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9worldstales · 3 years ago

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MCU Loki Ep 5 “Journey to mystery” intensive analysis

So we reached episode 5. Which yeah it’s better than episode 4 but…

It’s not like it fixes episode 4 problems. It just skips them.

Also… it’s an abrupt change of mood. The other 4 episodes were fundamentally serious. They had comedic moments but they were just moments. They had the appropriate amount of drama considering the plot.

This episode… seems to come out from “Looney tunes” for the most part. You can consider it partly a compliment, as I love “Looney tunes”… but the problem is that the “Looney tunes” is out of place considering what should have been a dramatic situation, ends up causing the story to lose a lot of time on things that could have been skipped and required the characters to be OOC for the jokes to work.

So really… I can’t say it’s not fun, it is… but it seems out of place with the rest of the series as if they had handed it to completely different people.

Premise, I usually don’t talk about them but the title of this episode is “Journey to mystery” which is an homage to the comic that hosted “Thor” but also the whole saga of Kid Loki.

Anyway.

Loki has woken up on the Void and, as soon as he had woken up he had met 4 Lokis, Classic Loki, Kid Loki, Boastful Loki and… Alligator Loki. I find the irony of Loki meeting an Alligator Loki when he’s out trying to kill 3 space lizards delicious but only if this isn’t trying to foreordain the big enemy is going to be another Loki Variant.

Because, if that’s the case I’m not gonna find it funny. But I’ll save the rant for when and if we’ll cross that bridge.

So we start with an interesting scene.

We’re at the TVA but we see it upside down. It’s a hint of how our view of the TVA should have turned upside down. They aren’t heroes protecting the Sacred Timeline, they are brainwashed Variants murdering other Variants. The camera keeps on rotating as we move in what was supposed the room of the Time-Keepers and then it finally stop and shows us things not upside down as we’re back into the Void in which Loki ended.

There’s plenty of fog and a devastated New York City and a purple cloud with purple thunders inside and who’s pretty close to our Loki who stands up and ask where he is and who’re the others.

He’s told in very simply terms:

Classic Loki: This is The Void. That's Alioth. And we're his lunch. Come on!

As the group escape, Loki in tow, the purple cloud whose name we just learnt is Alioth, turns on having a face with red shining eyes and red mouth that looks many things but friendly is not one of them.

Now… who named that place? Who named the cloud? Did it stop and introduced itself? Okay, it’s probably not relevant who need it but if the sentence had been ‘We call this place The Void and that hungry cloud Alioth’ I think it would have worked better. But whatever, I’m nitpicking, I know. On a sidenote Alioth is a Marvel comic character but in them he has a little more personality. Here it reminds me more of “the Nithing” of the “Neverending story” movie, with a bit of Gmork added just to spice up things.

We get the title then we switch back to the TVA.

Sylvie demands to have Renslayer’s TemPad and Renslayer, who’s not as fast as Sylvie was when she was a kid because she’s not blessed with the superhuman speed of the heroine, hands it to her without trying to use it first.

Sylvie now asks who’s behind the TVA and Renslayer denies to know it. Now, if Mobius were here he would probably close her in a time loop in which she would be beaten until she’ll beg to please stop but Sylvie is not Mobius so she’s just sarcastic as she pushes her back on the ground with one feet.

Sylvie: Poor Judge Renslayer. Your whole reality's been destroyed. Tell me, how does it feel to be on the other side of it?

Okay, so it seems… she has hurt Renslayer a lot although her arm isn’t broken and she’ll use it just fine later on? And… no, okay, I’m lost.

Because now they aren’t anymore where the Time-Keepers were supposed to be but in the place where the trials are held. Only Sylvie got the TemPad only now so, how did they moved?

She stopped threatening Renslayer to retrieve some other guard’s TemPad then transferred them there then returned to Renslayer and demanded her Tempad? Or they walked outside and reached that place so that everyone could notice Sylvie threatening Renslayer? Besides why in the world moving there? Just so that Sylvie can say:

Sylvie: This is it, isn't it? This is where you dragged me after you stole my life. A fitting place, then, to take yours.

Dramatic and fitting but is this quote worth destroying the logic behind the scene? HELP?!?

Why moving them there? It clearly wasn’t Sylvie’s idea as she realized only there they were in the place where they had held her trial… and anyway I would have said it’s more the place from which she escaped. The place she was dragged to was the TVA, that place was just her last stop of her permanence in the TVA.

There’s something that doesn’t work well here.

A moment before Renslayer was on the ground, groaning in pain because Sylvie has just pressed her foot against her shoulder… and now she’s instead standing in front of Sylvie and slightly distant from her.

Why letting her get up? Why since Sylvie was looking around and not at her Renslayer, instead than just get up hadn’t tried to make her trip? When this has happened as the change is just too abrupt?

Whatever, not great but not big.

Renslayer deploys what Mobius defined cockroach's survival mechanism by telling Sylvie Loki isn’t dead yet.

Sylvie says she would think she’s lying but Renslayer, who has evidently stolen Loki’s silvertongue, manages to persuade her they want the same thing... or at least to listen to her explaining how is he still alive and how saving him might get them closer to who’s behind the TVA.

Renslayer: It's complicated. I'm telling you this willingly.

And here I facepalm because she’s either assuming Sylvie is an idiot or the viewers are idiots because no, she’s not telling this willingly. Sylvie has just told her she was going to kill her and she’s trying to stall her from doing so and calls this ‘willingly’? Either she doesn’t know the meaning of the word or she’s taking everyone for an idiot.

Honestly I believe she’s taking everyone for an idiot but, in the hands of a different writer, this might explain why Mobius feels he’s Loki’s friend and not the guy who tortured him to get what he wanted, because they might think than being threatened of being killed is a normal interaction in a conversation.

Some people say ‘hum…’ some people say ‘I’ll kill you’, where’s the difference, it’s not threatening at all, just an ordinary intercalation.

Anyway Renslayer tells her how she deeply wishes to know who lied to her, because again, with the people at the TVA, it’s all about them, never about the people they reset. And can we just point out how she reset Loki AFTER knowing the TVA lied to her?

So when the Time-Keepers turned out to be fake it’s not like she went ‘oh my God, I want to know who lied to me now!’, she actually went ‘I’ll reset Loki and Sylvie and when this fails and Sylvie tries to kill me I’ll go, ops, I just remembered, I didn’t mean to reset you both, I only wanted to know who lied to me! I’m totally sincere here!’

Anyway Renslayer explains when they actually prune a branched reality they can’t destroy all that matter so they toss it in a comfortable trash disposer where it can’t continue growing, a void at the end of time ‘Where every instance of existence collides at the same point and simply stops.’

Sylvie asks ‘why?’

Why they toss them there? Why it can’t continue growing? Why every instance of existence collides at the same point and simply stops? No idea anyway it’s not like Renslayer has an answer either.

Renslayer: I don't know. The dogma states that the end of time is still being written, that the Time-Keepers are transforming it into utopia.

Oh, you’ve dogma. So you’re admitting you’re just a crazy cult.

Sylvie coulters that’s ‘super believable’ and yeah, it is. I’m sure the Time-Keepers are trying to create a cool utopia. For themselves.

I just doubt the rest of the universe will find their chosen ending an utopia as well. Anyway Renslayer assures her nothing comes back from where SHE, let me stress on the ‘she’, has sent Loki despite knowing the Time-Keepers were fake and lying to her. But Sylvie doesn’t have to worry because Renslayer can help. How if nothing can come back from her?

Magic?

What is Renslayer anyway, another Loki Variant who makes up dumb things but Sylvie swallows them because the plot says so? I say to just put her in a time loop, Sylvie.

Since the TVA likes them so much why not to let them experience them in the first place?

But no, she has to give Renslayer the tempad so, if Renslayer has a ounce of brain she can summon a Timedoor, escape from there, come back from another timedoor and arrest you.

But we don’t see her doing that because we jump back to the Void.

The Void is a terrible recycling dump. It would be nice if this were supposed to have the mean of starting a responsible discussion about trash disposing but no, we just have Loki who would like to take a breather so he can ask questions.

Sweety, really, I know the plot told you otherwise but I assure you that you can ask questions and walk and escape from Alioth so he doesn’t eat you all at the same time.

I was hoping the plot was going on you not being a walker because people in Asgard used horses to move around and skiffs but now I fear they only wanted to paint you as lazy.

I mean, we’ve a old man and a kid that can walk, why can’t you?

Anyway I’ll admit I found funny the following bit.

Classic Loki: Gotta keep moving so we don't die.

Loki: Okay, but what's your plan?

Classic Loki: Don't die.

Loki: Okay, but beyond that?

Classic Loki: Don't die.

Loki: That's not a plan. It's a general demand of living.

Of course there’s actually a pan behind all that as they’ll plan to walk till their hideout and hide there so that Alioth can’t find them. Now it’s probably a good moment like any other to wonder ‘how in the world they had found Loki?’

They’re far from their hideout, what then, they were out for a walk and he was dropped in front of them? Is this kind of plot contrivance or the story is going to have things happen for a reason that’s not ‘oh, look, what a coincidence’? Because a plot should have only so many coincidences, it can’t all conveniently happen at random!

Whatever, why am I talking anyway? Of course it happened because it’s convenient to the plot. And why did they pick him up and are taking him to a shelter? Just because they’re coincidentally nice Lokis like that? -_- Yeah, that’s why.

Loki protests if they’re Loki they should always have a plan. Yeah, they should. Too bad in this whole series it was proved over and over hardly Loki ever had a plan so… whatever.

Now I love the weird birds the place populate but they sadly serve no purpose beyond being weird birds moving around there and, apparently, being the only animals who survive the place… or the only Variant of animals the TVA pruned.

Loki start screaming, demanding explanations and summarizing his situation. Again, it’s fun, especially the part in which he says ‘now I'm surrounded by Variants of myself, plus an alligator, which sadly I didn't find all that strange’ but it feels like I’m into one episode of “Looney tunes” (in which the weird birds would fit perfectly by the way) or ‘who framed Roger Rabbit?’ because the fun is based on a total lack of logic.

That’s not the moment to stop and yell so as to have answers you can have by keeping on walking. They just told you not too long ago Alioth is interested in eating you all, either you believe it and keep walking or think they’re tricking you and walk away.

And this applies to the other Loki too. They can explain and walk instead they had dragged him along for who knows how long in silence for unknown reasons. But I’ll dig better into this in a while.

Anyway the purple cloud also known as Alioth seems to react to the ruckus Loki is making so Kid Loki points his sword at him walking close to him.

And here I’ve another problem.

Kid Loki was distant from Loki when they stopped… but when he pulls out his swords is what? A meter from him? So Loki has to hurry to back walk which causes him to fall because falling Loki is hilarious. Or because Kid Loki has to seem badass, pointing his sword to a lying on the ground Loki.

Kid Loki: Stop wailing or you will signal Alioth.

Even Kid Loki calls it just ‘wailing’. *sighs*

He does so by whispering though so Loki whispers as well when he asks him if he means the monster in the sky. I’m not sure why the kid shook his head since Loki is right, but whatever, he makes the sword disappear and helps Loki up.

Now… remaining where they are, the Lokis, starting from Kid Loki, begins to explains things to Loki, without bothering to whisper or to walk.

Kid Loki: This is the place where the TVA dumps its rubbish, everything they prune. And Alioth, he ensures none of it ever returns.

Boastful Loki: It's a living tempest that consumes matter and energy. They send entire branched realities here that are devoured instant...

Thanks for the info dump, I would have appreciated it just the same if you gave it to Loki while walking because yeah, it was funny to see Loki blowing up but it had no point and for me logic takes precedence over fun. I’m weird like that.

Now… Classic Loki is apparently the only one who can talk with Alligator Loki. I love how he explains him things because again, it’s funny…

Alligator Loki: ( /Growls/ )

Classic Loki: Oh, there's no such thing as an alligator tank. Besides, it's a better metaphor. He's overly sensitive like the rest of us.

…but again, also pointlessly absurd. The Void is not Toontown, the situation is supposed to be dramatic.

I fear they had decided since the Lokis are supposed to be chaotic creatures… they’re meant to create chaos for the sake of it.

The only things that VERY funny and that makes sense is this bit.

Loki: Hang on, that thing's a Loki too?

Classic Loki: Oh, yes.

Loki: Okay, fine. Willing to accept that.

I mean, it’s a totally fair question and it makes sense in a situation in which he has seen Variants of himself of all the kinds he can accept there’s one who’s an alligator too.

Really though, I’d like to have an explanation on how the Variants works. What makes someone the Variant of someone else? Because we’ve already established Sylvie had genetic code different from Loki but whatever… but an alligator… that’s in a completely different league.

Anyway the fact that Classic Loki define themselves as OVERLY sensitive basically seems to be put there to invalidate they’re sensitive because implies they’re excessively sensitive.

In “Thor” Loki had valid issues to be sensitive about and the side material was united in saying Odin favoured Thor. It wasn’t just Loki being overly sensitive.

This series claimed it would discuss Loki’s issues but the way they do it is by invalidating them.

I genuinely wonder if the Loki series employed someone who knew about psychological issues as a consultant. They gloss over narcissism, sensitiveness, adoption, racism issues, a suicide attempt and fear of abandonment in a worrying way.

Loki asks why there’s so many of them. It’s actually just four and they might not know. I mean, Loki doesn’t know so why should they have that info?

Never mind, they’ve the answer.

Classic Loki: Because Lokis survive. That's just what we do.

Oh, okay it’s not an answer to ‘why so many variants of Loki came into existence’ but ‘why you managed to survive’.

Not that the answer tell us much though since they don’t mean if Alioth will eat them, they will survive.

Loki asks them how do they escape. It turns out he doesn’t mean from Alioth but from the Void.

The answer he gets… fits with the question only for the very first part, the rest is an absolutely random info dump to define the Lokis incompetent.

Classic Loki: We don't. All of us were arrested by the TVA and pruned, just like you. And just like you, we all stood around making bad plans that went nowhere.

I mean, okay they were pruned. I could figure out this bit. It’s the ’and just like you, we all stood around making bad plans that went nowhere’ I’ve problems with. When it happened? Prior they were pruned? How did they know they were bad plans if they never could come into fruition because the TVA pruned them? Or after they were pruned? As in right now? Because escaping in a safe place is not a bad plan… it’s just a temporal fix though. And anyway Loki hadn’t planned anything yet… but of course he’s about to and it will be dumb.

I would like to say it’s not his fault, because he doesn’t know the place he’s in, so he would like first to use a TemPad… when of course there’s none there, and then considers causing a Nexus Event… which really is dumb because, let’s forget they’re in the Void, to cause a Nexus event you’ve to do something the Sacred Timeline disagree with, and Loki doesn’t know what the Sacred Timeline agrees with.

This means he wouldn’t know where to start in causing a Nexus event.

But whatever, instead than telling him they don’t know how to cause a Nexus Event they just tell him the TVA doesn’t care what happen there, which I hope they figured out by themselves and not because the TVA conveniently gave them an info dump at random.

As Loki insists there should be something they can do Classic Loki answer him there is.

Classic Loki: There is. Survive. That's all there is. All there ever was.

Sound like a sensible suggestion. Kid Loki tells them all they’re done talking and should go and Loki is free to do what he wants. Then they start to walk away. Note that they had all forgotten they should have whispered and the whole discussion was done with them talking normally and they’ll continue to talk normally now.

Loki decides to follow them and… ask Classic Loki why he wears the horns since he let a child command him. Now… “Marvel studios Visual Dictionary” says the horns on Loki’s helmet are a symbol of sorcery, not of leadership which makes goddamn sense since Loki had them in “Thor” too and he clearly wasn’t the leader. Now this series is trying to say me the horns make someone the boss?

The group stops again for… no reason.

Classic Loki tells Loki to respect Kid Loki as this is his kingdom. With all due respect this seems a way to please young viewers. Sure, it’ll turn out Kid Loki’s Nexus event was ‘to kill Thor’ but that’s all we’ll see the kid accomplish… and sadly it isn’t really explored upon. Was Thor killed on purpose or by coincidence? Did it pained him or not?

Loki seems affected by the idea that kid killed Thor but that’s all we’ll get from such a big declaration. It’s a wasted chance. They could have given us that instead than all that walking and the funny but pointless moments.

I was hoping Kid Loki ‘killed’ Thor by turning into the frog we saw being in a buried jar, in short Thor wasn’t dead yet but the TVA pruned everything and so a still alive Thor ended there and Kid Loki believed he had killed him but no, it seems Frog Thor in a Variant arrested by the TVA.

Eric Martin @MrEricMartin · Jul 8

Comic fans will notice the Frog of Thunder in that jar. We actually shot a scene for the Time Theater in Ep 1 of Loki getting pummeled by Frog Thor, but had to cut it to keep things moving. It’s too bad, because Tom was funny as hell. #LokiMidnightTheater

Apparently the “Loki” series longed for a frog to beat Loki too as if the show didn’t beat him often enough. As of now we don’t have an episode in which Loki didn’t got a beating.

Ep 1? B-15 beats him.

Ep 2? The people possessed by Sylvie beat him.

Ep 3? The guards on the train beat him.

Ep 4? Sif beats him.

Ep 5? Kid Loki sent him on the ground and then we’ll have all the Lokis beating each other.

I’m not saying Loki can’t get beaten in a series with fights, just that if it becomes a ‘funny’ trend proposed in each episode it talks of poor creativity.

The group resumed walking.

Okay the scenery is nice but why in the world they went so far?

More walking after the group reaches a trap door that Classic Loki probably sealed with magic as he’s the one who unseal it.

The group gets in.

The camera moves, showing us details about the layers of ground, among them we can see Mjolnir is buried there with a glass vase inside which there’s a frog Thor who’s still jumping around, screaming (Chris Heimsworth voiced it) as it tried to escape and can’t.

I would have liked it, if the backstory beyond the frog was that Kid Loki turned Thor into a frog and then buried him and that’s why he thinks he killed him when Thor survived but ended up pruned by the TVA just the same.

Once they’re inside the shelter Classic Loki questions Loki.

Classic Loki: So, why did you want to return to the TVA so badly, anyway?

Boastful Loki: You leave your glorious purpose there?

Loki: Something like that.

Can they please, please, please, stop tossing around ‘glorious purpose’? Loki used it only once in a movie and now, all of sudden, it has turn into an intercalation that gets said in all the episodes more than once.

Loki: I am Loki of Asgard. And I am burdened with glorious purpose. [Ep 1]

Loki: Glorious purpose. [Ep 1]

Mobius: It's exactly the same thing. Because if you think too hard about where any of us came from, who we truly are, it sounds kinda ridiculous. Existence is chaos. Nothing makes any sense, so we try to make some sense of it. And I'm just lucky that the chaos I emerged into gave me all this... My own glorious purpose. [Ep 2]

Loki: Oh, the mission? The mission? What, your glorious purpose? Give me a break. You can't beat them. [Ep 3]

Boastful Loki: You leave your glorious purpose there? [Ep 5]

Boastful Loki: Glorious purpose! [Ep 5]

Classic Loki: Damn it! Animals, animals! We lie and we cheat, we cut the throat of every person who trusts us, and for what? Power. Glorious power. Glorious purpose! We cannot change. We're broken, every version of us. Forever. [Ep 5]

Classic Loki: Glorious purpose! [Ep 5]

They managed not to mention it only in Ep 4 but to make up for it Ep 5 mentioned it 4 times. Loki used that sentence only once in “The Avengers” no need to have him or someone else close to him to keep repeating it.

There’s something else I dislike about the whole setting, which is that all the Lokis we see have fundamentally given up on the idea of escaping. Or defeating Alioth. The most they want to do is to rule over each other.

Loki in both “Thor” and “The Avengers” was highly intelligent and quick-witted. In this series he’s none of that. At this point it’s clear he’s not the Loki we know in a world we don’t know. Episode 1 and 2 showed him to have some intelligence (like how he stole the time twister or how he figured out Sylvie was hiding in an apocalypse) but everything has gone downhill from then.

It’s sad.

I might say it’s nice now Loki’s ‘glorious purpose’ is clearly helping Sylvie but this doesn’t solve how poorly their love story was built. It just asks me to pretend to forget about how poorly it was built and embrace it.

We switches to the TVA and Renslayer deploys the help of Miss Minute to access to a series of restricted files about the beginning on time and founding of the TVA for… no purpose than stall time really. I mean… if in those files there’s something compromising for the Time-Keepers they clearly wouldn’t let it available to people who could not be on their side. If Renslayer were to be allowed to see it, it’s clear it would mean she’s on their side and not trustworthy.

Plus the whole thing has no relevance whatsoever in the story, it seems an excuse to have Miss Minute there. We learn nothing about the beginning of the time and the foundation of the TVA because Sylvie starts asking about the end of time, the Void in short, where Loki is.

Miss Minute at this point stops searching and shows them a timeline, the sacred timeline I guess, which ends in the Void.

But it’s not solely because Sylvie cares about Loki, no, she asks because she’s SMART, so of course she goes:

Sylvie: What if The Void isn't the end? What if there's something beyond it? Hiding in the shadow of apocalypses obscured me from the TVA because I couldn't create a diverging branch there, right? So if all of this is still being written, whatever happens is just a new timeline. It would be impossible to start a nexus event there. You could be completely undetectable.

Renslayer agrees it has to be the solution, the Time-Keepers has to be there but insists they can’t get past the Void with the Tempad and getting through it (no idea how) would be suicide.

At this point Sylvie comments she doesn’t need Renslayer anymore so Miss Minute mentions a ‘Void spacecraft’. Renslayer catches the ball and say they’ve a prototype of a spaceship designed to withstand the temporal void which could take them to the end of time.

Miss Minute volunteers to search the files which is clearly another way to stall time because what will they do with the files? Start producing it in that room using the blueprints as reference?

They need the prototype, not the files and it’s unbelievable Renslayer wouldn’t know where it is and needs the files.

The girls go on saying:

Sylvie: Find Loki.

Renslayer: Find the man behind the curtain.

Sylvie: And kill him.

Renslayer: Together.

The Time-Keepers were three, an unholy trinity. Why now it’s only one man?

Anyway Renslayer would shake hands on this but Sylvie is SMART so she doesn’t let her go and insists for having the file. Miss Minute and Renslayer try to buy time saying it’s buried pretty deep… which really, it’s an idiocy as pc don’t ‘bury things’. They hide them behind passwords and encryptions but she’s just making a search, not using passwords and decryption programs. Renslayer claims she might not have clearance, which again is dumb.

So Sylvie, who’s SMART suggests the prototype doesn’t exist.

In fact the guards barge into the room and really, I don’t know why they took so long. It’s the TVA, there’s plenty of hunters, what where they waiting for?

As we will likely need Renslayer for more plot related things, Sylvie doesn’t prune her but merely pushes her away, temporally losing her status as SMART girl but hey, she recovers immediately as she steals Renslayer’s Tempad as she pushes her away so she’s back on being SMART.

Sylvie hides behind a balcony. She has the TemPad, she can escape in a damn apocalypse and resume killing Minutemen but she remains there to chat because she knows she’s the heroine and plot protected.

Renslayer tries to get her to surrender with a pretty speech about how tiresome it should be to escape from a fascist government which wants to kill you. Much, much better to surrender to them and not try to survive, right?

Okay, those aren’t her words but you get the gist of it.

Sylvie goes:

Sylvie: I'll admit you had me fooled there for a minute. Or did you get a little real? Did Judge Renslayer really feel betrayed by her beloved TVA?

Now… if Renslayer remains IC (and she might not as Mobius was way too OOC in ep 4 and we’re talking of a character this series created), no, she didn’t feel betrayed. She lives for the TVA.

Mbatha-Raw: “She’s really worked hard to get where she is, so she’s not going to be reckless with the power that has been hard-earned for her. She, in some ways, is deeply indoctrinated with the ways of the TVA. She’s completely conditioned by their thinking and the idea of the Sacred Timeline, and the concept of free will is quite alien to her. She’s a believer. She believes in law and order, and it’s done quite well for her so far in terms of getting her to where she is. She’s not going to abandon her philosophy lightly.” [‘Loki’: Owen Wilson Says Renslayer’s Betrayal of Mobius in Episode 4 Was ‘Pretty Shocking’]

Renslayer didn’t have additional information compared to the ones she had when she decided to remain loyal to the TVA and prune Loki and doesn’t has a concept of free will, hence no, she shouldn’t feel betrayed.

She was a servant and she should remain a servant. But since the series is no big on keeping character IC… who knows?

Renslayer: Why don't you come back out and we can talk about it?

Sylvie: Sure. Just tell everyone else to piss off and we can settle this between us.

Renslayer: Works for me.

Renslayer slips on the dumb slope in this part of the discussion in which nobody just does everything as the hunters remains where they are and the scene seems there to fill time because the hunters will start moving AFTER THIS.

Renslayer continues talking merely for plot purposes.

Renslayer: Tell you what. You come out with your hands up and I'll put you in a time loop. Something not so bad. You can live out your days in a good memory. Do you have any good memories?

Sylvie doesn’t trust her, it’s clear she doesn’t swallow her promises but she has to prompt Sylvie to think to her Only Good Memory which I bet is the one in which she touched Loki one moment before they believed they were about to die and ended up causing the Nexus event.

