#quick aside but its related the end theme for this show has literally no right to be so good oh my god.....

[todayisafridaynight]

jo the second he finds out masato's a little zesty

[chalkrevelations]

WELL. Episode 3 of Word of Honor.

First of all: If you are NEW or JUST VISITING, this is a re-watch, so there are SPOILERS not just for this ep, but for the ENTIRE SHOW. A lot of them, actually. Scroll away and come back later if you haven’t seen all 36.5 eps and want to watch it unspoiled.

So, this ep feels a little disjointed. I don’t think it actually is, not in the way the back nine are a speedrun where the writing starts to feel like it’s thisclose to coming off the rails, but it feels like it, in that we’re now getting a double handful of threads thrust at us that are only just starting to be woven together into a plot, and it’s the kind of hot mess that any fiberwork looks like before the pattern starts to show itself, particularly when you’re using 15 different color threads from jump. There’s generally a major theme or issue or overriding concept that stands out to me in each ep that, you may have noticed, gets primacy of place in these reactions, but honestly, y’all, I really struggled to figure out what that might be for this episode, because a lot of this, on re-watch, strikes me as groundwork for later developments. Wen Kexing gives us an “as you know, Bob” speech about the Amory and the Glazed Armor, we meet approx. 3.2K new characters, and I feel sort of like I should start keeping a chart of who’s supposed to have a piece of the Glazed Armor and who actually does have a piece of the Glazed Armor, but it’s already so confusing that it might be too late.*

ANYWAY, on re-watch, I can absolutely see the value of spending Eps 1 & 2 on introducing us to Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing and getting us pulled into their orbit, because then we have scenes we’re already invested in to maintain our interest as the background politics begin to frustratingly play out with a bunch of people we don’t know or have any investment in yet. I mean, y’all. I forgot just what an ill-tempered gremlin ZZS was in these early eps. He is so fk’n put out that these people will not let him drink himself to death in the gutter in peace! Or, you know, in occasional Nightly Nails Torment. And the exasperation from both ZZS and Chengling over WKX’s antics – both of their faces are priceless in the scene when they discover he’s the one who’s bought out all the rooms at the inn. I literally lol’d. Again. Even knowing it was coming. All of this interaction is so delightful. This is actually the ep that provoked my very first WoH keysmash flailing Tumblr post and inaugurated the “wen kexing’s thirst is practically a third character” tag. I guess the biggest throughline for this ep is that we can continue to see how everything changes when we know about their previous relationship – things like WKX’s insistence that they have a “deep bond through fate” take on additional layers of meaning rather than just sounding like some dude who’s trying to pick you up at last call. Interesting that ZZS describes WKX at one point during their push-pull conversational dance as “like a wretched soul that keeps haunting around.” You mean, like a GHOST? Like a Ghost Valley ghost? Like the almost forgotten memory of a past life ghost? ZZS wants to know why WKX keeps following him around, and it would be nice if WKX would just come clean, but that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

ZZS, re: Chengling: I do my best to ensure what was entrusted to me.

WKX: :makes (already! in ep 3!) yet another in a series of bad decisions not to say anything about the fact that he, himself, was in fact entrusted to ZZS:

Show: Here’s the first of many helpings of heartache to come. EAT IT. EAT IT ALL.

(Me: Well, here’s another AU idea: What would the course of this relationship be like if WKX flat-out asked ZZS what ZZS’s relationship to Four Seasons Manor was, and bare-faced claimed sanctuary as long-lost shidi Zhen Yan at this point? Because I bet there are plenty of ways that could actually go wrong. Not to mention the deliciousness of just watching them navigate a relationship shift that sudden. I feel like, at this point, WKX would have to be actively confrontational about it, would have to throw it in ZZS’s face – it would need to be something he did in the heat of anger, in order to have this pushed out past all of his fears. Like, you say that, but where were you when I needed you? Also, you think so, well what if your responsibility actually turned out to be the TERRIFYING GHOST VALLEY MASTER, what then, huh? And ZZS, still pretty actively suicidal over all of his failures, having to deal with what’s now being presented as YET ANOTHER FAILURE.)

Also, the theme of “knowing” (zhiji, the one I know) is starting to slide in sideways – we’re seeing a lot of back and forth between them asking about seeing the other’s “true face.” WKX says that he’ll tell ZZS what he (WKX) wants from him once he gets to see ZZS’s true face (LIES, it’s going to take a lot longer than that). ZZS asks to see WKX’s figurative true face, and WKX looks kind of sad and contemplative as he warns that it may be unappealing or terrifying. So, you know, we’re starting to poke at all the softest, most tender places and the issues that are going to stab me repeatedly in the heart for the rest of the show. We’re also already seeing the way Xiao Chu just layered in references throughout the script when she wrote it that call back to each other – it’s like almost any line of dialogue references three other lines of dialogue (and that’s without even getting into all of the literary references that I’m missing because I don’t have cultural context). You get things like WKX’s little speech right at the end that it’s hard to tell a ghost from a human, which on its face might be referring to the two “ghosts” that were coming for Chengling that he took care of and act as an admonishment to ZZS not to be so quick to assume they’re actually from Ghost Valley, but it also refers to WKX, himself, and specifically lays the groundwork (“someone wearing a ghost mask is not necessarily a ghost”) for his conversation in a later ep with ZZS when he asks if ZZS thinks he’s a good person, and also calls back (“someone who looks human may not be human”) to the line from earlier in this ep, itself, when WKX tells ZZS that perhaps WKX’s true face is terrifying. And so we get a nicely little wrapped package of the dichotomy of WKX and his issues. (As a somewhat related aside, A-Xiang’s little face when Zhou Zishu says all of the ghosts of Ghost Valley are full of evil (at 6:55). D: This reaction is obviously for herself, but also may be the first time she acts as proxy for Wen Kexing, as well.)

What else, what else?

So, nobody has a good opinion of the jianghu. WKX is going to be constantly all, “You killed my father, jianghu, prepare to die,” but ZZS also goes off about how it’s just about greed, hatred and ignorance, and yeah, I guess he’d have a pretty bad impression of it, when Prince Jin and Tian Chuang seemed like a better option than the pressure he was facing, trying to keep Siji Manor Sect alive back in the day. We talk a lot about WKX’s childhood trauma, because it’s so awful and right in our faces, but I don’t know how much we actually talk about the fact that ZZS was a teenager not much older than Chengling when he inherited a sect and tried desperately to keep it from being torn apart by the rest of the jianghu. I think we see some bitterness come out in the first few episodes – frankly, in this ep, he doesn’t seem to make much of a distinction between Ghost Valley and the rest of the jianghu. Also interesting that the metaphor he uses about the jianghu’s and Ghost Valley’s greed for the treasures of the Armory is “reaping without sowing,” given what we find out is actually in there in Ep 36.

We see our metaphor of light get pulled out again – this throughline strikes me as more like beads on a string than a thread, at this point, but maybe I’ll notice it more on this second time through … Anyway, WKX’s comment at 9:11 that it’s almost dawn is notable. Indeed, but is it because your plan is beginning to work and you can see the destruction of Ghost Valley and the jianghu coming down the pike, or is it because you’ve found your shixiong?

I notice WKX has color-coordinated ZZS and Chengling in the robes he bought for them, has already grouped them together, marked them as belonging to each other – he’s already subtly treating them as each other’s family. The show, with a particular lack of subtlety, also will have ZZS there to wake up Chengling from nightmares later in the end of the ep, as Chengling calls out for his dad in his sleep.

OK, Deng Kuan is the guy in charge of the Yueyang sect contingent that arrived in time to see the Mirror Lake chaos in Ep 2 and has taken charge of cleaning up the bodies in this ep. I actually overlooked him, pretty much, the first time around, but here, he’s already got Shen Shen yelling at him (in a completely ridiculous fashion) for not getting there in time to save the Mirror Lake Sect, so he’s just going to be a punching bag through the whole show, apparently. Shen Shen is wu-di, fifth (little) brother, and he refers to Chengling’s dad as si-ge, fourth (older) brother, so Shen Shen appears to be the youngest of the Five Lakes sworn brothers, leading me to believe that some of what makes him so insufferable through a lot of the show is baby brother syndrome. Also, Shen Shen and his group find the Soul Winding Threads of the Hanged Ghost … supposedly. I mean, the Hanged Ghost was the guy who we saw get got in Ep 1, soooooo …. (remember these Soul Winding Threads, btw).

*This got super long so I’m’a put this last bit under a cut, but I did try to start a running tally of who’s holding a piece of the Glazed Armor:

Each of the Five Lakes Alliance sects is supposed to have a piece of the Glazed Armor, yes? So, as of the end of Ep 3 (hierarchical bro-titles are from didi Shen Shen’s POV):

- Yueyang Sect, led by Gao Chong (da-ge) - presumably still has his

- Tai Hu Sect, led by Zhao Jing (er-ge) – presumably still has his

- Danyang Sect, led by Lu Taichong (san-ge, presumably) – apparently the sect has already been attacked off-screen (by “Ghost Valley?” and WHEN?), as we learn in Ep 3 that Lu-zongzhu has been killed and his remaining two tiny disciples have fled to the protection of Ao Laizi and Tai Shan Sect, one of the lesser sects, and are believed to have taken Danyang’s Glazed Armor with them. We learn this from Tao Hong, Lv Liu and Begger Gang Chief, but I notice that Gao Chong only mentions the Mirror Lake massacre as the precipitating event for the Hero’s Conference and total war on Ghost Valley – he doesn’t even mention Danyang Sect, so does Five Lakes not know about this yet?

- Mirror Lake Sect, led by Zhang Yusen (si-ge) – Zhang-zongzhu killed by “Ghost Valley” in Ep 2, Glazed Armor “missing” and speculated POST EP 2 to have been taken by Ghost Valley (but will turn up in a few eps, thanks to our little Goldbean)

- Dagu Shan Sect, led by Shen Shen (wu-di) – presumably still has his

And then we move to:

- Tai Shan Sect, led by Ao Laizi – in-world speculation is that he now has the Danyang Glazed Armor. We do see him near the end of the ep with the two tiny Danyang shidi, where he makes the intriguing comment that he’s going to follow their shifu’s last wishes and keep their Glazed Armor from falling into the hands of the Five Lakes Alliance, so what exactly was going on between San-ge and his sworn brothers at the time of his death? This group also is apparently being pursued by Shen Shen to get their Glazed Armor, and they make him sound awful. You need better PR, Shen Shen.

- Ghost Valley – POST EP 2, speculated to have taken the Mirror Lake Glazed Armor (FALSE)

NOTABLY, “Ghost Valley Master” set a lot of this chaos in motion in Ep 1 when he claimed that Hanged Ghost (who got got a scene earlier) had stolen HIS piece of the Glazed Armor, although he shouldn’t have a piece (supposedly) until after Ep 2, when he’s believed to have taken Mirror Lake’s. So, what piece would that be, exactly, Terrifying Ghost Valley Master? You wouldn’t be lying in pursuit of chaos would you? (Somewhere, WKX gasps theatrically behind his fan, and he doesn’t even know what motivated it, this time.)

[dappercritter]

Once More Unto the Bre-er, Black, I Guess:

Quick Thoughts on that Pacific Rim Anime

Having given into my curiosity, I have decided to start watching Pacific Rim: The Black.

While, I am still skeptical of the significantly darker tone and how much farther they’ll take it before it becomes unwatchable, I am pleasantly surprised that that’s not all there is to it. The series is going to some bleak places, make no mistake, and this will no doubt turn off those who want lighter and more uplifting fare from their Pacific Rim content. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that the series has a good dose of heart and wit—with colour to boot! So far the series feels like an enjoyable blend of the pathos and heart of the first movie, with the escalated stakes and saturated colour and sense of humour of the sequel.

In a way it feels like a welcome change of pace and a course correction of sorts: It learns from the mistakes of Uprising while building on the foundation the original set in place.

The characters and story already have me engaged. Right from the get-go, you get a sense of how dire this fight is, being plunged right into the action at its most intense. You feel the stakes even before anything that serious has happened yet. The Travis family already shows a healthy balance of resolve, charm, and angst that even at it’s earliest, you can’t help but care for these folks. Hayley already strikes me as my favourite for her spunk and her soft-heartedness. Taylor is a bit rougher around the edges and can feel bit like a jerk at times, but he’s got just as much of a heart, and you quickly learn why it’s hardened.  Loa is already stealing the show, as you can imagine a snarky mecha AI would. The first training scene gets special mention just for how hilariously inspired it feels.

When the tragedy does strike—and believe me, friends, it strikes fast here—you will be caught off-guard. I won’t ruin the surprise because I don’t want to overhype it or spoil it for anyone who wants to watch it too, but in short, you are lulled in a sense of secure tranquility. You get the feeling that things aren’t so bad where the story starts off. You get to know the other characters just a little bit, but you get a real sense of connection between everyone. Then just as when things seem to be getting fun, things take a drastically dark turn. There is a shocking loss, that while sterile in some ways, makes it clear right off the bat, that no one is safe in this world and it sticks.

Ordinarily, I’m not one for tragedies, but after Polygon’s last giant monster-based sci-fi tragedy, the infamous Godzilla Earth anime trilogy, it feels like a drastic even welcome improvement. In Gen Urobochi’s controversial high sci-fi take on the King of the Monsters, you got a barebones story where everything was either inferred, vague, or explained in an almost unbearable level of technical detail. You never got to see things at their best, or got an idea of what there was to care about or fight for. There was virtually no sense of connection between anyone, or a feeling that this universe was lived in. The characters had no real personality, defined almost entirely by their archetypes and positions, and some looked almost indistinguishable from one another. Here, the writing, art direction, and character design, all come together to create an undeniable sense of life. That’s right: not only is this an improvement over a Pacific Rim movie, but it’s an improvement over three whole Godzilla movies from the same studio. (Although having a Western writing team who is more accustomed to character tics and interactions probably helped in that regard.)

That said, the art and animation do leave some things to be desired. Again, while Polygon is clearly improving in some areas, this is pretty standard fare for them. While the character designs are nicely made and the cinematography easy on the eyes, with some shots looking beautifully rendered that I mistook a CG character for a 2D one at least twice, there are still some framerate and composition problems that stick out like sore monster thumbs. While only momentary, I did notice that sometimes the framerates for character movement would jump from smooth for a shot or two and then return back to Polygon’s normal stiff one immediately after, and while the backgrounds are beautiful sometimes it easier to tell there are CG characters walking on 2D pictures than others. Especially when it looks like the they are literally walking on a flat service at an angle.

Moreover, while the kaiju and jaeger design continue to impress in Pacific Rim fashion, they do feel like they suffer from similar problems as Uprising had. The jaegers you see in the opening and the main jaeger, Atlas Destroyer included, continue the trend of smoother and more vibrantly coloured mechas in the vein of Striker Eureka and G Danger/Avenger than the more characterized, robotic designs of the original, and if not for Atlas’s striking colour scheme and unique status as an unarmed training jaeger, probably would not stand out from any of the others. The kaiju are all looking good—and come from rifts that open on the mainland rather than the ocean this time—with distinctive new outlines and even new species for some added peril, but they do lack the monstrous alien aesthetic of the original movie’s monsters in some places, but not enough so to bother you. Although you will be wondering when the Precursors (or whoever made them, because Boy, does this show raise some questions fast) thought straight-up giant shrink-wrapped Dobermans were they way to go when it came to picking off humans, or when they decided to experiment with their colour palette. Most jarringly though, while the show does it’s best to regain that sense of weight and scale Jaegers had in the original film, they still feel lighter and faster like in Uprising, but with Polygon’s suddenly fluid framerate and stiffer range of motion, it might just stick out more here.

The music is alright. I’m not a fan of the subdued opening title music. I get it supposed to set the mood for the dire and dramatic tone and while it does, it also feels strangely too serious for a show from a franchise with as much punch as Pacific Rim. The main titles themselves are alright too, but they’re nothing too special. There’s some cool imagery and the stills of kaiju fighting jaegers remind me of the opening and end credits of the first movie, but some of looks less rendered than other parts and a lot of it feels just bland. (In short, my thoughts have improved since I first saw it, but not by much.) The series soundtrack itself is fine—it has a somewhat similar feel to the films’ scores but it’s also has some stock cues sprinkled throughout. So not much to talk about at the moment. The end theme is pretty good, since it reminds me the most of the original movie’s main theme. Hopefully we’ll get more of that.

I think my biggest gripe is one that simply cannot be overcome. The name: Why is it just “The Black”? Race-related jokes and unfortunate implications aside, it is just dumb. Bland. Uninspired. It reeks of trying too hard to seem nuanced and dark, but it just makes sound like it will be generic grimdark pretentiousness. Which is especially damaging when that is clearly not the case here. Even in the story, it makes no sense. From what I can tell about the plot and world so far, there was literally nothing stopping them from calling it “The Blackout”, which would have just been so much more appropriate. And don’t tell me “Pacific Rim: The Blackout,” wouldn’t sound even cooler.

(Or perhaps “The Mucky-Muck,” but maybe that’s just my Tenacious D fan-brain speaking.)

TLDR; the show definitely has it’s flaws and I’m concerned how far they’ll take the darkness with the series, but it’s pleasantly surprised me in a lot of ways. I look forward to seeing where it goes.

[felicia-cat-hardy]

My 'Pretty Little Liars' Obsession Led Me To My Best Friend

“Got a secret, can you keep it?” Well, I’ve got one: Though Pretty Little Liars ended in 2017, the seven-season mystery thriller schemed its way into being an integral part of my life for the long haul, so much so that the opening credits live in my head rent-free. To this day, each time I hear the sinister theme song — “Secret” by The Pierces — I’m brought right back to my childhood comfort show (ahem, obsession). The visuals begin with a swipe of mascara, the smear of red lipstick, and a clasp of a heel onto a porcelain doll, which makes me feel like I’m watching someone get pampered for prom. Until, of course, it cuts to four girls standing in front of a casket. It's a chilling moment, one that, until Season 6B, ended with Aria Montgomery (Lucy Hale) delivering her iconic “shh.” I got cast under the show’s spell the first time I saw it, and I wasn’t the only one: Pretty Little Liars led me to my best friend.

Ironically, plotlines about deceit and betrayal actually helped ignite a long-lasting friendship. In 2011, the only other person I knew to be watching PLL was my now-BFF, Taylor, who’s been by my side for over a decade. We were only about 11 and 12 when it premiered, so shout out to our parents for letting us watch a show that dealt with very adult themes like substance use disorder, assault, and grief. Unlike our classmates, who watched tween-appropriate hits like iCarly and Victorious, we became PLL stans.

As fans know, the show is loosely based on the Sara Shepard YA series of the same name, and the first book was my entry point into the PLL universe. I loved reading about blackmailers and murderers navigating high school, but I thought I was the only one who was into it. (Was this my ~I’m different~ complex showing, or were my peers just naturally more inclined to recap Dance Moms? I’ll never know.) So, Taylor first struck up a conversation with me at school because she spotted the first PLL book on my desk — you know, the one painted with porcelain wax dolls warning to “never trust a pretty girl with an ugly secret” in a Gothic script. She asked if I’d watched the TV adaptation yet and we immediately exchanged phone numbers to text about upcoming episodes. We then fell into the fandom. Fast.

I’d never talked to Taylor before this interaction — we had only been in a few classes together — but I always saw her as approachable and friendly. Universally, the beginning of middle school is a big and terrifying year when kids from different elementary schools unite. Eager to meet new people, I reached for friendship at any chance I could get. Taylor made it easy. Aside from being a genuinely kind person (a rare trait for a middle schooler!), she was fangirling over the same thing as me.

Fast forward over a decade later, and the show still feels timeless, especially in its accurate depictions of how dramatic high school can get. It’s no surprise there’s a PLL HBO Max reboot on the way along with the remakes of other buzzy shows from that era (hello, 2010s nostalgia). Ah. It was a simpler time. Back then, Freeform was still ABC Family and for me, Tuesdays meant one thing: PLL is on. What first started as a solo viewing experience soon became a designated hangout time, a time slot reserved for me and Taylor to gush over how much we loved Ashley Benson. (We still do!)

The series had a vibe similar to Gossip Girl or Bridgerton in that a mysterious, unidentifiable pot-stirrer keeps fans guessing each episode, but it was arguably so much better since “A,” the anonymous villain, is out for, you know, murder. Ultimately, it was the type of whodunit that made me and Taylor (and millions of viewers) go down a couple of Reddit rabbit holes — remember the “Aria is A” suspicion? — and this is where my and Taylor’s experience with fan theories began.

Oh, and let’s not forget the location. PLL takes place in the fictional suburb of Rosewood, Pennsylvania, and for two girls from Bucks Country — aka the Philadelphia ‘burbs — we ate it up. The beloved “Welcome to the Dollhouse” episode was exceptionally creepy not only because the Liars get locked into a life-size replica of their bedrooms, but also because our real neighborhood looks extremely similar to their hometown. It operates like Rosewood, too, in that small-town gossip travels at lightning speed.

