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mlobsters · 5 months ago

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supernatural s1e11 scarecrow (teleplay: john shiban, story: patrick sean smith)

(this is a rewatch so spoilers abound)

this episode was my first spn hey i know you - which was a piggyback on an xfiles hiky for an actor that was in the killing as well, triple threat. and ofc william b davis (who is the cigarette smoking man in xf) that's in this spn episode too, i may have screeched when i saw him in the credits

also have a feeling in this rewatch the brother angst is what's gonna cause me the most strife. i was so, so exhausted by that plot mechanic by the time i was solidly reaching the 2/3 point of the series. i do wonder if when it gets really heavy or repetitive, if i'll be able to power through. i won't be surprised if i can't. anyway, onwards to the first spat

the teaser music was very on theme xfiles-y, but then it shifts to eye rolling (for me) territory and you guessed it, jay gruska. there was a vibe, and then it was gone. so in this clip, i'm digging it (it has some of what i call an xfiles sound) and it's tense and present feeling. but then once the... urgent? music starts when they start to run with these really flat bland sounding strings.. it just feels so. cliche and boring and sitting in the background. to me, it's actively taking away tension instead of adding it. like maybe if the software they were using had better strings or it was mixed differently, it would be better. or, you know, had recorded actual strings (but i can also imagine the limitations with 22+ episode seasons on a relatively low budget b level network show so). anyway, #choices

you know what is also #choices, me wasting 30+ minutes trying to find actual details on the budget for the show and getting nowhere, other than people saying it was low 🥴 this has some general speculation of $2mil per episode but also details that they don't release cost and revenue numbers. i imagine s1's budget was different from s5

could the beds BE any closer? i know i commented on that the first time through too. and also figure it's so they could get this shot of them both sleeping and then pan around to sam sitting up in bed but it's funny regardless of silly production reasons! gotta be in literal arm's length from your brother who you have very normal and chill feelings about

also like, sam shoulda been smacking the shit out of dean to wake him up after he realized john was on the phone. HELLO what's the point of being in arm's reach if you don't use the arm to reach out and slap them when needed haha

as ever just thinking how potentially uncomfortable it would be to sleep with the amulet on, but also the commitment of wearing it, even sleeping, from 12 years old to 31. damn. now i'm sad again lol. so like, totally understand why jensen was glad to get rid of it - it was big and he mentioned he forgot to swap out to the stunt one and chipped his teeth with it smacking him in the mouth. maybe if had been less giant and heavy, they could have reincorporated/had a real fix-it for it. womp womp

SAM We’ve been looking for you everywhere. We didn’t know where you were, if you were okay. JOHN Sammy, I’m all right. What about you and Dean? (At the motel, DEAN is waking up.) SAM We’re fine. Dad, where are you? (DEAN sits up in bed.) JOHN Sorry, kiddo, I can’t tell you that. SAM What? Why not? DEAN Is that Dad? JOHN Look, I know this is hard for you to understand. You’re just gonna have to trust me on this.

taking a moment to address how deeply unsettling and weird it would be to have your dad who you have been living and working with forever to ghost you with no explanation for what.. 6 months now? pilot was set in end of october, this ep is april

SAM You’re after it, aren’t you? The thing that killed Mom. JOHN Yeah. It’s a demon, Sam. SAM A demon? You know for sure? DEAN A demon? What’s he saying?

so i had thought he knew about hunting before, but refreshed my memory that he didn't here last time it came up, but also just thinking about how mary never told him about the demon and the deal - at least when the time was approaching. she didn't know what the demon wanted, or that she was gonna end up dying in the process, but damn. give your man a heads up that a demon is coming inside your house. i can also see why she might not, but ugh. anyway, plot needs must

JOHN I do. Listen, Sammy, I, uh…I also know what happened to your girlfriend. I’m so sorry. I would’ve done anything to protect you from that. SAM You know where it is? JOHN Yeah, I think I’m finally closing in on it. SAM Let us help. JOHN You can’t. You can’t be any part of it. SAM Why not? DEAN Give me the phone. JOHN Listen, Sammy, that’s why I’m calling. You and your brother, you gotta stop looking for me. Alright, now, I need you to write down these names. SAM Names? What names, Dad—talk to me, tell me what’s going on. JOHN Look, we don’t have time for this. This is bigger than you think, they’re everywhere. Even us talking right now, it’s not safe. SAM No. Alright? No way. DEAN Give me the phone. JOHN I have given you an order. Now, you stop following me, and you do your job. You understand me? Now, take down these names. (DEAN grabs the phone from SAM.)

man oh man. it's a good thing john has dean so thoroughly trained to fall in line like an actual soldier because i'm right there with sam, it's a really tough pill to swallow without any explanation as to WHY they can't be involved. it sounds like writers who haven't decided exactly why, other than we just need them to stay apart for now :P so frustrating!

DEAN Dad, it’s me. Where are you? (…) Yes, sir. (…) Uh, yeah, I got a pen. What are their names?

dean's face when he goes from frustrated and concerned, where are you? to "yes, sir" 💔 yet again, i made gifs.

DEAN Dad doesn’t want our help. SAM I don’t care. DEAN He’s given us an order. SAM (firmly) I don’t care. We don’t always have to do what he says. DEAN Sam, Dad is asking us to work jobs, to save lives, it’s important. SAM Alright, I understand, believe me, I understand. But I’m talking one week here, man, to get answers. To get revenge. DEAN Alright, look, I know how you feel. SAM Do you? How old were you when Mom died? Four? Jess died six months ago. How the hell would you know how I feel?

that was a low blow, sammy. not cool. so dean deflects with something else that is also logical

DEAN Dad said it wasn’t safe. For any of us. I mean, he obviously knows something that we don’t, so if he says to stay away, we stay away. SAM I don’t understand the blind faith you have in the man. I mean, it’s like you don’t even question him. DEAN Yeah, it’s called being a good son!

i don't think sam's right in tearing off to track john down, i don't think it's right that john is keeping them still basically entirely in the dark, but i also don't think dean's right in the blind faith/following bit. everyone is wrong 🎉 but again, dean was raised like a literal soldier. that following orders is life or death. it's not being a good son, it's being a good soldier. which should be separate things! and i don't know the nuances of military command, but honestly, questioning the guy in charge seems like kind of a thing you need to do sometimes too, which maybe means the only choice is to bail

ANYWAY

DEAN You’re a selfish bastard, you know that? You just do whatever you want. Don’t care what anybody thinks. SAM That’s what you really think? DEAN Yes, it is. SAM Well, then this selfish bastard is going to California. DEAN Come on, you’re not serious. SAM I am serious. DEAN It’s the middle of the night! Hey, I’m taking off, I will leave your ass, you hear me? SAM That’s what I want you to do. DEAN Goodbye, Sam.

dysfunctional relationship written all over it, that couple that is always breaking up and making up. hard to watch. and this is just a tiny sliver of the iceberg o'brotherly angst to come. but also reminding myself that a) sam is only 22 and i think he had some flexibility to be childish in a way that dean never did. and i think it's pretty immature to just bail on the car and walk because you're disagreeing over doing what dad wants you to do. and we're establishing that sam (and dean) can be as stubborn as a mule. and b) i'm feeling the weight of the brother conflict from the entire series but trying to watch this with less baggage. so, chill out, friend

another little moment i could gif but won't waste my time again on, when sam says "that's what i want you to do" dean looks genuinely upset/taken aback briefly before he locks down his expression and says goodbye

i have got to finish this episode. it's like 45 minutes of thinking and rambling to watch a couple minutes then i'm like welp it's too late at night to finish it, guess tomorrow. x5

just call him!

they were testing my suspension of disbelief when i first watched this. that open, straight ass road, sam surely wasn't walking backwards long enough to not have reasonably been able to see her before getting right up on her, yet doesn't question how this girl just appeared at his feet. anyway, hi meg. (rip nicki aycox, passed away at 47 in 2022)

MEG You could be some kind of freak. I mean, you are hitchhiking.

there's that freak label again

that said, they had this all happen so flash bang boom and she's off with shady van guy and not trusting him but also being funny and cute, i can see how the logistics of her appearance maybe could have been distracted from

her big smile is kinda scary, i dunno if that was intentional lol. but padalecki did good in this, very natural. good stuff

s1e11 / the x-files s5e9 schizogeny

i'm doing it again. looking up for details on the xfiles episode that had a very similar looking orchard to see if they're the same 🤦focus! look at baby face dean's cute little scowl. and those apparently are hazelnut trees. shrubs. something. i had to confirm that apple trees really don't look like this so i don't know why they used it. kim manners was with xf at the time but didn't direct schizogeny (credited as producer). anyway! focus did not happen! it's been 15 minutes!

do it, babes!!! foiled by meg

DEAN You know, my brother could give you this puppy dog look, and you’d just buy right into it.

cracks me up that dean talking about sam's puppy face is canonical, to me it doesn't read as puppy much unless he's making it at dean like in home and faith - otherwise just kind of earnest and empathetic when he's dealing with other people. but also, dean, not gonna help your case not coming across as a creeper to these people by saying that lol

the sheriff literally driving him out of town

forgot how much he utilized the short over long sleeve look

MEG I love my parents. And they wanted what’s best for me. They just didn’t care if I wanted it. I was supposed to be smart. But not smart enough to scare away a husband. It’s just…because my family said so, I was supposed to sit there and do what I was told. So I just went on my own way instead. I’m sorry. The things you say to people you hardly know. SAM No, no, it’s okay. I know how you feel. Remember that brother I mentioned before, that I was road-tripping with? It’s, uh, it’s kind of the same deal. MEG And that’s why you’re not riding with him anymore? (SAM shakes his head. MEG raises her beer bottle.) Here’s to us. The food might be bad, and the beds might be hard. But at least we’re living our own lives. And nobody else’s.

it feels a little on the nose to have her story be so similar, but also can imagine in this situation it's like music to sam's ears to have someone who would understand so well where he's coming from

DEAN I’m actually on my way to a local community college. I’ve got an appointment with a professor. You know, since I don’t have my trusty sidekick geek boy to do all the research. SAM You know, if you’re hinting you need my help, just ask. DEAN I’m not hinting anything. Actually, uh—I want you to know….I mean, don’t think…. SAM Yeah. I’m sorry, too.

DEAN Sam. You were right. You gotta do your own thing. You gotta live your own life. SAM Are you serious? DEAN You’ve always known what you want. And you go after it. You stand up to Dad. And you always have. Hell, I wish I—anyway….I admire that about you. I’m proud of you, Sammy. SAM I don’t even know what to say. DEAN Say you’ll take care of yourself. SAM I will. DEAN Call me when you find Dad. SAM (sadly) OK. Bye, Dean.

ok i was not expecting to end up crying over this episode. dean acknowledging how he wished he could stand up to john like sam does, and was so sweet and forthcoming about being proud, and sam was ready to hear it, goddamn. but he wasn't ready for dean to let him go

MEG Who was that? SAM My brother. MEG What’d he say? SAM Goodbye.

sammy 😭 pushed so hard to forge off on his own do what he thinks is right but maybe he wants dean to rein him back in. and also want to acknowledge jared hit all the right emotions with that phone call with dean and this after. i think he can do the quiet moments well already

i love that they got william b davis for this little part. he brings all the creep factor especially for xfiles fans

dean's belly getting a surprising amount of screentime in s1

imagining kim manners, well if they won't let the boys have umbrellas, i'm getting a cool shot with these rando characters with umbrellas!

MEG But I don’t understand. You’re running back to your brother? The guy you ran away from? Why, because he won’t pick up his phone? Sam—come with me to California. SAM I can’t. I’m sorry. MEG Why not? SAM He’s my family.

❤️ i know that's right. also, "he's my family" not just "he's family" and with the softest expression. don't need to think or care about banging to ship this, they're just out there doing this stuff and being this way about each other and i eat it all up

DEAN How’d you get here? SAM I, uh—I stole a car. DEAN Haha! That’s my boy!

even more proud

DEAN So, can I drop you off somewhere? SAM No, I think you’re stuck with me. DEAN What made you change your mind? SAM I didn’t. I still wanna find Dad. And you’re still a pain in the ass. But, Jess and Mom—they’re both gone. Dad is God knows where. You and me. We’re all that’s left. So, if we’re gonna see this through, we’re gonna do it together.

my cup runneth over. of course, still have the hill to climb for sam to want to stay with dean for the long run, but. ❤️

DEAN Hold me, Sam. That was beautiful.

such an ass, he was just as mushy literally the day before LOL but the d in dean stands for deflect :p

good grief, man. this show! agh. i'm again reminded why it sucked me in. the overarching plot and monsters of the week are like, whatever, but the sam and dean of it all is so good. and what they established in these early days carried me through 15 seasons where i got increasingly frustrated with all of the non-sam and dean aspects, and overused sam and dean conflict, etc. truly a feat

and we find out meg is a baddie with her phone home to azazel via bowl o'blood

#supernatural #spnwatch #spn 1x11 #spnrewatch #sam and dean mush #spnhiky #dean's belly #the xfiles #schizogeny #john shiban #patrick sean smith #spn clip #jay gruska #spn musical score #sam's canonical puppy dog look

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vaguely-concerned · 4 years ago

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The Mandalorian Chapter 13 rewatch thoughts; the reduced salt edition

or at least I’m trying to be more constructive with the salt in this one let’s goooo

- god I miss the armourer so much. look at how fucking cool she looks, this is the mando design I hunger for so deeply, WHY would you give me boob plates back instead haha

- I will say with the way it’s presented this place feels way too small to be called a city lol (and I think that limited scale hurts how much I’m willing to accept the magistrate as a credible opponent to go toe to toe with ahsoka freaking tano. maybe if we’d seen directly the extent of the magistrate’s power and influence and not just the burned out wasteland that power leaves behind I’d be more on board with it. canonically she’s clearly been extremely rich and influential on a galactic scale, while the aesthetic filoni takes from samurai movies in this has a lot more to do with local warlords and smaller stakes. this is not the only time the adherence to that aesthetic without adapting it for the emotional story at hand or giving it a spin for novelty hurts the episode #hot take. it’s empty homage without quite understanding why the moments you’re emulating work so well in the context of the story they serve.)

this might be because how it’s filmed makes it seem like there’s just one big main street towards the magistrate’s palace, it’s implied to be quite a bit bigger from the establishing shot as the crest comes flying in?

- LOVE the implication that din lets baby play with the silver ball pretty freely while they’re on the ship but sets the (completely sensible tbh) boundary that he can’t bring it with him somewhere outside where he might lose it for good. that seems like reasonable dad-ing, din, well done.

anyway my heart is hurting because that silver ball is like a comfort item for the kid and it’s pretty clear from the very start that he has some kind of understanding of what might happen on this planet and so does NOT want to go out there, but also... that thing is narratively introduced as the baby’s way of saying ‘dad, don’t forget me, don’t go’. it’s what made din go back for him the first time, and that’s a connotation it still has both in the audience’s mind and for the characters. and I need to go cry in a corner for a while be right back

- not for nothing but in this scene of the baby being faced with din and a jedi standing side by side as if to present a choice, din literally has the sun right behind his head like some kind of fucking halo

gee I wonder what the baby’s choice is going to be fsadfjkhasdkjfhs. (he! loves! his dad! so much!!!!!!!)

- I wish they’d done more with the bored punch clock villain, hey-I’m-just-here-for-the-paycheck-man vibe of the guard captain guy and maybe given his nonchalance a bit of a darkly comedic tint, I think it would’ve made a better moment when he’s facing off with din towards the end if he had more... character. make him a bit more of a dark mirror of the soulless gun for hire people have seen din as in the past (and as the magistrate seems to now), do something interesting here. maybe even make it more of a mexican standoff with him holding a gun on an innocent or something so there’s something here for din to lose, it still does the western thing and lets you have that ramping tension you need for when you cut between the sword duel and this. hell, have him actually give up and walk away to show that he doesn’t fucking care about any of this, he did evil for money without any driving passion or conviction behind it, and let din decide if he’ll let him walk away scot free or not after what he’s been part of, that’s a neat subversion of the trope as well! as it stands it’s just so... empty

- baby says ‘mada! mada!’ again when they try to approach the vendor who appears to be serving foodstuffs! so maybe a word he has for food or maybe something like ‘lady person!’? (he says it when frog lady is gone on the ice planet and also as she’s walking into the razor crest for the first time. he did seem more interested in the eggs at that point, sooo lol)

din reacts to him speaking too, he glances down at him <3<3<3

- the baby seems to sense ‘ooof this is scary, time to hide’ on his own before they go into the magistrate’s place, din doesn’t appear to signal anything to him

- there’s a lot of deliberate silence in this episode, but the sound design that gets space away from the music somehow isn’t as immersive to me as it usually is on this show? I have no idea why, though

- ‘a jedi plagues me’ is somehow so fucking funny to me. the tl;dr for a lot of star wars villains through the ages

it also still cracks me up that din is immediately like ‘ma’am you can’t afford me’ fsdhfaskf

- I’m so happy din talks to and reassures the baby when he puts him down in these situations now, I remember being SO SAD when he didn’t back in chapter 7. he’s learning all the time!