Because Sylvie is a tragic girl and in the what, centuries she take in growing up considering the Asgardian slow rate of growth and assuming she has Loki’s same age, she never had a single good thing, she didn’t even witness a beautiful sunset or ate a food she liked. Touching Loki was the only good thing she had.

Tissues anyone?

I mean, it’s clear Sylvie is a tragic character and there’s nothing bad in tragic characters but they just overdid things with her. If this keeps up they’ll tell us she had a worse time escaping the TVA than Bucky Barnes when she was brainwashed and forced to work for Hydra.

Now… instead than pruning herself secretly so that the whole TVA might think she escaped, she does so very blatantly. Mind you, the scene is pretty but serves little purpose beyond showing Sylvie’s brave act.

For our SMART girl it was more functional to prune herself secretly so that the TVA would be all busy searching for her.

Whatever, Renslayer declares her dead, forgetting she has a Tempad, HER Tempad, and could return from the Void. But as I said Renslayer is slipping in the dumb slope.

We move to the Lokis group drinking… Roxxiwine, a supposedly exceptional Pinot Noir. This includes Alligator Loki who is poured wine straight in his mouth by Classic Loki.

All this where Boastful Loki is… well, boasting about how he vanquished Captain America and Iron Man and claimed his prize, all six Infinity Stones and I’m “Hey, what about Thanos?”

Because it wasn’t Captain America or Iron Man who were collecting the stones but Thanos. If you’ve to boast, boast about beating the right guy.

But anyway it’s probably all a lie, at least according to Alligator Loki. Boastful Loki counters:

Boastful Loki: At least my nexus event wasn't eating the wrong neighbour's cat.

…and I goes again: “CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN ME WHAT’S UP WITH THE VARIANTS? BECAUSE I GENUINELY HOPE OUR LOKI NEVER TURNED HIMSELF INTO AN ALLIGATOR TO EAT THE RIGHT NEIGHBOUR’S CAT!”

Logic? Hey, logic, where are you?

Alligator Loki decides to turn Boastful Loki into his next dinner. Not a bad move for an Alligator but completely OOC for a Loki as they usually don’t jump at someone’s throat… unless Alligator Loki is actually female?

Besides why Boastful Loki doesn’t get even a little scratch from him biting his hand while President Loki will completely lose his hand?

Classic Loki and our Loki run to stop him and he ends up back in his small swimming pool.

Again, this is fun, this is episode is probably the funnier of the whole series but overall absurd and pointless, more fitting of a “Looney tunes” episode than of the series.

Besides what’s the point for Boastful Loki to feed us a fake story on which he could boast about while they’re in such a situation? It makes him a compulsive liar. As if the show hadn’t depicted Loki poorly enough.

Kid Loki, who remained sitting on the throne drinking juice because no matter if he’s a Loki, minors don’t drink wine in this show, demands to know Classic Loki’s backstory.

I, instead, demand to know what’s going on.

The general impression was that Classic Loki, Boastful Loki, Kid Loki and Alligator Loki were living together by a while but they decide to tell everyone their stories ONLY NOW for the benefit of Loki and, more important, of the viewers?

Whatever.

Classic Loki, despite supposedly being a Narcissist like all the Loki goes and say:

Classic Loki: Me? Nobody wants to hear about that.

Loki points out he’s actually interested in knowing since he was aware he was supposed to be killed by Thanos.

So, to explain the survival of Classic Loki, the “Loki” series goes and tosses a COMPLETELY VALID AND RIGHTFUL JAB AT “AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR” whose creators said they planned Loki’s death as their first scene and actually made an illogic mess of those 10 minutes which contain more nonsense than the rest of the MCU movies put together…

Classic Loki: Thanos? In my timeline, everything proceeded correctly, my entire life, until Thanos attacked our ship.

Loki: So, you didn't try to stab him?

Classic Loki: ( Chuckles ) Certainly not. Take no offense, my friends, but blades are worthless in the face of a Loki sorcery. They stunt our magical potential.

Boastful Loki: But they look awesome.

Classic Loki: Oh, yes. Especially when they clatter to the ground just before your neck is snapped.

…to end up in colossal disappointment (never mentioning the one Loki who praises blades as awesome is the one who doesn’t use a blade but a hammer. Copying Thor much?).

I appreciate the praising to Loki’s magic but Loki can’t cast solid projections of himself (and this series so far hadn’t bothered to explain why Loki got an upgrade in his magic power which he has hardly used in the other movies). Not even this Loki in fact can make solid projections, as we’ll see the Asgard he’ll project later on is just an incorporeal illusion. It would be different if he’d used a real person but the idea is even more horrible. Anyway, for the sake of tricking Thanos, Loki suddenly can do something he couldn’t do before, which of course will end up being interpreted as being what he also did in “Thor: The Dark World” too when he faked his death. And then what?

Classic Loki: Then hid as inanimate debris. After I faked my death, I simply drifted in space. Away from Thor, away from everything. Thought about the universe and my place in it, and it occurred to me that everywhere I went, only pain followed. So I removed myself from the equation, landed on a remote planet and stayed there in isolation, in solitude for a long, long time.

Then he basically dumped Thor and the other Asgardians who survived and remained on a remote planet in isolation. I mean, it would have worked just the same if he had said ‘I drifted in space, ended on a remote planet and couldn’t leave because there were no spaceships or anything else’ but no, he has to decide to dump everything.

Why?

Because everywhere he went, only pain followed. Yeah, from when he set foot on Asgard, Asgard lived 1000 years of pain. And when he came to Midgard it wasn’t because he decided to attack it that the Midgardians suffered but because he set foot on it.

Had he come there as a tourist, the Chitauri would have invaded JUST THE SAME but solely because he was there. If he’d gone in another place Thanos would have never tried retrieving the Tesseract from Earth.

And the 4 years in which he again ruled Asgard… yeah, all the Asgardians were miserable, weren’t they? It’s actually funny Hela managed to arrive on Asgard when Loki isn’t there, isn’t it? And Loki is the one who brought a spaceship big enough for the Asgardians to escape, and Loki stopped Hela by resurrecting Surtur but no, everywhere he goes he brings pain so the Asgardians would have been happier dying in Asgard.

It wasn’t Thanos’ fault at all if he killed so many Asgardians, he did so only because Loki was there otherwise Thanos doesn’t kill people, no, not him.

Logic, where are you?

And so how the TVA captured him.

And of course, it turns out he somehow knows Thor survived the mad Titan but decides he misses him and wants to see him only when he’s grey and old and so, when he attempts to leave, this sets the TVA on him. They could have said finally someone dropped on his planet and offered him to leave, but no, he always could, he just decided not to.

Mind you it’s sweet he said:

Classic Loki: I got lonely. To tell you the truth, I missed my brother, and I wondered if he missed me, if anybody else did.

But the premise is bad and the conclusion is horrible.

Classic Loki: Because we, my friends, have but one part to play, the God of Outcasts. Nothing more. The God of Outcasts.

Basically Classic Loki’s point is that they’ve to stay isolated, away from people, cut out from the world, there in the Void.

This is how Loki came to call himself ‘God of the Outcasts’ in the comics

“I am Loki. God of outcasts. They see themselves in me, and I in them. All of us, alone together. It’s why my stories always end with someone trying to put me in a box. And begin with my spectacular escape.” [Loki (2019) #5]

It’s the opposite to surrendering in being kept boxed into a corner. And it’s the opposite of seeing the Lokis as an entity apart from the rest of the living things.

This series has so many Lokis… who’re just the same yet neither of them is said to be the same as any other human. They don’t belong except than among them and even then they can enter into conflict. They can’t fall in love except than with themselves and even then they need a special Loki female to fall in love.

It’s Sylvie that points out the TVA workers are Variants like they are, but, even in this case, there won’t be camaraderie between the Lokis and the TVA workers.

Anyway after hearing all of this our Loki decides that no, he’s not going to play the part of the God of the outcast but he’s leaving, going back to the TVA. Since they’re as good at escaping (something this series has established) as at surviving he thinks he can escape and survive and if he’ll die instead, like Boastful Loki says, well, that was his destiny to begin with.

It would be a nice speech if it came from him. Too bad it came from his love for Sylvie because she got the Mary Sue power to turn him into a new man with her love. And so, since the other Lokis didn’t benefit from having the chance to love Sylvie, they can’t be like him, but that’s their only difference. Because love is saving the world.

Kid Loki: You're different. Why?

Loki: No, I'm not, you see? I'm the same, really. I'm the same as all of you. Have any of you met a woman Variant of us?

Classic Loki: Sounds terrifying.

Loki: Oh, she is. But that's kind of what's great about her. She's different. She's not trying to take over the TVA, she's trying to take it down. And she needs me.

Don’t take me wrong, I’m sure love plays a huge part in saving the world but in this way it feels just as cheesy and childish as it could be. Besides Loki’s plan is against dumb because all his brain went to Sylvie.

Loki: Now, you said Alioth is what keeps us here. You said it's a living thing. You said it's a shark. Well, if it lives, it dies. So I'm gonna kill the shark. I'm gonna kill Alioth, and I could use all the help I can get.

Okay, to be honest this is not a plan, this is a goal. Killing Alioth is a goal but a plan requires studying a way to how to do it and he hadn’t, isn’t doing and won’t do it. So no plan.

Anyway the Lokis laugh either because they have surrendered and believe Alioth can’t be killed or because the idea someone were to ask help to them is absurd because they’re backstabbing, evil guys. I don’t know which one is more depressing.

But whatever, the discussion isn’t even done well.

I mean, this series wrote down Loki is fluid but when Loki suggests they might have met a woman Loki the other finds it ‘sounds terrifying’ which I don’t know if it’s more stupid or misogynist. And Loki agrees but then launches in a rant on how, because Sylvie is a woman, she’s different and so perfect. Because being a woman is a character trait that makes you better.

Loki: Oh, she is. But that's kind of what's great about her. She's different. She's not trying to take over the TVA, she's trying to take it down.

This is not validation! This is dumb. A woman is a damn human being who can be awesome or horrible because her sex and/or her gender do not decide which sort of person she is!

If the idea is that Loki is bad because he’s a man that’s just dumb and if the idea is that Sylvie is great because she’s a female this is not only dumb, it invalidates all Sylvie has done to be the way she is… which is not great because she’s actually moved by wish of revenge, not by some sort of humanitarian purpose.

At this point Killmongrel was more noble than her as he at least cared about those he viewed as his brothers.

Sylvie just wanted to erase the TVA… and now she wants to save Loki because she fell for him.

Should I also mention how Loki the silver tongue, can’t even persuade a kid to eat a candy in this show?

Loki leaves commenting they’re ‘monsters’ which is kind of a big word for guys who don’t want to follow you because you are going against a REAL GIANT MONSTER that could kill them and don’t have a plan.

What about Thanos then? What about the TVA who pruned countless lives? How do you call them?

When Loki is about to leave however he meets a Loki who, for once, looks EXACTLY like him, President Loki, who had gotten there with tons of other male Loki who couldn’t look more different.

Again, the exchange is funny…

President Loki: Ah. Hello, which one of us are you?

Loki: This is a nightmare.

…but the joke is more a “Looney tunes” nonsense, albeit, for once, a little better planned.

But I’ll return on this in a minute because the story switches to Sylvie, the heroine who wakes up in a vehicle. Evidently she was dropped there because the roof above her is broken so she likely fell into the vehicle more than magically woke there.

And, please, prepare yourself, we’re about to start a list of new plot contrivances.

COINCIDENTALLY, although that vehicle was clearly abandoned there by only God know how long, Alioth decides to eat it just now, but COINCIDENTALLY, Sylvie has just came out of it in time so as not to be eaten. Alioth begins to give her chase, so she tries to enchant one of his… tendrils? Pseudopods? So she COINCIDENTALLY see in his memories not his last dinner but where the Time-Keepers are.

COINCIDENTALLY, despite Alioth being very fast, she manages to distance herself from him and hold that distance until COINCIDENTALLY a car which is COINCIDENTALLY working as it’s not damaged and has fuel (Sylvie’s vehicle was unlikely to move considering it seemed to have been forgotten there by a lifetime) appear which is COINCIDENTALLY driven by Mobius who has COINCIDENTALLY not only seen Alioth but not turned away from him immediately and fast as he could and had COINCIDENTALLY noticed she was there too despite the fact she was pretty distant.

COINCIDENTALLY, despite Alioth’s speed, Sylvie manages to outrun him in time for her to reach Mobius’ car. Should I mention Mobius COINCIDENTALLY knows how to drive that kind of car though as a TVA analyst he shouldn’t need it? No, maybe I’m being too nitpicking.

So Alioth, who first was COINCIDENTALLY slow enough Sylvie could outrun him otherwise she would end up being eaten, now COINCIDENTALLY speeds up and tails Mobius’ car up close otherwise the chase would be boring.

Meanwhile, as they drive, Mobius and Sylvie scold each other, each of them sure he’s more competent than the other. We see them pass by the pyramids and the Sphinx and then the scene changes.

We’re back in the Lokis’ hideout but now President Loki and his men has taken control of it.

Classic Loki scolds Loki for leading ‘the wolves’ there. President Loki claims they prefer to be called snakes.

Kid Loki has a nice moment in which he says:

Kid Loki: I've eaten both. They die just the same.

I wish they had developed him more. Is he meant to be a murderous dangerous psycho or he’s also acting so as not to look weak? Sadly though, like all the Loki Variants except Classic Loki, he’s just tossed there to make number and confusion.

Anyway, as I was saying, President Loki being there is not a coincidence nor our Loki’s fault. It turns out Boastful Loki betrayed Kid Loki.

Why? Because he’s a backstabbing idiot with poor planning issues which is how we’re supposed to see all the Lokis. Not intelligent beings and with quick-wits who use their brains to beat enemies stronger than they are but backstabbing idiots with poor planning issues.

Anyway Boastful Loki gave to President Loki the location of Kid Loki’s hideout so, in exchange for shelter and supplies, President Loki would give his his army and he would take the throne.

Not even a kid would believe someone would honour such a dumb agreement and in fact President Loki doesn’t plan to honour it because he plans to take everything for himself

President Loki: Ah, yes. Not so good a bargain. How about this one? My army, my throne?

So of course his army of backstabbing idiot Lokis with poor planning issues decide to start arguing among each other on who has to get the throne.

I’ll be honest, if this was a “Looney tunes” cartoon I would find it hilarious. As they’re trying to tell me all those are Lokis who are ‘more successful than our Loki’ I just facepalm.

He's the Loki that was supposed to stay on the timeline. All those Lokis who had all those successes were Lokis who got pruned by the TVA. As Mobius says, ‘It's your job to lose so others can become the best versions of themselves.’ That's the part Loki is meant to play on the Sacred Timeline. The question is: can you change? [Why Other Lokis Are Much More Successful Than Hiddleston's]

Our Loki successfully interrupted the coronation, successfully killed Laufey and would have successfully destroyed Jotunheim hadn’t he been interrupted. He successfully stole the Tesseract from a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, successfully hypnotizing Selvig and Hawkeye and he successfully distracted the Avengers while Hawkeyes did what he had to do. Successfully let himself be arrested so as to arrive where Hulk was and successfully set him loose while also successfully escaping from his prison then successfully managed to open the passage that lead the Chitauri on New York.

Yes, he wasn’t successful in that battle and it was a big deal but I’ll say he accomplished plenty of things.

Which sort of success the other Lokis had? I honestly missed it.

Alligator Loki has enough and moves closer.

Now again, the following scene is very fun for a ‘looney tunes’…

President Loki: Why the hell is there an alligator in here?

Classic Loki, Kid Loki, Boastful Loki: He's a Loki!

…with Alligator Loki managing this time to eat President Loki’s whole arm when before he couldn’t even scratch Boastful Loki’s hand but… it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Chaos ensues as all the Lokis start fighting among them and I wonder if we’ll see Yosemite Sam and Marvin the Martian join the fight along with Taz.

It’s clear that the whole thing is meant to be solely humorous, when President Loki loses his hand and then starts screaming like a banshee, apart from an initial spray of blood he doesn’t lose blood at all.

You aren’t meant to take seriously the loss of his hand, you might even expect they’ll glue it back to him later on.

It’s not terrible humour, it’s something one can definitely enjoy… but it’s so out of place in a story that supposedly has serious themes and instead decides to just spend half of the episode in a comedy that’s more fitting of ‘Who framed Roger Rabbit?’ with Loki leaving the place by escaping in such a manner I can’t even begin to describe… as if he’s tiptoeing around the other Lokis in hope they won’t notice him… and they don’t.

He fundamentally does nothing useful, the one acting is mostly Classic Loki who uses his magic, Kid Loki who handles Alligator Loki and Alligator Loki who beat or maybe I should say bite some Lokis… but the weirdest thing is that Loki, Kid Loki, Alligator Loki and Classic Loki wander through the place for a bit then Classic Loki opens a magic portal that lead to the outside and they leave the place… with our Loki a bit wary to go through it which makes me wonder, is it a power only Classic Loki has?

Did Classic Loki spent all those years after Thanos improving his magic? Or was he a better wizard from the start?

Anyway Classic Loki, Kid Loki, Alligator Loki and Loki leave together because somehow they’re a squad who doesn’t want to betray each other despite being Lokis… but Classic Loki and Kid Loki rants against Lokis in general.

Kid Loki: And whenever one of us dares try to fix themselves, they're sent here to die.

Now I appreciate Kid Loki saying so but if he was sent there to die it was not because he was trying to fix himself but because he killed Thor, right? Or this was a lie?

At this point I don’t know anymore.

Loki claims he wants to get out of there and stop the TVA so things can change. And no, I don’t agree.

They could change also remaining there.

Enough with this determinism and the idea the TVA control everything.

Those Lokis didn’t want to change that’s why they didn’t. It had nothing to do with the TVA and everything with themselves.

What’s more, Loki probably doesn’t know it but he wasn’t always a complete jerk in the sacred timeline. He saved his brother from the Kurse. He came back to save the Asgardians against Hela.

It’s not the TVA who decided he has to be a backstabbing idiot with poor planning issues, in Doylist terms it’s this series which basically erased whatever didn’t agree with this definition from his story, in Watsonian, it was his own mess.

The TVA doesn’t care what they do there, they could fix themselves if they want to.

But whatever, the “Looney tunes” moment is finished.

So we have…

Loki: That's why I need to get out of here. Nothing can change until the TVA is stopped.

Classic Loki: And you trust her?

And okay, I take Classic Loki means Sylvie, but this basically means that they’re thinking only Sylvie can stop the TVA because she’s magical like that and Loki, at the very best, can just help her.

So much for a change. And in fact…

Loki: She's the only one I do trust. And right now, I believe she's our only chance of stopping the TVA.

Kid Loki: That's good enough for me.

Classic Loki: Okay, okay. We'll help you. But approaching Alioth is a death sentence. We'll get you to it, but that's as far as we go.

So yeah, Sylvie is the Lokis’ only hope, their saviour, they aren’t meant to change themselves just to entrust themselves to her. Welcome to the new cult, the Sylvie cult.

And now come the worst part.

Of course CASUALLY Sylvie and Mobius managed to offscreen escape Alioth even though the last we left them Sylvie was complaining he was driving toward it.

Mobius whines:

Mobius: All that time, I really believed we were the good guys.

Even now, he’s not really shown feeling horrible for all the people he has reset and sent there to be eaten by Alioth. He’s more worried he discovered he wasn’t one of the heroes. Is he meant to be a Loki? Or something worse? Please, let me know.

Sylvie, because she’s the only one who gets to call things by their names, point out at the idiocy of his beliefs.

Sylvie: Annihilating entire realities, orphaning little girls, classic hero stuff.

Classic hero stuffs indeed but if you believe that the TVA is real because the TVA is real you can believe in everything. Instead than just apologizing for orphaning her and annihilating her reality Mobius goes and tries to explain her how he actually wasn’t in the wrong and she too… she too was very bad…

Mobius: Well, I guess when you think the ends justify the means, there's not much you won't do. By the way, you did some annihilating too.

Sylvie doesn’t take any of his idiocies but he again tries to compare his situation to her.

Sylvie: I did what I had to do.

Mobius: Yeah, so did I.

No, you didn’t Mobius. You chose to turn your eyes away from the truth, you chose to believe because being a hero gave you a purpose.

Mobius: Odin, God of the Heavens. Asgard, mystical realm, beyond the stars. Frost Giants. Listen to yourself...

Loki: It's not the same. It's completely different. No. It's not the same.

You first compared your little cult’s beliefs to what Loki lived through his life then told him the situation didn’t make sense but you didn’t care because it gave you a glorious purpose and that the TVA was real solely because you WILLINGLY believed in it. And now you’re telling Sylvie, the poor girl the TVA kidnapped, orphaned and tried to kill with your willing help that you choosing to willingly reset Variants and her fighting to survive are the same thing.

Sylvie: You hunted me like a dog.

Mobius: I'm sorry about that.

Of course, since it’s Sylvie that points it out, at this point he apologizes TO HER. What are you sorry for, Mobius? Just hunting her? What about the rest? And what about the other Variants, Mobius? The ones who didn’t manage to escape? What about your supposed friend, Loki that you had beaten and belittled so you could get information out of him to protect your precious TVA and at whom you reused to believe even when he was telling you the truth?

But honestly, I shouldn’t take it out of Mobius. He’s like Jessica Rabbit. ‘He’s not bad. He’s just drawn that way’. Because this series doesn’t really want to talk about what the TVA did to the other Variants and whatever happens to Loki doesn’t matter because ‘he deserves it’ so why should Mobius or anyone at the TVA feel sorry?

Anyway, after Mobius apologizes to her Sylvie has a moment of vulnerability in which she confesses she pruned herself to find Loki but now she believed the storm ate him already. Because obviously Loki is dumb and incompetent so better not get her hopes up. Okays, she didn’t say so and I get her discomfort but… but nothing, Sylvie goes back to her mission and who cares about Loki while Mobius, who previously harshly criticized Loki’s ‘demented crush for his female self’ now is all supportive.

Mobius: You really believe that?

Sylvie: It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters now is getting out of here and finding out who's behind all of this.

Sylvie of course has a plan because she’s SMART. Sylvie decides they’ll go back to the angry cloud which she previous told Mobius to escape from because she thinks the cloud can be the answer. And since Sylvie is SMART, even though she hadn’t given him a plan and she’s really not persuasive Mobius complies because everyone in Sylvie’s squad does what Sylvie says as she rolled a 12 in persuasion so, whatever.

Back to Loki and his group, Classid Loki asks Loki if he has a plan. He does.

Loki: Get inside, find its heart or brain or whatever, and then, you know, do it in.

Please, don’t tell me this is the guy who manipulated Laufey into trusting him and coming to Asgard or that could keep up a discussion with Fury. This is not a plan this is ‘Loki smash!’ only it works better when Hulk does it. A kid could do better in fact Kid Loki notices it’s dumb and Loki gets defensive.

Loki: Just because it's not complicated doesn't mean it's bad.

Kid Loki: It also doesn't mean it's good.

Okay the “Looney tunes” fun is still on and it continues being on.

Alligator Loki: ( Growls )

Loki: See? He's on board.

Classic Loki: He's praying. He thinks we're going to die.

Because this is fun but so very OOC and out of place I just want to take this episode and put it in another series. I would enjoy it more if it were in another series.

By the way, why Classic Loki understand Alligator Loki and no one else does.

A ship populated with people appear, likely because the TVA reset the reality. Where’s the sea and the rest of that reality? Who knows and who cares? Alioth of course notices the ship and now Loki says something intelligent:

Loki: Alioth is like any animal. He'll go after the big meal first. And while he's busy with that, we can sneak around the back and...

The people on the ship tries to fight and is swallowed in less than a minute. It should be a tragic moment in which all the people on the ship died. It left me empty. Hum… this part just feel flat. Probably because they want to continue with the “Looney tunes” theme by having Loki realize his idea of sneak behind Alioth being dumb because it’s impossible as Alioth is just too fast and dangerous.

Loki: ( Panting ) Okay. Maybe we, uh... think a bit more about this, huh?

Now… COINCIDENTALLY a car arrives and at Loki who worries if it’s bad this is told because “Looney tunes” mood.

Kid Loki: Well, usually means cannibalistic marauders or cannibalistic pirates.

Loki: Delightful. Now they're slowing down.

But no, it’s not cannibalistic marauders or cannibalistic pirates, COINCIDENTALLY it’s just Sylvie and Mobius. COINCIDENTALLY the car stops away from them but COINCIDENTALLY Loki recognizes Sylvie just the same so he can run to her while Classic Loki who evidently hadn’t hear him recognizing Sylvie can continue with the “Looney tunes” moments.

Classic Loki: I don't understand. Is he a coward or was he being brave?

Kid Loki: I'm not too sure.

They decide to follow him anyway. Are they coward, brave or fool?

Loki ends running to Sylvie and she greets him with a ‘ You're alive’ which honestly doesn’t even feel as if she were surprised or happy. Loki is a lot more emotional about seeing her and Mobius. Okay, Mobius seems happy to see him too even though he says nothing.

“Looney tunes” mood continues as she tells him

Sylvie: We thought you could do with some backup.

And he puts his hands on his hips and frowns at her but then she notices Classic Loki and Kid Loki and she neither wonders why they’re dressed so oddly nor recognize them as Loki but considers attacking them until Loki, still in “Looney tunes” mood, introduces them.