The Pennsylvania-based plotline also made it easier for us to identify with the characters, who felt like extensions of ourselves. In many ways, we got to know each other through their personalities. Taylor is studious and high-achieving, obviously a Spencer. And I owned feather earrings because I saw Lucy Hale sport them in Season 1, so obviously an Aria. Asking “Are you more of a Hanna or an Emily?” held as much weight in 2012 as asking someone their rising sign in 2021. While it might not say much, it also tells you everything you need to know about a person.

PLL got its start right before live-tweeting shows became popularized, so when we weren’t together, I used to text Taylor on my slide-out keyboard phone (only Zillennials will remember) to compare notes without stumbling upon many spoilers. They read something like this: “Caleb and Hanna are soul mates, TBH.” Like every other fan, we theorized about why A had to be Ian… and Melissa… and Jenna… and Mona… and, you get the point. When our elaborate speculations ran cold, we’d pause DVR’d episodes to gather more clues, like glimpses of Red Coat’s face in her second season introduction, or inspections of those eerie-gloved hands assembling dolls and sharpening knives at the end of each episode.

This game of Clue made room for conversations about all the things. We were in high school during the show’s peak, so it felt like the Liars had laid the groundwork for how to operate our school’s halls. Rosewood High was not traditional — uh, multiple students came back from the dead (*cough* Mona and Alison) — but it did prepare us for the stressors of college applications and first romantic relationships. In fact, Benson’s Hanna Marin would be proud of my matchmaking skills because back then, I introduced Taylor to the boyfriend she’s still with today.

As we both grew up with the show, our friendship got even deeper. The Liars weren’t the only ones to share secrets, and I found it incredibly easy to confide in Taylor. She’s trustworthy, level-headed, compassionate, and an excellent listener. She’s someone I know will always pick up on the second ring and is the type of friend to be there with advice, reassurance, and a quick-witted one-liner. She once joked about never needing a diary because we’ve transcribed the past 10 years of our lives via text.

Our bond has remained strong, especially because the most outrageous PLL-esque plotlines of our lives are ones we’ve experienced together. I love Taylor because I don’t have to provide background for my stories. I’m even so familiar with the cast of characters in her life that when someone re-enters after a long period, I like to say they Alison DiLaurentis’ed her.

And on the off-chance she’s not there to witness something meaningful happen to me IRL, she’s always ready to decipher what went down over texts or dinner and drinks — just like we did when we were teens trying to figure out who A was (minus the wine, of course).

The way she can reconstruct my way of thinking and offer up a perspective I hadn’t seen before is almost paranormal. Whether these are Taylor’s naturally given talents or traits learned from peeling back all the layers of the series, I’m not sure. But she’s always there to decode situations with me — whether they relate to a TV show or during moments when I feel lost.

I couldn’t be more thankful that Taylor entered my life and that PLL played a role in our friendship. I feel so incredibly lucky to know someone like her. Plus, now I have someone who is obligated to watch the reboot with me. Ali was right: Friends do share secrets. And she’s ~quite literally~ the reason Taylor’s got all of mine. Spencer and Aria, you’ve got some competition.

Get Relationship Advice Here

[macaroni-rascal]

Wax poetry about their lifts please

On the very long, long, long list of things that vm do exceptionally well and better than anyone else, their lifts sit easily among the top three. I definitely think it’s part of the reason that they were/are set apart from the rest of the competition. For me, there are a few things that stand out which contribute to why their lifts are so iconic and so far above anyone else’s

Tessa and Scott’s lifts:

Get integrated seamlessly into the program

Are incredibly musical

Acrobatic, yet precise

Explore varying levels, positions, and shapes

Always in the character of the program

Have equal participation

Hardly ever get reused

Are constantly improving and pushing boundaries

In fact, for that second to last bullet point, the wonderful Tina (@bartowskis) made an entire gifset of different lifts that vm only every used once. 

For the purposes of time and gif space, I’m only going to focus on their senior career, because that is when their lifts really began to emerge as something distinct and unique onto them. 

Get integrated seamlessly into the program

One thing that has always bothered me about lifts in ice dance is that they are just used as tricks to make the audience gasp. Far too often I find they also get telegraphed, more pre-Gadbois days/pre-Canton days, it was very much skatingskating – and here’s a lift – and more skatingskatingskating and there was no rhyme or reason for the lift to be placed where it was, it just needed to be in the program. I think Tessa and Scott were really the first team to utilize lifts in a completely new and interesting way – they made their lifts part of the story of their programs, not just an element to be completed, and I think Valse Triste is one of the best examples of this.

I love the lifts in Valse Triste because they help so much to build the program; the music in this free program starts very slow and sweeping with the violin and the entire beginning of the free dance their movements are very purposeful, drawn out, extended, and sweeping, to match that music. When we get to the first lift, its almost the end of that first part and so they have this wonderful little straight line lift that you do not see coming, Tessa’s arm are lovely, the arch in her back, and the strong base from Scott creates such a lovely picture and creates with sort of “swooning” picture that fits the story they are trying to tell. It is just placed so perfectly, as soon as the lift ends, the music changes and it feels like the next part of the story is about to be told.

Incorporating lifts always ties in with musicality, because they are using the music to add little accents to the lifts. The combination lift is so quick in with Tessa just popping up, grabbing her leg and Scott holding that lovely edge before they go into the rotational aspect. Their rotational lift builds speed and momentum just as the music swells, and their final lift fits the theme so perfectly! They gain speed around the corner as the music becomes frenzied, Tessa lifts her arms into the air right when their is a small break in the music, she changes position, and Scott’s arm comes out as Tessa uses her core to balance right when the music stops and they get back on the ice as the music starts up again. So, as the music starts sweeping and simple, their lift matches, and as the music swells into a flurry, their lift matches, which helps to integrate the lifts and make the program seem like one complete movement and story, not a series of starts and stops and vignettes. 

I think Valse Triste was a perfect little appetizer to what they were working towards and what was in store for their skating careers. 

Are incredibly musical 

Umbrellas was a whole different story – and their short dance that year had one of their one off lifts and a reused an old rotational lifts, and every. single. lift. in their free dance that year, was new. New and wonderfully musical. 

The first lift I think especially is so unbelievably gorgeous. I have talked and ranted at length about how boring I find around the shoulder lifts because they always look labored, the man’s posture is terrible, and the lady’s position is awful…then there are these two, hitting this stunning lift right when the music swells triumphantly, they wait until the singer stops singing, and they hit this lift so quickly and so on time, it feels like the music was composed for the lift, not the other way around.

They are so fast into the first position, Tessa’s legs are extended, there is toe point and Scott is so strong to glide on one foot! And that is all only the first part of the lift, the rest of it is just as lovely and just as musical. The shapes they are creating and how seamlessly it is integrated into the program is just beautiful. This was the year they really started working with acrobats and cirque du soleil as well. And it certainly shows.

Once more, with their straight line lift – it comes right at the end of a piece of singing as the music swells so they are not only creating interesting shapes and adding to the story, they are using the music to make the story come alive and make the flow of the program match the flow of the music, as soon as the lift ends, the singing begins again. Just brilliant.

The last two lifts back to back at the end of the program during the din of the music are so wonderfully effective: how after a stunning step sequence where the singer is crooning “je t’aime je t’aime je t’aime” over and over again to have them choreograph to hug desperately, let go of each other then go into the lift that picks up right when the music does creates a wonderful moment that is only then compounded by the serpentine lift of Tessa standing on Scott’s leg and hitting her position right on the boom of the music and hitting her second position right when the music is beginning to soften – so the exultant position of Tessa standing tall fits the music just as the second position of Tessa upside down and lower fits the music just as well. 

It is no wonder this was their breakout year, the lifts just contributed to the overall impression. 

Acrobatic, yet precise

Now the next year, post surgery, Tessa and Scott still decided to put nothing but new lifts in the free dance yet again, like the legends they truly are. Must give a shoutout to the first iteration of the goose with Scott’s arms on his knees, that some honest to god ridiculousness and such a cool moment, such an interesting balance point. Of course the serpentine lift, The Serpentine Lift, is such an amazing moment, with Tessa literally just diving head first towards the ice as Scott catches her, the changes of position without getting messy, and the last part where they create of a sort of guitar looking shape to match their rock anthem free dance. That curve lift as well, is so interesting, the entrance and Tessa’s position along with Scott’s posture make such a wonderful impression on the ice. 

What I especially love is that even though their lifts became more and more acrobatic, they didn’t loose any of their speed or precision, rather they worked to improve is constantly to the lifts would have even more of an impact. 

Explore varying levels, positions, and shapes

What has always bothered me about lifts in ice dance is when they man holds a base and the lady just flips and flies into all these different positions without ever created a nice picture. To me, it points to a lack of core strength or a desire to hide a lack of extension and posture.

Tessa and Scott cannot relate.

I love that they always maintain a position, even in lifts with changes of positions, they are held long enough to create a gorgeous picture and wonderful effect on the ice. Special shout out to the Farrucas lift for being a perfect example of everything they do well in lifts: the quick, interesting, and acrobatic entrance, the gorgeous position and extension, Scott’s posture and strong base, in the character of the program with the Flamenco hands, right on the music and perfectly integrated. It’s just a masterclass in everything lifts can and should be. I love that Tessa has the core strength to get out of the lift by herself, her free leg doesn’t lose the extension and she just drops her leg and glides smoothly back to the ice.

I couldn’t make a waxing poetic post about their lifts without mentioning The Lift, the VM Lift: the Goose. I’m trying to think of any other team that has an official name of their lift, you have elements in singles named after skaters: the (brian boi)tano, the (adam) rippon, the (nancy) kerrigan spiral, etc. etc. But what other team has a lift so iconic, so recognizable, so unbelievable, as vm?

No one, that’s who.

As an aside, the fact that they learned the most iconic lift in ice dance post Tessa’s first surgery, when they weren’t on the best terms, and then continued to improve it constantly and consistently up until the olympics, makes me feel very soft and tender towards two young Canadian ice dancers. I remember reading, I think it was from their book, that they only started to really get back on terms and work together when they had to figure out a new exit of this lift, because lets not forget, originally, Tessa does a motherfucking half loop jump off of Scott’s thigh to land one footed on the ice, only to change it to maybe the only equally difficult and dangerous exit of Tessa just falling forward into Scott’s arms. I also love the little music lick that happens right when Tessa gets into and holds position, its just radiant ice dance.

The position they create is gorgeous, the parallel arms, the view for the judges where Tessa’s leg is hidden and she looks like she’s floating magically above Scott. Not the mention the exit itself creates a gorgeous position even though it lasts a half a second. I wish I had the words for the emotion this program gives me, but its completely ineffable. 

Across all the lifts vm do in this free dance, they create wonderful shapes and move into varying levels perfectly. Whether Tessa is reaching her hands up to the heavens only to go upside down and right side up again in the rotational lift, or the expansive nature of the goose, the shapes are just gorgeous. 

I especially love the stationary lift! This was during a time when stationary lifts were far more rare in ice dance than they are now, and this lift doesn’t even look like a lift, it just looks like a stunning and interesting transition until you realize the balance point. They get into it so seamlessly, Tessa’s extension and toe point is beautiful, her arm reaching up only to come down and wrap around Scott’s neck as if they aren’t defying gravity and physics, but are just in their own little world. 

Always in the character of the program 

Then we have the second surgery, and vm come back with, you guessed, all new lifts(-ish) in both their short dance (a one off lift) and their free dance – their straight line had the same position as the curve in Farrucas, but a different entry. I love the curve lift in Hip Hip Chin Chin, how it lasts for the entirety of the singer singing “temptaa-a-tion”, the lift itself fits the dance and the music change so well – Scott holds an amazing edge as Tessa winds herself around his body. The debut of the rotational lift that would serve them well in the olympics also appears here and the baby twist Tessa does into the lift is right out of Latin ballroom.

Shout out to Funny Face for having the most in character lifts, each one feels like it came out of an old movie. I especially love the curve lift and the combination lift, the curve lift is so in character, Scott is giving Fred Astaire face and Tessa’s positions are so interesting. The rotational lift, the entrance and the arch in Tessa’s back with her arms thrown out backwards is so triumphant and glorious. Not only are the lift positions in character, but vm stay in character during the lift itself. It’s always awkward to see ice dancers thinking in the middle of a lift, it takes you right out of the program. I love that Scott pulls Fred face in the middle of a lift, it makes the program come alive. 

I also love that they will change and workshop lifts if they aren’t working, during the 2011-2012 season, they changed their short dance lift a couple times before settling, they don’t let a program or a lift become stagnant or rote, rather the lifts stay alive and engaging as the skaters themselves.

Have equal participation

 Chaotic shoutout to Carmen for having the most sexual and gravity defying lifts. I’ve mentioned it before but I’m always annoyed by lifts that are clearly just the lady being dragged and thrown into different positions while she either hangs on for dear life or does the absolute least. With Tessa’s ballerina training and dancing experience, she knows how to hold herself, she is getting herself into position before Scott puts her there. 

To be totally honest Scott and Tessa’s lifts are not really lifts because Tessa isn’t getting lifted, she is just already there. Their lifts would not be possible if were not for Tessa and her core. It supports her, it supports me, it supports us all.

(tiny shoutout to the seasons for being both their most underwhelming program with the most underwhelming lifts – underwhelming for vm, that is to say amazing for any other team, the first part of the rotational lift is stunning and the curve lift at the end is gorgeous, but they had the same exit for multiple lifts and because of the music cuts in the music the program didn’t feel harmonious and that feeling bled into their lifts as well)

Hardly ever get reused

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir said if we are going to do a comeback, we are going to comeback with new lifts.

And we are going to come back in style.

And did they ever.

God bless this curve lift, Scott’s strong squat and amazing edge quality giving them an amazing lean, Tessa’s core and strength letting her abandon herself into the lift, her arms gesturing expansively and expressively with the swell of the music and the tension in Prince’s voice during Purple Rain…I love the entrance because they get into it quick, Tessa’s leg kicks up SO high, the position and speed are wonderful, then the exit, so ridiculous if you realize the millisecond Tessa is in the air and completely flipping her body, Scott gets out of the squat and has to catch her, while she turns again and exits in a cool and amazing lunge right into their end pose.

Iconic. 

Latch, just like with several others of their programs, they came in with all new lifts. The first position in the stationary lift is similar to the mahler stationary lift but Tessa’s leg is bent underneath her and her arms are around Scott’s neck, and the other positions create such amazing shapes, and they’ve done a similar position in the second part of the rotational lift as well, though they altered it. Let’s take a moment to appreciate that vm book ended Latch with similar yet different lifts, because I love it and it makes me happy inside.

I love the rotational lift so much, I love how musical it is, how Scott does a small jump right before the entrance, how quickly Tessa flips up into position, then she slides down Scott’s body just as the music cascades to match her. It’s just a lovely moment.

My favourite lift in Latch is without a doubt the straight line lift, for a few reasons: I love that they changed it from what it was originally, a lift that worked better in theory than in practice. So rather than keeping the lift they did at ACI and SC, they came up with a completely new lift between their first and second grand prix. 

I love the entrance (similar to the entrance into the choreo lift from carmen, but so different as well). Tessa’s free leg does a complete circle from the entrance into the position she holds all while Scott changes direction and gets into a squat. The position she hits is so stunning, I see her make a full moon with her free leg then holding the position of a half moon during the lift. The arch in her back, her arms, her posture is gorgeous. The exit is just breathtaking, Tessa glides down Scott’s body so effortlessly she looks weightless, and to top it all off, Scott changes position again, turns on one foot (!!) and sets Tessa back on the ice.

It is just perfection.

Are constantly improving and pushing boundaries

Just as with everything else in their skating, they never remain stagnant and are always working to improve and sharpen their craft, which I appreciate so much. There is no complacency here. 

Watching The Rotational lift from Carmen versus Moulin Rouge is so amazing, how much more speed they have into the lift, how much faster Tessa gets up and into position and the much more difficult position change. It is truly such a mark of greatness to be constantly and consistently wanting to grow and learn and improve. Let’s also not forget that they changed this lift for the team event only to change it back for the free dance. Just because they could. In the same vein, going from the rotational lift in 2011 Hip Hip Chin Chin to 2018 Sympathy for the Devil, the lift improved so much! The entrance was quicker, the position is better, they are much faster, and the exit is far more seamless. It’s wonderful and fascinating. 

I love that for their curve lift, as they changed the music they also changed the lift in certain specific ways, Tessa’s arm movements changed to her powerful thrust up into the air and the exit became far more intense with Tessa jumping and twisting into Scott’s arms rather than gliding down his body, they shifted and improved the lift when they changed the program. 

Like, let us never forget that this is what is happening mid lift: she is flying.

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir invented stationary lifts.

As this gif set shows, one of these things is not like the others.

No one has entrances and exits like that, Tessa vaulting herself backwards blindly knowing Scott will stop at the right time in the right spot, going from a full stop to the momentum to turn, switch positions twice, all the while maintaining speed, staying centered, holding positions and even holding eye contact. It was the perfect beginning of the free dance and set the tone for the next four minutes.

Lifts can so easily be just an element to check off where ice dancers look into their repertoire and chose what fits best, I appreciate so much that Tessa and Scott refused to be complacent when it came to their lifts, that at the beginning of their senior career they were completely committed to making their lifts more difficult, more interesting, just more more more.

Their lifts go above and beyond what we think is possible, literally and figuratively. 

[silver-wield]

Hi this is not Cloti related but do you have an analysis on Cloud's relationship with Jessie? Particularly during chapter 4 after the bike mini-game? Cloud looks worried

Sorry this took a while, Nonny, I get a bit done in from life lol

So Cloud and Jessie, the girl who absolutely has no issue throwing herself at our boi. It's pretty good for him because at least he gets used to girls being all over him and helps him make his mind up just who he wants to show attention to #cough# Tifa #cough#

Ok, spoiler warning for ppl who haven’t played – do I still need to do this? Eh ok, (I tag FF7R spoilers as final fantasy 7 remake spoilers) and it’s gonna be smol.

Also, this is one person’s interpretation of the scene, so if you disagree that’s cool and we’ll agree to disagree.

You’re also gonna have to excuse the janky quality on some of the screens, I’m grabbing them from Youtube and it’s frustrating af trying to get the exact moment I want.

Please check my master post to see if I've already covered your question, thanx

Let's mosey!

Recap time!

Chapter four and our reluctant hero has been roped into help the avalanche trio go topside. Problem is they missed the last train and have to take their bikes instead. Cue a few problems with security and a meeting with the master of extra, Roche. Once that's out of the way, Jessie rewards Cloud depending on your expertise.

This scene has 3 optional endings.

Quick aside, I find it hilarious that Cloud literally tells Jessie to shut up and get off the bike when she starts annoying him during the minigame.

Ok, ending one. The bad ending where Jessie's beyond disappointed with you. These are hard to pick apart because a lot of Cloud's attention is on the road, so the usual microexpressions are even harder to catch.

But look what I caught anyway! Check that brow quirking like “excuse you?” and it's accurate because he says he's a great driver in the next moment. I really love going over these scenes and spotting all these because they build such a clearer picture of Cloud is as a person. And clearly boi doesn't like his driving ability being questioned, especially seeing how Jessie didn't do squat to help him, aside from being annoying lol

Well, Cloud does seem a bit worried here if the frown is anything to go by. I'm guessing it's because this is the bad ending and as much as he's not into Jessie, he doesn't like people having a bad impression of him. He doesn't like the idea that he's not thought of as the big badass capable merc in all ways, so this could well be hints of that self-doubt coming through. 

Although, after watching the other two endings, this is the only time we see this typical cycle of expressions he does before concluding something. This is what I like to call a real!Cloud inner debate. Cloud often goes through a lot of quick expressions or his eyes dart around. Since they can’t do that here, we get the former. Judging from the frown at the end, he’s not impressed with his own performance and likely berating himself for not being good enough. Again. Someone call a therapist for Cloud, plz.

And moving onto the second ending, which you get if you did ok on the minigame. These are making me wonder which one's canon. I don't think it's the kiss and actually, it may well be the bad one since that's where we get the most facial expression and close ups from Cloud compared to the others where we see the back of his head or a mid range view.

For this scene we only get one close up of Cloud's face and it's pretty much SOLDIER!Cloud and then the next time he speaks you can't even see his face. This is the kind of thing that hints to me which optional scene is the one we're supposed to be getting for Cloud's narrative story (and that I actually forgot about for my playthrough as Cloud lol I got the middle one because I kinda suck at fighting Roche, but I try).

Yeah, so a lot of sighing from Cloud at Jessie, the annoyed kind. I mean, we know she kinda irritates him, but he likes her too, just not in a romantic way. You also don't see his reaction to her “I might be falling after all” line and only hear him say “hmm?” Then when his face is next in frame it's full on SOLDIER, so there's really nothing to pick apart.

