#s4 has issues but i mean

[ancientstone]

that feeling when you get to the end of a season and you love it and apparently everyone else hates it ✌

[mattzerella-sticks]

"Who are you?"

"We're you, but on Amazon."

[motherfuckingbrad]

say what you will about community s4 but the thanksgiving episode where jeff tells his father how fucked up he is and how he literally harmed himself because he just wanted to feel like someone cared about him will never not make me cry

like we see jeff struggle with isolating himself and caring so much what others think and feeling like he needs to put up walls for most of the show, so for him to have improved so much that he can stand up to the first person that ever made him feel unwanted and admit how much distress it caused him is so good and makes me so happy

[berlinbabylon]

review of s4 (skip if you don’t want to read criticism)

SPOILER WARNING

so, i finished season 4 a couple of days ago and... i liked some parts of it and one episode was good (episode 8) but for the most part i really absolutely hated this season and i never thought i would say that. in my opinion, it actually got worse towards the end! i must be living in a different reality from everyone else.

i’m sorry. i really am. but i have to get this off my chest:

- charlotte double-wielding guns and shooting up those white hand idiots like she’s in a john woo movie? awesome! except... it was dumb af. this could have been so good, i’m a huge genre fan of this type of action, but not at the expense of a character’s intelligence. there was zero reason for her to barge in there when she did. at least make it seem like they’re just about to kill the good pathologist, have them string him up or whatever and she sees and has absolutely no alternative but to intervene. or have them conclude their meeting and start making for the door. please, i’m begging, just anything to make her desperate actions make sense.

- malu taking a shot for kiddie fiddler wendt? thanks, i fucking hate it. for that matter, i hate what they did to wendt’s character.

- for that matter, awesome lgbt+ rep or uhmm not. reinhold and fred don’t even get a kiss or any significant scene together (the couples date at the very end is cute but too little too late) although fred actually has a fairly important role to play this season. we never even really get to see them talk about his decision to work for that nazi paper. like, what. okay, fred quits at the end, good for him, but does this qualify as a character arc now?

- speaking of lgbt+ rep, them blowing up the esther/edgar/walter polycule only to have walter go “well whattaya gonna do. i loved him ¯\_(ツ)_/¯” right as he croaks was the most ridiculous thing i’ve seen in a long while and didn’t land at all. i actually cackled. i can’t believe they turned the complex dynamic they had introduced in s3 into this clichéd jealousy mess that had no nuance whatsoever. i’m stunned people preferred their storyline this season. it didn’t track at all. neither did edgar showing up again (as i had predicted) and gereon believing him about wanting to broker peace in the underworld. el oh el.

- also edgar being like “oh btw we need to kill doktor schmidt, he’s an evil mastermind” was an absolutely ridiculous and lame way to try and advance that storyline. it also just got dumped in there and you don’t get any sense that it’s influencing gereon or his character actions at all. not that he has much of an arc or anything this season anyway but back when the show was still good (and by good i mean exceptional), his drug addiction and guilt complex was a major driving force behind much of what he did, how he behaved at work etc. here, in s4, you have to be grateful that they belatedly remember to send him to confession because he’s a catholic but that scene also just unceremoniously gets dumped in there. not to compare but since we have already seen an absolutely outstanding confession scene this tv season (in interview with the vampire, fabulously acted by jacob anderson), i couldn’t help but notice how the confession with gereon was neither written well, nor particularly acted well, nor integrated in its episode well, nor, in fact, scored well.

- max raabe’s ein tag wie gold is a bop but other than that, this season was not scored well and i say that as someone who owns the first two soundtrack releases on vinyl. there were many times when i noticed that something was off, where the music actively worked against the scene it was supposed to be enhancing. the song at the shabbat dinner was nice but as a jewish friend who i watched it with pointed out, them playing piano on shabbat is very sus, even if they’re a reform household. there was a woman with a wig which indicates (ultra) orthodox. not going to nitpick that scene any further though because the shabbat dinner and abe goldstein’s character in general were a highlight (although i loathed the storyline he was stuck in).

- tell me you don’t want to write actors out of the show without telling me. nyssen and helga have long overstayed their welcome. nyssen they could justify by having him pop up from time to time in connection to the rocket science “plot”. but he’s lars eidinger (who’s great), so. helga has just become whatever they needed her to be. anne marie’s actress had some extremely dodgy acting going on this season, sorry to say. i don’t even want to talk about the idiocy of how they wrote this storyline which could have been extremely good and important. i’ll just say that i laughed my ass off when anne marie clocked abe with her flute but generally it was not a good choice to play these kidnappings for laughs (and i guess these rich people just have no security whatsoever, even after the first kidnapping). there’s a time and a place and this storyline wasn’t it. but rich people, funny, or something. well, they are ridiculous.

- the whole story with the butler. talk about wasting screentime. his götz von berlichingen monologue was also really bad although i was delighted when i heard the verses. it just didn’t land. that goes for many scenes this season imo. i don’t know if it was the directing or what but even stuff that looks interesting on paper just does not come across well. it just comes across as ridiculous and manieriert. but not in the good way. (there is a way to do this well and the show used to walk that line very well. not anymore, it seems.)

- (side note: the frivolity of the movie industry provided the perfect pastiche for that sort of thing in s3. which is why i really vibe with it, as someone who’s a huge fan of 1930s movies. didn’t even mind that they relocated the apex of expressionism into the late 1920s when that’s very ahistorical. but anyway that’s a different topic.)

- actually as a last point on the nyssen storyline, abe goldstein shooting a hole in the ship instead of shooting anne marie in the head made me groan. it was so obviously written that way just to give her a chance to pop up later again. it made absolutely no sense, even if you try to handwave it as an attempt at poetic justice. neither did helga leaving her down there make any sense. she had no way of knowing that abe would kill her or make it seem like he killed her. at that point, helga still looked like she could think straight, she didn’t tumble around deliriously, she made a clear choice. and they just did it for the twist, not because it made sense for the character in that moment.

- the show was always very drunk on coincidences, twists of fate etc in that 19th century charles dickens / victor hugo way and i could dig that for the most part because they had this rich tapestry of social commentary going on. while i can still appreciate the breadth of society that they’re trying to show, it now comes across as shallow, there’s no immersion, i was extremely distanced from everything going on and couldn’t have cared less, which is a damn shame considering that this is where we should start feeling even more involved.

- as for one storyline that i couldn’t have cared less about: everything to do with toni. in fact, i think it would have been far more poignant if we hadn’t seen her for a season and hadn’t known what had become of her after running away and then when we least expect it, charlotte comes across her living on the streets, maybe while chasing a suspect or something. now that’s a coincidence i could buy. and such a scene would play like a gut punch. but they rob themselves of any dramatic impact by wanting to overexplain and overshow and being all pedagogical which is a huge problem in the writing of german tv shows and s4 of babylon berlin has started showing all the hallmarks of mediocre german tv and it makes me feel sick, considering how stylish and epic the previous seasons were.

- toni’s actress is not good. i’m sorry. i just have to say it. but also, they stuck her in a nothing storyline. moritz’ actor fares better but if they wanted to pair off the spares and get rid of them, they needed to do that in a way that would’ve left more screentime for the interesting and/or relevant stuff. like, uhm, everything to do with malu/litten/charlotte etc. it’s a damn crime that they didn’t do anything with lotte being fired from the police and then hired by litten. nothing. she gets to mope around at the bar a little bit and poor jacky gets to be her hapless sounding board (he deserves better, so many characters and actors in this cast deserve better). and then she gets to be gereon’s emotional support system. once again, charlotte is deprived of any and all agency and no, the double-wielding scene does not make up for it. the scenes in that haus sonneborn institution were well-shot, the horror film genre influence was clear, but unfortunately i don’t much care for horror films and i also, at that point, did not much care for toni or her friend or the pathologist (f*ck him for getting rudi killed in a very lame rip-off of stephan’s much superior exit) and we all knew lotte wasn’t going to die. that’s what i mean by immersiveness: where in previous seasons i’d have been on the edge of my seat with tension and dread, this didn’t elicit much emotion from me at all. except for the groan when lotte did her thing at the end there. the only good thing to come out of that was her conversation with gereon about her guilt which was the only time in the entire season where i believed a scene between them, emotionally, and was invested.