Loki: Oh, no, wait, wait, wait, these are my friends. Well, they're, um... How best to put this? Us as a child, us in the future, and us as an alligator. It's best not to question it.

Mobius: You throw a rock out here, you hit a Loki.

Again, hilarious, just not fitting the situation.

Sylvie decides them being there means they’re not there by chance but after the giant cloud monster. Loki confirms they’re there to kill Alioth which she finds a dumb plan because of course all Loki’s plans are dumb and he should just follow Sylvie’s as she has years of experience with Alioth and… no, nevermind she doesn’t but she has read the script and she knows she is the only Loki with a power that’s useful against it. Because Mary Sue. Or heroine. Whatever.

Loki: Well, we haven't decided how we're going to kill it, but...

Sylvie: Come again? Kill it?

Loki: Yes, we're gonna kill Alioth.

Sylvie: Oh, my God. That was your plan.

Loki: Yeah.

Sylvie: And you went along with it?

Kid Loki: I had my doubts.

Classic Loki: Probably unsafe.

So Sylvie gets to expose her plan. She thinks, without any proof whatsoever, that the person they’re after is beyond The Void at the end of time and Alioth is their guard dog protecting the only way in.

Sure, she had a vision when she tried to enchant Alioth but I saw nowhere on that building a sign seeing ‘residence of the time-keeper’. It might very well be the last thing Alioth ate or Alioth and the Time-Keeper might be unrelated. The Time-Keeper might hide in a timeline parallel to the sacred one. Or at the beginning of time. Or he could be Casey in disguise. Or the cat the guy who had Loki sign all he said had. Or he can be Alligator Loki for all we know. But of course, since this is Sylvie’s theory, this is a theory, not a plan, everyone accepts it.

And this is Sylvie’s plan which is her alternate solution to ‘I’ll hit it with my sword’

Sylvie: I'm gonna enchant it.

Which is also insane because really, the last time it worked so well. Loki points it out but of course Sylvie claims his plan was dumber and anyway she’s gonna enchant it, we’re not in a democracy and she’s the Mary Sue, I mean the heroine end of the discussion. And since she’s the Mary Sue, I mean the heroine, everyone agrees with her because she’s a female Loki and female Lokis are special like that. Especially when there’s only one female Loki in all the times.

Sylvie: I'm gonna enchant it.

Loki: ( Laughing ) That's insane, right?

Sylvie: As insane as what? Paper-cutting a cloud to death?

Loki: Listen, I've been down here longer than you...

Sylvie: I'm going to enchant it.

Mobius: She's pretty confident.

Besides, I mean, if Sylvie finds Loki so dumb… why is she falling for him? Why I’m asking? Because she’s the Mary Sue who falls for the character the fandom adoures and manages to do what no one ever could do, make him fall for her and make him a better person.

It’s amazing how Mobius agrees because she’s pretty confident it took Loki, his friend, a lot to persuade him that the Variant could hide in the apocalypse. Ah, the power of a Mary Sue. I’m waiting for her to start singing.

Whatever, back to Renslayer we go.

She enters in a GIANT sized room, chases away the two hunters guarding it, goes to a wall and uses the Tempad to open a door. Behind it we can see Hunter B-15, that Sylvie evidently forgot in the room of the Time-Keeper when she moved in the trial room because who care about her.

Hunter B-15 would like to know why she’s there. I’d like to know why she wasn’t pruned too.

Renslayer accuses her of freeing the Variant and being disloyal to the TVA. Variant, singular, if I didn’t hear wrong. She actually freed the VariantS plural. Unless two Lokis count as one because always Loki. While Renslayer is trying intimidation techniques asking her if she thinks she could escape punishment B-15 wants to know to who she was disloyal as she too saw Time-Keepers weren't real.

Renslayer asks her why should this change anything and, for once, I agree with her. If the Time-Keepers put there puppets as a safety measure this doesn’t change anything and it’s not even the point.

The problem wasn’t if the Time-Keepers were in that room for Sylvie to kill them, it was that the Time-Keepers lied to the TVA employers, telling them they had created them when they were kidnapped Variants who were being used to kill other poor Variants who never did anything wrong. No, scratch the last part, B-15 never cared about the Variants she killed, she only had problems with the fact she was happy before.

Anyway B-15 wants the others to know the truth but didn’t think to hack a transmitter when she could and warn everyone, no, she was just assisting Sylvie to kill the Time-keepers. Out of revenge for lying to her I assume.

Renslayer says the TVA only needs stability, in short who cares if they were lied to, they’ll keep on serving it, so B-15 has to cooperate with her and tell her what drives Sylvie and B-15… has a link to her. Which means Renslayer is sure Sylvie will come back.

And I facepalm.

A link? They talked few minutes and Sylvie could have lied or not exposed herself but anyway… wasn’t what drove her obvious enough one could pick it up without even having to ask.

B-15, who was so good to play bully with poor Variants, obeys and answer Sylvie is OBVIOUSLY driven by revenge… how could Renslayer miss it, did she also have to tell her “My name is Sylvie Laufeydottir. You killed my timeline. Prepare to die"?

Anyway B-15 decides since the Time-Keepers turned out to be fake Sylvie will search for who’ll being this. And okay, Sylvie has fully turned into the heroine of this story. Loki is a recurring character, a very present character but when all is said and done he’s just supporting cast.

Sylvie is the heroine and even this chat supports it.

Hunter B-15: This isn't about protecting the TVA at all, is it? You just want to find whoever is behind all of this, too. You'll never find them. Not before she does.

Renslayer: And why is that?

Hunter B-15: You only want it. She needs it.

B-15 who belittled so much the other Variants clearly looks up on Sylvie, she has blind faith in her and Renslayer’s situation amuses her a lot and if B-15 hadn’t been the one finding amusement in belittling Variants I might share in her fun but like this it feels as if they’re reminding me she’s one who enjoys belittling and humiliating others.

And Renslayer isn’t worried Loki could do something to cause troubles either. It’s all Sylvie. Sylvie will win because that’s what heroines do.

Now it’ll be interesting if it turned out Sylvie is actually truly evil while Loki has ultimately decided to become truly good but I bet the last episode will instead reveal the one who’s truly evil is a male Loki Variant, one that Sylvie will have to either kill, punish or redeem.

Whatever, for now the story only seems interested in pinning Renslayer as evil.

Renslayer leaves B-15 and tell Miss Minute to find her the files on the founding of the TVA. Everything from the beginning of time. You know, the one she wanted to find at the beginning. So… did she really want them, it wasn’t just to stall time?

She excuses her request by claiming:

Renslayer: Whoever created this place is in danger. I need to find them.

Miss Minute agrees to comply.

Now… if Miss Minute doesn’t turn out to have a bigger role in the last episode, I don’t know she’s a spy, she’s the big bad, she’s Tony Stark in disguise, anything, I think they could have cut her. She’s basically the Clippy of the TVA and there’s a reason if Clippy, despite being cute was discontinued as intelligent user interface.

Her existence makes me think they’re trying to market Loki as a child friendly, which explains the low level of drama, Kid Loki being the ruler of the place and not being really mistreated when all the Lokis wanted his place as well as surviving and being the one strong enough to kill Thor, the “Looney tunes” humour. And if this is a kid show it explains also why potentially serious themes aren’t really tackled differently from “WandaVision” and “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier”.

Back into the Void, or better back into the “Looney tunes” cartoon Classic Loki and Kid Loki are talking with Mobius about Alligator Loki which makes for another funny yet absurd and OOC scene.

Mobius: I mean, the TVA arrested a lot of Lokis, but, no, I don't remember an alligator. I mean, who's to say he's even a Loki Variant?

Classic Loki: He is green, isn't he?

Mobius: I don't know, he could be lying. The long con. Of course, that just makes him more likely to be a Loki. It's always the game within the game with you guys, which I respect.

No, actually he doesn’t. He didn’t respect when Loki lied to him, he insulted him. But somehow episode 5 decided since Mobius saved Sylvie he’s 100% back among the good guys.

Anyway I wish there a story behind Alligator Loki and we were told it and that he wasn’t just reduced to play the part of Kid Loki’s pet and a role similar to the crocodile in “Peter Pan”, with President Loki becoming the future Captain Hook.

Kid Loki asks Mobius what he’ll do assuming he’ll get back to the TVA, which he of course can do as Sylvie has a Tempad and can open a Timedoor.

Mobius: I don't know. I'd like to let people know the truth.

Oh, the truth, yeah it’s the people at the TVA who need the truth, not the poor Variants in that Void who need to be saved, the Variants the TVA wants to be pruned who need to be saved. Let’s save the poor TVA workers from ignorance so they can decide if to willingly follow the TVA like Renslayer is doing or not.

Yeah, I get by knowing the truth some of them might be willing to stop what they’re doing but what if they don’t, like Renslayer?

You wanted to be a hero, Mobius, what’s the problem now, saving people instead than murdering them is too hard?

So they goes to discuss the theme of change:

Classic Loki: So just like that, you're turning on the very thing you devoted your life to.

Mobius: Well, it's never too late to change.

This story makes a big deal of the theme of changing but the reasons why one should change aren’t so great. Mobius wants to change because he was lied at, Loki because he fell in love. Meaning if Mobius had really been created by the Time-Keepers he would have happily continued to kill Variants because it wasn’t his problem and if Loki hadn’t fallen in love with the only special unique female Loki he would have never changed.

That’s not a great way to deal with the theme of change.

Back to Loki and Sylvie, who’re sitting in the grass alone together, Sylvie has turned into a Mobius fangirl who exists to make us forget whatever wrong Mobius might have done giving him her seal of approval.

Sylvie: Mobius isn't so bad.

Loki: Or so good. I think that's why we get along.

Sylvie: He cares about you.

So wait, you barely know him and he has felt more hurt he wasn’t a hero as he hoped than for all the Variant he killed, had tried to compare his murders and his situation to yours but, when pressured he said he was sorry he hunted you like a dog. Also implied he wasn’t sure Loki died. Whatever else which might have happened went offscreen. Forgive me if I’m not won over by the little I saw in this episode, especially after episode 4. I really needed more than that.

But who cares, Loki doesn’t care Mobius isn’t so good, he gets along with him even when the latter threatens to kill him and have Sif repeatedly kick him in the groin. Stockholm syndrome or masochism?

Now, COINCIDENTALLY, it’s cold so Loki conjure up a cover for himself and volunteer to do the same for Sylvie. Those, of course, weren’t in his pocket so why the Tempad in ep 3 ended there?

Sylvie would like a new outfit, because her own is uncomfortable. Why she didn’t get her a comfortable outfit instead than that is beyond me. It’s not like she’s forced to wear a TVA uniform, those are clothes she picked up. Where I don’t know but whatever.

By the way, it’s a lifetime Loki has the signs of a wound on his arm which he got when they were fighting in the Time-Keepers’room… but the blood must be solely decorative because no one, not even Loki, cares.

They’re kind of cute when they talk about their Nexus event and go into full denial mode. If only I could forget their romance was SO VERY FORCED and tied to narcissism I might enjoy it… though I still think it would have been better if they had made them friends. But Sylvie wouldn’t be a good Mary Sue if it didn’t get to have the male protagonist.

The dialogue focuses on Sylvie’s drama.

Sylvie: I don't know how to do this.

Loki: I don't even know what we're doing.

Sylvie: I don't have friends. I don't have... anyone.

Now, I don’t want to belittle Sylvie’s drama, they clearly had built for her an overly tragic life because what’s a Mary Sue without a tragic past, but maybe of us got into this show for Loki’s drama, hoping it to be discussed if not solved and we got nothing, nothing at all. Loki won’t talk with her of what pushed him to commit suicide. It would be a good point of discussion, telling her there had been a time in his life in which he also felt he had no one, or that prior to Mobius who has somehow been elevated to the level of friend, he had no one because no, Sif and the Warriors Three clearly were Thor’s friends, not his own, but no, it doesn’t matter.

Loki and Sylvie are supposedly in love and all she knows about him is about his mom and how she taught him to do magic. And all he knows about her is she barely remember Asgard and was forced to live on the run.

It’s not bad just for Loki, it’s bad as a portrayal of a love story between two people because they don’t know each other and don’t try to do so, they don’t share anything of their lives, they don’t even have things in common beyond being Loki… which Sylvie rejected for reasons we don’t know as she’s now Sylvie.

Anyway Loki tries to cheer her up by… telling her there were more important things to do?

Loki: Well... there are more important things, right?

Sylvie: Right? Yeah. Like bringing down the TVA.

Loki: I mean… Saving the universe, even.

Sylvie: Well, there's no need to be dramatic, but, yeah, kind of.

Sylvie couldn’t care less about saving the universe, it was all about revenge and no, bringing down the TVA isn’t more important than having people who love and support you around you. This is dumb hero moral.

Loki uses his magic to put the cover he’s wearing around his shoulders around Sylvie as well… which likely means he has also stretched the cover. She moves closer to him and they had that sort of stupid happy face I love in love stories so it would be really, really good if they had built better their own instead than tossing it to us at random.

I mean, this is very cute, and I don’t know if it’s Loki who’s laughing or Tom Hiddleston who find it funny.

Sylvie: It's not very snuggly.

Loki: ( Chuckling ) Okay.

Sylvie: Is it a tablecloth?

Loki: No, it's a blanket.

Sylvie: Thank you.

Loki: My pleasure.

And I like how Sylvie says thank you in a serious tone as if all this was important for her. But the romance remains still out of nowhere even if this is the episode which handles it better.

Then they ruin everything with this.

Sylvie: How do I know that, in the final moments, you won't betray me?

Loki: Listen, Sylvie, I... ( Sighs deeply ) I betrayed everyone who ever loved me. I betrayed my father, my brother... my home. I know what I did. And I know why I did it. And that's not who I am anymore. Okay? I won't let you down.

Same way Loki knows you won’t betray him. Either you trust someone or don’t there’s no guaranty but this whole chat is not in order to reassure Sylvie but to tell the readers Loki has been changed by love without really discussing the issues that pushed Loki to betray people. The fact he was lied to, the fact his father favoured Thor and made him feel inferior, the whole racist system Asgard had for the Jotuns, the fact Thor used to look down on him and was so arrogant and bloodthirsty Odin kicked him out of Asgard… we don’t talk about all those issues. I’m not even going to mention what might have happened with Thanos because Joss Whedon isn’t working anymore with Marvel and I start to think whatever plan he had for Loki and Thanos got scrapped away long ago… and anyway Loki doesn’t speak about what happened on Midgard… unless we’re meant to believe what happened to Midgard was him betraying his father, his brother, his home and we aren’t talking about what happened in “Thor”…

Whatever, anyway we aren’t talking about it. Loki is a new man, love solved all his issues.

We should just enrol criminals in professional matchmaking programs to find love for them too and they too would come out as different people.

The next bit is, of course, to tell us Loki has given up on his wish to rule, again because love made him happy.

Sylvie: You sure? 'Cause if we make it, and the TVA is gone, there might be a timeline for you to rule.

Loki: Ah. And then I'd finally be happy.

Sylvie instead admits she has no idea what she’ll do after she’ll get her revenge.

Well, dear, you never tried world domination, do you? But no, Loki tells her he doesn’t know what he’ll do either so they could figure out together. Because love saves the day.

And it does but I wish it was less cheesy.

The romance moment end.

We see the weird birds with no purpose beyond being weird birds and then Alioth moving closer. Everyone watches it fearfully.

Since Sylvie, being a Mary Sue, has been elected as leader she’s the one who answers Mobius when he asks which should be their next move.

Sylvie: The TVA needs to be brought down. We don't know who created it or where they are, but that thing out there does. When it hit me earlier, I linked to it. It was brief, but I caught a glimpse of something, and I think if I can get close enough to it, I can enchant it, and it's gonna take me to whoever's behind all of this.

Or, alternatively, he can swallow up you whole but whatever, time for the romantic moment.

Loki: I'm staying.

Sylvie: Loki, I don't know if this is gonna work.

Loki: You go, I go.

Oh, finally she admits she doesn’t know if this will work. Because actually her plan is as solid as Loki’s but who cares, this is only to underline that love is in the air because Loki is staying with her even if her plan might be a complete and utter failure.

I don’t really like her ‘mommy is telling you this might be a dumb idea’ tone if I’ve to be honest, Mobius who suddenly turns to him as he said so, seemed more worried and I’m very clearly not a Lokius shipper as I don’t even believe Mobius and Loki to be genuine friends.

Anyway Loki gives the Tempad Sylvie gave him to Mobius. Because they had to wait for Alioth to be there before deciding to leave.

Mobius, as the true friend he is, decides he’ll leave the place and who cares if they might need herlp, so that in case Loki and Sylvie don’t die but can’t get to the TimeKeeper either they’re left without any mean of transportation away from that place.

Mobius then goes:

Mobius: I'll give your regards to Renslayer.

Sylvie: Oh, please do.

I take this means his strong and deep and special friendship with Renslayer has ended. Anyway he volunteers to bring with himself the other Lokis but they refuse saying that’s their home… which is not wrong as that place has what remains of their homes since the TVA sent them there. Still Mobius could have tried harder but it’s not like he has to care about Loki Variants he and the TVA sent there after destroying their homes.

It’s Loki who worries about them and about how Alioth could harm them.

Classic Loki: We've survived this long. We know what we're doing.

Kid Loki gives Loki his sword, Laevateinn so Loki with his magic creates a sheat he put on his back.

Classic Loki wishes him good luck and I’d like to point out that for all their babbling about the Lokis being terrible, Classic Loki, Kid Loki and Alligator Loki and been very nice and helpful with Loki and among them. Friends. They didn’t just lie, cheat and cut each other throat for power, even if they had just met him. They didn’t even use him.

And I like their relation more than I like the one with Sylvie.

They walk away and Mobius open for himself a Time Door.

Now… it shows that Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson are friends because when they interact they genuinely seems so but the basis on which the plot built this friendship are nonexistent.

Mobius observes Loki got away in the end which is… a bit early to say so, since he also needs to get away from Alioth. At Loki who asks him what he will do at the TVA he answers:

Mobius: Burn it to the ground. Thanks for the spark. Well, see you later, Loki.

All this because the TVA lied to him, not because it pushed him to reset poor people he didn’t even try to save from the Void.

Still the sentence is good considering the story started with Loki wanting to burn the place.

Loki: I'm gonna burn this place to the ground.

Mobius: I'll show you where my desk is, you can start there.

Mobius offers him his hand to shake but Loki has to hug him and thanks him even though he didn’t hug Classic Loki and Kid Loki.

Now, it’s true, without Mobius the TVA would have killed him, and Mobius gave him a second chance when the TVA decided to consider the first mission Loki took part in as a failure, but the point is Mobius did it because he needed Loki’s help. Loki helped him find where the Variant hid and tried to stop her. He failed, ended up on Lamentis and when he was retrieved, Mobius didn’t believe him and had him beaten up telling him he didn’t need him anymore. He came to free him only because he discovered Loki didn’t lie to him and so he wanted help face the TVA.

Now compare with Classic Loki, Kid Loki and Alligator Loki. They found Loki and brought him to their hideout because it was dangerous to be outside with Alioth around. They gave him something to drink and possibly to eat. When they were attacked by President Loki, after understanding it wasn’t his fault, carried him with them in their escape. Helped him find Alioth. Gave him a sword. And Classic Loki will die in a while to help Loki and Sylvie against Alioth. In short they only helped him and never wronged him. But they aren’t special friends like Mobius, not even taking into consideration it’s supposedly Loki’s narcissism who caused him to fall for Sylvie.

As Mobius hugs Loki he whispers ‘you’re my favourite’ looking at Sylvie.

Considering how he used to bother Renslayer about wanting to be her favourite and that he knows Loki is in need of reassurance I don’t really enjoy much the joke.

Mobius leaves, the door immediately closes behind him and doesn’t remain open for hours like in Ep 2 and Sylvie and Loki are alone to face Alioth. They walk closer and Sylvie decides then to explain him her plan because doing so earlier, when they had all the time in the world, would have been unromantic. Much better to do it five minutes before facing him.

Sylvie: When a branch appears, Alioth will focus on it. That's when I'll enchant it.

Classic Loki and Kid Loki meanwhile are kilometres away because when they walk away slowly they walk just that fast.

Classic Loki turns behind but then keep on walking so that they get farther.

As they’re close side by side… Loki moves to the other side of Sylvie… no idea why… and points out they might not have the time to wait for a branch so Sylvie says they’ll need a distraction. And how did she meant to create one if Loki hadn’t remained with her? I still think it’s a poor plan that can work only because the Mary Sue’s plan always works.

Okay, so she didn’t think Loki would be the distraction because, after she says so he rests his hand on her shoulder and she shakes her head no and he instead nods yes and then runs away and tries to persuade Alioth in coming after him, showing him the flaming sword Kid Loki gave him.

I’ll be honest the silent dialogue between Sylvie and Loki is a nice moment. If they had put more things like these in Episode 3 this idea of a romance between them would have worked much better.

On another side Loki with a flaming sword seemed a much cooler scene in the trailer than here, where the flaming sword is merely used as some sort of light to attract Alioth.

Sylvie then tries to enchant one of Alioth’s tendril/pseudopod but he notices, ignore Loki and goes after her. Loki runs toward Sylvie telling Alioth he should come his way but Alioth doesn’t care and is about to eat Sylvie who doesn’t move at all because ‘why escaping?’ and then Alioth abruptly gets distracted as Classic Loki uses his illusion magic to recreate Asgard because a real friend comes back in your time of need and even risk life for you even though you hadn’t hugged him.

The music is rather cool.

We’ve then this informative bit:

Sylvie: How is he doing that?

Loki: I think we're stronger than we realize.

Which really feels useless. He’s an older Loki he might have developed powers you two don’t have yet. People change with time, stop considering all the Lokis equal.

Anyway Alioth is fully distracted by the fake Asgard and Classic Loki tells them to go. Sylvie takes Loki’s hand because she has decided she’ll enchant Alioth together with Loki. Loki points out he doesn’t know how to enchant people but who cares, they’re the same so of course he knows.

Logic, where are you?

On another note originally Loki wasn’t meant to do it.

Eric Martin@MrEricMartin·Jul 8

Loki and Sylvie enchanting Alioth together was something we found pretty late into the process. It was #KevinWright that brought up that they should hold hands and find the strength within each other and it was such and of course moment. #LokiMidnightTheater

Of course Loki just watching as Sylvie were to enchant Alioth would have been disappointing but again, a plot also needs LOGIC. Sylvie could have spent two minutes teaching him to use enchantment instead than just telling him ‘You do. Because we're the same!’ The idea that because you’re both Variants of the same person you also share common knowledge is ludicrous but whatever, the show established Sylvie could learn doing it without being taught so… who am I to judge? On the other side the remarking of the fact they’re the same kind of ruin the romance by again feeding into the narrative it’s the result of narcissism.

Whatever, since Sylvie trusts him to learn how to enchant a giant sized monster right then Loki of course is persuaded he can do it.

It’s kind of… odd how the illusion of Asgard disappear before Alioth could touch it… is Classic Loki teasing Alioth? But well, I love how he distracted him by showing him Asgard, as if it were a Testament to Classic Loki’s love for it.

Meanwhile COINCIDENTALLY Alioth let two tendrils/pseudopods get near Loki and Sylvie so each of them can use one to try and enchant him because if they only had one it would have been a problem and if they had three it would have been too many.

Loki can’t quite work the enchantment magic yet so they hold hand tighter. Yeah, it’s romantic but… okay, I’ll try very hard to forget the logic here because this finally causes Loki’s hand to light up with magic.

Meanwhile sustaining such a big illusion was too much for Classic Loki. The illusion fades pressured by Alioth. He uses his magic again but nothing happens but this seems the plan… so it can be is it just that Alioth is attracted by Magic?

Laughing and yelling ‘Glorious purpose!’ Classic Loki, instead than trying to escape by opening a portal has he had done when they were inside their hideout, let himself be eaten by Alioth.

So to sum it up this Loki decided he wouldn’t sacrifice for his brother, as he escaped Thanos and let Thor to fend for himself, but then decided he would sacrifice for a Variant of himself. As I like to consider him a different person from Loki this can be a very nice message of friendship… but I fear the series’ idea is it’s all narcissism and the point they’re trying to do is that Loki sacrificed for himself… even though the series yammered for hours about how the Lokis didn’t see the other Variants as themselves… unless when they fall in love with one.

Bottom of the line, Classic Loki can’t have nice things, he can only die heroically and in this is supposed to be his redemption and he can only embrace such fate.

On another note… why was he capable to open a portal when they was inside their hideout but when they had to do all that walk through the place or when they moved to search for Alioth or when they left Loki and Sylvie he didn’t think to open one? Don’t give him powers that he isn’t going to use when it would be useful to use them!

Back to the story, at this point Alioth notices Loki and Sylvie so they close their eyes and have… a burst of magic? Is that what had happened? Anyway Alioth starts shining green and loses his face, no, not in the sense he damages his reputation, he just loses his face which evidently was just some sort of scary decoration as he’s basically a cloud.

Everything becomes green and Sylvie opens her eyes, smiles and tell Loki, who hasn’t realized anything, that he can open his eyes… which really is dumb.