And now the good ending where you get a kiss from Jessie! Ooh lala!!

CLOUD'S FACE HERE! OMG I'M DYING! He's such a boi in a man sometimes! Adorable af! Definitely never even had a kiss on the cheek before in his life and look at the ott reaction to it!

WAIT! Wait! I've seen that face before somewhere!

YES OMG I'M DYING! It's the same reaction as the one to Aerith's best dress! OMG!

I'm sorry, I genuinely need a minute....

Ok, so...looool ok....I can be sensible here....maybe loool erm, the unrealistic expression on Cloud's face shows that it's unlikely this is the outcome that happened. But, on the other hand if the red dress happened then so did this kiss, so choose your poison lol

omg I love the devs for this! I really do! This is hilarious! I can’t even look at these two pics without laughing!

Ok, sensible. Kinda. 

And last one where Cloud looks grim af as usual, but with a hint of “what do I do about this?” because Jessie kissed him and he's not interested and he has no clue what to do with women and likely wants to reject her, but still doesn't know what to do with women, so you can see the dilemma he's in lol

It doesn't help when Jessie tries calling him out on it and he has this tiny frown in response. His attention is split between trying to talk to her and driving, so it's no wonder he's not that talkative and abrupt. If I wanted to speculate I'd say if he actually had an interest in her as more than friends he'd have tried harder. He had his little chat with Marle already, so he's not opposed to putting himself out if he wants to. He doesn't here, but he's still trying to concentrate, so that could explain the lack of attention, but still, Jessie kissed him and he got scowly.

Conclusion.

Well, I for one didn't remember there were 3 of these endings – each with their own remix of Jessie's theme, just like another 3 optional scenes with a remixed theme lol the parallels are killing me!

The music for each should also hint at which one is the narrative canon – I'm useless with music analysis so bear with me. The first one does sound like it fits with the other girls' themes, so very simple, easy to listen to in the background and memorable in its way. The second is louder and has more techno notes in, making it seem less like a background piece and more in your face. The last one has vocalists and is a full on pop song! No way is that right lol

For two of the three of these we don't really get much in the way of Cloud's face. It could be put down to him driving, but we get a couple of very good close ups on the bad one with varied expressions, one of which definitely goes towards his personal motivation to be thought of as a hero. Having people point out his faults would cause that kind of reaction.

The second result really doesn't have much in the way of facial expression and Cloud's voice is brisk because he's driving, so I can't really say much about it one way or the other. It’s the one I get the most when I’m playing and it’s kinda blah. Like your standard minigame pass screen. That probably didn’t help.

The last one is hilarious! That's such an exaggerated expression! Do people really believe Cloud pulls that kind of pikachu face on the regular?! I legit needed to stop because I couldn't stop laughing! That's not Cloud or real!Cloud, that's just bloody funny! Also, Cloud doesn't seem too impressed by the result if that last minute frown is any indication. He doesn't want Jessie kissing him, even though it's probably the first time any girl has kissed him – poor sweet summer child lol

If I had to make a guess at the narrative canon I'd say number one, because we know for a fact that Cloud hasn't been driving for years. Boi gets motion sickness ffs! And when did he ever drive a motorcycle? I'd definitely buy that being one of the first times he's ever driven, which would explain why he did so poorly and why he has multiple varied expressions in that result.

[cielrouge]

I attended the 2019 Split Screen Festival at the IFC Center this past Sunday, to attend the Queen Sugar panel, where the festival premiered the first episode of season 4, followed by a panel discussion with the main cast (Dawn Lyen-Gardner, Kofi Siriboe, Rutina Wesley) along with showrunner & episode writer Anthony Sparks, and producing & episode director Cheryl Dunye.

NOTE: This is NOT a spoiler-free recap, so if you want to avoid episode 1 spoilers, read this AFTER the season 4 premiere on June 12th lol.

What Makes Queen Sugar Resonant So Deeply with Audiences

The host noted that Queen Sugar is unique in the way that "it's engaging as a fantasy show, yet everything on it could still feasibly happen."

"Fans have embraced the characters like their own, as if they're in the room with them."

Cheryl noted how most of the crew has been around since season 1, and she partially attributes the success of the show to its special form of storytelling where audiences have been responding differently, because "it's feeding into this new body of storytelling." She dubbed it the "Queen Sugar Way" in reference to some of the artistic choices that she and the rest of the cast and crew consciously make.

Dawn noted that when she first saw the script back in season 1, she felt "there was something deep in it that set the tone for everything."

Dawn went on to emphasize how the show emphasizes the "epic in the everyday" which the rest of the cast and crew adopted, and was in total agreement of. Since essentially, the show allows for these "domestic, almost pedestrian" experiences to occur, yet it "regards the characters as heroic, and is all about tracking the heroic journey" for the Bordelon siblings.

"All the approaches to storytelling in the show this way, moving and changing in ways that emphasize the epic and the phenomenal."

Cheryl also noted that she understands "what power we have in storytelling," since she truly believes that “the personal is political."

What It's Been Like Coming Back to Season 4 for the Cast & Crew

Anthony started the panel making a quick shout-out to the festival venue, the IFC Center, since back in the 1990s, he literally lived two blocks away when he started pursuing his dream for writing for television.

When Cheryl first got the call from Ava DuVernay to direct for Queen Sugar (she got her start with episode 2 of season 1), she knew taking this job meant being entrusted with a lot of responsibility,” but still felt it was "an honor to be responsible for dreams and storytelling.”

This is because Cheryl "knew what it meant to come abroad to direct a family." Since season 1, Cheryl has particularly enjoyed the ability to shepherd other women directors, as they bought on a new roster for season 4.

The main cast, particularly Kofi, all agreed that they felt "right at home" with their respective characters, and Dawn noted that Anthony, as an episode writer since season 1, holds the key ingredients that really glue the show together. 

Character Craft Characterization (with the Bordelon Siblings)

When asked about Nova, Rutina noted that "Nova is always with me, and playing her is never just a job to me." At times, it's been a tough emotional journey for Rutina, and she’s well aware that this upcoming memoir storyline is going to drop an emotional bombshell for the rest of the Bordelons.

Rutina describes Nova as a character who is a mess, but "always a beautiful mess." However, for this upcoming season, Nova will "finally find some clarity in this mess, and have this weight lifted off her shoulders."

Rutina admitted that this upcoming season is some of the most challenging work she's done in awhile, in which Nova will undergo a wide emotional range, but also have the essence of her character changed in a profound way.

When Kofi was asked if he uses "life to imitate art," specifically modeling his performance as Ralph Angel based on people he knows in real life, he answered that being an actor allows you "the privacy to use what you know" in a spiritual and personal way.

Kofi emphasized that as actors, sometimes you "feel the emotional baggage of your character," and if you truly connect and know how to navigate this, then your emotions can't be faked at that point, since you sometimes may adopt characteristics from the role you’re playing. Kofi noted that this happens when you yourself are trying to grow as a person, because since there’s a "synergy that you adopt," which can not only transform the character (Ralph Angel) but you yourself as a person too.

Discussing Artistic Choices Made by the Cast & Crew

Anthony noted that as a television writer, "he always knows that I’m connecting the show when I’m literally dreaming about it."

When asked about her experiences as a producing director on set, Cheryl didn't initially foresee how this role meant being the go-between writers and actors, but nonetheless, this has become a role that she enjoys.

During the episode, Anthony addressed the scene where Ralph Angel is running in the sugar cane fields after finding out that his parole has ended. Anthony was initially unsure if this scene would have been hitting it too over the head for the audience, with this sequence of "black man, running, and freedom.” So, it was important to "pull off this scene in a way that speaks to the audience" which he felt it did, after he poked his head in the middle of the episode screening, and heard all the loud cheers and hoots during this scene.

Anthony has a tendency to be the creatively "gung ho" type of guy, so Ava is usually the one that has to slow him down to "luxuriate" in the episode. For example, during Aunt Vi's party where Nova is simply dropping off her book, Anthony told post-production that "it should feel like she's dropping off a bomb!"

All joking aside, Anthony noted that the "explosions" of this show usually come from “a deep emotional well,” and "it is still nerve wracking to play these intense characters and scenes."

In terms of Nova's anxiety dream sequence, which almost felt like a Terrence Malik-esque scene, Cheryl admitted that she was able to incorporate some of her original background in experimental filmmaking in this scene, so she knew exactly what to do.

For this dream sequence, the idea was to "play with the land and dreams," where the scene cut together real well in the end, and "set the groundwork for other dream sequences" in the upcoming season.

The Importance of Land as the Setting & Overall Show Themes

The cast and crew noted how important setting is to the show, where "land is the unspoken character." It was noted that most of the cast had "never seen a show that displayed black characters and sugar cane lands” before Queen Sugar.

So, Cheryl noted that the "history of these things: land, family, love" are all infused with the land and display "how we love, fight, breathe."

Anthony emphasized that one of the recurring themes in Ava DuVernay's entire body of work so far is "the relationship between land and the penal system," which is a theme that is "dear to Ava's heart." This essentially focuses on how enslavement in the US has essentially evolved in terms of restrictions related to property ownership, and this "relationship with land and property" is very evident on this show.

Anthony admitted that when he started writing for Queen Sugar, this actually allowed him to the opportunity to reconnect and apologize to his brother, who had served two prison stints. While developing Ralph Angel's storyline in season 1, Anthony had long discussions with his brother about his time in prison, and this made him realize that "he wasn't as attuned to his brother's life" when he was serving time.

What struck out to Anthony was when he asked his brother, "What made you decide that you were never going to go back?" And his brother answered it was when his children would come to see him in prison and kept asking why he couldn't come home. Anthony felt that this helped develop Ralph Angel as a character who is very flawed, but very human as well.  

What's Next Ahead for the Bordelon Siblings in Season 4

Anthony noted that they've bought on a new roster of writers for season 4, and they've already had lots of conversations about the characters.

Anthony noted that he feels it's important for the show writers to actually meet the cast, who have been embodying their characters for several seasons, because this results in "emotional listening sessions" that help develop the craft.

For Nova, Anthony noted that she's "like a kind of a liberator, this show's Harriet Tubman." So while Nova's character arc won't exactly be a pretty process, he still predicts that "you might not feel the same way about Nova midway through the season, in comparison to how you may feel about her at the end of episode 1."

An audience member pointed that with the Bordelon sibling trio, they're at a point in the show where "everyone's hopes and dreams are coming to fruition" (Nova with her book deal, Charley with the sugar mill and her new romance, and the end of Ralph Angel's parole) but perhaps not in the way they want, or are expecting in the end.

This prompted Dawn to emphasize how "you, as the audience, know everyone's stories in the show" so in terms of the upcoming storyline with Nova's tell-all memoir about the Bordelons, "it becomes tricky when somebody else tells a version of your own story." So this storyline will raise the question about permission - who can tell what about who and why.

Dawn noted that "no matter the good intentions, the costs are still real." Therefore, the "show is doing good job of testing bonds of family: with, love, loyalty and what defines them." The idea is "can you confront yourself fully?" Because each character would have a different response when asked about what's happening in their lives.

After a brief Q&A portion, the cast and crew was quickly ushered off the stage, though Kofi did take the time to take selfies with some fans, which I thought was pretty nice, and he seemed really touched by the general outpouring of love that the audience showed overall.

[sparda3g]

Gintama Chapter 703 Review

This chapter is amazing. I don’t need to review it; just leave it like that and you already know why. Joking aside (not really), what is there to say about it? It’s not the chapter I thought I wanted, but it’s the chapter I didn’t think I needed. It’s Gintama at its finest in its serious tone. It’s the finale that surpassed the last Utsuro battle. It’s the finale that surpassed my expectation, and trust me, it was pretty high. It’s the finale that the fans will forever remember.

Right from the beginning, it’s a knee-jerking experience with a sheer amount of intensity in the air. Gintoki and Utsuro are not even fighting, yet I got goosebumps just reading their dialogues. Speaking of which, Utsuro continue to be the most sinister villain in a long time for Shounen Jump. I know it’s technically not part of it anymore, but it did spawn from it. The point is, Utsuro is intimidating as always, drawing the aura of sinister that have outsmarted everyone.

He retells the whole story on why and how all the events led to this moment, in case if you are confused. Above all, it does add the shivering feeling because of how right he was about everything. The line about the path makes a callback, which makes me happy, because I reflect this many times before on how important his words were. That means I didn’t overthink it; Sorachi acknowledged it. Also, it adds more to the theme of Silver Soul; a necessary conflict to challenge. Lastly and more importantly, it adds more to Gintoki’s character; a man who can’t escape the tragic path that happened to repeat itself. It’s a mad world.

The showdown between the two have been on-point and stellar, and they haven’t yet to attack to make it so. Even Gintoki grasping his sword got me chills; that’s how unnerving it is. He may have gone through hell, but he will forever keep his words with his friends. No matter what happens, they will find their way to regroup. The conversation is so compelling. It doesn’t resort to power of friendship in blatant terms. All of their words felt meaningful because it relates perfectly to their characters. Those words about Takasugi made me feel so good, but it ultimately segue to a twist to Utsuro’s own game.

The twist is great because it finally put Utsuro in his own mind game, and rightfully deserved. It turns out that he was the one lying down and Shouyo was never there. It was confusing, of course, but the explanation is pretty rewarding. We last saw him about to kill Shouyo, but it actually never went through. He was stopped by Oboro because his blood was also consumed. This makes sense, especially when we just learned about how everything works. Not only that, but it’s even better with him being the one to stop. How can Sorachi make a dead guy, who was once a villain, become so likable in after life? That’s amazing.

I got so gleeful when Gintoki takes the role of a tyrant, looking down on Utsuro. It’s like I have foodgasm without taking a bite. The mind game on Utsuro is awesome; that line delivery about what he sees is superb. Takasugi stabbed himself rather than on Shouyo; that commitment cannot be broken. Gintoki’s strike is so well earned, along with the parallel. To recap, Shouyo is saved (for now) and he’s going to be helped by Yorozuya. Those moments were stellar enough, the next scene is downright masterful, but it comes with a heavy price.

It’s really tough to choose the best scene of this chapter. It’s interchangeable to me. Regardless, the next scene is perhaps the moment I never expected. I was so hung on the idea that the final battle must be explosive, literally or not, tons of action, and a solid storytelling. Maybe because plenty of writers thought bigger means better. That is not the case, and that’s a great thing. What the fans get and thankfully understand the nature and premise, is a wonderful climatic end.

Just before the final exchange, there’s one more conversation; preparing you for the greatness. The bone-chilling feeling that I have comes from Gintoki posing like a true Samurai, ready to fight. That cold stare only increase the chill factor. Utsuro’s words are hurtful, especially when he more or less guilt tripping Gintoki. Words about losing a master and a friend; those are stabbing to the heart pain. The narrative is whether the end path for Gintoki will forever be an empty void. Shouyo is saved, but will Takasugi be saved as well? The answer is yes; just not what you’re hoping for.

It’s badass enough for Gintoki to pose as a Samurai; it’s even more so when he doesn’t move at all to all of Utsuro’s hit. None of them connects; he stands as he knows he will never be empty. The ones he wanted to protect are right there, in his soul. That panel with Takasugi preventing Utsuro’s attacks is pure awesome. That’s friendship at its best. The next scene…is mesmerizing. Everything is impactful for one main reason: the storytelling. If Utsuro was just himself, it would have been pretty cool, but that would be the end of it. It would have been a high-five victory only. However, this is Takasugi’s body, so the story has changed. It’s a heartbreaking story that will pain the fans. It’s a tragic story that must be done. And I love it.

I love every single panel. It’s all one-sided, but it’s incredible. Much like how One Punch Man is brilliant at one-hit gag, this is brilliant at finishing the fight in a one-sided beat down with a crushing soul. I love how every hit slowly eats Gintoki’s calmness, closing in to kill Utsuro, but above all, kill his best friend. The memories begin to surface, causing me to feel the agony. I can’t do it justice here, but it’s simply gorgeous. My favorite part is the sword reflection. No matter what happens, no matter if Takasugi has to die, the reflection shows true color: he is proud of Gintoki. This is unfair. I don’t want to cry.

The way how it was paneled is amazing. It is an emotional roller coaster and each passing panel draws closer to sad fate. It aches me when it zooms in Gintoki’s eyes; understanding the pain he has to go through, but it has to be done. That roar as he holds Takasugi’s sword is chilling. The sad part is, I wanted to cheer and celebrate, but instead, I found myself pleading to stop. The double page spread says it all; epic but heartbreaking. The deed is done. I love Utsuro’s end as he truly learned the lesson as he dies; the lesson of humanity staying strong in the soul. It speaks well to his character and it’s better than simply meet people with strong willpower. It’s a great moral that captured the theme. I honestly didn’t do justice on the scene, but it’s one I often go back dozens and dozens of time; no exaggeration.

The scene with Yorozuya and Shouyo is something I thought I would never see, but undoubtedly welcoming. It makes completely sense for them to interact; it’s simply the past meet the present. It also works out well to give Shouyo a better light that his action has its upbringing and that is giving Gintoki the life he has. The panels with Gintoki looking down at Takasugi with a line about saving or protecting is quite telling. It’s very fitting for Shinpachi to be the one to thank Shouyo for meeting Gintoki. Who knows what would have happened instead if they didn’t meet. It’s such a nice moment of two generations bonding. Now, here comes the hardest part.

I wasn’t so sure what to prepare for, but it’s not the writing fault. It’s me hoping for a quick asspull or something people despise in Shounen genre. The series may be at the end, but to see a very popular character to die is hard to accept. Rarely that happens. Maybe, Takasugi would receive the Sasuke treatment, even if it was bull crap. Sadly, Sorachi doesn’t play that way. In short, this is it; pay respect one last time.

It’s as everything you can expect; it’s downright sad. I find it morbid to think the wins and losses count was a huge indication for their end. It was designed for one to receive the win to decide it all, but at a price of a life. Not like this. Even so, it’s touching that Gintoki doesn’t want the victory, even if Takasugi finds it pity. I love their last share of conversation, talking about how they were bitter with each other since youth, but they could have been best of friends. Scratch that; they always have been. What hurts me the most is the fact Takasugi had lived in the past for so long and what could have been show plenty of possibilities; but his death means it wasn’t meant to be. If that’s not tragic, I don’t know what is.

When I read the chapter’s title, I was speculating that it could mean a good thing. Technically, I was right, but not like this. Sorachi truly knows how to make something simple, complex, small, or large absolute meaningful, and by God, this is no exception. Takasugi’s left eye’s final vision was the tear of his best friend. The right should see Gintoki as the man he knows very well; the man he can called an eternal rival. That’s his final wish, and Gintoki grants that with a smile. The eye slowly closes; God, it’s hard. He vowed to get his win one day in Hell, and Takasugi will be waiting.

He’s gone. Gintoki cries. Powerful. Simply powerful.

Everything from this scene, let alone the chapter, was masterful. I don’t know how my face looked like, but I know my eyes were watery. Let me tell you, listening to Unravel acoustic was a massive mistake. It had me pouring. You can complain all you want about not wanting to end, but if it result to this pure quality, why fight it? This is what the fans truly deserved. Not exactly killing a beloved character, but the top level of writing that one would say, “It’s been 84 years.” I know it’s a joke, but I have to lighten up after this. The next chapter will be the last. By all means, end it. We are satisfied enough.

This chapter will go down as the best of the series; most likely the best I have read this year. It will likely to have the best ending in a long time. I am seriously considering to buy all volumes in one sweep. There’s no need to repeat on why this chapter is the best. You read it and you’ll know it. If only this was posted in a magazine; I will buy it in a heartbeat. Here’s to the final chapter. Takasugi won’t be here next time, but the soul will go on forever.

Rest in Peace, Takasugi.

[fireeaglespirit]

@fireeaglespirit @viviane-lefay i do worry sometimes with the stories I write if things might be too much for you. To be fair I dont think in any fanfic Ive ever written anything too explicit but now Im so conscious of other people’s viewpoints and being inclusive that it is a concern. Ultimately I write what I want to/need to but I am aware it might not be for all tastes hence always trying to follow ratings etc.

Replying here so it doesn’t cause any problems with OP, etc..

Ohh. I’m sorry if this worried you.. tbh this was very random and I wasn’t even thinking about fiction when I rb this. This one reminded me of a few times I went out with friends and colleagues and I just felt starkly asexual, lmao

About my tolerance regarding sex and explicitly in fiction, I’ll be honest with you…

There’s hardly anything I could say I wouldn’t read about. I just don’t feel ‘triggers’ or anything of the sort, no hard feelings when it gets to fiction and I value your will to be conscious of other viewpoints but its practically impossible to cater to all tastes like you said, so don’t worry about it much… there’s always someone out there who will feel offended and others who will fiercely love it.

As for myself, I’m very tolerant to sexual content in fiction, idk? I don’t seek it out particularly but its not a deal breaker either.

