#random rewatch musings

[kateyes224]

Random Rewatch Musings, S3E17:

As a fandom, we don't pay enough attention to the way Mulder exhaled Scully's name in one last, desperate breath, right after Modell had already pushed Mulder into pointing the gun at Scully and pulling the trigger. Mulder knew the odds that Scully would survive the next time he fired that gun were dwindling. And you can hear it in his voice.

And it's.......somethin.

[laughhardrunfastbekindsblog]

In the hours Crosshair spent carrying Mayday back to base...

Do you think Mayday's leadership skills and concern for his team reminded Crosshair just a little bit of Hunter?

Do you think Crosshair thought at all about the fact that Hunter and his other brothers had carried him off Kamino when his life was in danger after the Empire had left him behind, even after he had just held them hostage and tried to shoot Hunter with a rifle that was not set to stun?

Do you think Hunter's warning, "All you'll ever be to them is a number," went through his mind when Nolan did nothing to help Mayday and then berated Crosshair?

Do you think Crosshair maybe realized why Hunter being able to say "I did what I thought was right!" might be preferable to saying "We're soldiers, we do what needs to be done"?

...And then do you realize you're thinking way too much about "The Outpost" and it's making you really sad so you need to find something happy to watch?

[fahbee]

What if...

It turns out that Aziraphale and Crowley have had ‘an understanding’ since the Blitz.  Not only are they both internally aware of their own feelings for the other, but they each also know that the other one is head over heels.  And both know these feelings must absolutely remain unspoken.  

They continue on as they have been, all the while knowing the other is pining for him.  This gives a new, even angstier meaning to their conversation in the Bentley and “you go to fast for me” and “don’t look so disappointed.”  It also changes the tone of their interactions for the entire first season, especially the bandstand breakup and bookshop fire.  

And now, after the apocalypse, they both know they’re “free” to finally be honest about their love but they find reasons to procrastinate out of nerves (first they wait to be sure heaven and hell really do leave them alone, then the pandemic happens, then Crowley takes a long nap...) and now a couple years have gone by and still, nothing is settled.  They both know they need to talk.  Neither one can bring himself to go first.

And into this pot-about-to-boil-over situation, enters a naked, amnesiac Gabriel.

[yeonban]

OKAY who can I bribe into making joint verses with me <3

[ginnyrules27]

Me: *rewatching Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief having not seen it since High School*

Camp Half Blood capture the flag scene: Go to the water Percy

Me: Huh...why does that idea seem familiar?

Lotus Club Scene where Posideon's voice comes: No Percy, don't eat the flower

Me: ...WAS THAT WHERE THE IDEA FOR THE OLYMPIAN MIND LINK IN MY CHOOSING SERIES CAME FROM?!

[randomnameless]

I recently watched some TV and happened on Amazon's Fallout tv show -

I never played the games but I think ultimately it didn't matter that much since the series is pretty self-explanatory, but what I really liked is how the heroine, despite being backstabbed, betrayed and insulted for like, the majority of her time "outside" in the post apocalyptic world where people excuse this sort of behaviour as "doing whatever it takes to survive", she still remains the kind of person who upholds, whenever she can, the values from her sheltered life (lol) in a peaceful community of mutual aid and refuses - unless necessary - to behave like the people who mistreated her.

There's a scene where someone, who used her as a bait to lure a giant mutated fish, forced her to drink radioactive water and I think it's implied had her indulge in cannibalism, sells her to people who traffic human organs in exchange for some medicine - the heroine survives but when she sees her former captor on the ground, on death's door because of the lack of medicine, she still gives him some, because she still believe in the rule she was taught, to not inflict on someone the things you wouldn't want to be inflicted on yourself.

And I liked how this positive/naive way - at odds with the general atmosphere from this "post nuclear world" - is portrayed with shady group of people whom you are led to believe engage in human experimentations and want to keep a secret at all costs... but when the heroine discovers this secret and is found out, the shady group of people, far from executing her... just throw her out of their community, and give her food/drinks to survive outside.