- I think we should all be very happy this fight is cut off almost as soon as it begins, because I’m pretty sure ahsoka could kick din’s ass real bad and that would be terrible because I love him (listen din definitely has his moments, but up against a force user for the first time and said force user being one of the most powerful and battle-experienced jedi alive? probably not huh, if he survives that it’s on pure fatherly love and desperation and nothing else)

- this seems to be the baby asking ahsoka to carry him back to be with din (mando certainly seems to be what they’re ‘talking’ about right before) and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen

din’s fingers are also doing the nervous curl-uncurl thing as she puts the baby down, and it remains the sweetest goddamn character tic, he’s adorable

in the long pause after he tells her “he needs your help” he’s sitting SO TENSELY, it’s only when she at least promises to test the kid that he relaxes a bit

baby (well, grogu, but he’s also baby) recognizes yoda’s name and seems to almost ask ahsoka ‘yoda is here???’, and her blink in response is like ‘no, I’m sorry’

- I still deeply dislike how it’s actually done in the episode, it’s so clunky and it annoys me on a craft level, but I do like the overarching thematic narrative of both mando and the baby being on this journey towards specificity and remembering themselves, of reclaiming the particular nuances of an identity that make up a self after a series of traumas have stripped it away from them. at the start of the show neither of them has a name (and din doesn’t even have a face) and they’re basically presented as broad archetypes, The Mandalorian and The Child. and now we’re slowly unearthing things that make them this specific child, grogu, this specific mandalorian, din djarin. it’s rediscovering parts of yourself you might have thought lost as you heal from trauma and I do like that very much, it’s touching and the emotional throughline this show should never lose sight of

- oooooh no baby glances over at din when she asks him to push the stone back ;______________; it’s so awful because you can just tell... he understands that if he does this thing din might leave, but also people have clearly tricked him into using the Force before and given him this traumatized kneejerk association that if he uses it where people can see him Bad things might happen

oh okay so I think din just subtly misunderstands the baby’s appeal to him here, he thinks that look towards him means ‘dad help I don’t understand what’s being asked of me’. I guess he doesn’t have any way of knowing how complicated the baby’s past is with this yet, it’s a good try

- I’ve seen people take ‘he understands’ as baby understanding everything that’s said to him all the time, which is patently not true haha. he understands quite a lot, in the way toddlers actually understand quite a lot of what’s going on around them, even a bit of words spoken to them before they’re especially verbal themselves, but he clearly mixes up his colours still sooo

I also suspect he’s played this game before -- surely that must be one of the most obvious activities the jedi would do with the smallest children, playing Force catch basically? but he still doesn’t trust it, or her. (on the other hand he does trust that din would never hurt or trick him. help me I’m drowning in my own tears)

- personally and from anything else in this show I don’t think din would be this impatient with the baby after hearing, less than half a minute before, that he’s terrified

but hey I’m not the man in the cowboy hat what do I know (yes I’m bitter characterization matters okay lol)

- it’s both funny and so sweet that the same music plays during this father and son playing catch scene as when baby lifted that mudhorn fkdfha

- for my money din reacts exactly perfectly to grogu finally Force pulling the ball -- he’s excited and happy, signalling that this thing doesn’t have to be scary and dangerous and that when shared with the right people it can be a good joyous thing, he moves over to the baby so they can share in this victory and attune, and crucially he doesn’t demand more afterwards, which the baby must have gotten before from some of the assholes who’ve been experimenting on him. it’s just the celebration and satisfaction of having done the thing without demands or threats or any ulterior motives. HIM!!! DAD!!!!

tattoo this straight onto my heart... the way baby cheerfully offers it back to din... sdkjafhksdfhsakdjf

- din breaths out roughly and unevenly through his nose almost like it’s been punched out of him and starts fiddling with the silver ball (which is still his primary tell for anxiety/stress!) when ahsoka says “he’s formed a strong attachment to you” :) listen if I have to know that all of you fuckers are going down with me

- see the thing is... if you don’t know who ahsoka is in pretty deep detail, you might take her at face value here instead of understanding that she’s actually projecting her own feelings and traumas onto this. if you absolutely have to use this character for this part of the show you have to set her up better specifically so someone who’s never seen a single episode of clone wars can grasp the basics of where she is emotionally and what her motives are, so that her role in this story makes sense. as it is it’s sort of a compromise between pleasing old fans (who can do quite a bit of inferring to figure it out) and approaching audiences who don’t know anything, and it falls flat

(for the purposes of this show I aggressively do not care where thrawn is, and so I’m just annoyed when we find out what this was actually all for haha)

- still feel reluctant to discuss too much about ahsoka because of the whole... situation with dawson, but I do like that she lets one of the guards leave after disarming him because he’s cowering and giving up, and that she still has her padawan braid wound into her belt. also I think the effects on her and her outfit are completely fine, my problems with her this episode are all writing craft and real life stuff

- when you get first the jet pack sound, then din coming down kicking that dude in the face, then the mando flute kicking in as he lands properly... the only time the action in this episode made me go ‘fuck YEEEAAAAH’ it’s awesome

- again, just like with the idea of having a samurai/ronin movie standoff and a western standoff at the same time: having the scene be mostly silent except for the almost musical sounds of the light sabers hitting the beskar spear is such a cool concept, and it does not work in action. I don’t know enough about filmmaking to tell you why it doesn’t, but it doesn’t.

there’s also something about... the ahsoka vs. morgan scene apes the deliberately staged, ritualized, exaggerated almost like how you’d perform it in live theatre aspect of the duels in the genre, but in an empty way? why are they acting like this, what’s their relationship to each other, what’s their individual code of honour that makes them let the other person slowly theatrically disrobe before going for them? just plucking the aesthetics out of a tradition and plopping them down in your own thing without thinking about the whys or original context of it leaves it without meaning

(also let morgan express something of her own character other than I Am Evil rather than having ahsoka drop the entire exposition on her. maybe you could have her snarl some illuminating lines while they’re fighting so you get the feeling of the bitterness and brokenness that has fuelled her and burned the woods of this whole planet. in some ways she’s not that unlike din and ahsoka, she lost everything in the clone wars too and was motivated very differently by it than they were, play that up so the situation’s relevant to our protagonists! I’m sorry for all this nitpicking but I HAVE to figure out how this could have been done better for my own sake haha)

- ooooooh the way din says “I can’t accept” when offered the spear is in fact almost an exact echo of when the armourer offers him the signet in chapter 3! I thought it sounded familiar, it’s delivered in such a similar way. huh. din has some Feelings about earning things and when he hasn’t earned something, doesn’t he

- din also cares A LOT about not breaking his word, to the point of being willing to stoop to some quite dishonest methods to avoid giving his word in the first place, and I find it utterly delightful

- baby closing his eyes again after din wakes him like he’s thinking ‘maybe if I don’t wake up dad won’t go’ or even ‘at least this way I won’t know it happened until later, when it’s over’... pure emotional torture :) thank god din’s entire soul is clearly howling in protest and he took the slightest chance ahsoka gave him to not actually go through with it

- so this is the second time we get someone telling din he’s like grogu’s father. well, the armourer gives it more like a command/almost a religious obligation, ‘until it is of age or reunited with its kind you are as its father’, ahsoka is stating what’s obvious at this point but says ‘you are like a father to him’... maybe they’re doing a rule of threes thing and the last time it’s ‘you are his father’ and it sticks?

- anyway din cradling the baby so close to his chest with both arms all the time instead of the more practical way he carries him around in the crook of his arm sometimes... my suffering is deep and endless

#star wars #the mandalorian #the mandalorian spoilers #the mandalorian meta

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vaguely-gestures-to-the-void · 3 years ago

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Hindsight: My thoughts on Loki (2021)

Welcome back! Spoilers below!

I need to clarify that I watch Loki purely as an escape. I've got a biased perspective in that regard because I don’t actively try to find fault with the show, though there are definitely things I’m not so inclined to. This is more of what I noticed and think things mean and it’s something I’m doing for fun. Anyways, here's my thoughts on episode 2 my loves.

Episode 2: THE VARIANT

Pre-title scene

Miss Minutes’ monologue in the recap is different to the one last ep.

1985 Oshkosh, Wisconsin

C-20!

“Today’s guest performances” on a board. Don’t really know if it means anything tho.

The Iconic (TM) I Need A Hero scene.

Pony.

The green tent - the lair of Loki.

I know not everyone’s a fan of the lighting, but it made sense to me. They’re still in the dark about who Sylvie is.

Why does C-20 take off her helmet? For the drama?

I hope Sylvie cleaned her blade. Narnia taught me well.

The Time Samsung (I can’t remember what it’s called right now) says that the date’s 04/12/1985.

Loki’s first mission (?)

‘Volume 26’ - how many of these does Mobius have?? #giveMobiusajetski

“ONLY at your LOCAL AUTHORIZED DEALER” - subtext about the TVA being control freaks? Jet ski safety?

I googled Wake Magazine. They’re up to volume 20 from what I saw, whilst Loki is reading volume 26, so I guess that’s something

Loki and Miss Minutes lmaooo.

Behind Loki’s elbow is the taxidermy something from the last episode. Also confirms that Loki threatened Casey at Mobius’ desk lol.

The thing has an egg?? What the hell is Mobius collecting? (He’s a Harry Hart variant lmao).

There are little twitches in Miss Minnutes’ hands. That’s so cool!

The egg timer’s a nice easter egg (I’m a comedian).

Mobius! B-15! :)

Is it just me or do the minutemen look similar, but not exactly the same. Makes sense if they’re variants.

I just realised the lights are built into the ceiling. Whoops.

What’s Mobius’ favourite?

Couple of things:

The racks full of identical uniforms/ones just hung up on doors.

The music has started to pick up the pace, but not in the way we see later on in the episode.

There’s a sign saying ‘FARE THEE WELL’ on it. Google tells me that it’s ‘used to express good wishes on parting’. Dang that was some good foreshadowing!

The person that looks like Agatha is still present.

I wonder whether it was supposed to be colder or whether the weather was just like that when they filmed.

The pony’s still around.

I think B-15 certainty that “a Loki couldn’t have gotten the jump of C-20” comes from her experience with them. She constantly tries to make it clear that because she’s not a variant, she’d know Loki better than he would, which (personally) makes the revelation that she’s a variant feel more devastating.

Again with the lighting, they’re still in partial darkness, constantly moving in and out of the light. Whilst what Loki says about the variant setting a trap is true, it isn’t in the context that he says it. Sylvie whoops their asses later.

The black and red-orange flags remind me of tomb markers. It’s a stretch, ik.

B-15 only has tally marks on one side of her helmet.

Mobius has fake pockets in his suit jacket. They’re the worst.

The ticking increasing in tempo as they approach red line - great for setting up tension.

I believe that Loki uses personal space like a weapon - slowly approaching them from the front, and then going behind Mobius’ back when he wants his way. It would make anyone uncomfortable, especially on a subconscious level because there’s a threat behind you.

Or maybe it’s that I have different personal space boundaries, not everyone likes being approached from behind. Loki’s movement felt intentional at least.

Getting Mobius to physically turn his way because of that might have been very subtle manipulation?

Loki looking back and forth trying to judge their reactions lol.

I liked the music in this scene, it sets up tension for Loki’s first attempt at betraying Mobius but then doesn’t completely dismiss it when it’s resolved.

Ravonna Renslayer’s office

The music here is 18 morceaux, Op. 72, No. 2. Berceuse. 18 morceaux, Op. 72: No. 2, Berceuse (Arr. For Theremin and piano) by Clara Rockmore for anyone that’s curious. I found out through Natalie Holt’s Twitter (I think).

The score is, and always will be, perfection.

Mobius’ small talk amuses me.

“Why do you get to keep all the trophies from my cases in here, you don’t think I’d love having that roller skate?” Mobius, what about the thing on the shelf behind your desk????

Ravonna seems like she’s answered these questions before, but she has a fondness for him that makes me think they’re good friends.

Also does Ravonna have multiple complete collections of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in her office? What are those books??

“I hope it’s a double.” Me too Mobius, me too (drink responsibly).

I don’t get how people think Mobius doesn’t remember leaving the stains. It sounded like Ravonna was chiding him for a bad habit and Mobius just made up a remark, not confusion.

Although he does place the cup at a different spot to the rings.

The ship flying past in the windows is a wonderful detail.

“The variant likes to stall for time.” It's very satisfying to me how everything stays relevant. Every detail advances the plot/contributes to it.

“Look, I know you have a soft spot for broken things.”

“I don’t think so-”

“Yes you do.”

Both Mobius and Ravonna only look at the middle figure when referring to the time Keepers. Either the other two are side-lined or don’t contribute at all.

“I’ll delete him myself.” At this point in time, I think Mobius is serious. As the episode progresses, his status may have changed, especially after the Jet Ski philosophy session.

Ravonna’s sash on the peg reminds me of the ones the people talking to Casey were wearing in episode 1.

Man those doors are so cool.

Peak sitting outside the principal’s office energy.

Mobius whistles at Loki as opposed to talking to him like he does later.

Any screen shot from the following scene is pristine chaotic disaster bi Loki energy featuring tired-of-your-tomfoolery Mobius.

“Isn’t that precisely why I’m here?” This marked a change in Loki to me. Up until that point, he’d tried to use what he’d known, who he’d been by scheming his way to the Time Keepers. By admitting he wasn’t sure of his purpose, we’re back with the person at the end of the last episode. It’s very Loki to try all avenues to get what he wants, and after having his world turned upside-down a few times in a short period, maybe he just wanted the familiarity of his old tricks, who he thinks he is.

Loki tensing up and then trying to assert control again reaffirms what I just said.

Man, give Mobius a holiday after all of this. Loki really tested him, huh?

Loki definitely likes validation on some level.

TVA archives (a.k.a the Salad Scene)

I can’t believe that place really exists. The looks combined with the music are just *chef kisses*.

I’m not sure if I’m thinking of the right progression, but the music reminds me of a plagal cadence. Google examples and play it side-by-side, you’ll get what I mean, maybe someone knows what it really is?

On either side of the elevators near the Time Keeper statues are the signs TVA archives.

The symmetry pleases my goblin brain.

I believe the entire show was just flexing the skills of the Loki crew and I couldn’t be happier.

“Pretend your life depends on it. I’m gonna get a snack.” This was so funny in the trailers but Mobius is dead serious (delete him myself comment). And he couldn’t even enjoy his salad.

Love that the end of credits takes from some of the scenes in episode 2.

The archivist has neat glasses.

I want some TVA stationary y’all.

It’s that moment fam.

I can’t be the only one curious by the ‘DISPLACED by 000:000:002:162’. Is that in Units? It would explain why the time line looks slightly bendy whenever we see it, especially if Apocalypses are so frequent.

IT’S THE SALAD LADS!

Mobius is reading the magazine that Loki was looking at earlier. Jet skis are Mobius’ comfort character.

“Don’t set fire to the palace.”

Tom Hiddleston has so much energy, he can move so fast.

“Oh God.” - Mobius, Null Time Zone

“YOU.” - Casey, Null Time Zone

Casey!

No thoughts, head empty, the Salad (TM).

But seriously, people only seem to be at their tables with others that work in a similar section. Not hunters and analysts eating in tandem to me, folks.

Oh Casey. Please don’t hurt him.

Aw, Mobius’ little giggle warmed my heart. Owen Wilson’s giving me whiplash with Mobius. My heart can’t take this y’all.

79 AD Pompeii, Italy

They’re both so giddy, Your Honour, I love them.

Mobius snuck them out lol.

“Bird noises?”

“BE FREE MY HORNED FRIENDS, BE FREE!” The post wouldn’t be complete without this.

Loki just throwing food at people and telling them “...enjoy your last meal while you can” is top tier comedy to me.

This is the first time we see Loki openly say nothing matters. I feel like the case file on the destruction of Asgard really pushed him to treat fate as unchangeable.

LXXIX is 79. Nice one Loki crew!

Mobius’ eye twitching as he checks the variance is a nice touch.

Loki throws away the stick that was holding the goat pen closed at the end.

TVA Archives, TVA cafeteria

Mobius picked up those files so smoothly I had to re-watch it.

Their position reflected what they were talking about - when Loki thinks it’s his individual contribution, he’s walking separately to Mobius, but they meet up when working together. I loved the blocking in that little moment.

I seriously thought that Loki was unconscious when I first saw him asleep around Mobius. I’ll admit it, it felt out-of-character for someone with such bad trust issues. Both of them seem pretty tired tho.

It’s the Jet Ski conversation comrades!

I’m beaming. Mobius talking about Jet Skis was the only time I’ve really remembered it’s Owen Wilson talking. It’s such a fun line to think about!

Loki’s smile. Adorable.

Just go watch the scene, it’ll give you good brain juices.

Mobius does it all for the Jet Skis and nothing else. I don’t make the rules, the Time Keepers do.

“My own glorious purpose.” This is a recurring theme in the season. Ultimately, I think that Loki is going to run for as long as it brings in money/until Loki gets killed again. However, I do like to think that in following seasons we’ll move beyond setting up Phase 4 Marvel stuff and just get deep dives into Loki’s character, though it may happen in the later eps or not be as interesting. Part of what made this show so interesting is the new setting in the Marvel universe but it’s hard to make predictions as to whether it will last in a show featuring the God of Mischief. Whatever happens, I’m happy that we got to see Loki’s existential crisis together, lads.

The music picks up, signalling that this quiet moment is about to end.

“No one bad is ever truly bad. And no one good is every truly good.”

“Scared little boy.”

These lines mean a lot to me. Loki perceives Mobius as an equal, similar to himself but not completely identical. The TVA’s whole aesthetic is Kafkaesque (Disney+ used that word), the imperfections keeping the place from looking mechanical and orderly like what the TVA promotes itself to be. Loki wants Mobius to acknowledge it, but Mobius is in the past, not addressing what’s right in front of him, surrounding him. That’s probably because Mobius doesn’t believe, he accepts what he’s been told though Loki wants to change that. He’s still focused on his job, the variant. I don’t think Mobius will struggle against change in the ‘belief’ part as long as things are rational.

Kate Herron (director) said that the Kablooie scene was improv which makes me wish we had more B roll of Owen and Tom. They seem so professional, invested and fun on set.

“No wonder you’re so bitter.” I’m sorry Mobius you sound as salty as your salad.

‘Artificially flavoured chewing gum’ Has something happened causing artificial flavouring to be preferred?

‘Blue’ has canonically changed to ‘Bloo’ by 2050 in America in the MCU. I blame capitalism.

Why does Mobius look so tiny? I say that like Owen Wilson wouldn’t look like a giant next to me lol.

Owen Wilson is 3.5 inches (9 centimetres) shorter than Tom Hiddleston. Yet he is dwarfed as Mobius. I need to stop talking about this and move on.

There’s no ‘variance energy detected’ line in the report.

“You’re gonna take my job if I’m not careful.” Loki looks so chuffed.

One day, I’ll properly address my thoughts on the shipping. Until then, I just want no one to die.

“Yeah, he’s doing great.” Mobius is so hyped. Good for him.

Owen Wilson has dimples.

Ravonna’s screen doesn’t show the timeline like it does later.

Ravonna is the done mom friend. Sane, undeserving of this, please give her a jet ski moment.

Buckle up folks because the last twenty minutes of this episode are my favourite so far.

At 34 minutes in, we get the music fading in with “Okay. But Mobius...” and a transition to my favourite composition so far. Natalie Holt outdid herself. The soundtrack is nearly constant, there’s no break for a moment of clarity anymore. The progression of events is inevitable, tying the bow on a plot line created in an hour and a half. The little embellishment from the strings (possibly) as Mobius and Loki exit is perfect. Combined with Loki’s raised fist leading to a pan to the ceiling, it prepared the audience for everything being turned upside down.

The changing camera angles and shot lengths (the continuous shot when B-15 takes the knives, the circling behind as the briefing occurs) keep viewers on their toes. The continuous shot is fluid, B-15 doesn’t look at Loki or Mobius, her reaction is natural and that just proves that the timing on that scene was impeccable. The circling behind reminded me of Loki positioning himself behind Mobius as he did earlier, but now he’s on the same side, part of the team though he continues to distinguish between himself and the variant. The building sensation that change is coming is met by the incredible swell in the music as we watch the picturesque Haven Hills get destroyed by modern technology and face the terrifying reality that is the Roxxcart store. There’s a close up on the Roxxcart storefront with school buses with the words ‘Evacuation shuttle’ in the background as we see the TVA’s minutemen come out reinforcing that even when the end is nigh, large corporations will loom over. A storm is raging with worse to come. I can go on and on, but you get the point.