- i guess that, on the bright side, she got to be happy. i support that. even though i don’t believe it should have to come at the expense of the show being good. and she still had to go through that awful ordeal of the dance marathon. (one of the few memorable scenes of the season, at the very least.)

- random but i very much liked the actor playing oskar. and he was very much underutilized. really, don’t get me started on the entire debacle that was malu’s storyline. i think i’d rather have watched an entire season set on that zeppelin than what we ended up with.

- litten not even being in the finale should actually be considered a crime against humanity considering he’s literally the best character on the show at this point. for that matter, the trial against katelbach and the undermining of the legal system and the press should have been a much bigger arc and point. katelbach still being a comic relief character only used to bumble about not knowing whether he did propose to behnke or not is absolutely ridiculous. these are the characters we’ve come to know and care about and they were paid absolute dirt in s4. behnke’s best scene was the train heist and even that was not edited or scored well but hey, at least it was amusing and they did something with some sort of flair there.

- going back to lotte for a moment. i’m happy for the charlotte/gereon shippers that they got so much fucking out of them this season (to be crude, then again so is the show) but i can’t be the only one who thought they were awkward as all hell together. i never shipped them but i did always like their dynamic and i thought their kiss in s3 was magical. what they did with them here did absolutely nothing for me, i cringed when she visited him at the station and their idea of sexy talk in between kisses was discussing case-related work. none of it had the levity, flirtation or charm you’d see in a lubitsch film (one of the alleged inspos for this season) although liv lisa fries sold the hell out of her infatuated smiles and looks. volker bruch trying to smile was physically painful to me, however. sure, it could be charming that he’s an awkward turtle duck but considering everything we know about the bts issues, it really didn’t endear me any further. i dread having to watch them be awkward together in future seasons and i absolutely dread lotte’s only purpose being tied up in that. for that matter, how did she earn her badge back at the end? surely not with her double-wielding gun action? but it’s not like the show really cared to pursue this as a storyline or her as a character this season, so why should i care.

- the way they threw rukeli in there at the very end of the season was almost offensively bad. i was extremely excited for him to show up ever since they had insinuated that he’s her half-brother in s3. the actor here was fine (i wouldn’t count on him being accurately or sensitively cast bc german productions usually don’t do this, haven’t checked it, however) but you’re really going to do a whole season where boxing is at the very least on the periphery and you’re only going to throw him in at the end to make some sort of point? we didn’t even get to stay with him and lotte during their first meeting? we’re just supposed to believe they have some sort of relationship now after that camera shot panned out, showing them through the window of the café? i’m sorry but what?

- worst of all: them having him use chalk as white paint to mock the nazis in the audience to make a point. you can’t make a character we’ve barely even met the dramatic and emotional high point of the season. and i’m sorry but rukeli was a real person and in real life he was forced to present himself with bleached hair and white paint in an “aryanized” form, this was part of the abuse he suffered!!! it makes me absolutely mad to think about how they tried to turn this into some kind of empowerment thing here. nevermind that at this point in time, audiences were still overwhelmingly on his side and actually protested against fights being rigged against him. i just absolutely hate everything this scene chooses to be. i also hate how gereon walks up to that one guy who can command~ the crowd and we get a flashback to something that happened in the same episode, like, just 30 minutes earlier, to remind us that this is the guy he refused to shoot so they can defuse the situation in the dumbest most construed way possible. i feel like i’m losing my mind when i see people say that this is good writing. good writing would have involved audiences not needing a flashback to something that happened in the same episode, just because almost nothing in this season is giving anything resembling the appropriate weight and focus.

- speaking of which, the case of the season was so uninteresting and lame i even forgot to talk about it. and i still don’t have anything to say. except one thing: why did weintraub not immediately suspect that something was up with max (the henchman) when that car bomb went up killing the other henchman? because weintraub arrived in the car, went inside, came back outside and suddenly a bomb has been attached to his car in the meantime and max was standing there all the time? like, what?? this season is littered with this dumb shit and maybe it was prevalent in the other seasons as well and i just chose to overlook it because there was so much for me to love but i genuinely can’t believe five adults wrote this season and struggled so much with thinking any of it through. it feels like they just had little chess figures with pictures of the characters attached to them and tried moving them across a board.

- oh and one more thing about the flashback issue. böhm and his family being in that apartment at the very end was an absolutely ridiculous scene. his money issues were well-telegraphed, a little too well-telegraphed if you ask me, and his involvement in the shoot-up was already extremely obvious by the time his wife demands to know where he’s got his money from. that bit where he collapses against the wall and we get all these flashbacks to things an audience that’s half-way intelligent and half-way paying attention has already gotten long ago was just embarrassing for the show. the issue wasn’t just with the flashback, however, it was also with the way it was shot and edited. so many scenes this season really don’t land as intended. i feel bad for the actors because they’re doing their best and they’re also not at fault for this weird issue in german shows where they do really bad ADR (re-dubbing scenes when there were sound issues in the footage from set, it makes dialogue sound very unnatural and strange and the show always had this issue in certain scenes but in this season it’s amplified to the max, i almost couldn’t watch the edgar/gereon reunion because of the bad sound engineering). but woof that böhm family scene could have been a highlight but the way he creepily said something to the effect of them never being separated (probably telegraphing an eventual fate that we call “erweiterter suizid” in german where usually a man kills his family and then himself) and then the show just straight up cutting to the nyssen last will scene without giving any of it the time to sink in was absolutely comical. i’m sorry. but there are scenes this season that feel amateur and i don’t think you can blame it on covid when the editing is at issue.

- having said all of that, i was excited for gereon’s arc this season and imo they never did anything of note with him undercover in the SA. why not have him befriend stennes for real, become conflicted about what he’s trying to do (and, well, in fact him and the police president do want stennes to succeed so it wouldn’t even have been that outlandish). him talking to the police president about the mission at home while his very much indoctrinated nephew is in listening distance was so so dumb omg.

- the stennes putsch which i also was very much looking forward to was such a flop that fizzled out without any real spark. his confrontation with wendt was lame af. the actor is awesome, his interactions with wendt in s3 were intriguing and this what it all leads up to? gdi. i can’t believe they wasted so much time on that homophobic blackmail material plot when it was never even picked up again after it got stennes out of prison. he never should have gone to prison before the putsch, he already had his conflict with wendt from last season, they could have saved so much time on this and dedicated it to something actually interesting. and if you actually want to get into the messiness of homophobia and homosexuality in the SA, röhm and all, you better be prepared to bring on figures like magnus hirschfeld (it’s honestly ridiculous he hasn’t even been referenced on the show yet because he was super famous in berlin and germany in general and also a favorite target of the nazis). reference the harden-eulenburg affair. do something with this. not just have wendt buggering a kid in a park. i like that gräf was quietly pissed at gereon about the whole thing but this should never have been a storyline in the way it was implemented.

- it really ruined wendt on top of things. not that it made him worse as a person because he was already bad before (though lbr it did make him worse ofc) but it made him a whole lot more uninteresting as a villain (he only seemed to find his groove back in the last two episodes). the interesting part of his dynamic with malu in s3 was the intellectual clash of ideologies. while i did not and do not ship them, i was very intrigued to see where they would take that in s4. well, i have my answer. they skipped any and all interesting and relevant development and turned it into an extremely clichéd and lame honey trap plot because we all know communists loved honey traps. groan. (yes, i watched the americans.) also, rilke is my favourite poet and has been for many many years and wendt needs to keep his words out of his damn mouth. i can’t believe they revealed that wendt used to sexually abuse underaged boys and still wanted us to think that his relationship with malu is in any way romantic, cute or intriguing?

- i was so rooting for doktor völcker to get him and then malu just had to take a bullet for him. bruh. just when i thought i couldn’t hate this season more. i know i already mentioned it but still. at least she didn’t die from it, small blessings, but her getting shot straight through the chest and then being back to spy shenanigans on the zeppelin not much later was just the height of ridiculousness. i always hated the train confrontation between gereon and bruno and it seems that the show is very very determined to evermore move towards that pulpy comic book-y version of the show that i can barely tolerate in order to get to the good stuff. but when there’s barely any good stuff to get to, it gets tough.