Ultimately, when she meets the person who is the reason why she had to live her "shelter/vault" and venture outside, because that person kidnapped her father and killed people living in her vault - instead of killing her or planting a bomb in the, uh, thing she was supposed to exchange for her father, again, asks her to please return her dad in exchange for the "thing she brought".

Of course plot happens - but where I expected some "I had some life experiences and now I'm #badass and #jaded and #sweareverytenwordstoshowhowbadassibecame", I was pleasantly surprised when it wasn't the case.

Maybe it's just the first season and it'll change later on.

And I compared this to the few episodes of some random indian tv show where we follow two policemen dealing with terrorists setting bombs -

In true "early 2000" shows, the officers don't hesitate to, uh, break the protocol and use force to interrogate people - to the point of, when they have to interrogate a grandpa suspected of money laundering, they pick his grandson at school and bring him to the warehouse where grandpa is being interrogated, which makes grandpa talk, of course because the policemen brought grandson as a thinly veiled threat... - and I thought we were back in the era of "gritty" antiheroes who do "bad stuff" but for the "greater good" so they get a pass -

I still don't know if the writers intended to convey this message, but karma striked back when, one of the policeman has to corner a terrorist who, in turn, uses a kid as a hostage.

Of course, being a "nice" person, he puts the kid's safety above his own, much like the grandpa who talked to protect his grandkid, and the terrorist got what he wanted - the policeman was killed, much like the policeman got his intel after threatening grandpa - and didn't kill the kid afterwards.

If you use a kid as a hostage, what makes you think the same thing can't happen to you?

Coupled with the fact that his operation to arrest/corner the terrorists was mounted "outside" of the proper regulations and organisations, because they wanted to strike fast - meant they had no backup and ultimately ended up in a mess, with the death of one of the two policemen and the terrorist escaping - and this is a valid point that is, well, brought out by the female lead to which the surviving policeman has nothing to reply, because she's right.

(I keep my expectations low for the next episodes because of experience)

Anyways, watching those two series really lampshaded that I'm too old for the #dark and #gritty and #realism, and I'm maybe not the only one.

Being kind/nice hero is always harder than becoming dark/jaded antihero, but hey, at the end of the day, if you complain about murdered babies when you already murdered some, are you fighting for the "greater good" or are you just a hypocrite?

[maideninorange]

Thinking back on Madoka Magica, I was around the age of the main characters when I first watched it. I mean, I thought a lot that went on was frightening, sad, full of wonder, all the feels. But at the end of the day, I didn't think too much on a lot of the details (at least in this context).

But now that I'm an adult with my school days behind me? I just realized that all the horrible things that happen to the girls were happening to who are effectively children. When Mami lost her head or when Sayaka went mad, that was happening to who I now think of young girls that didn't know any better until it was far too late to turn back.

I first thought of characters like Homura and Mami as pretty cool, if pretty sad overall when I was their age. Now? I just want to give them a hug.

[ozziesdisco]

YeonJiAh headcanon of the day:

Before Yeon was resurrected, Ji Ah wrote a bunch of letters to him on a regular basis (since he mentioned that letters made him happy) full of the mundanest things that happened in her life.

After he came back, she gives him the letters and he loves reading them over and over. In fact, he loves them so much that she sometimes just casually writes him letters and mails them to herself just to see his happy face whenever he receives the letters

Oh, and they both def write each other love letters on Valentine's Day and stuff (Ji Ah bc Yeon loves reading letters, and Yeon bc he loves letters in general)

[simply-passing-through]

Rewatching Gilmore Girls and having thoughts

In season 1 episode 19, Emily in Wonderland, when she goes to Kim’s Antiques with Rory, they’re looking around and Rory spots something she likes.She asks her grandma if it’s something special and Emily, obsessed with status and appearance throughout the series Emily, asks if Rory likes it, Rory says yes and Emily answers “Then it’s something special.”I know theres an argument for Rory being…

[laughhardrunfastbekindsblog]

I've seen referenced several times a paraphrased quote attributed both to DBB and to Jen Corbett of Bad Batch that the show's creators ultimately decided to kill off Tech because they couldn't make season 3 work otherwise.

Hmm.