I know some asexual people are less tolerant, I usually just get a ‘meh’ feeling whenever those subjects are touched in much detail, idk some works do get nasty and bothersome because of much detail involving sexual practices so I just give up on them or put them aside when they bring me no joy but I gladly consume material with sex on it as long as I like some aspects of it. Also, I’m good at ignoring or glossing over things I don’t like in fiction… when I read explicit scenes with intercourse it does nothing to me and my eyes focuses on the sentences I loved such as regarding the feelings between the characters and subtle interactions instead of the physical/carnal aspects of it, and this makes it all worthy it.

Even so, some works might become overwhelmingly depressive or repulsive so I might put them aside even if I enjoyed an aspect of it or I might just skip through them and this happened recently to a series of fantasy books I tried to read which were actually really good but they were so overwhelmingly and unnecessarily dark and had an horrid oppressive atmosphere towards women an sex so I just felt no joy reading them? Its not like I was traumatized by its tone but it felt like a chore and I couldn’t care about it further and no character inspired me whatsoever that the world could change for the better, so I dropped them.

But its not like I’m judging it, I just feel weirded out to some things and I just imagine the kind of mind that takes upon themselves the chore to write a whole series of book which has nothing but suffering and misery in them, especially concerning women, lol. We already had this shit in history and still have in some places in the world so I kinda feel like its not interesting for me to read about it in a fictional setting, especially if I don’t feel like the writer is going to challenge the setting.

But I’m aware most people are much more sensitive… these things can be horrid for those who are more sensitive, and perhaps my own asexuality protects me from feeling it fully as I don’t even think of myself as a being capable of partaking in this (weird, I know), so I have problem even projecting.

But I did felt really strongly for the way women were oppressed absurdly and had their agency completely obliterated, so that sparked a sort of empathy or kinship in me which made progress in such book a chore…

You got my point and this just illustrates a bit my relationship to fiction and things that irk me since you were interested in my opinion… I have another example of fantasy book with lots of sex in it:

I read asoiaf even thought its full of sexual stuff but I don’t feel joy at these parts, yet the work is so good on other themes that I ignore it for the most part… but even so, recently I’ve read F&B and it was kinda overwhelming on the sexist aspect with myriads of female characters turned into child brides and raped and dying at their childbirth repeatedly it just got very tiresome and repetitive near the end, because there where almost no counterpoints to it, unlike in the main series where the situation is dire for women but we have characters challenging it more often and idk. F&B just lacked on that front.

So, this shows a bit my sensitivity towards sex is more related to sexism and the feeling that women are confined to their reproductive aspects: motherhood, childbearing, marriage, sensuality, etc.. I don’t have a problem with sexual intercourse per se as you can see, but that’s from my unique point of view and I know some asexuals are more repulsed towards it, but you asked my opinion…

So, if its consensual sex: its not my cup of tea but I don’t feel like its a deal breaker…

Just to give you a positive sex example: when I see an OTP of mine getting to the point of having sex I think its pretty sweet, like when Jon and Dany consummated their love on that boat… I was happy for them, for all that it means, the symbolism between the union of ice and fire and just two characters which I love dearly, finding happiness and comfort in each other. What’s not to love about it??

This is a rare stance I can say I saw a pair I ship get to that point xD

I love shipping as you know, but its more about the psychological aspects and potential for character development and even when I’m reading fanfic about my OTPs I enjoy more the angst and symbolism than the ‘hot’ parts which usually just makes me go ‘meh’ (again).

So this makes me say: when sex is the focus of works I could feel like I’m too asexual for this, even if it regards an OTP, it just doesn’t have a very exciting effect on me or I’m not explicitly interested in this part of a relationship, when so many other things caught my eye… sometimes subtle interactions and dialogue and and gentle approximation (touches, caresses, kissing, etc..) is so much more exciting for me to read about than the ‘thing’ itself, lol.

To sum it up: when its there just for p*rn or even worse, shock value it just makes me go ‘meh’ or ‘ugh’ or ‘uhh why am I even reading this?’

This reminds me of Vivi’s take on the ‘hiero gamos’, in this case I just say I might even enjoy the theme as long as the scenes involving sex are meaningful and passionate and the aspect I value the most about them are sublime and platonic instead of carnal but I’m aware the carnal aspects are very important for the characters and the audience so I also worry when I get to show my stories people will think they lack sexual content ^^  I get you.

Now that you know my feelings towards sex in fiction, to a broader sense I just wanted to say..

There’s no way to guess people’s sensitives but it doesn’t mean you need to walk on eggshells afraid to trigger people all the time, hell no! I’m all for freedom of creation. At least around me there are no metaphorical ‘eggshells’.

Everyone has their own set of opinions which makes them unique, not just me, I mean…  even so I will let my snowflake syndrome show but I’m quite peculiar if you could say, so I sort of grew a strong ‘carapace’ towards the world as I deal with people with completely different views and values on a daily basis which might make me have inflamed political opinions while at the same time, I’m very flexible and forgiving when it comes to fiction in general.

I don’t expect much of the population to be like this so I’m also self conscious when it gets to writing my own stuff because I know people can feel very strongly about it and you’ve seen the way fandom reacts to minor things and bash creators when they perceive flaws in their work… I’m just not a judgmental person, its not in my nature. I just ignore things in fiction if I don’t like and I became even more relaxed over time in regards to this all, lol I nearly reached a ‘nirvana’ as I don’t even feel strongly negative feelings in regard to this.

Snarky and bitter comments from time to time? Yes… but no hard feelings. RL needs my hatred, lol so I don’t have it to spare with fiction any longer.

Anyway, on an unrelated sub note… as you might have noticed, I don’t feel comfortable about current fandom trends and specially policing, and with reason as this gets very serious and quick with literally ‘wave chain reactions’ of hatred sparked apparently from nowhere. I hope people could create more freely instead of the political correct police and restraining of creativity we have now. It was good for a while and I’m all for diversity and change in status quo (for the better), but I think this has gone too far and I perceive a lot of rigidity in fiction right now due to fear of fandom backlash we have creators afraid to make their thing and afraid it isn’t ‘inclusive or progressive’ enough… so they bend themselves endlessly until fandom ‘approves’ them, but even so someone is bound to scream and say the work is offensive and the cycle of hatred is restarted.

I know this reply was like a huge egocentric monologue and I strained with non related issues at the end, but you asked my thought on this so I tried to convey it with detail.. including things related to the perception we have concerning fictional themes and I just kinda had to vent at some parts of it.

etc…. This doesn’t mean I forbid judgment from others or criticism or that I forbid people from harshly criticizing works of fiction, just that sometimes it gets more harmful than beneficial and scare people off, and I felt like saying that.

Anyway,,, just want to say nonetheless I find it very sweet and considerate that you are taking different opinions in mind while writing, but you don’t need to worry at least from my part, and I don’t think you ever got even close to being explicit in your writings so there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.

[alltheshadesoftruth-blog1]

On Warging in GOT: What Could Have Been

Spoiler alert: I hate the show. I hate it with a passion. But, it was not ever thus: I loved series 1, and I found series 2…tolerable. I was at most disappointed with series 3. Series 4 was where the show started to actively anger me: the reduction of the Dornish to their “exoticism” and their sexuality; taking away Sansa’s agency in her plans to flee King’s Landing; the presentation of magical elements.

In view of my hatred, I thought I’d engage in an experiment: how would I present the first instance of skinchanging? Skinchanging is one of the key magical elements of the series (with some theorising about its connection to the Others and its role in the wars to come), and it has been chronically mishandled in the show so far.

So, assuming that we have, up until this point, had an accurate and adequate adaptation of how Bran is exploring his powers (seeded in series 2/3/4, ideally, also through Jon and Arya’s storylines), I would kick off whatever episode Bran first wargs into Walder (in the alternate reality where I am running GOT) thusly.

A couple of disclaimers: 1) I am by no means a screenwriter. 2) I realise this does not necessarily fit exactly with the continuity of the show - that would be because I hate the continuity of the show: it prioritises the wrong things, wouldn’t know a theme if one kicked it in the face and exists primarily so D&D can spoil endings etc. for book readers. So there. 3) We won’t have the gratuitous stuff with Locke et al, so the first time Bran would be warging into Walder would be in the cave with Bloodraven turning a blind eye. 4) I hate “Hold the Door”. My brother is mentally disabled in a similar way to Walder, albeit with more speech, and this episode sickens me on so many levels. 5) As you may have noticed, I will be referring to “Hodor” as Walder, since that is his name, rather than an ableist nickname to which he did not consent.

Now, I’m not a fan of “cold opens”, but I promise it would make more sense and be less jarring in this version of the show because we would have spent more time with the wildlings as characters, rather than as a monolith, in Jon’s arc.

We are in a snowy landscape - it’s not clear whether it’s North or South of the Wall until an eagle screams by the camera. We follow it with swooping angles and fast cuts until it lands on Varamyr (it’s not necessary to explain that it was Orell’s eagle, but you get bonus Book Points if you do - give the eagle a memorable scar, or have it wearing a coloured sash or something). We then go to what Varamyr describes in ADWD as his life before allying with Mance Rayder - dominion over the village and coercing the women into his hall so he can have sex with them. We would have one example of this happening as “”normal””, maybe a montage of women going in and out at day and night, but then the last one changes things.

Have Thistle come in dressed as a Spearwife (scarred, braids, leathers and furs, have her still be armed because Varamyr has become arrogant and doesn’t think any woman will fight back and resist him): either because he likes the challenge, or because she tries to physically fight him; Varamyr tries to warg into Thistle. Cue psychedelia.

*Quick aside*

My main problems with Bran’s storyline in the cave with Max von Bloodraven are that a) the parameters of skinchanging aren’t really properly explained (e.g. the show has it so that Bran can affect the past, as in Hold the Door, the books state that the Weirwoods only provide a looking glass) and b) we do not have enough weirdness. Thinking about the first point: we are supposed to realise that skinchanging into other people is wrong - this is not just something you can do and get away with it. There should be and are consequences, one way or another, for the powerful attempting to subjugate the weak in this way. The show presented how Bran warging into Walder would look from the outside, and what effect it would have on the plot (which is all they seem able to understand), but they do not show what is happening on the inside, aside from showing that Walder is clearly confused and upset by what Bran makes him do to Locke, for example (such as when he looks at his bloodied hands).

As for the second point: this is a 128-year-old sorcerer who is tutoring a 9-year-old boy in how to become a God. I don’t want stationary, realistic shots. I want dreamscapes, cosmic weirdness, the curtain of light at the end of the world. I wanted the show to have taken the opportunity to show us Asshai and Wyverns and Sothoryos, since we will likely never see it in the books, and for a show that prides itself on bringing the spectacle of cinema into people’s living rooms, the mystic side of the show has been...well...boring.

With that in mind, I want everything about this scene to be jarring: sound, lights, camera movement, colour distribution (remember: whoever looked at ASOIAF and thought “You know what we need? Grayscale” should never be allowed near a camera or screenplay again). I want us to practically feel the psychological damage this is doing to Thistle, while seeing what she does in the books, clawing at her face. (I also think that the white eye thing should be used more sparingly, as a sign that the skinchanger is “clocking in and out”: for reasons that will become clear in a second). I realise this seems to contradict criticisms of gratuitousness etc., but this violence would be for a specific purpose: we are supposed to identify with Thistle, not Varamyr, in the book, and we are supposed to feel an instinctual revulsion at what he is doing; and we are going to make this immediately relevant to the “main arc” with literally five more seconds of screentime.

So we’re immersed in Thistle and Varamyr, and at a moment where, in this version where we’re using more of a dreamscape approach, both of their faces are on-screen, terrified and driven mad by the pain and the violation and exulting in their power and domination respectively...

...their faces warp into Walder and Bran, we continue to see Walder’s pain (mirroring Thistle’s both to humanise him, since dialogue apparently can’t, although Guardians of the Galaxy managed with Groot, and make her more relatable to audience that has, at this stage, been with Walder for 4/5 seasons), and then a scene continues (in the cold light of GOT-style grayscale, since in this case it would actually aid contrast between the magical and the mundane) with Bran-as-Walder, Meera and Jojen in their own cave, where we learn that Bran has been with Bloodraven for three days – Meera is worried, Jojen is cryptic and Bran-as-Walder is just sitting there, with the occasional flash of the white eye effect as Bran reasserts control over Walder.

…ok, hear me out.

I can understand why Bran does what he does: he is a nine-year-old boy from a noble family who was traumatically crippled, bringing an end to his dreams of becoming a knight and being “taunted” by the image of Walder, a "simpleminded giant” in Bran’s own words (AGOT Bran IV), being able to physically achieve anything; since being crippled, he has unlocked the potential for vast powers for which he is barely given any guidance as to their use. I understand. But understanding does not make this right. I find it shocking how many people are willing to label Arya, a child soldier who regularly shows empathy to others while still doing awful things, a psychopath while not giving Bran’s actions the least bit of scrutiny. Bran knows that what he is doing is wrong: he actively thinks about it, in ways that reveal a lot about Bran and his mental interactions with Walder and what he thinks they mean.

The big stableboy no longer fought him as he had the first time, back in the lake tower during the storm. Like a dog who has had all the fight whipped out of him, Hodor would curl up and hide whenever Bran reached out for him. His hiding place was somewhere deep within him, a pit where not even Bran could touch him. No one wants to hurt you, Hodor, he said silently, to the child-man whose flesh he'd taken. I just want to be strong again for a while. I'll give it back, the way I always do. (ADWD Bran III)

This is wrong.

Now let’s look at why.

“Like a dog who has had all the fight whipped out of him”.

Setting aside, for one moment, the rampant dehumanisation of the mentally disabled in Westeros (seen with Walder, Lollys, countless others who remain unnamed and unremembered): whipping the fight out of a dog takes sustained cruelty and many attempts. Whipping the fight out of a dog is a waiting game, designed to achieve the outcome you want at the expense of the dog’s wellbeing, and designed to suppress any personality or will in the dog. The trainer knows this, before, during and after the act. Bran knew what he was doing, every one of the apparently many times that Bran has forced himself into Walder.

“Hodor would curl up and hide whenever Bran reached out for him”

A shownly tried to tell me, about a week after “Hold the Door” aired, that Hodor would have done it willingly for Bran, and that “Hodor”, essentially, was more useful when being controlled by an able-minded individual: that he was “asking to be used like that”. This individual has, you will be pleased to know, been cut out of my life entirely: someone who thinks that the privileged in society have the right--nay, the obligation--to use those socially inferior to them for their own ends is clearly a fucking psychopath. In the books, Walder curls up and hides. This is not the action of someone who consents. This sign alone should be enough to convince Bran that, actually, forcing yourself into someone else’s mind to stalk your crush and your bezzie mate (unbeknownst to them, which is weird in itself) is an abomination.

“the child-man whose flesh he'd taken”

This frankly gruesome description of Bran’s violation of Walder shows, without doubt, that Bran knows what he is doing. He knows that it is wrong and, more to the point, he feels the barest amount of remorse. He feels enough pity for Walder to pathetically attempt to reassure the man whose mind he is raping, but not enough to ever stop. The description of Walder as a “child-man” is, in this context, therefore, particularly horrifying. But it is Bran’s attempt to reassure himself that it is Walder’s “flesh” that he is taking that is the most disquieting thing for me: because it isn’t. That is the effect, certainly: Bran only notices that he is taking Walder’s “flesh”, since it is the only thing about Walder that interests him. However, we can see from this passage that Bran is taking so much more from Walder than his “flesh” (such a gross way of referring to someone’s body, while we’re on the subject – more animal than human, akin to “horseflesh”): Walder, someone with a limited understanding of the world who has, among other things, been attacked by literal zombies and subject to mental abuse, does not feel safe in his own mind. That is, and should always be, horrifying.

“I just want to be strong again for a while. I'll give it back, the way I always do.”

It’s the “just” here that is the most sickening part. Because what Bran wants is so pathetically simple (again, I understand that he is suffering as well: but we are witnessing him mentally raping someone weaker than himself, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t show my usual empathy): he wants to be physically able, and is willing to dehumanise and violate someone else to get that feeling for a few hours. The casualness of “the way I always do” speaks to a flippancy surrounding the violation, similar to what we see earlier during the wight attack: “He wondered what Meera would think if he should suddenly tell her that he loved her.” (ADWD Bran II)

What this means for the show.

The show has made clear, from the moment they added in Kristian Nairn’s naked body into the bathing scene in the Godswood, that they do not view Hodor—Walder—as a person. They view him as a literal joke, and as much of an object as the women whose naked, unnamed bodies they paraded around in Littelfinger’s brothel scene or in the scene where Ramsay taunts Theon with beautiful women. Hodor is an object to them: a means by which they can move their able-minded, therefore more important, character from one point to the next. D&D’s fixation on plot has meant that the subtleties of Bran’s ADWD Chapters have been lost in favour of exposition dumps, seeking to spitefully spoil surprises for readers of the books. This fixation has also meant that they have focused on the outward effects of this warging, without appropriate consideration being afforded to anything else: instead of looking at the previous passage, they focused on the second part of this quote: “Deep inside he could hear poor Hodor whimpering still, but outside he was seven feet of fury with old iron in his hand.” (ADWD Bran II) In failing to humanise Walder, in failing to treat him as more than a prop or a plot device, we have been robbed of a kind and gentle man who feels no ill-will toward anyone.

"Hodor!" the stableboy announced, as was his custom, smiling hugely at them all. (AGOT Bran IV)

Hodor hummed tunelessly as he carried Bran down the steps and through the gallery (AGOT Bran IV)

Hodor washed the sweat from him with a warm, damp cloth and dressed him with deft and gentle hands. (AGOT Bran IV)

And it perhaps Bran’s chapters at the beginning of AGOT that can prepare us for this warping of Bran’s character, which will hopefully be addressed by some form of confrontation with Euron, as they battle for dominion of the Westerosi astral plan: “It felt queer to look down on him this way, when he'd spent his whole life looking up at him, but when you sat on Hodor's back you looked down on everyone.” (AGOT Bran VI, emphasis mine)

[thebestplltheories]

Farewell, Pretty Little Liars.

Today is the day that we must finally say goodbye to Pretty Little Liars. With its never-ending theories and constant renewals, the PLL endgame always seemed like an intangible, abstract and theoretical concept that is just so far away, that it will simply never come. It feels so surreal to say that today is that day, which again, over the years, was never in sight. I thought watching Pretty Little Liars would just be some light, weekly, background entertainment. On June 8 2010, I did not truly know what crazy rollercoaster I had stumbled upon. Through numerous ups and downs, these past 7 years have certainly been unforgettable. If you told me seven years ago that a television show will have such a positive impact on my life, I would have laughed at you and called you dramatic. Tell me that today, and I’ll smile in appreciation at the positive influence and power a television show can bestow upon its viewers.

Not every show makes it to seven seasons, particularly mystery shows. Seven years is a long time. I started watching this show when I was 13, and I am now 19. (I realise I am probably very young in comparison to most other PLL fans!) Just to visually see this: Pretty Little Liars was with me while I was 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19. These are arguably some of the most important years of one’s life. As I grew, PLL grew too, in a literal sense, as we got a time jump where the characters matured, but also in figurative sense, since the stories gradually shifted from being high-school oriented to dark and twisted themed through a demented dollhouse and a psychologically straining board game. All while PLL was on the air, I graduated from primary school and high school, started university, got my driver’s license, my first job, credit card, car, gone overseas by myself, and made life-long friendships. Achieving all that never was easy, but it was made easier by PLL. If I ever struggled in my personal development, I always had PLL to fall back upon for psychological stability and security, aside from general entertainment. A part of me sees the end of PLL as if the training wheels are coming off my bike: for 7 years, I was learning how to become a young man, and now that I finally am one, I no longer need this safety rock that is PLL in order to continue developing.

This long, personal post is dedicated to me and my seven-year relationship with Pretty Little Liars.

How I started watching PLL

On June 8 2010, a new show called Pretty Little Liars aired. My sister had her friends over and they were all obsessing over this fresh new murder mystery with a hot cast. But it was socially unacceptable for me to watch this show, since I’m a boy. “Are you seriously watching Pretty Little Liars with us? Don’t boys play PlayStation when they’re bored?” My sister laughed in agreement at her friend’s comment to me. (To this day, I am even shamed for my love for Selena Gomez as a person and her music, because she is labelled as a female entertainer.) So I left my sister and her friends alone to watch their stigmatised “chick flick” that was PLL. Apparently it was wrong of me to take interest in this show. But I wasn’t going to let the irrational comments of a group of girls stop me from finding out how Alison DiLaurentis disappeared. And so little 13 year old me began watching the episodes online, in my room, every week, once my whole family had gone to bed. I was careful to put my headphones on a safe volume, because I didn’t want the sound to pulsate too loudly from them, and I always had my computer screen positioned so that it can’t be seen by anyone who unexpectedly walks into my room. Shoutout to my sister, for indirectly introducing me to Pretty Little Liars, but shame on you for making me feel less masculine just because I enjoyed the murder mystery of a show with female leads. I never shamed her for liking Harry Potter; a movie series with mostly male leads. As of June 8 2010, Pretty Little Liars was my secret.

Tumblr

In my secret weekly viewings of the show, I eventually reached the point where I was so personally immersed with the intricate mysteries of Rosewood, that I needed to hear other peoples’ thoughts to see if they aligned with those within my crazy mind. When I wasn’t doing my homework, I was studying who could be this omnipotent and omniscient stalker and potential murderer. What’s so wrong with a guy wanting to get to the bottom of such a juicy mystery? Apparently, everything was wrong with that. So around the season 3 Halloween episode, I decided to unload my brain on Tumblr; a place my sister could never put a face to the person behind the screen - she could never know her little brother is talking about the “chick flick” that is PLL.

During the first few months, I was lucky if my theories garnered the slightest bit of discussion and attention; I considered it to have been a very good week when I received two messages. Since Tumblr was the only way I could talk about my secret, I persisted with the near-silence my posts were getting because I knew those two messages per week are better than the zero people I can talk to outside of Tumblr. Never ever did I think my blog will blow up into what it is today with tens of thousands of followers and hundreds of messages per week, literally. I’m saving the thank you’s for the very end, because my gosh, that is the most important part of this entire post.

Being highly active on Tumblr during PLL’s lifespan definitely negatively affected my viewing experience of the series. Every single day, I was answering questions, reading theories sent in to me, reading theories posted by other blogs, reading Tweets from the writers/cast and watching interviews from the writers/cast. Everyday. While that was all fun in the moment, I’d be lying if I said that knowing absolutely everything about upcoming episodes and reveals made the show more fun to watch. I was always up to date on every single theory and all of the latest leaks, news, spoilers… whatever. Absolutely anything PLL related, you can bet I had read it. In fact, since I joined Tumblr, not one single event that has happened in the show has truly shocked me. I was here reading theories that Charles is a transgender CeCe. I was here reading theories that Toby is just being A to protect Spencer. I was here reading theories that Spencer gets shot, because we paused the promos at the right frames and could see it happening. Heck, I knew Ezra was only writing a book, I knew A is someone named Charles DiLaurentis and I even knew Mona is alive and being held captive in a dollhouse, ahead of their reveals in 420 and 525 respectively. Not only did scripts leak, but someone who worked on the subtitles of the show leaked the content of the reveals. Being on this site, of course I saw these leaks and spoilers even despite my serious attempts to avoid them. It’s impossible to avoid spoilers since you don’t know it’s a spoiler until, well, you’ve actually read the sentence. Since joining Tumblr, I can honestly say that nothing in PLL has shocked me, so I can conclude that Tumblr did ruin the fun in watching PLL.

Having a less fun viewing experience was a small price to pay for what I received in return for signing up for this wild ride that is Tumblr. Call me obsessed with PLL, and yeah I guess I am, but PLL is merely just the topic of conversation, in this world we created for ourselves. More than PLL itself, I am obsessed with this loving community of fans uniting from around the world, bound by a common passion which places us all as equals who share a sense of belonging and worthiness. This loving and fun community is emphasised and taken advantage of every single day - not just the days a new episode airs. Every. Single. Day. The warmth this community provides to my heart, alone, is enough to instantly override the fact that Tumblr stole the show’s entire shock-factor from me.

It feels very surreal to think that this show experience has finally reached its end - a lot of personal adjustment will need to now take place. In the society and culture I live in, your social status is defined by how many likes you have on your Facebook profile picture and how many likes you get on your weekly Instagram posts. When my posts aren’t up to everyone else’s standards, I find mental security and comfort in closing Facebook and Instagram, and opening the Tumblr app; a place where I do not have to prove my worthiness in society. Numerous times, my friends have been refreshing their Facebook profiles to see how many likes they got, meanwhile I’m refreshing my Tumblr dashboard to see one of your friendly commentaries. Again, this may seem overly obsessive with PLL, but I re-state: over the years, PLL is just the conversational topic. The simple existence of conversation, regardless of the topic, is enough to provide this mental stability I’m speaking of. On top of this inappropriate importance placed on social media in my culture, there have been other times where I have said no to dinner and a movie with friends and admittedly, family too, because I’m lazy and I would rather a date night with my bed and the Tumblr community. No longer will I have something fun to do on a Friday night, home alone. No longer will I have something to occupy me on the bus ride going home from uni. No longer will I have theories to think about during my study “breaks”, or something quick and easy to reward myself with after hours of studying. No longer will I wake up on Wednesday mornings (the Tuesday night equivalent here in Australia) full of energy. Now that this experience is over, I anticipate that my brain may start to feel empty. Sure I will miss the characters and the mysteries of Rosewood, but for me, this is the area that will require a lot of adjustment.

My final evaluation of PLL

As this is a post dear to my heart that I will keep forever, I want to include here my final evaluation of Pretty Little Liars, as a whole series.

Undoubtedly, the best season, in my opinion, is season 7. “But what about good old seasons 1 and 2, when PLL was at its prime?” Sure, seasons 1 and 2 were pretty good. We had just been introduced to fresh and exciting new characters and stories. Everything was amazing in seasons 1 and 2. The girls could be baking cookies whilst talking about good books they’ve read lately, and I would have loved it, because I’d be spending time with these new characters I just met. Retrospectively looking back on earlier seasons, I find that they are way too ‘bubblegum’ for my liking. Mona/A forced Hanna to stop her dad’s wedding, A gave Ella a ticket to the museum Ezria visited, A was hiding in the Spencer’s closet, A was spying on the girls visiting the therapist, A sends the girls on a scavenger hunt in the woods…  sure, these stories did the job to reel me in back then, but if the show continued with these flowery, teenage-girl themes, I don’t believe I’d be here seven years later. Again, they were great for the time, but PLL did need to take a convoluted, complicated, psychologically twisted turn. What excites the 19 year old me, are the stories that season 7 is telling: the liars killing an imposter, the previous A being murdered, a dead body in the trunk, attempting to cover tracks for murder, seducing a cop, twins, the liars getting arrested, a liar betrays her best friends and wears the hoodie, a liar finds out her parents have been lying to her since literally day 1, a liar has been impregnated by the uber villain using another liar’s eggs, and ultimately, the uber villain being revealed. The stakes are heightened, and this is what I appreciate and enjoy watching, more so than a high-school Truth Up Night, a sleepover in the barn, or a liar steeling her sister’s boyfriends. No longer is the show about the Queen Bee of a group of high-school girls who went missing, followed by threatening text messages from an anonymous person. The show is far more mature now in season 7, and I appreciate that a lot. Again, earlier seasons did the tough job of attracting me to permanently reside in Rosewood, but such bubblegum stories would not have sustained me for the years to come. As each season went on, sure more fans began complaining at its progressively unrealistic and exaggerated nature, but I, on the other hand, sat here twiddling my fingers muttering “excellent”.

But have I just got it so damn wrong? If the general worldwide consensus is that PLL is no longer what it used to be, why am I more in love with season 7 than the earlier seasons? The answer is simple, yet easier said than done: I forget about what the writers have done wrong in the past, and I just enjoy the present. Here are the 6 areas that the writers have cumulatively pissed off the fans over the years: mysteries are dropped ridiculously fast (remember Melissa in Ali’s backyard saying “do it, just do it” to someone unknown?), red herrings are not properly explained once the truth is revealed (Melissa’s suitcase handle just so happened to break, when a similar object is what killed Charlotte?) the inconsistency in interviews/tweets (some actors say AD clues exist in season 1, yet Marlene says to ignore seasons 1 and 2), not making answers explicitly clear in the show and instead using interviews to confirm a theory the characters have (Garret being killed by Wilden was never said in the show), some answers don’t have a lot of logic behind them (why was Sara Harvey helping Charlotte?) and a significant imbalance between the romance and the mystery (did we really need to see Hanna dump Jordan because her favourite restaurant shut down, when Big A was killed two minutes ago?)

To summarise this point I’m trying to get across - I hear, and I agree, with the complaints PLL fans have. But never ever did I let “we still don’t know why Sara Harvey helped Charlotte” and “ugh I still can’t believe they killed Maya” disrupt my here-and-now viewing experience. THAT is why I’ve continued to love PLL more in 2017, than I did in 2010.

I’d like to conclude my evaluation on PLL by saying that I felt like I knew these characters on a personal level, to the point I could predict their future behaviour and responses. (Which is a good thing.) I’ve never ever felt this way about the characters of a TV show before. They felt like my friends, who grew up with me, and I’d catch up with them once a week by tuning in. Never have I ever seen a show where the off-screen chemistry is this visible on-screen. I also would like to commend the show for its portrayal of the LGBT community. When the show first started, I was a young, uneducated and immature 13 year old who thought that being straight was normal and being gay made you weird. I reflect back on this and am disgusted by the way I used to think. PLL was my only exposure to the LGBT community, and this show certainly standardised non-straight relationships for me, and was the absolute driving force to my acceptance of all people regardless of their identity and sexuality. To put this into perspective, I ended up ‘siding’ with PLL, rather than my own Catholic school which preached totally contradictory messages to PLL. Go figure: I chose the values of a TV show, than the values of my own school’s religion. While I may be one of the few to admit this on paper, I just know I can’t be the only one to have gone through something like this.

The show should be proud of everything it has achieved.

What’s next?

Let’s be real: PLL will get a reunion of sorts in the future. Shows this popular on social media and with a cast that call each other family, do not just die forever with the series finale. In 5, maybe 7 or 10 years, we will get a Netflix mini series, or even a movie. You can bet your ass I will be here for whatever reunion we get and I genuinely hope we can meet again, come that special time.

With tens of thousands of followers (thank you!!!) I could never have notifications turned on. My phone would have a panic attack. Now with the show ending, I’m expecting a major decline in Tumblr activity. So, I can safely enable notifications now. I promise you: any message I receive, or like, reblog, comment, whatever - from now on in, I will see it. I’m not going anywhere. I will be here forever, in the sense that I’m not deleting the Tumblr app. I may not be posting as frequently, but I’ll be here if there is something to post, or a notification to interact with.

As you may all know, I am obsessed with Riverdale. It is the new PLL. Amazing cast, insanely intriguing mystery. If you’ve never seen Riverdale - watch it. There have only been 13 episodes, concluding the first season, and season 2 is coming later this year. If you loved PLL, which I’m assuming you did if you’re on my blog, you’ll love Riverdale. Two months ago (!!!) I made a Riverdale-theories blog, and I have been waiting for today to officially announce @thebestriverdaletheories !

I am not sure yet if I want to use this blog. I feel like this Tumblr experience should be uniquely special to Pretty Little Liars. If everything is special, then nothing becomes special - I feel like if I start another blog for another show, then this PLL experience will be diminished. Unless, we join each other. If a significant portion of this PLL fandom ports over to Riverdale, then I’m willing to give this new blog a shot! If you go and follow me over there, just send me a message and say that you were a part of the PLL squad, so I know who to follow back! I’d love to see the community continue in this way, if possible. We’ll see how it goes! But I’ll be on thebestplltheories dissecting the finale for a bit, before I move over. Plus, this PLL blog is my main blog, with the Riverdale blog being a side blog. So, I guess this Riverdale blog will be a way for PLL to live on, as I’ll have to look at thebestplltheories every time I log in! So yeah - I’ll give it some time, and we’ll see if PLL fans are passionate about Riverdale!

Thank you

Before this post, no one knew the truth behind this nameless faceless blogger. I feel embarrassed, yet amazing, to finally be sharing with you all my personal and private story.

I cannot find the words to express my gratitude to each and every one of you reading this. Likes, reblogs and pressing that follow button, whilst always appreciated, amounted to nearly nothing in the grand scheme of things. What I appreciate the most, is your gift to me: your gift of a voice. You all gave me a voice in a community that my society labelled for “females only”. I mean, over the years, I received numerous messages with tags like you go girl and thanks girl! Which is fine - how could you possibly know I’m male!? But I highlight this just to emphasise that intuitively, it was always assumed that I am female and so I kept my gender a secret, in fear of being dismissed and not taken seriously in this fandom. All I wanted to do was to participate in PLL theories, and I really did think that my gender wouldn’t allow that. Eventually, I realised that that’s so not true anymore; my gender doesn’t matter! Which poses the question - why didnt I admit this earlier? I didnt want to be known as that blog that’s run by a guy. I wanted to be seen as normal. I knew I wouldn’t get rejected and dismissed, but I also didn’t want to stand out even in this slightest way.

So thank you, ultimately for giving me a voice that my sister and her friends, on June 8 2010, said I can’t have. Thank you for entertaining me every single day. No, not just days of new episodes. We all know this is a daily thing, not weekly. You guys are funny, brilliant, optimistic, honest, kind, energetic, intelligent, passionate, loyal and loving. (Each word there has been carefully selected. I’m not throwing around random positively connoted adjectives.) Thank you for being a spark of positivity in my life for all these years.

FOREVER IN MY HEART, PRETTY LITTLE LIARS

The only ‘show’ I have ever watched, and ever will watch, that is not “just a television show for entertainment purposes only”. The only show who’s set I have visited. That means something to me.

8 June 2010 - 27 June 2017

To summarise this experience in five carefully chosen words: unforgettable, irreplaceable, fun, special, passionate.

Til DeAth Do Us Part.

[elizabethrobertajones]

12x22 watching notes

*loud Dean!girl tears*

Cup of Tea No. 1:

Expectations - Berens Buckleming Clean Up Operation, which tbh when you rank writers by skill at this job WAS the top of the game over Dabb but then Perez showed up. But I still expect a competent job.

This appears to be the BMoL and Mary wrap up episode, although on this show appearances can be deceiving.

As a fervent Mary stan this season, I'm hoping they don't kill her but if they do kill her she dies next episode for heroic reasons, not this episode for rubbish hubris reasons, although I am open to being won over to a tearful passing if they actually get to friggin communicate everything with her, and in that respect I feel we've been waiting since 12x03 for Berens to get back to the point he was making there...

I EXPECT Ketch to die bloody, but ever since last episode I've been pre-emptively disappointed that he's going to be mauled by his own hellhound. Slightly less disappointed if Dean opens the cage and says "Sic 'im, boy," to the dog, because this IS an episode by Bobo "Drowley" Berens.

Aside from that, I've pretty much got nothing because I haven't been speculating ahead on much or really daring to entertain any ideas, except for firmly staking my entire farm on the mystery dude from the 2 in 1 trailer being "Garth with padding" so I expect I will be handing over my farm soon. Although I assume that's in 12x23 and therefore not yet and maybe not for hours.

[note from past me ‘hours’ yeah okay this episode literally ended up making me bedridden and too weak to move by the halfway point so I took like 24 hours from start to finish :P]

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Oh yeah, Dean's got a pending 7 years ago "welcome to next time" for Walt or Roy from Dark Side of the Moon. One or the other is supposed to be in this episode. The reminder of 5x16 nudges all its themes onto the table, and it's nice that it's a Dabb episode, the one that wrecked Dean n Cas's faith, ruined Heaven for Sam n Dean, and had Zach attempt to ruin Mary for Dean with that chilling speech that after 12x03 we were saying really cut too close to home on what Dean might have thought after Mary walked out.

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Quick Jody recap. Not entirely sure if the "Jody is good people" line comes from 10x20 about Claire, or 7x22 about not!Jenna, the Alpha's blood slave, but it certainly wasn't about Alex, although it's laid over a clip of them together, and the only reminder about Jody is that she adopts wayward daughters.

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Blah blah  murder!Mary, capturing Toni recap, Mary is brainwashed, bunker is gonna kill you... Noticing Ketch saying the air will "reverse" which means what, exactly, but anyway goes with the theme of reversing things. He also has an extremely punchable face, and since DHJ grew his beard back, all these con photos from the other day have been literally unrecognisable and I keep wondering who the normal looking bloke is hanging out on stage with them, because I'm so used to him looking like this:

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(brief break because Berens episodes always make me really sick for some reason)

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Anyway.

NOW.

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Dead guy (thing?) on a truck.

Dead guy. Mary used some reaaaally horrible cat claw looking knuckle dusters or something to kill him. BMoL including savergy as part of the deal; Mary is the hellhound who tears up these guys. Not just being effective at killing - it has to be horrible too. And Mary's been getting used to killing monsters horribly - why should it matter when it's people?

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the obvious problem next season is the hunters have been decimated so monsters are going to be a much bigger problem and sam and dean can't rely on all these random nobody hunters to stop the next generation of tragic backstories.

This one was called Lester, and I watched 10x02 waaay to recently and that's the guy who got screwed over by Sam's demon deal shenanigans and Dean killed.

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Oh no I think he worked in Auto Repair - Bobby would have been a target if only they still had a Bobby

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Bobby would not have stood for this. Mary would have been in the panic room in a flash through some trickery and smart paranoia :P

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Aaaaah Jody's on the hit list. Who did Jody ever hurt???

I can tell you why that's stupid even for the BMoL: aside from killing law enforcement being a dumb idea in general to not draw attention to yourself, the local sheriff type hunters will literally always be the sort to get involved in cases on a local level and start hunting for themselves to protect a small town like Jody did... you're never going to stop them popping up and you're removing a valuable local level resource and I bet there are others like Jody who just didn't have the misfortune to know the Winchesters who literally never fight above their weight limit but are ready for vampires to come to town >.>

I know she's on the hitlist because she's an associate of the Winchesters but I mean... their overall plan is STUPID if they're going after hunter cops in general. Pfft

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*Sam, Dean and Toni bicker entertainingly*

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Toni argues that they NEED her so THEY don't kill her. It's like... on the endless infinite loops of Crypt Scene reversals, this one is Toni arguing for HER life to UNDO a brainwashing if they don't kill her, using the keyword "you need me", and... yeah. Same sort of deal - someone saying stuff to not get killed and there's brainwashing involved.

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Sam: "LORE"

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DAY ONE

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Remember how 11x14 is one of my favourite Sam episodes because Berens just sometimes writes the Perfect Sam, and he's all peppy and researchy? I've seen literally 2 seconds of this scene and I'm like, yeah, he's at it again.

Berens's take on Sam is probably the interpretation I've funnelled into Terrible Coffee AU, mostly because I laughed SO HARD at excessively caffienated Sam in 11x14 and what it did to his personality, I decided then and there I would never write a scene with him where he hadn't had at least 4 cups of coffee

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Sam found a gremlin spell :D

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Pfft they need to purify some blood to make it work. While the Bunker is on lockdown and the lights are flashing red. Dean's even wearing a red shirt, though it's a plaid one, because he's in the family again unlike 10x03, and Toni's the ~invading element~ who last episode like demon!Dean spat a load of bitter truths at Sam, did the same to Mary.

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Aw they're all combining their blood. They're in like some sort of pact now, that they all at least want to live, at least long enough to try killing each other in free air. But yeah, no one of them is being relied on to be the purified one - symbolic that while they hate each other, when it comes to getting free none of them is being more self-righteous than the others, and also an admission that none of their bloods are pure enough that any of them could have lorded it over the others.

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(Sam, of course, is working with Toni and compartmentalising everything about how she tortured and mind-raped him)

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Brains failed, now for brawn. (Sam and Dean still being aligned this way, and each having a day to try their thing)

I hate seeing a map of the Bunker as if it makes sense, but it reassuringly magically produces a brand new wall we've never seen before with a convenient exit right behind it - "let's Shawshank this bitch" - so I figure its magic is still at work. It's brainwashed too - it doesn't want to kill them, so it's doing its best to help :<

They need to manually override it.

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Dean immediately gets repurcussions for his idea by getting a shard of concrete in his eye. Probably not symbolic

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Also they probably wasted a ton of air doing that

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"how did this happen?" "which part?" "all of it" - haven't hit play but cosmic consequeeeences

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"We had Cas back, we had Mom back"... I assume Dean's priorities have been pointed out by everyone but I'm doing it anyway. Even if you just say he's listing them and had to go one way or the other, and "Mom" is the more surprising one, but still... Cas being got by Lucifer was like, up there with things that getting him back was like getting Mary back, in how happy it made Dean. That is a Thing.

Also belatedly had some Thoughts and came back to this point, that Amara is really the big bad of this season too, but as an abstract concept of chaos, which she represents, where her 2 actions for Dean were to give him Cas and Mary back, but between throwing Lucifer wherever to let him carry on as he liked, and bringing Mary back to get tangled in this, she creates the two heads of the end of season chaos, and both arcs (and Mary and Cas have been mirrored all the way as the two sides of this sort of looping around each other)... I guess what I'm saying is I expect chaos and I'm blaming it on her, but it's belatedly given me a really interesting way to look at the randomness of the season.

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Sam's regretting things. Give him a dog. *ruffles his damp hair* He was just too optimistic for his own good. He wanted the world wide scale doing good thing, and wanted to follow along instead of leading.