2050 Roxxcart Disaster

I love that y’all are calling this the Alabama supermarket breakup. Makes me chuckle, that’s for sure.

I too hate when people can hear my footsteps. Someone that gets the struggle.

Sylvie places the TVA Samsung over a Roxxcart Security manual. She’s overridden both and is in control.

The date is 03/15/2050.

I think that the way the Hunters and minutemen hold their baton things is so that they don’t get yeeted. Neat.

As always, the beats are slick yo.

I hope the Azaleas guy gets some Azaleas wherever he ended up.

I love the way Loki says “In this storm.” It’s so satisfying for no real reason.

The wonderful Wunmi Mosaku does not get the recognition she deserves for this scene. She switched from B-15 to Sylvie so effortlessly. They’re two distinct characters, her facial expressions, body language everything changed in that instant. Even from the one line, “No, they usually survive,” her delivery had changed in a way that was noticeable. It’s uncanny, exactly what was needed when facing a foe that remained unseen. And the smile? It’s before we know the variant as Sylvie, so naturally it’s that signature Loki smile with a hint of malice we associate with the variant. Damn y’all, Wunmi’s incredible! I really hope she’s recognised for being so talented in this series, if not in all her other work!

Mobius really cares about those people. I really want his redemption (?) arc.

It’s been pointed out that even in those conditions, Roxxcart were selling blankets and water. I think it means that by 2050, cash would be defunct. If only electronic payment existed, as long as there’s electricity they can run a business. Chew on that.

If the man they speak to is 50 to 60, he was a 90s kid.

There must be a difference in the reprogramming or kind of variant selected to be a hunter as compared to an analyst. The Hunters look after their own, but the analysts (or Mobius) go as far as empathising with variants.

C-20 is sitting in front of safety standards.

“A bit amateurish.” Loki knows that the variant isn’t as skilled with magic as he is.

As Loki and the possessed people walk, the lighting becomes brighter. He’s moving out of the shadows.

Me too Loki, I’m worried about B-15 too.

Sylvie unironically saying bless is hilarious.

Randy must be hella tall.

There’s a low angle shot as Loki and Randy face off with the flickering light above with a sign hanging above them like a sword of Damocles and a physical separation. Terror is nearly constant in Loki's life now, but he responds by letting go of his drive to survive.

The subtle swells in the music just add to my rising blood pressure.

C-20’s voice over is sad lads.

“I wanna go home,” we know she’s not referring to the TVA.

Mobius seems like a caring person.

When B-15 sits up and searches the room, I think it’s her realisation. Her shiver was from fear and shock, the music wasn’t about her not seeing Loki, it was about the TVA and what had happened to her.

The head snap and the score timing matching. So satisfying.

“I would never treat me like this. Hi.” I think that’s Loki realising that his foe is not willing to talk their way through conflict.

This fight scene contradicts all the magic we see later ik, but if he didn’t want to hurt anyone and was trying to draw out the real enemy it made sense.

Some of Sylvie’s powers must come into the people she possesses. The guy punched a glass screen and didn’t even bleed.

“I have shit to do.” Sylvie wasn’t raised with court etiquette (from what we know) and her lexical choice reflects that.

Dell computers survive into 2050 in the MCU. So do those robot dogs and Roombas. I am only happy about the Roombas. Where did the real dogs go? :(

“Mobius.”

“Where is he?”

“I lost him.”

“What happened?”

“I...”

Until now, B-15’s delivery has felt slightly rhythmic, like she was used to having the same arguments, particularly with Mobius. When she trails off however, I think it’s her trying to rationalise what she’s been through with Sylvie’s possession. Her devotion to the TVA was rooted in the fact that she wasn’t a variant, her life had a purpose and it was intentional. This must have rocked her, I’m invested in where she’ll go.

THE CUT TO BLACK OH GOOD GOSH.

Sylvie, my queen. I’d roll off a cliff for her.

The person with the moustache (you know the one) has pure fear on his face.

Ravonna knows what’s up.

And so do you, yes it’s the music, go listen to it.

THE RED LIGHTING

The zoom out to that incredible hallway shot and then stopping behind the time door. It was never about him after all, he was in the background of her plans.

Sylvie’s wave in Roxxcart vs. Loki’s on the train. Discuss.

The blackout, thunder and Loki’s pause under the flickering red and white light, do y’all really want me to talk about the s y m b o l i s m????

He’s conflicted, you know it, I know it, Mobius knows it.

Speaking of Mobius, there he is, we cut back to Loki and see him make his decision, zooming back in on him.

And with that final flourish in the score, we are done with episode 2!

Cue the most amazing end credits score you’ll ever hear.

Do yourself a favour, listen to all of it, including the part after the main credits, both are Works. Of. Art.

Ep 2 review

In case you didn’t notice, this is my favourite episode so far. There are parts I didn’t take to as much, but details from the previous episode being used in the plot as well as others being explained by Sylvie in episode 3. Rewatching it was easier than episode 1 though it left me wanting more. It will get more interesting from here, but until then, that was a fun romp.

See y'all next time. I hope whoever's reading this has a wonderful day!

Part 1, Episode 1 extend review link:

#spoilers #loki review #Loki spoilers #my respect for people that write scripts/analysis of any kind has increased immensely.#opinion #things i've noticed #sorry if they're not original #b-15 deserves love #the analysts (mobius) the hunters the minutemen casey every one of them deserves love #here's to everyone who worked so hard and put so much into this series #WUNMI MOSAKU IS AMAZING #I love Ravonna #It's great

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lotrificationer · 4 years ago

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Wayhaven Week, Day 2 - Tender

Summary: The detective has hidden her physical problems so far, though she needn’t do so. Nate would be more than willing to help her out.

Pairing: Nate Sewell/F!Detective (Anya Ivanova)