Anyway they hadn’t enchanted Alioth, they had just… dissipated him because the cloud now opens up but you don’t see what’s behind it but, literally, a building in likely another dimension because of course Sylvie’s theory was right and beating Alioth meant to open the way to the residence of their enemy.

Or are we supposed to assume they’re mentally controlling Alioth? But in this case it’s just Sylvie who’s doing it because Loki was apparently unaware so…

At this point the two start to walk toward their supposed enemy’s residence and it would be very fun if the guy there had no relation with the TVA who actually was guilty of tossing litter in his own territory but only one episode is missing and, of course, they need to fight the big bad.

Have I already said if they use again Loki as the big bad I’m going to scream?!?

I genuinely hope that this will not be the case and we’ll get Kang, the conqueror.

Anyway so, this episode.

This episode was the funniest of the series, I’ve no qualms admitting it. It’s just I didn’t see much point in having an episode which is mostly filled with “Looney tunes” humour at this point in the series in place of facing all the serious themes the other 4 had supposedly raised. Also I would have appreciated the “Looney tunes” humour more if Loki had played the part of Bugs Bunny instead than the one of Daffy Duck, mixed with Yosemite Sam and other characters who’re there just to make confusion.

I’ll be fine if it were to be an extra episode, a bonus, but no, we’re wasting almost a full episode to… have fun?

At this point, instead than making a serious series with serious themes you would have made a fully playful one. Let’s not have a fascist organization which kills Variants or sent them in a lager called Void to be eaten alive by cannibalistic pirates or by Alioth, and which also kidnap and brainwashes its workers so that they’re willing members of a dumb cult and act all racist and abusive toward other Variants.

Let’s not talk about identity, sexual or personal, of the nature of people, if they can be good or evil. Let’s just have fun. Or let’s not and keep on talking of all that until we’ve solved the issue.

You can’t show me Mobius who first forces Loki to work for the TVA then has Loki beaten over and over for no decent reason belittling his relationship with Sylvie and then they’re back on being best friends and he’s super supportive of his relationship with Sylvie and we don’t talk of what happened in Ep 4.

You can’t show me the TVA being abusive and racist toward the Variants and now that they’ve discovered they’re Variants they don’t regret what was done to them but just that they were lied to and this isn’t denounced as hypocrisy but as the right thing to do.

What’s more you can’t take a character who’s famous for his intelligence and quick wit and who’s a capable fighter and stronger than humans and have him dumbed down and weakened down in a serious contest.

You can’t wave away what were meant to be serious issues which lead said character to attempt suicide as him being overly sensitive.

Do you want to make a parody? Fine, but label it as such.

On a positive side they made the romance between Sylvie and Loki a tad better… but it’s just too late.

You should have first constructed them falling in love, and then developed it. Their falling in love was built over nothing. Even if now you’re raising a pretty house, it has no foundations.

Also there are just too many plot contrivances and too little characterization.

Why Kid Loki wasn’t fleshed out a little bit? He killed Thor. How? Does it pains him? He’s the king of the place? How? Which are his powers? He’s generally nice with the other Lokis in a world that insists the Lokis are backstabbing idiots who want to backstab themselves. Isn’t it worth exploring? If only to see why they turned out different from how they started?

No, he’s just there to point out how he was willing to murder his brother from a young age because retconning “Thor” is Marvel’s biggest wish from a lifetime.

Also this episode keeps the trend of recurring plot contrivances and poor Sylvie as a Mary Sue which, honestly is damaging to women portray. A solid characterization would have to be persuasive or capable on solid basis, her tragedy genuinely explored not just tossed there with everyone humouring her because she’s a Mary Sue.

I mean, even Thor, in “Thor” to have his best friends follow him on Jotunheim tempted them with things they liked/wanted.

Sylvie just says ‘jump’ and everyone asks ‘how high?’ and this is bad because Sylvie has a goddamn lot of potential but all her previous struggle isn’t explored and currently she gets all she wants served on a silver platter so, even now, we don’t see her struggle.

Overall the plot of this episode can be summarized in Sylvie reaches Loki and Mobius into the Void, provides Mobius the means to go back to the TVA while she and Loki find the way to who’s behind the TVA.

Nothing really relevant happens otherwise. For 40 minutes episodes it’s really too little.

So yeah, it was a funny parody episode but… that’s all. Compared to episode 4 at least they kept the characterization the series established so they didn’t screw it up in this episode but… really, this has so much more potential that got wasted and it’s sad…

#mcu loki #loki #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #classic loki #kid loki #boastful loki #ravonna renslayer #mobius m mobius #alioth #president loki #alligator loki #miss minute #9 worlds study #9 worlds study mcu loki

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scripts4dreamers · 4 years ago

Text

Just One Drink. pt 3.

Part One, Part Two

AN: Two profilers walk into a bar. Characters: Spencer Reid Pairings: Spencer Reid x reader Spoilers: None Warnings: Mentions of crime and violence, drinking, NSFW content.

(It’s basically just smut. Plot relevant smut but smut nonetheless!)

-------------------------

Spencer was roused from his book by a knock on the door that separated your rooms. He frowned, but stood and opened it up.

“Hey, doc,” you greeted with a slightly nervous smile, “you up for a drink?”

Spencer was stunned silent for a moment. You weren’t wearing your traveling clothes anymore, instead you’d slipped into a black dress that toed the line between classy and provocative. It was nothing crazy but, to Spencer, it was like he was twelve again, standing in front of his first real crush with no idea how to handle himself.

“What?” You asked, looking down at yourself, “Too much?”

“No!” He said quickly, “No-you look...you look really nice. I just wasn’t expecting company.”

For a moment you looked almost crestfallen but, before Spencer could be sure, you’d schooled your face back to neutral.

“Sorry, I’m just going crazy in my room. I thought we could maybe-“ your voice tapered off, “it’s cool, I’ll go on my own. See you in the morning, doc.”

You turned and started to walk away. Something in Spencer’s chest pinched and, instinctively, he reached forward to stop you, grabbing your hand.

“Hey, I didn’t say that,” he said, holding your wrist for a moment longer, “just-just, let me grab my stuff.”

You smiled, confused but happy, “Sure thing.”

He let the door close and, the second you were out of sight, he rushed to the bathroom, frantically combing his hair with his fingers and throwing on a loose tie. Suddenly Spencer wished he'd packed nicer clothing for this trip, not that he had anything remotely as nice as what you were wearing. Still he knew you’d appreciate the effort.

“Ready to go, doc?” You asked when he opened the door again.

Spencer rolled his eyes fondly, “Don’t call me that.”

You laughed and grabbed his arm, dragging him through the door as you set off to the hotel bar together.

————————-

“So what is it about whiskey sours?” Spencer asked.

“Hm?”

“Whiskey sours,” Reid pointed out, gesturing to your drink, “why always them?”

“Are you profiling me again, Agent Reid?” You teased.

A shiver ran down Spencer’s spine at the way your voice dropped and rolled over his name. If you weren’t flirting, it certainly felt like you were.

“So what if I am?” He replied, leaning back, “You said I could, right?”

You smiled, your eyes sparking in the dim light, “I did indeed. You gonna take me up on my offer?”

“Maybe.”

You leaned back in your seat, “Okay then, take your best shot.”

Spencer thought for a moment. You’d been down in the bar for a long while, making your way through drinks and squandering your time talking about nothing in a booth tucked into the corner of the room. By now the alcohol was making Spencer’s head fuzzy. He felt warm and light, and far more confident than he usually would with a beautiful woman, and it was showing in the way he talked and held himself. He was bolder than usual, more upfront, willing to take more risks and infer more from your behavior than normal. So he leaned into it.

“You’re a middle child, grew up in a big city with strict parents,” he started, confidently, “you went to private school but your parents weren’t wealthy, you probably got some sort of scholarship.” You leaned forward, keeping your face blank of anything except the vaguest hint of a smile, and Spencer continued, “You throw yourself into your work because it gives you meaning, it helps you feel like you’re making a difference, the way you never felt like you did in your own home. You’re loyal to a fault, you work hard not just because you like your job, but for us, for the team. You’d do-you’d do anything for us.”

You nodded, “I would.”

“But you don’t value yourself the same way,” Spencer said, leaning closer, “you’d take a bullet for us but you don’t really think we’d do the same for you.” You pressed your lips together slightly, breaking eye contact and looking down into your drink, “But we would, Y/N. I would. You belong here.”

“Here? In a bar with you?” You asked teasingly.

Spencer flushed, “With the BAU.”

“I know,” you said with a soft smile, “not bad, Agent Reid. You should be a profiler or something.”

Spencer laughed, “Really? You think I’m that good?”

“I think you’re more than good,” you replied, “you’re exceptional, you hit the nail right on the head.”

You covered his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, which made Spencer’s heart jump into his throat. He opened his mouth to say something, but the words died before he could get them out.

“As for the whiskey sours,” you continued, draining your glass in one, “I drink them because they’re delicious. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

“That’s...disappointing,” Spencer replied. You raised an eyebrow at him, but let the matter drop, “what about me?” He continued, “Got any insights I should know about?”

You sighed and Spencer watched with anticipation as the cogs in your mind started turning. He loved the way you looked when you worked, so focused and sharp that it sent a shiver down his spine.

“Low hanging fruit,” you eventually said, “but I can tell that you’re nervous, that you neatened yourself up before we came down here.”

Spencer flushed again, but he kept his face neutral. You were playing a game now, and Spencer hated to lose.

“You think I did it for you?”

You shrugged, “Maybe. You don’t want me calling you ‘doc’ because it’s too impersonal. The others-Morgan-can use nicknames like that, ‘Pretty Boy’, ‘Boy Wonder’, but not me.” You tilted your head to the side, “It’s different with me.”

“It is different with you, Y/N,” he admitted.

“But different how, I wonder?” You postulated, “I mean, there’s just so many possibilities. Protectiveness, a sense of familial love,” you nudged his leg under the table, “attraction.”

“I don’t see you as a sister,” Spencer interrupted, “I can tell you that for certain.”

“But even if you did feel something for me,” you continued, as if he’d said nothing, “you’d never actually act on it.”

Spencer raised his eyebrows, “Why not?”

“Because you’re scared,” you continued, “of what exactly I’m not sure.”

“I thought that part would be obvious.”

You shrugged, “Not to me.”

Spencer looked down, his heart thrumming like a hummingbird against his fragile rib cage. The line was somewhere behind him now, so far behind him that he couldn’t even begin to think of how to get back behind it.

He looked at you again, letting his eyes scan up and down your body as he thought of what to do. The alcohol in his system made it hard to think, hard to focus on anything except how badly he wanted to kiss you. How badly he wanted to pull you close and touch you, press his lips to every inch of available skin and hear you sigh his name like a prayer. It would be so easy. You were so close, all he’d have to do was lean forward and….

“I’m not scared,” he forced himself to say, his eyes clinging to a fragment of exposed collar bone, “I’m cautious.”

“Is there a difference?”

Spencer nodded, “Yes, there is.”

“So tell me what the difference is, Spence.” You replied, your voice rasping over his name again.

You trailed your fingertips over Spencer’s forearm, sending little shocks of electricity through his body.

“You,” Spencer said.

And, with that, he stopped holding himself back. In one fluid movement Spencer was up and cupping your face with his hand. He moved purposefully, giving you lots of time to pull away but instead you leaned in, closing the little bit of space still left between you and pressing your lips to his.

Fuck. Even through the buzz of alcohol in his system Spencer could tell that this was an incredible kiss, the type that turned his legs to jelly and lit a flame in the pit of his stomach. You sighed against his lips, wrapping your hand around his tie and pulling him blissfully, impossibly closer. He held your face in his hands, drinking in the taste of whiskey and sugar on your lips like it was oxygen to a fire as he nipped at your bottom lip and slid his tongue into your mouth.

You allowed him access willingly, feeding the flame in Spencer’s chest with every little touch. It was too much, you were too much. It’s like his senses were in overdrive. His heart beat too fast in his chest, his skin prickled with static electricity, he could smell your perfume and the shampoo in your hair from the shower you’d just taken, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted you, no he needed you. He needed you closer, he needed to keep kissing you and kissing you and kissing you, until the sun burned itself out or the sky fell down and crushed you both flat.

Spencer felt like he was high; high on you, high on himself, high on the fact that, after months of pining and waiting and agonizing over your every interaction, it was finally happening. He’d finally kissed you. He broke away for a second, only long enough to move his lips to the corner of your mouth, then your jaw, then underneath your ear, dragging the tip of his tongue against your soft skin teasingly.

“Spence,” you gasped, sliding your fingers into his hair.

Your voice sent a bolt of lust straight through him. God he loved that voice.

“Mhm,” he hummed, trailing his lips down your neck and across that tantalizing stretch of collarbone.

“Spence, we're in public.” You laughed breathlessly.

Say my name again, he wanted to say, but he was still nervous, still just the littlest bit hesitant.

“You want me to stop?” He asked, sliding his hands down to grip your hips.

You shook your head and Spencer felt something in his chest relax, “I never said that. I just think we should settle the tab and...and head back to the room.”

That made him freeze. He felt his heart jump into his throat, and the blood rush to his groin. Oh. Oh.

“Yeah, yeah okay, Y/N/N.”

—————————-

You felt like your skin was melting, and Spencer’s hand on the small of your back as you tried to calmly make your way back up to your room wasn’t helping.

You knew you probably looked like a wreck, all smudged lipstick and blown out pupils, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to care. You charged the drinks to your room, wondering if the quiver in your voice was as noticeable to the waitress as it was to you, and walked straight out of the bar.

As soon as you were alone in the hallway, you felt a pressure on your hip, and Spencer had you up against the nearest wall. Before you could do much more than glance at one another his lips were on yours again, setting every nerve in your body on fire. He tasted like rum and coke and danger, and his fingers dug into your hip bones like you were a lifeline, anchoring you to one another.

“This far enough away?” Spencer whispered into your ear, his breath sending shivers down the back of your neck as his lips ravaged the soft skin at the base of your ear.

You mewled as the pleasure licked through you, making your eyes roll back in your head. You were so overwhelmed by the sensation of Spencer’s lips on your skin contrasted with the cold wall against your back that your brain felt like it was short circuiting.

“The-“ you breathed, “you want me up against the wall in some random hallway?” You laughed, “Way to be romantic, Spence.”

He chuckled against your neck and then pulled you into another breathtaking kiss that made your knees buckle. Spencer’s arm snaking around your waist was the only thing that kept you from falling apart.

“I want you,” he said between kisses, “anywhere you’ll let me have you. Up against this wall, in the room, back in the bar. Everywhere.”

You felt the ache between your legs growing as your need for closeness grew and grew and grew.

“Everywhere?” You asked.

There was no way this was really happening, the small part of your mind that was still functional whispered. There was no way that Spencer Reid, your Spencer Reid, was pressing you up against a wall in a fancy hotel, promising to fuck you any which way you wanted. Things like this didn’t happen to you, they didn’t happen to anyone.

“Everywhere,” Spencer agreed, his voice quivering with suppressed desire as he sucked the soft patch of skin where your neck met your shoulder.

“Let’s-let’s start at the bedroom then, yeah?” You breathed between the shocks of pleasure.

You felt Spencer nod and, reluctantly, pull away, dragging you down the hall behind him. His cheeks were flushed, his dark eyes burning with something you’d never seen before but, when he looked back over his shoulder at you, he was smiling. You smiled back.

Spencer’s hands were shaking as he slid the room key into the door and, without meaning to, you giggled.

“Here,” you started, reaching around his body and sliding the key in smoothly, “let me.”

Spencer gave you a sheepish smile as he pushed the door open, pulling you in behind him. As soon as you heard the door click shut, you expected to be shoved up against it but, instead, Spencer just looked at you, his eyes dragging up your body slowly.

There was something in his eye that made you feel more exposed than if you were naked, a tenderness so complete and gentle that it brought a rush of heat to your cheeks.

“Spence?” You asked.

“You’re so beautiful, Y/N,” He replied, cupping your face gently with one hand and bringing your lips to his.

This time the kiss was slow, languid, like he had all the time in the world, like he was drinking you in. Spencer’s other hand gripped your waist tight, pulling you flush against his body while your hands rested on the plains of his chest.

The creature in the pit of your stomach responded slowly at first but, as Spencer pressed your lips more firmly to his, the intensity ramped up. You felt Spencer’s tongue trail delicately at the seam between your lips, begging for entrance and, when you opened your mouth obligingly, he groaned. The sound was so sinful, so desperately not like Spencer, that you couldn’t help but react, arching your back and sliding your hands up into his hair.

It was silky soft beneath your fingers and, instinctively, you pulled.

“Fuck,” Spencer growled, bucking his hips up against yours as he trailed his lips down your neck and back up to yours.

This time, when he kissed you, it was rough. His tongue swirled against yours, his hands dug into your hip bones, slamming you up against the door like his life depended on it. You gasped as your back hit the door, but tugged on Spencer’s dark curls to pull him closer, desperate for something you could barely verbalize. The kiss was like whiskey, burning it’s way through every nerve in your body, getting you drunk on the rush of it all.

You wanted more. You needed more.

You let your hands drift to Spencer’s belt buckle, never breaking the kiss as you fumbled with it. Spencer made a sound of surprise against your lips and pulled away, keeping one hand on your jaw while the other reached out to stop you. He was shaking, you noticed, his dark eyes blown wide with a combination of lust and...fear?

“Are you nervous?” You asked.

Spencer froze for a moment, then nodded slowly, never breaking eye contact.

“I-you don’t have to-“ Spencer started breathlessly, “I don’t want you to feel pressured or-“

“Pressured?” You laughed, “I’ve been all over you since the night started.”

Spencer looked unsure for a moment longer and, to help calm his mind, you let your hand drift down to the growing bulge in his pants. His eyes fluttered shut and a sound somewhere between a whimper and a groan ripped itself from his throat.

“If you want me, Spencer Reid,” you whispered, “then I’m yours.”

“If I want you,” Spencer repeated with an incredulous laugh, “baby, I can’t think of anything I’ve ever wanted as much as I want you.”

Baby. The nickname made you even more desperate and you physically ached with how badly you wanted Spencer to just take you apart. You slid your thigh in between his legs, pushing against him just enough to make him hiss from the little bit of friction as you leaned forward, your lips brushing the shell of his ear.

“Then take me.”

————————-

Spencer was so beyond wrecked that it was a joke. Your breath was low and raspy and it dragged across his skin like a feather as he chased the friction he so desperately needed.

“Y/N I-“ he wanted to say something, do something to let you know how he was feeling, how badly he wanted to touch you, but the words died in his throat.

“Shh,” you interrupted, detangling your bodies and threading your fingers through his, “come with me.”

You pulled him, by his shaking hands, towards the bed, pushing him down gently onto the mattress and kissing him deeply. From there you stood between his legs and reached behind your back, slowly dragging the zipper keeping your dress fastened down. Spencer watched, in awe, as the slip of black fabric dropped to the floor, leaving more of your skin exposed to him than he’d ever dared to imagine.

He felt the blood rush to his groin so fast he was light headed. By the time his brain had caught up with his body, you’d placed his hand firmly on your lower stomach, and he trailed his thumb along the soft skin beneath your belly button. Spencer traced every curve of your body with his eyes, glancing over every scar, freckle and birthmark, just in case he’d never get the chance to see them again, and making a mental note to kiss each and every one.

Things felt different now, more deliberate. You were both too sober to blame anything that happened next on alcohol induced psychosis but, in that moment, Spencer couldn’t care less about the consequences.

“You alright there, doc?” You asked, worrying at your bottom lip.

Spencer snapped back into the present and tugged you close, “I told you not to call me that.” He teased, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you into a kiss.

Fuck tomorrow. Spencer wanted you today.

You collapsed onto his lap, gasping into his mouth as his dick pressed up against your barely covered core. Spencer took the opportunity to slip his tongue back into your mouth, groaning at the taste of your lips against his. You sighed, fiddling with the buttons of his shirt, and Spencer felt a lick of confidence shoot through him at the burning desperation he saw in your eyes.

“What do you want, baby?” He asked, dragging his teeth across your collarbone, “tell me what you want me to do.”

“You’re wearing too much,” you explained as the buttons of his shirt came undone one by one, “take this off right now.”

“What, no please?”

“Please, Spencer,” you whined.

“Yes ma’am,” he smiled, shrugging off his shirt.

You traced your fingers over the plains of his chest, feather light, and Spencer’s skin erupted with goosebumps. He shifted you off his lap and onto the bed, laying himself down between your legs and kissing a strip from your lips, down between the valley of your breasts, towards your belly button.

He reached the lace of your underwear and felt his mouth start to water in anticipation. Without really even thinking about it he shifted up so that he was taking up the space between your knees and his face was hovering right above your core, his warm breath dancing across your center.

“Fuck, baby,” he chuckled, running his index finger across your pussy and making you mewl with pleasure, “you’re so wet for me already.”

You nodded, your eyes screwed shut as he traced his fingers back and forth over the soaked strip of fabric and delicious little whimpers and sighs fell from your lips like prayers.

Spencer licked his lips, glancing up at you from his position between your thighs.

“Look at me,” he commanded. Your eyes shot open and Spencer smiled devilishly, “Lift your hips for me baby,” he said more gently.

When you obeyed he slid your underwear down and pressed his lips to your inner thigh, to the crook between your legs and your dripping pussy. You whimpered again, more desperately, as Spencer teased you, trailing his index finger gently between your folds as he kissed all around where you needed him most.

“Spencer,” you gasped, your eyes burning into his like hot coals, “Spencer, please.”

Holy shit, that sent a bolt of desire straight through him, and Spencer couldn’t help but growl, wrapping his arms around your thighs and pulling you down towards his mouth. And when you sighed into the cool air he swallowed it right up, drank in the sound of your pleasure like it was sunlight, and tucked it away somewhere in his brain, somewhere he could store the moment forever and never let it go.

“I’ve wanted to do this since the first moment I saw you,” he admitted, pressing one last kiss to your inner thigh and meeting your eye again, “I’m gonna make you scream for me, Y/N.”

————————-

And that he did. Before your mind could process much more than: fuck, fuck, fuck that’s so hot, Spencer’s mouth was on you, his tongue sliding between your lips like he was trying to devour you whole. It was embarrassing, really, how quickly he had you falling apart, how quickly he managed to have you moaning and gasping out his name as he flicked his tongue over your clit again and again and again. It was embarrassing because you really should have expected it, you should have known that he’d be every bit as good at this as he was at everything else because he’s Spencer and he’s fucking perfect and-

“Fuck,” you cried, twisting your fingers into his hair as he hitched your thighs over his shoulders, changing the angle ever so slightly and sliding a finger inside you, “Spence! God, yes-yes just like that, Spence, please!”

You tugged on his hair, pulling a moan from the back of his throat that went straight to your core, just making you needier and needier as Spencer continued taking you apart piece by piece. He slid in another finger, stretching you out just enough to make you ache for him and you swore you felt him smirk against your pussy as you choked out strings of broken syllables that could’ve been his name. He stuck to a leisurely pace, timing each pump of his fingers to a flick of his tongue across your clit. Slowly the pace increased, drawing out your ecstasy in measured increments that pushed you further and further towards the edge of a cliff.

“Spence I’m-” you whined, “fuck! Fuck, Spencer I’m close!”

The only indication he heard you was an increase in the pace of his tongue, sending pulses of white hot pleasure shooting through your body like lightning bolts. The pressure just kept building and building, taking you closer to the edge with each pump of his fingers and flick of his tongue. He worked another finger inside of you, curled it up, and almost instantly your muscles clenched, your vision went white and you just–

Shattered.

“Spencer!” You cried out, your back arching as your orgasm rolled over you like a tidal wave of pleasure so powerful that you felt your legs turn to jelly and the world vanished into nothing but pleasure and blinding light and Spencer, Spencer, Spencer.

He carried you through it, so gentle and attentive, lapping up every drop of you and stroking his hands gently over your hips and thighs.

“You’re so beautiful, Y/N,” he murmured into your hip bone as he lifted himself up.

You sighed, pulling him up and pressing your lips to his. You were wrecked, but blissfully so and, as you tasted yourself on his lips, you felt a lick of hunger rush through your overstimulated sex.

“You’ve said that already,” you smiled, nipping at his bottom lip.

“Only because it’s true,” Spencer breathed, his voice shaky with the effort of holding himself back.

You looked down at his still clothed legs, the hard line of his dick clear as day where it lay against your thigh. He was trembling with desire, his lips red and raw, his hair ruffled and unkempt, like some sort of portrait of a ruined man.

You licked your lips, “Why’re you still wearing these?” You asked, hooking your finger through Spencer’s belt loops and pulling them down over his hips.

Spencer smiled but, before he could come up with some clever retort, you’d flipped him over and straddled his waist. You leaned forward, capturing his lips in a messy kiss, all tongue and teeth and frantic breaths, as you shimmied off his boxers and ground yourself against his length.

“Y/N-“ Spencer breathed, his hands flying up to support your waist, “you don’t have to-“

“Shut up,” you interrupted, “I want you inside of me, Spencer.”

“Jesus Christ,” he laughed, somewhere between painfully turned on and painfully strung out, “You’re gonna kill me if you keep talking like that, baby.”

“Keep calling me baby and we’ll see what happens,” you teased back, punctuating your sentence with an intentional shift over his dick.

Spencer’s head fell back against the bed, and the sound wrenching itself from the back of his throat was so incredibly needy that you felt your pussy start to ache again. Spencer ran his hands along your thighs, his cock twitching against his stomach as you sighed into his touch.

“Are-fuck-” Spencer groaned as you moved along his length, “are you-?”

“I’m sure.” you whispered.

In one fluid movement you raised yourself up on your knees, captured his lips in a kiss and reached down between your bodies, lining his cock up with your entrance so that when he hissed at the contact and instinctively bucked his hips up-

“Holy shit,” he moaned as the first inch of his dick disappeared into your body, gripping your hips hard, like he couldn’t decide whether he was trying to stop you or just thrust into your body until he came, “You-oh my god, baby-” he gasped.

And you’re forced to sink down onto him slowly because-fuck-he was bigger than you thought he was, and it hurt, but it was electrifying and you wanted to take him more than anything in the world and and and-

You bottomed out and Spencer physically quivered from the effort of holding still, his hands roaming your body like he wanted to touch you everywhere, like he didn’t know what to do with himself. And his eyes were shot and his hair’s a mess and his bottom lip was red and raw where you bit it and, if he’d been more beautiful than he was in that moment you couldn’t remember so you kissed him. You poured every ounce of desire and tenderness and care into that kiss, like somehow he’d be able to understand, to see how important this felt, how absolutely cataclysmic it felt to have him inside of you.

Slowly, and with your lips still connected, you start to move your hips, setting a punishingly slow pace as the sounds of your bodies moving together started to fill the room. Spencer moaned against your lips, snapping his hips up against your and making you gasp as he filled every inch of you. He wanted to take control, to flip you over and pound into you until you were both tired and spent, but you kept it slow, building the foundations of your pleasure every bit as meticulously as he had.

“You’re gonna fucking kill me, Y/N,” he breathed against your lips, chasing you as you pull away, “you feel so fucking good-so-God-so tight for me.”

You nodded, “All for you.”

His answering moan was animalistic as he chased your kiss, pushing himself up so that you were seated in his lap with his one arm around your waist and the other reaching to stroke tight circles around your clit. The change in angle somehow managed to force Spencer deeper inside of you, brushing a patch of skin that made you see stars. Without warning he started to lift you up and slide you back down onto his cock, timing each with a snap of his hips that had you gasping and tugging at his hair like a maniac.

Mania was what it felt like, so intense and all encompassing that the rest of the world had ceased to exist. All that mattered was you and Spencer and the second orgasm you could feel rushing at you with every thrust.

“Spence-” you gasped as the coil in your stomach grew painfully tight, “Spence I’m gonna-I’m so close, please!”

“Come for me, baby,” he grunted, pushing down on your clit as he bottomed out.

Your orgasm was softer this time, less violent and shocking than sweet and deliberate, drawn out to a fine edge and, when you moaned and tossed your head back, losing yourself in the feeling of rightness, you just held him tightly and pulled his hair as the waves of pleasure crashed over you again. His thrusts were getting sloppy now, his breath ragged and desperate but, when you came, he looked into your eyes, and the total bliss in them sent him falling over the edge right behind you.

“Y/N.” he whispered, like it was something sacred, pulling you close as he climaxed, filling you up as his cock pulsed inside of you.

-------------------------

Spencer could tell that you were breathless and exhausted but, even so, you held him until the last shocks of his orgasm had subsided, leaving him tired and strung out as you detangled your bodies. You kissed him softly, vanishing into the bathroom to clean yourself up and leaving Spencer to do the same. He watched the bathroom door, listening as you turned the tap on and wondering what his next move should be.

You were colleagues, work friends, what you’d just done had broken about 10 different rules and would almost definitely mean a lot of trouble for you both if it ever came out. But, by the same token, it had felt so good. You’d wanted him, like really wanted him and he’d wanted you right back. It had been...special, important, more than just a poorly thought out hook up in a hotel, it had meant something. Hadn’t it?

When you reappeared from the bathroom with a robe wrapped around your naked body, Spencer physically felt his heart skip a beat. You. Were. Glorious. With your hair all messed up and just the faintest trace of your lipstick still staining your mouth, you were the closest thing to perfection he’d ever seen and, instinctively, he reached for your hand and pulled you back down onto the mattress beside him. You giggled as you fell, collapsing onto his chest with a sweet smile.

“So,” you started.

“So.” Spencer answered.

“Was all that in your profile, Agent Reid?” You asked teasingly, resting your chin on his chest and looking up at him, something sweet glimmering in your eyes.

“No,” Spencer laughed, shaking his head emphatically, “no, definitely not.”

“Well, it was in mine,” you joked, laying your head down again, “so you’d better up your game.”

“A more accurate profile would require a more intense level of study at this stage,” Spencer said, wrapping an arm around your shoulder.

You looked up, “Is that your way of saying you’d like to do this again sometime?”

He shook his head, but then nodded, “No-well, yes, but I was actually thinking something more...socially engaging? Something requiring clothes and conversation?”

“You mean like a date?”

Spencer looked down, meeting your gaze head on. The look on your face was so open, so trusting that it sent a flood of emotions straight into his chest and, for a moment, he felt as though he couldn’t breathe. He could love you, he realized. If he went down this road, he definitely would. He would love you and you would hold your heart in his hand and maybe, just maybe, that could be a good thing. Maybe he wanted to give you his heart. Maybe he wanted you to give him yours.

“Yeah, Y/N,” he answered, “exactly like a date.”

--------------

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jupitermelichios · 4 years ago

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What I’d change about Rise of Skywalker

To be clear, these are changes I’d make to the existing script, not what I would have written instead. We can all agree Sheev coming back was, at best, a bit dumb, I’m also fully aware that a lot of people disliked TLJ for a variety of reasons and wanted ros to retconn more stuff, but this is not an attempt to change any of that. I’m taking the basic structure of the movie and shifting stuff around to create something I think is tonally and thematically more in line with the overall trillogy.

Also i’m aware the extended universe is sort of canon-until-proven-otherwise at the moment but as far as i’m concered there was a DC style crisis and it’s now open season on worldbuilding elements

- Starting right at the very beginning, our opening crawl is now just about immortality being one of the secret sith powers Sheev kept hinting about in the prequels

- Our very first sequence in the movie is now a (short) montage of Sheev sending psychic messages to members of the First Order, telling them to join his secret sith club. It’s not just Kylo, this is a thing he’s just generally doing, Hux, Pryde, Kylo, random Storm Trooper number 7, they’re all getting this same message.

- Kylo buggers off to go murder Sheev, because Snoke never actually let him graduate (or whatever modern sith do) so he’s not actually a sith lord, but he’s like ah, new/old sith lord is in town, I go kill him and I get to take his title by right of conquest rule of one styley, and also take out a threat to my power base. Also in the one scene we see of him interacting with the first order it’s pretty clear he actually really fucking hates being in charge, so a mission to kill Sheev is looking super win-win

- The reason Exigor is sacred to the Sith now, the reason Palpatine’s able to communicate accross planets, and the reason he’s still alive (ish) are all the same - the planet “has a heart... oF KAIIIBURRRRRR!” (yes the line should be delivered exactly like that) that amplified force powers

- Instead of just being Ian McDermott in white facepaint, Sheev’s design draws heavily on Darth Nihilus or Darth Sion, his body is dead or maybe nonexistant depending on how gross they’re prepared to go. The point is, the answer to the question ‘how the fuck did he survive?’ should be essentially ‘he didn’t’; he’s a consiousness and a fuckton of willpower and not much else

- We establish a temple/cult in this universe that worships twin gods and are generally all about balance and shit coming in twos and they think force diads are sacred. I’m thinking someone at the temple has resistance information, and when Rey and Poe visit, Poe goes to talk to the contact while Rey meditates and sees Luke’s ghost who tells her how he and Leia came here together and about their belief system and how there are different ways of connecting to the force than just being a jedi, setting up the plot point of the diad, our theme of ‘the people we love are never really gone’, and also laying the groundwork for what’s going to be a second theme of building something new rather than repeating the mistakes of the past, by establishing the sith/jedi dichotomy isn’t the only possible path to take.

- Rose and Finn are bored and stuck on base while their friends are on this mission, so when they get a distress call from a minor First Order base they go off to investigate. They find Hux, who’s been ousted in a coup in favour of the First Order just straight up following Sheev after Kylo wondered off, who promises them information. At this base, Finn also sees some young storm trooper cadets.

- Back at the rebel base they all meet up and Hux (who they’ve taken prisoner) tells them about Sheev being back, which they didn’t know about because he’s only been speaking to bad guys.

- Leia is already dying, Rey is super upset about it and during an accidental mind share, Kylo finds out and tells her Sidious knows how to heal people by transferring life energy from one person to another. The healing thing is specifically a Sith power this go around. We get a moment pretty soon after during a mission where someone gets injured, probably Finn, and she figures out how to heal them based on the hints Kylo gave her

- Also this time Leia still isn’t a jedi but not because of a prophesy, it’s because she disagrees with their philosophy, which is going to be relevant later. We get a line to the effect that ‘Luke didn’t grow up surrounded by the legacy of the Jedi’s failings, I did’

- The weird knife thing isnt anymore, it’s just a hollicron now, and the whole bit with both Lando and Rey’s parents and the bonty hunter are removed to give us breathing room elsewhere, it’s just a more tradtional fetch quest now.

- In order to get the holicron translated, Poe’s like “you’re not going to like this, but I maybe know a guy from doing undercover missions”, and takes them to Black Sun to speak to Darth Maul, that’s right, Darth Maul is here now, and he helps them because his prosthetics are breaking down and Rose fixes them and saves his life. Also he’s pretty pissed at Sheev for getting him killed so he’s totally chill with them killing the guy.

- The Hollicron tells them that the last known map to Exigor was stored in the archives of the temple of Corisant.

- They go to the ruins of the temple, a place that is both nostaligic and also has actual character significance to kylo and ties into our theme of how the jedi and the sith are both a bit shit, and even though it makes more sense for it to have been cleaned up, it’s full of little baby skeletons from Anakin’s massacre, just for the drama of it

- Rey and Kylo fight, he taunts her again with the promise of healing Leia, but this time Rey uses their bond and her knowledge of how to talk to force ghosts to basically force Kylo’s third eye wide open so he’s hearing a hundred force ghosts all at one, stabs him while he’s distracted, heals him, and then she fucks off, leaving him to talk to the force ghost of Anakin, who tells him he’s a moron who’s falling for the same bullshit Sheev used on him

- Rey joins up with the others, but at the Rebel base Hux has managed to escape and shoots Leia (it’s dramatic and she dies saving someone but it’s not actually particularly plot relevant so imagine your own death scene of choice here), and obviously Rey feels it

- At this point the gang split up, Poe and Rose go back the the Rebels because they know they’ll be needed, Finn goes off to rescue the storm trooper kids he saw earlier (yeah I’m adding a subplot what’re you going to do about it), and Rey goes off to fight Palpatine

- In the temple, Leia appears to Kylo as a force ghost while he’s doing dramatic ‘i can’t go on’ kneeling pose and gives him a little pep talk and name drops the title

- Finn goes to the first order base, finds the kids, and the little ones are on board with escaping but then they run into some teenagers who actually have guns and it cuts away on a ‘will they turn him in?” cliffhanger

- Rey arrives in Sheev’s big cave thing, tries to fight him but he’s all ‘the jedi could not defeat me before, what makes you think they can now when you’re barely more than a padawan’ and force lightnings her a bit. They’re not related in this universe, he just wants to steal her lifeforce to heal himself more because she’s powerful

- Turns out that the First Order have been tracking Hux, so they know where the Rebel base is so there’s a big space battle going on, and the First Order don’t even have any fancy secret weapon but there’s a lot of them and there’s not enough Rebel ships left after TLJ. Poe’s up in the air flying even though he’s the boss now, and Rose is on the comms trying to contact allies

"This is the Rebellion, please. In the name of Leia Organa, we're calling you. Please, if there's anyone out there. For Leia Organa, for Luke Skywalker, for Amilyn Holdo, please…" and then when there's no response, in tears, she whispers, "For Rose Tico, please!"

There's a beat of silence, and then the radio crackles to life.

"Rose Tico calls for aid, and Black Sun will answer."

A moment later another, "Leia Organa calls for aid and Cloud City will answer."

and then a moment later, “The Rebellion calls for Aid and the Free Troopers will answer” and we cut to Finn in a stolen First Order ship full of the trooper cadets of all ages.

A makeshift amada joins the fight, same as in the original version, and rose and circular briad crown girl who’s also been trying to call for back up hug in celebration and have a very brief ‘oh wait maybe i’m into you’ moment

- Back on Exigor, Kylo arrives to find Rey on the floor, dying. He takes her hand and we see them as spirits, surrounded by the flickering memories of their lives, they’re seeing one another properly for the first time, and they ackoledge one another as twins via the force (personally i’d make them explicitly siblings, by force if not blood, here to carry on the proud star wars tradition of ambiguously incestuous twins, but that might not fly with disney execs in the the 21st century), and then he gives her his life force to heal her and his last words are a title drop again, mirroring what Leia said to him, because this movie is cheesy as hell

- "The power of the Jedi could have lived in you, as the power of the sith lives in me. But instead you threw it away, for what? For that pathetic little boy? He was no more a true sith than you are a true Jedi!"

"I don't need to be a Jedi. The force is with me, and I am with the force. You have the sith. I have all that was and is and will be!"

Behind her force ghosts begin to appear, but not just jedi. There is as many of the Skywalker clan as we can get (including some reused green screen footage of Carrie Fisher), and Rose's sister, and Han, and people visually implied to be Poe and Finn’s parents, and Holdo, and behind them hundreds of others. Basically if we can afford them, they’re cameoing here, alongside a load of extras. And last of all, standing beside her is Ben.They exchange a look, and then Rey strikes. Palatine tries to force lightning her but it doesn't work, and she presses her hands to his cloak, pulls the life force out if him. Thes a terrible screaming and we see glimpses of the other sith, before they dissipate and the robe falls to the ground.

And obviously the space battle also gets definitively won at the same time, this is movieland, I’m thinking Finn and Poe have to coordinate an attack that relies on Finn using the force is that vague ‘jedi’s are all amazing pilots’ way episodes 1 and 4 both used

Oh and then at the end they’re all celebrating back on the Rebel base, and Finn starts to hit on Rose and she’s like “I’m not the one you want to say that too, also you’re not my type” and smooches circular braid-crown girl who’s been in the background of all these movies with nothing to so

Finn joins Poe and Rey and they all hug in the same ambigiously-poly way they did in the original, and then Poe’s like “I’m sorry about Kylo” kind of awkward because he still hates the guy but he knows Rey doesn’t, and Rey’s like ‘I’m not, the people we love never really leave us’

and then the final scene, Rey is carrying Kylo’s lightsabre and lays Luke’s and Leia’s on the altar of the temple of the twins, and goes to ask the priests to tell her about their religion, with the implication that she’s starting to build her own new version of the jedi

(and if I was disney this would totally be the set up for a new animated series about Rey travelling around the galaxy meeting new weird alien cultures and learning about what cool force powers they have, and the knights of Ren can be the bad guys, and sometimes she’ll come and help Finn and Poe and Rose with trying to rebuild the galaxy. And then they have to take out Black Sun in season 2 and it’s all super dramatic because they were allies sort of and had cameos, and now rey and maul are forced to have super cool spider-legs lightsabre battles instead)

#long post #rise of skywalker #ros #script doctor #star wars #its not perfect by any means #i did like the 3po and chewie screen time from the original that i cut here #but it gives rose and finn a reason to be in the story #genuinely shifts the status quo in a way the original didn't #and cuts a fair amount of unecessary faffing about #i wanted it to be more of an ensemble cast #there's a lot of good characters in this movie #but ros just didn't make room for them all #i also tried to make things a little bit less contrived #i'll admit part of these changes may actually just be because i'm more nostalgic for the prequels than the original trilogy #but i also felt like the parallels they were draweing between anakin and kylo #made havig references to the preqels make a lot of sense

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inconveniententity · 4 years ago

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I just had an epiphany about tgwdlm

All of the main characters were killed by their greatest desires/worst fears (they overlap as opposites)

Sorry this is going to be long:

Ted (Joey Richter) - wanted love and friendship, but was a self-absorbed asshole. His desire was his selfish care about only his own survival, while his worst fear was to be unloved and having no connections. This, though played as a joke, is shown by his heartfelt confession to both Paul and Emma, right before he let's them hanging. Traces of that can also be found in his affair with and treatment of Charlotte. He was then killed after he lied and told the army that he was the only survivor just to get out. He was killed by his own selfishness (desire) , having cut any ties of friendship or love himself (fear).

Bill (Corey Dorris)- wanted to reconnect with his daughter. This doesn't need much interpretation, since his love for her is stated clearly several times throughout the show. His worst fear being that she secretly hates him is also explicitly stated in the song 'not your seed' where the aliens use Bill's desires and fears to manipulate him. He then is literally killed by his dead daughter.

Charlotte (Jaime Lyn Beatty) - desperately wants her marriage with Sam to work out. For years she has tried to rekindle their old flame, but Sam isn't loyal to her and, quite frankly, a dick. Her greatest fear, I presume, would be losing Sam. It only is 'Sam' already lost to her when she dies, he is lost in more ways than one. Firstly, he has long given up on them and has an affair with Zoey. Second, he is also technically dead when he kills her. So Charlotte, quite as literally as Bill, gets killed by her greatest desire (a loving 'Sam') and greatest fear (a lost Sam).

Professor Hidgens(Robert Manion) - His musical "Working Boys" is quite obviously a self-insert piece of writing and his greatest desire is stated along the lines of the pitch for the plot line. He is very nostalgic about some old college friends (there may even be some queer attraction there, as he seems quite queer coded in his antics and flamboyance, but maybe that is just my own lgbtq+ butt reading too much into it) and longs for the days when he wasn't old and lonely. He desires to go back to his friends and their time spent together. Concluding from this I'd say his greatest fear is the reality of these days, and his friends, being long gone. And, as I said it's a reality, they are. In that regard the circumstances of his death very much resemble those of Charlotte (and Bill) , in that he's killed by the musical doppelganger of people he loves, while deluding himself into thinking all his dreams have come true, when in actuality, it is his fears that did.

Paul(Jon Matteson) - is The-Guy-who-doesn't-like-MusicalsTM and literally dies singing and dancing in. A. MUSICAL. (not much to be said here.) The (throwaway?) line of "I've never been happy" and much of the following lyrics from the song "Let it out" indicate that Paul's own indignance and insistance both regarding musicals but also in life (think of his interactions with the Greenpeace girl and the homeless man for example) might not have been completely honest opinions/reactions of him (as well as he obviously lied to Greenpeace girl and Homeless guy). My interpretation is, that he wanted to be a hero, and a good man, but his selfishness (not quite as bad as Ted's but I still think its selfishness) got in the way of that. So his greatest desire was, in my interpretation, that he could still be a hero beneath all of his average-ness. Since he did (almost?) destroy the meteor (the show is not clear about whether he actually didn't, or whether Emma's theory of all the aliens dying with the meteor is simply untrue) AND is the title character, I think it's safe to say that he died for his greatest desire: Being a hero.

Finally, Emma Perkins (Lauren Lopez) - She states her greatest desire used to be getting out of Hatchetfield. And connected to that her greatest fear: dying in Hatchetfield. When Paul states it could be worse, she "could be dying in Clivesdale", it is played as a joke, but I think there's still some truth to it. Though I think these thoughts are relevant and do play into the pattern, I wouldn't actually call them here greatest fears/desires. Another thought of Emma is the more subtle hint at being useless, the desire tied to the fear being that of making something out of her life. And in the end, she doesn't. When the Musical comes to a conclusion Emma is exactly where she started out: a tiny, boring, nondescript town in the US that she clearly hates. And even though she has just gained access to land to fulfil her dream of starting a pot farm, she (probably) dies before she can do so. The object of her desire: a way out, an escape (both from the hated home town and the musical zombies) in form of the deed for the land, has just come to her, when she realizes she will never actually get out and will always have had a 'useless' (the Character's own view, not mine) life. (This is even further accentuated by her requests to Colonel Schaffer to have given the story of her former legal person more drama; more of a cause).

TLDR:

So yeah, in conclusion I think all the main characters died of their greatest desires, that are (in some cases more than others) directly linked to their greatest fears. Tgwdlm is not a comedy. It is a tragedy.

#the guy who didn't like musicals #tgwdlm #tgwdlm meta #meta #team starkid

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shadowsong26fic · 3 years ago

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Coming Attractions!

A day late, but ah well...

As usual, we’ll go ahead and do an Open Question Night. Which basically means that, while my ask box is always open, tonight I’ll be keeping an eye on it and answering things as they come in. Any fandom or work I’ve talked about here (or posted on AO3) is fair game, as are general questions about writing, etc. I do accept prompts, but I am. Not very good at filling them in a timely manner unless they Immediately spark something, lol.

So, yeah, what’s on your mind?

Also, since I don’t think I have for a couple months, plug for my Discord server! It’s pretty quiet, mostly intended to be a slightly more interactive extension of this space, but you’re welcome to check it out!

Anyway, the usual Coming Attractions details are behind the cut!

PodTogether 2021:

I participated in this challenge for the first time this year, and it was a whole lot of fun! Of Other Suns is a SW/AtLA crossover, and I think it turned out pretty well! My reader/podficcer and I worked pretty closely together during the initial brainstorming process, working out what we wanted to do, and also bounced off one another during the whole editing/finalizing process. There’s a lot that I didn’t end up putting into the fic (because time and length; I am a. Uh. Very wordy writer; the aim was for 6-12k words, we ended up with nearly 15k as it is...), so I might poke more at this specific AU, or crossovers linking up at a different time (either a different point in the SW canon, or in the AtLA canon, or both). I...definitely have extensive headcanons for SW characters as benders of various elements (or nonbenders), and there are at least two Force-sensitive AtLA characters who were outside the scope of the crossover.

Anyway, if you want to check it out...click this link XD (and definitely listen to the podfic too!!! It’s really great)

Precipice:

So, between the final push on PodTogether and some origfic stuff I got done, I...did not get anything finished and posted for this, alas. But! I am saying it here in the hopes that doing so publicly will for once get me to actually stick to a deadline, which is that I will get either the first Protectors chapter or the next Preludes one-shot (or both!) up by this Sunday, September 12. The Protectors chapter will be mostly scene-setting, establishing where various characters are when we open, six years after we last saw our heroes. The Preludes segment will involved Hondo contacting Obi-Wan (and Anakin, who’s with him when he gets the call) about something Relevant To Their Interests.

I will for sure get that Prelude out this month, and hopefully at least two Protectors chapters, but we’ll see how things go at work and how much brain that takes, which is always a factor...anyway, with any luck, I’ll start establishing a Rhythm. I don’t think I’ll be doing weekly updates, the way I did for the first few arcs of Precipice (in part because there are some other longform projects I intend to start putting out and if I am going to do Weekly Fic Posts, I’ll probably alternate), but we’ll see how things go.

AtLA Fic:

Again, I didn’t finish what I wanted to (other than the aforementioned crossover for PodTogether), but I have been working on stuff in the background and, while I’m not going to commit to a Specific Deadline like I am for Precipice, I do plan to post at least the opening chapter of the still-untitled Avatar Zuko AU I’ve been working on this month, so watch this space!

Other Fic Projects:

I’m poking around at what to do for next years SWBB (if only because my wordcounts have been Steadily Increasing and I’d like to get a head start in anticipation of that happening again this year, lol). Still considering exactly what to do, whether I pour all my focus into OFLAM, like I consider every year, or see if I can work up Bail Unfucks the Timeline or another half-plotted AU I have in the back of my head, or go with a different prompt/storyline that occurs to me at some point between now and then, but I’m starting to Actively Ponder things.

I do have that BSG1 crossover outline in the works, I swear XD I’ve got...uh...maybe half to two thirds of the first third of the overall storyline written up? XD It’s a. Uh. Long one. I might go ahead and release it in three parts, just for length/convenience, and because it does more or less have three distinct sections (the initial contact/New Caprica fallout and establishment of the Haven settlement which makes sense in context; the second contact/algae planet; and then an adventure on a resurrection ship to retrieve a Specific Boxed Five and possibly walk away with Ellen because that would just ruin Cavil’s day and I do so love to ruin Cavil’s day, lol). ...I’m going to go ahead and post a preview snippet at the bottom of this post, as Motivation XD

I think that’s all the fanfic stuff I have specific updates for. There’s generally always stuff noodling around in my brain (lately, for Star Wars, AtLA, BSG, or some combination of the three), it’s just how much of it materializes, lol.

At some point, I plan to revisit some BSG epics I had going on (Serenissima; rewriting For Sorrow Sung or doing a slightly different storlyine with the same concept; The Other Battlestar; a few others), but no concrete plans as of yet.

I also kind of want to explore a far-past AtLA setting I designed for a challenge community way back? But I’m not sure if that would work better as an original work with the serial numbers filed off, if I could figure out how I wanted to do that (I have done it before, as I’ll talk about below, but this concept, while not directly involving any characters from Avatar canon as it’s set 2000 years prior to Sozin’s reign, does to an extent lean on the Avatar specifically as a concept, in a way that the other fic I did this with did not).

Original Fic:

Due to a challenge on rainbowfic, I actually got. Quite a bit written? Most of it was not super plot-relevant, but I dropped some Hints about a character in Lux and I got to play in some heads I don’t very often. I might go back to the Regency AU at some point, and there’s a specific reveal I want to write up for a secondary character in The Farglass Cycle, but I haven’t quite figured out how to structure that one, so we’ll see how it goes.

Had an interesting discussion the other day about the way original fiction sometimes starts as fanfic with the serial numbers filed off and...well, a lot of my original stuff starts that way? Or has some roots there, anyway.

Lux doesn’t quite as much, but I definitely ported in at least two characters who started as fanfic characters (leaving aside that this is, y’know, The Apocalypse IN SPACE so, like. Various fandoms that deal with that probably influenced things, plus several key players are Public Domain Characters sooooo), plus some of the way the world is constructed draws on the Native Tongue trilogy and I flat-out stole a concept from Queen of the Damned, though the way it works in this world is different (also, to be fair, I think I’ve seen it in other places, too; but I personally got the idea from there).

The Farglass Cycle and Untitled Intrigues Story, however, straight-up started as fanfic concepts. And I don’t think it’s obvious unless I point out what the source materials were? Farglass, in particular (it’s the AtLA fic I mentioned earlier), because it started as an alternate future and then the map and magic system got reworked, plus the Avatar themself wasn’t even super involved in the original fic context, and while certain characters are very loosely based on AtLA characters, by now they’ve been so altered by the setting that it’s...I used the same archetypes, if that makes sense?

And then Untitled Intrigues Story started as a fusion between two wildly different fandoms, and while one character is a pretty clear expy if you know where he comes from, and another character kept the same actress in my head, I don’t think it’s very clear other than that.

...anyway, not sure where I’m going with that, other than it’s been in my head lately, lol.

...I think that about covers it! What about you guys? What are you all working on? Slash any questions, etc.?

Teaser for BSG1 AU outline, as promised:

So, anyway, SG-1 is prepared for rain and mud and a survivable-but-kinda-unpleasant environment. They’re also prepared for the usual shenanigans--Goa’uld, cranky local politics, weird alien tech that Daniel really should know better than to touch but sends him into another dimension anyway...

Just. Y’know. A normal mission.

They’re...not quite prepared for what they actually find when they step through.

Which is a very tense and now slightly Confused crowd of people, and a firing squad made up of very large killer robots, with a teenage girl as their target.

(One of the large killer robots is. Uh. Well. Half a large killer robot now; that particular Centurion was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got kawooshed in the face. As one does.)

(Said Centurion absolutely wins the ‘Weirdest Death’ pool for the week in Download City, because that is clearly a thing that exists because it entertains me)

There’s a beat where everyone just stares at everyone else, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

The wormhole disengages.

Daniel takes half a step forward, opens his mouth to start the ‘we are peaceful explorers from Earth and y’all seem to be having a Moment here, sorry for interrupting, but, uh...’

And then the moment end and absolute chaos erupts.

#coming attractions #open question night #shadowsong writes star wars #shadowsong writes atla #shadowsong writes crossovers #shadowsong writes original fic #feedback greatly appreciated

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clownao · 4 years ago

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Anyways... I think Kayano has a LOT of potential? And while her reveal shocked me initially, it made sense later on. I think her concept is super interesting, so kudos to Matsui.

The thing I’ve always liked about her character is that: she fooled everyone. Her friends, her teachers, and even the readers. She explained how she wanted to be a “side character” and played the “sweet, kind, sidekick” role pretty well, both in universe and out of it. When I first watched AssClass, I thought Kayano was basic and boring and she was just there to be Nagisa’s supporter. WHICH WAS exactly the role Akari was trying to play. People were talking about how Nagisa (her cover) and Kayano looked like twins. She didn’t want to attract attention. She didn’t want people to care about her. And she did it splendidly. And Matsui managed to shock everybody with her reveal. It lowkey felt like a fourth wall breaking moment when Akari talked about how she created Kayano’s personality.

And there were hints about her true identity too!! We have the panels where a bit of her tentacles show, but there’s also the part when she put on a play for the kids at the nursery, hinting to her career as an actress. And she refused to act in the school drama festival, possibly to hide her skills. And maybe you thought her pudding assassination was over-the-top and Kayano was just crazily obsessed with pudding? Yeah!! She WAS purposely making it ridiculous so people would just think she was a normal girl who ridiculously liked pudding! And everyone fell for it, even us!

This is a headcanon, but I think she used her “I don’t like big boobs” thing to avoid interacting with Irina and Yada. They’re both rather skilled actresses, so in my headcanon Kayano is afraid they can see through her act.

And Shiro also hinted he knew about Kayano by talking about “a hidden assassin” in the class or something, and everyone immediately assumed he was talking about Nagisa, which is of course a very logical conclusion considering we’ve seen Nagisa in action. But in the manga panels when Shiro talks about the assassin, you can see both Nagisa and Kayano, but the readers quickly focus on Nagisa. Nagisa is used as a red herring and it’s done pretty masterfully imo. Akari later stated she used Nagisa’s bloodlust to hide her own, and Matsui managed to make the readers do the same.

And Akari.... Akari was the catalyst for Korosensei to reveal his past, and thus a sort of catalyst for Civil War. Her arc was the turning point of the story, when the readers start to realise things were getting serious and the class can’t return to their normal, happy lives of assassination anymore.

Akari was also the link between Korosensei’s past and present. She thought she was a victim of Korosensei (she thought he killed her sister) but he ended up being a brilliant teacher and saved her from her bloodlust. Even though Akari wasn’t a victim of “mass murderer Korosensei”, she was still a victim of “human experiment Korosensei”. But later, she learns Korosensei isn’t who she thought he was, and even advocated to save him during the Civil War. I think her change in attitude can really show Korosensei’s redemption.

Anyways... I think she could’ve been better developed after her reveal, but her character and concept is extremely interesting and thought provoking. Readers probably think she was like the weakest out of the RGB trio in terms of plot relevance, but she’s actually really significant to the story. And the fact that she (and Matsui) managed to hide her plot relevance both in universe and out of it was pretty damn cool.

#assassination classroom #ansatsu kyoushitsu #kayano kaede #is this what yall call a meta lmao #yukimura akari

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astrarche-x · 4 years ago

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I read “Fangirl” by Rainbow Rowell after I finished 2 books I got for Christmas. It was staring at me from my sister’s shelf and I’ve heard something good about this book, Rowell is also quite famous YA author, so I decided to give it a try.

It certainly didn’t match my expectations; in fact, my disappointment grew with every page and I grew tired of the heroine, Cath - an introverted first year college student and fanfic writer- and other characters.

Why so?

- At first, I thought that snippets of Cath’s fanfics are a cool addition to the book, because it’s such a crucial part of this character, and I also thought that they will be somehow related to the events happening in-universe. But they weren’t! They didn’t help me as a reader to understand Cath, didn’t expand my understanding of the events of the plot, didn’t really give me any “story within a story” because they were so fragmented (I know there is a whole book about Simon Snow, but that’s not relevant now, is it?) and I already felt like I knew Cath’s writing style after like 3 examples, so idk why there were so many.

- I felt like the characters don’t develop at all. And what’s the point of the story if it’s not character development? In the end of the book, the only thing different from the starting point is the fact that the heroine has a boyfriend. She isn’t more open, she’s still talking to like 2-3 people (and writing is not like a movie, adding a character doesn’t cost you money, right?) and it’s not like those relationships change a lot. Cath and her roommate Reagan? They form a bond in the middle part of the book and it stays the same. Wren, Cath’s twin sister? They lose contact during the plot and Wren has a new friend to prove she’s a separate person, but eventually they make amends and sisters are together again. The other friend disappears. No big talk about being separate people but still needing each other, no reflecting on that in any way; they make amends and then Wren is just there, spending a lot of time with Cath like her own life never happened. Relationship with dad and mum? Stays the same, even though they were written in a way that suggests big plot points.

- Levi, Cath’s boyfriend. He doesn’t have an inner life. He’s just a smiling, nice guy with learning difficulties. But Cath can always feel safe with him and count on him; honestly, how is he different from her ex? Also some can say that Cath and Levi were cute tohether and they kind of were, but for me it was too much sugar and when their relationship became the focal point of the plot I couldn’t take it anymore. How many times a writer can describe the same physical features with exactly the same words? Like yeah, we get it, the character is in love, change the subject.

(Also his attempts at unneccessary chivalry... ugh. Not cute).

- Nick from the library. He was actually the guy I was shipping Cath with (and myself as well, if I had the chance). They had so much chemistry! But it was also strongly hinted at that he won’t be the endgame; in fact, I don’t really see the point of his existence as a character. He’s Cath’s crush, but after he stops playing this role, he’s mentioned only twice and then dropped completely. But the point of him being the crush and the writing buddy/rival is not even relevant! It’s not reflected in Cath in any way except that she’s a bit sad.

- Cath doesn’t develop as a writer. Actually, after reading a few sentences about how writing is so important for Cath etc, I thought that I would see more of her as a writer, but mostly it looks like “...and she wrote 5000 words that night”. No description of creative process. Talk about how her life influences her writing: 2 times (at the end of the book). Pressure from readers who? I don’t know her. Also I was really surprised that she said “I only ever want to write fanfiction, I want nothing of my own!” - like... who would say that? Sure, they are people who just write fanfiction as a hobby, but there are others who start with fanfic and then create their own stories, so if Cath is an established fanfic writer and went on to study English lit and take creative writing class, then having her say something like this sounds super fake.

- Cath herself was a boring protagonist. And I’m not saying this because she was an introvert. Lots of introverts make interesting protagonists; take, for example, Offred from The Handmaid’s tale. Cath is boring not only because she literally sits in her room and cries for like half of the book (giving me Rodion Raskolnikov vibes and he annoyed me like hell), but also because so little of her inner life is described in detail. Like, c’mon, I’ve opened this book, I want to know what’s going on in her head. But instead of paragraphs of her thoughts, we are only given a sentence, maybe two or three. And one of them sounds often like “she thought about all the reasons she had to dislike their mother” but then none of said reasons is listed, making this sentence effectively worthless. Very often Cath’s remarks about other people are repeated; I don’t even want to count how many times she noticed that Levi smiled a lot. And then she noticed noticing it; and then she noticed him smiling even more times. Seriously that’s his only feature? (That and his hair). Because this makes the heroine very unobservant; I don’t want to look at the world through her eyes, because it’s nothing there to see.

- Cath as a (titular) fangirl: she doesn’t really interact with the fandom during the course of the actions in other way than writing and that’s... unusual? Who limits themselves to only one form of fan content? I know she had merch and fanart, but she doesn’t interact with other fans (except for her sister and a random stranger). She also mentions having internet friends at the very beginning, which I assume would be very likely for a fanfic author of her status. Then her roommate says “internet friends are not real” (yes. literally.) and Cath’s internet friends are not mentioned again, because, you know, internet friends are irrelevant to your real life. Generally this book makes it look like belonging to a fandom was about the merch you own and maybe writing your fanfic, if that’s what you use as a coping mechanism for real life. No talk of reading other fanfics, visiting sites like Tumblr or other blogs, no interaction with other fans, no conventions, stuff like this. It made fandom look like something for sad and lonely people, and while it kind of is, it’s also a source of joy and satisfacton for many; in Cath’s case, I only saw it as a straw to which a drowning man clutches.

(Also I found it kinda weird that sex in this book is like Schrodinger’s cat: existent and nonexistent at the same time. Does Cath write erotic scenes? I guess. Is it adressed? Yes. And then immediately dismissed in order not to talk about it. She also wants it and doesn’t want it at the same time, which is fine irl, but confusing in a book, especially when she doesn’t reflect at that confusion much).

I thought I will see in Cath a glimpse of myself - first year of uni was also stressful for me (even though I’m certainly not an internet-famous writer). But she was almost extremely unrelatable. And then I started comparing “Fangirl” with “Loveless” by Alice Oseman, which has very similar setting - first year, loneliness, outgoing roommate, introverted protagonist having trouble opening up, breaking of a sisterly bond, fanfiction (even though Georgia, the protagonist, only reads it). I’d recommend “Loveless” a lot more. You won’t get much talk of the writing process, but hey, you weren’t getting it anyway. You will be given queer characters instead.

My final thought was that I’m probably just too old for “Fangirl”. That it was written for 17-year-olds who are anxious about going to college. But my sister is 17-year-old who is anxious about going to university and she didn’t like this book either (this post is brought to you by our displeased brainstorming last night), so it’s probably just bad, shallow writing.

#fangirl rainbow rowell #rainbow rowell #fangirl book review #well... sort of #loveless #book ramblings #follow up to that angry post from earlier

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thelightofthingshopedfor · 4 years ago

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Dear Yuletide writer,

I’m 100indecisions on AO3. just based on numbers of requests/offers in the signup summary, it seems fairly likely that you matched with me on Avengers Academy, but it’s also slightly possible it was Silent Hill 3 or The Bifrost Incident. numbers also indicate nobody else requested or offered my other two fandoms, but I’m including them here anyway in case you or anyone else wants to take a stab at them. (there’s also this post if you want a little more info about why these fandoms are cool and where to find them.)

regardless! the important thing as always is that you have fun writing the fic, and for the most part everything that follows is just a suggestion. whatever you come up with, I’m sure I’ll love it.

I feel like…most of the fandoms I requested aren’t too likely to lead to fics with my major DNWs, probably. I wouldn’t want to see dubcon or significant manipulation in a relationship that’s supposed to be positive and healthy, for instance. I’m not opposed to explicit sex scenes of any kind, although I often end up skimming them because I’m the type of ace person who is just Not Interested in most of the physical aspects, so…you’re welcome to write sex scenes if it’s relevant but you absolutely don’t have to feel like you need to.

in general, my biggest DNW is unhappy endings. I’m thrilled to see my favorite characters go through all kinds of hell to get there, so for most of these I would be very happy to get something tagged Crueltide, but I also like things to be okay or at least hopeful by the end. if canon is the unhappy part in one way or another, I’m always happy to read fix-it fics. Between post-canon fix-its that could reasonably happen in the future and canon-divergence AUs where things are okay now because of some mid-canon change, I have a slight preference for the former, but both are good.

as for stuff I like, well, the other thing implied by my main DNW is that I do often enjoy fairly dark fics, as long as they end okay. I also like Loki a lot, as you can probably guess from my requests. if you ended up matching me on Avengers Academy Loki or Bifrost Incident Loki, and/or you want to take a stab at one of the other Loki-centric requests, the Loki fics I’ve actually written are pretty representative of stuff I like in my Loki fics, which basically boils down to “sympathetic interpretations always, with loads of angst and/or whump on the way to a reasonably happy ending”. I tend to take a somewhat lighter tone in general with my Avengers Academy fics (I’ve written several of those and only one of them doesn’t involve Loki at all, so…yeah I have a one-track mind where Loki is concerned), although I did also write a pretty damn whumpy fic for AvAc Loki. I’m very invested in the relationship between Thor and Loki as brothers, although Thorki is usually a personal squick. for things that aren’t necessarily Loki-related, I like found families and deep friendships, sibling bonds, stories about characters reclaiming their own agency from some outside force and/or figuring out how to take control of their own narratives, and probably plenty of other things that aren’t coming to mind at the moment. I’m equally good with plotty fics and little slice-of-life or introspective pieces. I will always always always be happy to see queer characters, especially asexual ones.

more detail about my specific requests, basically just expanded versions of what I wrote in my sign-up:

Silent Hill 3 (Heather Mason). I love this game and that’s mostly because of Heather–she’s resourceful, brave, and incredibly tough, and the game is essentially all about her reclaiming her agency (in a very literal, physical way) from people who used her for their own ends. Anything that gets into Heather’s head would be great, whether it’s a missing scene of some kind during the game or something afterward that explores what she does next, how she recovers from a frankly massive amount of trauma, and how she reconciles the various layers of her identity. The ways in which Heather, Cheryl the child, and Alessa both are and are not the same person are endlessly fascinating to me, and it seems like she probably has a lot of weird memories bouncing around in her head at this point--and possibly some extra trauma from Alessa’s memories of things Heather never physically experienced, as if she doesn’t have enough to deal with already. I would also really love to see something involving Angela and/or Maria from Silent Hill 2; I’m not sure how the timelines would line up (although realistically, considering the setting, that part would be trivial to handwave) but the way Heather basically said “fuck you, you don’t own me” to the cult makes me want to see other female characters find their own agency as well, and it would be really awesome if Heather found a way to help them do that, either by helping them directly or just by influencing the way the town operates. in general, I love these games for their atmosphere and symbolism, so anything you can do along those lines would be great.

Avengers Academy (Loki, Thor). I still miss this game. I especially miss Loki, who was a snarky little bastard but really not a bad dude. Mostly I’d be thrilled to see anything that focuses on him (or her, I super loved Loki’s canonical genderfluidity) developing actual friendships at the academy, with any characters who might be relevant (Steve, Natasha, America Chavez, Nebula, Union Jack, Angela, Jane Thor, really anybody). Working things out with Thor and/or the rest of his family is always good too; Loki’s Frost Giant storyline didn’t involve Thor at all, for instance, probably because it was written long before Thor was added to the game, so I’d be interested to see how things went when he found out his brother was a Frost Giant. I’m also always happy to see crossovers of some kind with other Marvel universes, especially considering AvAc was an interesting patchwork of film and comics canon; meta stuff where characters are aware of their multiverse counterparts is always fun (again, my own AvAc fics are pretty representative of what I like…and if you wanted to build off anything in those, I’d be thrilled). and hey, if you want to pick up or expand on any of the plot threads the game never really got around to, like more about the Academy’s supposed mole, the actual nature and origin of the timefog, or other worldbuilding-related stuff, that would be awesome. random slice-of-life stuff is also fun; so is expanding on any of the event plotlines or digging into in-world reasons for various gameplay decisions (way back during the Civil War event, for instance, Loki was one of the characters who could do stuff to earn points for Team Cap even though this didn’t come up in dialogue--it was almost certainly because they needed another non-event character to round out the rosters, but it would also make a fun premise for a fic). I’d also be happy to see something post-canon, showing what characters are up to now or doing some kind of reunion. I’m realizing somewhat belatedly that last year I only requested Loki because that’s the character I wanted most, and this year I requested both Loki and Thor even though my actual wishes haven’t changed, which...I’m not sure if that’s a potential matching problem or not. But just to be clear, the only character I require is Loki, and everything else is basically a suggestion. If there’s a character I haven’t listed but Loki had an interesting interaction with them, or they never spoke but you think they’d play off each other in fun ways, go for it.

The Bifrost Incident - The Mechanisms (Loki, Thor, Sigyn). I...need a fix-it. Like, for these characters specifically, but also for the universe in general, because the premise of this album is absolutely fascinating but I can't deal with tragedy, so--I need somebody to fix it. Somehow. I mean, I would also be very interested in pretty much anything about Loki and Sigyn, backstory or otherwise (especially if there’s Loki whump due to cosmic horror in general or Odin being a dick specifically, because...I am who I am), or Loki’s relationship with Thor, or...yeah, pretty much anything Loki-centric? But also I am a baby who cannot deal with tragedy so I gotta have like...at least a hint that things are going to end up differently than in canon. Or if you really don’t want to do that, speculate on this universe’s version of Valhalla or something, I don’t know. And yes, even though this isn’t a Marvel universe, I would also be very happy with some type of crossover/fusion with the MCU or another Marvel universe.

Loki: Where Mischief Lies - Mackenzi Lee (Loki). I had a lot of issues with this book and I’m not sure how much of that is just me not appreciating what the author was doing with an unreliable narrator (in part because I’m already pretty attached to certain interpretations of Loki) and how much is the author not quite doing it right, but I’d love to see something that would…make it make sense internally in terms of Loki’s motivations and actions. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a fix-it, although I’d love one of those too, with Loki reuniting with Theo and/or actually reconciling with his family. A giant crossover that includes this Loki with other major versions of Loki could be fun too. I’ve been planning for a while to write up some kind of actual review to articulate what about this book didn’t work for me, and I’ll update this post with a link when I do that, although…again, I know nobody else offered or requested this one. (if you think it sounds fun or you just want to read this book in general, my library actually has the ebook on Hoopla, so it’s worth checking to see if your library does too.)

What If... Thor Was Raised by the Frost Giants? (Loki, Thor). This is such a great little AU and I need MORE. Slice-of-life stuff with Thor and Loki growing up (and Laufey being an abusive bastard to Loki)? Fix-it where Freyja survives or somehow gets brought back? Post-canon fic picking up immediately after the end of the comic? Far-future speculation about what the present-day Marvel universe might look like with this change in its history? Literally anything post-canon about Thor and Loki tentatively reconciling? YES PLEASE. As always, biggest DNW is unhappy endings.

#yuletide 2020 #yuletide #avengers academy #silent hill 3 #the bifrost incident #loki: where mischief lies #marvel comics #look at me doing my Yuletide letter in a reasonable timeframe for once #mostly because...the majority of this was copied from last year's but whatever #marvel what if

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saltyaro · 5 years ago

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You know, I’ve been replaying the Ace Attorney games lately. At first I was bored and out of nowhere, I redid Dual destinies just because I hadn’t in a long time. Which led me to play the first game again (mainly for the Edgeworth case I love it so much tbh) and I’m now replaying Spirit of justice.

And...I can’t help but absolutely love those games because. It’s just so easy to hc everyone - and bu that I mean absolutely everyone important - as arospec! In canon, Phoenix does have one (1) romantic relationship at one point but I’d like to point out that one crush in your life does not make you alloromantic. Given the context I’d say either greyro or heteronormativity? I guess he can’t really be demiro but he could also be recipro (with the context again. Recipro does sound particularly consistent though). He doesn’t have any other romantic stuff even hinted at him! Pearls wants to believe Maya and him are dating but it always makes them 100% uncomfortable (the age gap people. Also, siblings dynamic). Pearls is kinda brainwashed by TV but hasn’t ever expressed interest in romance for herself, even her older self.

Edgeworth doesn’t have any interest in romance either. And I know he’s often shipped with Phoenix (I learnt about that quite recently actually-) but...even outside of my “I’ll make everyone aro if I can” motto, I...never shipped them romantically, even before I learnt of aromanticism. I like their dynamic, and how it’s implied Edgeworth opened up more (to everyone) after his trauma got relieved a bit. I want him to act like a stupid kid around his friends. Like, I can acknowledge Phoenix and him have a special bond, but someone special doesn’t mean it’s romantic and. Edgey’s emotional development got stopped after he parted with Pheonix and Larry so there’s that to consider too. This is the kind of bond of trust that can’t be broken and I find it beautiful, but I’m also pretty sure it would be unhealthy to only rely on one person, regardless of the nature of the relationship.

Apollo? Doesn’t have a romantic subplot. I guess there’s Junie who’s got a thing for him but he doesn’t reciprocate - and I relate to him not even being aware of it lmao. He’s so oblivious around romance, if he’s not arospec who is.

Athena? No romance in her life. She’s a lot like Phoenix (in her past trauma and her reason for doing the things she does) and I love her. Also, if someone ships her romantically with Simon, then I hate that person and will steal their bed. They’re like siblings and have like, a 10 years gap.

Trucy is the sun and doesn’t know what romance is. She’d use it as a magic trick and burn it/make it disappear into her magic panties (actually please do that Trucy, I beg of you).

Well, I could also mention like, Gavin, I guess he’s just a flirt but I don’t think it really means anything, romantic-attraction-wise. He’s also too cool to be straight to i’m going to make him aro. Though I don’t have a consistent HC for him outside of “not straight” if I’m being honest.

And it’s not even like romance doesn’t exist in the AA universe! Larry’s the straightest guy to ever straight (he’s harmless but outside of that...) and the cases often have romantic subplots and all. Well, not *that* often, and it’s generally the cause for murder but still. It’s a thing, it exists. Also we have a canon WLW in Dual Destinies and she’s one of the rare romance-havers not to be a culprit! She’s not the best, like she def has anger issues, but it’s all explained and understandable. She also loves her brother very much and deserves good things and therapy.

ALSO

I really, really love the dynamic of Phoenix’s found family? You have Maya, Trucy, and Pearls (and I guess Athena and Apollo are part of it too but they arrive later and have less interactions so). Pearls is Maya’s cousin, but otherwise, no one has any blood relationship in their little family. No romance needed. Phoenix adopted Trucy (and is apparently doing a great job) and babysits Pealrs and Maya. They’re all free of doing whatever they want, and they know they’re always going to come back together. It’s a found family but, not the “nuclear family” way, you know? Maya definitely isn’t acting as Trucy’s mother, and more like Phoenix’s sister I guess (Trucy and Maya do lack canon interaction but I always felt like said interactions were implied). I love their little family and the freedom in it. It’s just so healthy.

The last thing, not aro related, but still great and why I love those games-

Mental illness. I’m not saying it’s great rep, I don’t think it is, but...it’s just, so refreshing that you have characters with mental illnesses and issues that aren’t bad people. They aren’t the culprits, and, like in real life, are more likely to be victims. The diagnostic is never given in the game, but Edgeworth’s trauma? Not mocked. He definitely has PTSD, and, his fear of earthquakes? Wondered about, but not mocked. I guess that’s part of the reason I always go back to his case in the first game: to hear someone you care about, someone you trust, tell you: “I believe in you. I know your mind has been lying to you the whole time, and I’m here to say it’s okay. Those are just lies. Even when you stop believing in yourself, I’ll still believe in you.” That’s just so powerful, I can’t help but feel emotional every time. Add to that the fact that this bond isn’t romantic and. Yeah.

For Athena’s trauma, it’s the way it’s displayed I really love. Her game is much more recent, and it shows. She just blacks out when her PTSD gets triggered and no one shames her for that. Even though no one knows what’s happening inside her head for the longest time. She needs to be brought back to her senses, to be grounded. It’s not like she gets to have therapy on screen or anything, no character really gets a lot of time off the courtroom anyway, but given the context, I found she was treated in a very sensitive way.

The last example I can think of, is a character with DID. I say DID, but I doubt that’s good rep, and that’s probably not the way people with DID experience life, but that’s what’s said in the game so...Anyway, they’re a witness and, if you know how AA games work, the real culprit is *always* a witness. And you know how in pop culture, people with multiple personalities are often treated as villain, with the “hidden personality” no one knows about, not even the person, and this hidden personality is a murderer? I was sooo afraid the game was going to go that way. They even did hint at it, with giving the character the “hidden personality”. Except, the “hidden personality”, much like all of the other people of the system, is...100% harmless. And just that was so refreshing. Which goes to say a lot about the state of the rep for mental diversity. I don’t know the reality of experiencing DID, but in the game the witness interacts with themselves, and everyone in the court speaks to each individual differently, and the witness isn’t treated as delusional.

Those characters are accused wrongly of murder, when in reality they haven’t hurt a fly. And exonerating them is key to solving the case at hand. I don’t know who’s responsible for that, but I’m extremely grateful to them. To explicitly have your main character, the character you’re playing, clear the name of the mentally ill characters? It’s a blessing and not something you would expect from a game that named one of its recurring characters “Larry Butz”.

Anyway, I guess I am kinda trying to convince some of you to play those games (and goof about it with me) in this post. Even though it wasn’t my initial intent. If all of this isn’t enough to convince you - play those games for the awful puns. The characters’ names are terrible. Also I know I mentioned romance existing but weirdly enough it wasn’t annoying? Probably because it’s actually downplayed a lot. It’s only relevant as a plot device and it’s just like. Stated. Not dwelved deeper into. Those games are great for when you’re romance tired.

#my post #fandom #aro hc #long post #I can't believe I'm getting back into AA #when i'm already in the middle of getting back into saint seiya #i'm going to seriously lack time with school #oops I know this is an aro blog but I'm way too passionate #and had nowhere to speak about it #though I'm sure this not-aro part will resonate with some of you!#hope you don't mind i just get really excited about those games at least once a year

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m00nslippers · 6 years ago

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It’s All About the All-Caste in RH:O Issue #34!

This issue was kind of filler and recap to be honest, but I’m always down for finding out more ways that Jason is awesome and we did get a little bit of that here, so let’s jump in to the review!

Right off the bat (hur hur) we flashback to Jason’s time with the All-Caste. He quotes Neitzsche, “Whoever battles monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster himself. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” This is juxtaposed by Jason literally fighting a bigass monster as a teen in the All-Caste.

Now this is actually a pretty awesome thing because 1) It’s Jason being a literature nerd, which is what sustains my life. 2) It’s actually pretty damn relevant to what is happening in the plot right now, with Jason fighting monsters (Gotham’s rogues) and Jason dipping into that pool of being a monster himself. There is just so much foreshadowing that Jason is setting himself up for a fall, I’m just not sure how it’s going to shake out yet. Honestly unless he does something a lot worse than what he’s been doing, I don’t personally actually fault Jason or think he’s a monster? Like let’s be real here, the guy gets results.

There is some really awesome stuff here. Internally Jason says “When you’ve died once already--stared at the actual gates of hell--and clawed your way back through six feet of dirt? When you stare at a monster? Nine times out of ten...they’ll blink first.” Damn.

And then the monster, who calls himself “The Devourer of Young Souls”, asks Jason why the heck Ducra chose to send some kid after him, to which Jason says, “She didn’t choose me, she didn’t send me, but she knew better than to try to stop me!” Damn.

Apparently Jason is literally a child of prophesy among the All-Caste. I don’t remember if that was something we knew already or something we learn here, but I think it’s interesting that he basically completed the prophecy and moved on. Because Jason did what he was there for, he slew the monster, fought the Untitled, and now everyone expects him to just stop fighting--and he’s just like, “Uh yeah, no.” Jason’s life is an endless war. It always has been, he doesn’t know how to live another life.

One thing I’ll give Lobdell. I think he’s pretty good at dialogue. He has his moments. He’s not as bad as people make him out to be, but I feel like this guy really needs a writing partner. His dialogue is generally good, his ideas are usually pretty interesting, but his plots just need work and his characterization is inconsistent sometimes. It’s the story execution that needs help, also I think he avoids or brushes over emotional stuff a little too much sometimes and that’s a real detriment to his arcs.

After this Jason summons a crap ton of All-Blades and goes MCU Hela on the monster’s ass and I need current Jason to do this, why doesn’t current Jason fight more actual magical monsters, clearly that’s what he’s good at? I need more of this, it’s too cool. It’s super unique among the bat-family, he’s the only one of them with an inherent answer to magic, why is this so underutilized? *Sigh*

The story picks back up in the present with Jason at a restaurant in France, on a date with Isabel. I’m a little annoyed that these two are back together but I think their interaction here actually kind of puts a perspective on it that I approve of. Jason has an extra champagne glass there and is thinking about his adventures in France with Roy when they fought evil mimes back in Red Hood/Arsenal (Yeah, unpack that one). The champagne glass is also a reference to events in RHATO New 52, when Roy orders a glass of alcohol and uses it to test his resolve for sobriety, which happened on the very same plane ride where Jason meets Isabel. Jason is clearly still mourning Roy, not to mention Artemis and Bizarro. I think this kind of shows that while he probably does still like Isabel as a person, he’s not necessarily in this relationship because he loves her and wants to get back together--he’s vulnerable and needs somebody, anybody to lean on and she’s made herself available.

People give Isabel a lot of flak and I don’t really get it? She’s never been mean or lied. She’s never judged Jason for any of the things he does, and she supports him emotionally, she just doesn’t want to be involved in vigilante craziness which is a perfectly sane thing to want. I think she’s really underdeveloped as a character--What’s her past? What does she like? Who is her family? She’s kind of generic--but as a person there isn’t anything to complain about. I still prefer Artemis, but I think Isabel gets too much hate.

Back at the Iceburg Lounge, Miguel is in charge of fixing the place up after the attack by the assassins in the previous issue. Miguel talks a little about this other reality he says he sees or senses, which is maybe a hint to some future event that is hopefully gonna fix every character inconsistency we all hate but probably not (hey I can dream). We get a tease about Miguel possibly figuring out Jason is keeping Cobblepot prisoner, which I think we all know is coming, but it doesn’t actually happen in this scene.

We see Jason walking Isabel to her hotel and it’s pretty cute to see Jason holding a girl’s hand, okay? I do like it. I almost feel like her quip about proving she doens’t love him for his money is Lobdell jabbing at everyone who is saying she’s a gold-digger. He’s just like, “Dude, she’s not, lay off” I never thought she was but the idea definitely floated around, which I think was a bit uncharitable to her character, as I’ve said. She also says the “L-word” that Jason is so allergic to but she manages to keep him from freaking out about it. I think she does actually love him or she wouldn’t be here and I also think the fact that she comes out and says it is A SERIOUS DEATH FLAG. Ya’ll heard it here first, I think Isabel is going to die at the end of this arc.

Also, Jason speaks exactly one word of French but in my mind this is proof that my language-boy speaks French.

Jason leaves her at her hotel to do some Red Hood stuff and calls Suzie Su on the way to check in. She’s fishing for what Jason is doing, she’s suspicious, but he doesn’t give her anything. Jason, you aren’t doing a great job of convincing anyone you aren’t up to no good. Unrelated to the plot, but let me just say, I like the outfit the artist gave Suzie. Artists always seem to give her really hangy dresses and depict her as gross, but she looks cute here! Those leggings are cool!

Then the scene goes to Essence doing some pretty awesome All-Caste magic to contact the guy Jason dusted, and he goes on to say some BS about Jason’s eyes being empty and how he’s not the same person who was their champion as a teen. I think narratively this is supposed to mean something, but it seemed like few of the All-Caste actually approved of Jason to begin with, and this guy didn’t give the impression he was one of them, so why we are trusting his opinion is a question to. The dude is biased, he never approved of Jason.

Essense talks to S’aru, the dude who took Jason’s most cherished memory all the way back in RHATO New 52, and Essence seems to suspect this has something to do with the ‘emptiness’ in his eyes and his actions in the presence. His most cherished memory was a time when he was sick and had to stay home from patrol and Bruce stayed with him. I mean, sure, you can argue this maybe changed how Jason sees Bruce now and is less willing to believe the guy loves him but Bruce’s actions in the presence don’t exactly even jive with that memory so...eh. I don’t know, maybe there is just some magic awfulness that happens when you lose that memory, no matter what it is.

At the end of the scene Ducra floats in to probably tell Essence she can go attack Jason or whatever but we don’t know what she decided for sure because it ends on a cliff-hanger.

Back in France, Jason barges into a perfume shop that is fronting a Kill-Bill style meeting of some criminals calling themselves "The Euro Bloc” who have ties to Cobblepot. They finance the guy in exchange for him laundering their money through his Casino, and I would just like to point out that this is Jason doing exactly what he said he was planning to do--dismantle all of Penguin’s criminal activities. I don’t see anything wrong with what he’s doing, why is Jason ‘empty’ or a ‘bad guy’? He points out later that he didn’t even kill anyone while in Europe, so what is everyone’s beef? I don’t get it.

So Jason basically says, stop your activities in Gotham, also, leave me alone. They do the typical, “OR, why don’t we just kill you now?” but it turns out that Wingman is waiting in a kickass plane ready to murder everyone if they make a move and so they reluctantly back off. The plane seems to belong to Wingman, who we find out is named ‘James’. I still have absolutely no idea who Wingman is supposed to be or what his relationship with Jason is, though. I really hope we get some more of this information soon.

One thing of note though, is that Wingman is THE ONLY ally of Jason’s right now that knows that he is operating as Red Hood still. Suzie doesn’t, Isabel doesn’t, Miguel doesn’t. Wingman holds some kind of significance, and seems to need/want Jason to be operating as Red hood in Gotham for some reason, which was why he was following Jason, to convince him to return to Gotham, but we just don’t know why yet.

And then in the end, Miguel finally finds out Penguin is behind the glass and the title seems to imply Miguel is going to turn on Jason. penguin must convince him he’s the one wronged (I mean he IS the one wronged but he’s not actually a good guy so we know this is bad even if Miguel doesn’t) because i can’t see Penguin overpowering Miguel who has all this Psionic power.

So this issue was interesting. I loved seeing all the All-Caste stuff though on the whole, it’s mostly set up. Next issue, stuff is going down! I can’t wait!

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lcnguor · 5 years ago

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THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

My muse is: canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless /

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO.

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK.

Are they underrated? YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main story? YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG.

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO.

How’s their reputation? GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL.

How strictly do you follow canon? — Since she is an OC with her own lore I would say pretty much . Of course there are some heres and theres and she changed a lot from the first time I dragged her out of the void of my head . I originally wanted to make more of a gag character but ended up taking too much of the screen if I’m honest . but of course , since there is many other lores and crossovers are a must , some things change once or twice .

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals. — Nora is a mentor character , supportive and most likely to be the ace under the sleeve like a Kisuke Urahara from Bleach or Sinbad from Magi --- you know there’s something fishy but there is a charm that even thought they are slidding in the background for the main character , their relevance is vast . As a mentor characters , she would often help with insight , understanding of complex things , giving moral lessons and giving others a sense of security whilst also making sure to throw hints about a doubious nature . Keeping a character around her to keep their feet on ground while never shooting down their hopes and dreams .

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?). — She is not approachable unless you have enough guts to -- perhaps even looks intimidating or hard to come up with something plausible to make the meeting more natural . And honestly , she looks like a mainstream angst character at first glance --- even I myself believe this and start having second thoughts ... :laughs:

What inspired you to rp your muse? — An old project I had archived in my closet of memories (?). She was the main , nameless character of a journal about , well , her and the emotions she had to deal with in the everyday . I will be seriously honest ... it was a self insert :blushes: after all it was like a personal journal I was doing on my darkest days . But after that , she became Sable -- the first character on her own -- who also served as a mentor ( but the story was much more dark , seriously ) and then just came to this . I even used the pre-prototype name lol . The idea was to put the whole story into a RPG pixel game or a short comic series where she ( Sable ) and the protagonist would wander around a city called “Nobody’s Home” , a place were people with “thats” ( what now are called Stalkers ) got dragged into and either confront their emotions and solve / comes in terms with them or get eaten by them ( a metaphor for suicide or dead by mental illness ) . The story was more or less about Sable teaching Nona ( the genderless protagonist ) about different mental states , issues and others and helping people solve them so they can return to the real world . Needless to say , the story ends with Nona returning after coming in terms with their condition ( funnily enough , the protagonist had a bunny shaped emotion ) while on the other hand Sable stayed behind along with her closest friend , who she question why he keeps being around if he could return himself , to what he replies he doesn’t want to leave her alone esp since she can no longer return --- hinting Sable committed suicide but by sheer will power remained there to help others to deal with what she couldn’t . Voez , the friend I mention , is even Victor from her current lore . Haha , I like recycling I guess . When I came with Nora , it was mostly to kill time and altered her base story a bit since the original plot was way to close up to make an interaction .

What keeps your inspiration going? — How well received she became , I know it sounds a bit ... uh , bad . But I honestly never expected people to like her . heck I even have my doubts about myself liking her haha . plus I know it’s not easy to deal with a character with a somewhat meta power ... I still struggle from time to time but I’m managing and having the support I have atm is something that keeps me going . I love plot a shit lot . I love to come up with ideas with others . To expand what I already have . besides , there is so much I haven’t write down yet that is about her lore but I’m a bit insecure yet . I guess I’m too used to forums where everyon follows a general plot haha ... old habits die hard .

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice? YES / NO / EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO / 50-50

Do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO, I HATE DRABBLES.

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES/ NO.

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO / .... UHHHH

Are you confident in your writing? YES / HAHA NO.

Are you a sensitive person? YES VERY MUCH A LOT / NO.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal? — I haven’t got any so far --- which honestly surprises me because well ... there is so much that can bother people . as I said , I received a lot of support and praise , which also surprises me haha ... I won’t deny I would love to hear what people think , even if I later end up riding the anxiety train to the moon but it’s also a way to grow up , I believe . god ... I sound like nora Uu

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character? — I absolute love this and need this . It comes easier for me to make a 20 word pages of information about stuff if I’m asking specifically about it . even add explanatory drawings with it lolol since I’m kinda bad with words . besides , showing me interest on a character would just fire the heck out of me to keep going . I mean , everyone likes to get some curiosity and a chance to develop more their characters , canon or not .

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why? — I would for sure . I’m not smart and I actually do a shit ton of research --- but even so I can miss a lot of shit people would say <nah that’s not how it works> and that would be helpful as heckie . but of course , needing the why also would tell me if the person disagreeing is doing it with a solid ground or just because they are being a piece of crap . I’m really tired of tumblr mentality and shitty people who aren’t mature enough to act decently .

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it? — you cannot like everyone or have everyone like you either . I don’t really care much ... esp since nora is an original character . if it constructive critisism , okay -- I will take it , but gimme a solid reason other than “ your character is / is not ... “ and then give a crappy critique because she doesn’t fit your agenda or standards .

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it? — you are fucking free to unfollow me and ignore me for the rest of your life . I really don’t get the point of hating on the internet just because and keep promoting your hate just to be a pain in the ass .

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors? — I fucking wrote in my rules that people are even fricking free to fix my grammar and english because holy heck , even to this day I still do some ugly shit . I’m dumb , help ...

Do you think you are easy going as a mun? — ehhhhhhhhhhhhh, kinda . I take everything with water . whenever it’s of ideology , people as it is , characters ... I am quite tolerant and try to keep the “okay this person thinks this way , fine .” but as long as nobody crosses the line where they try to spoil it for me or others , I get super bitter . I love OOC , getting to know the one behind the character makes me feel more secure about coming to them and just rambling about plots and hcs and whatever idea got in my mind . but if I see someone and , forgive me god for misjudging , see them as a person that will put me on my nerves -- I won’t even try . as for the friends I have and those who don’t know me as much ... I am obnoxiously sporadic and have a lot of ups and downs very often . one day I could be talking 100 words per second others I will just take a fucking week to respond . honestly , I had mined my social skills for two years plus several other irl stuff previous to that , so I’m always a bit too anxious around people , esp people I REALLY like . I’m insecure as heck , if someone is vague ( just because , idk , it was a lazy day for them ) I think at least 10 different reason why probably that person hates me now . I’m a bit dumb 26 year old baby .......... but I’m very aware that is completely on me . I’m a mess....... so , what was the question again ??? ... I , yeah ... it’s a kinda . but I try , at least haha.

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

Tagged by: @skyvar herself Tagging: y’all , cowgirls and cowbois . i hate tagging bc i forget urls :finger guns:

#mik talks #ᴍᴜɴᴅᴀɴᴇ ᴛʜᴏᴜɢʜᴛs » misc.#ɪ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴀ ɴɪɴsᴡɪᴛᴄʜ » games.

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curioussubjects · 5 years ago

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Non-jittery Thoughts on 15.01

Alright, had some time too calm the hell down, so I could have thoughts beyond a keysmash and a crying emoji. Chances are, too, that I’ll have more to say once I sit down with the episode again. Had to get these initial reactions/musings out of the way first.

This episode did a bang up job setting up the personal plot points for tfw. I’m super excited to see where this is going: Dean’s hell trauma revisited, Sam’s wound and its connection to his own darkness, Cas still struggling with belonging, Dean and Cas’s continuous wrongfootedness coming to a head. It’s going to be a killer of a season emotionally, and I am Here. For. It.

Full disclosure: the biggest chunk is destiel related. In my defense, Dabb & co. didn’t have to enable me, but here we are.

More thoughts under the cut.

General Thoughts:

My hype was not squashed! We got a really strong season opener and I’m so happy about it. Sure, we got running ghosts. But overall the episode was incredible; just a solid SPN episode all around. A+ job and kudos to all involved ♥♥♥

The new title card is gorgeous and full of meta potential goodness. See this post for more on that; op hit it on the head I think. For additional analysis, there’s this post from different op that is killer.

Opening sequence with tfw fighting zombie ghosts and running for shelter? Amazing. Showstopping. Breathtaking.

Dean’s grief over Jack that’s embroiled in his grief for Mary. Just. “He was our kid.” That’s some complicated shit right there.

Gotta love all the tidbits hinting at what is to come during 15.a, at the very least, if not the larger goal of the season. Reading y’all’s thoughts on the episode has been great so far, and I can’t wait to see what else crops up this week.

On Sam: Currently, Sam’s role in the more interesting aspects of the plot continue to not quite match Dean’s, which has been a problem for a while. I’m seriously hoping that changes some with Eileen’s return, Rowena coming in with some banter maybe next week, and whatever weird curse Sam got with that bullet wound. I’m loving the potential and I’m loving the prospect of having Sam brought back to the center of the plot. I missed some more emotional involvement from him this episode, too, but that should be addressed once things calm down and Sam and Dean can debrief. However, we got peak Sam in a crisis and it’s always a treat to see him do his job. Bless. Him telling the clown to shut up made my night. I love him so much.

On Belphegor: First off, Alex did such a fantastic job. I giggled a ridiculous amount. Instantly invested in the character as bringer of shenanigans. Was not disappointed. Quick deliciously meta tidbits about Belphegor, some of which may not feature in the show, but are still *chef’s kiss* (x):

Moabite deity responsible for fertility and sexual power (in case the ep wasn’t clear on that lmao)

was worshiped in the form of a phallus (so glad that made it to canon jfc)

is a fallen angel??? hello???

he’s the demonic embodiment of sloth, BUT specifically negligence and apathy (i am screaming isnt negligence the whole ordeal with dean and cas atm...and apathy was the problem with jack’s soulessness)

rules misogyny and licentious men (yeah ok no wonder he was a fan of younger dean oof)

the juiciest: emerged from hell to investigate marriage among humans (and is conveniently in the peanut gallery of dean and cas’s fight. funny how that happens. hilarious, even.)

apparently after living as a man to experience sexual pleasure he was appalled and fled back to hell where sex between men and women wasn’t a thing i’m??? what?? (yet in the show he seemed ok with hot dudes ayy)

I’m glad my “horny on main” observation turned out to be so on point jesus. Can’t help but wonder how long he’s gonna stick around. His outside perspective is amusing, at the very least. However, the fact that he barely interacted with Sam, but was a lot interested in Dean as well as Cas (though to a lesser extent) makes me think that he’s doing more than just deus exing them out of zombies and ghosts or offering hell exposition. Seems like he going to expose SOME OTHER STUFF. ABOUT DEAN (AND CAS?). He is the “Lord of Opening” after all. And isn’t using their words and being honest the thing we’re all waiting for wrt to DeanCas?? There’s some opening up that is necessary posthaste. Listen, I know I’ve been saying they need a marriage counselor, but this is not what I had in mind. Pretty on brand, though, I guess lol

I’m also really interested about the coding work the character is doing in continuing to queer Dean’s characterization. Belphegor being himself associated with (male) sexuality, and the show clearly focusing on his attraction to humans of the man variety. I wouldn’t even call it subtextual at this point as Belphegor’s interaction with Dean in the car to was really overt. My hopes that the show might actually be explicit about Dean’s bisexuality is uhhhh getting high again *confetti.* Should also maybe at least note that using a demon to do this is probs not like the best strategy, but at least said demon was 1. not skeevy and 2. mostly sympathetic to the audience.

This is all assuming, ofc, that Belphegor is not catfishing tfw (there’s precedence, after all -- and kudos to anon and op for the timely observations).

On Dean & Cas: I think it’s really damn telling that so much space was given to their relationship as like the most important thing going on with their characters? Obviously they have individual issues to deal with (their own struggles with Chuck, revisiting Dean’s stint in hell....which btw also eventually involves Cas too so *hands*), but my sweet baby jesus the validation feels good. Onwards.

We actually have a weird amount to unpack here because, as others have said, the tension between them is coming from more than just Mary and Jack -- though Mary and Jack are absolutely the main stressors atm as well as emblematic of problems they’ve had for a long long time.

I’m gonna start with Dean because boy do I love that dumbass; I want to shake him. So we have Dean: he’s grieving Mary, he’s angry, he’s scared, he’s lashing out. It’s a Thursday. We know he’s angry with Cas because he blames him for Mary’s death, even if indirectly. You know what that reminds me of? Dean hating Jack for causing Cas’s death, even though it wasn’t directly Jack’s fault. More importantly, though, both the loss of Mary and the loss of Cas were caused by the same catalyst: Cas going off on his own to solve a problem instead of asking Dean (and Sam, but really, mostly Dean) for help. Like, it’s the one thing Dean has very clearly expressed that Cas needs to stop doing (hi 12x19). It’s the same mistake Cas has been making for years. There was a false sense of security there during seasons 13 and most of 14, but alas. Again, here we have Dean losing someone because Cas couldn’t just come ask him for help. Like. It makes sense, and it’s understandable, despite Dean’s coping mechanisms being shit. In short, Dean’s actual problem with Cas is less that Mary is dead and more that Cas refuses to learn his lesson wrt them being stronger as a unit rather than doing their own thing and putting themselves and others in unnecessary danger.

Meanwhile, we have a continuation of Cas just being really sad and heartbroken because not only is Jack dead, but he’s once again unsure about his standing with Dean. He wants to protect his family, he wants to protect Dean, he wants to come back with a win; once more, he goes off on his own to do it and it blows up in his face somehow. As much as I loved Cas getting mad at the end of last season, I get why he’s somewhat subdued again. He has his guilt and grief and doubt to deal with. He doesn’t want to be mad at Dean probably about as much as he doesn’t want Dean to be mad at him. So far I’m not yet seeing the return of the spark we got when Cas was defending Jack last season, but I’m sure Dean walking out rattled him beyond the hurt. I wanna see what else happens to make him leave “in a huff” (a bit of spec on this further down). That said, what I’m most excited about is seeing how Cas gets reintegrated into the family -- pretty sure that’s universal lol.

The juiciest part now, though: I was all about the interplay of distance and care that we saw between them; let’s pause here for a quick sec to appreciate how that same interplay has been such a central part of Dean and Cas’s relationship since always like ugh. So much of the larger plot points in the show have also been situations that kept them from being truly partners as well as being constant interruptions on their ability to USE THEIR FRIGGIN’ WORDS AAAACK. We give Sam a lot of flack, but everything has awful timing in this show. We’ve had moments of honesty and vulnerability, but they’re always always cut short before we actually get somewhere; before they arrive at a place where they can talk about their issues. If the “are you ok” scene isn’t a perfect microcosm of that idk what is /sigh

So, yeah, the “Are you ok” scene oooh boy. I wasn’t as excited as some of you at this scene being an example that Dean still cared, as that was never a doubt I had in my mind (it was definitely a yes omg just talk jesus moments nevertheless). Dean couldn’t possibly just turn that shit off, no matter how much he thinks he’s done with Cas. Like, please. What we do have is Dean indulging on his own need to know that Cas is, at least, immediately fine. Triage, if you will. Him walking off before Cas can either elaborate, or, most likely, tell him about Sam, is peak Dean passive-aggressiveness. The meltdown I had in the tags of a gifset of the scene is still relevant:

#cas's little sigh of idk relief???#like he's so sad and physically fine but he's SO SAD and heartbroken#and here's dean finally not just being cold to him and ASKING ABOUT HIS WELLBEING#look at cas's face in tht second gif my heart#you can see him gd relax too i cant#and dean has his fucking check in during a break in the chaos face#im so mad#jdhakjsdfhklsd#and then dean just.........walks away and doesnt actually debrief or help or none of the things he would do#and cas is just...there all vulnerable and upset right before he clams up at the demon's quip#but it doesnt even last look at his damn face as he leaves IM SO#somebody hug him#skldjfhklsajdfa#he needs a dean hug#but noooo dean is being a jackass#this is awful#im not ok#i hate it when they fight#im over it that's enough drama dabb i take back everything i said about loving pain

I’ll definitely have more thoughts on this once we have whatever emotional payload next week.

All in all, I’m not actually concerned about the future of their relationship. They’ve been through much, they’ll be fine. I am, though, tickled that we’ll see these key problems in their relationship reach a point where they have to be dealt with. Also: I can’t wait for the catharsis that Cas leaving is bound to elicit. Both for us, the viewers, and the characters. Besides, Dean needs to go to a corner and have a think about his behavior and if pushing Cas away is really what he wants. And then maybe finally we can get that sweet sweet resolution of an affirmation about Cas’s place in Dean’s life. And in turn an affirmation that Cas does trust their family unit enough to depend on them.

I think we got a good set up in this episode leading into whatever drama we get in the coming weeks. The tension was up to 11. Love it. Hate it. Personally, I think the empty deal might be what does sets off Cas walking out. Somehow, the deal is not a secret anymore. We have here another instance of Cas making a super important decision that affects The Family on his own and then keeping it a secret (to protect Sam and Dean, a pattern). Dean can be angry and think Cas is dead to him all he wants, he will blow tf up when he learns about this deal. Sam isn’t gonna be thrilled either, though he’s more likely to make puppy eyes of sadness and Disappointment than yell at Cas. Seriously, though, I can just see Dean saying some bullshit because he’s just so done and here goes Cas potentially dying again, which in turn will probably piss Cas off. Etc etc. Cue the violins.

tl;dr: if episode 1 is any indication, we’re in for a wild fucking ride, kiddos. hold onto your butts!!!

#supernatural #spn #destiel #deancas #spn spoilers #spn15 #spn meta #my stuff #ok thoughts still a little jittery #but my brain is so hyped i needed to let these go into the ether #before i could sit down and write any sort of coherent argument #gosh i do love this show so much

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ngame989 · 6 years ago

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SVTFOE 4A Prediction/Analysis Master Post

So we just had the first two episodes come out, and overall I enjoyed them. There’s been a lot of mixed reactions to the details, from myself included, so let’s dive in a bit. Apologies for when this becomes a giant wall of text in the back half, I'm not digging through promos for images.

Butterfly Follies

In the first episode, 98% of it is focused on Star feeling like shit because Moon is missing and nothing she does to try and find her works, and other people keep telling her she is screwing it up. Yeah, many of us thought this theme of “Star screwing up” would extend a bit more concretely to stuff with Marco and Tom, and it was present but only a tiny bit as a reminder. Her interaction with Tom was basically just a reminder that the situation from after Booth Buddies hadn’t budged - Star still was barely paying attention to him, Tom was still not really a companion to her at all, it just isn’t working, but they haven’t talked about it yet.

Tomstar has always had the candy coating of a romantic relationship (nicknames, handholding, occasional smooching, gossip and drama, etc) with virtually nothing underneath. We see this over and over - Demoncism has a genuine emotional connection between them in that moment, but once their relationship starts up again, it takes until Is Another Mystery for even a hint of true, genuine support between them, and it still doesn’t extend to either of them considering the other as a life companion at all. Most of it is going through the motions for both of them. When everyone’s lives were on the line, Tom stepped up, but this doesn’t immediately make him Marco 2 - the issues that existed before, the lack of commitment and drive between them (still candy-coated by nicknames and whatnot) is as present as ever, and arguably more so, now that Star has the events of the end of S3 dwelling somewhere in the recesses of her mind. Plus we get a moment of Tom checking in with Marco about Star’s comment, showing once again that Marco is the one Tom actually turns to for genuine support.

Contrast that with Starco in these episodes. Yes, it’s not magically perfect, there’s still lots of stuff to resolve and many people (myself included) have felt that it was a bit “off” (more on that soon). But there’s still a genuine sense of progression, where Marco is comfortable being close with Star again, being emotional support, even if he doesn’t always know how to help.

As predicted, Eclipsa’s style of ruling has mostly been “make disliking monsters entirely illegal because that’s Equality™” and it’s not working out so well for true social change. I expect this to be a major plot point moving forward.

Honestly, I dunno what all to make of the details of Glossy’s lines here. Considering the situation with Toffee was pretty explicitly Glossaryck’s intentional method of teaching Star how to do things her own way, this definitely isn’t literal. Maybe he’s playing 4D chess, and Star questioning whether Glossaryck was misleading her is all part of how he leads her. There’s a... nonzero chance, I suppose, that there is some more direct connection here and trying to fix past mistakes (since time travel is brought up very shortly) but I’d be incredibly shocked and largely appalled if that’s where things actually head.

(Skipping around on photos a bit here to just get the point across)

So let’s talk about this for a moment, shall we? I’ve seen a lot of talk about this photo and how it’s really sketchy that Star apparently knew it was from the future the whole time, given its past importance in Starcrushed. Granted, we don’t know exactly how it’s going to pay off yet, but I’ll take a strong educated guess - it’s basically a gag because the writers thought it would be fun. A relevant gag and kind of an asspull, yes, but still just a gag. Yes, the photo is now factually from the future and will be relevant again in that capacity, but I’m entirely convinced that the point of it wasn’t to intentionally retcon something about Starcrushed or anything like that - a meaningful photo of Star and Marco was used in Season 2 to generically remind her of their “good times” and their relationship as a whole, and that same photo was used here as a promise of happiness to come, and the primary purpose of the photo in each case is how it was written for that case.

I know it’s not a satisfying explanation, but it is entirely consistent with this show to have details occur that are largely arbitrary and inconsistent, and there’s a consistency to that inconsistency. Adult Marco is another example, Janna implying Kelly maybe had feelings for Marco in Stump Day is another, any time Star yeeted a high school student into some pit of horrors is another. All of these are situations where, if you examine them thoroughly as a whole and consider all the possible implications, they get kind of sketchy really fast. Yes, it is frustrating at times, but I think you just have to roll with it - Marco has memories of a 30 year old when the boarders want to make a cool reference before Marco does a bunch of fancy weapon tricks, but it never affects his normal existence unless it’s needed for a joke/reference. Janna says something that implies complicated romance drama incoming when the boarders want girly banter to accompany dudes fighting, but it doesn’t go anywhere beyond that. Star has a body count on Earth but she’s not a wanted criminal, probably. The consistency here is that if the show kind of glosses over some sort of possible implication and plays it off for a gag, then that’s what you should take it as.

Again, I don’t know exactly how this will pay itself off, but I have an incredibly strong suspicion that the answer to “what were the boarders thinking when they did this??? It screws up a core moment in Starcrushed!!!” is that they weren’t thinking about that. COULD they actually do something more in-depth with the time travel aspect? I guess, but “throwing organic core moments of character/relationship growth under the bus for the sake of wacky over-the-top plot” sounds like the opposite of this show. I’ll cover more about how I think this might actually work later.

A lot of people said Star and Marco felt like acquaintances this episode, and not best friends. I understand where they’re coming from - there weren’t all kinds of hugs and affection flying around, their talks were awkward. But this honestly makes a lot of sense for where we’re at now. We’re completely over the hump where they they're hesitant to even think of themselves as best buddies, where they’re struggling with their feelings just to spend time with the other. Marco is back to making all attempts to be her close friend and companion and support, Star is comfortable around him... but, there’s still some lingering “OK we moved forward from here, what now?” We saw in Divide that a simple hug between them brought out strong feelings for both of them. I think a lot of the awkwardness remaining could be attributed to the strong sour mood of the situation overall, but part of it could also be a subconscious “OK, Marco confessing his feelings made things better, and we’re OK being close, but...” lingering, waiting to be addressed. And given pancake and cereal clips, it will be soon.

Escape from the Pie Folk

I have less to say about this episode, it was fairly straightforward, honestly. It was 22 minutes of adventure and fights while trying to find and steal away Moon - lot of really fun and well-executed humor, it definitely was a strong showing for pretty much all the parts of the show besides “focus on the relationship growth of Star and Marco”.

More Marco trying to be constantly supportive, but still maybe having a bit of lingering tension in the how.

And sweet family moments.

Overall, a very isolated situation, honestly. The actions and interactions of the characters were put in a very specific, very focused situation where “finding Moon” overrode anything else, and didn’t allow for much other special elements to shine through. I liked the episodes, but some part of me was disappointed that most developments besides Moon were put on pause for the premiere. Still, resolving this in its entirety straight away sets up for some pretty strong coverage of the rest...

INTERMISSION

Let’s take a moment to talk about compartmentalization and the rules of TV pacing. I love Star vs the Forces of Evil, and I’m sure many of you do, even if its infuriating and painful at times. A lot of times. But I definitely think the show is special and does things differently than many others, to an extent. And that extent is key - I like to think of it as content vs structure. Content-wise, it is rather different from what you might expect (especially with character/relationship development). Characters come first, always, and there isn’t a sense of outside drama pushing characters around like ragdolls, changing their relationships and emotions in ways that they aren’t already naturally primed to at that moment. Romance isn’t handled as a drama-fest love triangle, with Star and Jackie or Tom and Marco directly vying for the affection of their love interest, nor do those love triangles ever damage the development of the main dynamic, Starco. Basically every shift in Star and Marco’s relationship, the ebbs and flows of it, can be entirely explained by just the two of them. Yes, seeing the other be romantic with someone else was a partial catalyst to individual moments of growth, but by and large Star and Marco themselves have been their own biggest obstacles, their own insecurities and missteps guiding the path of Starco 1000x more than Jarco or Tomstar or plot.

However, this doesn’t mean the show is magically free of the confines of episodic story pacing, and that’s where people often find faults in it. Many, including myself, went into the premiere thinking/hoping that it would include some relationship payoff, or skip some steps and just have Tom and Star break it off right away. And while anyone is free to disagree with the general concept of the premiere being entirely focused on Moon and plot setup, it’s completely logical for the show to take its development in concrete, compartmentalized chunks. An episode dedicating itself to a theme, to a concrete piece of plot, is likely going to focus on that. And this can be nuanced - I don’t think it was wrong of people to think that Follies could have had a theme of “Star confronted with her screwups” in a broader way that included multiple aspects of that, but it doubled down on Moon and it’s totally understandable that she didn’t take time during her hunt to figure out her feelings, etc. Still, it included reminders of the current situation, and we’ll see those pay off very soon. It’s not so reasonable to expect the show to bend over backwards to steamroll through Starco development right away, but it’s also unreasonable to expect no chunks of development at all, or for them to stop randomly.

More specifically, the way the episodic structure handles these chunks is to follow up underlying buildup with inevitable realizations. It’s very, very rare for an episode that confronts a character with a specific question (e.g. “How do I feel about my Earth life” - Marco in Sophomore Slump, or “How do I feel about Marco” - Star in Starcrushed) to actually have the emotional development required to understand it occur within that episode. Star isn’t confronted with her crush on Marco until it’s developed enough to be ready to burst out. Marco isn’t confronted with his priorities in life until he’s experience enough of a bold, adventurous life with Star that his heart has already decided, and in both cases it’s a matter of a climactic wake-up call to what’s already there. On that note, onto predictions.

Moon Remembers

Well, I dunno much specific to say about this. Seems like this will be the episode dedicated to trying to get Moon her memory back - we have scenes from the promos of them riding warnicorns and Eclipsa playing guitar with her, maybe just trying to jog it. Could lead to some type of plot revelation (”I remember something big I saw in the Realm of Magic!” etc) but who knows. Seems likely that it’s entirely plot/Moon-focused, maybe with some more tie-ins to magic lore.

Swim Suit

This is a big one. So from the synopsis, we know that this is when Star and Marco attempt to have their beach day (which we now know is a celebration of things being “back to normal”, with Moon being back) but get interrupted by Eclipsa. I don’t know specifics of it, but in general, I think this is going to be the episode where Star truly settles in to an understanding of how she feels.

Quick tangent about the photo and how I think it’ll be used: in Follies, it was primarily encouragement for finding her mom. It’s still definitely interesting, and intentional, that the particular reminder of future happiness is a time with Marco, but it wasn’t relevant immediately - I think it will be used that way moving forward. Basically like this - “I kept this photo as encouragement to think positively and know I’d find my Mom. We found Mom, so now I can be happy like in the photo. It feels really good being happy with Marco like I am in the photo. Huh, I wonder why it is that my ideal of happiness is having fun with Marco...” Clearly the underlying feelings are already there, this is just bringing them to the forefront, actually giving Star a chance to reflect on how her heart feels after recent weeks/months and big events. As for specifics, I think they won’t actually take the photo here. They’ll try to have a beach day, get interrupted, and throughout the course of Eclipsa shenanigans, the episodic plot will tie in towards thinking about her feelings, with the end result being a “well, we didn’t achieve Beach Happiness™, but it was still nice.” We already know that an Earth beach is in episode 16, so maybe the photo comes full circle then (and at that point, they’re completely together already, and the photo is spontaneous). Or maybe I’m wrong, but who knows, this is a level of specificity I can’t predict with any confidence.

Also note here that, provided animation studio order stays consistent as expected, the cereal/pancake/babysitting Meteora scenes aren’t actually from Swim Suit, so who knows where those end up.

Overall, my general expectations for this episode are to set the stage for Starco developments, to start the ball rolling on payoff from last season and to start characters recognizing those changes and truly moving forward. Of course Tomstar is likely not going away officially until Lake House Fever, so I don’t exactly expect Star and Marco to talk about their feelings in depth here, but it’ll still be an important episode for Starco regardless.

Ransomgram

Alright, let’s just make something clear here. Yes, we already know Star is going to be fawning over adult Marco’s hot bod here, and very likely before breaking up with Tom. I know a lot of people are gonna find that sketchy, and I don’t entirely disagree, but adult Marco (and Star thirsting after hot dudes in general) has always been a gag never treated with any real serious weight. Both Jarco and Tomstar overall, but especially Tomstar, never really ever are treated with any true weight in the story. Like, yes, it’s acknowledged that Marco and Star kissing while she’s dating Tom are bad, but none of the moments of Marco abandoning Jackie to be with Star, or Star ignoring Tom to be with Marco, or Tom being a really unhelpful/unsupportive boyfriend, are ever treated with any real gravity. In the real world, perhaps these would be frowned upon much more even in weaker relationships, but in the show, “Star and Tom are dating” is taken as a given in the background, and none of the actions that characters take are really ever truly treated seriously as hurtful. So yes, on some level it’s weird and questionable that Star will be drooling over Marco (again) while STILL not talking to Tom, but Compartmentalization™ and the general lack of concern for treating the possible implications of situations like this seriously add up to explain it. Feel however you want about it, but this is how I expect it to work, because it’s how it’s worked in the past.

MHC is gonna come back here, and there might be a connection to the monster side of the plot, figuring out where the old guard fits in with the new regime and how politics are moving forward. Also, as far as Starco goes, I think this will be a sort of emotional payoff to Swim Suit. Not that anything tangible will result within the episode, but showing the differences in how Star acts around Marco when she’s actually admitting to herself that she loves him. Just like how Marco Jr., for instance, showed a very clear and different Starco interaction than 3A episodes, as a result of the concrete development moments in Deep Dive. Or how their interactions in Divide were very clearly the result of changes in Booth Buddies. So on and so forth.

All of this, then, leads into...

Lake House Fever

So this is where Tomstar finally rots. We have all-but-confirmation from animation studios, hints in the title, and background/SFX “leaks” that this is where the Tom and Star clips in the promos are from. So how exactly might this work? I can’t even say for sure, but I think it’s going to follow the usual trend of Tomstar episodes and basically be a vehicle for Tom development. Let’s face it, Star basically got nothing out of Tomstar besides a general passive armor against having to contemplate heartbreak/feelings since Tom filled the checkbox of “romance” in her life. She initially at least did truly fulfill the role of “normal teenage girlfriend” by spending time with him, dates, etc, but that started to wane after Lava Lake Beach and kept doing so more and more, and it’s now basically at the point of Tomstar being a couple in name only, with 0 effort between either of them put into actually... being anything.

Let’s compare to Sophomore Slump for a minute, shall we? So in that episode, we had Marco who had undergone a ton of previous developments in how much he cared about adventure and a greater purpose in life and Star, and his heart had already basically made up its mind (Scent of a Hoodie’s ending and wearing the cape in Rest in Pudding, as clear signs of this). Sophomore Slump was the direct reality check, the final piece of the puzzle slotting into place, at least with regards to specifically “where he’d rather be” (even if the why still needed a bit more). So we could say, in effect, that Marco had fully developed everything underneath to answer the question of what mattered more to him, the old safe kid Marco’s ideal Earth life, or the new Marco’s life, and the breakup was simply everything that was already there clicking into place - he moves to Mewni immediately afterwards.

So how does this fit into Lake House Fever? I think the positioning of the episode is going to revolve around Star’s “growth” from it to work like Marco’s. In the Jarco case, the breakup wasn’t about Starco specifically, but Marco’s overall goals and focuses in life (Star was a part of that too, of course). It’s fairly clear that the Tomstar breakup will be different - the tension in their relationship is FAR more directly related to Starco itself (and also a much greater overall dysfunction within Tomstar compared to Jarco). It’s not a case of “this is a perfectly working relationship but it’ll eventually have issues, so let’s end it before we both become miserable”, it’s “this relationship isn’t working at all right now, for multiple reasons, among which are that Star prioritizes/loves someone else, but also general incompatibilities between them for committed companionship”.

I think on Star’s end of things, we’re going to enter the episode with her knowing, very close to the surface if not on the surface already, that she has feelings for Marco and they need to talk, but will just have the one last hesitation holding her back. Not a “I genuinely don’t know who I like/whether I want to keep going longterm with Tom”, but a “this overall situation needs resolved and I just don’t know exactly how to handle it”. From the very limited info we have from the title/promo (no synopsis yet), it seems like Star might be helping Tom with something - he kind of looked ill in the promos. Regardless, I still sort of predict a semi-arbitrary episodic plot leads them to meet up in the episode. Give em a reason to interact that isn’t directly related to awkward and complex feelings, and let the handling of those naturally evolve from there.

So as for Tom, I think the bulk of the change in this episode will be on his end. I think he’s going to sort of have an attitude not too dissimilar to Star - knowing they should talk at some point, but not really knowing how. I think the bulk of the episode’s plot, whatever it may be, will lead up towards Tom getting the wakeup call that it 100% won’t work and that he needs to pull the trigger on it. It would give Tom a really solid moment to follow up on some of his initial moments in Season 3, would give him some critical agency when he honestly hasn’t had much of it for a while (Starco developments just kind of happen around him, although of course his general lack of presence in Star’s life contributes to this as well - Star’s a fairly absentee girlfriend, but Tom’s no angel either). Getting over that initial hump of awkwardness would still accomplish things for both of them, but Tom being the one to first make the leap of faith into starting the uncomfortable conversation would fit best imo.

As for afterwards, much like how I said Jarco was the final puzzle piece for Marco decisively figuring out his priorities, I think this will be the same for Star’s feelings. She’ll be aware, nearly-consciously, that she has feelings for Marco ahead of time, but will just be stuck on inaction, not being confident enough to take a bold step forward on her own. So I think the breakup for Star’s feelings will do what the breakup did for Marco’s sense of accomplishment - the final domino will not only help her realize that she has feelings for Marco, but prime her to actually act on them.

Now if this breakup occurred earlier, I’d say it could have a major impact on Star’s own growth and understanding, and it still could, but I don’t think it’ll be so likely. There are certainly situations where the breakup would serve as a shakeup for her to consider her feelings, which would then take some more time afterwards to solidify, but I can’t help but assume that’s what the purpose of multiple Starco episodes beforehand is. The situation is too much of a powderkeg for Star to have any downtime with either of them that doesn’t start turning the gears in her brain. Anyway, that’s all for this.

Eps 5-7

Yada Yada Berries/Down by the River

The Ponyhead Show!/Surviving the Spiderbites

Out of Business/Kelly’s World

These, I have no clue on specifics, to be honest. There’s an RDK Ludo episode coming up, so that would be part of episode 5 most likely. Second half of that seems like a River episode contender, but who knows. The first half of episode 6 is some type of variety show involving Eclipsa in part - this may be part of the plot of Eclipsa trying to find her place as Queen. Spiderbites is a possible contender for the babysitting Meteora clip, the first half of episode 7 is Quest Buy with the Ocrams, and Kelly’s World is something with Marco and Kelly. We’ll circle back to these, but let’s look at broader strokes first.

Curse of the Blood Moon

I’m entirely confident that by the end of this episode (at the latest) Starco will be 100% canon, ready to move forward into Season 4 as a couple, romantic uncertainties behind them. It’s the only possible next “big” step in their development, one that was set up very directly in Booth Buddies with the idea that things were different now and they could no longer ignore their friendship meaning more than friendship. I’m sure it will be tied in to Starco relationship progress, but as I’ve said many times before, it’s entirely out of the realm of how this show handles development as a whole to actually prioritize plot over characters and obstruct character development with plot. The “Curse”, whatever it may be, could very well be activated by Starco itself, but it’s entirely out of line with everything the show has ever done with characterization to actually claim plot is “forcing” feelings, capisce?

Now how could this be accomplished? Well, given the pacing of the show in general, concrete chunks of development along the way seem most likely. And Star and Marco acknowledging the stronger nature of their relationship and stepping over the edge towards mutual romance, to me, seems like a different piece of the puzzle than something so strong as becoming 100% canon forever. After all, Bonbon for Jarco still had a Naysaya before it, a setup with clear and direct Jarco moments nudging it over the edge of romantic before going the whole way. Similarly, Tomstar had Demoncism before they officially confirmed they were a couple a few episodes later.

Curse is definitely going to be a big episode, but I don’t see it being very likely that we entire the episode with the entire prospect of Star and Marco talking about their feelings still completely looming over them. Another major reason I have to believe this, which is in some ways related to the above point, is that the show doesn’t overly fetishize romance. It’s all-too-common in media, especially family-friendly/kid media with romance, to warp the whole concept and make the “confession + big kiss + happily ever after” one monolithic moment at the very end, as the pinnacle of romance, often going so far as to delay natural developments and put roadblocks of misunderstanding in the way to keep the pair apart until both could have this moment. SVTFOE, on the other hand, historically hasn’t done this. It has always, thus far, recognized the ebbs and flows and slower progression of natural relationships, with steps in between “I guess we might like each other” to “yup we’re 100% dating”. So I can’t guarantee anything about the specific pacing along the way, but I’d wager that Starco has already crossed the threshold into mutual romance before Curse begins.

I have genuinely no idea what the plot will be here overall. We have a shot from the promo which is a newly animated version of the Blood Moon Waltz... flashback? Recreating the event? Time travel? I hope not the last one, but I have no clue.

So circling back around, we have the cereal, pancake, and babysitting Meteora scenes which (as far as I can tell, assuming animation studio order holds) are unaccounted for. There’s... I suppose a nonzero chance for a huge curveball, with some of them being Lake House Fever? Star wears the new S4 outfit in cereal/pancake as well as then, and they’re all Sugarcube. Another option I’d been considering was for Surviving the Spiderbites to be their attempt to spend time together, either resulting in feelingstalk or being the result of feelingstalk and tiptoeing into romance, with the cereal/pancake scenes being about trying to have a good “date” but getting interrupted... which is now the plot of Swim Suit, so I don’t know. Quest Buy has always, historically, involved heavy Starco importance, so perhaps that episode is a leadin to Curse on that front. Note that either everyone actually thinking Kelly’s World (and their baking scene in Ponyhead Show) is actually implying more love triangles is wrong, or the writers officially gave up and we can all go home.

As a note, I’m of course not really making any bold claims of confidence in the minutiae of these predictions: there’s so many options for curveballs that I can’t say anything for sure! But I think, in a general sense, the path of Starco buildup towards and through Curse is a sure thing, one way or another, because there’s basically nothing else meaningful that could happen!

Hope you enjoyed the read, and stay tuned for any new updates we get on future episodes.

#svtfoe #star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe spoilers #starco #tomstar

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