- do i even want to talk about edgar? him taking the kids away from esther was lame. anything to do with esther was lame. i can’t even muster more to say and edgar/gereon was one of my absolute favourite dynamics in s1/2 so i should’ve been overjoyed to see it make a return here. but, in the eternal words of the matrix: not like this.

- finally, doktor schmidt, eh? well. where to begin. first of all, jens harzer is one of the best living german actors, he’s phenomenal, and the fact that he still gets so little development is a fucking joke, frankly speaking. i might have liked his scene with alfred lying on the floor best. at least it was funny. his sessions with gereon were hamfisted in their analogies. his last scene with gereon also didn’t land, it was just groan-worthy. gereon repeating back his words just made it all the more obvious how much of their luster they have lost at this point. i can’t believe someone spoke schmidt’s platitudes in a serious way like some sort of cool mic drop when the “quelle der angst” stuff only works in that hypnotic evil drugged out therapy session way jens harzer says it. the cgi was also bad but that’s neither here nor there (there was a surprising number of badly lit and framed scenes in this season, idk if they changed cinematographers but even the staple shot of following a centered gereon with his hat around became extremely overused). the thing is that i’ve long been convinced that doktor schmidt isn’t actually anno / gereon’s brother, so i should be happy that he seems to be finally be revealed as a svengali type which i also find very fitting for the movies and culture the show references as well as the history it tries to reflect (in fact, this season was as thematically rich as ever, with many metaphors and analogies for the rise of evil etc etc but what good is that if it’s all pedagogical and the actual character writing is either non-existent or utter bullshit?). they’ve dragged this out for too long now. they also, and this might be the worst offense, have completely lost the connection gereon is supposed to have to this plot. nevermind helga or moritz. have doktor schmidt be a svengali figure, fine, love that, i vibe with it, but that doesn’t mean this plot should have no advancement. it really feels like they treaded water for as long as they could because they only had a very vague idea of where they wanted to go with this and still needed to figure out the details. well, hire some fucking writers (and by that i don’t mean hire your wife, like one of the director/writers did for s4).

- i’ve really come to loathe this very german tradition of producers, directors and others thinking they can write scripts themselves and that there are barely any decent writers around who are just that, writers. we have some that are barely okay but the structural issues of underpayment etc ensure that the talent that exists can’t turn this into a job. instead you really just have nepotism and all those people who think they can write but where the wheels eventually come off. now i’ve loved babylon berlin for a very long time, i’ve been there since the beginning, i’ve actually been there since the first press announcement (the show spent a lot of time in production hell before s1/2 saw the light of day, the budget kept ballooning etc). and i will say that i think the first three seasons featured some of the best that german tv has to offer. (s3 slightly less so but it was still entertaining and i think they did a really good job introducing a number of great characters like malu and litten in it, plus sabin tambrea is always fun!) but i must now question whether i was not more so taken in by the direction, the music, the style, and some very expertly shot and executed scenes that the show either cannot or does not want to afford anymore. the type of scenes that are needed to let the wild and often nonsensical plotting breathe and give the characters a chance to shine, to give all of it depth and resonance. i’m really so profoundly sad by the direction this show’s quality has taken and i have no idea whether it’s because one of the directors did more this season than the others, whether it was because of the new writers (i hope not). whatever happened, they had enough prep time and this just ain’t it.

- last point: i know how annoying it is when a show that you love gets hated on by others, so this is the last thing i’ll say about that. but i really needed to get this off my chest because i’ve been loving the show for a very long time, i’ve been investing a lot of time (not so much in recent years but before that) into spreading the word, at least here on tumblr and irl where i got several people into the show who all disliked s4 as well btw, i loved making gifs (which is also why i’d say i have a very good eye for the cinematography and style of the show and all the finer details but gif-making isn’t a real credential ofc lol). and i’m usually quite chill about stuff, i’m neither a super stan even when i love something (which is also why i didn’t watch it first thing it came out) nor am i a hater when i don’t like something but a case like this, where i genuinely loved something and it turns sour, that hurts, man. i’ll probably watch the next season - if there’s a next season! - because i still hold out hope that it might be better, i think it’s an important history to tell and the show had everything set up in order to tell it. there are two gif sets i want to make of this season (which is also always a good gauge for me to tell how i feel about something, and even those sets aren’t sets i absolutely want to do but i’ll do them nonetheless at some point; probably). after that i don’t think i will use this blog much anymore but i’ll keep it online for as long as tumblr is online because i always find it annoying when other people delete their stuff.

so long und auf wiedersehen!

[cloneslugs]

ik rusty and brock are very nonchalant about the clones 19 years down the line but i do think the first time they had to use them must have been awful, assuming jonas sr didn't have it perfected/completed for rusty . the clone slugs are one thing, but the computer housing their memories/selves (the computerized [souls]) is a whole different mess, plus it also just means watching your kids die (for the first time) . and it's not like competent clones are a thing you can test for. sure you can check that the slugs are functioning and healthy, but it's not like you can test your backup data is gonna work bc once you put that into a slug then it's not a clone slug anymore, now it's your son, and neither of you are gonna kill your son . one of you is supposed to keep those kids alive (well really both of you, but one of you is specifically hired for it) & one of you is such a failure in all things science, all you can do is hang on to your father's coattails and hope he keeps you afloat, but you call these slugs your life's work. and sure your dad was doing some clone research when he was alive, but these boys arent his, they're yours. And you dont want to be your father as a father you want to be your father as a scientist, and you make these clones because you're a father, not because you're a scientist . etc etc dont know where i was going w this . rips off my shirt to show off another shirt that says "ask me about my ideas on the vital relationships related to clone slug twin sons"

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

Me tryna preach what incredibly amazing gossipy and bitchy best friends Demetri and Yasmine would be while making it extremely clear that I would rather die painfully than romantically ship them

Nothing’s worse than when you’re talking to someone about character nuances and they refuse to take their shipping goggles off bc I said “oh yeah I think these two could have a really interesting dynamic if it was explored” and they went “well I ship this character with someone else so…” like bro I said they could have a compelling relationship, not that I wanted them to fuck nasty style

[queermikewheelertruther]

mileven vs byler fight

I think by now we’ve all seen that “I really want s5 to be milevens season” post, but I noticed something interesting about it.

“No fights.” Now this isn’t just specific to this post, I’ve seen plenty of other milevens say similar things and just generally being against the idea of a mileven fight.

But compare this to Bylers. I’ve seen countless amounts of posts wishing/begging for another Byler fight, a rain fight, etc. But why is this? What’s the difference between mileven and Byler’s fights?

With Byler, their arguments always end resolved. Mike apologies to Will, and they tend to have some sort of intimate moment(s) afterwards. But compare this to mileven, they don’t. Any relationship issues mileven has had throughout the series haven’t really been resolved.

These problems just kind of build up overtime and result in things like an argument “you can’t come back from.” I also feel like this is why milevens don’t want a mileven fight again. They know that it wasn’t really fixed. Their relationship isn’t doing so well by the end of s4.

As for Byler, their fights build on to their relationship, and also just their characters. As we’ve seen in s4, the rain fight encouraged Mike to join a dnd campaign again, and also attempt to bring the party back together. And their s4 fight, well I mean, all I have to say is the flirtatious bedroom scene(s) LMAOO

But milevens can clearly see that it’s not the same case for mileven. A fight wouldn’t help their relationship, because they don’t understand each other when they have a disagreement romantically.

(id also like to add that milevens arguments just… aren’t on the same level as bylers. for example, milevens ‘fight’ in s3 didn’t feel emotional. it felt like the average teen couple breaking up but it didn’t feel devastating or even that big of a deal. as for byler, they want you to feel kind of taken back by their fights. they want you to go “wow, this is a pretty serious argument that no other friendship seems to have in the show.” and for a reason too. milevens fight in s4, it was upsetting but in a specific way. they’re trying to make it feel unappealing, hence why mileven is always separated and having problems throughout the series.)