Whenever I think of Sam and leading I think about boy!king Sam and the plans that were apparently there for him. He had the "I'm not a leader" arc like 6 years before Cas did, and it turned out it was all a con anyway, but the point is, Sam very very firmly does not like being put in a position of responsibility, probably has season 2-3 trauma related to it, since it was how he first died, and then how Ruby met him, swearing loyalty to him as if he would be that leader...

Ironically in 12x14 and Berens knows this full well as he writes Sam saying this, Sam took control and leadership of the situation and crisis-managed it all the way through to a dead Alpha vamp, getting the hero shot and everything, but he still blamed the BMoL over and over that they were the ones who did all the hard work, and turned to them for guidance, instead of seeing what he did there.

As Leviathan!Dean once said, but, uh, reapply this to being a GOOD leader, they're strong and smart and so on... He just went to the end that it was a perfectly good opportunity to subjugate the weak (which is what the BMoL want) and of course Sam would rather not do that :P

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Cup of Tea no. 2

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Oh crap, they're have a Moment about how they want to die, talking about how they didn't imagine it being this way because, well, who plans to be murdered by their own Bunker

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I don't think Dean plans to die this way any more

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Did Dean just....

he did

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Toni hates the Americans

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YEAH DEAN

He's gonna remember that forever.

If he's not dead and tbh if he is he just died happy

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Having an explosion in the Bunker was a terrible way to use up all the oxygen

YAY Dean did the thing and all the smoke is clearing

I suppose because this is on the CW Dean doesn't stumble in with a massive boner from finally getting to use it

This was already a symbolic victory for the crazy American way of hunting.

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Oh dear, it's Mary.

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She is covered in blood and just walks up to the door, and Jody's like... okay I guess this is what happens with the Winchesters.

I think 12x06 softened her up too much to the idea they just show up covered in the last hunt and want to watch TV

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Omg GARTH IS ALIVE. For now?

"You and Bess need to get someplace safe" :3 Thanks for looking after them for me

I mean now Eileen's dead and Garth is still alive I feel sort of bad for using his life to bargain with. Hence hoping he's mystery guy.

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Nyoooom

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oh that was a cruel fake trail of blood.

I mean real blood but fake anyone got killed because Jody is upright and Alex is next to her and Mary's just got a bleeding nose and a smirk while being wrapped in rope.

"Hello boys"

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Heee Alex and Jody took down Mary and they're being proud of each other for doing it

I love them so much so I am in absolute terror that one or both of them dies

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oh dear Dean's stuck in a room with Jody and Mary and she's taunting Jody for playing mom to Dean - 9x19 comes immediately to mind, and Momma taunting Jody for doing the same to Alex, which is how she got her in the first place. And Mary's tied to a chair and all she's got is the same demon!Dean thing from 10x03 to snark at Dean and tell Jody she can have him.

Honestly, Dean's adapted a lot very well to even survive watching Mary say she doesn't want him to his face.

He doesn't look HAPPY but he didn't like, burst into tears and/or storm out the room

"What's the matter, Dean? Am I too different from the Mary you know? Or too much the same?"

The whole messed up family thing in one go here >.> Mary mirroring Dean as demon!Dean having a dark side that renounced his family and claimed to have always been this thing, and Mary doing the same...

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Lol Mary's hiding behind "inpenetrable psychic walls" - that's not the metaphor the Bunker was warning about us or anything, OR anything deeply symbolic about all the character stuff for Sam and Dean where they hide behind walls of "the story became the story" and all that. Looks like maybe this is how Dean is forced to tell Mary all the dark horrible truth about her deal and all that we saw in the script they teased? That he has to try and find a way to ease her out from behind it, maybe taking a few scratches and shrapnel in the eye to get there, but... Can he grenade launcher through it with his words??

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"They can't be torn down with grenades"

Dean is too sad to even do a "watch me try"

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Random hunters!

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And Walt and Roy!

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"No hard feelings" yeah it's much easier to understand when Sam's alive and that was 7 years ago and honestly so much character growth since then or something

Nice demonstration of putting aside bad feelings to work together

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Dean leaves Sam to do the big presentation and Sam stumbles over introducing it as a personal problem he and Dean have ended up with, but then suddenly drops into inspirational speaking about "our people", taking on the burden as a leader :D

(I mean that's like the one thing they told us in PR but it was "sam n dean" and look I'm really proud of him okay? Berens writes a Sam I love)

Sam also admits, in front of Walt and Roy even, that he was one of the hunters who messed up and were suckered in by their flashy tech. Admitting that the current terrible scenario is his fault again, when that's what they originally killed him for - whatever was on the hunter grapevine about what Sam Winchester had done...

-

blah blah America is great land of the free etc *Sam finishes the speech with an American flag flying behind him*

-

But I mean good laying out of the philosophies of what they see hunting is really all about - the whole cops and robbers thing Sam talked about in 12x14 but thought the BMoL could help with that instead of seeing they weren't going to be anything like what he idealised about the job.

And he asks them to follow him :')

-

I hope the near-death experience made Dean change his mind about dying bloody too

-

Dean's so proud

Me too

-

Oh no he's sitting it out. Literally because he blew his own fucking leg up.

-

I'm sitting this out too... I'm in too much pain to continue doing anything useful right now

-

Cup of coffee no. 1

-

Morning! So Sam gets his big character growth moment to maybe not mess up leading a thing this time (people are going to die but they know that... more alarmingly, Jody's going with them >.>) and Dean's saying behind to fix Mary. He gives a speech to Sam about doing that which sounds almost exactly like the sort of thing Sam was saying about demon!Dean - if there's any of them still in there they're going to find it and bring them back.

The Mary stuff has always been emotionally more on Dean's side just because Sam would be perfectly content for her to exist and see what happens (which is probably an unspoken part of how the BMoL suckered him in that he didn't mention in the big speech to the other hunters) - he gets the external evil to fight, something which helps fix his and especially Mary's mistakes by taking down the operation, while Dean deal with Mary.

It only just occurred to me typing this, even though I've had like 14 hours since I found out what the plan was, that that puts Sam in a Ketch-ish direction if he's going to be anywhere predictable. I'm still torn about this because I want Sam to kill him for Eileen but Mary's got a personal beef too and I'd honestly be sort of confused if despite being the least-most-invested in killing Ketch, Dean doesn't get pitted against him, partially because this is The Raid pt.2 (this time the hunters doing exactly what the vampires did when they were all being killed off) and partly because stuff just kind of happens to Dean more. But it's entirely unfair of him to hog ALL the emotional catharsis if he's got Toni and Mary with him trying to fix Mary, and then ALSO has to deal with an unexpected Ketch

-

Oh dear, Alex just told Jody to kick it in the ass while heading off to a safe house with Donna. It's sort of the show generic rallying cry because Kim Manners, but it's also the Ellen and Jo bye bye phrase, and I don't like this. I have suddenly remembered I am very very worried about one or both of them, and Alex unfortunately still don't have much point to be in this episode except it's weird to pretend Jody doesn't have a family just because the actresses need herding, Claire's purposefully driven off into the sunset so doesn't seem to be a part of this, and that leaves Alex here to either kill or react to Jody being killed.

-

Sam and Dean do the bitch/jerk thing which in a show where there was actual threat to either of them dying would make them having a "don't die pls" farewell unnerving for the exact above reasons, but just makes me feel like everyone's having tearful goodbyes to try and pretend the stakes are equally high - at least, the characters think so - to obscure killing off Jody.

-

The BMoL have Sam and Dean on their board with "ELIMINATED" underneath them. Losers.

Aaaah I forgot Claire was a potential target though. The WORST thing they could do is kill her off-screen without ceremony and let Jody and Alex find out because Jody bursts into the control room and sees Claire's picture with "ELIMINATED" under it

-

Oh nope Ketch is getting nervous about where his asset is so he gets the "keep it between us" info that Mary's in Lebanon, Kansas, aka time for Ketch to not be around to get killed in the base (making it infinitely easier to raid for everyone else) and for him to go exactly where I assumed he would.

-

Sorry Sam, you get the second hand reassurance that Ketch paid for it >.>

-

Nighty night, Dean and Mary :D I'm surprised they didn't just say African Dream Root but I suppose the BMoL have had time to develop these technologies and magical chemistry that makes the stuff work, and dream root does come with the problem that you can literally kill someone in one of the dreams, it's so real, and tidying up all the lore on how to do this sort of thing would make sense if they wanted to not have to deal with any odd plotholes from that. Using electrodes and stuff to link Dean and Mary connects them without the basic way dream root does it, polyjuice potion style, so theoretically neither of them should have control over the other, although Dean's entering Mary's head?

-

WHERE'S THE SOCK MONKEY? INACURRATE. FAKE.

Oh well, I suppose there's some sort of weird symbolism sticking Dean in that chair to wake up but without Dean's sock monkey it just doesn't feel real to me.

-

I suppose it could be any old day of the week not like dropping Dean directly into the scene in 1x01, since it's daylight beyond the windows, so perhaps Mary has been tidying and Dean's sock monkey is in his room where it belongs and it just happened to be on the floor in 1x01 because she hadn't tidied that day >.>

-

Dean whatever you do do not pick up the tiny Sammy. He's very cute but I have a bad feeling about randomly appearing babies.

Oh it's so weird to regress Mary back to the Mary she was stuck at the whole time of the show for 11 seasons. I mean MARY said she was stuck there in 12x03 as well but her surface actions have all been really different, obviously. And at this point... Dean looks stunned to see her and I don't think it's just because it's the "wow Mom" shock he would get all the previous times, but now, FINALLY looking at her as someone who she USED to be...

Oh no he's so small.

This is what he looked like when he wore the "I wuv hugs" shirt. He's seeing it from the other side now.

Dean could pick HIMSELF up.

Oh noooo he's eating PB&J I didn't sign up for this.

I was expecting him to do this but I was not expecting it to be Dark Side of the Moon over again instead of 1x01. I thought he was going to go do something similar to Sam in the vision Azazel showed him in 2x21, but I suppose the point is that they return to the most important moment to them, and for Dean it was eating PB&J with his mom. It's utterly tragic that Dean and Mary have the same Heaven memory but from different sides, because one of the worst  things about Heaven is the isolation - if you don't know to start pressing on the walls looking for roads or loose threads, you can stay in a dream for eternity, and Mary and Dean might be living the exact same moment over and over again, but without each other... I'm not saying they should be soulmates, I'm saying Heaven should be more like what Ash made of it without the sneaking around and needing an advanced understanding of quantum physics or an angel to tell you what to do to start hopping between Heavens.

Of course put too many people together and they start talking and questioning and it's easier to keep them content if they don't have the ability to think about their situation deeply and philosophically, but are drugged up in their Heaven dream with happiness and mindless contentment living over their best times again.

And now Dean's stuck on the outside looking in of the same moment just as Sam was 7 years ago (you know maybe last night I was wondering if we'd come back here because I was thinking Roy and Walt were a very obvious clue... This is what happens when  you take 14 hours off)

-

YEAH JODY. FUCK THE LAW. RUN A GUY OVER. SHOOT SOMEONE.

LOL Roy and Walt are driving Gadreel's car

-

Of course in the way the show endlessly loops around itself, what Dean is doing, especially the sitting opposite Mary while her brain is hacked thing, is 9x10 again. Toni is Crowley but this time Dean is going in himself.

-

"You're choosing this" *Dean is horrified* *has only just gone through this with Cas last year* He hates that anyone would choose not free will because, well, contradiction. But Mary has regressed back to how she would have been in Heaven - living in the dream and not really able to think about what's outside herself, and so the choice to stay is very easy: abstract pain and harsh reality, or just not thinking about it. In a way it's almost like trying to right what she feels was done wrong to her - all those gifsets comparing it to Buffy talking about how she didn't ask to be brought back and how she had been happy in Heaven. To Mary, THAT was the violation of her free will...

"I hate you"

Aaand Dean reaches the most dramatic part of HIS character arc relating to Mary.

Ironically one of the B99 episodes I caught up while laying around like a dead fish yesterday included one where Holt got annoyed Amy wouldn't stand up to him even after he lost her favourite pen, and eventually wound her up enough to make her yell at him and dare to disrespect her superior officer (... to an Amy degree anyway :P) and, yeah. Same deal; Dean's been completely INCAPABLE of expressing anything negative to/about Mary, and even the argument in 12x14 was more a sort of downwards bump in this relationship, because within the episode he decided to reconcile with her *just* because she was Mary, and of course the argument was not as stark and final sounding as "I hate you" - reconciling with her after was just putting that aside in order to keep her around, not any sort of conclusion to this fight.

-

lol getting some more use out of the sci fi corridors to randomly mimic the opening of A New Hope, though the BMoL are literally "the empire" and the American hunters are the "rebels"

-

oh I think Roy or Walt is already dead. Lol. Sucks to be them.

(they DID just think they were doing what was right in 5x16 but still. They've been a statisticaly anomoly to be someone who killed a Winchester and lived to tell the tale (I suppose the lady from Wishful Thinking as well but she was as much a victim of the spell as anything so it doesn't... count...?? I suppose the people from Mystery Spot who helped kill Dean all those 1000s of time as well :P))

Anyway being a redshirt on this mission gets them killed on the Winchesters' behalf so fair's fair

-

Oh boy here's the stuff from Dean's confrontation with Mary, and aside from squeezing her eyes not to listen it's completely one-sided as Jensen delivers the sort of Dean monologue which of all the monologues which should have got him an Emmy already, this is the best. This is terrible :D

He's using instead of "we love you" truths to get to her, the HoRRIBLE truth that she's been owed THIS ENTIRE TIME

Anyway he's blaming his whole tragic backstory on her instead of Azazel, because the story has become the story that even after 4x03 Dean's managed to keep Mary pretty much exactly on the pedestal he always kept her on rather than confront that she is the root cause of his angst, which involves her death... He's letting go of everything. Seeing her saying she wants the best for him and will keep him safe, but he knows she's saying this having ALREADY made the deal, and that her entire happy life with her kids was ALWAYS a sham because she ALWAYS knew something bad was coming, but while she was living like this she put herself entirely into that dream to ignore it.

"You left us, ALONE, because Dad was just a shell" holy crap the show is actually OVER, what's even left to SAY

I know when Mary came back, around this time last year we were screeching about the development he'd be offered by this, by finally getting to confront his family history again and get to be at peace with the way he was raised and all that... It's gutting to watch it in real time though

"I had to be a father, and I had to be a mother"

holy shit I wish I could send this scene back to season 10 me to see :D Like, right after 10x03. Because the character thread in Dean I've been following the entire time I've been in fandom has been waiting to see if this would ever get resolved well, after 10x03 where demon!Dean blurted out similar to Sam but from the worst possible place, at HIS lowest point. (This is not Dean's lowest point. Lowest point for his relationship with his mom, but higest peak he's ever stood on for his own personal strength. Holy crap I'm proud of my boy.)

(The phrasing here is all kind of reminiscent of 10x05's song about John and Mary and it's making me laugh inappropriately because the start of season 10 nailed all this so much)

And the thing is by setting this all here in the Dark Side of the Moon day it's a completely timeless moment - like sure there's some vague outside stuff going on like it's BECAUSE of the BMoL but Dean's ONLY talking about their history, their past, how his life was all the time since ever, and the historical facts of Mary's life. Any time since 5x16 they COULD have pulled the trigger on a scene like this, because all they needed was a run up to get Dean in the right mood to say it all. Of course this is the end result of a massive, at least 4 years project to tear Dean down and build him back up and have his character development go on an absolutely incredible journey... At this point I feel like the sports commentator yelling encouragement on the final lap before an absolutely record breaking victory.

"I couldn't do it - and you want to know what that was like?" YES PLEASE KEEP TALKING

Dean lists all the shit that's happened to Sam like the bitter Sam!girl he is and says "all because of you"

I think at this point I just want to look back at 1x09, where Mary as a ghost goes to Sam, before almost any of this happens except Jess dying and the horrible upbringing, and says "I'm sorry" because she KNEW what she'd done to him, and she died guilty about it. She said in 12x02,

MARY: And when we do find Sam... how am I gonna face him? DEAN: What do you mean? MARY: That yellow-eyed thing would never have come for him that night if I... I started all of this.

but with all the massive miscommunication themes she didn't go talk to Sam when she should have - when he came to her in the end of the episode and hugged her, she should have apologised there, and made a start on it. And if not then, then in 12x03, although I'm feeling like from the moment she cut her hair it was too late and she was already avoiding who she had once been, chopping off the style associated with herself as their mom and stepping into what would become this demon!Dean-like brainwashed Mary. I suppose it makes sense to say in 12x02 she raised the problem that she had to face sam somehow, and she DIDN'T and then we got 12x03, the mirror episode to this one on this side of the story (and it feels like Berens has made one of those clear lines through the season, with 12x14 being mirrored on the other side of this episode, in the way Robbie owned season 9 - so like I hand season 9 to Robbie, I'm giving Berens season 12 :P Good work on all this, sir.) In 12x03 Mary is faced with the haunted house full of mirrors to exactly what she's NOT seeing here - Sam as the burned, soulless doll in a crib, the object the demons passed around, and eventually was nothing but a hollow person, as Dean ends it on describing that Sam lost his soul. And for Dean, she sees the little boy, and she hasn't moved past that, but Dean had to tell her from the moment she died he wasn't that any more - he was the parent of the family. She's got her family regressed here again, because confronting it in 12x03 just made her run away. And this is as far as she's run, through the season, literally just running on the spot in this exact place.

Outside Mary is crying, but inside Mary is refusing to show anything. Maybe it's just because where her consciousness is - she won't cry on the face Dean can see. He's leaking tears in the dream but not on the outside. But yeah, she can pick one (1) set of tear ducts to angrily repress. Because at the end of the day, Mary has always been the one more like Dean.

Dean FINALLY gets through the "i hate yous" he's always needed to say to get back to "i love you"

*slowly sinks underneath the blankets* Yeah, saying "I love you" to Mary is the only way he's ever been able to get it out before - the speculation being that once he's worked through his COLLOSAL issues with his parents he might be able to say "I love you" more casually to others because he's at peace. I can SEE him settling into being at peace now, which I think is all that Amara INTENDED when bringing Mary back, but obviously the MASSIVE repercussions going on outside their little insular family bubble.

And Dean forgives her. And says on the other side of this, they can rebuild their family and make it work. AAAAAAH.

(AAAAAAAAH)

Finally he gets to the "but I need you to fight"

"Mom I need you to see me" Oh god this is so good and painful

Mary's crying on the inside too! But in this case it's good because that's the part of her that can see Dean

And we're back to mirroring the start of the season, the very opening scene, but this time Mary recognises Dean and gets to say his name first, instead of Dean crashing out of the trees at her, yelling "Mom", and getting his ass handed to him :P He had to tell her who she was, but this time he told her who HE was. And NOW she sees him, now he took down every single wall between them.

-

LOL Oops bye Toni nice knowin' ya except for all the times you were terrible.

If Dean had trusted her - and if they'd changed the freakin LOCKS again - she might not be dead.

Ketch does the thing again where instead of just killing his targets, he wants to talk to them, so he wakes Dean up instead of just slitting his and Mary's throats while they're unconscious.

-

I suppose now it's on Mary to wake up and save Dean

-

I was torn on who needed to kill the dark mirror of John more, but honestly, Dean's done, came out of the oven perfectly risen and smelling great, so he does not need to reject John. He sees John accurately and describes him in that speech in such a way... His memory doesn't have to haunt Dean, and he's forgiven Mary too.

(And we never mentioned the cupids. Pfft.)

-

christ, Dean's being given the Swan Song beatdown with his leg not working. For once he fights back because Ketch is absolutely not a loved one, but he's completely outmatched, and Ketch is enjoying punching him.

He says Mary said absolutely nothing about Dean - Dean knows from being in Mary's head how she DOES care about him, and that she was being brainwashed - he doesn't know for how long... Point is, these words can't hurt. He already made his peace with Mary too.

-

I think Dean just threw Ketch through the SW DW table, which is hilariously dark about their legacy >.> It's more about in the contacts they build outside themselves, and the WORK they do, than anything they write on a table - shots of Sam and Dean thinking about the world while sitting alone in the bunker or in/on the car are often very sad about how isolated and alone they are.

Thinking of which, we're rapidly running out of episode for me to be worried about Jody in.

-

Ahaha Ketch brought a gun to the fight. He says he's not stupid after Dean points out how stupid he was, but he's got his back turned to Mary, and Dean's now in exactly the same place SAM was in 10x03 after the demon!Dean chase, where Cas suddenly came out of nowhere and grabbed Dean.

Oh Dean flinched, he had been watching Ketch. Nice surprise. Mary's back :D

Dean hobbles over to stand at her side.

"I knew you were a killer. You both are." "you're right." Yeah, Dean n Mary are a pair aren't they :P Both been through this same arc now. Dean owns the description but I think he has a very different definition than Ketch, for all people tell him that he's a killer. He can kill things for his job and when it needs to be done, but that does NOT mean he's a psychopath like Ketch. And Mary has a heart too and chose the right side.