I rarely read interviews from creators about a storyline because I prefer to let the story tell itself and let the interpretations come as they will based on what the narrative itself presents. But in this case I looked up the quotes/interview simply because I had to know how in the blazes they came to the conclusion that a storyline HAD to involve Tech (or any Bad Batch member, for that matter) dying.

I have... thoughts. Lots of thoughts. RESPECTFUL thoughts, because I truly do think the writers/directors of this show are absolutely BRILLIANT (which is partly why I had such a difficult time during season 3 and it has taken quite a bit of reflection to come to terms with it... But I needed to come to terms with it because I love it so much I want to enjoy all of it in the future!) But fair warning: if you prefer not to read a post if the post's author isn't 100% in agreement with the show's creative choices, then this might not be the post for you.

Reference: https://www.starwars.com/news/brad-rau-jennifer-corbett-the-bad-batch-season-3-interview

Quote #1: “When we first started this show, we had hoped that we could get three seasons to tell this story," executive producer and head writer Jennifer Corbett tells StarWars.com. "We kicked Season 1 off with Order 66 and the team trying to figure out where they fit in the galaxy. We knew Season 2 was going to be a little bit darker, because we knew that the team was going to lose in some way. As the season progressed, it became clear that the way for them to lose is to essentially have the team be fractured. That's what happens when we lose Tech, and then also with Omega being taken by the Empire.”

I find the choice of words here - particularly "fracture" and "lose" - to be interesting. This is the quote that made me realize my original (starting in season 1) hopes for where the themes of the show would conclude had apparently never been in line with what the show was aiming for. The show's definition of the team "fracturing" and "los[ing] in some way" apparently had to include death and only came in the season 2 finale; whereas I considered the team to be "fractured" within the first 10 minutes of the pilot episode - as soon as Order 66 came through and Crosshair was susceptible to the inhibitor chip, the team was broken. And they weren't ever truly whole in the first place, given that Order 66 occurs before they meet Omega. For me, the team lost big time as soon as the show started.

So, while I went through the entire show (yes, I kept hoping Tech would come back in season 3) hoping the themes of family and never leaving family behind would conclude in at least one instance of this little clone family being whole and truly united again - considering the fact that they were broken since "Aftermath" - I realize now this hope was nigh impossible to fulfill given that the show didn't consider the team fractured upon Crosshair's departure and therefore felt the need to not only break it apart further, but break it permanently.

Quote #2: “There were a lot of conversations that went into that [killing off Tech], and we even tried to talk ourselves out of it many times, because he's such an important character to the show, to all of us and the crew, and we know he is important to the fans,” Corbett says. “But what we're showing in Season 2 is that the galaxy has changed and the Empire is now very powerful in the early years. So we were trying to be logical in the sense that, the Batch keeps putting themselves in these positions and, ultimately, there has to be a time when they do lose."

I can respect this decision, though (as I stated above), the entire show pretty much involves the Bad Batch losing in one way or another and personally I don't care for the idea that the only real way a team can lose (read: "stakes") is if death is involved. But that's just me, and I can get over this personal hang up.

Quote #3: Throughout, they’ll feel the loss of their brother. “It affected a lot of the logistics,” Brad Rau, executive producer, says. “The very mathematical logistics of how we normally would have the team operate was massively different without Tech there. But emotionally, the most important part, the way that the loss of Tech affected Omega, Hunter, Wrecker, Echo, and Crosshair, even throughout the whole season was, I wouldn't say heavier than we expected, but was definitely very heavy.”

I'm gonna be blunt: when first watching season 3, I felt the emotional impact of the loss of Tech for most of the squad was sorely lacking, and this is the main reason why I kept hoping right up through the epilogue that Tech would somehow show up.

Every. Single. Allusion. To. Tech in season 3 hit like a ton of bricks right to the gut. @eriexplosion described it extremely well (paraphrasing) as picking at a wound and not letting it fully heal. After some reflection following the series finale, I came to the conclusion that this might be because the Tech mentions were meant to show how the Batch - Crosshair in particular - were still feeling about the loss, and (in hindsight) it seemed that Crosshair felt deep guilt and pain over Tech's death all the way through season 3. (Heck, I now see Crosshair having a moment to honor Mayday early on but never truly honoring Tech as yet another indication that, while Crosshair felt grief over Mayday, he must have felt even deeper grief compounded with guilt and remorse over Tech that led to him essentially avoiding the subject.) So I guess it turns out my conclusion fits the original intention of the creators.