[catoslvt]

Ben Hargreeves x Reader

I would've married you if you'd stuck around🐙

sorta s4 spoilers? but nobody takes the Marigold and lived their life.

plus I'm changing things because... yeah.

I walk into the birthday party for little Grace, who is one of Diego and Lila's children with her birthday present in my hand. It's just a silly child's keyboard because what the fuck do you get a six year old?

I make my way through the swarm of running and screaming children, the part of me that never grew up hurting because that's the childhood I always wished to have, yknow, running about, screaming my head off with all my friends but no, at the age of six I was learning how to disarm gunmen and learning how to control my powers.

God my life has gotten so much better without them.

Once I'm out the swarm of children, my eyes instantly fall on Sloane, Luther, and Ben, and I feel a slight shiver go down my spine at the sight of ben, I mean it's weird to think he has the face of the boy I used to love when we were like thirteen, but he's not the boy I love, I think anyway, I mean okay I sorta have feelings for this Ben, but I don't want him to think it's because he has the face of my old Ben, its confusing isn't it?

"y/n hi!" Sloane exclaims, waving me over with her hands, and I put on a wide smile as I make my way over to her, setting my present for Grace on the table beside her before she wraps me into a tight hug, which I return with an awkward laugh.

"I heard you're a firefighter now? that's sick." I say, turning to Luther with a smile and he just nods.

"we brought the Umbrella Academy, we're currently renovating it, I'd love for you to come stay some time." He tells me, and I widen my eyes, pretending to be interested as I make small 'oo' noises.

I hate when our family gather together, I mean Luther is married with a child, Diego is married with kids, I don't know what the fuck is going on with Allison, weve hardly spoken since we got to this time line and its not exactly that i dont want to talk to her, i just dont know what id say, Klaus doesn't need love, Five is technically married to a piece of plastic, Ben's just out of prison, Viktor has basically dated every girl in his town and I'm just.. there, I end up feeling extremely left out at the family gatherings when they start talking about issues with their kids or relationship problems because the only relationship problem was the fact Ben died on me.

"How was prison?" I ask ben, my eyes lighting up slightly as I turn to face him, all my attention now on him.

"I can't exactly say I enjoyed it." He tells me, raising a bottle of beer to his lips and taking a sip, and I just know his parole officer is gonna be pissed so I just let out a quiet laugh.

"So where are you staying then? I can't imagine your parole officer would let you live far." I then go onto ask, and he groans slightly, pointing at Luther and Sloane who are now talking to Diego.

"but I'm seriously debating robbing a bank just to get thrown back in." He then adds, looking around and I can't help but laugh a little louder.

"You're staying with them?" I scoff, turning to look at him with raised eyebrows.

"hardly by choice, I just needed a permanent address." He sighs, and I laugh again.

"Fresh out prison, and you're gonna be turned into a painter, electrician, plumber and babysitter. good luck." I tell him and he lets out a small chuckle before taking another drink from his beer.

"How have you been then?" Ben asks, and I shrug slightly.

"I mean, yeah, I've been.. living." I answer with a laugh, and he nods in agreement.

"Why don't we go get you a drink, we can sit at a table at the very back, and you can let it all out." He offers and I rapidly nod.

I sit at the table with Ben, taking a small sip from my beer before clearing my throat.

"I'm a child psychologist now." I tell him, and he nods slightly.

"I mean, it just felt right, yknow? I want to help kids so they don't end up with a childhood that we had. Well, I mean, without the powers, the robotic mom, the alien dad, you get what I mean." I tell him with a small wave of my hand, and he continues to nod, a small smile on his face.

"I get it." He tells me, and we both fall into a comfortable silence before he breaks it right as I take a mouthful of beer.

"don't you miss your powers?"

that question almost makes me spit my beer everywhere, my eyes widening as I stare at him.

"God, no, I don't miss them in this time line Nobody knows who I am, nobody takes a double take or gawks at me waiting to see my powers in use, I can be whatever I want to be in this timeline and I plan on using that to my hearts content." I tell him, and he just looks at me.

"You don't miss them? not even a little bit?" He asks, and I shake my head, which causes him to shrug slightly.

"I miss my powers, I feel.. ordinary without them." He tells me, and I furrow my eyebrows slightly.

"No offence, but I'm glad you don't have your powers. You died because of them in my original timeline, and it's good to see what my ben would've looked like grown up." I tell him, and he gives me a sad smile before we fall quiet yet again.

"and i think it's good to feel ordinary, I spent my whole childhood wanting to be normal to fit in, and now I do." I then add, and he scoffs.

"There's nothing ordinary about us y/n. Apart from the Umbrella Academy and the Sparrow Academy, nobody in the world has gone through even a fraction of what we have, and you've technically went through more than me because the Umbrellas ended the world in 2019, just to then go and do it again back in the 60s, to come back for it to end in 2019 again.." Ben says, and I just scoff, but I can't help but laugh and nod.

"and both times was technically Viktors fault." I argue, and we both smile before Five appears from under a slide somewhere and nods, a bottle of beer in his hand.

"it was Viktors fault both times. Actually, she's not making that up." He tells ben as he makes his way over to our table, dragging a chair along behind him, and ben just raised his eyebrows slightly, clearly pissed off our conversation had been distributed by Five, who still looks like a kid.

"Well, isn't this just a sad table of losers who feel out of place at their nieces birthday party with all the married couples and kids." Five says as he sits his beer down on our table with a large clink.

"I don't feel out of place, I could easily find someone I could marry and have kids with. you couldn't because you look like you're 18." I argue, and five leans back in his seat and crosses his arms slightly, mouthing ben so subtly so that ben can't see.

"Wait, y/n, did you ever even move on after your ben died?" My other Ben asks, and I look at him, my eyes wide as I try to muster an answer.

I try to muster up and answer, but none suitable come to my mind because the truth is I didn't even try to move on, I felt like there was no point, my whole childhood my heart was set on the fact that I'd be marrying Ben, I wanted to at the time despite how young we were and the fact we didn't fully understand the whole concept of marrige and he said he wanted to aswell. when he died I just blamed myself, I thought it was my fault he had died and I convinced myself everyone I love will die because of me, as a sort of reminder that my powers were a curse. obviously, that fact was proven false because my powers are gone. but even now, I'm still cautious to open myself back up to love, but when I'm with this ben, I feel myself slowly opening up again.

"I tried, but nobody stuck around." I lie, and Five shoots me a knowing glare, and Ben just nods, yet another comfortable silence falling over us as I take a large drink from my beer, staring down at my hands before Five starts a conversation with Ben and I can't help but sigh a sigh of relief.

somehow, Luther and Sloane have convinced me to come to theirs to stay the night.

"I think it'll have beneficial effects on releasing your childhood trauma y/n." Luther tells me as I sit in the back of his car, ben at the other side as sloane sits in the front and stares out the window.

"I'm the child psychologist Luther. You just stick to putting out fires." I state, crossing my arms slightly as I stare out the car window, watching the world go by the single frame of glass, trying to hide my smile as I hear Ben laugh at my comment.

"Do you ever sit and look at people and just laugh to yourself because you've saved their asses from the end of the world three times now?" I ask to Luther mainly due to the fact the Sparrow Academy have only had to save the world once, which ended up in all but two of them dying and he just shrugs as he continues to drive.

"Imagine how Viktor feels, knowing he almost killed them twice." Ben says, and that causes me to laugh, slapping a hand over my mouth as I try to stop it.

"That's nasty! the first time wasn't fully his fault. He just discovered his powers and didn't know how to stop them." I tell him, leaning over to gently slap his arm, but I'm still laughing.

"Plus, it's also semi Luther fault for locking him in this weird, safe thing." I add, and Luther groans, muttering something under his breath, leaving me to smile proudly.

"Let's just sit in silence till we get home." Luther suggests, and nobody says a single word to protest and I guess it would be sorta rude if I did seeing as I'm staying at his house tonight.

I sit in my old room, looking around at how empty it is because the Umbrella Academy doesn't exist in this timeline, meaning this room is just a room where I just so happened to share all of my good childhood memories, or atleast the handful I can call good.