-

Jody pls don't stand with your back to the open door - this is literally how that random no name got killed in 12x14 and I really really don't like you not covering your back, especially when you're a cop, and even when you think you cleared this place.

-

Oh they all survived. Sam got the news about Lucifer, decided to pass on working with a maybe lesser evil to deal with a bigger one. Jody saves his bacon with the big kill shot.

-

Where does Dean even get prescription painkillers. I suppose he'd have got some when  he broke his leg but aside from that it's pretty much up to them to work out how much to medicate themselves by whatever illegal means off-the-grid people can fake prescriptions or health insurance. Also America's healthcare system is terrible because it seems like an entire adversity all by itself to their lives, while in a free healthcare country... yeah, not so much a big deal :P

-

Mary's got the season 7 Cas guilt now - everything that happened is her fault, she feels. I mean she certainly really helped the BMoL get a foothold and so on although they seemed pretty intent to come on over whether she had anything to do with it or not. But the broken family relationships, yeah, she ran away >.>

-

"What if he can't forgive me?" "Mom. You don't have to be scared of me" *Winchester family sandwich*

I think I'm starting to cry at this show way more often than I used to but oh my god I'm so happy for Sam right now. He misses the entiiiiiiiiire thing but the point he made back at the start of the season is he just wanted Mary THERE and her problem is she was TERRIFIED of him, and having the whole equivalent drama to what Dean just went through with her, but if she knew Sam, that's not him. He zenned out in season 5-7 and has already recovered from like, the whole thing, and piled on totally different trauma :P His arc was so important to resolve to the story they already completed the arc in Swan Song, and it wasn't about Mary but it WAS about peace with himself, and of course all done with external actions and plot drama while Dean had to deal with the internal stuff, literally going inside Mary's head to sort it. Anyway point is Mary doesn't need to be scared of him because there's nothing to be scared of. It's literally as simple as he wants his mom, should she happen to be here. Unlike Dean's entire character arc since season 1 still having been unresolved. And the heart of it was stuff that was obvious since season 1 or the first episode, but Sam got his resolution in season 5, while taking us back to that season 5 moment, showed how Dean did NOT get his resolution when he needed it, because it was never JUST about sam but his entire family.

I wonder how he'll be next season, no matter if Mary survives it or not.

-

Thinking of which, now Berens has finished writing season 12 for us, I suppose Dabb has a whole bucket of fuckery waiting to throw us into season 13.

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen Rambles about Symphogear

AKA Allen’s Ramblings XXVI. Yes I know I still need to do the Seinen ramblings, they’re coming I swear.

Ah, Symphogear, probably one the most memorable anime I’ve watched… and one of the few series I’ve kept up with throughout these last few years. I… don’t really know where to begin with this. To explain the plot of Symphogear is… like trying to explain the plot of Blazblue to a certain extent… okay, not really, but it’s still hard. In a nutshell, it’s a magical show featuring idols, singing, dancing, guns, kung fu, and over the top shounen action. As for the plot itself… at least for season 1, destructive creatures called Noise exist in the world, destroying and corrupting everything they touch. It’s up the idol duo Zwei Wing to fight them off with mysterious relics known as Symphogears, magical/ancient technology that grants its users the strength to fight back the Noise with the power of song. Literally. These girls need to sing while simultaneously fighting, and they don’t just play some pre-recorded tracks of these voice-actors singing, you can hear the grunts, growls, and forced breaths as they sing and beat up bad guys and I just find that detail cool. Anyway, that tangent aside, the plot takes off from there. Going into further detail would be spoilers, and I personally don’t like spoiling shows and games when I do these tagged Ramblings, so… moving on.

Now, I got into Symphogear right around the time season 3 was wrapping up. I think I was seeing some gifs of the main character, Hibiki, doing kung fu moves against some Noise and I was still on my martial arts girls high from finishing up Nanoha Vivid at the time, so I checked it out. Then… then I found out the show had 3 seasons. And with shows that have that much of a backlong I tend to worry about how long it’ll take for me to get to the stuff I wanna’ see, being all the cool martial arts stuff. I had the same experience when I saw a gif of that Rin vs Luvia from UBW, only to marathon all Fate-related anime material. What can I say, I like context for my fight scenes. So I marathon all the original Fate/Stay Night anime, Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA ILLYA, and Unlimited Blade Works just to learn that fight scene was in an epilogue episode… then again, that turned me into a fan of the Fate universe and made Prisma Illya one of my favorite magical girl shows yet, so… I took a chance on Symphogear, praying that I got to see kung fu, singing, magical girls in season 1 and not suffer through three seasons of magical girl tropes and monster-of-week style battles before I got there.

Thankfully, I didn’t. In fact, I was really invested into the plot after episode 1. The stakes were raised from the get go and I was hooked. Throughout the first season I actually found Tsubasa to be the more interesting character at the time between her and Hibiki. She was a battle-hardened warrior that had closed her heart to others, even to her love of singing, to become a weapon that could destroy all the Noise that faced her after she witnessed her partner’s death. She was surprisingly antagonistic at first, wanting more to ground Hibiki into the dirt more than even talk to her due to her involve in said partner’s death. Well, I there go my lack of spoilers. What really hooked me though was the fact that this wasn’t a monster-of-the-week kind of magical girl show like I was expecting. I’ve said this before, but I tend to lose interest in monster-of-the-week shows very quick unless I’m really attached to the characters do the fighting. Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of tropes with a lesson-of-the-day at the end of each episode. Symphogear didn’t do this, instead giving a clear antagonist, being Fine, and making the show about learning her plans and eventually stopping her. Now, I know a few other magical girl shows that do this, but most those shows tend to be a bit darker than typical magical girl shows, and Symphogear was more or less playing it straight with the magical girl stuff. It was something I appreciated.

I’d talk about Chris at this point, doing that would really spoil the first season, so I’ll just say I liked her as a villain and foil to the main duo of Hibiki and Tsubasa. The show had subverted a lot of what I had expected, and it only got crazier from there after season 1. To this day Hibiki is still my favorite character in the show, perhaps one of my favorite female characters of all time, right up there with Mikoto Misaka and Cecily Campbell. She reminds me a lot of Asuka from Senran Kagura in a wau. She’d rather not fight any battles, goes out of her way to try and resolve things peacefully, but she won’t hesitate to defend herself or fight against what she believes is wrong and evil if pushed to do so. And I have a soft spot in my heart for Kirika after season 3, but… again, spoilers, plus I’d need to rewatch the show to go into more detail and I’m already keeping up with season 4.

Speaking of, I’m hyped to be watching season 4, it’s been real good so far, and I seeing some possible development for Chris and Team Neopolitan (thank you for giving us that name AXZ). I’ve got high hopes, but… I’m curious where things go from here.

…

…

…

Y’know, I’d usually end this little essay here, but… whenever I make an “Allen Rambles about X” ramblings and tag it I tend to break down things into what I specifically like and dislike, and it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t that, so… this’ll my first time do that for anime, but let’s talk about…

The Good

The Music

When I was talking about my musical taste in my Persona 5 rambling I said anything with brass and jazz would get me to [RETRACTED] all over the soundtrack. However, a good rock song has the same effect, and all of Chris’s songs just get me pumped up. I really like how every Symphogear has they’re own kind of theme and genre. Hibiki’s has a celtic/rock/pop sort of vibe, Tsubasa’s is traditional Japanese instruments with some rock elements, Chris’s has some borderline Daisuke Ishiwatari hard rock in them (just listen to Bye-Bye Lullaby for an example), and the other Symphogears are spoilers, but Shirabe is my favorite out of the newer ones, so I’ll just leave it at that.

The Action

Seriously, this anime just does all the crazy shounen action I love so well, especially all the kung fu stuff Hibiki does in later seasons. Again, Tsubasa is probably my favorite character in season 1 not only for her interest personality and story arc, but her fighting style was so cool in season 1. A samurai that can summon swords, do demon fangs, manipulate her sword’s size, it was all so cool. And that fact that she was probably the only trained fighter up until Hibiki got training in just made watching her fight a spectacle.

The Writing

I’m not really going to go in depth about the write of a show I watch for its action, but I like how Hibiki has stayed firm on her attempts at trying to settle things peacefully before nailing people with tetsuzankos and other moves she ripped from Akira Yuki.

The Not So Good

I usually do the flaws in more of a list since I don’t like being in depth about them unless they’re really big flaws so…

Season 3 was... a little lacking, and I didn’t really care for Hibiki’s character arc when [RETRACTED DUE TO SPOILERS].

Really... season 3 is the only season I had issues with. Nothing big, but just some small holes I could poke at since season 2 was just going to be real hard to top.

Uh... I guess season 1 pails in comparison to the production values of the later seasons, but... eh, that’s like saying Sonic 1 is worse than Sonic 3, kind of an obvious thing, and even Sonic 1 wasn’t that bad to begin with.

So yeah, Symphogear is just a good action show that subverted my expectations and continues to grip me. Again, got some high hopes for Season 4 as it continues, and I hope you all get a chance to enjoy too.

[nora-reads-homestuck]

Nora Reads HS Part 68

Pages 6154-6184

Hey guys! Some quick background on why I’ve been a little scarce: I’ve mentioned a personal project that’s been eating into my free time, and that is... dun dun dun, a custom 5e D&D campaign I’m running IRL! The campaign is just starting, so I’m in the phase where I’m planning out a lot of details and building locations, etc. What that means is that sometimes I’ll need to take little breaks from liveblogging to work on the game, and other times, I’ll put D&D to the side to focus on liveblogging! I haven’t disappeared or anything like that, and once the campaign really gets going, my need to take short breaks should ease off. No need to worry! I am here and ready to find out what’s up with this robot bunny that young Bro has built Jane. *Seinfeld music* Does the auto responder have a connection to it the way he has a connection to the brobot? Does it fight with Jane? Is it... touchy feely?

Let’s... find out. Eurgh.

*click*

Poor poppop's severed head got nicked by the FIREPLACE POKER.

OH SHIT. I’m so accustomed to seeing damaged eyes that it didn’t really register the first time I looked at this panel. Is this Hussie teasing us with the idea of a Poppopsprite? Because I would be PERFECTLY OK with that eventuality. Circumstantial simultaneity.

Also, damn, check out all those Astaires.

Jane: Put head back.

You stick the poker down his neck hole and jam the head back on the spike as a temporary measure. That looks somewhat more respectable you guess.

THE PERFECT CRIME.

Looks like the troublemaker's father is calling.

That choice of language is weird and it’s skeeving me out. I DUN LIKE IT. On the other hand, yay, more kidchat! Or... robokid chat?

KID SIGHTING. And... well, he looks exactly as expected. He appears to be standing on the roof of his building, surrounded by... fucking... are those doves?

TT: Why have you activated dear, sweet Huggy Bear. TT: Are you in danger?

...I... it’s gotta be Snoop Dogg Huggy Bear, right?

TT: I disabled the AR for now. GG: Ok. Just making sure! GG: Jake was having some issues with it earlier, and I don't think he received its obfuscating tendencies in the humorous spirit intended. TT: Yes, I'm catching up with the situation now. GG: Oh, so you're talking to Jake then? TT: Nah. Just reading their chat logs.

Why does this seem weird and intrusive if the ‘AR’ is basically fucking him? (Haa haa.)

TT: Its demeanor leaves something desired though. I'd prefer it didn't make such aggressive and repeated claims of fidelity to my persona. TT: Be misrepresentin' hells of key subtleties, yo.

‘Subtleties’. Sure.

TT: Jake needs to be more skeptical. Rather than take a Pollyanna jackknife ass-first off whatever turnip truck is blowing through town that day, he's got to apply more critical reasoning to shit. TT: I keep telling him. TT: I keep telling him, dude, you got to be more like Jane. GG: These lectures I presume are roughly similar in complexion to those I'm familiar with? GG: Those wherein I have, and I quote, "got to be more like Jake?" TT: Yes, exactly. TT: You're finally fucking getting it. GG: I sincerely doubt that I am! TT: Said the stubborn skeptic, skeptically. GG: Let's not talk about my "issues" again, shalln't we?

Alright then. Young Bro is apparently trope savvy, so let’s see what tropes we can apply to him, so far. A: a fair few.

TT: Shalln't? TT: That ain't a thing to say, even for you. GG: Shush! GG: The word shalln't escape my vocabulary any longer, just as you SHALLN'T nitpick my language! That's my turf you're on, buster. TT: Alright. Kinda don't care.

WOW, what a jackass.

GG: What were you saying? TT: About what? Jake?

Careful, Strider, your crush is showing.

GG: About leaving the responder on! TT: Yeah. TT: Anyway, I kind of owe it to him to let the program run as often as possible. GG: Jake? TT: No. TT: The responder.

AHAHAHAHA. Yeah, this is going to get mined for drama later, isn’t it? Normally I’d be fucking allergic to the idea of a teen love n-gon, having experienced enough of them in YA fiction to make me sick, but then, this is Hussie. It’ll be amusing if nothing else.

(IF LITTLELONDE IS THE ONE TO END UP WITH JAKE I WILL SHIT. I might actually ship it??)

TT: It is a fully cognitive, self-aware entity I am responsible for, not even to mention an approximate cerebral duplicate of myself. TT: You don't just make a clone of yourself to live in a dead end existence where it has no chance to thrive as an individual or surpass its limitations. TT: That'd be sick.

That’s a charitable view to have toward an AI, and I’m going to remember this moment in case he reneges on his words later.

TT: Also. TT: The more the software runs, the broader and more detailed its experiential canopy becomes. Makes for a better dialogic partner. GG: Dialogic? GG: Are you saying you have conversations with your own auto-responder? TT: Of course. TT: Why do you think I made the thing? GG: Hrm, that's interesting. GG: I guess I always thought it was just a really elaborate gag! TT: It's that too.

Let me guess; the gag lies in the enormity of the narcissism involved in valuing yourself as the best possible dialogic partner, and is somehow tied up in ‘the ironies’.

God, what an insufferable prick. I think I would like him better if he were charming. Rose, for example, can get away with quite a lot by virtue of her rapier wit. What’s interesting to me, though, is that the most intelligent character in any work of fiction can only be as intelligent as the author. Rose and Doc Scratch were conduits for Hussie to show off his sense of humor and sesquipedalian loquaciousness, but Bro might be his chance to show off his raw intellect.

OH MY GOD JANE, YOU LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT. <3 And what the hell is the rabbit doing?

GG: Sometimes your sense of humor seems more impenetrably advanced than your robotics. I'll never understand this tapestry of irony you weave.

Replace ‘honor’ with ‘irony’.

GG: Maybe I'm just stuck in the dark ages of pranksterism with my funny mustaches corny old joke book. TT: Yes, you are. But that's fine. TT: We come from different traditions. Someone needs to keep that racist southern asshole's legacy alive.

WOW SUCK MY DICK. How can you even be mean to Jane.

TT: There's dignity in taking up the work of our familial predecessors, even if what they did was insanely fucking stupid.

So... adult!Dave is still all about irony post-Scratch, and Bro claims to have gotten his shtick from him, instead of the other way around, but... he thinks Dave’s work was stupid?? This is infuriatingly circular.

GG: Is that a note of bitterness directed at your superstar brother I am detecting?

I AM SO HERE FOR FAMOUS DAVE, YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW.

TT: No way. He's awesome. TT: I've told you, I don't begrudge any of his success. TT: I've also told you he isn't my real bro even though I call him that. We're related through an esoteric process of genetic reamalgamation. GG: Oh lordy. Yes, yes, I know. I don't need another ironic lesson in science fiction!

Wow, yet another Sburb process the post-Scratch kids are inexplicably aware of. Does Bro know the actual nature of their relationship? Because that’s got to be weird and squicky in a Freaky Friday parent-kidswap kind of way. Maybe... Did Dave tell him all this stuff about the game, and Rose told LittleLonde, and that’s why Jane is still in the dark? Because Dad wasn’t a player???

IT ALL MAKES SENSE! :D

If Dave and Rose remember the game and their other lives, that would explain the continued existence of SBaHJ without adult!Bro’s awful comics to inspire him! And maybe they were the ones to encourage this troll friendship the Scratch kids have got going on! It would seem to run counter to the previous example we have in the troll ancestors, who didn’t recall game details after their Scratch, but it’s not exactly a game-breaking retcon to have the humans remember.

I still wonder why Jade would make all that Lord English-themed stuff, if she knew he was an evil motherfucker, but ah well. At least we know why she was so adamant about engaging “”Betty Crocker”” in corporate warfare!

TT: The point is, obviously his satirical methods have flaws, and whatever tempered brand of hero worship I might be practicing isn't keeping me from seeing that.

WHATEVER, HE LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU.

...LITERALLY.

GG: Flaws?? Talk about understatement. Those movies are unwatchable. GG: Unless your name is Jake English.

AHAHAHA.

TT: Yes, spectacularly so. But they will have profound historical significance. Mark my words.

Consider them marked. And knowing Hussie, it’ll be played for drama just as much as laughs.

TT: And flaws aside, it's a legacy I'm proud to inherit. My duty isn't to appropriate his methods with absolute loyalty, but to apply reason and improve upon them. To leave my own mark. TT: To perfect the art of irony.

UGH. Improve upon his methods by “”applying reason”’, as if, had Dave only been just a little bit smarter, just a bit more logical, he’d have told better jokes?? Bro’s one of those “let me play devil’s advocate, if I may” douchebags, isn’t he. He should’ve had a fedora on his shirt.

...OH MY GOD HE HAS THE KATANA TOO, IT’S PERFECT.

TT: It's just like what you're doing with the work of your ancestor. You are striving to perfect his hokey vaudeville bullshit, or something. TT: You seek the Zen of a pie to the face. The Tao of falling the fuck down.

Alright, that one’s actually funny.

TT: Can't fool me. You take your shit as serious as I do. TT: And if I wasn't serious about it, I wouldn't have made you that rabbit. Then where the hell would you be?

Still literally homestuck, if with an intact grandfather-son. But you don’t gotta be a fuckin’ prick about it.

Whoa, they’re not doves, they’re seagulls! Not unheard of, that close to Galveston. Also, the sky is lovely and blue. I would expect the post-Scratch Earth to be more of a crapsack world, a la post-Scratch Alternia, so this is interesting. Maybe it’s just because it’s Fall?

GG: Well, aside from thousands of dollars in corpse-repair richer, I can't say.

Ahahaha. Fuckin’ tell ‘im, Jane.

TT: Has he been sleeping in the old man hollow again? Shit, that's adorable. GG: I can think of cuter places for him to sleep, frankly! TT: Yeah, bullshit. TT: He's just being instinctive. In the wild, he would gut a carcass and sleep inside for warmth, as well as to secure tactical advantage for ambushing would-be scavengers. GG: Oh, please.

UGHH I AM QUICKLY APPROACHING MY LIMIT FOR DOUCHERY.

On a side node, what is the internal temperature of a tauntaun?

(What do you mean, an African or a European tauntaun?)

GG: Anyway, property damage and desecration to cherished elders aside, Mr. Bear has been a lovely addition to the family. TT: You haven't renamed him yet? GG: Oh... no. GG: I keep forgetting I'm supposed to! TT: You've got to fucking rename him. Or change him to a girl if you want. That was important. TT: When pets change owners they get new names. Fact. GG: Sorry.

Ok not only is that patently untrue, but I swear to god if this asshat keeps being rude to Jane, I will TURN THIS FUCKING COMIC AROUND.

GG: I will name him right now! GG: How about Lil' Sebastian? TT: Fuck if that isn't the best name a thing could get. GG: Yeah!!!

HALF MAST IS TOO HIGH.

GG: So then, are you saying Mr. Sebastian here was an ironic present? GG: Relayed strictly for guffaws?? >:B TT: Yes, but it's not that simple. There were many layers involved. TT: Some of them are literal layers, of metal and plush. GG: Huh? TT: There's a real stuffed rabbit beneath its exoskeleton. GG: What! Really? :O TT: Yeah. TT: It belonged to my bro. GG: I thought you said you didn't have such an heirloom to complete the plushie trifecta? TT: I didn't. He didn't give it to me, and never intended to bequeath it. TT: I stole it.

Huh. So, like Dave’s gift to John in the pre-Scratch universe is the “original” bunny, having at that point taken no trips through time, so the bunny inside Lil’ Sebastian is the post-Scratch universe’s original. Why did adult!Dave have it in his possession? He didn’t give it... to... 

Oh. Con Air came out in 1997, and John died in 1995. So he bought it and kept it as a keepsake, in memory of his departed friend, only to have Bro steal it. For a good cause, yeah, but still. :’(

GG: Ooh. Risky! TT: Nah. I got a little help from RL and ganked it out of his museum. TT: It's this whole "priceless" collection of stupid shit from movies, defended like Fort Knox. Ironically of course.

PROBABLY NOT IRONICALLY, YOU JACKANAPES.

