment after another to see a chapter where Chloé is shown more deeply, after another chapter to see how it is again an unpleasant brat. 

I am going to tell you a little story and in the end, you will understand the reason for my disgust.

You see, I saw the Miraculous Ladybug series, back in 2017, about two years after its premiere in 2015. Don't believe it or not, the first season caught me the moment I saw that series. What I did was to see one chapter per day and when I finished watching it, it left me wanting more. To follow the story and its characters. As you may have guessed, Some of the chapters where they showed a little more of Chloé, made this character catch my attention and gradually become my favorite character. You cannot imagine my emotion when in those years they had confirmed that Chloé would have the Bee Miraculous and that she would be a superheroine named Queen Bee. Seeing the great results they had achieved with the first season, I assumed that in the second season I would see much more of Chloé and her training as a heroine. Which translated into more development.

Also by that time they had announced a special three chapters, "The Battle of the Queens" and whose chapters would be centered in Chloé. Imagine: more expectations were raised since it seemed to me that in three chapters they would develop Chloé better and that at the end of that special she would begin her arduous but satisfying journey to become a more dignified person and a trusted heroine. I am sincere, when I heard about this special, I did not want to see any other chapter, but only those three.

Finally, the day came when these special chapters were released.

You don't know a huge disappointment that I took away.

Wait about two years for a special that was disastrous from start to finish.

Do not misunderstand me, if there are extremely rescued scenes and moments, but they are very overshadowed by the mishandling they gave to those three episodes and something tells me that they did so on purpose to further sink the development of my favorite character.

The point is that, in my opinion, writers cannot or rather do not want to give the character an authentic redemption and development. And in fact, having this new Queen Bee has proved it that way. What bothers me most about this issue is that they are going to develop this new character, instead of giving it to Chloé. And this is where I wonder. And wouldn't it have been better to have the new character from the beginning be Queen Bee? Why did they give Chloé that opportunity, if, in the end, they weren't going to do anything significant with my favorite blonde? Why create those expectations if in the end all they do is destroy them in this outrageous way?

What was the use of seeing a Chloé feeling deep sadness and disappointment to see that her childhood friend did not arrive at school? What was the use of seeing a furious Chloé and then in bitter tears when her idol, Ladybug, told her she was a liar? What was the use of seeing a sincere smile emanating from her when she made peace with her friend Sabrina? What was the use of seeing a Chloé with fear of losing Adrien's friendship? What was the use of seeing how butler Jean comforted and encouraged Chloé? What was the use of seeing a Chloé crying bitterly when she learned that Adrien was no longer going to school? What was the use of seeing a Chloé, on the verge of tears when her mother did not consider her exceptional or even her daughter? What was the use of seeing a Chloé open her heart and feelings to Ladybug? What was the use of seeing a Chloé, fighting beside Ladybug? What was the use of seeing her as Queen Bee?

Just to give me false hopes and that in the end, all that development so little, but so genuine will end everything in the trash.

Maybe I am being a bit rude. Perhaps this new Queen Bee is a hoax, as it was years ago the supposed existence of Amber. Maybe it's just to distract us. Maybe now if they give her the development that Chloé needs. Maybe so. I want to believe it. I really want to believe it ...

But I don't have many expectations after this spoilers.

Moreover, I do not make expectations so high and hopeful, for the simple fact that lately, the series has left much to be desired with this third season.

If basically the writers give Marinette a vexatious and humiliating treatment, to the sweet Marinette, to Marinette who is “our everyday Ladybug”, to Marinette who has always shown to possess a pure and kind heart, to Marinette, a character so laudable that we need this way in our real world, to the character that Astruc insists on that you must support and not Chloé….

So what's left for me as a fan of Chloé Bourgeois?

This is all I have to say about it. Of course, when all these chapters that have announced the fourth season comes out, rest assured that I will make the respective reviews. In spite of everything, I will continue to stay with the series for a while, especially for the good times that the fandom has provided me and will continue to do.

With this, I feel that I have finally relieved myself.

Thank you for reading.

Greetings

Rankakiu

[artificialqueens]

Smoke & Mirrors (Scyvie/Branjie) - Part 1- Saiphl

A/N: I’ve started writing this more than a week ago, and posted it on AO3, somehow I forgot to put it here in AQ, so I’m bringing it back to where it comes from. Welcome again to another project and I hope you enjoy it.  It’s still in progress, so please be a little patient with this person that barely remembers the date they’re living in.

Before starting your reading,  I need to remind you I’m mentioning medications, anxiety crisis and another situations that can be triggering, so please, remember that before starting your read.

Finally, I want to shout for Artificial Meggie y Mistress for being angels and betaing this little thing.

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SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Scarlet was still high on the adrenaline of the finale taping, he was amazed by all the beauty and the light. He never thought he was going to be a part of it, he never thought that it would be so fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Most of all, he never expected to share the whole experience with the person he knew was THE ONE. His boyfriend, his girlfriend, his lover, his best friend, his partner in crime and over all, his chemistry lady.

Scarlet remembered with eerie precision the last words that Yvie told him on her last episode. “This is not over, you have to be strong and give your best, go up there and kill it… for us.” Sure as hell it wasn’t the best moment to talk to anyone, especially to someone who was about to walk through the set for the last time. But he did it, he went there and gave his best, all of her tricks, and best illusions. Even when it wasn’t enough to keep him on the race, was enough to buy the moment to look at her eyes while saying to HIM those last words: ‘and the feeling, is mutual’.

Weeks later, when all the madness finally ended and they were back to their somewhat normal lives, Jacob was sitting at his friend and drag mentor, Matthew’s place. They were pretending to watch a movie while talking about the race, at least as much as he was able to do due to the NDA, when his phone vibrated, alerted him of some YO [heart emoji]’s message. The next thing he remembered was packing a backpack and booking a flight to Denver.

The following months went by in a blur, Jacob smiling like a goof and Jovan feeling even younger than he was. If there had been a way to describe what they were feeling was utter happiness. Jovan was a man of few words, tender hands, and fast decisions, while Jacob was very vocal on how happy he was being together, and how much he loved him. Not much after the first I love yous, the younger one was packing his life in a container and moving to Brooklyn. ‘A man has to be sure of what he wants, and I want you… for as long as I breathe.’

A little flat and some closet adjustments later, they were starting a life together, either holding hands, sharing instant ramen trays or taking long walks in the nearby parks. They were happy, oblivious to the storms around them and the season that was about to premiere. Scarlet always kept those moments to himself, when there was no more than Jacob and Jovan, and the rest of the world was a blurry stain running around them.

She kept those moments for him, when they were apart, travelling and working hard as ever with both of their growing popularity. He also kept those moments to himself for when a bad day came and he had to fake a smile when her heart was shattering because he couldn’t do anything but give Jovan his pills and let him sleep until he felt better. All of that, leading them to this precise moment, when they were just a couple of weeks away from knowing if Yvie had won the season.

She treasured each time they held hands and every single kiss whenever they felt like doing it. More than ever when he was in the same room with the love of his life some meters away but unable to touch him. They both agreed on keeping a low profile. They knew what all that publicity did to Brock and Jose, and they didn’t want anyone messing around with something that was just theirs.

Scarlet was still high with the rush of the previous night’s lip syncs, with the party, with the two recorded crownings… he was high on the happiness of seeing Yvie smile like a child. What he wasn’t ready for was for the damned reunion, and all the drama they wanted to create around wounds that have opened and barely healed after one year. He wasn’t ready for the circus they’ve made around the scraps of Jose and Brock’s broken hearts.  He wasn’t ready to listen to Ra’Jah puking bullshit to “apologize” to his boyfriend.

“Well I will apologize that she feels that in certain way, because I even apologized for Yvie…”

“I don’t think that’s an apology”

“That isn’t, that’s some bullshit”

They locked gazes for a second, a warning look from Yvie, a pissed off expression from Scarlet. He knew that even though Yvie was trying to compel him to stay out of the drama, the hurt in his eyes and the tears forming on the bottom line made Jacob lose it.

“You don’t apologize because someone is feeling on certain kind of way,” Scarlet said, still trying not to raise her voice.

“That’s some hurtful shit you said behind my back!” Yvie interjected, preventing the cataclysm of his boyfriend darting to Ra’Jah and force her to properly apologize.

“Can I finish what I was saying?” Ra’Jah demanded, annoyed and clearly suppressing the eye roll about to come.

“Absolutely… and you can direct it this way when you’re done with Yvie,” Scarlet commanded in a casual tone, that sounded more like a threat than a request, and the other queen had to apologize. None of them believed her crap, but still was in the light he was just stirring the pot for the sake of being a cunt.

As the argument grew, Yvie looked more upset, and one of her hands was shaking. Scarlet looked at Yvie worried, only stopping himself to run and soothe him with a warning look. “You know, just let it go, you’re clearly not up to own your shit, so an apology from you is as fake as my lashes,” Scarlet said, closing the argument, desperately looking for someone of the production to call for a break, which gladly happened before Ra’Jah could open her mouth again.

Yvie stood from his chair, walking unceremoniously to the back door of the theater, Scarlet trying to go after him and failing because both Plastique and Ariel stopped him. In a corner of the backstage, Vanjie and Brooke were whispering fast and and close to each other, soon going outside when Silky scolded Ra’Jah.