Warnings: None, just a massage and 1 saucy comment lol

Words Count: 1,862

@otomefandomevents

~~~~~

She never explicitly said anything, never outright complained, or even mentioned anything off hand. At first, he wrote it off as maybe just simple quirks that the detective had. She was subtle, he would give her that; only a grimace here or there that would flit over her face for a split second before being covered by her ever present hint of smile. As he grew closer to her, he picked up on how she would avoid certain movements or adjust how one would normally do something. It was on the especially long days that these behaviors would become more prominent.

It was his day to accompany the detective and they had stayed at her office longer than probably necessary as she finished up her work for the town. She stood from her desk and made to walk to the filing cabinet, the action catching Nate’s attention. Reaching the cabinet, she suddenly lurched forward, sucking in a sharp breath. She straightened up as quickly as it had happened.

“Anya, are you alright?” Nate was by her side in an instant, hand gently resting on her elbow.

“Yeah, sorry, it’s fine, I’m fine,” she sputtered out, quickly filing away the report in her hand. When he kept his hand steady in its place, she looked up to meet his eyes. With furrowed brows and worry filled eyes, he looked over her, not at all convinced by her dismissal.

“Nate, really, I’m alright,” she stated, drawing his eyes back up to her face where she had carefully placed her usual smile.

No, not her usual, he thought to himself. It’s almost like there’s a tension at the corners of her mouth. Strained almost.

He decided it best not to press her. He let his hand drop back down and he shoved it into his pocket. With nod and kind smile, he watched her return to her desk, hastily plopping down in her seat.

He had decided to keep a closer eye out for her after that— picking up a dropped item, grabbing her misplaced tea from across the room. Of course, the rest of Unit Bravo swiftly caught on to this. Felix wasted no time in ribbing Nate about it as Mason snickered somewhere in the shadows. Even Adam would make the occasional dry humor comment.

He would always respond with a smile saying, “If it makes the detective’s job easier, I’m happy to do it.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s not the only thing you’d be happy to do,” Felix would quip, earning lazy chuckle from Mason.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn’t until Nate was sitting on the detective’s loveseat a few weeks later that he decided to bring it up. She was making them each a cup of tea when she seemed to have another episode, clutching onto the kitchen counter for just a moment before steeling herself. He was at her side in a heartbeat.

“Why don’t you go sit down and I’ll finish up the tea?” Nate offered, giving her a lopsided smile.

She started to wave him off until her jaw clench suddenly. She nodded gently.

“That’d be nice actually,” she shifted away from the counter and made her way to the loveseat.

I have to ask her about this, Nate set his resolve as he finished up their drinks.

“Thank you so much,” Anya smiled as she accepted the cup he handed her. He sat next to her, his own cup warm in his hands as he chewed at his bottom lip.

“Something on your mind over there?” She tilted her head, catching his attention. He lifted his eyes to hers, getting lost in her stormy blue eyes as she held his gaze.

“Anya, are you alright? Physically, I mean?” he clarified, studying her face as her eyes shifted away from his own.

“I’m assuming you’re talking about earlier in the kitchen?” She asked rhetorically. “It was nothing. Really, Nate, don’t worry about me.”

“But Anya, I am worried about you,” he insisted, inching closer to her. “This isn’t the first time it’s happened, but I didn’t want to press it.”

She sighed and took a small sip of tea before responding. “I just—I don’t want anyone to worry about me and it’s not that big of a deal, so I never say anything.”

When she hesitated, Nate subtly raised an eyebrow as a silent request to continue.

“I just have some back problems,” she said nonchalantly and hesitantly continued, “and neck problems… and shoulder problems. But it’s not that big of a deal, really.”

“Anya,” he breathed, “is there somewhere you could go that would help?”

She laughed lightly, “Well, it’s not like there’s a chiropractor or masseuse in this little ol’ town. When I was younger my mom used to give me massages when it got really bad…. When she was around.”

“I see,” Nate nodded thoughtfully, eyes wandering over the afflicted areas. “Is there anything I could do to help?”

“Well, unless you feel like giving me massage,” She smiled playfully before continuing, “no, not really much of anything.”

“Okay,” he eagerly responded. “Would you like one then? A massage, I mean?”

“I- oh- well, um- I was sort of joking, but uh,” she stuttered out, turning a light shade of pink. “I suppose- that is, if you don’t mind- it couldn’t hurt to-”

“I wouldn’t mind at all, Anya,” he cut her off, saving her from having to continue. “Where would you like me to start? With the neck and shoulders, perhaps?”

With a meek smile, she nodded. Grabbing a pillow, she explained how Rebecca would have her sit between her legs on the floor. Nate adjusted accordingly and she set the pillow on the floor. As Anya settled into the cushion and tied up her hair, he removed the two silver rings he was wearing and set them on the side table.

“You know,” he drawled, his tone lightly coated in mischief. “I have been told that I can be quite good with my hands.”

He breathed out a laugh as he heard her heart flutter and saw that rosy color softly tint her ears and what he could see of her neck.

“I- um, well-” she sputtered at first before giving a nervous laugh. “I guess I’ll be the judge of that,” she finished, trying to mimic the flirtatiousness of his tone.

“Then I’ll make sure to step up my game for you,” He responded, voice just about a whisper, but the smile evident in his tone.

He started by simply running his hands over her shoulders, a gentle touch as he felt her warmth through her loose tee. He began to add more pressure, little by little, gliding his hands over her shoulders and down her upper back.

“I promise I won’t break,” she commented when he didn’t add any further pressure.

“As you wish,” he acquiesced, adding more strength to his touch. The more he massaged, the more he couldn’t believe the state of her muscles. For all her appearance of ease and gentleness, it would seem that she was nearly made of nothing but coiled tightness.

Was that the promised price? He thought, This uncaring tension for her unwavering tenderness.

She tensed suddenly as he worked on a particularly prominent point.

“I’m sorry,” he immediately eased up, “was that too much?”

“No, no,” she shook her head, “my body is probably well past due for this. Please don’t stop.”

She sighed as he continued his ministrations, working his way up her neck and back down along her spine. Nimble fingers worked at each point of tension in her muscles, gently forcing them out. The further along he got, the more she seemed to relax into his touch. Her breathing, along with her heartbeat, gradually slowed. As he finished working on what he could reach with her position, his touch became softer. Soothing, almost as an apology for the needed pain of earlier. He smiled as he watched her try to fight off the haze of sleep before succumbing to it as her head unknowingly rested on his knee. Still, he continued. If only to allow her some of the rest she rightfully deserved, he continued. Soon the gentle pressure turned to featherlight touches before gently resting his hands on her shoulders. Still, she did not stir. He brushed a lock of stray hair from her face, willing his touch not to linger. Letting her rest for a moment more, he admired her. The freckles that graced her face, the soft angle of her nose, the subtle curve of her lips. Her heart shaped face could not have been more perfectly suited for her, he decided. The way that her copper hair would curl only around the base of her neck. He concluded that he had never seen a more beautiful sight. And, of course, he was completely unbiased.

She soon took a deep inhale, rousing from her spot. She languidly blinked away the drowsiness, shifting to sit up straight.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she unnecessarily apologized, “I must have fallen asleep.”

“It’s no worry at all, Anya. You seemed to really need a rest,” Nate assured her.

“Wow,” she simply stated as she rolled her shoulders and neck, “I suppose I didn’t realize how bad it had all gotten.”

He hummed in response as she stood from her pillow, casually using his knee to get up. He followed the line of her body as she stretched her tired limbs.

“Thank you so much for this,” She said as she turned to face him. “Really, you have no idea how much I appreciate it.”

“Honestly, Anya, it’s really no trouble at all,” he replied. “In fact, if you would ever like another one, I would be more than happy to oblige.”

She smiled at his offer, a certain warmth sparking in her eyes.

“I might just take you up on that. My lower back still has some problems of its own,” she admitted. Just as he was about to offer to continue, she cut him off. “But maybe another time. It’s getting late and I seem to now be irredeemably sleepy.”

“Of course,” he resigned, standing from the loveseat and gathering his two rings and teacup. As he made to go wash the cup, she waved him away, saying she would wash it in the morning. It was the least she could do after his kind gift to her, she had said.

“I suppose I will see you in the morning then, detective,” he smiled down at her as he stood in her doorway.

“I look forward to it, agent,” she beamed back up at him as the heat seemingly grew between them.

He drew his face down to hers as he placed a lingering kiss upon her cheek, feeling as her hand danced over his before barely wrapping around it.

“Goodnight, Anya,” he whispered against her cheek.

“Goodnight, Nate,” she returned, lazily releasing his hand before he turned and faded into her dimly lit hallway, completely disappearing down the stairs.

Goodnight, Nate… he smiled to himself as he heard her whispered words in the darkness of the night.

#wayhaven week 2020 #wayhaven chronicles #the wayhaven chronicles #twc #Nate Sewell #N Sewell #my writing

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lostgirlrewatch · 5 years ago

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1x08 - Vexed

Original Air Date: November 7, 2010

Written by: Michelle Lovretta

Directed by: John Fawcett

Okay, so. Vexed.

This is the original pilot. I don’t think they necessarily presented it as the first episode chronologically—more like, this is what you can expect from our show. Showcase picked it up and it went to series. Vexed became episode 1x08. You can find more info about it in this interview with Michelle Lovretta and Jay Firestone.

Anyway, this episode was shot earlier than the rest, and you can tell. Makeup and styling is different, and they hadn’t quite settled on the tone they eventually went with. As such, this episode is a bit grittier than normal. I find it interesting both for its different tone and for the fact that many of the decisions they made for the episode were made in the interest of selling the concept to Showcase.

This fucking article is great and is a much better review of this episode and why it’s so god damn good than my shit below. It also provides an extremely detailed look into...exactly what I just described above. All of the behind-the-scenes production stuff. Check it out.

The premise: Bo finds a lead on someone who might know about her mother--a falsely accused death row inmate named Lou Ann. Bo vows to prove her innocence in exchange for answers, but her quest leads her into contact with a vicious Dark Fae named Vex.

I do wonder if they wrote this episode without really knowing where it was going to fit into the first season, assuming they had an outline. It works as a standalone and in some ways it feels a little disjointed from what came before in episode 1x07, right from the beginning. Dyson coming right out and saying something so blunt as, “She’s never gonna love you,” feels a bit off to me. But then again, all the characters in this episode are a bit “off,” which is understandable. This episode is like…the prototype. The beta.

“No offense to my own kind, but humans are a little pedestrian now.” *awkwardly laughs* Right... “your kind”…haha you’re enslaved. Lauren are you okay.

“Once you go Fae you never go back, huh?”

“So I hear.”

Me:

Bo feels a little bit more aggressive to me in this episode, like when Siegfried mentions her mother and she wigs out. It’s her normal desperation plus a bit of added homicidal urges. She’s a slightly grittier Bo.

As we can observe from the opening sex scene between Bo and Dyson, this episode is a bit more sexually explicit than we’re used to. This, I am not super a fan of on a personal level. However, the episode is also more violent than usual and incorporates horror elements. This, I am super a fan of because that’s kind of my shit, and it’s something I wish they would have leaned a little bit more into in the rest of the series.

There is nothing I don’t love about this scene. The creepy opera music that sets the stage, the gourmet meal prep (those gourmet meals always end in murder).

(Am I the only one who loves this random little detail they plopped into the background?)

Vex’s entrance—not overly dramatic, just, boop, there he is.

The tense build-up as we’re drawn to the knife, not sure where it’s gonna go—

--oh, oop, there it goes.

We know what’s going to happen now, but we build up to it, agonizingly, anyway. Surely we’re not actually going to sit here and watch as he shoves his hand into the disposal and then keep watching as he turns it on and it grinds his hand up. Oh, but we are.

Some scenes have a way of sticking with ya.

So I guess even the Lost Girl universe isn’t all camp and games. People are still people. Especially when they’re ancient as fuck and have all that time to stew in the cesspool of their fucked up emotional and psychological issues. So divorced are they from the concept of mortality, growing up and growing old, that their maturity level laps itself and becomes immaturity—they tend to to behave like children.

Not all Dark Fae are curmudgeonly, innocuous old grandpas who own restaurants or absolute Queens like the Morrigan. Some of them are like Vex. And just like, fuckin murder people—and each other. Vex’s world is different than Bo’s world. Vex lives in a world where violence is mundane. Empathy is nonexistent and pointless anyhow. Sometimes I wonder if immortal characters are drawn to violence and death because it’s as close as they can get to experiencing a sort of vicarious mortality.

I love Vex’s character throughout the series—up to a certain point—but I love him best in this, his original episode. In later episodes, Vex is portrayed as a sort of morally ambiguous anti-hero, or anti-villain, whichever you prefer. I have mixed feelings on how well the transition from villain to anti-hero is handled. The farther along you get in the series, the more he becomes reduced to a shell of his former self, purely comic relief, and just…sucks.

But in 1x08, Vex is a villain. Straight up. The things that he does are horrifying and the show does not bother trying to get you to empathize with him. And to be clear, this does not mean that he is not a multi-dimensional character, that he isn’t worthy of empathy, or that he is pure evil. What it does mean is the show does something I wish more shows would do. It creates a genuinely threatening and reprehensible villain that is both worthy of your analysis, even your stanning (I stan), and yet whose actions are still inexcusable.

In that interest, let’s talk about him. At this point, his most defining characteristic, the simplest way we can begin to understand his motives, is that he utterly lacks empathy. Vex is the kind of person who would puppeteer a woman and force her to drown her own children.

He is ordered to kill this woman’s family as punishment for betraying the Dark Fae’s rules. And in this episode, Vex is shown to be someone who rigidly follows the Dark Fae’s orders without question, and without any particular investment in them either. But he doesn’t just kill the kids—he uses his powers to force the mother to do it. To drown them. For no real reason other than his own amusement. That’s another level of sadistic. For a less intense example, in his introduction scene, he gruesomely tortures Siegfried before killing him. Just for funsies. (Well, okay, and to get information.) Vex lacks empathy, clearly, and may scan as a sociopath, but he’s not a stoic one. He gets enjoyment out of tormenting his victims.

Is this the kind of guy the writers are going to try to later convince us is a harmless comic relief mascot? Surely n—

Yes. Yes he is.

I am not at all opposed to the idea of Vex slowly becoming a morally ambiguous anti-villain, even a member of the gang. In fact, I think that premise is interesting as hell. But what I feel like happens later is that the show kind of forgets that Vex did all this horrible shit in the past. Kinda brushes it under the rug. Not only does this make it a lot harder for me to get behind him becoming one of the gang, it also does the character himself a great disservice. I’ll probably get into this more once Vex starts showing up more frequently, and why I feel the writers mishandle him.

To be clear, in spite of how sadistic he is, Vex is not a malicious person. He doesn’t have any enmity for the people he’s ordered to kill. He’s not angry, not hateful, not spiteful. He just doesn’t really care. He’s almost a kind of nihilist. None of it really matters. Somebody who thinks like that would have a fairly breezy time killing people.

Because I like when in-universe politics make things complicated, I like that the in-universe politics of the Light and Dark Fae makes things complicated. Bo wants to free Lou Ann, and she wants the Light Fae’s help, but they can’t help her because it would mean basically declaring war on the Dark Fae. MAJOR no-no. Likewise, they can’t go after Vex because all of his actions are sanctioned by the Dark Fae’s government. Bo’s unalignment gives her freedom, but it’s not without its downsides. She has no influence and no resources when things get too big for her to handle.

“Smells like fried bitch.” An icon. If I remember correctly from one of the behind-the-scenes features, they brainstormed and tested out a bunch of different one-liners to use for this moment, until Ksenia Solo ad-libbed this.

Lol. Kenzi is just so done with Bo and Dyson’s drama.

Lou Ann, the Fae woman who is on death row for killing her kids, obviously strikes a nerve with Bo.

It’s kinda weird, because when we first meet her, Bo’s main motivation is that she wants to be able to live her life without being forced to kill others and stay on the run to do so. Those problems kinda get solved in the first episode.

Since then, her motivation has been to live her life without these big mysterious Fae governments telling her what to do. In the first episode, Bo, like Lou Ann, says that she chooses humans. Bo was raised human and wants a normal human life, or as normal as she can get. At the same time, most of the other characters on the show, including her friends, spend a lot of time trying to convince her to embrace her Fae identity and a Fae lifestyle, because it’s “who she is” and she has no choice but to embrace that. “Choice” is a keyword that gets thrown around a lot in this show. But what is the show really trying to say about it? There’s some kind of nature vs. nurture conflict going on here, and I don’t feel like either Bo or the show itself has really decided on which side of the line they fall. On another note, this show has huge Fuck the System vibes. Which I appreciate. We stan an icon who chooses to reject a static, repressive, harmful system even at great personal cost.

A few episodes ago, Bo and Lauren went on a mission together and cemented their bond of trust. In this scene, Lauren breaks that trust.

She sleeps with Bo to distract her from going after Vex, under the pretense that it is simply the culmination of them both being attracted to one another. The next morning, it doesn’t take long for Bo to figure this out. She is appropriately hurt. She has feelings for Lauren, there was an intimacy there, and she trusted her in a way that she doesn’t normally trust other people, because of her past. Lauren took advantage of her feelings and used her. Whether Lauren wanted to do it or not, whether she had any way of refusing, isn’t relevant in this moment; it was cruel regardless.

But what does Lauren say?

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Oop. There it is. There’s the Lauren I remember.

She hasn’t done anything wrong, y’all. Well, I’ll be damned. Lauren never did anything wrong ever in her life. *Lauren did nothing wrong meme*

The way Lauren says this line, with so much conviction, makes me feel like she genuinely believes it. She believes that she did nothing wrong. She is legitimately deluded about what just happened.

This is only the first in what I remember to be a very long string of instances where Lauren pushes blame onto others and denies any culpability in her shitty actions. At least, in this case, Bo isn’t buying it.

Waiting for Bo in the most extra-ass, goth, flamboyant setup possible is exactly the kind of quality villainy I expect from Vex.

It’s criminal that Bo never gets to use this awesome sword.

And…I love that Vex just gets to walk out of there, laughing. Because the system. And he’s not even really evil. He’s just a sadistic asshole. With a job. It’s. *chef’s kiss*

#lost girl #bo dennis #kenzi malikov #lauren lewis #vex #doccubus #dybo #dyson #1x08

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jancys-blue-bayou · 5 years ago

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Yeah so Stranger Things 3 was painfully bad

Yeah yeah big negative post about ST3 coming up. Just... holy shit, my expectations weren’t exactly high but jesus I didn’t think it’d be this bad. Wow. Mindboggling to think it was made by the same dudes who made season 1, it feels like a different show. Some of the worst writing I’ve seen in a long while, parts of season 3. This got very long because it was very bad so it’s under the cut. Starting with the few positives and then away we go...

Of course there were bright spots, I thought what we got of Jancy was generally good (just wish there had been more of it. Just like... more lines between them, a few moments could’ve gone on longer...like after the awesome hospital fight scene jesus just let them fucking desperately embrace and profess their love for each other, it was awesome how they relentlessly kept going at the monster to save the other but can we please just have a few more seconds for a comfort moment after?) I liked how they handled the fight btw, apart from the Oliver Twist comment yeah yeah heat of the moment but still felt OOC with that loa a blow. Nancy and Karen scene was nice and um... well Max and El bonding was nice. And um... Mr Clarke! And I kind of dig Murray.

My main issues with it:

- The product placement. Jesus Christ. Okay, ST has always been a show with noticeable product placement. But it’s gone from things like a Coke can prominently on display on a table in s1 (El crushing it with her mind) to literally having a straight up ad for Coca Cola in the middle of a tense scene. That’s the big offender that made me go wow you’re really doing this to yourselves huh, there are many others ofc (everything at the mall ofc, Slurpees being in hyperfocus for a bit, and a lengthy talk about Burger King. These smaller things one by one wasn’t the worst but all combined jesus it was too much, all added together and then bam the Coke commercial was wow... Congrats on the like 80 sponsorship deals and esp the new ST themed arcade hall by Coca Cola hope it was worth completely selling out for.

- Relatedly, the original fucking song. Holy christ talk about jumping the shark. That was the oddest, cringiest, weirdest shit I’ve seen in a long time. Gaten’s a great singer don’t get me wrong, but there’s a time and place for it and an original song stuffed into the middle of the tense climax of the season is not it Duffers. Just a blatant cash cow, hoping to bring in more money via the song.