"Why would you actually agree to come back here?" Ben asks with a laugh as he stands at the doorframe, staring down at me with questioning eyes.

"I think it's actually partly to do with what Luther said, I think it's good for myself to come see the place and realise that everything that happened back in my time line is just memories now, I dont know I guess I'm trying to give myself some closure." I answer with a shrug as ben walks further into the room, now sitting beside me on the bed.

"What were we like? in your timeline anyway?" ben asks, and I feel my heart stop for a second as I look at him for a brief moment.

"Really young but you -" I cut myself off. Is it wrong to address this ben as my Ben? because it is the same person, but it's not at the same time.

"we understood each other, he- *you* were one of the only people at the Umbrella Academy who showed me love despite our age. if we were doing paired work, we'd always be together, at meals we'd always pass notes, during training we always went easy on each other, during missions we always had a close eye on each other, we'd always spend time in my room. yeah, we were really young, but we still loved each other." I tell him, and he just looks at me, a sad smile on his face.

"we were convinced we were gonna get married, and in all honesty, I would've married you if you stuck around." I then add, looking away as I get an unbearable feeling of sadness.

"I would've married you if you came to the Sparrow Academy timeline earlier." Ben tells me, and I almost choke on my spit as I look at him, my eyes wide.

"What?" I ask, shaking my head slightly.

"I felt myself changing slightly the minute I looked at you when our academies met, but I was too.." He trails off trying to find the words.

"stuck up? full of yourself?" I begin listing and he rolls his eyes but he smiles slightly.

"Yeah, yeah, I was too stuck up to actually allow myself to change for you, and also, I was too scared because I know im nothing like your ben so I didn't want to cause a disappointment as though you lost him again." Ben admits, and I just stare at him.

"Ben, you are my ben." I state, my eyes not leaving his face, not even when his eyes light up slightly, not even when he turns to look at me.

"I didn't want to tell you in case you thought I'm just using you because of what happened with Umbrella Ben, but I promise you that is not the case. You are my ben." I then add, and I see his eyes softening as a small smile appears on the edge of his lips.

"so it's safe to say we like each other then?" He asks after a moment of us just staring at each other.

"I guess so." I jokingly groan, but I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him into a hug, just savouring the feeling of ben in my arms, my ben as one of his arms wrap around my waist, the other one coming up to reach into my hair, pressing the back of my head closer into him.

"I can't believe you went to prison, you asshole! I was gonna tell you I had feelings for you once we all settled into the new timeline, and then you went to prison."I scoff, and he pulls away from the embrace slightly and looks at me.

"You could've always written a letter or something." He tells me, a smirk playing on his lips.

"I would've been better using a carrier pigeon. No chance was I gonna have a prison pen pal." I scoff, rolling my eyes, but I did write, and then I wrote again, and again, and guess what? I wrote again.

"I did write to you, over and over again, I just never had the courage to send them, because imagine you got one of the letters, wrote back but it didn't send to me?" I ask, a shiver going down my spine at the thought of never knowing if he felt the same way.

"Well, I would've rewrote the same letter every day and sent it to you until you got it." Ben says, a slight hint of promise in his words, and with that, I press a kiss to his lips, and he instantly returns it, his hand on my waist tightening, gently pushing my head closer to his as he depends the kiss and we continue in our kissing embrace got a few moments, before we hear a:

"When I said coming here would help to release your childhood trauma, I didn't mean by doing.. this." Luther says, and I just pull away laughing.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Keep hearing people say maribug keep asking adricat if he's ok and he keep saying he's ok instead of telling her his problem but I don't remember it happened more than once in s4 in Rockettear but even then the circumstances of that episode did warrant the "nothing" answer he gave her unless he want to tell her that "nino tell me you let nino and alya know each other identity" which will reveal adricat identity. So when else did she ask? about the thing in hack-san, I think another credit goes to alya since she's the one who bring the topic to maribug who seems to be blissfully unaware that her leaving without telling adeicat that she send subtitute would be a problem.

I didn't get into this side of things in my other post because it was long and I wanted to focus on why Chat Noir's behavior was so frustrating, but this ask brings up the other big reason why the season four conflict was such a frustrating and terribly written plot line. Specifically, the part of your ask where you point out that Maribug seems blissfully unaware that her actions are having a negative impact on Chat Noir until someone points it out to her.

Yes, she is presented as blissfully unaware of this and every other interpersonal conflict we're given in season four. Your ask treats this as a failing on Maribug's part as if she should have obviously realized that she was in the wrong, but that's the whole problem. Telling kids - telling anyone really - that they should just magically know what others need is a frankly terrible life lesson as that's just not how the world works. You cannot just assume that everyone will have the same view of the world as you do and instantly pick up on the same issues as you do. That is the path to easily avoidable frustration and conflict. It also teaches people to assume that their view of the world is inherently correct when that is rarely the case. We often don't know the whole story and the other person's point of view may end up being equally or even more valid. This issue is extremely present in season four as Marinette has legitimate reasons to behave the way she does, which I'll get into in a bit.

If Marinette were written as feeling guilty about how she was treating Chat Noir, then this would be a different story. She'd be way more in the wrong and would shoulder a much greater portion of the blame. But as is? She has no idea that she's doing anything wrong. And until someone takes the time to tell her that her actions are causing harm, she is going to continue causing harm because she has no idea that she's causing harm.

In fact, I'd argue that the Alya thing in Hack San is a point in Maribug's favor. Throughout the episode, we see Marinette sending Alya messages on ways to be a good partner to Chat Noir, proving that she does in fact care about him. And then, as soon as Alya says, "You need to talk to Chat Noir," what does Maribug do?

She goes and talks to Chat Noir, giving him a pretty good apology for the problem she now knows she caused. Because, shockingly, Maribug doesn't actually want to hurt her partner. She also clearly cares about his feelings, making me want to take the season four conflict and tear it into itty bitty pieces because what is the conflict even supposed to be when you write shit like this?

I want to briefly step away from Miraculous and talk about this issue in a broader context via this YouTube short:

This short is from a Vietnamese woman who moved to Germany. Her YouTube channel is about her experiences there, including things like the short above which goes into the differences between what it means to be a dinner guest in Vietnam and what it means to be a dinner guest in Germany. In Vietnam, it's apparently standard for the guests to cook dinner with you where as, in Germany, you're expected to have the meal ready when the guests arrive, making this a situation where it's super easy to come across as rude just by doing what you think is normal.

Society is relatively aware that these types of culture clashes are a thing, but you don't have to be from different cultures to have these types of situations. Every person has their own unique needs and ideas of what "normal" is. The culture they were raised in will affect this, but so will their family, their personal needs, and many other factors. Two people can be raised on the same street and wind up with wildly different world views even though they supposedly share a culture. This is extra true when you add in compounding factors like neurodiversity, which is why it's an exercise in futility to say, "But Maribug should have realized..."

Well, she clearly didn't. And you can't change that she didn't realize whatever you're mad about. All you can do is have someone tell her what she's doing wrong. If she then continues the behavior, go ahead and judge away. But if she immediately corrects it like she did in Hack San? Doesn't that just prove that she truly didn't know that Chat Noir was hurting and would have probably fixed all of his problems if someone just pointed them out to her?

This is only exacerbated by the fact that Marinette's behavior in season four is largely unchanged from her behavior in previous seasons. The only major change is that she revealed her identity to Alya, but as soon as that's pointed out as a problem, she course corrects with an apology. After that, she thinks that everything is okay because why wouldn't she? Chat Noir said it was fine and everything else has been business as usual.

Bringing temp heroes into help as needed? That's been going on since season two. Having these additional members has been vital in multiple battles and there have been plenty of times where Chat Noir took a background role to the temp hero of the day like in Sapotis, Rena Rouge's season two debut. So why would Maribug suddenly think that this dynamic is a problem when it's been working fine for so long? We even had a whole episode about how Chat Noir was still needed in spite of the new heroes back in season three! Or, at least, I think that was Desperada's message? This show is shockingly bad at giving clear lessons.

Keeping guardian knowledge from Chat Noir? That's also been going on since season two and was even treated as a conflict that supposedly got resolved in the episode Syren which was the episode that ended with Master Fu coming to the mansion to talk to Adrien after everything was over.

When I watched that episode, I assumed this meant that Chat Noir was going to be more involved in things like picking the temp heroes. I actually thought this was how we were going to get Queen Bee because I knew she was going to be a thing, but it made no sense for Marinette to pick Chloe for a miraculous. Of course, I was wrong. Nothing changed after Syren. Chat Noir remained nothing more than the comic relief while Ladybug got all the insider info.

To be clear, I think that was a terrible move writing wise, but it doesn't change the fact that this is what they went with. This is the established dynamic. I can't even say that Alya learning Marinette's secret led to something new. She's just taken Marinette's old role while Marinette has taken on Master Fu's old role. This show loves it's status quo and Chat Noir has been at least tolerant of that status quo since Syren, so it's not surprising that Maribug doesn't register that this is a thing that should change and no one bothers to point it out to her even though she has a mentor in Tikki (and Su Han, I guess?) and a confidant in Alya and a whole slew of Kwamis who could also provide insight if they were allowed to do that sort of thing. (Sass and Wayzz were robbed of mentor roles.) Additional blame goes to Plagg because he should absolutely have told Adrien to talk to Ladybug. What is the point of giving these characters mentors who never mentor? It's aggravating in the extreme.

To circle back to the first part of your ask, outside of Hack San and Rocketear, I don't think there are any times when Ladybug invites feedback from Chat Noir unless you want to give credit to the end of Kuro Neko:

Cat Noir: (lands next to her) I've been a really temperamental kitty, m'lady. I didn't realize how much trouble I'd make for you by giving back my Miraculous. Ladybug: (sits closer to him) Just because I don't need you all the time doesn't mean that I don't need you at all, Cat Noir. No one could ever replace you.

Which isn't Maribug inviting him to tell her what's up, but she is clearly willing to listen to him and reassure him, further backing up my point about this conflict being some of the worst writing I've ever had to suffer through. If Maribug always fixes the issue as soon as she learns about it, you are not writing a situation where she's clearly in the wrong. You are writing an easily solved communication issue where she gets blamed for something she clearly doesn't realize she's doing wrong and it is so frustrating!!! I feel so bad for her. The next episode is Penalteam, btw, which starts the battle with this gem:

Ladybug: (laughs) Nice scare tactics, but it's not gonna work. Cat Noir and I are the best at soccer! Cat Noir: (Whispers to Ladybug) I don't know a thing about soccer M'lady. Maybe it's time to call the real team?

And basically just spends the whole episode making Chat Noir seems like a worthless partner while Maribug tries her best to make him - and everyone else - feel special.

Oh, and the episode before Kuro Neko? Well, it's technically Ephemeral, but that got magically overwritten so let's go one further back and we get to Dearest Family, which ends with this:

Cat Noir: (grabs a golden paper crown on the coffee table) Since I'm the king, (wears the crown on his head) would you be my queen, Ladybug? Ladybug: With pleasure, kitty cat! Tradition is tradition!

Oh yes, these two are in such conflict and Maribug does nothing to validate Chat Noir. He's in pain every episode and she's just totally oblivious to it.

If that was what they wrote, then I'd probably agree that we needed more instances of her asking if Chat Noir was okay. But it's not what they wrote. If you look through the list of season four episodes, you'll find that less than half of them deal with the supposed conflict of the season (by my count, only 8 of the 24 episodes before the final actually showcase the conflict and they are not in a logical order in terms of escalation as I tried to demonstrate above). The rest of the episodes flat out ignore it or even straight up work against the conflict like when Ladybug says this to Chat Noir in Guilttrip: "I probably don't tell you this enough, but I couldn't do this without you. And it'd be a lot less fun too."

Seriously, what even is this season? What is the conflict supposed to be? Because it sure as shit isn't Maribug undervaluing Chat Noir, if memory servers, season four sees her validate him more times than any other season. And it isn't her guiltily hiding things from him like so many fanfics claim because we have multiple points of evidence that prove that she's completely oblivious that there even is a conflict. So what conflict are the writers actually trying to write?

What's even more baffling is that none of this logically leads to the loss at the end of the season:

Maribug's new secrets didn't lead to her downfall. The only reason she lost was because of the secret that's always been there - a fact that's never revealed to her - and a freaking evil twin! So why did it matter that Maribug was keeping secrets? This is made even worse by season five maintaining all of the secrets, once again begging the question of what lesson were we trying to teach here???

Chat Noir wasn't needed for the final fight of the season, Maribug only needed the powers of a few of the temp heroes to win, a baffling ending to a season whose focus was Chat Noir feeling unimportant. You could scrap that conflict entirely and the ending would not change. In fact....

Adrien quitting to be nothing more than a good little boy who obeys his father would have actually saved the world from eventually being rewritten. If you think about it, the season four final actually punishes Adrien for being defiant. So does season five as, if Chat Noir had quit, his father would still be alive. I thought this show was supposed to be a romcom, not a tragedy. Why is Adrien being punished for being a hero? Is this supposed to be karma for lying to Ladybug with the whole Catwalker thing?

This shit is why I say I'm a writing salt, character sugar blog. I can't get mad at the characters when they're in such a nonsense story where things never logically tie together. They all deserve so much better.

None of this is meant to imply that ignorance is a blanket excuse for hurting others. Nor is it meant to imply that you have to forgive someone who hurt you just because they didn't mean to. There's a ton of nuance around these topics. But season four acknowledges none of that nuance while creating a situation that desperately needed nuance because there was no clear right and wrong here. Should Maribug work to be more aware of others feelings? Sure, but that journey can only start after she's made aware of her faults and no one ever points them out to her. Does Chat Noir need to work on clearly communicating his needs? Desperately, but no one is teaching him that lesson so he remains a terrible communicator who suffers in silence. What impressively bad writing.

[euryleli]

Am I going crazy when I say El has never seen Will and Mike be... WillandMike?

In s1 El and Will missed each other entirely. When he came back, El got trapped in the upside down instead and s2 was the same thing - Will and Mike worked together as duo for most of the season and El was off doing her own thing.

In s3 we learn that El barely spends time with the rest of the party and she only connected with max after the whole ordeal about Mike's nana (which happened months after the ending of season 2), so El and Mike spent all of their days together completely alone at her cabin or actively ignoring and ditching the party during group hangouts

We don't actually know what happened during the time skip from the battle of starcourt to the byers move, but I don't think it's a stretch to say Mike and Will's friendship was still off (especially because of their infamous fight and "it's not my fault you don't like girls")

In s4 we know El and Will finally got to properly know each other - they're family now, not only acquaintances with a connection to the supernatural - but when Mike arrived in Lenora... well, the airport and rink o'mania scenes speak for themselves. They were being weird and El was obviously too preoccupied with her own issues to actually do or say something about it

But El's not stupid... so do we think if she had seen how Mike and Will act around each other, she would've known?

She's really perceptive and her upbringing being so disconnected from society also means she doesn't see the world through straight and heteronormative lenses...

[starbuck]

I love the way Flint always looks so pikachu face surprised whenever he sees Billy do something Evil tm in S4

he’s like wow he’s changed. wonder who he gets that from.

[smallpwbbles]

Monkie kid season 5 ep 1 and 2 thoughts (SPOILERS)

DADSY ENJOYERS WE ARE FUCKING THRIVING THIS HIGH NOON

Pigsy saying he loves MK while stroking his face filled me with the highest amount of joy and whimsy that increases my life span

At the same time I love thinking about how their father/son relationship progressed cuz he literally only called MK son for the first time in S4, I’d love to understand why he never saw himself as MKs dad despite raising him

Literally hearing the eng voices again is just heaven on earth

Bro every time Mac and SWK bicker I gain years of life I fucking love it

Mac saying FFM has been his home just as long as Wukongs has me pondering a bit like did he mean that literally or did he mean he’s just been around on FFM a while after SWK established it

MK please when he said he couldn’t sleep I wanted to scream

THE FACT THEY REBUILT SWKS HOUSE I LOVE FOUND FAMILY MAN

I godda give to props to Wildbrain I can’t lie I really fuck with their animation you can tell the people who are working on the show now actually care (and it’s even more present throughout the season)

THE ENTIRE COURT EP WAS AS FUNNY AS I WANTED IT TO BE

Ten kings: we know that you scribbled your name out the book of the dead

SWK: smuggest face that screams he would do it again

I need Nezha to have a vacation he’s got daddy issues and is dealing with 3 monkeys like I’d hate to be him

The gutteral scream SWK did when they put the circlet on him I was SICK

“There isn’t anyone standing here that I don’t trust” while Mac looked up at him, what if I fucking died

“He always gets away” while showing macaque not getting away was sick

[thethiefandtheairbender]

as a lifelong ATLA fan who narrowly had ATLA dethroned as my top show by The Dragon Prince steadily over the past 5 years, the similarities between the two have very little to do with the surface level parallels that get regularly drawn between them.

Like ATLA, TDP has Books for seasons and chapters for episodes, but unlike ATLA, which only touched on storytelling sparingly as a theme, TDP is obsessed with interrogating storytelling and history and the presence of unreliable, biased narrators throughout many of its episodes (most notably 2x05, 2x06, 3x06, 4x04, and 4x07 among them). Half of what you learn in the 1x01 intro ends up being a lie once you reach S3, with more being steadily deciphered.

Yes, TDP has different magics with people living under those umbrella terms... for the elves. Humans are coming culturally at things from a completely different angle, and the elves' connection to their primal sources are discussed philosophically in detail, informing their practices and their culture first hand, including the way they chafe against humans, who are arcanum-less. Many animals in the world are also connected to magic, which influences both their design and which ones get hunted for humans' more 'clever' solution in dark magic, including each other.

The core issue of the Puppetmaster, down to being a coercive magic formed by someone deeply resentful of their imprisonment? Said puppetmaster is the main endgame antagonist of the entire show with all of S4 onwards being exploring the ethics of controlling people against their will in various methods, and the entire show itself being a thematic battleground of fate (imprisonment) vs free will for virtually every single character.

Where ATLA mostly concerns itself timeline wise with ending the war, very little thought is shown by any of the characters as to what they'll do after the war. This isn't a problem (as it reflects the sheer domineering scope of the conflict) but even Zuko being firelord is only ever really addressed with 2.5 episodes left till the finale. TDP, meanwhile, ends its 'war' in s3 and s4 opens up with dealing with the old wounds festering between people with centuries of history, the struggles that come when people aren't able to let go and believe they're safe or mourn in a healthy manner, and the religious/cultural clashes that may occur when trying to integrate different groups of people.

TDP also has an evil father with a devoted daughter and a brother who eventually defects, but it explores the reality of an abusive parent who loves/will sacrifice for you and your right to leave regardless, even if that means leaving the sibling you truly deeply love and who loves you in turn. Which means that when you and your sibling are on opposite sides of a deep ideological conflict, it actually really fucking hurts bc we've seen first hand just how much they love each other and also how and why everything fell apart not in spite of that love necessarily, but also because of it.

Is this to say that TDP is a 1:1 with ATLA or that it's better? No, not at all, and the latter is subjective. I prefer TDP, but I think they're about on equal ground when you look at each show currently as a whole (although TDP has two seasons left to go).

But TDP takes a lot of what ATLA was doing thematically with some of its most interesting beats and then builds or expands upon them further. It talks further and more consistently about the cycles of violence; in many ways, Jack De Sena's character, Callum, begins the series largely where Sokka had ended (and he's not the most like Sokka anyway; very much his own thing); we get Faustian bargains and centuries' long grief and fucked up people who are trying both succeeding and failing at not doing fucked up things. There are antagonists, but it is very hard to actually label anyone at this point a straight up villain. Moral greyness is where the show starts, and it just continues from there.

That's not to say the show is nothing but dark and depressing - like ATLA, there's a steady thread of hope and humour even as the show gets steadily closer and closer to its 11th hour point - but the show is usually emotionally heavier. There's more blood and potentially disturbing imagery with body horror and on screen death. There's so much foreshadowing you basically can't go more than 5 minutes into any episode without having something that's going to come back around or be referenced again like 3-5 seasons later.

Just to be clear - TDP is like ATLA, but it's like ATLA in interesting ways beyond the more shallow surface level that usually gets attributed to it, while still very much being its own show and its own thing. And that is why I tend to recommend it to people who like ATLA.

Thank you and goodnight

(Also, the fandom doesn't have any ship wars, and the show is queer as fuck)

[love-byers]

btw they knew will was going to have feelings for mike when they wrote

Do you remember the first day that we met? It was...it was the first day of kindergarten. I knew nobody. I had no friends. I just felt so alone, and so scared--but I saw you on the swings, and you were alone too. You were just swinging by yourself. So I just walked up to you and I asked--I asked if you wanted to be my friend. And you said yes. You said yes. It was the best thing I've ever done.

why the fuck would brilliant writers like the duffers give a character such a beautiful touching monologue, make the recipient of the monologue in love with them, just for it to mean absolutely nothing in the end.

if s5 ends with mlvn endgame and will accepting mike doesn't share feelings and moving on then all of that amounts to nothing. it literally means nothing. it'll be as if it never happened.

if the narrative of will and mike's arc is "gay boy falls in love with straight best friend because of straight best friend's adoring behavior and he just has to accept that some people are just straight" i will be absolutely flabbergasted. literally nobody besides mlvns want that.

part of stranger things since s3 is that some people ARENT straight. we think robin is straight and has feelings for steve in s3 because the writers allowed the heteronormativity, just so they could flip it on our heads later on. and they do a similar thing with vickie in s4, giving us hope that she shares robin's feelings, just for us to be devastated when we see her with her boyfriend. then they DOUBLE flip it on us by revealing vickie does indeed like robin.

the writers are literally teaching you to not just assume people are straight no matter how it may seem. we saw vickie flirt with her bf and kiss him and look happy when he kissed her neck and GUESS WHAT?? NOT STRAIGHT AND HAD FEELINGS FOR SOMEONE ELSE!!!

in almost all the most beloved couples, we've seen them appear happy with someone else before. like, genuinely happy. but we know that doesn't mean anything, because they can appear happy and still have issues/have hidden feelings for someone else. nancy told steve she loved him to his face and not even a week later got with jonathan. murray literally says you can genuinely like someone and be attracted to them and have real love for someone else at the same time.

not everything is what it seems. wizards of waverly place literally prepared us for this like come on

[letomills]

A set of 23 geneticized & townified skins, including defaults for S1-S2-S3-S4 and the alien skin (choose between 2 alien options). Also, multiple sets of showerproof versions of these 23 skins, for those of you who are interested in custom body shapes.

This set is an evolution of this skin palette & its accompanying showerproof versions. I reused the old files, meaning that you can switch from the old palette to the new very easily (don't try to combine them though - see details under the cut).

Credit for the original skin textures goes to @whysim, @h0nkytonkangels, Nat / @theboldandthebeautifulsims, @pooklet and Tea Leaf, thank you so much to them!

First, let's talk about the regular set for Maxis shapes, then we'll get to the showerproof sets for custom body shapes.

1. The regular set

The palette contains 22 natural shades including S1, S2, S3 & S4 defaults + 2 options for the alien default (choose one). Skins 1-22 are geneticized and townified, the alien skins are townified. If you don't want all 23 skins, you can absolutely pick and choose, the genetic spectrum won't be disrupted.

Download skins: SFS / Mega

original 1 - original 2 - original 3

original 4 - original 5 - original 6

original 7 - original 8 - original 9

original 10 - original 11 - original 12

original 13 - original 14 - original 15

original 16 - original 17 - original 18

original 19 - original 20 - original 21

original 22 - original 23 h0nky - original 23 TeaLeaf

I edited some of the original textures so that: • everyone TU-EU has the appropriate fat, normal and fit states (for the alien textures to show up as they should, please use Argon's alien and zombie fitness fix) • all elders have wrinkles, except on TeaLeaf's Stargazer (I used @simnopke's subtle wrinkles) • all toddlers have the cute toddler teeth and babies have no teeth, • teeth from Nat's, Pooklet's and Tea Leaf's skins were replaced either with ones from the Whysim skins or the ones used on @serabiet's Those Darn Skins, just because they're less bright and I like that better.

I also fixed the toes on the Whysim37 skins and edited some boobs ↓

The number at the end of every file name (e.g. 0.05, 0.08, 0.1...) gives you the genetic value of that skin. To learn more about skin genetics, see Rikkulidea's tutorial.

💞 To the people who were using the old palette and want to switch to this one: all you need to do is delete the old skins from your downloads folder and replace them with the new ones (don't forget to delete the alien default you don't want). The new skins are on the same files as the old ones (although they haven't all kept the same number), except for skin #11 which is new. This means that after you make the switch, your sims who had skins from the old palette will update without you having to do anything with their genetics in simPE. And if you change your mind after having a look at your sims with the new palette, you can always switch back to the old one. The same files being reused also means that you can't use skins from the new palette alongside skins from the old, as they will conflict. The only exception is new skin #11, which is on a new file and can therefore be used alongside the old palette without issue. All of that also applies to the showerproof skins.

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2. The showerpoof skins

What are showerproof skins? They are skins linked to a custom body shape (or body shapes). When you give a showerproof skin to a sim, that sim will have the body shape that the skin is linked to when they are nude (taking a bath, streaking, doing ACR stuff, etc.). Showerproof skins have no effect whatsoever on clothing, because clothes use their own meshes.

These showerproof skins are for: • Melodie9 fat family • Momma Lisa F / Melodie9 Fat M • Androgyny F / Lifa's Trans M • Trans Melodie9 Fat M / Trans Momma Lisa • Dummy Thicc • MartaXL edit • Athletic Girl / Lean Body Builder

They are repo'd to the regular skins above: you need the regular set for the showerproof sets to work. Like the regular set, they're geneticized, except for the alien ones. You'll have to choose if you want them to be townified or not (townified skins can appear on new townies and NPCs that spawn, non-townified skins cannot).

The required meshes are included, don't forget to choose between blockfeet/sexyfeet/Marvine feet and Maxis hands/smooth hands. If you're missing meshes, the affected sims will appear as floating heads or will be missing half their bodies when naked (it won't break your game in any way, it's just definitely not the intended result).

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❥ Melodie9 Fat Family (M9Fat)

TM/TF/AF/EF are linked to Melodie9 fat TM/TF/AF/EF, AM & EM are both linked to Melodie9 fat AM. Children and younger are Maxis.

Download Melodie9 fat family: SFS / Mega

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❥ Momma Lisa - Melodie9 Fat Male (ML-MFM)

AF & EF are linked to Momma Lisa, AM & EM are linked to Melodie9 Fat AM, TF/TM are linked to Melodie9 Fat TF/TM.

Download ML-MFM: SFS / Mega

Note on the included meshes: the original nude fat family meshes are from Melodie9's MTS, but turns out those are, well, not how top and bottom meshes are supposed to be: all of them are full-body, doubling the polycounts unnecessarily (I somehow only realized that today). So that's fixed now, and I took the opportunity to add preg morphs to the teen meshes.

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❥ Androgyny AF-EF - Lifa's Trans AEM (AndroF-AMTr)

AF/EF are linked to Androgyny AF/EF, AM & EM are linked to Lifa / @withlovefromsimtown's Trans Male. Teens and younger are Maxis.

Download AndroF-AMTr: SFS / Mega

✨Alternative set: if you want teens to have trans shapes too (choose either the "AndroF-AMTr" set above or the "AndroUF-UMTr" set below) ↓

❥ Androgyny TF-AF-EF - Lifa's Trans TM-AEM (AndroUF-UMTr)

TF/AF/EF are linked to Androgyny TF/AF/EF. TM, AM & EM are linked to Lifa / @withlovefromsimtown's trans male shapes. Children and younger are Maxis.

Download AndroUF-UMTr: SFS / Mega

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❥ Trans Momma Lisa - Trans Melodie9 Fat Male (TrML-TrMFM)

AF & EF are linked to @kaluxsims's Trans Melodie9 fat Male, AM & EM are linked to her Trans Momma Lisa. Teens are Melodie9 Fat TF/TM.

Download TrML-TrMFM: SFS / Mega

Note on the included meshes: you'll see that they're available in 3 versions (choose one - previews are included). The "Leto edit" blockfeet & sexyfeet versions better match all the underwear and swimwear that I've shared for these body shapes (especially in the case of TrML).

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❥ Dummy Thicc (DT)

AF & EF linked to @digisims2's Dummy Thicc, TF linked to my Dummy Thicc TF. All others are Maxis.

Download Dummy Thicc: SFS / Mega

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❥ MartaXL

AF & EF linked to @brattylulu's MartaXL, TF linked to Melodie9's fat TF. All others are Maxis.

Download MartaXL: SFS / Mega

✨ Alternative set: if you'd rather have M sims linked to Melodie9 fat male (choose either the "MartaXL" set above or the "MartaXL-MFM" set below) ↓

❥ MartaXL - Melodie9 fat male (MartaXL-MFM)

AF & EF linked to Brattylulu's MartaXL, TF/TM/AM-EM linked to Melodie9's fat TF/TM/AM. Children and younger are Maxis.

Download MartaXL-MFM: SFS / Mega

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❥ Athletic Girl / Lean Body Builder (AG-LBB)

TF, AF & EF are linked to Marvine / @blueheavensims's Athletic Girl; TM, AM & EM are linked to Synapticsim / @blueheavensims's Lean Body Builder. Children and younger are Maxis.

Download AG-LBB: SFS / Mega

Note on the included meshes: you'll have to choose between 2 versions, either "HD" or "low poly" (previews are included). The HD meshes are the top and bottom meshes that BlueHeavenSims shared here, with a couple tweaks (smoothed normals on the forearms, fixed shoulders on the LBB fat morphs) - they have sexyfeet, smooth hands, 3D nipples and are high-poly (6,454 poly for full-body AG; 8,601 poly for full-body LBB). The low-poly meshes are top and bottom meshes I made based on Marvine's original AG and Synapticsim's original LBB v.2.0 (I added morphs with BlueHeavenSims's morphs as reference) - they have blockfeet, Maxis hands and are low-poly (1,960 for full-body AG; 2,186 poly for full-body LBB).

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Further info

All of these skins are tooltipped, have their custom thumbnails and are sortindexed so that they will appear tidily set after set in your custom skins bin. If you use other skins though, there is a chance that those will appear jumbled up with mine if their sortindex numbers happen to clash. It's only an aesthetic issue but if it bothers you, see this tutorial by Kurimas on how to change the order in which clothes appear in the CAS catalogue (it works for skins and other bodyshop content too).

Why make the showerproof skins repo-only? 1. Repo'd files = smaller files. 2. If you don't like the textures that I picked for the regular set, you can replace them with your favorites in simPE if you know how to do that and all the repo'd files will follow suit. This way you can get all the showerproof skins to have the textures that you like with much less work than if you had to edit them one by one.

[shaunashipman]

they are stuck at s4. they refuse to acknowledge any growth or changes in them since s4, cause that was when it was "supposed to happen" (no it isn't, you just can't separate buck from buddie and refuse to understand buck being bi has nothing to do with buddie). this is also why there was the belief that tim was using s7 to put everyone back where they were at the end of s4. and so they want to ignore buck's growth from s5&6

all the growth buck has gone through in his romantic relationships, learning not to cling to a bad thing for fear of being alone (taylor), being able to see when something is not right for him anymore and doesn't fit, and ending it without spiralling and needing to talk to 27 ppl about it (natalia), they ignore. all their "criticisms" about bucktommy only work if they ignore all of buck's growth over the past 3 seasons. the buck of s7/8 would not stay with tommy if he didn't want to be with tommy. the buck of s7/8 would not allow tommy to call him "evan" if he didn't like it.

i mean, it's also a stretch to say that s4 buck would just let someone call him "evan" if he didn't want them to, because s4 is the season that he told his parents he wanted them to call him "buck", and before s4 the writers clearly hadn't come up with the backstory about buck's name and him having any issue with it whatsoever.