Thing is, since we don't ever see any actual catharsis or healing for any of the Bad Batch members (Omega is the closest we get to it, and even that's a stretch), this aspect of the show does NOT land well for me - really, many times during season 3 it came across that the only real impact Tech's absence had on the team as a whole was that Hunter had to deal with datapads and decryption was harder. (There have been fan comments that if Tech had been around in season 3, the entire storyline would have been wrapped up in two episodes (and I actually rather agree with this) - but this headcanon/focus still only emphasizes Tech's role/function on the team, not his impact as a brother.)

Again, upon reflection I am quite willing to give the narrative the benefit of the doubt and say the excruciating emotional pain inflicted with every Tech mention was intended to show the impact of the loss on his family; but it was SO difficult to watch season 3 when this wasn't made clear from the get-go. And given that (based on reddit discussions I've seen) half the audience seemed to think the Bad Batch had long since moved on because "stoic soldiers/they have other priorities" while the other half thought the Bad Batch hadn't moved on and were avoiding the subject, I truly do think this ended up being a murky point - and it shouldn't have been.

This is where we get to the hill I will die on and my ONLY major criticism of the show: if Tech "had" to die and stay dead, there should have, at bare minimum, been a scene - even if it came at the end of the finale - where Tech's entire family finally had a chance to meaningfully acknowledge and honor Tech, even if it was brief such as Crosshair had with Mayday. If there had been any moment before the finale for any of Tech's brothers to honor and/or memorialize him, the contrast between that cathartic moment versus how the topic had been treated before/by his other siblings would have been more than adequate to cement early on the idea that the squad was still feeling the loss of Tech as an individual and a brother, thereby clarifying the show's intentions. And a moment for Tech's ENTIRE family (and friends) to honor him, even if it came at the end of the finale, would have closed out the dangling plot thread of Crosshair still feeling guilt and grief over Tech.

Anyway, while this interview didn't much change my own conclusions of how season 3 played out and what could have been done better, I am glad I read it since it provided at least a modicum of clarity as to what the show's intentions actually were - even if those intentions didn't always clearly come through in the narrative.

[rakiah]

Musing on Leovil as I was rewatching the classic Snow White and a thought struck me: out of all 3, Vil is only one who actually understands what love is. The Evil Queen/Grimhilde outright dismisses it as non-existant while Snow White naively falls in love with the first handsome face that comes up. Meanwhile it took time for Vil to fall for Leona and understands that staying in love requires effort.

So a little drabble came to mind:

Fools, the lot of them. Despite not being related by blood, they were similar in their misbegotten conceptions of love.

His mentor, though wiser than him a thousand other subjects, belives that true love is simply doesn't exist. That any form love takes is meaningless and easy to erase. Grimhilde sees love as something that weakens, something that leaves one open to manipulation and defeat.

His mentor's enemy, though he himself has no real qualms with her, belives true love to be a pure thing. Something that can conquer all and leave naught but sunshine and rainbows in its wake. Snow White sees love as the ultimate goodness, something that is inheritly of light and not possible amongst the dark.

Fools, both of them.

Vil knows quite well what love is. It is time, patience, understanding, maturity, and dedication. Falling in love is random, but staying in love requires constant effort. Love was neither good nor evil, simply a feeling to be felt by people. The only thing Snow got right was that love could indead conquer. It could empower someone to commit the bravest of acts or the worst of atrocities for the sake of others. Vil would know. Had you asked him before, he would have said that murder was excessive and a mere waste of resources that carried far too much risk. Now he wouldn't hesitate to plunge a blade into the throat of another if it meant Leona could smile again. He didn't hesitate to poison all those statesmen that tried to have Leona shipped off to some desperate princess on the corner of the world. On that note, Leona also didn't hesitate to reciprocate when he had a fair share of Vil's rivals mauled by those hyenas.