- Robin. Sorry but holy cow what a Mary Sue. Hey here’s this super cool girl who’s cool™ and funny™ and super smart™ and NOT Nancy (like they seriously for real said in a scene, they actually for real had to pit Robin and Nancy against each other for no reason). And she conveniently has these specific skills needed for the plot (which she gets involved with for no real motivation other than having nothing better to do, lazy writing). Said skills were so over the top unrealistic it completely sucked me out of it. To start with, this random girl in small town Indiana in 1985 speaking French, Spanish and Italian um... does Hawkins High have the most amazing language department or what? Very un-american in that case... and okay then, her knowing those languages wouldn’t help jackshit with understanding Russian. Russian is a notoriously difficult language to learn and it is not related to the Romance languages at all, Robin knowing those languages and oh, having “a good ear” bc she’s in band (?!??! what?!) wouldn’t help her at all. Having the alphabets on the wall and listening to strange words in a foreign language she has no understanding of would never work. No way for her to understand what is she’s hearing, what letters are in the words just, nothing. It’s completely ridiculous. The good thing is she’s a lesbian, crushing Stobin that made me LOL. Btw, I don’t get what age they were writing her as? She’s still in school but later says she and Steve was in the same class, and she knows who Nancy is but Nancy, who is still in school, doesn’t know her even though presumably they’d be in the same year at little Hawkins High? Was it just sloppy writing or what?

- Too. Much. Plotting. What happened to ��this season is about the characters” um there was just so much plot stuff and action sequences and barely any character driven moments at all. Those intimate moments that made s1 amazing. Generally regarding plots felt the Russian plot was messy and not well-written also what happened to the US government as the big bad? Unless they’re setting up a big Cold War thing for s4. And felt the zombie thing was wasted, could’ve been used differently like I’d have thought it’d be used like the MF spreading it’s influence over vaster areas and being harder to keep track of etc.

- Too little Will. Will’s whole thing with feeling left out etc was just dropped halfway through it felt very undercooked. His arc was just dropped wtf.

- NO BYERS FAMILY INTERACTIONS WTF. The sequence in the first episode when Jancy has overslept and Joyce wipes the lipstick off Jonathan was cute (but could’ve been even cuter I’d have preferred a short fluffy Jancy moment here just as they wake up before they realize they overslept, bc we didn’t get much pure fluff, and then it’d been awesome if Joyce would’ve just called Nancy into the house to mess with them). But like... that’s kind of it. For the Byers family. Talking to each other in the whole season. When they partnered Jancy with the kids many thought awesome we’ll get Byers bros talking and teaming up (and Nancy and Mike) but there was just nothing. Not even a family hug after the battle at the mall, just Joyce hugging Will, with all this tightknit little family has been through you telling me Jonathan wouldn’t join in?

- No Will and El bonding wtf? SUCH a wasted opportunity. They’ve built this unique awesome connection over s1 and s2 and now in s3 would finally be able to bond normally for real and... nothing.

- Turning Hopper back into an even bigger jerk than he was at the start of the show, neglecting all his character development. What was the point of the whole El and Hopper thing they devoted so much time to in s2 if Hopper’s back at it with the yelling and all now? And jeez his constant whining to Joyce about every man she interacts with holy christ that got annoying. Generally Hopper was such an annoying asshole this season I was so tired of him by the time he “died”.

- TOO MANY CHARACTERS. Jeez, I know I’m on about it all the time but jesus christ there is way way too many characters in this for 8 episodes which hurts the narrative and screentime for interesting characters is just... yeah.

- Speaking of screentime, did we really need that many identical generic fight scenes between Hopper and the Russian guy? Jesus Christ it’s so boring watching fight scenes like that, so repetitive (compare to the hospital fight scene which was dynamic and awesome). Also regarding screentime did we really need to devote so incredibly much of it to Steve and Robin being comedic relief while drugged? Yeah yeah mix light and dark and all that but jesus christ at that point in the narrative shit has hit the fan lean into the dark.

- Totally expected of course but still, the furthering of Steve Memeington. My god they actually had him literally call himself daddy... christ.

- The Billy and Karen/all the other middle age women remains gross and bad in a billion ways. Also completely pointless for the plot, they could’ve come up with any other way to get Billy to the factory. And what did it give Karen in development? Just the realization that yeah I’m tired of my husband but I’m not leaving my family and I’ll stick with him just ‘cause? Okay but did we need her almost sleeping with a kid a year older than her daughter for that? Icky. Also the editing of the scene where Billy hits her was so weird. Also that was weird as fuck.

- The ending. Okay christ my main gripe with this is because of a point above: No Byers family interaction at all! Joyce and Hopper talk briefly about her thinking about moving once or twice but she never talks about it with her kids... obviously she did in the timegap but we need to see that to build to the thing. Having no Byers interactions the whole season and then just oop we’re moving is so weird. I’m also not sure if Joyce’s motivation for moving (her bad memories of Hawkins) would be enough. For sure an argument for it, but an argument against is the one Hopper presents to her (and though he’s not around still there’s still a support system around them there, especially for her kids which she loves above all). Speaking of her loving her kids above all, she knows they love their friends/girlfriend/boyfriend to bits, have walked through fire with them and are each others support system as mentioned, would Joyce really just uproot them from that? There’s also some purely practical things that stuck out to me immediately: the timeskip for the epilogue makes it so they move when the schoolyear is already well under way and Jonathan has started senior year, feel bad for Jonathan there in a number of ways. Also, how the hell did Joyce manage to sell her house and what did it fetch? Her rundown house on the outskirts of a now infamous town with an incredibly bad rep? Even if the buyer bought it for the land the land doesn’t look special, just find it hard to believe she could get much for it. And where did they move? Where did she find a place? And work? Did she have something lined up or? I guess we’ll see.

- Oh and speaking of work, that was another thing that was just dropped, the mall killing downtown and the protests just fell out of the story. But, with what happened to the mall wouldn’t business come back to downtown (possibly reason for Joyce to want to stay if Melvald’s going out of business was another reason to move).

- Sorry but Mileven took way too much space.

- Again, no Jonathan and Will actual brothers bonding. But a whole lot of Steve and Dustin meme fanservice wank.

- Erica is just the sassy black girl trope non stop the whole season and nothing else and it’s so grating and... I was gonna say disappointing but I had no faith in the Duffers regarding this. Just because a bit character becomes a meme doesn’t mean they need to become a main. *cough* Steve *cough cough* Sorry.

- Last but not least, the woobiefication of Billy. Uggggghhhh. Disgusting. And having Max cry over him WTF?!?!?!?!?! staaaaaaahp.

#stranger things #stranger things 3 #stranger things 3 thoughts #stranger things 3 spoilers

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officialthiamlibrary · 6 years ago

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Hello! Hello! Hope everyone is having a glorious weekend thus far. With enthusiasm, we are finally introducing you to another spectacular creator, pettigrace. The author of buy and sell gravity, its sequel free fallin’ in the jungle lights, and other fantastic works across 5 fandoms! Why don’t we just dive in?

Omg, Yas! Hi. It took us a while to get here, but we finally made it haha. Why don’t you start by telling us about yourself? The twist, the word count has to be either equal to or less than the number of letters in your two favorite Teen Wolf episode names.

Motel California and The Divine Move are the only episodes I remember by name, so I guess they must be my favourites. (15 + 13 = 28)

My name is Yas, I am an aroace being from Germany and I absolutely fucking hate time travel. I work as a journalist sometimes and I love writing.

Oh wow, a journalist! I love meeting people who’ve made a living out of their writing! What’s a typical day like as a journalist?

Mind you, I am not your typical journalist. I may look like Clark Kent most of the time, but I don’t do the stuff he does (that extends also to the superheroing, sadly) - I work for the youth page of my local newspaper, which means I get to write a few articles about/aimed at children a few times a month. I usually go for reviews of media (as in books and tv shows most of the time but movies, games and all that jazz, too!) but every once in a while I get to do something bigger as well. That means (typically) interviewing people in sports clubs, writing about my personal experience about a topic or doing surveys about things. It’s not much, but my name is in the paper pretty much every week.

I’m trying not to be super impressed and failing, but that’s honestly phenomenal! Obviously, you’re a huge fan or movies, books, and tv shows. Did that influence your name, pettigrace?

It refers to Peter Pettigrew from Harry Potter! (But Yas, you go, isn’t that the guy who doomed James and Lily Potter? To which I say: He also killed Cedric Diggory! And faked his own death! And gave Voldemort back his body!) No, hear me out. I don’t love the guy. Hell, I hate Peter Pettigrew as much as we all do. But he’s an important character in the world of HP and doesn’t get the recognition for it. He’s the unsung villain of the story. Is he a good villain? Heck no, he’s probably one of the worst. He doesn’t even have his own agenda! Still, he symbolizes something that’s important to me when I look at characters: The way they develop. How they used to be in certain situations. General character development. We don’t talk enough about the secret talents and thoughts of him.

Also, ace. Because like many characters, I headcanon Peter Pettigrew as asexual. Thank you.

And, how did you find your way to the Thiam fandom?

Here’s the funny thing: I think that I only started shipping them as much as I do now while I already wrote fic for them. I don’t know, I saw the appeal because I love those ships with awful banter and the enemies-to-lovers trope, so the arguments Theo and Liam kept having right from the beginning practically screamed at me to ship them – even if it didn’t fully hit me yet and I hated Theo during season 5 (which is to say, I loved him as a villain. He has always been a great character, just not a good person.). I’ve read a couple of fics for them at the end of last year and then decided to write my own and both of those actions made me realize how well they fit together and helped me learn to appreciate them both in their own ways.

Gasp, How can anyone hate Theo?! Though, I might be a tad bias lol. I think a lot of people would agree with you about how well they fit together. Since you’ve only had time to grow in your appreciation for their relationship, why don’t we try a little game?

Let’s pretend this was a Stranger Than Fiction situation and you could predict any aspect of their lives with your writing. How would you set up the follow scenarios:

a. Their first postseason 6 interaction:

Okay, I’m a sucker for canon so let’s stay with that. I think that after the hospital scene, after Theo’s taken Gabe’s pain and the battle is won, it would not be Liam who approaches Theo to talk about. In my head, it would be Mason – he’s the one who realizes the significance of this, he’s the one who told him he doesn’t care enough to take someone’s pain (I think Liam doesn’t know about that in canon? If I remember wrong, let’s just pretend he doesn’t know.).

So I don’t know, maybe Theo leaves the hospital while everyone’s celebrating, completely overwhelmed and also feeling wrong there – he’s not part of this friend group and now that the battle is over, they don’t have any use for him any more, right? So he slips out; only to be followed by Mason. And we know Mason.

He’s clever and determined and he doesn’t back down from confronting someone. He doesn’t like Theo, he’s said as much, but now he’s seeing progress in him. He knows what an aide Theo has been for Liam, both in the fights and with his anger. He addresses all of this and Theo reacts like we all expect that he would: dismissive and sarcastic. Mason doesn’t buy into it for a single second, but he doesn’t try to make Theo stay when he says he needs to leave. I feel like it would actually be good for him to leave for a while because boy, does he need a time-out. Let’s be real. It’s clear that Theo isn’t as much of Liam’s responsibility any more. Liam doesn’t keep him close and he can leave and Liam wouldn’t feel like he needs to watch him. Theo’s come back from hell and then he’s had to fight battle after battle. He’s not friends with any of them and there’s no reason for him to stay around. So, he leaves, and Mason lets him leave, both because he gets it and he doesn’t really care if Theo is around or not.

Now Liam. I feel like even at that point in canon, Liam doesn’t really see Theo as a person. He knows him as a villain and as an ally but never just as Theo, and even with the almost-kiss between them (because that’s what the elevator scene has been, goddammit. There’s an attraction between them and it’s only been increased by the adrenaline, but especially Liam doesn’t really realize that he cares about Theo), he doesn’t even notice at first that Theo is gone. He’s too full of ecstasy and when he’s reunited with the rest of the pack, that only becomes more. It takes him a few days, maybe even weeks until he truly notices that Theo is gone. It’s not that he just forgets about him – Theo’s been present enough in the past few months, especially to him – so the remainder of him helping clings to Liam’s mind. He doesn’t ask anyone about Theo, though. It’s not like anyone really cares, he thinks. And he knows Mason’s dislike for the chimera, so bringing it up to him wouldn’t be fruitful either.

Of course, Theo comes back. Beacon Hills is his home and he just feels this draw back to it and (that much he can admit to himself) to Liam. He’s also the only one whose phone number he has so after much thinking – and Theo’s logical, so he doesn’t try to convince himself to ignore it – he calls Liam. It’s awkward because Theo had just disappeared like that (which Liam would call him out for) and maybe that leads to a fight between them; one that ends with Liam admitting he’s needed Theo around because he’s felt so restless and he’s not stupid, he knows that’s what it feels like to lose your anchor. Theo grows silent at that, not sure what to answer, and Liam almost hangs up because he’s too embarrassed by that confession and hell, they’re not even friends. He practically admitted to be in love with him, which is not even the case. They’re not in love yet, that’s for sure. But then, suddenly, Theo just says, “I’m coming home,” and that’s a promise.

The call would end shortly after that, with awkwardness hanging in the air, but Liam’s excited and content at the prospect of Theo coming back. And Theo, completely beside himself, sets off towards Beacon at once.

I have the image in mind (and heck if I knew if that works time zone-wise but maybe Theo’s still in the same) that the next day when Liam comes out of school, he finds Theo chilling in the parking lot, leaning against his truck like that’s his usual spot. Liam, not sure whether it’s appropriate to hug him or whatever but shit, is he happy to see him, jogs up to him and beams, saying, “You came.” And Theo, the little shit that he is, just rolls his eyes and clicks his tongue and goes, “Yeah. You’re paying lunch.” And then they climb into the car and ride off into the sunset.

(God I can’t believe this became almost two pages of basically just relationship study, I’m so sorry!!)

Never apologize for passion! What about a Thiam Double Date with any other ship from the show?

Well, Morey is obviously a given. Seriously, once Thiam started dating, Liam would definitely make the two of them see how much Theo has changed – I have no doubt it would become somewhat awkward, with Mason outright having stated that he despises Theo and Theo having worked with the people who killed Corey… Still, I think they’d go out for a movie or something or maybe just happen to be all at the Geyers’ home at the same time and maybe they would bond over video games or something.

I could also see that after some time, Theo would make up with Melissa. If he stays in Beacon Hills, he might end up being the one who brings her lunch – a weak attempt at making up for all the things he did to her and her family, but it’s the best they can do. After a while, Melissa would probably inquire him about what has happened and try to make him deal with the guilt; at the same time, she could see he’s different now, so then she insists that Scott and Stiles see it, too. So, she’s the one who’d set them all up. Probably a giant dinner or something at her house where she invites Thiam, Scalia and Stydia. And maybe she has Papa Argent over, too. It would be awfully tense, especially with Stiles’ and Malia’s hatred for Theo and maybe it ends in a disaster, who knows? But maybe Melissa mentions a fun story from when they were kids and Lydia, though she isn’t completely at ease either, would remember something she saw the guys do in elementary school (remember, she was there, too, even if they weren’t friends) – and then they would forget themselves and explain how they came up with the idea of stealing a toilet seat or something. They’d just chat about how things have been and then suddenly there’s a silent where they all swallow and remember that it can’t be like that anymore, can it? But there’s a promise: If they all can remember and laugh about it, and if Theo’s truly changed, then maybe there’s hope.

Finally, one conflict they’d have as an official couple:

Liam’s anger, without a doubt. I don’t think Theo can be as patient as fics make him out to be. He probably doesn’t know how to actually react to one of Liam’s outbursts and the way he talked to him during 6B wouldn’t always help. If Liam lashed out at him, Theo would probably let him – that’s another topic between them, the way Theo will accept anything as a sort of punishment for what he’s done. Liam would be overwhelmed by guilt and Theo would try to talk him out of it, say it’s okay and it’s not like he didn’t deserve it. And then Liam would tell him that no, he doesn’t. Theo’s already paid for his sins and he’s learnt to do better and anyway Liam isn’t his judge. It’s a vicious cycle because they’d argue and then Liam would get angry again and maybe then he’d just walk away and punch a tree, but the problem stands. I just made myself sad :(

If you could magically write any Thiam story with your mind, what story would you craft?

I have a few stories in mind that I want to write, especially for Thiam, but there’s one I keep putting off because it would require me to rewatch some of season 5 and basically all of season 6. I just don’t have the time or spoons for that at this point. If I had, though… Oh dear, hold on to your seats.

It’s told from Mason’s point of view, believe it or not. Either while or after he’s been possessed by the Beast, he’s developed powers of his own: He can suddenly see some kind of aura around people. It’s kind of a count for karma, with bad people having really dark colours while good ones have bright colours – later, though, he finds out that was aren’t general ratings but how the people view themselves. So, the last glimpse Mason gets of Theo is before he goes to hell.

His aura is really bright except for a few specks here and there. When he comes back from hell, it’s the darkest Mason’s ever seen.

Basically, the story would be about character growth and the way people see themselves. For example, both Stiles and Liam have darker auras than you’d expect them to have, because they’re good people, right? It wouldn’t surprise you after the nogitsune and Donovan that Stiles doesn’t think that of himself but Liam? It gives both the reader and Mason new insights into the characters of Teen Wolf.

The fic stays close to canon as it plays out, only that with Mason being the narrator, you get to see more of the puppy pack, of course. The way both Liam’s and Theo’s auras change as they interact with each other and Theo truly betters himself until in the end… Well, that’s it, right? Does the end stay lie in canon, too? Would Mason do something about the way his best friend feels better about himself when he’s around Theo? Who knows, definitely not me yet.

I’m excited to jump into your writing! First, if you could describe your creative process as a living entity, what would it look like? Wear? Listen? How does it handle conflict?

Hm, they‘re always around, though usually pretty chill in the background. Like, you turn around and they’re there but it’s not like they’re really annoyingly present, if that makes sense? I’m always working on something in the back of my head, and a lot of time it becomes more pregnant, so from time to time this person would be more active. And maybe they would be annoying from time to time, like when an idea doesn’t let me sleep or occupies my thoughts at all times, though that’s become a rarer happenstance lately. They’d be dressed pretty casually, maybe just a hoodie and sweatpants or something – my writing isn’t anything extravagant, and neither is the process of it for me. Actually, I don’t think they’d be a person, to be honest. I literally just described my cat.

ALOL, well, looks like we’ve discovered one of your writing influences haha! Do you and your cat have any Writing Kryptonites?

Oh, probably action. Which is especially sad in regard to Teen Wolf because you can come up with such amazing fight scenes in this fandom! But I’m struggling with writing motion, actually. No idea if it’s just that my vocabulary is limited in that area, being non-native to English and all, or if I generally suck at it, but it always feels so wrong to me. I write from a single person’s perspective, usually, so I’m limited to what they see and how they move and even then, it doesn’t feel swift enough. I’m working on that, though – there was a time when my writing basically only consisted of dialogue, and that became much better during the past years.

That’s amazing! What are some ways that you try to better your writing? Besides, well...writing haha. Have you done any type of skill building that you thought worked for you?

Most of it has definitely come just from continuing writing, to be honest. I’ve only once told myself to actively focus on something (it was really early in the beginning of my writing where I tried to get more skilled in describing people - the way they look and move, stuff like that). Otherwise, it’s basically just that. In writing class ,there were a few things you could try out, such as focussing on different emotions while writing or something.

Things that do the trick for me, usually, are PoV switches (meaning one chapter from A’s perspective, the next from B’s, stuff like that) and waiting to write something specific until I’m in the same mood as well. So if a character’s particularly sad in one scene, I’ll leave that for a time where I am sad as well. It works well for me because I don’t write chronologically anyways.

And is there one trope or scene that always ends up in whatever you’re writing?

Well, I barely write anything that doesn’t include an asexual character. Also, there’s always some meta-ish reference to canon in AUs and, weirdly enough, I always have characters either watch or talk about Star Wars. That even happened before I watched the movies myself!

In case of Teen Wolf, there’s always the act of redemption for Theo. I feel that it’s an essential part of both him and Thiam as a relationship – the way Theo grows as a person and becomes better. I’m a sucker for parallels to canon, so that’s always a topic in one way or another. Of course, Theo doesn’t kill someone in every AU, but he deals with something that holds him back, makes him kind of a bad person, every time.

And then, I always come back to his friendship with Scott and Stiles, especially the latter. I’d have loved to see more of that in canon, maybe in stories or flashbacks or something. You’ve always had Scott and Stiles as practically one entity up to season 5 and suddenly Theo comes along, and you’re supposed to believe they used to be three? And nothing was ever mentioned? Of course, the writers only came up with that plotline for season 5, it makes sense they didn’t have anyone discuss Theo before. Still, it feels like something is missing there to make you truly believe it and I love to reflect on that, play with it. Stiles’ stance towards Theo draws me in a lot – how come he doesn’t trust him right away? Was something happening between them? How would it have been if Theo never left? I love to dig into that.