When Scarlet finally managed to excuse himself to the restrooms, he could clearly hear Vanjie and Brooke talking, both of them with cracked voices and even closer to each other. She couldn’t help but wonder what could’ve been if the show knew that also he and Yvie were together, and that everything started in the workroom. A cold wave went down her spine. They’d torn them apart, just like they did their friends, and a heavy weight fell on his stomach, making him feel sick.

He kept walking through the emergency door and the image he found there broke his spirits. Yvie was sitting on the emergency stairs, both his hands trembling and a pained expression in his face while trying to get back to his feet.

“Jovan no, please… let me help you.”  Scarlet ran uplifting the green gown, leaving the heels behind while hurrying to help his boyfriend. “Come on baby, take my arm… how bad is it?”

The frustration on Yvie’s eyes was clear. He hated to feel weak, but the stress of the last forty-eight hours was getting the best of him, his body obviously starting to complain. ‘Seven,’ he finally mouthed. Scarlet opened her clutch dragging out a small pill box. “You need to take this babe, at least to finish the taping.”

Yvie nodded, as much as he hated the numbness that followed the pills, he couldn’t afford fainting in the middle of the reunion. “Will you sleep with me?” Yvie asked weakly, as all response, Scarlet pecked her lips… one thing was they were wearing the same shade of lipstick, and other totally different, was everyone noticing they got smudged. A smirk crossed her lips, and Scarlet looked at her puzzled, just to fake slap his boyfriend’s shoulder. They did make it through the rest of the reunion, with Yvie more reserved in the final stretch.

As soon as they reached the hotel room, Yvie almost collapsed on the bed. The effort, the stress, all that crappy discussion catching up with him leading to complete exhaustion. Scarlet made sure to wipe off his face, taking off his head piece and tucking panties, helping his boyfriend into his comfy sweats and no shoes. Only after he had taken care of Yvie did he wipe off his own face and de-drag. Eventually, a soft demanding groan from Yvie called him to his side.

Scarlet sat on the bed, comfortably resting his back on the headboard, while holding Yvie close to his chest. The slow breathing easily soothing the hurricane in his arms, he mumbled a lullaby and Yvie smiled with closed eyes. “Really babe? A lullaby?”

“Shhh! it helped me sleep when I was a kid, it has to work with you,” Scarlet said, kissing the top of his head and making him laugh. Yvie’s laugh soon diminished and slowly drifted to a deep sleep.

Scarlet looked at him, lightly brushing his fingers on the other’s forehead to clear the frown lines. She took in the musky scent of his skin, something she had grown accustomed to from the very first days of their relationship. Yvie was her personal miracle; the best award she could ever achieve. If there was something he will always be grateful for after all the effort that meant geting to Drag Race, it would always be him.

One of the things that had been a rough patch, were those bad days when no matter how many things he had to do, or what they have planned, Jovan just couldn’t get out of bed. The first time it happened, he was sure that Jacob would pack his bags and leave him.

“Be realistic Jacob, who would voluntarily sign for this? you know it will get worse right?” His voice was clear and neutral, but the pain on the back of his eyes was something beyond his hurting body. It was about longing, and loneliness and resignation. It was about knowing that he was sure that, at the end, it was going to be just him and the memories of what once was and would never be again.

Jacob said I do, and didn’t take it back, for once. He knew that everything they lived through and will endure together, will always be worth it. Jovan will always worth everything.

He didn’t notice when he fell asleep, what he actually found was that someone was having an argument just outside Yvie’s room. Carefully slipped from the bed, just to listen very clear Brock begging in a low voice that sounded more like the last cries of a dying beast. The other voice, husky and cracked, was Jose’s, who was just repeating I’m sorry and uselessly muffling his sobs with his hand.

As much as the situation was difficult, he couldn’t afford the risk of them waking Yvie, who was proven a light sleeper. He just was to make as if the door was getting opened, but that kind of things never happened to him. Instead of just unlocking the door, he hit his bare foot with the corner of the pillar, looking for support on the door knob that got the door open with the weight.

Brock shielded Jose with his body as a natural reaction, with a polite apology ready to fall from his lips if needed  “I wanted some ice and then…” Scarlet started, when a soft grunt sounded from the deep part of the room.

“Babe? Jake where are you?” Yvie’s gruff voice, distinctive even when full of sleep.

Brock and Jose were shocked when they were able to see Yvie bare-chested and wearing sweats in his and Scarlet’s shared room. Scarlet pulled their friends inside, while a confused Yvie looked on. Shocked, Brock laughed nervously, while Jose peeked out from behind him. “What the…? You scared the shit out of us Scarlet,” face still red and starting to look somewhere else.

“I’m right here hun, just chewing out Branjie for disturbing your beauty sleep.” Scarlet said mocking their friends while closing the door behind them.