Love is not pure, Vil muses. It's rather intense. After all, those nights spent together had never been pure. Though it did grow into love.

And even now, as Vil listens to his mentor go on with her advice to never love another if he wishes to remain strong, Vil can subtly feel the fruit of Leona's reciprocation growing inside of him. Twins, if the oracle was correct.

He can't help but smile, knowing that Snow White and Grimhilde would both be as red as Riddle if they new. The former embaressed and the latter enraged. He could see it now, his dear mentor marching all the way down to the Savanna just to yell at Scar for his "failure as a royal mentor" and just poison Leona right then and there.

Well, Vil had been pondering how to tell Leona he was going to be a father and the cat had been a bit too smug for his own good recently. But then again, he doesn't want to be a single parent.

Decisions, decisions.

Terrible overdue answer, I’m so sorry for the delay! 💦 I struggled a lot to find something to doodle with your gorgeous text because I really wanted to. And people need to read those great lines! Sorry for making you wait and thank you so much for sharing this! I love it! 🙏

So Evil Queen Vil will be.

[jone-slugger]

Rewatching the episode where B'Elanna ends up being the muse of an alien version of Greek theater and I always laugh at the fact that the poet makes Janeway and Chakotay kiss the first chance he has. Like even this random alien guy who has never met them knows what's up 😂😂

[kaibutsushidousha]

Any piece of media you’ve changed your mind on significantly? Bonus points if the only thing that caused the change was passing of time and not other material.

I really rewatch, so I judge things mostly according to what my mindset was back when I experienced them. The closest I have to a proper answer here is how Katekyo Hitman Reborn and Fairy Tail were my least favorite manga around high school and years later I had a sudden "Oh, I understand this part now" realization about a few things a decade later.

Reborn's example is, unsurprisingly, about the final chapter. It made the extremely controversial decision of ending on Reborn musing about how Tsuna learned nothing and is still the same person he was in chapter 1, except with friends now. Everyone hated that because the overarching narrative provided plenty of evidence to the contrary and because if the statement was true, the manga would be calling itself a waste of the reader's time. That was a sentiment I shared immensely.

My random epiphany on this one was that the "Tsuna learned nothing" quote comes from the perspective of Reborn, the character who wanted to teach him to be a mob boss and a killer, so it's celebrating that Tsuna remained a good boy through and through. It's thematically consistent despite the poor communication. In hindsight, Reborn couldn't have ended any other way.

And Fairy Tail's case came from looking back at the series through the lens of its core theme of mourning. Zeref was the one character I always considered good despite the rest of the series, and his deal was ultimately that he got cursed because he failed to cope with his brother's death and the curse causes him to autokill everything around him until he learns to get over it. Throughout his long life, Zeref created many tools that were exploited by half of the villains that came before him, and looking in hindsight, all of those were tools meant to cheat and control death.

And these ideas delivered in one of the main villains are obviously reflected in the main characters as well. Gray kills and mourns his dad 3 times in addition to carrying the guilt of indirectly killing Ur because he had mourned his dad properly the first time. There's a timeskip that sorta only exists kill off Lucy's dad and make her deal with that. And most importantly to make FT feel thematically consistent, Natsu's initial goal to find his dragon dad is ultimately revealed to be a quest to finally accept he died.

Grief is a constant theme in the series, but its importance only becomes evident in the final arc. Which is not something I can complain about because the only reason I stuck with Fairy Tail until the end is because I liked Rave that much to trust it to have at least a great ending, and Rave is another manga whose main theme is prevalent but only gets super evident with the final arc. Maybe the great difference in enjoyment came down to simply reading Rave as a finished story and reading Fairy Tail as an ongoing story. Who knows?

Does that mean I like those two now? No. I never reread them, so my first experience is still what counts. But at least now I believe I have a more fair and good-faith perspective of their flaws. And maybe an interest in checking Eden's Zero after it finishes (I'm not checking if it already finished because I think this post is funnier if it already finished 3 years ago and I don't know about it).