Mental illness is also a big thing for me. We have canon evidence for mental illness, even if they’re never named. They all must have PTSD. Stiles shows extreme signs of ADHD. Lydia is practically a survivor of sexual abuse. Multiple characters have attempted suicide. Liam is canonically diagnosed with IED. It would be ignorant not to refer to any of that while writing. Lots of fics I’ve read mention the struggles, depict them greatly, but only a few talked about handling them, about recovery. It’s about time we make progress in that department.

Hmm very true. And not a thought, as a perpetual fluff writer, that I’ve considered until now. You deal with quite a bit of mental issues within your main story, Buy and Sell Gravity. Before we chat about it in depth, can you give us a quick synopsis?

Buy and sell gravity starts with one of Liam’s outbursts of anger. In his social studies class, Monroe has talks badly about adoptive/step-parents and Liam started arguing with her until said he sent him out. So, then he goes and slashes her tires in classic Liam-style. Theo, who has only moved back to Beacon Hills recently and is surrounded by awful rumours, but nothing specified, catches him and decides to take care of it. He saves Liam’s ass and in return he demands that Liam pays for his food during lunch. But then they actually become friends and Liam learns more and more about Theo.

And did anything inspire you to create the premise?

The idea just came me at random – I just had that image in mind of Thiam making a deal. It’s classic romcom stuff, right? And I had thought it would just turn into a lengthy oneshot at most but now it’s the longest thing I have ever written. It’s crazy.

The story is told from Liam’s perspective. Do you think the story would unfold differently had we’d experienced it from Theo’s POV?

I’m actually writing a sequel at the moment, which is from Theo’s perspective. There’s references to buy and sell gravity, of course, so you actually do get part from Theo’s point of view! In general, though, had you seen it all from his point of view, the slow burn would have felt even longer, I imagine. The sound of the fic would have been darker, because that’s Theo’s mindset for the most of it, and there wouldn’t have been so many questions. Theo doesn’t really wonder about anything in this fic, he reflects and draws his own (mostly correct) assumptions. I feel like it would have sounded pretty monotone – it made sense to only pick up his PoV in the sequel and if you’ve read buy and sell gravity, you might be able to tell why. He’s opening up more towards the ending and a more pleasant person to be around to.

I’ve noticed most of your stories turn into longer fics. Have any tricks for keeping yourself motivated to write those longer plots? (Clearly, this is purely self-indulgent here haha. It’s a near miracle if I stick through a long, complex plot!)

I usually only start posting multichaptered fics once they’re already finished. This way you can motivate yourself by going “Well, if you don’t finish it then you won’t post it, nobody will see it and you worked for nothing.” That method works well for me because I love recognition for my works, even if a lot of them are for obscure pairings.

In case of buy and sell gravity, I’ve already started posting while working on it, however. I’ve felt stuck because it’s been my first fic for Teen Wolf, so I was very unsure about whether I hit the characters correctly, if it felt believable; stuff like that. I needed feedback from more than one person and since I’ve never really been in the fandom, going ahead and posting it was my only option. I wanted to know whether it was worth continuing working on it. the feedback was amazing and the fact that a few people came back for every new chapter was a wonderful motivator. Oh, and it certainly doesn’t harm when you have someone literally show up on your doorstep and demand you write a new chapter.

Your first Teen Wolf fit?! Impressive!! Is Teen Wolf now your ultimate favorite fandom to write? (*Wink Wink*) Or, do you have another favorite fandom/ship to write for?

The Arrowverse is generally my favourite fandom. I love all the shows and the way it consists of multiple worlds give you so many things to take away from! You can write any AU, you can write for abandoned timelines or worlds, crossover between the shows and ship practically anything. You can go all out, have doppelgängers appear (like one evil and one good version of the same person, stuff like that). There are no limits. Writing for it is fun because you can draw from so many shows and even include the original comics, if you want. Right now I’m (and have been for the past one and a half years) working on a Groupchat AU set in the Arrowverse where everyone is a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and even that doesn’t seem too out of character.

As to a ship, I probably enjoy Simon Lewis/Raphael Santiago from Shadowhunters the most. Writing for them is almost easy because I can relate to both so much. Depending on which mood you’re in, you can write Simon’s optimistic and reference-heavy rambling or maybe you write the angst that constantly underlines Raphael’s thoughts. I can always find a way to write for them because they’re so different and yet fit together so well.

Yoooo, we could honestly strike up a whole subconvo dedicated to Simon x Raphael lmao. Since we’re supposed to be all about Thiam around here, I’ll restrain myself and simply agree about your opinions on Saphael. (I’ll miss them, sad face)

Being a writer of many fandoms then, what’s your ultimate Teen Wolf crossover with any other show or movie universe? What character would you see interact?

God! I’m a sucker for crossovers with DC! There’s a few I read where Stiles is always the person in question (whether he’s a member of the Batfamily or the brother of The Flash, I’ve read both of those cases, haha). I love the connection of the Teen Wolf world with DC Comics. I wrote a retelling of a Flash episode with Thiam in the focus and someone else wrote a Under the Red Hood AU which still keeps me in awe. (And also, it’s too funny how much the casts overlap, the double identities practically overlap – suddenly Liam is Superboy, Derek is Superman, Allison is a mafia daughter, Jackson as Red Arrow… It’s great.)

Otherwise, what I haven’t seen yet: Twilight. I’ve (re-)discovered my love for it last year and honestly? Let those mix up! Washington and California are both on the West Coast!! I have no idea about how far exactly but let them meet! Let Emmett Cullen beat up Peter Hale! Have Edward and Derek suffer together through their depression and Scott and Jasper try to comfort everyone. Lydia and Alice? Nobody’s dying on their watch. Let Rosalie and Malia kick ass together and Melissa and Carlisle swap hospital stories! Stiles and Bella hanging out together, being sarcastic little shits and also way too much into all this stuff. Hell, I’m gonna write this myself if I have to! (Otherwise I accept fic recs. Thank you.)

Before we wind down, what’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten? Any advice you feel compelled to share?

I used to be really bad at discussing plot ideas with people – I dunno if it was an irrational fear of them running off with what I thought of, but it’s been there. I’ve been in a creative writing class about two years ago and there I was basically forced to do it. It helped somewhat with the progress of my story and being around people who like to do the same thing as you is always a great motivator.

I don’t listen to those conventional writing tips, like what atmosphere you’re supposed to have around you and how to depicts things. Writing is a personal experience and you can do it in a way you seem fit. Not everyone feels at ease in the same environment, so just write when you feel like it. Forcing yourself to do it doesn’t help anyone – except you can only work under stress, of course! See? There’s that individuality again, ruining my own writing tips.

Ahahaha, advice giving is a definite catch-22. Thank you for hanging out with us!! What’s next for you in the world? Both creatively and lively?

I’ve started an apprenticeship to become a bookseller this month! It’s a huge change compared with the life of a student that I had before, but after finishing my Bachelor‘s degree last December, it’s what I needed. Sadly it means that I don’t have as much time to write as I’d like, but I’m doing my best to squeeze in some of that. For Teen Wolf I‘m meaning to wrap up free fallin‘ in the jungle lights finally - otherwise, there’s a few WIPs in the Arrowverse and (uncharacteristic for me) MCU lurking on the back of my brain.

Anything else you’d like to share, in general. The floor is all yours!

I’m not really in the Thiam fandom, I think (really, the number of people I actually chatted with outside of ao3 comments can be counted on one hand), but here’s a massive shoutout to everyone! To the people who write, the people who read, the people who leave long comments, the artists, the meta-people, the ones with the headcanons. The people here from the officialthiamlibrary! You make writing a better experience and your opinions and reflections upon the show and characters help me become better at understanding them. Thank you all for being so lovely and just… into it. You’re all amazing!

And Behind the Screens presents Yasmin to you! Naturally, the conversation doesn’t have to stop here. Meet them at these places:

Main Tumblr: @joanthangroff

Inbox/Ask: joanthangroff ask

AO3: Pettigrace

Twitter: LI4MDUNBAR

Thank you for letting us get to know more about you! And thank you all for reading and requesting her. As always, if you have a Thiam Creator that you fan over, send us their names. Likewise, if you as the creator, would like to be a part of the Behind the Screens series, give us a shout too! We’d love to get to know you, as well.

@joanthangroff

#thiam #teenwolf #behind the screens #mod: minna #officialthiamlibrary

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gwydionae · 6 years ago

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I am posting this to show 1.) how big of a nerd I am, 2.) what KIND of a nerd I am, and 3.) just how much I went through to end up in complete agony, lol.

I really like facts, concrete evidence that something is true. I also like a good puzzle, being given some information and travelling down the rabbit hole to try and piece said info together. You know what else I like? Fictional universes and their concept of time. The Dice, Camera, Action! fandom might know me as the insane lady who carefully tries to construct a proper timeline for a DnD show with no official timeline whatsoever, going simply off of in-game clues.

You know what show gave me a character’s birthday, another character telling said birthday character “happy birthday” seemingly quite a bit after his birthday, and then proceeded to dump an actual, real calendar on me? Mob Psycho 100, of course! So what did I decide I wanted to figure out? Just how long HAD Mob and Reigen been apart during the “separation arc”?

Now, I actually DO have a pretty good guess! See, based on Reigen’s character profile from the manga, along with the email his mom sent him on his birthday, we know that he turned 28 on October 10, 2012 (if he was born Year of the Rat and is using a cellphone in present day, he had to have been born in 1984, thus it being 2012 on his 28th birthday). According to the above included calendar, this would be a Wednesday. He had already been separated from Mob for a little while previous to that, though. The first day could have been a school day as Ritsu came home in uniform and said that Mob was “home early”, but it couldn’t have been a Monday as the day before that was definitely a school day. So that would likely make it either Tuesday the 9th or Friday the 5th. We then see Mob in class/club, out shopping with Ritsu, and out again in a different outfit (this being Reigen’s birthday). If his birthday is on a Wednesday, their first day apart couldn’t have been Tuesday as there are at least 2 days in between their fight and Wednesday, so likely they fought on Thursday the 4th, meaning that October 5, 2012 would be the first day of their separation.

So! Reigen went 6 days before getting his serious Mob withdrawal symptoms. Ok, how much time passed after that? Well, I figured it couldn’t be TOO much, as while Mob’s belated “happy birthday” is said in the past tense, it’d be weird if it came, like, months later, but there’s only so much actual evidence to go on. We do know that Reigen started going all out with work, and one job in particular - the video game player killer - had him staying up “many nights”. But that one job made him go viral, essentially, and he got interviewed for a magazine. “And a few days after that” he got asked to be on the TV special, which took place “one week” from when he was asked. We then see people reporting on him being a fake the next day, and the day after that Mob is at school and being told about it for the first time. This gave me my first clue, making me think the special must have been on a Saturday night, with Mob finding out on Monday. After this, we get the line “in three days, being the ultimate evil had become Reigen’s public image”, which would put us on a Tuesday as the day he gets cornered into holding a press conference the following day (Wednesday). And, of course, that’s the day he finally sees Mob again.

So for sure we have 4 days since the night of his social collapse, and before that 8 days between which he got asked to be on TV and then he appeared on TV the following week. So we’ve got a confirmed 12 days total so far, but obviously that’s not counting the “many nights” playing the video game plus any work time he put in before or after. The earliest possible date that he could have been contacted for the TV would be Saturday the 20th. This would give him about a week and a half to get big, and it would put the spooky exorcism special the Saturday before Halloween. But that’s not a lot of time to build up his name, and it would put his press conference on Halloween itself which seems a bit odd to me (though maybe Japan isn’t too big on Halloween specials). So I figured the best bet would be to say he got asked to be on TV Saturday the 27th, appeared Nov 3rd, and held his press conference on Wed the 7th, exactly 4 weeks since his birthday, and a total of 34 days since he’d last seen Mob.

BUT WAIT! Why did I say I was in agony over this if I’ve got a pretty decent idea of how much time passed? Oh, Studio Bones. I love you. I love you a lot. I do. I really, really do.

But.

BUT.

*sigh*

You just HAD to put a REAL calendar in the very next episode, didn’t you?

Ok, so admittedly at first I was pretty excited about this! After all, at first glance, it actually seemed to line up pretty well! It looked like it could be a calendar for Oct 2012! But then I noticed that according to that screenshot, the date is supposed to be the 1st. Well, ok, fine, maybe my first guess was correct and Reigen actually DID get popular in a week and a half and held in press conference on the 31st. But... no, that couldn’t be it either because this month has 31 days in it - that doesn’t even work for November at all! Could it possibly be December already? Did that much time actually pass?? In what year did December 1st fall on a Mon- WAIT! NO! THAT’S NOT A MONDAY! THAT’S A TUESDAY!! THIS CALENDAR STARTS WITH MONDAY!!! That means that even my theory of “they had the right calendar for Oct 2012, but just marked the wrong date on it” is debunked, too!! Wait wait wait!! Hold up! Just what month/year IS this supposed to be a calendar of, then??

It’s January 2019.

They just used the dates from January 2019.

......................

How dare you, Bones.

I trusted you. I trusted that you would actually pull through for me, that you had given me concrete evidence to support my hypothesis. That you put so much care into your animation that SURELY putting in the proper dates wouldn’t be hard.

I was a fool to be excited. I will never trust your dates or calendars again. You have lied to me with false facts, and now every time I see that calendar, it makes me upset because it is simply factually wrong, and I don’t like it.

...THIS is what kind of nerd I am. XD

Now if you’ll excuse me, my sister is about to watch the latest episode, and I am going to make myself happy again by enjoying her pain, because she, like me, is an anime only, lol.

#mob psycho 100 #spoilers #i will be shocked if anyone gives two craps about this but i don't really care #i had to get it out #i'd been thinking about it for days #and that calendar coming out was supposed to be my defining evidence #and instead it ripped my heart on and stomped on it XD #this is the sort of thing i like to do in my spare time #i'm a weird lady

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sujus-girl · 7 years ago

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Disclaimer: This is just for fun, so please don’t take it too seriously. This is not an official profile or anything like that!

A GUIDE TO PENTAGON

I actually had a lot of fun making my guide to JBJ, so I was like?? What other group do I love that doesn’t get the attention they deserve? …. PENTAGON

Are y’all ready to cringe? To sigh? To question what is going on with these children? Then, without further ado, I present to you: Pentagon: My Shitty Guide to 10 Toddlers

Group Name: Pentagon

First appeared on a show called Pentagon Maker, which was called a survival show, but SPOILER ALERT: Cube decided to do the right thing and debuted all 10 members together

If I’m going to be 100% honest, I still dk where to find the full episodes, but there are a ton of clips on youtube, and, honestly, I was satisfied with just watching those

ALL OF THEM HAVE REALLY GOOD VISUALS? LIKE, I SAY THIS WITH EVERY GROUP, BUT SERIOUSLY, PENTAGON HAS SOME A+++ VISUALS

Beware because they’re very. Very. very. Loud

The fandom name is universe and i just think that’s so cute OKAY?

Ofiicial Music Videos: Gorilla, Can You Feel It, Critical Beauty, Pretty Pretty, Run Away, Like This, Violet

Personal Favorite Non-Title Tracks: Thank You, Beautiful, You Are, Spectacular, and Lose yourself

Aight, we have ten members to go through this time, so BUCKLE UP, MY FRIENDS

Members:

Jo Jinho

The oldest member of pentagon

Vvv smol baby. Is only 5’6”

Is scared very easily lmfao

May be smol but has A HELLA SET OF LUNGS

High note king that leaves almost everyone shook

Used to be in SM the Ballad, but left and became a trainee again under cube entertainment

Had trained for EIGHT FRICKIN YEARS, DO NOT SLEEP ON MY BOI

I guess he gave vocal lessons to cube trainees like Yoo Seonho (someone pls KINDLY let me know if i’m wrong)

Drops a bunch of covers and spoils Universe with his voice, thx boo

Usually gets paired with hongseok for stuff?? Idk

Has a room by himself in the dorms, lucky boi

ALSO A MUSICAL THEATER ACTOR?? ALL SHOOK UP REALLY HAD US ALL SHOOK UP

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Lee HwiTaek (Hui)

The leader of this mess

Got pretty popular after the song Never was released, then continue to leave people quaking after Energetic was released

Is an A+ Singer and Producer, we love a talented man

Is vvvv scared of everything and also has a lot of tears (we love a man in touch with his emotions)

A former JYP trainee

Got7’s JB said that one time, Got7’s Mark got into a fight with him, Hui, and B.A.P.’s Youngjae and Day6’s Brian had to translate the argument LOL

Also in a subunit called Triple H that consists of him, E’Dawn and Hyuna

Also has a room to himself

HONEY SOCKS

Has a fanboy named Yoo Seonho that loves him vvv much, and they even went to vietnam together

also appeared on this variety show called hyena’s on the keys and flaunted his composing SKILZ

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Yang Hongseok

A former YG trainee

Was on the show that created iKon, and it was…. Oof

He was new at the time, so it was kinda awkward and tense, but it got better

Is obsessed with working out, and has the abs of a greek god as a result

Reads books in his free time, and enjoys studying foreign languages

He moved around when he was younger, so he can speak Mandarin and English (we love an intelligent man)

Apparently the mom?? Cooks and cleans for the babies in the dorm

Shares a room with E’Dawn

Also really likes Iron Man… and Jinho

The members say he’s the worst at dancing in the group LOL

It’s okay though, cause he’s vvv talented in other aspects

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Kim HyoJung (E’Dawn)

“I have no fear” not even two seconds later *HIGH PITCH SCREAMING*

Can reach an octave i didn’t think human possible

A little weird, but that’s okay!

Is also in Triple H with Hui and Hyuna

Hongseok’s roommate

Is really good at dancing, wow

Kinda looks tired 24/7, but we’re pretty sure that’s just his face. Like you know how some people have resting bitch face? E’Dawn has resting tired face.

TATTOOS!

Sry, i just really like tattoos, lol

But yeah! E’Dawn has multiple tattoos! Since it’s like 1 in the morning and I’m kinda tired, I’m not gonna try and think of all of them, but they should all show up if you just google e’dawn tattoos lol sorry

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Go Shinwon

Has trouble keeping his clothes on apparently

Like for real, just casually pulled his pants down and took his shirt off multiple times in pentagon maker

Is scared of animals because one time because… um…. let’s just say that there was an unfortunate incident with his pet hamster when he was in like middle school... yeah

Was eliminated during Pentagon maker, but four remaining members broke into cube late at night and put up posters saying they wanted pentagon to debut as ten

Gets mad real easily

Has broad shoulders… Like real broad. Edawn and yanan fell asleep on his shoulders and they were comfortable

Shares a room with Kino

Also really likes Mcdonalds?? Like, this boy put on a burger hat and ate a mcdonalds burger.

Really hates bugs LOL

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Yeo Changgu (Yeo One)

Has a visual that a lot of foreigners seem to really like? That’s just something I noticed, I know it’s not the general consensus

Is also an actor, he appeared in a webdrama called Spark and was the main actor for a historical drama not too long ago

Shares a room with yanan

Is yanan’s biggest fan

Has a laugh that can revive wilting flowers tbh

Talks a lot too

Sucks at table tennis

He and hui put ducktape on their legs and ripped it off

GIVE HIM MORE LINES PLS

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Yan An

“MADE IN CHINA!”

“Annyeong chingudel”

He’s from Shanghai

Hella model vibes, amirite or amirite

He injured himself when preparing for the Ceremony album, and he had to sit out and everyone was vvv sad and vvv worried

Got better and is back, and more random than ever

Sometimes says things that are real funny, even if he doesn’t intend for it to be

“What are you talking about, this is plastic”

“You… You’re in big trouble!”

“Korean name is Yanan. Chinese name is Yanan. English Name? Yanan.”

Also once called Jinho a foreigner, even tho Jinho is Korean and they were in Korea?

May be tol and handsome, but he’s really just a big toddler

Scared of roller coasters

Roommates with yeo one who loves him v much (yeo one has the right idea, y’all)

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Adachi Yuto

“YUTODA”

A japanese prince

AN ATHLETE! Played baseball and used to do soccer

A former JYP trainee

Good friends with Yuto (U) from ONF because they both used to be JYP trainees and also NCT’s Yuta

Shares a room with Wooseok and will laugh at anything he says

Milk couple

Can’t eat spicy food for shit

Hella tall

Also appeared predebut at ISAC 2015 for futsall

A bby that is afraid of many things. Especially the dark. On pentagon maker, the crew turned off the lights and he real cutely went “pd-nim~” and i almost cried it was so cute

“What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?” “Ice cream.”

Says he can’t do aegyo, but he hella cute already, so it’s okay

Also once danced shirtless and i almost sued, you a child Boi (i say as I am younger than him)

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Kang Hyunggu (Kino)

A whole cutie

I legit that he was my age or younger cause he was just so adorable

Only 4 days younger than yuto and 4 days older than wooseok, but he a whole baby

They did a vlive for wooseok, yuto, and kino’s birthdays and when they were getting into teams, hongseok was chosen to be in kino’s team but he said it so emotionlessly that kino got all pouty LOL

A dancing king

“I was going to go easy on you, but you called me Hyunggu”

Has a lot of friends in k-pop, he vvv popular

Shares a room with shinwon

A laugh that motivates me to be a better person

Saved the entire world by eating watermelon in front of cameras BLESS

“Get it Kino Beauty”

Proceeded to destroy yanan’s face with makeup RIP

Makes funny faces that i sometimes screenshot and send to my friends at 2 in the morning

ALSOALSOALSO, he had this little dance solo in Critical Beauty and I was LIVING for it

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

Jung Wooseok

The baby of the group

HELLA TOL??? LIKE WTF, IF YOU LOOK AT PHOTOS OF JINHO AND WOOSEOK STANDING NEXT TO EACH OTHER HE LOOKS LIKE A FREAKING GIRAFFE

He was sleeping backstage once and yuto put a chocopie in front of his mouth and he sleepily tried to eat it and i was :((((( he was so cute

Really likes yuto, they’re usually paired together for stuff. Like dorms

Really likes anime, legend has it that if you play samurai heart at exactly 1:23 AM, wooseok will appear behind you and sing along

Imitates an opera singer and achieves an octave that i would imagine isn’t humanly possible for someone with a voice as deep as his

Has a fanboy names Lai Guanlin from wanna one, and he will not let anyone forget about his precious Wooseok

Once did an eating broadcast with super spicy food and accidentally got some in his eye and the rest of pentagon thought it was the funniest thing ever RIP

Videos to Watch: (1) (2) (3)

That was a journey! We’re almost done, though!

Videos Of Pentagon to Watch! Weekly Idol with Victon and Momoland! (X) This crack (?) series that I live for (X) The VLive that was all sorts of mess (X) Triple H Weekly Idol (only Hui and E’Dawn) (X) This clip from Pentagon Maker that was all sorts of mess, even with only 4 members (X) Hui, Wooseok, and E’Dawn trying to cook (X) This other VLive that was all sorts of mess (X) Pentagon Heyo TV (Mafia Game Cut) (X)

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT! A VERY SHORT, SHITTY GUIDE TO PENTAGON! I hope this helps anyone wanting to get into Pentagon, or even just makes an Universe smile! Now go and bask in the glory that is Pentagon’s craziness! Bye!

#pentagon #jo jinho #lee hwitaek #hui #kim hyojung #e'dawn #yang hongseok #yeo changgu #yeo one #yanan #adachi yuto #kino #kang hyunggu #jung wooseok #triple h #cube #mine

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theragamuffininitiative · 7 years ago

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(queuing this for later for privacy reasons but)

GUYS I SAW THE LION KING ON TOUR

Ohmyword it was so good. Like. Heck man. Wow. Get ready, long post ahead.

I bought my tickets mooooonths in advance (you may remember my mentioning it in passing some time ago). It was my Christmas present to me. XD I drove four hours to another state to see it, and I ended up doing so by myself because my traveling buddy wasn’t able to come. Very proud of my adulting there, btw, first big independent adventure. XD

Taking the advice of some of my lovely mutuals who have seen the show before, and telling myself I could splurge, I got an aisle orchestra seat, and wow. Best decision ever.

So, with no further adieu and in no order whatsoever, here are some details (with terribly mixed tenses), if nothing else but for my own remembering of this fantastic night:

The opening. I started crying immediately. Rafiki and the Jackals: flipping yeah. The parade of animals for “The Circle of Life.” Pride Rock. The Elephant came down my aisle and I started crying, I’ve never seen anything like it.

Rafiki though. Mukelisiwe Goba was just alkjdghlsjgs gorgeous. I had chills and tears and laughter thanks to her. Bless.

“The Circle of Life” was legitimate sensory overload, I wish I could just watch that opening sequence on repeat for hours. The costumes, the music, the puppets. skdjfajldkfjshhhjlahskdjldfskjlhdhhhhhhnnnn. Best number, duh.

I was so flipping excited to see Gerald Ramsey as Mufasa, I can’t even. He’s one of the few players from the tour cast to have content on youtube for me to find and just... He was so good. (I am very quickly gonna be repeating adjectives don’t mind me) His interactions with Simba, his presence on the stage, “They Live In You”, the balance between his noble kingly portrayal of the pride leader and his playful antagonizing with Zazu - everything that makes Mufasa who he is. Splendid. Bravo sir, bravo. (He also walked right past my seat. :D )

Aaron Nelson was on for adult Simba that night. He portrayed such a playful character with Timon and Pumba and then transitioned into such a raw, emotional performance of “Endless Night” bravo sir, bravo. You really believed the hope and courage Simba finds at the end of the number.

Zazu (Greg Jackson) broke the fourth wall so many times, it’s a wonder the theater was still standing at the end of the night. These occasions included, but not limited to: literally ‘losing’ the Zazu puppet during “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” and shouting frantically to the audience about it, enduring Mufasa’s jokes and staring out into the audience like he was in an episode of The Office, the now-famous singing of “Let It Go” in place of “It’s a Small World” in Scar’s Lair, and I think he yelled at us for laughing at his misfortunes at one point too.

slight con: I didn’t know the tour removed (sometime in 2010 I guess) the “The Morning Report”/Pouncing Lesson, which I understand cuz it doesn’t forward the story by a lot, but I just love the Pouncing Lesson bit for Mufasa and Simba so much.

After “Hakuna Matata” during Intermission, I was texting friends about knowing Jordan Samuels, aka our Specs from Newsies Live, was in the ensemble and hoping I could spot him, and then Act Two started with “One By One” and I turned to see the dancer standing at the back of the theater in my aisle and 90% certainty it was him, which made me laugh and made my night. Saw him again a few more times throughout the show, but had to remind myself to focus on the big picture lol.

During “Be Prepared” while the hyenas are coming from the back of the theater and running to the stage, the last one in our line stopped to chat with the guy sitting directly behind me. “Hey dude, how’s it going? Enjoying the show?” The guy in the audience was laughing too hard to respond much (he was a nervous-laugher, I’m pretty sure that’s just how he expressed emotion cuz he laughed a lot through the show but whatever) and it was so great. XD He then took off at a run to catch up to everyone on stage.

Speaking of: the hyena march was distinctly less third reich like, and although I really appreciate/respect that element in the movie, I was personally happy it was removed from the production.

The Wildebeast stampede. I just. That staging/blocking and the puppets and costumes to show that. Ohmyword, sooooooooooooooo good. I’m still geeking out about it. Visually one of the high points, purely for the ingenuity of it all. There were essentially three parts of the set: a backdrop, a smaller midstage backdrop, and two pieces on either side representing the closest canyon walls. Cutout silhouettes of wildebeast are on display at the beginning of the scene. When Scar leaves and the Stampede starts, twin rolling wheels of wooden puppet wildebeast appear in the middle backdrop. Then the costumed dancers bearing wildebeast heads on their arms appear to swarm around Simba and Mufasa. I was so distracted by them, I didn’t even notice Mufasa and Scar on the canyon wall until they started speaking.

I FLIPPIN HAD TO WATCH MUFASA DIE AGAIN. THIS WAS NOT SOMETHING I BARGAINED ON PREPARING MYSELF EMOTIONALLY FOR, AND THEREFORE IRONICALLY ENOUGH I WAS NOOTTTTTTT PREPARED.

How have I not mentioned Joziyah Jean-Felix?? All the attitude and naivety and bravado and sincerity you could want in our young hero. Also very enthusiastic with the reigns on the bird puppets during “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King.” Danielle Jalade was so precious and ferocious as young Nala too. My heart belongs to Kajuana Shuford’s performance, but truly Danielle was a gem.

Okay, but back to the costumes???? JULIE TAYMOR IS THE TOO OFTEN UNSUNG HERO OF THIS SHOW, SHE EARNED THOSE TONYS AND THEN SOME.

When Mufasa dies, and the song “Rafiki Mourns” comes, Rafiki enters first and Sarabi and the lionesses join her. It was so beautiful and sad and moving. AND. I DIDN’T KNOW THIS. At the end of the song, the lionesses reach up to their lion mask headdresses and pull silver streamers from the eyes, which they let fall to the ground and over Mufasa, and it was the most beautiful, spell-binding instant of the show.

Sarabi’s streamers remained to show her mourning until Scar angers her and she rips them from her eyes to lash out against him.

HAVE I MENTIONED NIA HOLLOWAY YET? HECK. She was....breathtaking. “Shadowlands” has been a favorite of mine for a long time, and she really does it justice. Her interactions with Aaron were so organic too, I loved them.

Timon (Nick Cordelione) and Pumbaa (Ben Lipitz) were appropriately hysterical and on point. They really got the youngest audience members going, and it was great to hear the kids shrieking with giggles, and the older kids giving surprised bursts of laughter when Pumbaa made a crack about winning Angry Birds by chasing the buzzards away from Simba.

Mark Campbell was a good Scar. He wasn’t my favorite part of the show, I think maybe he was having an off night. Still, his monologues and dry wit were great, and the overt Offense(TM) he took at Simba playing with his tail cracked me up a little too much. XD “Be Prepared” was a jam as always XD

Sarabi (the lovely Kimber Sprawl) I think has even fewer spoken lines in the show than she does in the movie, and yet she seemed like more of a character. The time they allow her to mourn for her husband and son is beautiful and appreciated, and the way she blends in with the other lionesses for many parts of the show before making a subtle move to stand out is just a really good touch imho. There’s almost enough time to suggest, if not establish, a close camaraderie between her and Rafiki and I love that.

Rafiki’s tree (does it have a specific name?) is such a gorgeous piece for the set.

what else am I forgetting, it was such a night

I can’t say enough or describe in enough detail the sets, costumes, and puppets. slkdjfnlakjdksldkgnlgf !!!!

The “grass people” while Timon, Pumbaa, and Simba are discussing the stars, help Timon lie down ‘in the grass’ and when the ensemble help him stand back up again, he turned to say thank you and the dancer who had been holding him up for the scene gave him a big thumbs up. XD They also helped operate the Timon puppet for the scene so that Nick could add more expression and movement.

The ending man, the ending. The reprise of “The Circle of Life.” The energy, the spectacle. aksjdddddddddddddddddkjkjgsdgesdkjs.

At the end, we gave everyone a standing ovation immediately.

I whooped loudly when the cast gestured down at the orchestra pit. Not many other people did, but that’s on their own heads. XD

The night I went was the last show before they packed up and moved on to the next city, a conscious choice on my part based on stage stories of how free the actors usually are with their performance on last nights, and how all the bugs in the venue are usually worked out by then. All good and accurate things I think, but the con is there was no stage dooring, for which I was very sad.

I bought a shirt and a bag, and I’m going to turn the bag into a throw pillow for my bed. ^_^

I’m just....so....happy...I got to go and see this amazing show performed live. It was a pretty good audience too, which can make or break a night, so what a blessing there.

I feel like I’m already forgetting so much, but there you go, this post has run on long enough.

I saw The Lion King, guys. *fangirls out of the room*

#ragamusings #this has been a day in my life post #rags tries a new musical #(sorta not really new)#stage stories #the lion king #lionkingbway

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lightsandlostbells · 6 years ago

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Skam Italia episode 10 reaction

so nice of Alice to ask Eva on a date!

Episode 10

Clip 1 - Eva coming for Martino

I feel it’s so fitting for this marshmallow sweetheart Eva to start off leaving comparatively non-confrontational messages for Martino that only escalate when he doesn’t answer, instead of jumping straight to “ISAK PICK UP YOUR DAMN PHONE NOW” (RUN BOY RUN)

So Eva and Gio seem to be pretty relaxed and comfortable during this conversation about Martino considering their precarious relationship status - like they actually go somewhere else together and sit down, and there’s not a ton of space between them. His body language is pointed toward her. That’s nice that it’s not awkward, but I don’t know how I feel about it narratively, considering there probably should be some tension?

It makes some sense in that Gio seemed like he still wanted to be with Eva when talking to her at the skate park - he put it more on her shoulders, did she still want to be with him? With Jonas there was that “come find me when you find out” but overall it felt more frayed on his end even if he loved her.

But I loved that awkward goodbye kiss! That little customary gesture that’s suddenly got a lot more weight to it as they’re navigating this in-between stage. They’re kinda still dating but they’re kinda not, you know?

Clip 2 - Silvia and Eva in the bathroom

Note that this clip takes place later than the original version, which was paired with the period blood letter and took place right after the Jonas conversation where he asks who Eva is - Vilde asks her the same thing (theeeeme) and Eva bursts out in frustration at the question later talking to Isak. It was overall a more fraught time for Eva, since it was before her reconciliation with Ingrid and smoothing things over with Iben, was thinking she might have to switch schools and had some tension with her new friends after Vilde turned her past into a group presentation. This scene here happens after almost all of those problems have been smoothed over except for her relationship with Gio (which is less awkward than Eva’s with Jonas) and with Silvia (who apologizes during this clip). With that in mind, it’s more comfortable and less fragile.

It also takes the place of the scene where Vilde puts on a fake happy face in the cafeteria and lies to the girls about being with Pepsi Max.

Awww, it’s really nice that Silvia apologized to Eva. And the comment about how she gets used to people hating her is spot-on. it’s worth noting that this is the second time in a short period that Silvia has botched things with a group of girls, and who knows how many times before that.

But again, where does this leave us in terms of a firm arc for Eva? Once more they’ve cut out the thread/theme of who-is-Eva by not having Silvia ask it. Which I don’t inherently mind but I would like there to be a solid line of her character going from point A to point B, like I want there to be, for lack of a better term, a thesis statement about what this season was really about, since that was a strong point of the original S1. But I feel like we won’t know for sure until that final scene with Giovanni.

The original scene lands the point about Eva’s identity, this scene is more about setting up the group reconciliation with Silvia.

Clip 3- Awkwaaaaard

Similar to the first clip of the episode, Eva and Gio’s relationship here feels much less awkward than Eva and Jonas at this stage

Gio intentionally approaches her and makes conversation instead of literally bumping into her as Jonas did to Eva. It’s neutral small talk for the most party, and slight inquiries about Martino, it’s not digging deeper, but it still feels like they’re pretty chill.

That made the fight seem more out of nowhere, though? Like with Eva and Jonas (and other versions) they were walking this fragile ground where they were being polite, and there was that rush of seeing each other and being like, oh, you make me so happy, but you could also sense how fragile and delicate it was through their body language and expressions and pauses, and so when P-Chris comes around, it’s easy for it to break. With this scene, they feel so comfortable that Gio suddenly shoving Fede didn’t feel right, they were on more stable ground. Like I would’ve bought his appearance suddenly creating the awkwardness between Gio and Eva, and Gio having to excuse himself, but not the 0 to 100 in two seconds here.

It doesn’t help that we didn’t see Gio react until he shoved Fede, like the way it was shot was a little weird. At first I couldn’t tell when Gio saw Fede coming down the hall and if Fede made the comment within earshot of them, since we didn’t get a good reaction shot of Gio to Fede’s presence. Plus having Jonas notice P-Chris and get tense was what prompted the “awkward” comment in the first place. Fede just seems like a shit-stirrer, lol.

Lmao, Edoardo did nothing to break up this fight. He redirected Fede with one hand to keep walking, that was it. On the one hand William gradually descending the stairs to halfheartedly remove Chris from Jonas was the best thing he ever did, but on the other hand, Edoardo not giving a shit at all is funny in itself.

Clip 4 - Not a Meet Cute ... a Start-Over Cute?

Good job, Alice! Federico is not worth the private transportation.

The way they shot this makes it look like the beginning of an Eva/Alice hate-to-love romance, more than any other version of this scene. Right now they have moved past “hate” and are in “tentative friendship” mode.

Lol, so I guess people had some beef with the comment about feminism? I get it, obviously feminism is not about man-hating, probably not the best message to send. But I also thought Alice was clearly making a joke and not being serious about it, so unless there’s some nuance in the wording that doesn’t come through in translation, it didn’t really bother me.

Also, not to go on a personal tangent, but I’m at the point of my life/feminist journey/whatever-you-want-to-call-it where IDGAF about defending feminism against accusations of man-hating, because misogynists will think feminists hate men no matter what you say. You can preface every feminist discussion with 10 paragraphs of clarifying that you don’t hate men and they still won’t care and you’ll just have wasted time and energy coddling anti-feminists that could have been spent on the important issues. For real, don’t bother.

Eva suggesting that the party sounds like a Sapphic shindig and Alice being like “Who said that isn’t the solution?” just ramped up the flirtiness, wowza. Although the line about “sounds like [lesbian night]” was translated a few different ways, using language that was, uhhh, not as neutral as lesbian. I can’t speak to whether it was as offensive in Italian, though.

I forgot, did they say that Alice wrote the message in the bathroom stall? It’s not super important since any gossipy person at school could have written it, but since it substituted for the period blood letter, I’m just curious.

Clip 5 - Party in the streets, puking in the sheets

Is this party taking place on the street? Like are they pre-gaming before they go somewhere? Pre-caking? Street parties seem like a good time.

Lol, Sana is pretty warm and receptive toward inviting Silvia, while Eleonora is like eh, whatever. I feel like Eleonora is the one with the pricklier attitude toward Silvia, which could be interesting to see play out next season since S2 definitely has a focus on that relationship.

“She read it but she didn’t reply” I mean you literally just sent the text five seconds ago, give her a minute.

Making the video for Silvia and asking her to come over is the sweetest thing, damn. Like if I were Silvia, my heart would get so warm. You know, if I wasn’t wasted and two steps from passing out.

So Martino wasn’t invited to this party, he just randomly happened to be in the street hanging out with some pals?

Time for the much-awaited snake roasting scene!

“Did your tits get bigger?” You aren’t fooling anyone, Martino.

Martino’s disappointment at thinking Eva and Gio are back together is super obvious, like he can barely manage to conjure up any fake enthusiasm.

Oh geez. So in the original, Isak lets Eva guess why he ratted her out. There has been a lot of meta and discussion as to whether he wanted Eva to guess the truth, take it off his hands, get it all out. It’s when she guesses that he likes her that he runs with the lie. Here, Martino is the one to say he has feelings for her. He creates the lie. There’s no ambiguity as to whether he wants the truth to come out.

I mean, honestly? I could believe that they changed to the plot to be about Martino having feelings for Eva. I don’t think they will, but I could buy it. Because Martino doesn’t seem like he’s lying, it’s like he’s getting things off his chest. With Isak, he wasn’t being too obvious that he was making stuff up, but on a rewatch you can tell that he’s fabricating this story, especially due to the nuance of Tarjei’s acting. Isak is a liar but he’s not necessarily good at it. He’s human. What he gives is an imitation of swagger and Nice Guy-ism. I don’t get much self-doubt in Martino’s performance.

That’s not to say he’s a bad actor, actually I think he’s one of the better performers on this show, but I did think this conversation was underwhelming compared to the original. There’s such great subtext and especially vulnerability in that scene - they cut out some great moments, such as Eva asking how things were going with his mom before confronting him and us getting to see Isak faking his confidence that everything will work out with his parents. Or Isak saying Eva can’t tell Jonas. Or just the extended explanation of why he did it.

Plus you can really see Isak squirm as Eva pretends she’s gotten back with Jonas, like she’s playing with her food, and this scene didn’t have that delicious build-up.

Was there a reason why Eleonora couldn’t host Silvia at her place? Like logically I know it’s because they wouldn’t introduce the collective yet, if they’re keeping that, but surely it would be OK to bring Silvia back to a residence with no parents, just two quirky university students? Is Eleonora’s living situation going to be the same?

Sana had a very clear game plan on how to handle the situation, good for her.

Lol, I think this scene inherently loses something without the ironic Christmas music but it was funny to have “I wanna be a bottom feeder” right before Silvia barfs on Sana. Sana’s reactions were pretty good.

When the puking started, I wondered whether they would show Sana without her hijab, and then they did.

OK ... I’m not a Muslim so I don’t want to get too much into this, but:

Sana taking off her headscarf as a mark of her comfort around the girls is a sweet gesture, and from what I understand from reading Muslims’ thoughts, this is OK to do and it’s likely that she wouldn’t get in the bed and fall asleep in her hijab. So that’s fine.

But in a meta sense, I did think oh right ... we’re getting this moment because the actress is not Muslim, and this is a costume for her and she can take it off. Whereas with someone like Iman Meskini, it’s not (according to her personal religious beliefs). There was a few (just a few, not many) comments I saw that were like “Sana’s hair is so pretty, she shouldn’t cover it up” which made me go :/ :/ :/

Eleonora giving Silvia a little kiss on the forehead as they tuck her into bed = awwwww.

“I was just trying to kill Edoardo’s son” uhhhh is that an accurate translation? Because that’s kinda different from “I think I killed William’s baby,” there’s way more intent with the Italian one and it changes how I view Silvia’s opinion on the matter. Like I sort of thought a part of Vilde wanted that baby, for not so great reasons, and that’s why she was insistent with the nurse that she had all the pregnancy symptoms. But you know, maybe not!

Also, “I tried to kill Edoardo’s son” and the scene ending abruptly with a BAM could be like, a cliffhanger for a crime show if we want to make Skam a much grittier and bleaker show.

General Comments:

I’m wondering about how they’ll handle S3. I think S2 has the potential to be better than the original, but so far the portrayal of Martino has been lacking a lot of that vulnerability that Isak had and the conversation with Eva in this episode reinforced that. Again, I’m not placing the fault on the actor, and obviously we’re just getting started with the character, I just hope they can dig deep into his self-doubt when they come to it.

I’m trying not to get into the debate about this since it’s not my culture, but because I keep seeing comments in the Sana casting debate about the potential lack of Muslim actors in Italy, for comparison:

Islam is the largest non-Christian religion in Norway with about 2.9% of the population officially (about 153,000 people in 2016) and has increased by 26.6% since 2012 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Norway#Islam)

According to the latest Italian official statistics, there are 1.400.000 Muslims in Italy (2.3% of the Italian population), almost one third of Italy's foreign population (250.000 have acquired italian citizenship). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Italy#Present_day)

Wikipedia, I know, but here’s the Pew Research Center, a very reliable source, putting the 2016 estimate of Muslims in Italy at 4.8% of the population with 2,870,000 Muslims (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/29/5-facts-about-the-muslim-population-in-europe/)

I haven’t mentioned this much but the Skam Italia social media team is doing a nice job, some of the texts have been really funny and cute. Shout-out to Martino telling Eva to move to California to work as a waitress in one of those restaurants “where they give you coffee nonstop” because, yeah, that is one good thing you can say about the US. We’re politically a mess but at least our diners will keep your cups overflowing.

I’m not Italian so if I missed some context, feel free to correct me.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

#skamit reactions #skam italia reactions

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optimisticcritique · 7 years ago

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Gotham 4x18 - Review

This might just be the last episode for a certain character...it is time to see.

Interim mayor? Haha good luck with that, buddy. I have a feeling you will either die or resign by the time this season ends.

Who is the commissioner these days?

At least half of the people at this meeting are going to die this episode.

This woman really needs to chill--never mind. Freeze has it covered.

His voice sounds so much like a voice changer. Mr. Freeze could really say some fun deep voiced quotes with that voice. I actually believe it’s required in order to be accepted into the voice changer club.

I want to know why they chose Mr. Freeze and Mad Hatter for this job. It may not require any specific skills, really. Do they just flip a coin to decide who will go kidnap or murder someone?

Look at this guy. Trying to make deals with anyone who will listen. Kind of reminds me of season 1 Oswald a bit. You know, trying to do whatever it takes to survive.

You are really asking the Mad Hatter to save you from lunatics? Do you not know him at all?

“Lunatics is a bit harsh. I prefer visionary” Well, that is typical. Is Jervis Jerome’s number 1 fan now? He is going to be so crushed when the visionary is no more. If it is anything like how he reacted to his sister, there might be more trouble coming.

“I am with Mr. Valeska one hundred percent” Oswald, I hate to break it to you but...you are a terrible liar. That was unconvincing and you should know this.

Oswald is pretending to smile but deep down he is so ready to be done with all this XD

Hey, I know purple is Oswald’s color but that shade of blue tie? It really does bring out his eyes.

Geez this toxin is way crazier than I expected it would be in this show. I really want to know why Jerome came up with the idea just now. Also, how did he explain it to Mr. Freeze and Scarecrow as they were helping to create it? Did he just say, “Hey yeah, I want them to go bonkers. Laugh maniacally, go insane, possibly start bleeding and change color from laughing so much so they look like sadistic clowns.”

I am just waiting for the moment that Oswald leaps out of the truck and just runs as fast as possible.

You thought Alfred would forget your birthday? I know life has been crazy but he has practically raised you.

Ooh did you buy him a giant red wagon?

Awe his baby bat mobile! Awesome! The fact that he didn’t even notice it in the garage until he pressed the button...

I just realized...he has so much money...how come he hasn’t bought like twenty cars at this point? Although, to be fair, this one is so much cooler and is bullet proof.

Harvey and his liquor.

I want to know how Oswald knows Jim’s cell phone number. Has he always had it saved in all his phones? Surely it isn’t public knowledge, unless he researched it.

“Well, this is a first” Oh please, like you two have never met in secret before ;)

This reminds of the Pilot, where Oswald was snitching on Fish...yeah, nothing can possibly go wrong here.

“Why did you come here if you aren’t going to help me?!” Jim, I think you need a vacation, you seem tense. Also, at least he is giving you a heads up on the toxin that may destroy Gotham and turn everyone insane. Think positively :)

Oswald being scared of Jerome? I am honestly not surprised.

“Or maybe you just don’t like the competition” ...maybe so but does it matter? You got to take whatever help you can get, can’t be choosy on the motives there.

“And I am an honest criminal, Jim” Oswald seems so offended. Like, how dare you excuse him of serving his own interests!

Why did Oswald sneak off? Didn’t Harvey hear Jim say “Oswald” when he answered his cell phone so he knows who Jim is meeting with? Jim is not discreet.

Jerome breaking out a killer dance entrance.

It is scenes like these that make me wish Jerome met Ed. You know that they would totally fight over who has the best extra entrances.

People losing heads? That’s a bit graphic for all of Gotham to witness...well, I mean, as of now. I am sure it is going to be even more graphic as years go by.

Side note: I feel like the pacing of this episode is far better than last week. Less rushed, less story lines that need to develop.

I know the League has major skills so this probably wouldn’t happen but I can just imagine what would happen if someone had terrible aim, accidentally harming or killing Babs. She’d probably still live or be resurrected somehow but I can just picture the shocked responses and the person going “Whoops...I might need more practice...”

Awe come on, let Tabby have her murderous fun!

Yeah, Tabs isn’t having any of this league crap.

Ooh wicked ice device! I want to see more of these cool gadgets that Victor has been saving.

Wait, I know that tune...

Oh my god they are doing 60s Batman theme! This is brilliant!

Now say “Batman!” or something similar.

*stops music before getting to the “batman” parts :( I guess close enough...the batman part will come later ;)

Where was Bridgit even shooting the fire for people to duck?

Of course he wants Jeremiah and Bruce...

Wait, so Jim didn’t seem totally against the idea when it was Jeremiah but when you mention Bruce Wayne? Absolutely not!

Jim, now is not the time to be negotiating with him. He is not going to bite.

A bundt cake. Not really my taste. A nothing bundt cake is better.

Happy Birthday, Bruce! Wait until you see the presents waiting for you today...

Wow, Selina. Way to take away all his wishes by blowing out the candles. Unless, of course, Selina was his wish.

lol where did she even come popping from anyway? Such a kitten, pouncing when you least expect her.

Aww as much as I liked them having separate story lines from each other (just because I was curious to see where their stories would go), I did miss them sharing scenes. Teen batcat is cute.

Luuuccccius! (Yes, I will say this every time I see him in an episode)

Where were you Foxy? Vacationing? Taking weeks of spa days? Practicing better defense skills? Hanging with your secret lover? What?

Yeah, Jerome doesn’t care if he has to blow up any heads. It does not faze him whatsoever.

I love how much Alfred and Selina care about the well being of Bruce...yet Bruce is going to do it all anyway.

“I’m positive.” Yeah, I believe in you Foxy! “99% positive” That 1% is going to get you, isn’t it?

Why didn’t the league show Babs this room sooner?

Wait, the painting has... why do I feel like this is a set up or something? This seems so fishy.

You know, if Babs was still working her art gallery, this would be the painting on full display.

Oh gosh...Babs is about to fall deep into this, isn’t she?

Ooh Jeremiah and Bruce in the same scene! ..And now shaking hands and having a conversation!

This is going to hurt when Jeremiah most likely becomes the Joker. Is Bruce going to blame himself for this too?

Wow, that is a very nice speech Bruce. You make a good motivational speaker.

I bet this guy is regretting being interim mayor. If you make it through this, you may want to take a very long vacation and just forget to ever come back.

So, what did Jerome do while he was waiting this whole time? Dance around?

Wait, wha-Oh, of course Jerome would foresee this. Always be prepared for anything. Impressive.

Hey, where is Butch/Grundy while all of this is going on? He just joined the group last episode. Why isn’t he involved and by Oswald’s side?

Oswald looking at this like “Maybe I can build one shaped like a penguin later in life...”

Hmm...why is Jervis using the watch now? He didn’t need the watch before, did he?

Oz, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to criticize Jerome’s plans in front of his most loyal followers... Just a thought.

“A bird’s eye view” ha. ha.

Jealousy? Okay, I know that Babs was pretty mean to Tabby in season 3 but this just seems like her mind is getting twisted or something... She isn’t thinking clearly.

Babs isn’t letting this all go to her head or anything.

Tabby being so mistreated. She just wants to run a club with people she cares about. At least she can turn to Selina for help.

The two wild jokers in a deck sitting side by side.

Jeremiah rolling his eyes at Jerome is such a mood. I get that way when I have to hear people ramble about stuff I have heard many times too.

“We are practically identical” Can’t imagine why...

Well, I give you points for effort, Jeremiah. You at least tried.

Lucius is so done with this crap.

Lol Jerome repeatedly trying to hit the trigger. Him and Ed should rant about how frustrating that is.

Harvey with his whole “I’ll shoot it down. Oh right” lol at least he didn’t impulsively do it first.

Whose idea was it to leave only two people on there? Did they not think Oswald would get loose and stop it?

Oswald freaking out. Come on, you can think of a plan! Oswald’s thoughts: This is why penguins don’t fly!

Oswald calling Jim for help first because he knows Jim will help. I wonder if he tried calling others but they just didn’t answer.

“I don’t even drive my own car!” LOL I’m dying. He is so not for this plan.

Well, he can actually drive, he just probably doesn’t do it very often or likes to.

“If you don’t, thousands will die...maybe worse.” “What’s worse than that?” Pfft. Yeah, death doesn’t matter but not being able to rule? Far worse. Man, he REALLY doesn’t want to steer.

It seems to me that Jerome kind of knew he was going to end up dead all along, didn’t he?

Oswald’s relief when he starts steering...he’s like “I’m doing it! I’m actually doing it! Oh my god...”

You just know that Oswald is going to want to have a blimp of his own later in life. Well, I can now check that off the wish list. Now, can we have Oswald in a scene with some live penguins? Thanks.

Where is Bruce and Jeremiah when all this is going on? Kind of a shame that they aren’t there to probably see Jerome in his final moments.

Of course Jim would still try to save him but Jerome is like “Nah”. Would he really rather risk his life for all this?

Laughing to his death. Pretty appropriate.

This is sad. I’m going to miss Jerome.

I believe I can flyyy. Okay, sorry. Now is not the time. The slow motion is getting to me.

Now, I am 99.9% sure that he looks dead. At least he died with a smile on his face? ...again...

I know it is all about plot armor but they should really define deaths better on the show. Selina falls out a window and lives. Sofia and Butch get shot in the head, live. Was Jerome’s body just too feeble? Was it because he was shot a few times AND fell off a building onto a car?

Bruce trying to make things right. Starting somewhat of a friendship...that is doomed to be heartbreak.

Oh my god he is still up there. How long has Oswald been up there?

Who knew Oswald would be Gotham’s hero? Go figure.

“Jiiiiiiiiiiiiim” That shot, that scream. I swear it is like the end of a cartoon.

Poor Oswald. I feel bad but it is also hilarious.

If this is the end of the episode or if he is still up there at the start of the next episode, I will laugh so hard.

I just think of the standby pilot like customer service. Standby: Yes, can I help you? Oswald: I am stuck on a blimp, I want off now! Standby: Is it the blimp or is it the zeppelin? People often mistake the two. Oswald: Wha-does it MATTER?! Standby: Please hold *music starts playing* Oswald: *screams in rage and frustration*

Yeah, as good as Tabby is...it is difficult for her to fight against a few members of the League.

Aha! Ra’s is about to come back.

Wait, where are they taking Tabitha?

Jeremiah...uh oh...what’s about to happen? Surely, we aren’t just going to watch him drink tea.

A gift. Don’t open it. Don’t open it. Don’t open it.

You are supposed to be smarter than this. You JUST got back from dealing with Jerome. Do. not. open.

A jack in the box? You know that isn’t from Wayne enterprises. Throw it now! It’ll probably spray you with toxin!

A special made toxin for him? Oh, so it isn’t exactly the same as the other...that’s good to know. So, that is how it will affect him differently!

Oh god... this is about to be even more insane!

What a birthday present for Bruce...the birth of the Joker.

I’m interested in seeing how different Jeremiah’s Joker will be to Jerome.

Kind of wish the season had one extra episode, so that we could have seen Jeremiah and Bruce be friends or partners for an episode before being sprayed. Maybe the package comes in the mail the next day, instead of waiting for him, and it doesn’t seem as dumb for him to open it.

Over all: Solid episode. Jeremiah becoming the Joker is happening a bit fast but not enough for me to be too upset. I have to wait to see how it all plays out before deciding if his joker and evolution is a good one. RIP Jerome, you will be missed. The rest of the episode was nice. It always does well when there are only a couple of major story lines going with all the characters, rather than there being 4 or 5 separate ones. Babs sees a painting of herself and Ra’s from supposedly centuries ago, she believes she has a major purpose but Tabby doubts it, resulting in Tabby being kicked out/beat up by the League. Tabby encounters men who say Ra’s is the true Demon’s Head and isn’t really gone, they take Tabby. Bruce meets Jeremiah, offers him work with Wayne Enterprises. He briefly celebrates his birthday with Selina and Alfred. Lucius gets around 7 lines (not that I counted), where he helps in not getting heads blown to bits. Oswald tries to stop Jerome’s plan, ends up steering the toxin away from the city. Jerome falls to his death, but not before giving Jeremiah his own special toxin to drive him mad. The rest of the Legion of Horribles are in unknown places, I guess.

Previous review: 4x17 Next: 4x19

#gotham #jeremiah valeska #oswald cobblepot #jerome valeska #gotham 4x18 #optimisticcritque gotham review #that's entertainment

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piepeloe · 7 years ago

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SVU 19x15 In Loco Parentis

Well, that was... alright? I’d read some spoilers and reactions before seeing the ep and they were kind of all over the place. It wasn’t as bad as I’d expected based on some of those and recent episodes (seasons?), but it also wasn’t as good. I will definitely always wonder how good it could have been if Barba had still been around. Sigh.

Anyway. I’m going to put in a cut, because I had opinions apparently. But in case people don’t feel like reading the whole thing here’s what I’m probably going to remember from the episode:

- Did I hear things wrong or did Carisi tell Stone he was cured of the ‘disease’ aka he didn’t want to be a lawyer anymore? Please tell me that’s not just the end of that? That was one of his big story lines and we don’t even get to find out why?

- Barisi. Yes, praise the gods, the Carisi ep even without Barba managed to produce some Barisi content. First of all, I like how petulant Sonny was that the new guy was doing this case and not Barba. ‘That’s his seat’ (and the tone he says it in) sums it up nicely actually. I’ve seen other shippers happy because this must mean Barba and Carisi sometimes went out drinking together or because it’s present tense so Barba still goes there or they at least still hang out. IMO, it doesn’t necessarily have to mean any of those things, but I like that it’s ambiguous enough that it *could* mean those things. Until they completely dash my dreams, I’m going to keep on believing they still hang out. No, they’ve obviously started dating. Obviously.

- The case: the ‘double twist’ was pretty much the first thing I read about when I woke up (time zones). Some article pretty much explained the whole thing and while I hoped that after the episode I’d feel better about it, my main reaction is still: the fuck? A story where the victim flat out lied and knew she was lying and just kept on going? I hate the word problematic, but yeah...

- I did find it refreshing that when they didn’t have enough to charge, they accepted it. I guess it is out of character especially for Liv, but it’s something that must happen once in a while and it’s good that they show those too. Also like that the reactions were very different: Theresa all furious (and pissed at Liv, LOL) and Mia fine with it, for obvious reasons.

- This reminds me: I remember there used to be more cases where a victim refused to go to trial and they’d be left alone. Or they’d try to force a deal to spare the victim the ordeal of a trial. I wish we’d see that more too. Because I liked Liv’s speech to Stone about why they go to trial in these cases, to give the survivor a voice. But what works to heal one person might make things worse for another.

- Low point of the case for me was the climax, oddly enough? The part where Stone gets the guy to confess on the stand. I don’t know what it was about the scene but it felt awfully flat and unconvincing. Maybe because before this, the kid had never talked about the ‘PC police’ before? Or because Stone asked very few questions, none of them particularly tricky or sneaky, and it all came pouring out? There have been scenes like this on the show before and I always wonder if people are actually that stupid, but never this much. Maybe I just wasn’t into the plot enough, it’s possible.

- Liv: I liked her in this ep. She’s the lead and leader, but didn’t completely dominate another character’s ep. I liked how she backed up Carisi, supported him, but also called him out and warned him. I did roll my eyes at her when she gave him crap for not telling the truth and screwing up, just when he’d come clean, and when the ep before had her hiding her murder suspect ex-boyfriend. Like, Liv, I agree, but you’re not in a position to talk tbh.

- Fin and Rollins: did not get much to do. Pretty sure they disappeared halfway through. The scenes they did have were pretty good, some of it was just investigating, but there were character moments as well. I liked Rollins insisting on keeping Carisi in the loop, but also then trying to get him to see things might be pretty complicated.

- Fin and Rollins on Barba and Stone though... Rationally, objectively, I’m a bit annoyed because it’s a bit on the nose and yet another way to convince us to like Stone, but my lizard brain is giddy with glee. I don’t know why, I just thought it was hilarious. Maybe it’s hearing Fin say out loud the plot of Undiscovered Country made me realize once again how ridiculous it was? I hope the writers did too if that’s the case. Fin’s not wrong, but I like that he let Rollins be. It’s a nice mirror for the fandom IMO: some people are ready and willing to accept and like Stone and argue that Raul left voluntarily. It’s not something to be held against Stone (and definitely not against the actor). But it doesn’t mean we all have to immediately like this new situation. Some of us dislike change, or like to wallow in our misery, or enjoy being petty. Rollins gets it.

- Stone... is still sort of bland? I don’t dislike him because there’s nothing to dislike. But there’s also not that much to like yet either. He definitely is trying to be nice to everyone and get to know them. Not sure I’d call it a charm offensive though.

- Except maybe for Liv? I don’t ship it, but I’m pretty sure Chernuchin wants people to. This one ep had more flirtatious moments than I can remember Liv ever having with Barba: compliments at a table for two, walking in on him getting dressed, ‘there’s a time for work and a time for not work’,... Freaking hilarious.

- On the other side, I know some people already are interested in Stone/Carisi. I don’t know why since this was the first ep they interacted in, but sure. I liked that their first interactions involved lots of law talk, and also Barba. I’m biased, but I’m not going to put too much stock into the fact that Carisi now seems to be ok with Stone. He obviously felt terribly about what happened and had already been yelled at by Liv, probably by his family too. He literally expected to get yelled at again. So just someone to not, was probably a relief. Plus, have we ever known Carisi to dislike anyone who wasn’t a suspect? Like, even Amaro who was kind of a jerk to him or Mike Dodds (since no one else liked him)? I mean, he even managed to bond with people like Carl Rudnick or that guy in the shelter for sex offenders. So, not surprised he likes Stone, it’s just a matter of how their relationship is going to be.

- And alright, not giving Sonny crap can be the one thing I genuinely like about Stone so far.

Now, the Carisi family. Well.

- First of all, they are NOT as close as fandom thought they were. Mia’s first assault happened early December, meaning before the holidays, and it didn’t come up? I guess maybe they didn’t want to ruin the festivities or anything, but seems like maybe they’d notice something big was bothering Mia and her mom. That one’s debatable but this one: Sonny didn’t meet Mia until she was 3 months old?! The hell?! There has to be a story there. Theresa had her pretty young, I think, so maybe it was an accident and out of wedlock and the parents were mad? Could be something simpler like Theresa didn’t live in NY at the time or Sonny was at the Academy or something. Still freaking weird and not at all what I expected. Also, where was the rest of the family for this? They could have at least had a line where they said they didn’t want to upset Grandma or something.

- I liked that Sonny asked after Mia’s dad. I think it was supposed to inform us about the family situation, except it totally doesn’t IMO. They haven’t spoken in 15 years? Does this mean Mia hasn’t either? Is he involved in any way, like child support? Because this might be very superficial, but that seemed like a very nice house. And I thought Hudson was supposed to be a pretty expensive school too. It’s possible Theresa has a fancy high-paying job, I just wish they’d told us what it was then. I’m partly wondering because of the ep Parole Violations where Sonny says to Bella that Theresa only likes guys who make 6 figures.

- And tbh, also because Theresa is kind of a mess. I mean, the circumstances are terrible, but we see victims and their families every episode and she was pretty bad. I thought it was kind of disturbing that she blamed Sonny and demanded he fix things. Again, she was upset, her only child had been through something horrible, she was lashing out. But still, harsh. And he sort of took on that role with Bella too. It was less pronounced and she was his baby sister and pregnant and it involved her no-good boyfriend,... Feels like it would explain some things, maybe.

- Mia was a believable teenager, which is high praise considering it’s SVU. She didn’t get to have a lot of personality, considering everyone else around. I thought the story of how/why she lied about the first assault was pretty realistic. It sounds like something a stupid and scared teenager would do. Inviting the guy over your dorm to apologize, same thing. That’s what Starbucks is for, dammit! But I realized that’s not on her, that’s on Sonny. He was right to tell her she should make it right. But he should have been more specific, he should have helped. Not just with making it up to the guy (who turned out to be an ass anyway) but because even if it wasn’t rape she was still pretty damn upset.

- I was afraid this ep was going to ruin Sonny somehow (the way they ruined Barba). I’m sure some will disagree, but for now, I’d say he made it through unscathed. Flawed, sure, but not ruined. I can still like him. He could have been better at dealing with Theresa and Mia, but they’re family. I imagine it’s hard to keep your cool and stay professional and say the right things, even if you know better.

- I definitely don’t like that his first instinct was to not tell anyone the first rape didn’t happen. I can understand him panicking the moment after the second rape. But 1) that’s why their attempt at making it right shouldn’t have been contacting the guy, but the school or the parents or whatnot and 2) he could have said something like how they have evidence and motive and good people working the case.

- I did love his honesty on the stand though. Maybe a bit too drawn out and dramatic, but eh. It was him lying on the stand or worse that I was worried about, but this was in character. I do wish they’d have shown us how Theresa reacted.

And so yet again, another episode is vastly improved by Barisi.

#svu #19x15 #carisi #barisi

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