GG: So it's from a movie? TT: Ever hear of Con Air? GG: Nope. GG: Wait... GG: Wasn't that some bit of action schlock from the 90's? TT: Yes. GG: Some of the silly nonsense referenced in his work was well before my time. I don't have the wherewithal to investigate all this minutia. TT: Yeah, it doesn't matter really. But it was from that. Dude weirdly obsessed over that shit movie for years, among others.

Awww, noooo, he's sad about John!! D:

GG: That does sound a tad obsessive. Wasn't he furious about your burglary? TT: Pretty sure he didn't even notice. In years since, I never saw a news story about a "daring heist" or anything. I feel like he would have made some hay outta that. TT: And if he did know, he'd probably just want to give me a stoic fist bump or something. 

Maybe, but probably not for the reason you think.

TT: Like I said, there are layers. TT: On one level, I gave you a filthy tattered piece of shit, albeit of tremendous cultural significance, manhandled by some old B movie actors, now candy coated to function as a highly practical defender droid for your personal protection. TT: On another level, I needed to incorporate something passable as a real heirloom. TT: For sentimental reasons. GG: D'awwwww. GG: Wait, real sentiment, or ironic sentiment? GG: Or is there no difference?? Am I missing the point here? TT: No, it was genuine.

So he’s not completely without a heart, even if it is, to quote him directly, a filthy tattered piece of shit.

TT: The upper echelons of irony should always include measures of sincerity. And if the satirical practice is executed faithfully it will achieve something bona fide in its own right regardless. TT: Through an intense commitment bordering on religious devotion to the absolutely inane, absurd, or plain fucking stupid, a very different kind of sincerity begins to materialize. One of reverence to the ridiculous. You begin to "mean it," but what exactly it is you mean is never quite what appears on the surface, and is utterly inaccessible to obtuse and literal minds. That you "mean it" then becomes inseparable from the joke, and additional rich strata of humor may be stripped aggressively from this irreconcilable truth.

I’m torn. On the one hand, I want to reach through my monitor and punch this kid in the face. On the other, even I can recognize that this is basically Andrew Hussie sock-puppeting his own ironic ideals. It’s just somehow more insufferable when Bro says it.

GG: I have so much to learn. And I am not even saying that "ironically!" GG: Will you teach me your ways one day, sir? Perhaps an apprenticeship will open? TT: Oh god, I'd love that. TT: Consider the position yours for the taking any time. Feel free to approach and kneel before Cal. With my sword and his floppy mitten, you will receive my flashstep anointment shoulder to shoulder, and to shoulder again.

UUUGHHHH. His head’s stuck up his own ass, but at the very least, he does seem to be sincere about enjoying teaching people things.

JESUS RABBIT, WHAT ARE YOU DOING. If it’s really got a mind of its own, then it’s like a hyper-competent dog with a sword. If you don’t walk it or play with it enough, it starts destroying things. LIKE SOMEONE I KNOW. *stares down the dog*

GG: Lil' Seb is beginning to act out, and I must put his fidgetiness to constructive use!

‘Fidgitiness’, that’s putting it politely.

TT: Cool. TT: Jane, one more thing. TT: I'm sure you must be aware by now that you'll be the leader of our group, as you will be the first to enter the session. GG: Um, no? GG: This is news to me. I never gathered that "team leader" was a thing for this game. TT: Trust me. It's a thing.

Hmm. Frankly, it’s a little surprising to me that Bro would both know about the leader position, and willingly give it up. He seems like the kind of person who would want to be calling the shots, if for no other reason that he’s SOOO SMAAAART.

GG: Are you sure? I have my doubts. GG: I believe as a group we will have the temerity to succeed, without my having to order people around like an insufferable bossypants. TT: That's why you're our leader, Jane. GG: Hm? TT: Optimism through stalwart skepticism is an affect not everyone is plucky enough to be graced with. GG: That's stupid! TT: Yeah yeah. I know. TT: You're not our leader, you're our FRIEND, right? GG: Precisely! GG: There is a BIG difference! TT: And statements like that are also why you're our leader.

Whoa, whoa. So like... Bro and LittleLonde have certainly been privy to a lot of things they have no business knowing, which I’m still assuming was imparted to them by their troll friend or by Dave and Rose. But either that’s just an extremely coincidental call back to that exact conversation between Rose and John, or... Or I don’t know. It’s probably just him knowing her really well, and her being a lot like John and Bro being a lot like Rose. B...Brose?

TT: But only in name and in spirit. Less so, functionally. TT: If it puts your mind at ease, I'll be the one pulling the strings here.

Oh. Oh, wow. Never mind. You know what? I hope it all backfires spectacularly, so that the pre-Scratch kids can swoop in and save the day, while Bro looks on in stupefied wonder.

They wait, bitches.

GG: Oh yes? GG: Then this whole affair will be one of D. Strider's grand productions in puppetry?

Alright, so his name starts with D. Not all that many 4-letter male D names. Dean, Doug, Drew (ahaha), Dale, Dane, Dirk, Dion, Dann, Dill... Dick...

Also, ‘grand productions in puppetry’ makes me want to punch (and judy) something.

TT: I will be the unseen hand whose nimble digits are behind every subtle twitch in our session's bulbous foam ass. TT: At least those gyrations not happening by the volition of its own quivering absorbant proboscis. TT: If you ever need help, Jane. If you're ever in any trouble at all, let me know. Just say the word. TT: I'll whip the toggle stick of this ludicrous marionette, cavorting its humongous bottom to intercept your freefall through the abyss.

Well, that’s... sweet? I guess he’s saying he’s got good intentions, but still, I can see this (and am sort of rooting for it) to backfire horribly.

TT: Snowcone you up in the fluffy crook of its cleft. Don't be alarmed if you're in no hurry to unpry yourself. TT: For the great jut of this impudent rump has more yield to your touch than you ever dreamt. Remember to catch your breath as it cherishes the imprint of your hand like a memento from a lover gone to war. TT: There's a lot of give to that ass, you may say. TT: Might like to settle in. Make myself comfortable. Start a family. TT: Bounce a coin off that ass, you'll demand of visitors. It's not going anywhere. TT: Bet that coin'll take a good nap there. TT: It's a gamble you win every goddamn time. TT: Yeah.

I hate to use the same gif twice in one post, but...

GG: These lessons we talked about... GG: They've already begun, haven't they? :o TT: Jane, soon you'll believe what I've told you. TT: You'll believe it all. TT: It's just a shame that believing will take something so coarse as seeing, for a girl as sharp as you.

How biblical. What all exactly is he talking about? Game stuff? Betty Crocker stuff?

TT: Critical thought can lead one to accept the unlikely, just as much as dismiss the impossible. TT: I can help with this too. Would you like me to program a Jane Crocker responder for you? TT: I only require a simple captcha of your brain.

Alright, Doctor Fuckin’ Jekyll; let me just get right on that.

Wait, doesn’t DAVE have a captcha of his own brain? ...Oh no. Also, that means the auto responder isn’t n% indistinguishable from Bro just because it was programmed to be; it’s literally a copy of his brain. That’s kind of disturbing.

GG: Holy moly! GG: Um, thank you, but no. GG: I'm not ready to get dialogic with my cyberself just yet. My friends keep me busy enough as it is.

YES, JANE, THIS IS A GOOD ATTITUDE TO HAVE. KEEP IT UP.

GG: Speaking of which, I really need to go. I know you love to talk my ear off, and it's always a treat,

Pahahahaha.

but let's catch up later after the game starts, ok? GG: And if I do need your help, I promise I'll take you up on your offer! TT: I made several. Which one? GG: The one where you, hopefully not literally, offered to catch me in the crevice of a great big squishy butt! Hoo hoo hoo!

I fucking love this kid. She’s a little more assertive than John so far, though she’s also less mean-spirited. What will it be like when they meet? Can’t wait to find out! :D

Jane: Command Sebastian to lift fridge.

You order dear, sweet Lil' Sebastian to put his fidgetiness to constructive use. He is eager to assist, and lifts the appliance with ease.

Y’know, I was about to say something like, ‘how the hell is that tiny little robot supposed to lift the’ but then he did it. Welp. that certainly makes for a convenient escape route! After all this trouble Dad went through to keep Jane inside, she’s not going to get, like... sniped or something, is she?

He finds a note taped underneath the fridge. It seems to be addressed to you.

UGH I want to hate this bunny because Bro made it, but it is SO CUTE.

Fat chance, dad. This bird's gotta fly!!!

Jane, come ON, you’re courting danger now.

Never would have seen that one coming. (Jane, I’m about to throw a fridge through your wall.)

I like to imagine that the water pressure from the hose was at blasting power just before this panel, and drooped along with Dad’s confusion.

Jane: Throw down your hat in disgust.

Here it comes...

Wait for it...

You've been climbing your echeladder very gradually for various minor accomplishments here and there since you were 13. That was such a sweet textbook HAT POF, it earned you just enough to clear the next rung, FEDORAFLEDGLING. Nice going!

Huh, now this is a more interesting panel than you might think. First off, the mostly irrelevant details: Jane’s hat has what looks like a flag or a tag on it, instead of a feather, and her boondollar total is inching closer to 111,111,111 (damn, she’s rich). Now for the real meaty stuff.

The lowest level we can see on the echeladder, which, since the scrollbar is at the bottom, we can pretty safely assume to be the actual lowest level, is ‘Baby Ectobotananna’. This one took me a second to figure out, but then I realize it’s a combination of John’s ‘ectoBiologist’ and Jade’s ‘gardenGnostic’ via ‘botany’, and then ‘Nanna’.

Batterlass represents the obvious; she’s the heir to BCCorp, next in line after the Batterwitch.

‘Overbite Restart’, ha ha. John had ‘Overbite Upstart’.

‘Snorkbait Sporkplu’g, I have no idea, other than that it’s a call back to John’s ‘Sharkbait Sparkplug’.

‘Bespectacled Skeptic’ reflects what Bro was telling her, that she’s gotta believe more.

‘Haberdasher’s Daughter’, because Dad and hats.

‘Britches Healer’ connects back to the earlier rung ‘Britches Ripper’, and is either a reference to her being the Maid of Life, or else she just sews things a lot?

‘Sodajerk’s Confidante’ took a little digging, but it seems to be a Problem Sleuth reference.

‘Maid in the Shade’... this one’s interesting. It’s already lit up like she’s achieved the rung, and I wonder what prompted it. My first thought just looking at the name of it would be that she’d have to visit the Land of Wind and Shade, but obviously that has not happened. ...Unless she mysteriously achieved the rung shortly after her 13th birthday, when Nannasprite “”concurrently”” appeared in LOWAS.

‘Mourning Starlet’ is also a mystery. I get the pun, but who or what was she mourning? Her freedom? Poppop was long since dead, and her Dad is still alive.

The next rung up from the current ‘FedoraFledgling’ is ‘Heiress Sans Parent’ (a reference to John’s ‘Heir Transparent’), and if that isn’t leading, then... then... THEN I’LL THROW DOWN MY HAT! *levels up* Sadly, it looks like this Dad’s going to bite it too. T_T

And that’s all I’ve got for now!

The well traveled HAT shares in your glorious spoils. The battle-hardened accessory reaches dizzying new heights, leapfrogging from the DOUCHEBAG'S DOMESUCKER rung, to the rare, highly coveted MARTYR'S PISSCRADLE rung.

This is because FedoraFreak tried to use his hat to strain his piss, isn’t it. Did we ever find out what happened to ol’ FF? Did he go god tier?

How can these things be so fast on land???

JESUS.

...Now, wait a second. Gamzee never spent much time with his lusus because it was always out at sea, and I assumed that was because it couldn’t come on land. But if it could, and it just didn’t want to...

Oh no, it's a hostile swarm of those little fairy bulls! They are probably pissed off about the one you killed earlier. They have come for revenge!

Maybe the tinkerbulls and the goatdad will fight each other, allowing Jake to escape! Or... maybe the goatdad will follow in Gamzee’s footsteps and get all weirdly attracted to the tinkerbulls, and the tinkerbulls will get all shy and moe. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

OH MY GOD THE HUMANITY. HOW THEY EXACT THEIR POUND OF FLESH. OH GOD NO OH GOD OH GOD OH GOOOAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH.

AHAHAHA, I love it.

> [S] ==>

Oh? Oho? What is this? *click*

...

This might just be the singular most beautiful moment in all of Homestuck. This is it. This is everything I’ve been waiting for. Everything I have ever wanted.

Nearby, someone or something bleats like a goat for strategic purposes. And also

Ironic purposes.

I can die happy now. Seriously, what was that, like, 3000 pages later?

Jane: Run.

The jig is so totally up. Nothing left to do but scurry your little legs to that box, snatch the mail and scram!

Ooh, are we going to get a strife? :D

God dammit, I love Dad so much. That his reaction to WORLD SHATTERING SHIT is just a mild ‘?’ and moving on just makes my fucking day.

Gasp!! He seems to be concerned about Jane being outside most of all! She’s totally gonna get sniped, isn’t she.

> [S] Jane: Get mail.

Wow, or that. I’m assuming Hussie’s pulling the whole ‘OH LOOK JOHN’S HOUSE EXPLODED, SURELY HE COULDN’T HAVE SURVIVED THAT’ thing again, but still, yikes. Poor Dad. :(

Also, if that ‘HOMESTUCK’ logo in the sky is an actual physical object like the words floating around Prospit and Derse are, can people see it? Does it spook the U.S. government? Have people been on manned missions to the Homestuck instead of the moon?

END OF ACT 6 ACT 1.

And that’s the end of this Act Act! (I think. I’m not gonna click that arrow just yet.) I know it makes for a short post, but I said I’d divide things up this way so that I didn’t get overwhelmed making an EOA reaction post for what is essentially half the comic, so there you have it! If you’d like, you can send me fanworks up through A6A1, though I warn you I’m still not done looking at all the stuff that got sent to me for A5A2.

Next up, Reactions, and then Act 6 Intermission 1! Or... maybe the other way around, if the Intermission deserves being included with A6A1′s impressions? We’ll see.

Until next time! ^0^

[hoynovoy]

My 'Pretty Little Liars' Obsession Led Me To My Best Friend

“Got a secret, can you keep it?” Well, I’ve got one: Though Pretty Little Liars ended in 2017, the seven-season mystery thriller schemed its way into being an integral part of my life for the long haul, so much so that the opening credits live in my head rent-free. To this day, each time I hear the sinister theme song — “Secret” by The Pierces — I’m brought right back to my childhood comfort show (ahem, obsession). The visuals begin with a swipe of mascara, the smear of red lipstick, and a clasp of a heel onto a porcelain doll, which makes me feel like I’m watching someone get pampered for prom. Until, of course, it cuts to four girls standing in front of a casket. It's a chilling moment, one that, until Season 6B, ended with Aria Montgomery (Lucy Hale) delivering her iconic “shh.” I got cast under the show’s spell the first time I saw it, and I wasn’t the only one: Pretty Little Liars led me to my best friend.

Ironically, plotlines about deceit and betrayal actually helped ignite a long-lasting friendship. In 2011, the only other person I knew to be watching PLL was my now-BFF, Taylor, who’s been by my side for over a decade. We were only about 11 and 12 when it premiered, so shout out to our parents for letting us watch a show that dealt with very adult themes like substance use disorder, assault, and grief. Unlike our classmates, who watched tween-appropriate hits like iCarly and Victorious, we became PLL stans.

As fans know, the show is loosely based on the Sara Shepard YA series of the same name, and the first book was my entry point into the PLL universe. I loved reading about blackmailers and murderers navigating high school, but I thought I was the only one who was into it. (Was this my ~I’m different~ complex showing, or were my peers just naturally more inclined to recap Dance Moms? I’ll never know.) So, Taylor first struck up a conversation with me at school because she spotted the first PLL book on my desk — you know, the one painted with porcelain wax dolls warning to “never trust a pretty girl with an ugly secret” in a Gothic script. She asked if I’d watched the TV adaptation yet and we immediately exchanged phone numbers to text about upcoming episodes. We then fell into the fandom. Fast.

I’d never talked to Taylor before this interaction — we had only been in a few classes together — but I always saw her as approachable and friendly. Universally, the beginning of middle school is a big and terrifying year when kids from different elementary schools unite. Eager to meet new people, I reached for friendship at any chance I could get. Taylor made it easy. Aside from being a genuinely kind person (a rare trait for a middle schooler!), she was fangirling over the same thing as me.

Fast forward over a decade later, and the show still feels timeless, especially in its accurate depictions of how dramatic high school can get. It’s no surprise there’s a PLL HBO Max reboot on the way along with the remakes of other buzzy shows from that era (hello, 2010s nostalgia). Ah. It was a simpler time. Back then, Freeform was still ABC Family and for me, Tuesdays meant one thing: PLL is on. What first started as a solo viewing experience soon became a designated hangout time, a time slot reserved for me and Taylor to gush over how much we loved Ashley Benson. (We still do!)

The series had a vibe similar to Gossip Girl or Bridgerton in that a mysterious, unidentifiable pot-stirrer keeps fans guessing each episode, but it was arguably so much better since “A,” the anonymous villain, is out for, you know, murder. Ultimately, it was the type of whodunit that made me and Taylor (and millions of viewers) go down a couple of Reddit rabbit holes — remember the “Aria is A” suspicion? — and this is where my and Taylor’s experience with fan theories began.

Oh, and let’s not forget the location. PLL takes place in the fictional suburb of Rosewood, Pennsylvania, and for two girls from Bucks Country — aka the Philadelphia ‘burbs — we ate it up. The beloved “Welcome to the Dollhouse” episode was exceptionally creepy not only because the Liars get locked into a life-size replica of their bedrooms, but also because our real neighborhood looks extremely similar to their hometown. It operates like Rosewood, too, in that small-town gossip travels at lightning speed.

The Pennsylvania-based plotline also made it easier for us to identify with the characters, who felt like extensions of ourselves. In many ways, we got to know each other through their personalities. Taylor is studious and high-achieving, obviously a Spencer. And I owned feather earrings because I saw Lucy Hale sport them in Season 1, so obviously an Aria. Asking “Are you more of a Hanna or an Emily?” held as much weight in 2012 as asking someone their rising sign in 2021. While it might not say much, it also tells you everything you need to know about a person.

PLL got its start right before live-tweeting shows became popularized, so when we weren’t together, I used to text Taylor on my slide-out keyboard phone (only Zillennials will remember) to compare notes without stumbling upon many spoilers. They read something like this: “Caleb and Hanna are soul mates, TBH.” Like every other fan, we theorized about why A had to be Ian… and Melissa… and Jenna… and Mona… and, you get the point. When our elaborate speculations ran cold, we’d pause DVR’d episodes to gather more clues, like glimpses of Red Coat’s face in her second season introduction, or inspections of those eerie-gloved hands assembling dolls and sharpening knives at the end of each episode.

This game of Clue made room for conversations about all the things. We were in high school during the show’s peak, so it felt like the Liars had laid the groundwork for how to operate our school’s halls. Rosewood High was not traditional — uh, multiple students came back from the dead (*cough* Mona and Alison) — but it did prepare us for the stressors of college applications and first romantic relationships. In fact, Benson’s Hanna Marin would be proud of my matchmaking skills because back then, I introduced Taylor to the boyfriend she’s still with today.

As we both grew up with the show, our friendship got even deeper. The Liars weren’t the only ones to share secrets, and I found it incredibly easy to confide in Taylor. She’s trustworthy, level-headed, compassionate, and an excellent listener. She’s someone I know will always pick up on the second ring and is the type of friend to be there with advice, reassurance, and a quick-witted one-liner. She once joked about never needing a diary because we’ve transcribed the past 10 years of our lives via text.

Our bond has remained strong, especially because the most outrageous PLL-esque plotlines of our lives are ones we’ve experienced together. I love Taylor because I don’t have to provide background for my stories. I’m even so familiar with the cast of characters in her life that when someone re-enters after a long period, I like to say they Alison DiLaurentis’ed her.

And on the off-chance she’s not there to witness something meaningful happen to me IRL, she’s always ready to decipher what went down over texts or dinner and drinks — just like we did when we were teens trying to figure out who A was (minus the wine, of course).

The way she can reconstruct my way of thinking and offer up a perspective I hadn’t seen before is almost paranormal. Whether these are Taylor’s naturally given talents or traits learned from peeling back all the layers of the series, I’m not sure. But she’s always there to decode situations with me — whether they relate to a TV show or during moments when I feel lost.

I couldn’t be more thankful that Taylor entered my life and that PLL played a role in our friendship. I feel so incredibly lucky to know someone like her. Plus, now I have someone who is obligated to watch the reboot with me. Ali was right: Friends do share secrets. And she’s ~quite literally~ the reason Taylor’s got all of mine. Spencer and Aria, you’ve got some competition.

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Learn How To Make More Money With SEO 2019

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The job of the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is to create high-quality articles and after that win the attention, the particular love as well as the particular link from a blogger or even editor. The keyword difficulty or even keyword SEO difficulty is the very useful metric for key phrase research.