[nancydrewwouldnever]

RANDOM MUSING: What this True Blood rewatch has really done, though, is remind me that we lost Nelsan Ellis far too early, and that he had so much talent which was never fully realized.

[ozziesdisco]

Tfw you make a bunch of posts of hcs and theories and stuff about a rare pair/ something with a small fandom so that people who have come into the fandom after you have your posts for content

and then months later someone ends up going through your whole blog for posts of that tag and keeps spam liking them <3

[chrysalis-the-butterfly]

Can you do Alastor please 🥺

Yep!

Send me a character and I’ll list:

Favourite thing about them: The radio filter on his voice! I'm a sucker for characters with artificial voice filters like that. And his disdain for "frivolous television technology" is amusing.

I recently rewatched the first episode of Hazbin Hotel with my dad, and he liked Alastor's radio filter too. (Yes, my dad watched some of Hazbin Hotel. And he decided it was "a bit too out there" for him.)

Least favourite thing about them: His design, I think. Yes, the creepy smile that never leaves his face is a nice touch, but that bob? It does nothing for me.

Favourite line: It's a close tie between, "Do you like blood, violence, and depravity of a sexual nature? Of course you do! That's why you're in Hell!" and, "Well, my dear, I haven't been active in Hell for some time, and everyone remembers me from my radio show! The proper medium to express oneself! But you insisted on this ... noisy picture box advertisement. So I had a little fun with it."

brOTP: I like his friendships with Mimzy and Rosie. The fact that he and Mimzy knew each other when they were alive is really interesting. And I can see how he and Rosie would bond over their shared fondness for cannibalism.

Plus, I just think it's funny that Alastor has been building this platonic girl gang around him. He's asexual, but also a chick magnet.

OTP: I don't really have one for Alastor. He's definitely ace, and he might be aro too, and I have yet to see a character that's made me go, "Ooh, I'd love to see what would happen if they were in a romantic relationship with Alastor."

But if I had to pick an OTP ... maybe RadioRose? Two cannibalistic Overlords causing chaos together? That would be pretty neat.

Actually, what about RadioStatic? The fact that the normally cool and collected Vox can be made to completely malfunction because of Alastor has piqued my interest. Maybe they were dating years ago, and then something went wrong. Or maybe they had a business partnership, and Vox wanted it to become something more, and Alastor just wasn't feeling it. Yes, Vox has Valentino now, but maybe there's a part of him that still pines for Alastor - which would be ironic, considering that Alastor has little to no interest in him.

nOTP: Charlastor. I prefer them having a "twisted mentor and innocent mentee" relationship, rather than a romantic one. Given that Alastor has positioned himself as a father figure to Charlie (albeit just to annoy Lucifer), it would be weird to think of them dating.

Random headcanon: Alastor has zero artistic ability. He once tried to paint portraits of the Hazbin Hotel staff and residents as part of an art therapy exercise, but they all look cursed. Or like cats. Or like cursed cats.

Unpopular opinion: Sorry, Alastor stans, I can't get on the hype train with this guy. Not yet, anyway.

I like characters that have a mixture of the known and the mysterious - that is, you know enough about them from the canon material that there are traits you can identify and latch onto, but there are also some things left up to interpretation for you to muse over.

Right now, Alastor's just a bit too mysterious for me. Is he going to be an ally? Is he going to be an enemy? I can't decide whether I like him because I don't know enough about him.

By contrast, I already know lots about Angel Dust, and I like what I've seen so far. And there are still things I don't know about him, such as how he met Valentino, that I can speculate on, which I find fun. That's why Angel is my blorbo and Alastor isn't.

Song I associate with them: "Love ka?" (a.k.a. "Rabuka") by Hiiragi Kirai and Ado. Particularly this Yokune Ruko cover. I see it as a RadioStatic song, because the lyrics are about sharks (Vox likes sharks, doesn't he?) and about bugs (which would fit with Vox glitching out).

The ending lyrics translate as, "These putrid 'love you,' 'love you,' 'love yous' have already fallen to the ground and died out. If you don't like what you found within your reach, maybe you should stop looking." That sounds like something Alastor would say to Vox.

Favourite picture of them: