#season 2 had tons of important conversations happen off screen

[fyeahnix]

Ok lemme talk about this season of Arcane, the ending, and most importantly, Sevika. If you don't want spoilers, back away now but I'm leaving this open because people have a tendency to not open or read my posts with read more cuts after them 🙃

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First off, I will say that I like Arcane a lot. Like a LOT. I've watched the first season 4 times (rarely do I watch anything more than once) and I think it's a masterclass in adult animation. Fortiche really put everything into this series.

That being said...

While I did like season 2, I don't think it was enough. Animation wise it was phenomenal, writing wise...I think it could have been better. As I've learned through doing research for my Sevika fics, the League of Legends universe, lore, and worldbuilding is fucking MASSIVE and even if I don't give two shits about that community or game, I have to give it props in that department because they really put a ton of work into it to make it feel alive. Maps? Short stories? Timelines? Race and culture? Apex could never...

That ofc is why it's hard for me to say that the writing is amazing. We had far too many characters to keep track of in season 2 with far too many plot threads to finish in two seasons. I think ideally, this series should have been 3 seasons instead of 2. Acts 1 and 2 could have been its own season, and Act 3 could have been its own season. If not that, then at least one more episode per act would have helped a lot. Things just progressed and wrapped up far too quickly for my liking.

Also not a huge fan of how quickly video game related media tends to dip into the whole timeline and multidimensional business. It def works well for some games but here? Idk I guess it was bound to happen given some League character's abilities, but the stakes just elevated far too quickly for me. Not a fan of Viktor becoming one of the main antagonists at all, and DEFINITELY not a fan of the conflict between Piltover and Zaun being sidelined for an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing with the war against the Noxians. It makes sense, I just wish "war with the Noxians" came at a later date so we could focus on the twin cities.

And speaking of the generational conflict between Piltover and Zaun, let's talk about Sevika.

As I said before, Sevika is the most qualified person to become the leader of Zaun and I stand by that even after the ending. But first....what about her found family? Isha sacrificed herself and Sevika gets no on-screen reaction? The last two episodes just progressed SOOOO FAST that we and some of the characters didn't even have time to breathe. Did Sevika even get time to mourn for Isha? What about Jinx, who is now gone? Sevika barely even encountered Vander! I would have loved to see some of the aftermath there because I think season 1 did a better job of allowing characters time to process their emotions and grief, even if the pacing was still kinda fast. It was acceptable!

I am sad af she didn't get more lines, but remember, Sevika has always been a side character in this series. An important side character but a side character no less. The promo shot of her now feels like...what was the point? (more on that in a sec) but considering how many characters and plot points and plot threads they had to account for, I am not surprised she didn't get more screen time. Hell, Vi and Caitlyn didn't even get a chance to have a full conversation on eveything that happened and Caitlyn didn't even apologize on screen. The fuck bro.

Now about Sevika's ending....I am very happy she isn't dead. Like dawg, you have no fucking idea how happy I am about it. SHE FUCKING LIVED. But....

I am seeing some people saying they're not happy or they're confused or that her ending doesn't make sense. And I just disagree with those points. Let me explain why.

I posted something earlier today about it, but again, as people don't open my read mores, I'll repost it here:

We absolutely do not know how much time passed between the war and the final few shots of the season. So Sevika joins the council. I DO NOT THINK she would do this unless there's a good reason for it, and that's why I'm guessing she will be Zaun's ambassador on the council. That war probably significantly changed the relationship between Piltover and Zaun and while old wounds will take more than a fucking war to heal, her being on the council now means she directly has a say in Zaun's future. Remember, the council was literally about to hand Zaun their independence before Jinx blew it up, and Mel was in support of it. As I said before, Sevika is respected down there at a bare minimum with all the factions. She would know better than anyone how to lead Zaun at this point. So yeah I get the hesitation, but it makes sense in my eyes. And it makes it likely that Sevika could show up again in a future League animation, if not become a whole champion.

I like her ending. I am sorry but it just makes fucking sense. Sevika is extremely loyal to her home and her people of Zaun. We've seen that time and time again. She was willing to go to war and die for those people not just against Piltover but also the Noxians, so why on fucking earth would anyone believe she's making a bad choice here?

She is now in the best possible position anyone in Zaun could be to advocate for their independence and support their growth. She knows the chem barons and brought them to peace, she gained the respect of the Firelights with Scar leading them in Ekko's absence, and she even got the Jinxers together with them before the Noxian attack on Zaun. Sevika has experience, she has the ear of the people, she knows what it's like down there, she is made to lead and help advocate for them!!!!

Believe me I get that whole "changing things from the inside" angle doesn't work more often than not, but this doesn't feel like "changing from the inside," it feels like "let me advocate for my people's actual independence so we have a starting point to become self sufficient." Again, Piltover was literally about to let Zaun gain their independence, and while none of the previous council members that agreed to it are there, Mel is/was. Who's to say she didn't help negotiate for Sevika to sit on the council and start (or complete!) the Zaun independence process before she left for Noxus? I can't imagine Sevika would just show up to the table and sit there if she didn't have a damn good reason. Like come on now. This woman has seen first-hand what Piltover is capable of and does not like them nor looks like she wants to be there. But she's seen what Piltover has done to her people first-hand, and after learning from both Vander and Silco, this is how she feels she can best protect her people.

She IS the new leader of Zaun and their ambassador at the council.

And lastly, we've been told that some characters will be returning in future League animations. Mel seems like an absolute given, but what about Sevika? Zaun's story is only just beginning, and yeah they said they'd like to branch out to other regions, that doesn't mean a cameo or maybe another medium can't be used to continue that story (a book, perhaps??).

Anyway yeah those are my thoughts...

[lambourngb]

re: your tags on that one post abt plotholes in rnm: what are the plotholes that make you lose the most sleep?

(this is my main btw, my rnm blog is @curlyguerin )

Hi! Okay... strap in, because there are a lot of little and big things that wiggle into my thoughts and makes me wonder ...am I the only one who couldn't follow that plotline?

In my opinion RNM suffers more from abandoned narratives and continuity errors than plot holes I guess, since we only have 2 seasons, with at least 2 more to go I guess I can hope they come back to these issues... but: [Under the cut plus some spoilers for season 3]

Things I would like explained :

1. What did Jesse Manes fund with family money in 1x08 ? I'm guessing it was surveillance of the town and the search for more aliens that could have escaped the military in 1947-1948. The idea that Jesse funded Caulfield is just laughable to me, along with how he was able to get his Army-assigned son moved from Germany to New Mexico for 5 years and no one noticed?? Caulfield has to be separate from whatever Jesse was doing in Roswell. Clearly there is still an ACTIVE military project focused on aliens because Flint isn't AWOL, Flint also takes Noah's body to Area 51, so where was Jesse in violation of his orders (Alex's threat to Jesse in 1x08 and then shipping him to Niger)? Surveilling citizens and setting up cameras all over town?

2. Did they ever build an Air Force base on the Fosters Homestead Ranch? (1x01-1x02) ...then it's never mentioned again.

3. I am aware I am the only one who cares about this little bit, but the show seemed to set up a narrative in season 1 about the spotlight Roswell shined white victims of crimes - like Katie and Jasmine, that the town of Roswell holds quite a lot of racism regarding justice- vilifying Rosa for over 10 years, ignoring the deaths of people around Ranchero Night, and then Noah kills Wyatt Long's best friend Hank Gibbons in 1x13. I dunno, I was expecting more from Wyatt in season 2 about this than picking a fight with Michael over Mimi's missing persons sheet and showing up with a crossbow in 2x04. And like, there was a theme of people going missing in season 2!! Mimi, Jenna, the weird twins from 2x06, Charlie -- but yet, no closer scrutiny by Sheriff Valenti other than her focus on Max Evans and the story about Mexico- Like this felt not like a plot hole, but a dropped narrative -- to wrap up the fate of Racist Hank in a missing persons sheet in 2x01. To treat him weirdly like all of Noah's other victims (who were women and men of color and poor), but for a few factors like he was white, he had actual lines in the show over a couple of episodes, and he's one of the few townspeople we learn his first and last name still sticks out in my mind as strange. The Doylist explanation is the actor wasn't available for season 2, but the Watson-perspective of this is just someone the in-show universe doesn't care about ...? Okay. I will keep that in mind, and try to ignore the fact that the town of Roswell swings wildly back to caring about white victims again in 2x13 with Jesse Manes.

4. The Alighting from 1x13 - just how far away was it from happening? Noah was ready to stick a sheriff's deputy, the town event planner and Michael (who probably would be been the only one to go missing without much fanfare, except maybe by Alex) into a pod...for how long? Months? Years? What was his endgame? how did he expect to go unnoticed by the town while he waited for his alien salvation/alien UBER to arrive? Could he just mindwarp everyone into forgetting about the pod squad? Since we didn't see any alien ships show up in the six months from 1x13 to 2x13, and no further follow up by any of our heroes about what Noah was babbling about... I'm going to say this should come back into play for season 3, otherwise it's the most egregious plot hole from season 1.

5. Why did Flint want to work with Helena? Jesse had this master plan that Helena knew all about apparently but she never shares the plan with Flint? Jesse never shares this plan with Flint either? Why? As far as I can tell from the plot of season 2, Jesse takes the console piece from Alex, he was going to kill Alex to keep him out of the way, use the console to blow up civilians, he created a paper trail that pointed the finger at Max, and then when everyone knew the truth about aliens, he was going to use HIS atomizer bomb to release the toxin that Charlie had already developed for Project Shepherd to kill all the aliens.... WHY would Flint want to stop that, especially since they fight in 2x11 over how slow Jesse was moving in his plans? Other than objecting to killing Alex, why would Flint turn Alex over to Helena to blackmail Michael into building a second atomizer bomb? He should have just kept Alex out of the way until it was all over and let Jesse proceed with his plans. Flint's desire to work with Helena Ortecho remains a plot hole to me, that is explained in the most flimsy way of he thinks his dad isn't serious about killing all the aliens even though he has the means? And if he takes Alex from Jesse's control so easily, why not steal the bomb Jesse had too?

6. These are more gripes about continuity, not really plot holes, but the fact we have this loose timeline of events but it doesn't match the weather of filming.... Like Heather Hemmens looked so gorgeous in that little silk outfit in 2x01, but she's wandering outside in Dec in Roswell New Mexico looking like that. I get that it was filmed in August/Sept of 2019 but come on... so my main frustration is I have no idea what season and month is supposed to be on screen. Universe timeline says Winter but filming schedule meant it was early fall with still having the heat of summer there...then the show ends in May/June in the universe, but we all know RNM wrapped in Dec 2019/Jan 2020 so they are all bundled up in winter again.

7. Also on continuity, small things like Rosa's birthday being wrong, the fact her astrological sign isn't Pieces for either date, openly letting Greg Manes see Rosa, not seeming to care that Liz's ex-fiance hears that Rosa is alive - like i'm sure her "dead" sister came up in conversation between Liz/Diego

- the show gives us this beautiful conversation with Michael sharing his background with Alex in 1x10, but then Alex completely forgets it in 2x04 by dropping some line like "this is what you do with family" when Michael expresses confusion about a height chart. Also, on the same note- the jabs about the Library being a dive bar, also felt like a drop in continuity because Alex knows that Michael just lost his mom (1x12) , the government IS studying aliens, and his brother is in a pod, so like, he has some very valid reasons to drink if that's what he wanted to do with in his life in early season 2!! but, also he knows Michael is a genius??

- Why Alex never mentions Rosa, Isobel's blackouts/why Michael gave up UNM, or even hint about what happened with his dad in the shed during his conversation with Maria in 2x05 is also beyond bizarre to me. It was an "information" dump conversation that Alex still doesn't share all the information he has about a situation and just ends up looking kind of judgmental in my opinion.

- the truck conversation in 2x06 between Maria and Alex, why Maria prompts a girl's name when Alex says he's never been in a real relationship INSTEAD of addressing the very real elephant in the room, Michael Guerin, that they had a conversation about in 2x05- also feels like a gap in continuity.

8. Science wise- the pathogen that Charlie developed? It was supposed to be so specific that it could kill a leader of Al Quada and all of their direct descendants but leave the rest of the population unharmed. [Which um, that's a war crime, but whatever!] How was Maria affected? the DNA they had at Caulfield to develop it - like, Maria was descended from Louise and Louise lived free. The only person that pathogen SHOULD have affected was Michael (if they used Nora to base it on) Unless you're telling me that there's some protein in "alien dna" that is so specific to aliens, that no other human shares it, but also so completely undetectable that Kyle couldn't find it in Maria's blood... ? I suppose it's possible. I hope we get more explanation about that in season 3. It makes me wonder why Caulfield/Project Shepherd ever let Patty Harris go after she volunteered for some study then, and remained content to just pay her medical bills through a fake insurance company? [But also didn't flag Mimi and all the doctors that Maria took her to???]

9. Michael's hand. I'm going to reserve judgment about this, because some of my salt on this is based on season 3 promo pictures, but I really thought that moment in 2x13 when he takes off his hat, while Alex is singing, you see him without the wrapping on his hand, that maybe he found some peace with Jesse dead and demolishing the shed with Alex. But then it looks like the hand-danna is all over season 3, right up until the finale of season 3, so... was that a mistake in wardrobe AND not a beautiful moment of character growth??? I wish I could extend some grace to RNM about that, but alas... see above for why I have trust issues.

10. Perhaps I wasn't watching season 1 closely, but I thought Noah's madness was brought on by the fact he was stuck in his pod? That it was "lower class travel accommodations" and Isobel's scream at 13 got his attention? I assumed that he stayed in the pod, possessing Isobel on and off, right up until he used her body to kill Rosa in 2008, absorbing enough power to break out. So how did Noah find Jim Valenti so quickly? If it was through Isobel's memories, then why did Jim not immediately have Noah, some random alien approaching him about his recently dead daughter, hauled off to Caulfield? Jim pays $1,000 for Rosa's body, putting her in a pod [Noah's broken pod??] and stores her, waiting for...something? An alien to come along to bring her back. So did Jim know about The Savior? Why would Jim work with Noah and vice versa? Again, I'm hoping we get more about this in season 3.

11. Was there a point of keeping Alex in the Air Force? He arranges a place for them to work on bringing Max back, but I feel like anyone could have done that? Like Isobel had money, she could have rented a storage facility. All of the equipment was borrowed from the hospital, not the military. The information about 1947-1948 was from the drives decoded from Caulfield or the AAR report left by Flint in the Project Shepherd bunker (which again was decommissioned, not an active military installation). I could support the decision if it had provided some richness to the plot or some conflict within the character, neither of which really happened. Alex hacking the government and going undercover in the Air Force to protect Michael is basically fanon. I love that fanon, but alas...

12. Finally, the time jump. What year are we jumping into? 2020? 2021? Why does it make me think none of those questions above will be answered.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

[this week’s T5F was requested by anon]

Top 5 Worst Choices That Didn’t Matter

“This game series adapts to the choices you make. The story is tailored by how you play.”

......Yeah okay, Telltale. 

There are a lot of important choices to make over the course of the twdg series, but as we all know, not every single choice matters. One of the biggest things people tend to complain about Telltale games is the illusion of choice and “my choices don’t matter! We all get the same ending anyway!” which is fair, I get it. 

I personally try to look at the choices in a more positive light. Like, yeah it doesn’t matter if you cut Lee’s arm off or not. No matter what, you can’t save him and he’s going to die at the end of S1. Except that choice does matter, just not in the way we wanted it to. It matters because it shapes the story we the player want to tell. 

Who is your Lee? Is he willing to do anything to rescue Clementine? Including cutting his own arm off if it means giving him just enough time to get to her, even though it’s going to hurt like hell and could possibly leave him worse off? 

Or is your Lee someone who won’t risk that, even if there is the smallest hope that they cut it off in time and he could live? He’s willing to let the infection spread and kill him because he needs both arms and all the energy he has left to get to Clementine?

Sure, it doesn’t matter in the end-- Lee still dies, but two armed Lee isn’t the same man as one armed Lee, and that’s important to your story. Plus, that choice is memorable as hell. 

But these kinds of choices that are impactful to your story in various ways? Yeah, we’re not talking about those today. Nope. Today we’re talking about choices that meant absolutely nothing. They never came back, they didn’t impacted the story in a meaningful way, they’re forgetful, and they’re just the worst. I don’t like ‘em.

Before we get started, just wanna shoutout @pi-creates​ for helping me bounce all these choices around and reminding me of so many things I forgot.

5.  Telling Clementine to bring AJ back to Richmond

One of the last choices you’ll make as Javier Garcia happens during a conversation with Clementine. The two are talking about AJ and Clementine’s wondering if she was a good mom [which still don’t love the direction they went there for okay ANF] and Javi has the choice to tell her to bring AJ back to Richmond, or to leave him at the ranch. 

And funny enough.... this means nothing. It does nothing. It’s said and nothing is remembered. Clementine never brings AJ back, she never mentions Javi telling her to bring him or leave him... all we get is a single line in TFS during the ranch flashback where Clementine says that they can’t go back because it’s a warzone that way.... but she says that no matter what. 

It also doesn’t help that this come at the very end of the season but isn’t a huge choice the affects the endings. I dunno if they were trying to plant ideas that “Ooohh this choice could decide whether Clem sees the Garcia’s ever again! Clementine’s story isn’t over y’all! The Garcia’s could come back and we could see Richmond again!”

But then TFS happened and they were like “Ha, that’s stupid, no one likes the Garcia’s.” and they are never mentioned by name again. 

4. Helping Sarah in the green house

Ugh, okay.

So, there’s this point in S2 where you’re trapped in Howe’s and put to work in the green house with Sarah and Reggie. Y’see, Sarah isn’t doing so good at this. Carver got pissed at her for talking earlier and forced Carlos to slap her... which he did, and it knocked her on her ass, and now she’s in shock. 

Then ya got Reggie who keeps talking about how he’s on thin ice with Carver but also he’s this close to being let out of the holding area, so behave and all will be chill. He gives you a task to trip and pick berries or whatever, when you notice that Sarah is just kinda standing there.

So you got a choice: Do you focus on your own work, or do you help Sarah out?

Well, it doesn’t matter what you pick. 

It.... it literally doesn’t matter. Sure, you could argue that it helps Sarah out and adds friendship points with her.... except no, not really. It’s never brought up again. She doesn’t even guilt you if you don’t help her, which is something you’d expect from these games. 

Oh, and Reggie dies no matter what. Yeah, Carver comes in and thinks a couple of berry bushes is the perfect reason to throw this man off of a rooftop... but then he doesn’t do anything to Clementine or Sarah either way. He doesn’t get mad if you help, he doesn’t go after Sarah if you don’t.... and it’s never mentioned again. Reggie’s death is, but your specific choice isn’t.

3.  Stealing from Arvo 

Oooooh boy, gotta love the Arvo choice. 

So, you and Jane are trying to find a safe place for Rebecca to have her baby when you see this kid walk up carrying a bag. He’s pretty harmless, and he’s more scared of you than you are of him. Jane gets the jump on him, and you check out the bag he’s carrying. 

Turns out, he’s got a shit ton of medicine.... medicine that your group could really use. Arvo panics and begs you not to steal from him, claiming it’s for his sick sister. You gotta decide if you want to rob him or not.

And it doesn’t matter. 

The best I can do to defend this is by kinda comparing it to when you steal from the Stranger’s car in S1. It’s more of a moral choice to shape Clementine, y’know? Except it doesn’t really do anything..... Clementine isn’t branded a thief after this, she doesn’t go around just stealing shit [though she can steal Pete’s watch but that’s another story]. But if you do want to keep stretching, then the next entry on this list could be seen as a continuation of Clementine’s thieving ways if you so choose.... but that choice is here, too, soooo take that for what you will. 

If you steal the medicine, you have this pill bottle that you can give to Rebecca but that barely matters, too. They don’t help or harm her when she’s giving birth, they do nothing for AJ, and no matter what you do.... Arvo’s squad ambushes you.

And it means nothing.

Arvo will always claim you stole from him, even if you didn’t. Rebecca will always die and someone will always shoot her, causing a shootout to happen where no one in your group dies.

Yeah, no one but Arvo’s squad dies. Mike gets shot, and so does Luke but that’s it. 

Oh, and stealing from him is never brought up again after that.... because it doesn’t matter. 

Even if they did something where if you stole from him, then one of your group members dies because of some bullshit reason, then it would mean something but as it is now? Nothin’.

2. Injecting AJ with medicine 

Oh hello, ANF, you’re back. 

This flashback is annoying on so many levels... Alright, AJ is sick and everyone has told Clementine that there’s nothing anyone can do to help him, but she gets her hands on the name of a medicine she thinks will help. So she sneaks around and finds the medicine, but of course, she can only give it to him as an injection. 

Instead of doing the smart thing and taking the medicine and moving away from the group to give to AJ in a safe location where she won’t get caught, she sticks around for Lingard to wake up, and he’s high outta his mind so that’s fun. 

He tells her that it’s not going to help him and to just put it back. She knows what they do to thieves around here but he won’t tell anyone. It’s up to you, do you put it back or inject AJ?

Well, guess what? 

Clementine gets caught either way and the drugs are either in AJ or smashed on the floor, David becomes a flipflop with his “We shoulda abandoned AJ long ago to die >:O but also you can’t take him because he’ll die out there!” and they kick Clementine out for being a dingus. 

And here’s the kicker.... AJ is alive no matter what. He gets through whatever sickness he had and went to the ranch. You injecting him or not did nothing... no side affects, nothing. I’m sure they didn’t want to go super dark by killing AJ off [except they kinda did since there’s a lot of scrapped concepts with a dead AJ] depending on if you injected him or not..... but at least it would’ve been something. Hell, maybe no kill him since we need him for TFS, but maybe it would affect if he went to the ranch or not to begin with. Maybe if he got worse, they sent him somewhere else and that would affect where Clementine went to get him back for the flashbacks in TFS.

Again, you could look at this as what Clementine would be willing to do for AJ........ but it doesn’t enhance the story in any meaningful way.  It affects what Clementine you get in the end, but that’s just some text on the screen. 

I dunno, this choice could’ve done something... that’s all I’m saying. 

1. Teaching Sarah to shoot

Once again, Sarah finds herself on my dumb lists... and not in a good way. Sigh. 

Alright, you wanna talk about the worst choice that meant absolutely nothing? Nothing at all? 

You get back to the cabin in S2 after leaving either Nick or Pete, and Carlos asks you to watch Sarah while they go out to look for the rest. You find Sarah, you can take some pictures, and then she asks where her dad is. 

She gets anxious and sits on the floor....but then she does something interesting. She pulls out a gun she found. It’s not loaded or anything, but she asks Clementine if she can teach her how to use it.

And you’re probably thinking, “Oh, that’s a good idea. She should know how to use a gun, but her dad is too over protective. This could help us in the future.” or “Oof, no, Sarah isn’t ready for a gun. What if that comes back and bites me in the ass? What if she shoots someone I don’t want her to shoot?”

Well, don’t worry your pretty little head because nothing comes of this.

Nothing.

You teach her to shoot, and it does nothing. She never picks up another gun ever again, she never does anything with what you taught her, and nothing happens. 

Just.... wow. 

At the very least... with the other picks on this list, you could stretch and make some sort of excuse for it having an impact on the story.... but this doesn’t do anything to further your relationship with Sarah, Carlos never finds out about it, there’s never a point where Sarah admits she found the gun, she doesn’t use it, she doesn’t give it to Clementine or anyone else to you, and it does nothing.

This scene could be completely removed and it wouldn’t change anything... which honestly, is something I can’t say for the rest of these dumb choices. 

That’s what makes this the ultimate pointless choice. 

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Dishonorable Mentions

-Asking to go with Mike at the end of S2. Arvo will shoot Clementine no matter what and it’s dumb. -Keeping quiet about Mari when David asks you to. It doesn’t affect anything other than David being upset for two seconds, but you get thrown out and it doesn’t matter. -Trying to help Christa in S2 ep1. Either way, she gets shot at and you never see her again and it just doesn’t matter. -Honestly 400 Days.... just all of it. The only thing you get is pointless cameos if you get everyone to go with Tavia.  -Being nice to Larry. He still treats you like shit and accuses you of being a bitch to him anyway soooo.... yeah.  -Fixing the swing in S1 ep2. If you don’t do it, then Andy will.

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It’s pretty telling that this T5F is just S2 and ANF choices.... sigh. Like sure, there are a lot of choices that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things in S1 and TFS but most of those I can justify as being there to shape your story and are impactful in different ways..... but boy, there’s just something about S2 and ANF and their choices, isn’t there? 

Anyway, what do you guys think? Do you agree with my choices or nah? Do you have a choice you don’t like and think is meaningless that wasn’t on the list? Lemme know, I’d love to hear it! 

Have any suggestions for future T5F’s? Feel free to send ‘em in! :D

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Next week’s T5F Top 5 Reasons Javier Garcia’s Pretty Great

[neverleaveyoubehind]

Teen Wolf : 1x01 “Wolf Moon”

OMG they look so young! This whole episode has made me feel so old, I can’t believe that it’s been 9 years since this aired. I still remember watching this after middle school and now, it’s been almost a decade, I’m in college , I’m a full adult, unbelievable!

Let’s proceed with the actual reaction, though.

The first scene it’s surprisingly good, I mean, the way it starts all somber with the creepy music, you see all the police department and the Sheriff arriving to the woods, all the police dogs barking , the fog ,... I really liked it. Actually, I had forgotten about this scene in particular.

Like, we actually get to see the Sheriff a little bit, in my mind we weren’t introduced to the Sheriff until later in the episode. That was cool, knowing that he’s the first important character we see (even though you need to be paying a lot of attention to see that it’s him, because they just focus on showing his arm or something like that )

Suddenly, the music changes into an upbeat song, and we are in Scotts house. (God, seeing Scott fixing the Lacrosse stick gave me ALL the nostalgic feelings I could handle) Tyler Posey looks so young, like a little baby, he changes so much during the years. Not like Dylan who looks exactly the same but , with longer hair 9 years later.

Anyway, we have baby Scott (that’s how I will be referring to him for the next 2 seasons aprox) working out , being teenagery , brushing his teeth (his sink worried me a bit, maybe they should think about investing in a new one ‘cause that one looks nasty) Then, he hears a noise and freaks out. BTW, Scotts hair is a whole situation, it’s way too long for such a small face.

He freaks out, gets out of the house with a baseball bat,which might have been the highlight of my day (also,the baseball bat as a deathly weapon was Scott’s idea first ,ladies and gentlemen, let’s take that into consideration) and we are finally introduced to Stiles.

What better way to introduce him than having him hanging for his first 2 minutes on screen? (he being completely unfazed by it, and carrying the conversation like nothing was wrong, is my favorite thing in the world and the reason why I love Stiles so much) if this whole scene isn’t the reason why everyone kept watching the pilot, Idk what to tell you.

Ok, then, after the best interaction ever, Stiles has somewhat convinced Scott to go look for the body in the woods. Because, yes people, there’s a body , this body is missing a half and Stiles wants to find it. Like, of course he does, this man thinks he’s a detective or something (And yes, I did say a half because we don’t know which part is missing) So, in what has to be the most teenager/peer pressure way (reluctantly following your best friend trough the woods with a murderer on the loose) our story begins.

We have Stiles and Scott walking around trying to find the body (every sentence that leaves Dylan's mouth during this episode is gold, that's really my opinion) Scotty is worried about the prospect of founding not only the body but, the murderer, Stiles is living his best life, joking around, walking way too fast for our asthmatic baby Scott, and that's how they get separated.

We properly meet one of the best characters of the show, the sheriff Stilinski, after Stiles gets scared by another deputy that thinks he’s the murderer, and Stiles leaves with his dad. So, now we have us a baby Scott walking alone, in the dark, back home.

He’s walking for a bit, with creppy background music and various animal noises (the music and the ambiance of this show are great. Props to the music team, honestly) Then, he reaches a clearing in the middle of the forest, takes out his inhaler, and when he is about to use it, a bunch of deer bump into him causing him to fall to the ground and drop the inhaler. (I bet he was more worried about dying crushed by deer than losing it, though) When the deer have gone their merry way,and he no longer thinks he’s going to die, he gets up and starts looking for the inhaler with the light of his cell phone (with the light of the screen to be precise. Scotty isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed), but he doesn’t find his inhaler, he finds... The body (the upper part, in case someone was wondering)

Then, Scotty jumps back from the scare, and falls down a hill. When he gets up, a huge black monster attacks him and baby Scott gets bitten!

(The CGI of the first season is truly horrifying but, don’t panic my friends, it will get better)

Baby Scott runs as good as he can manage ,after being bitten by an unknown huge thing and having lost his inhaler,through the woods until he reaches the road, where he is almost hit by a car (our homeboy Scotty is having a really bad night)

SPOILER

The fact that he gets almost run over by Allison and her mom , who aren’t even in the show yet is amazing. Jeff did truly love this 2 because their storyline is truly wonderful, their whole relationship is handled with such care and a lot of attention to details. It makes my heart soft.

SPOILER

They go to school, Jackson looks like an asshole and turns out to be an asshole, normal High School shit. Scotty shows Stiles his bandage and tells him that a wolf bit him, then Stiles proceeds to laugh his ass off because there hasn’t been wolfs in California in like 60 years (Stiles is the kind of person that knows that type of thing) and , baby Scott tells him that he found the body.

Then this whole hilarious scene happens:

They go to class and Scotty starts hearing a phone ringing and turns out he’s the only one hearing it (obviously dude, you’re a werewolf) because it’s the phone of a new girl that’s outside of the High School waiting for the headmaster (I guess, I though someone else was but maybe that hasn’t happened,yet) this new girl is talking on the phone with her mom and she realizes that she forgot to bring a pen (really? You forget to bring a pen to your first day of High School? Someone wasn’t prepared)

So the headmaster brings the new girl to Scotty’s class , her name is Allison, and baby Scott has a crush on her the second he sees her (puppy love has never been more fitting )

Then, he does that whole thing of giving her a pen that she didn’t ask for (if I was Allison I’d be creeped out that someone just gave me a pen after I said outside of the building that I didn’t have one but, IDK, maybe it’s just me)

Anyway, Lydia and Allison become BFFs ,they have Lacrosse practice (we hear the Lacrosse background music for the first time) and surprise, Baby Scott didn’t suck (we also meet Coach aka the most important person of Beacon Hills high school) After school Stiles and Scott go back to the wood to look for the body and the inhaler (seriously, do this kids never learn?) while Stiles jokes about Scotty being a werewolf,and Derek Hale makes his first appearance (God Derek looks like Edward Cullen in this episode) he gives Scott his inhaler back and tells them to get out of his property (like an old man)

Stiles tells Scotty that almost all of Derek’s family died in a fire in his house and baby Scott leaves to go to work. He goes to feed the cats and they freak out, Allison comes to the vet hysterical with a dog she run over , this cutie moment happens :

Baby Scott is in love, so he asks her out to Lydia’s party that friday, Allison is also in love so she says yes. Scotty goes to sleep feeling on cloud nine and wakes up in the middle of the woods (it was a full moon the night before) he sees the big monster that attacked him the other night starts running and ends up falling in someone’s pool (Baby Scott is way to ripped for an asthmatic little kid but, ok)

He goes to school , Jackson interrogates him about steroids (fuck off Jackson, no one likes you. Well, maybe Lydia, but that’s it) Scotty freaks out about sleepwalking 40 miles into the woods, they go to Lacrosse practice and Scotty makes first line so he’s going to be playing in their first Lacrosse game of the year ,Stiles is suspicious because Scott was awful at Lacrosse like 2 days ago , and suddenly he’s a pro (like he should be, honestly, people should listen to Stiles more)

Stiles goes home researches a freaking ton about lycanthropy and werewolfs and decides that yes, his best friend is a werewolf (just like that, that was his first option and he stuck to it) he calls Scotty, tells him that he should cancel his date with Allison just in case he tries to kill her but Scott ignores him.

Melissa and baby Scott have a nice mother-son moment before his first ever date (with a lot more mentions of teenage pregnancies and underage sex for what one would expect from a first date)

Baby Scott takes Allison to the party, everything is going great, until it isn’t. Suddenly Scott starts feeling the bloodlust and the changes that Stiles had warned him about, so he leaves the party (leaving Allison alone without as mush as an apology, and without a way to get back home) Do not fear, though. Derek offers to take her home so everything’s great.

Scotty goes home while having a whole freak out and tells Stiles (who has followed him because he’s the best friend anyone could ever have) that Derek is the werewolf that bit him. Stiles tells Scotty that Derek took Allison home, Baby Scott leaves to have a fucking argument with Derek, and Stiles goes to Allison’s house (Allison was just fine so Stiles leaves)

Scotty and Derek get attacked by werewolf hunters (needless to say, Scotty won’t be sleeping in a while)

In the morning Stiles picks him up from the woods. At school Scotty apologizes to Allison, she forgives him because they are in love (or stupid , if I had been left like that in the first date I wouldn’t have forgiven him) and we are introduced to Allison’s dad

Wait, did I say Allison’s dad? I meant the werewolf hunter that tried to kill him the night before.

Wow that was a roller coaster of emotions ! What did you guys think? Did you remember all of what actually happens ? Did you also realize that you’ve been mixing what happens in each season together into one big season? Because I did

[baskervilleshund]

4,5 years of Gotham in my life♥

Wow my emotions these last days. I’m not much of a text poster on this site but when Gotham ended I really felt I wanted to write this!

Gotham has been a huge part of my life for so long now. 4 years and 7 months since the first episode aired, that’s some time gosh. And so much has happened during this journey! I just wanna mention some memorable things during these years. Like remember the pre-s02x09 excitement?? And other stuffs, ah here we go!

The first trailer made me SO EXCITE, I had wanted more batman villains content for years since I have always found the batman villains squad so interesting and good and unique characters, there is so much to explore here! And so the Gotham trailer came and I just OH MY GOD this is exactly what I want!! And so it started and it was amazing. My first love was Ed, it took him his first scene in ep1 to make me go totally THIS IS MY FAV! More eps went on and I required more Ed content. But then Oswald slowly grew on me kinda out of nowhere like I wasn’t expecting it. And when amazing ep7 aired it just hit down on me from the sky, like it does when I know I got a new obsession/fandom. Oswald’s amazing scenes in ep7 and I went ”Okay this is it, I’M DEEP INTO THIS NOW AND I LOVE IT!”. In exactly THIS↓ scene/moment I basically said those words out loud and realized this is my life now, ugh also one of my fav looks I miss the bangs:

Shortly after ep7 I started shipping Nygmobblepot, since we knew who these characters were and who they will end up being it made SO much sense in this show, they were like the two familiar main villains in kinda the same age and I also loved them both so I mean it was obvious for me. Man in the beginning we were so very few in the shipping Nygmob pond, in the OCEAN of Gobblepot. It was a bit of a struggle sometimes, ppl wrote hate on my Nygmob posts n stuff shrug. And I just didn’t get how not more ppl could see it? It would make more sense if this were new characters like they hadn’t even met but since we knew this is Riddler and Penguin it just was fate for them to cross paths soon enough! We needed Nygmob content! I started making tons of my own AU:s since if the show wouldn’t give us content I would do it.

BUT we had Robin & Cory with us! Reminder that Cory invented the shipname after 5 minutes and Robin & Cory’s amazing twitter activity during s1 especially I will always remember as a fav. Remember when they we’re so into roleplaying Nygmob and spoke how Ed & Os loved each other and all sorts of things. All about going to The Foxglove together and stuff. Ugh it was amazing, I miss their interactions.  

In this very smol pond is when one day my shining star @conscience-killer (aka okimi79)  approached me, with this ♥ ”Sometimes I feel we’re the only Nygmobblepot shippers in the world…well apart from Robin and Cory. We should have a secret handshake or something.”

And man did we get a secret handshake! Gosh MY DEAR OKIMI! That I up til this day since then has spoken with like everyday for 4,5 years, you are amazing ♥ And in that time of so few shippers it felt even more special, to have  someone else out there as obsessed as me. I’m so grateful we found each other at exactly that time and we’ve been through so much on this journey ♥.

When Nygmob in spring finally had their first scene it was so amazing and I have no idea how many times I have watched that scene to this day, and also with that the ship grew a bit yas!!

Let’s jump forward a bit. NYC Comic Con 2015 in fall, one of my fav Robin & Cory cons/interview times! Because the legendary ep 2x9 was soon upon us and OMG remember how excite they were in those interviews!?! And THEN, that fkn night THE episode aired. I couldn’t believe it was real, it was EVERYTHING we had dreamed of!!! SO MUCH NYGMOB CONTENT and so in character and gosh. Man their season 2 relationship is just so beautiful and I love it til this day and 2x9 is forever my favorite episode because it meant EVERYTHING for us shippers and more people also started seeing the connection between Nygmob and so more ppl started to make content and join in!

A time after another shining star came into my life, @constant-sinner (aka (riddlelvr) ♥ This amazing person and artist! And together with her and okimi I am part of the best trash family of three and I can’t believe I’ve been a mom (yet i’m the youngest but i’m fashion fur coat mom okay) to these trash sinners for like 4 years. ♥

Okay but remember all INSANE SMAYLOR CONTENT BEFORE SEASON 3!!? Man that was also one of the best times I had during these years. God they were so excite for their relationship in s3 and WEREN’T WE ALL! And omg Comic Con. I had my fkn header for 3 years soon lol, man that moment I remember seeing the signing booth stream all casual and Robin & Cory goes “Smaaylor!! Nygmobblepot!!! ;))” And I’m just wait WHUT omg. Their press tours with Sean is something I’ll miss even more than the episodes, always such a joy seeing those three together!

And when season 3 started it was just insane. To be honest how their relationship grew in s3 that’s how I expected it to grow after their meeting in s1, it made sense already back then. Ed admiring Oswald and sneaking to his club and Oswald would be a huge part of Ed’s journey to become the Riddler but ah well, I did my best with my AU:s back then!

And then s3 came and Gotham EXPLODED and I had no idea where all million ppl suddenly came from lol. It became huge. But since it still feels kinda close to this day (2,5 yrs though man), my most nostalgic feels will always be over s1-2 so I’m not gonna write so much about the season 3-5 times in this text. My closest to heart milestones is during the first years and now that I’ve seen all episodes I still think season 1 is the best overall, except the lack of Nygmob content ofc ;)

I’ve not just felt love for the show ofc, the show isn’t perfect. There has been serious flaws and bad writing and plot drops. Tbh s4 I just felt so NOPE about? 22 eps of waste…Like Ed’s plot for example like he barley had his own plot what happened? And we also have the q*eerbait Nygmob issue obviously. I have also felt the show has been a bit childish being -helloo- GOTHAM city we’re talking about? I think it would have been much better off with a MA-rating tbh to properly tell certain stories. After s4 though I’m glad in s5 Nygmob finally got some proper screen time being together and in character!! Like that’s how their relationship should have been from beginning of season 4, or season 1 if u ask me lol but ya know!

BUT I LOVE THIS SHOW, the amazing actors and characters and scenery and costumes!! Ed, Oswald, Robin & Cory will ofc always have the most special place in my heart ♥ The Nygmob journey in the show has meant so much to me to follow it from day one and I never knew how much this show would mean to me when I started back in the day.

This show. And not just the show itself but my journey and life around it!!? So much has happened. For one example I had made a bit of gifs before but Gotham really got me into gif making, and it’s been a joy sharing content and my Nygmob AU will always be among my most fun things I’ve done, it was like if they ain’t gonna give us enough content I WILL. It’s a fun way of gif making to manip scenes to create something new! And today I still enjoy making gifs, as you probably know heh. Thanks so much for all nice comments and reblogs through all these years ya’ll!! It warms my heart and I love to read reblog tags! 

I have been at con and got to meet Robin, enjoyed so many interviews and promos, chatted with wonderful people. Every Friday night I have been up in my Europe timezone at 2am to live watch the show, the workdays after has been a bit of a struggle of being tired with going to bed like 5am lol but man it’s been so nice to follow it when it airs!

Watching together with my dearest @conscience-killer and @constant-sinner . Two of the best that happened to me during these years. These two people that I’ve spoken with like everyday for 4 years! Through Gotham finding two of my dearest friends in my life. Watching the show together and screaming, crying, laughing during this journey, about not just the show but EVERYTHING in life. They also are amazing writers and artists ♥ And also helped me endless times with gif caption when my non-native brain trying to write gif captions at 3am after the episode lol. All my love to you both ♥

THANKS TO ALL AMAZING PEOPLE that impacted me over these years. The cast and nice fandom people! My dearest @conscience-killer and @constant-sinner. And I also wanna mention dear @millicentcordelia and @selene-volturo that are amazing ppl that have been here with me since the very beginning of season 1. And they have always been so down to earth even during the stormiest periods of this show’s existence ♥ I’m so glad we’ve shared this LONG journey!

And also hugs to my dear mutual fandom friends that I’ve shared hours of conversations with over the years. Some of us maybe don’t speak as much nowadays and some of us have gone separate ways with new interests but I hope you know who you all are, regardless if we spoke yesterday or 2015. You have made my fandom time a joy!

I’m actually okay with the show ending now you know. Ofc it’s a bit sad but as I said I felt s4 was kinda stomping around in the same spot and even s5 had some fillers like they didn’t have more to do to push the story forward? The last ep was a nice easter egg wrap up for this LONG journey. And I mean shows live on with fan content, and who knows maybe it will return somehow? But it feels good they told us it would end so I was prepared for this and to say ”goodbye”. But it’s not goodbye because content will continue on this site and I’ll continue re-enjoy this show!

This is 4,5 years. In 2 pages, I could prob write 20 but ah, but i felt I got to to summary the most important things for me over these years ♥. This show and stuff that came with it will always be such a big part of my life, ALL LOVE AND HUGS!

[elizabethrobertajones]

Any spec on what the turning point for Dean and Cas could be in ep 12?? I'm thinking they tell each other that both their lives are essentially doomed, but would love to hear what other people are thinking

I’m afraid I have deliberately not given it any thought, though one or both of those reveals makes a lot of sense for making them re-evaluate each other… Now we’re so much closer to that moment and have those cards on the table we have any actual currency to speculate with, which we didn’t when we first got that tease…

Honestly, re-reading my season 10 spec while tidying up my blog has seriously changed my “nah I don’t speculate” stance from mostly being about not riling up wild hopes, to, wow, we are seriously so easily distracted by shiny plot ideas that the fandom, cumulatively, are completely wrong about everything all the time, and correct speculation is an anomaly and usually based on taking your kind of spec you suggested, which I feel is occam’s razor sort of spec on the most obvious, easy facts when assembled close to the time… And even then it might not be so much of anything at all. 

For example before 11x06 or thereabouts fandom got really riled up about a huge DeanCas conversation that “never” happened. I think using that as data for the kind of spoilers they give and what in canon actually happens/they were apparently thinking about as a big deal, does sort of map well in general to the oooh huge scary spoilers they give us, especially about character dynamics, turning points, emotionally huge moments, etc etc, where whatever they were thinking was huge and important just doesn’t meet what fandom immediately expects it to be, regardless of how it felt to the cast, crew, writers etc when delivering it. For one thing they may be speaking in at least a little marketer hyperbole, and it’s not a bad thing either for them to be very invested in some characters or scenes which they felt took a lot of emotional energy or concluded or explained something very important, but one way or the other comes across way less than intended in the final product, or just isn’t interpreted that way by fandom. 

We have a real tendency to assume every time any comment comes out about Dean n Cas being in the same room or having a talk or having a dramatic scene together, that it’s going to herald something enormous for them, and I’ve been seeing that anticipation not pay off the whole time I’ve been in fandom - such as right now I’m stalled out of sleepiness circa just before 10x03 in my blog archive, and so much spec and excitement is going into how Dean n Cas are going to meet and what demon!Dean might say to Cas and how much it would hurt Cas to see demon!Dean etc. And I do actually think what we got is really good and there’s a huge symbolic importance in Cas saving Sam from demon!Dean and restraining him like that and putting an end to the brother murder feud stuff and restoring balance as their third wheel, then reflecting on humanity with Sam as they wait for the cure to take hold… There’s a lot of good stuff there, but fandom wanted to see, before the episode, some serious demon!Dean and Cas banter, maybe them in a fight, and using it as a lot of exposition for their relationship, of course, none of which happened because they didn’t even look each other in the face once on screen which Dean was a demon. It’s literally now, 4 years and change later we get a dark possessed Dean with Michael doing basically what we expected in 10x03 but obviously as he’s lying it’s a step removed from how demon!Dean eviscerated Sam emotionally earlier in 10x03 with direct personal attacks from his little black demon heart. So we still don’t have that exact thing we wanted for Dean n Cas. 

(Though I assume season 10 is why it was easier for Michael to focus his attacks on Cas than Sam, because Sam’s already been through this with demon!Dean, and Cas hadn’t so Michael gets 2 goes at him and spends more words on belittling Cas even in the bar scene where Sam and Dean were there too.)

Anyway… I’m just reflecting a lot on the role of fandom speculation even beyond wild spurious screaming that anyone can see as overblown and off the mark, and the sort of actually thoughtful and well-meaning examination of spoilers injected with wish fulfilment that still ends up making a lot of expectations and creates nothing but pits for the actual delivered story to fall flat in, and even when the story does a good job, when something has been hugely hyped, it STILL ends up getting a more lukewarm reception than expected and there’s always still a bunch of people looking at it side-eyes because they had a much better version they’d expected or wished for or just tried to model based on what we know while assuming the show will immediately and directly address everything we want all in one go. 

Obviously I have a lot of faith in the show to deliver and think it really does in most cases really get in there with the emotional stuff and we get pretty frequent episodes spilling all the goods… But even just the case study of demon!Dean vs Michael!Dean and seeing that we still haven’t wholly met the expectations of fandom four years ago for what might happen between Dean n Cas in this sort of scenario, specifically when it comes to emotional exploration and exposure between them, it’s really hard for me to think that a promised turning point might be anything like the avenues fandom takes it, and at that point my brain just disengages from the whole thing except the mechanical answer of “seems likely” about the secrets they’ve got about their horrible promised deaths… augh why are they like this… and beyond that I’m not even going to let my thoughts start wondering about scenarios this comes out, because it means whatever happens, I’m just falling into the traps that make people unhappy with the show, instead of being able to enjoy it. 

And that’s very much a fandom problem vs casual watching, because watching a ton of other stuff without fandom, I speculate a lot and get things wrong and right, but because there’s no social capital involved in rightness or wrongness it’s water off a duck’s back without any need for complicated mental gymnastics and an entire personal character arc about why it’s wrong to get worked up about it and learning step by step to let it go and get back to a casual viewer level of water off a duck’s back re: speculation and not feeling the peer pressure of social currency value of speculation forcing me to be right or wrong about anything and blarrgh that’s 4 years in a very fraught speculation-heavy fandom to come to some of these places :P I’ve seen, and been trapped in the middle of, speculations completely destroying multiple friendships, and it’s really got me to a “it’s not worth it” place where I’ve had to block some people and disengage from others just because of the insanity that it causes. 

Blergh, sorry for replying to this with a manifesto on speculation but it’s extremely upsetting to me and I’m ignoring a whole bunch of speculative asks so maybe this is a blanket answer to a whole lot of my inbox >.> 

[twdmusicboxmystery]

FTWD 5x06: Analysis

Good morning! How did everyone like last night’s FTWD episode? I didn’t see quite as many huge parallels in this episode as I did in the previous two, but there were still some interesting things to be noticed, and let's just say I have some forecasting to do. But first things first.

***As always, spoilers abound for FTWD 5x06 in this post. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned!***

Plot:

In terms of plot, we basically saw Morgan's group trying to fix the plane, John helping Dwight search for Sherry, and Strand attempting still to find a way to reach the rest of the group. Annie and her brothers want to leave the group and Alicia tries to convince them otherwise. Plus, we saw Grace again.

First off, this episode was called The Little Prince. I honestly didn't know that's what it would be called when I wrote my meta on The Little Prince last week. Had I known, I might have waited to post that. But I honestly didn't see tons I would've added to the post anyway. We saw Dylan reading the book again at the beginning of the episode, and he quoted a line from it to Luciana. The one that said you can only see important things with your heart, not your eyes. That became something of a theme for the episode, but I’ll come back to that.

Annie:

Probably the biggest parallel I noticed in this episode was when Annie started talking about her previous home. The way she described it could have been a description of the prison in S4. She lived near the nuclear plant with her parents and the other children. She described it as the perfect place to stay, but eventually it was overrun by walkers. The walls slowly gave in under the weight of walkers, just as the prison fences did. Everyone ran to the woods. And then the sickness came. The walkers who overran their home were sick from radiation poisoning and that made everyone else at their camp, including their parents, sick.

It happened in opposite order from the prison, but the events were the same. In S4, they had the virus first from some sort of contaminated walkers. Then the Governor came, the fences gave, and the prison was overrun with walkers.

This is simply another way in which Annie is a Beth proxy. She ran into the woods when her home went down, cried a lot, and lost a parent.

I’m also wondering if this could be something of a parallel to Beth after Coda. Maybe she refused to leave the Atlanta area because that’s where her family had been and she couldn’t bring herself to leave not knowing where they were. Just conjecture on my part, but given Legs and The Red Machete, I think it’s possible.

There’s also the small detail of her cleaning herself up at the beginning. She basically just washed her face and combed her hair and made herself more presentable. She did it with water in the bathroom, which felt like a Beth thing. We also saw her using pink soap. (Pink Theory).

Dwight and John:

I saw a lot of parallels in this story too. John helped Dwight look for Sherry and they found a note from her, saying she was leaving the main roads and taking the smaller country roads. Dwight realized he’d been looking in the wrong place. It just feels like it could be symbolic for what happened with Beth. We always said she would take a different route to TF, and they probably took the most direct route on the roads. Meanwhile, looking in the wrong place is definitely a Beth theme. Remember the scriptures in Father Gabriel's church? One of them was Luke 24:5, 

which says, “Why seeking the living among the dead? He is not here. For he is risen.” This reminded me of that.

There was also a super-great part near the end of the episode where Dwight talks to John about Daryl. I loved that conversation! He didn’t mention Daryl’s name, and John wouldn’t have known him anyway, but he said the man who let him go knew about all the messed up things Dwight had done, but still let him go and told him to find Sherry and make it right. So, it’s one of those things that means little to John but the audience can connect it to Daryl. Kind of a fun way to bring Daryl into Fear. And maybe that’s all it is. MAYBE.

I can’t help but think that if what’s happening in Fear leads to Beth in some way, this will have been a huge hint. A way to remind us that Dwight is only here because of Daryl and that’s important.

John finds a second letter from Sherry in the car she’d been driving. The same one Dwight was looking for when he first met John and June (they matched the VIN number here). The note told Dwight to stop searching for her. John didn't give Dwight the note because he didn't want him to get discouraged. I'm not sure what this will lead to yet, but given all the ties between both John and June and Dwight and Sherry, I feel like it could be a tie to Beth. I'm just not sure how yet.

The car sat outside a house where Sherry had stayed at some point. Dwight said Sherry wasn't inside but he found food and supplies and so he knew she'd been there. And of course, there was the note. It reminded me of the funeral home. Anyone who returned to the funeral home after Beth and Daryl left we found food and supplies that had been eaten, evidence of them having been there, and Beth’s thank you note.

Morgan and Grace:

I saw some interesting things here, too. Grace radioed Morgan and told him she needed their generator. Apparently, a second reactor in the area is about to melt down. She said she’d switched it to offline, but the fuel still produced heat and needed cooling. The generator that kept the cooling system on had just died, so she needed theirs. She also said taking their generator wouldn’t fix the problem. It will only buy them time. That generator will die at some point too, and then the reactor will still melt down. She’s basically trying to give them time to fix their plane and get out of their before the meltdown happens. More radiation will probably kill them all.

But think about this. @frangipanilove has done lots of metas about coolants and cooling systems. It’s a theme we’ve seen heavily around Beth, including through fridges, blue coolers, and Frosty Cola. Now, the cooling system is failing and needs to be fixed. Not sure exactly how this will play out, or what it will lead to, but it’s a continuation of a theme we’ve seen around Beth symbolism a LOT.

Then there’s Morgan’s staff. This is a smaller detail, but it made me super happy. Remember the last time he ran into Grace, she took his staff because it had radioactive walker guts on it. In this episode, he tries to find a new one. He starts practicing his Aikido with a weird pipe, but obviously the weight and balance aren’t quite right for what he needs. He goes into a closet and finds—guess what? A mop! He takes the handle off a mop and that will become his new staff.

Guys, that’s huge! Remember this? 

This mop staff ties Morgan directly to both Beth and Daryl’s story lines. Woot, woot!

Later, when he’s with Grace, he tells her the staff Eastman gave him helped him when he thought death was the only way. So I feel like him getting a new staff shows a subtle shift in Morgan’s arc. Symbolically, it shows Morgan is able to pivot and change when he needs to. When the staff became dangerous (i.e. the contaminated walker guts) he was able to put it aside, with little to no sentimentality, and find a new one that suited him better (i.e. wasn’t dangerous/contaminated). This is one of the things people have to do in order to survive.

But maybe this shows that his new arc with this new (mop) staff will intersect with Beth’s in some way, or become like hers. That made me super-happy to see.

Finally, check out this screen shot. 

This didn’t end up being super-important in the plot of tonight’s episode. Morgan simply helped Grace move the road block so she could get the generator to the plant. But it reminded me a LOT of the cars we saw in 5x10, Them. The ones where Maggie found the Beth walker in the trunk. So if this thing with Grace leads to Beth in any way, this will make lots of sense.

Oh, and we heard the whole “you're not stuck” theme in this episode. We’ve heard it before, especially here in FTWD. I may have said this before, but it reminds me a lot of a theme we saw at Grady. Even the inflection Morgan used when he said it to Grace sounded like Beth saying to Noah, “We’re not trapped."

 Strand:

So, Al got the plane engines working, but they broke one of the propellers. Obviously, the plane won’t work without propellers. Meanwhile, Strand’s group had propellers, but no engines. He needed to find a way to get the propellers to Morgan’s group. In the end, he used a hot air balloon from Jim’s (the brewer who died last season) belongings to take the propellers to Morgan’s group.

And what was the shape of the hot air balloon? It was a beer bottle. First of all, that's hysterical. Second, we can tie it to Beth in two ways. 1) It's a beer bottle. Moonshine. Obvious. 2) It’s yellow. Yellow polo. Escape. And Strand was specifically coming to give them propellers, which would save everyone.

Remember, Grace said the reactor will melt down so they’re against a clock for getting this plane in the air and escaping.

Also, while in the balloon, on his way to save people, Strand called Luciana Songbird. Just another little tie-in to Beth.

Strand and Charlie (also in the hot air balloon) crash land a little too early and end up in the contamination zone. That’s about all we saw of them in this episode. They’re in a contaminated area, and Morgan is on his way to get them.

Alicia:

Remember Annie wanted to leave with her brothers because she doesn’t think Morgan’s group can truly protect them. Alicia has a heart to heart with her and tries to convince her to stay. When she sees the balloon coming with Strand in it, she runs to tell the kids, wanting them to see that there’s hope on the horizon. They’ve already taken off. Given all ties between Annie and Beth, I want to read into this too, but I’m not entirely sure how yet. It will probably depend on how this all plays out. Whether Alicia brings them back and what happens. For now, Alicia is looking for Annie/Beth and she’s gone. She’s disappeared. So we’re going to have another search now.

Smaller, Miscellaneous Symbols:

Morgan and Al's head wounds were shown several times and both of them have head wounds in the same place that Beth got shot.

There was also an eye theme going on in this episode. Dylan quoted the line from little prince says you can only see things with your heart and not your eyes. He took off his glasses and says that he got rid of his eyes (i.e. so he could see with his heart). But getting rid of one’s eyes feels like a blindness theme or something.

Later, John tells Dwight that another set of eyes might help him find Sherry. And he’s right. It’s him, rather than Dwight, who found both of Sherry’s notes. So yeah. Definite eye theme going on.

They also mentioned luck several times in this episode. (Luck Theory).

That's pretty all I saw in the episode. But, I said and I have some predictions.

I was thinking the chances are good that Grace won't accomplish her aims and the second reactor will probably melt down. With Strand and Charlie in the hot zone, I'm thinking one of them could become contaminated. I hope neither of them die, but if they become contaminated, they might need a cure. It might be a matter of curing a deadly virus again. And that’s interesting.

We’re also already seeing hints that Al will tell June about Isabelle and the helicopter people. She didn’t in this episode, but June can tell she’s hiding something, and already we’re heading in that direction.

So yeah. Nothing humongous for me this episode. It felt like a bridge episode of sorts, getting from one storyline to the next, but I enjoyed a lot of the setups and am excited to see where they go. How about everyone else?

[venus-says]

Symphogear Episodes 01-04

Can you hear it? The dramatic music playing? It’s the sound of me tearing up.

So, with the new season of Symphogear starting next week I decided to rewatch the whole series again to refresh my memory about it.

I actually had plans to start this back at the beginning of the month and watch one season per week but, as we all know, my plains always fail so here we are!

Quick ramble about my history with symphogear: Back in 2012 I was on a rampage of watching everything that Mizuki Nana was a part of, sadly I didn't finish my project but before I lost interest in going through that huge list of works that woman has done, but before I gave up I got to watch Symphogear and it got me hooked. Despite some aspects of the series that I don't like to this day I loved the characters, the songs and the whole concept overall. Was like watching an edgier Mahou Shoujo with music being an active part of the combat portions so was everything 16 years old venus could ask for in a show. I followed the series very closely through the next years and G and GX were very special to me. Because of the mess that I was during 2015 and 2017, I didn't watch AXZ and every time I tried to watch AXZ since then something happened and my plans got ruined. I tried to play the mobile game but I don't know why the game never gets passed the downloading screen and it frustrates me to death.

Now that my background is set, let's do this.

"Imyuteus Ame no Habakiri tron"

BOY, I had forgotten how good this Episode 1 is. Now I remember why I was so sold out on this show right after watching just one episode. I don’t even know where to begin with, THERE’S SO MUCH I WANT TO TALK ABOUT.

This episode is an emotional rollercoaster. We start very sadly with that Miku prologue, then we go to a happy-go-lucky slice of life peaked by that amazing live by Zwei Wing that gets interrupted RIGHT BEFORE MY FAVORITE SONG STARTS and sets up a terrifying battle scene that culminates in a sad and horrifying death just to go back to the watered-down high school slice of life stuff to end the episode with all the tension being brought back again making us feel hopeless. All of this with a very cool atmosphere going behind all of the action scenes. It’s gorgeous. Just gorgeous.

I can’t put in words how much this episode blew my mind back in 2012, and I just had all the same reactions again while watching it 7 years later.

In just one episode they managed to set up the world and all the basics we had to know with barely none exposition at all. They let a few loose ends to get you wanting to know more and top all off with a freaking cliffhanger that is both exciting and scary as fuck.

Sadly episode 2 ain’t as good as the first one. Here we have less action to give place for more explanation. This episode could be fine if they didn’t just throw up all that information with very complicated terms that aren’t even all that important for the story right now and that could’ve been explained as the show went on so that they wouldn’t make for such a boring episode.

Episode 3 brings things up, the story jumps one month in the future and we’re in this place where we have Tsubasa being even more resentful and angry for Hibiki’s presence and ownership of the Gungnir, Hibiki stressed out by living two lives, and even Miku -who’s a character I don’t like at all in this season- has some interesting conflicts. We don’t have a lot of progression plot-wise but we have seeds of character development starting to sprout which is always good.

Episode 3 also ends in a cliffhanger that connects to episode 4, it’s a little less impactful as the one in Episode 1 was, but at least we got more from it than the one connecting 1 and 2.

Chris in the Armor of Nehushtan results in a nice fight, that triggers a flashback explaining Kanade’s backstory that serves as a way to understand Tsubasa more. And this is probably one of the most important moments for Tsubasa because establishes her not just as a jack ass but as someone who has suffered so much that she reached a point where shutting down every part of her personality was the only way she found to keep on living to complete her mission so she can make justice to her death partner.

Also in this process, we get more development from Hibiki’s side as she realizes that she shouldn’t try to be Kanade and substitute her, that conversation she has with Ogawa is probably one of the best moments of the episode. It's at that point that Hibiki finally starts to act and feel like a real character and, more importantly, a real protagonist. Her training montage at the end is also great so, points for this episode.

But not everything is roses and this episode loses a lot with those unnecessary shots of Tsubasa in the fight, and that noise who used a sticky liquid to hold Hibiki was also gross as hell. We really didn’t need this, they’re so awkward and serve no purpose at all is just... UGH. *eye-rolling emoji*

But still, in the general balance of things, this episode is still nice and a good way to wrap up the first day on this journey. I had a few other points I wanted to talk, but it’s past 11pm and I have a shit ton of laundry to wash tomorrow morning so I gotta go.

Pray that I can keep doing this and not fail again. XD Thanks for checking out and see ya~

[johnmurphysreddit]

Taking an awesome conversation with @awesomenell65 to the main page so more people can join in. 

Basic jist of it: what makes me think they decided pretty late in the making of season five not to heal friendly Bellarke in season five?  My answer is based around what I know of  story writing as a professional author.  I work in books and short stories, not television, I work alone instead of with a writing team, and my genre is romance vs whatever Jason is doing.  There are certainly differences, however, the best way to make money in commercial fiction is to write about commercial fiction, and the people selling Masterclasses, Save the Cat, the shape of story, etc. aren’t to plussed about the differences in media as far as writing goes, so let’s chat. 

(Preemptive disclaimer: I got 3 hours of sleep yesterday and I’m cranking this out to keep me awake before an appt in half an hour and then I can go back to sleep.  Expect typos and possible lack of sense.  Requests for clarity welcome)

 There are a metric ton of ways to break down a story.  They tend to get analyzed as three or four acts after they’re written.  When selling a “how to write” book they get broken down a lot further.  The method that works for me is The One Page Novel.  It goes as follows.  The story flow in the order listed, but the ideas are generated according to the numbers. 

2. Stasis - Where your character is starting.  View of the world in its current state. 

4. Trigger - Something happens and the story is set in motion.

5. Quest - AKA the first plan.  A good place to burn obligatory scenes and hit some genre expectations.  Tends to feature the intro of new characters, travel, and some setbacks. This section could be considered the start of Act 2. 

7. Bolt - The plan falls apart.  Betrayal, attacks, setbacks, diversions, retaliation rising tension.  A longer section.  This or shift is the midpoint twist / midseason finale high drama moment.  

3. Shift - in character focused work, this is where your character realizes that they’re going to have to change if they want to succeed.  In the 100 it tends to be more rising action, some betrayals, and quest part 2. It is the emotional beat the precedes losing it all and it is important.  

8. Defeat - hope is lost. the plan failed. there’s no way our heroes will survive this one.  If you’re going to kill a character or have a major betrayal, this is where you do it.  

6 Power - The character finds a way to make it happen.  inner strength. prophecy fulfilled, personal growth made manifest.  The hero gains new followers and defeats the evil.

1. Resolution - The final scene that shows how things have changed. Celebrate victory and remember the lost.  Set up the next book. 

So, that’s one way to draft out the beats of a story, and I assume their breaking process is something like this.  The ten points aren’t all of equal length, and when you’re trying to apply them to however many episodes were ordered there’s going to be some adjustments. 

Still, they have to decide early in the writing process what they want to happen as the major points of the season.  This is also a time when you jot down the stuff you just can’t wait to write but don’t know how you want to use it.  I assume Octavia’s cannibal bunker went on a post it to be plugged into the plan later.

Note that the very first thing you decide is where you want to end.  The drafting version I have of the outline in my work notebook reads “{NAME} inhabits {Location} that is representative of the new world” and yes I did get a chuckle thinking that Jason sure did get literal with that.  

I think it’s pretty logical to assume that Jason knew all along he wanted to end with Bellamy and Clarke side by side on the bridge literally entering a new world.  As goals go it’s not a bad one, it was a good way to end ‘book one’, and the visual was pretty with a lot of callbacks in it.  The problem is that getting there didn’t quite work.  

The 100 tells plot focused stories.  That’s fine for what it is, but when they’re drafting out the beats I think they often fail to consider the consequences in terms of character revelation for the acts they have those characters commit. “Clarke betrays Bellamy to Octavia” fits just fine on the outline.  It’s a shocking defeat beat, high audience interest, McCreary is empowered. As a plot point it works.  As a point for Bellamy’s character it works.  It also gets in what was probably a post it note scene “Bellamy sword fights”. 

So, they drafted the beats early and they’re filming the earlier scenes as they’re writing the later ones.  They know the points they plan to hit in the upcoming episodes, but it’s not final.  

I’m guessing they didn’t quite think through how big a deal the betrayal and abandonment was for Clarke’s character and the Bellarke friendship until they had the actors on set and tried to film what comes after it.  @awesomenell65 said one of her friends felt like some of the ending Becho shots were initially conceived as Bellarke shots.  While my initial reaction was “$%^&&U)(_I NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT BELLARKE!!”, my second thought is yeah, maybe.  

I’m thinking of the finale, and having Echo communicate to Raven with a nod that they’re taking down McCreary with a hug works a lot better than Raven psychically understanding that Clarke has changed sides again.  We saw Raven and Echo battle training together and we saw them work through the Shaw plan and in the snow.  Echo killing McCreary in a bare handed fight also works without making her viscious in a way that Clarke curb stomping to death a guy who was already down doesn’t, but they couldn’t have Clarke realistically win a brawl.  

It was always a little odd the Clarke didn’t go after Madi when that’s the only focus of her attention all season.  The snipering out the tower scene was a nice battle couple moment for Becho, and I’m betting it was a post it plan, too.  Now that I’m thinking of it, the timeline, too, is a little less janky if Clarke, Madi, and Echo run off together from the church, Becho takes out the tower, Echo the spy works her way solo onto Ellegius and Clarke, Madi, and Bellamy head to the town.  

I’m picturing them deciding to change it as Bob, accent blazing, does the first read through of the script and affectionately laughs that despite how much he’s grown up and his recent brush with death in the pit Bellamy is still dumb enough to turn his back on an armed Clarke. Octavia got a believable moment of public surrender to Madi, so she’s at least a little calmed down, but Clarke? Clarke’s daughter is right there and charging into a war and it’s Bellamy’s fault and nothing about the facts has changed, just Clarke’s mood.  There needed to be several scenes of repair for that to work and they’re seriously crunched for screen time and can’t fit them in in season five, so they just flipped Clarke and Echo’s places in the finale.

This is all speculation, but I think it holds together.  

[thesevenseraphs]

Bungie Weekly Update - 4/5/2018

This week at Bungie, there was a bit of Mayhem in our studio.

In a ritual as old as the Crucible, a bounty was placed on the heads of a Bungie Fireteam – this time, in the Mayhem playlist. If the community managed to defeat us, they would earn the Sign of Mutual Combat emblem. Somehow, we didn’t do that bad!

Bungie Wins: 9

Losses: 5

The air was supercharged for the duration of our two-hour stream. I learned how to play a Warlock and Cozmo did his Hunter thing. Twenty of you earned your prize. As for the rest, better luck next time. 

Throughout the carnage, Sandbox Design Lead Josh Hamrick and Senior Crucible Designer Kevin Yanes answered questions sourced directly from the community. If you missed the stream (or want to revisit the developer commentary on the hot-button issues), read on for details.

Queue and Answer

Q: In regards to Time to Kill, it’s a pretty popular opinion within the community that the TTK should be decreased. Do you have any plans on looking into this issue further? This sandbox update was called the go fast update. Will the next be called kill fast? Thanks for listening

Josh: We know this is one of the big items the community would like to see. We’re already coming at it from a few different angles. With Update 1.1.4, we wanted Guardians to feel more powerful and to get more chances to showcase that power. These changes included making weapons more lethal. The next big Sandbox update comes with Season 3 as we buff a good chunk of the Exotic weapons. These changes will be a direct response to “Exotics don’t feel Exotic enough.” Some of these weapons are getting damage buffs that can have a direct impact on the average TTK of an encounter. Q: Will Vigilance Wing be allowed to reign supreme in the crucible or will we see any fine tuning in the near future?

Josh: While we will continue to adjust the Sandbox, we are not planning an outright nerf to Vigilance Wing at this time. We don’t believe slowing Vigilance Wing’s TTK in a world where our players are asking for a faster TTK is the right call. Instead, we should be adjusting more weapons up to a level where they can compete. I believe you’ll find a few retuned Exotics that can do that in the Season 3 Exotic update. Q: When will we get the stream for Expansion 2 and Season 3? Liking the Go Fast Update so far. Excited to see what’s next.

DeeJ: We will be back on stream later this month to talk about the next content updates for Destiny 2. We’ll show you where you’re going next, who you’ll meet when you get there, how you’ll share new activities with your friends, and what you’ll be able to chase in the Crucible to prove your prowess.

Q: I’d like to know which elements of the recent and future updates the team have enjoyed working on the most, or which ones they are personally most excited for.

Kevin: With Seasonal Crucible Ranks, we’re looking to serve many goals. Most important to players like me, something to chase or something to set goals for every season. There is a reason to play, and there is a reason to perform in the Crucible. You’ll earn unique rewards for things like time commitment or performance. I’ll be back on a future stream to talk more about the ranking system, Valor, and Glory.

Q: I really wish D2 weapons system returns to primary/special/heavy. It was better than the current one. Is my wish reasonable?

Josh: We know that you want more control over your loadouts. You can expect weapon slot changes in the future of Destiny 2. We are actively working on a new system right now and we will have more to show and tell this summer.

Q: What is the exact design philosophy that lets you determine when a balance change is good? What testing procedures do you follow in order to implement a change? I think people in general want to know why some changes seem to take so long compared to other titles.

Josh: At any given moment, we are working on numerous Sandbox updates that follow the same pipeline. First, we set goals for what we want to accomplish with any given update. For example, the purpose of 1.1.4 was to directly affect the pace of combat and to allow for more powerful and heroic moments. In Season 3, we’ll be delivering a round of Exotic weapon tuning intended to make them feel more exotic. With our goals defined, we make the changes, playtest, and iterate for as long as we can. Destiny is a huge game with tons of different areas that may be affected in different ways (positive or negative) from any given change we may make. Our test team also plays them with us and helps us hunt for anything that we may have broken. Finally, those changes have to get packaged up into an update and certify those builds with each of our platforms before they finally roll out to you. 

Kevin: It’s all priority. We have many releases, but we have a finite number of people on the team. For us, it’s all about prioritizing what we can get done and when we can get it done. So, in some cases (like weapon slots) – that’s going to take a long time. The bigger the change, the more focus and people are required to get it shipped.

Q: Any plans for the development team to get more directly involved in community feedback? Whether that be responding to feedback, or making dev posts detailing game decisions and why they were made. Might be exciting for the community to get a more intimate look.

DeeJ: On the community team, we are always looking for new ways to get designers socializing with players. Moments like the Bungie Bounty are a good chance to swap some chatter. You can expect to see them quoted on the blog whenever their work is in a place where they can go on record. Last week, we sat Josh down to talk to us about his motivations for Update 1.1.4. We also help you find them online so you can follow their dialogue about their day to day.

Josh: You’ve been seeing a hearing from me a good bit lately. I hope that my candor helps show that we are serious about our commitment to communicate more clearly and more often with you. If you need EVEN more, look for me on Twitter @Josh_Hamrick or Kevin at @Tocom11.

Kevin: We’ve heard the feedback that the community wants more involvement, or at least more of a conversation. We’re actively looking at ways to do that, with this stream, and even in game. We know there is a big desire for testing builds early, and that’s something we’re thinking more about.

Q: When can you tell us about your solutions for the loot system? Like random rolls, perks/mods, depth to weapons and armor and stuff like that?

Josh: I’m no Investment Designer but I can tell you that we, as a team, know that you want more reasons to play. We know you want to be excited about the possibility of any given drop again. We know you want to look forward to hopping on night after night for a shot at something you want to get your hands on and that you look forward to the adrenaline rush when it finally happens. We are actively working to get there, together. We’ll talk more about our plans when they are in a playable state that we think is stable.

Q: Are there any set plans to introduce new elements, classes, subclasses, or weapon types to the game in the near future?

Josh: Yes, to some of these. From my desk, right now, I can look around and see new hotness on several people’s screens. We’ll be showing off a lot of this stuff in the months to come.

Q: How did the Crucible Team decide on random game modes, instead of letting players choose what mode they want to play like we had in D1?

Kevin: The biggest driver of that conversation was trying to improve matchmaking times and connection quality. Additionally, it allows us to better supply certain moods. As you’ve seen with 1.1.4, we’ve reinforced those moods. Quickplay is now delivering the 4v4 low intensity that we intended for that playlist. Competitive is now driving further the 4v4 high intensity. The biggest driver is connection quality and connection times. More people in the pool means more good connections.

In May, Private Matches are coming. At any point when you want to get a game of Control together, you can do that. In terms of players asking to “make Rumble permanent,” we’ve absolutely heard that feedback. To be more specific, we’ve heard that, we understand that, and we’ve been having conversations every day since the launch of 1.1.4 about that. Hopefully we’ll have more to say soon.

Q: Are you looking back at Destiny 1 for inspiration, or are you trying to find a new way forward? What do you currently consider to be a high priority for PvE and PvP? Any hints for random rolls or special slot… pretty please.

Josh: Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 are two unique and helpful data points. Neither game is perfect. Both have plenty of room for improvement. It’s hugely helpful to be able to directly compare and contrast the two and see what worked and what didn’t. Ultimately the goal is just to make Destiny 2 be the best Destiny we’ve ever made.

Q: Why can’t the mobility stat increase sprint speed? I’m a Hunter, I need to ninja.

Josh: Our goal with 1.1.4 was to get back to more of the Destiny 1 style of movement, especially the movement you’re working with mid combat. Sprint speeds weren’t changed for D2 and therefore it wasn’t crazy high priority to hit those. That being said, we called it the “Go Fast” update for a reason and it was absolutely one of the potential changes to test with on our list. As we dug into making changes to it we ran into some technical challenges that kept it from being possible to get up in time to test with. It’s something we will continue to consider in the future though. What I can tell you is we buffed standard movement quite a bit.   Fun Fact: Any Mobility value over 5, after 1.1.4, is faster than max Mobility base speed values in D1.We also returned (increased) Air Acceleration back to its D1 values, as well.

We thank all who took the time to send questions in. This won’t be the last Bungie Bounty, not by a long shot. Cozmo and I are putting our heads together to figure out a time, place, and topic for our next bout. We’ll be in touch. Catch us if you can.

Oh, and we did have some emblems to pass out. If you bested us, check your Emblem Collection for your reward. Thanks to all who faced us in battle. If you’d like to watch the bounty stream, it has been archived at Twitch.tv/Bungie.

1.1.4 Retrospective: Weekly Crucible Playlists

Last week, Update 1.1.4 introduced the Weekly Crucible Playlist. For the first game type, Rumble served up some 8-player free-for-all combat where players had to watch their own backs, because no one else would. Monitoring feedback throughout the week, we noted quite a few players reporting that the mode felt a bit crowded. We tracked down PvP Design Lead Derek Carroll to give us some details on the goals of the Weekly Crucible Playlist, and what we can expect moving forward.

Derek: With a week's worth of Update 1.1.4 in the wild, the PvP team can take a step back and see how we did. One thing we like about the new rotating weekly playlist is that it gives us the ability to add things and make changes without shaking up the core of the Crucible. We'll be using that playlist to try out new modes and events in the future. Rumble came to Destiny 2 in a big way, and depending on your tastes, you may have found it too big. We tend to agree, so the next time Rumble rolls around, you'll find a bit more room to breathe. We're lowering the player-count to 6, and altering the spawning policy behind the scenes in an attempt to keep players more evenly spaced out. These changes are the first steps towards an even better player experience that we expect to drop when Season 3 begins. Iron Banner's next appearance is an exciting one for us. In conjunction with the Sandbox tweaks, we made changes to the version of Control you've been playing in Destiny 2 to increase intensity and give players more choices during gameplay. Right off the bat, you'll see that there are no zones held by either team at match-start. With six players on each team, you’ll have more flexibility to decide your opening moves. Once you're capturing, you'll notice that the more players you have (up to 3) in a zone, the faster it switches sides. There's risk/reward here, as Supers are more prevalent in version 1.1.4, and you don't want to be caught with all your eggs in one basket. If you participate in a capture, you'll get more Super energy yourself, so grabbing zones is a great way to power up for your next big play. Until the Banner is lit next week, please enjoy the utter chaos of Mayhem, now with 25% more Super-powered insanity.

Feedback collection doesn’t stop here. As you play your way through Mayhem, continue to give us your thoughts! Cozmo and I are on the front lines, translating your feedback to the development team as it comes in. We’ll be at the ready to collect more of your thoughts and feedback next week, when Iron Banner 6v6 goes live.

Speaking Of…

With Update 1.1.4, Iron Banner now features 6v6 action. All Season 2 Iron Banner weapons will be available from Lord Saladin through either Reward Packages, or direct purchase using Iron Banner Tokens.

Begins: Tuesday, April 10

Ends: Tuesday, April 17

The game is Control!

With 6 enemies to choose from, you may find more opportunities to earn progress towards your Season 2 ornaments. Good luck out there.

Rare Air

If you follow the conversation that ricochets between the leaders of the Destiny community (and why wouldn’t you?) you may have heard that we invited some of them to visit our studio. Later on this month, we’re hosting a Community Summit, right here at Bungie. Now that our guests have had a chance to break the story, we want to let you know what this moment means to us.

DeeJ: Our goals for this gathering are to get people from the community more involved in the way we make games, and to do that sooner in the creative process. We’ll be previewing some of the things we’re working on to gather feedback before they’re locked. Our guests will also play some things that you’ll get your hands on in the coming weeks. We’ve hosted community ambassadors before to see and capture new content, but this ain’t DRE (the Destiny Reveal Event). This gathering is more intimate and more tactical. It must be said that it would be absolutely impossible to invite every single person in our community who is insightful or influential. The guest list is not a measure of who is important or who is relevant. For this gathering, we tried to select a good cross-section to represent all kinds of Guardians. Some of them are familiar faces. Others are new voices that we want to know better. Some of them are leaders with large constituencies. Others are solo players we have come to know with strong opinions. We’ve targeted the hardcore elite who have mastered every challenge and the average players with a deep love for the game. We’ve invited cooperative raiders, competitive warriors, lore lovers, and a high-school principal to make sure they all get along. This is a new step we’re taking to be more collaborative, more transparent, and a little less worried about keeping secrets. This is not the first time we’ve welcomed players to see where we work and meet the people who make our games. It won’t be the last.

We’ll Do it Live

With Update 1.1.4 safely landed, Destiny Player Support has been on watch to identify trending issues reported by the community. Here’s a roundup of what’s surfaced in the last week and a half:

At the release of Destiny Update 1.1.4, we encountered reports from players stating that Mercury Challenges were not appearing properly when players were loading into the destination. We are continuing to investigate these reports, but some players have noted that Challenges began to appear after the daily reset.

Similar to Destiny Update 1.1.3, we also encountered reports that modifiers were not appearing correctly for Heroic Mercury adventures. This seems to have been resolved after the daily reset as well, but we are still investigating the root cause of this issue.

We are monitoring player reports of an issue impacting some players where the Emissary does not grant a reward package upon winning games in Trials of the Nine. Please post in #Help if you experience this issue, as we are attempting to identify more accounts that have entered this state for investigation purposes.

Hotfix 1.1.4.1: Maintenance and Downtime

On Tuesday, April 10, Destiny 2 Hotfix 1.1.4.1 will be deployed to address Tower and Raid blackscreen issues. Additionally, Rumble player count will be reduced to 6 total players.There will be a short period of maintenance before this hotfix becomes available. For times, please see below:

9 AM PDT (1600 UTC)

Destiny 2 server maintenance is scheduled to begin

Players may no longer sign in to Destiny 2 services

10 AM PDT (1700 UTC)

Players still in Destiny 2 activities will be returned to the title screen

11 AM PDT (1800 UTC)

Destiny 2 server maintenance is scheduled to conclude

Destiny 2 Hotfix 1.1.4.1 will be available to download and install

Iron Banner will begin as soon as maintenance concludes

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[takaraphoenix]

Can you do "Once upon a time " for the show rant?

First of all, I’m sorry for making you wait so long?

And then, before we get into this: If you think fucking Frozen is a good Disney movie, then maybe don’t read this (and maybe, let’s be real, unfollow me because I will never miss an opportunity to put that burning garbage fire into its place when it comes up in conversation. It is literally the only thing I hate to such a petty degree that I can not go without insulting it for sucking so hard and making me lose my faith in Disney for literal years). Since that fucking movie made its way into this show, I will have to adress it and I will not be holding back about what a giant dump on the show that was. So, fair warning there.

I’ll try to keep this chronological. I’ll try to go through rough plotlines first and then dive into the characters.

So, let’s start at the beginning.

A young Phoe, growing up on Disney movies and loving them. So when an older Phoe discovers a TV show about the Disney princesses living in the Enchanted Forest together, well, I was over the moon.

The first two seasons were… a bit of a slow start. I enjoyed the concept behind it, I enjoyed the characters, but it was still pretty much a set-up and I only got really invested when the plot moved on from the first curse. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was a really great intro and all, but it felt less…impactful. With the others, I can very clearly recall the impact they had on the story and also the things that happened but with the first two it’s all a bit vague, like “Yeah, yeah, that curse and Regina first turning good. Uhu. Wait. How did this last two fucking seasons? I feel like I’m completely blanking on what season 2 is about. Am I?”.

Ironically, the third season was also the one I consider both weak and good at the same time. But the scale became broader. It wasn’t just Storybrook anymore. It just became so much… more. They enriched the world they built.

I hate that they turned Peter Pan into a villain. What the fuck. I mean, seriously, what the fuck? That they played with the dynamics of characters, sure. But that they completely flip the tale is something that agitates me. Not to mention that the Peter Pan plotline was stretched out for far too long. It was not justified to last half a season. They were just wandering around Neverland aimlessly half the time and it could have really been condensed into a quarter season.

I have very conflicted feelings for the Wicked Witch plotline. I feel like they completely half-assed the Wizard of Oz storyline, cramming it together like that and just jumping ahead. Out of all the storylines, this one felt the most like they were… unsure how to handle the tale itself and like none of them had actually read the damn book? Was watching Disney movies as homework for your job okay, but reading a book was too much?

Season 4.

I have never been as drunk in my entire 26 years of life as I was when watching season 4A. My best friend and I got a lot of alcohol and frozen pizza, we started drinking and watching at 10 AM and through the entire day to binge this shit so we’d be done with it because our hatred for fucking Frozen is too strong to endure one episode at a time sober.

Thanks to the alcohol, I have barely any recollections about details of this half-season. The first half of the first episode and then it starts getting fuzzy because by the 20 minute mark, I was drunk as shit.

(Our drinking game for Once Upon a Time - yes, we established this to become A Thing for us after that plotline - is to take one shot at every Disney referrence. Each referrence only counted once. So not every single time Snow White enters the screen, we drink, but only when a new character is introduced for the first time, or when an item is very clearly out of the movies and such. Also every time Rumpel fucks Belle over. Every time Belle breaks up with Rumpel. Every time Emma does something that annoys us. And, in this half-season’s case, every time it does something very Frozen.)

So yes, I was shit-faced drunk within 20 minutes because of what fucks me over the most about Once Upon a Time.

They completely screwed the tales of The Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan over just last season, but with Frozen, they stuck sooo much with the source material that even the fucking embroidery on their dresses and the way they wore their hair was identical to the movie. Even the parents looked down to their clothes exactly like they did in their fucking movie. They included every last stupid, unnecessary character - even the dumb trolls that were completely unnecessary and out of place for Once Upon a Time and would have done better by adapting Frozen to fit into Once by having them consult the Blue Fairy. Something to tie Frozen into Once instead of adapting the movie one to one.

You never adapted a single Disney movie one to one. The closest you got was later on Brave, but other than that, you changed a shit-ton of things about all the movies. How did this garbage pile of a movie deserve such special treatment that it got not only an entire half-season to focus on it but also that it got to keep every last single little detail about its movie?

As a die-hard Disney fan, that infuriates me because it’s not fair. It’s not fair that the true masterpieces did not get the same respectful treatment when being adapted. It’s not fair that Cinderella was a COMPLETE throw-away character in the show that had only one episode to that point (and only got two more episodes down the road), that Ariel and Aurora were cut short too. That Snow White not once in the six season run of this show wore her iconic dress - not even in the flashbacks as a kid, where such a simple dress would have fit - but Elsa and Anna get to wear dresses that are perfect replicas of their movie dresses? It’s not fair. And that they chose the worst animated movie Disney ever made to get this special treatment just makes me even more upset.

It’d have upset me if it were any other movie too - to get a half-season super-true-to-original treatment - but that they chose this shitty movie for it just makes it infinitely worse.

Now. I do have to praise one thing about the fucking Frozen plotline though. The show tried really hard to fix this fucking mess of a movie. They actually tried to tie the real Snow Queen into this, they tried to make sense of Elsa’s “ooopsie daisy she got powers but we will never-ever explain why and how and oh well who cares we’ll make a fuck-ton of money out of this shit even if we totally half-ass any kind of logic on it”-powers. They did really-really good at trying to fix this mess, as far as I remember (like I said, all very fuzzy. Remember pretty white-dressed Snow Queen who was… uhm… Emma’s foster mom at some point but also the… aunt/grandma/unsure of Elsa and Anna? Really very drunk, sorry).

The second half of season 4 - before I slip into a total hate-fest on fucking Frozen, let’s move on and leave it at that - was better, but still kind of…

Ursula doesn’t make fucking sense.

I just… I mean. This universe literally has three Ursulas now. The great magical and way too underweight Goddess that Ariel tried praying to. Regina pretending to be said Goddess. And… there’s actually… Ariel’s aunt the “real” Ursula from the Disney movie (who by that logic ought to be the Goddess because she’s the daughter of Poseidon and thus a Goddesss)? Only that she is actually kind of not the real Ursula since she got nothing to do with Ariel’s plotline - aside from very obviously being her aunt - and she kind of gets a rehashed version of Ariel’s story.

She’s also clearly not a villain. Like. She didn’t even do the thing that made her a villain in the movie? So? How exactly did she ever end up with Cruella and Maleficent to become this feared trio of evil bad villains? That part just… really didn’t add up to me and feels like they retconned her in hard after they already used Ariel. I would have wished for more consistency and for more explaining on how exactly she fits into her own movie’s world and what exactly made her such an evil villain.

Cruella was handled really cool though. I like the idea of her actually having magic. It was interesting. I don’t understand why she got such a cheap and obvious wig, because that thing looks awful. Like, sure you don’t want to dye half your hair white, but can’t they at least try to make it look natural?

But I’m still pissed that they never pulled through with the 101 Dalmatian story. Pongo is owned by Archie. I had expected him to meet a love interest through Pongo. How did that never happen?

I also have to mention the Lilith plot that just… it felt like it was supposed to be heavy and impactful and I waited the entire final season for a pay-off - especially after we meet her dad Mushu the Dragon - but somehow it felt as though she was just… forgotten? I mean, that character is named after a pretty strong and important character from an entirely different mythology/religion. I was expecting a giant-ass pay-off for her storyline, but she just disappeared and was never heard of again.

Now, season 5 was actually my favorite season.

I hate that they fucked King Arthur over hard. It’s like… “If it’s based off a non-fairy tale, we can really fuck it hard, right? Yes? Good.”. Because Peter Pan and Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland (I am so getting into that mess of a spin-off that they half-completely retconned out when I get to season 6) and even Mulan - I mean, uhm, what exactly did she DO in the Enchanted Forest? She saved freaking China in the movie. So she should be like… from our world? Just like Dorothy and Alice and Wendy. So… uhm, how was that never explained? At all? She was nearly as much a throw-away character as Cinderella because they just didn’t care about her story at all and just used her as a prop.

So yeah, totally hate how Arthur was a bad guy, but totally loved Merida and her plotline. Even though the scenes of Merida and Rumpel talking to Emma were so hard for me to understand because of accents.

Now, main reason why I loved that season. The return of Ruby. I love Ruby. I literally need and want Ruby, Merida, Mulan and Dorothy to have their own spin-off. Like. That is what they should have gone with to keep this show going instead of whatever garbage fire season 7 is going to be (I’ll get into that later. One thing at a time).

Ruby had been gone and it had annoyed me to no end because she is Snow’s best friend. But they retconned that real well. I also liked how the Dwarves came back with a piece of their minds on being props and forgotten because that was what they had indeed felt like.

But I still think that Ruby turning lesbian was so because they had gotten heat from Disney. Because I do not believe for half a second that Disney approved of them making Mulan a lesbian. So instead Once turned toward their “own” characters - Ruby and Dorothy, aka the two not based on Disney movies. Still. I actually ended up shipping it.

Anyways.

The most ridiculous part about that half-season however was how Hook literally flipped a switch as soon as he realized he was the Dark One. Like. Woah. He didn’t even try to contain the darkness, he instantly let it embrace him when he realized like he gave himself up.

Moving on.

Hades. I mean, holy Hades, Hades was awesome. I just… If you’ve been around my tumblr for a bit, you know how much I fangirl about Dominic Sherwood literally doing anything? Yeah, I had the same level of fangirling about Greg Germann doing Hades. He was just so perfect and on point. He was literally the best cast ever. And that they kept the blue flame-hair just made me happy so much. Just… he was so amazing.

The thing that did bother me about this half-season was that Snow and Charming were down there. I mean. They had literally nothing to do in the underworld and for that quest to retrieve one soul - Emma, Henry and Regina would have been more than enough, especially considering that Snow White, Charming and Robin all had babies upstairs. They should have stayed upstairs with the babies. It was ridiculous to cram all those characters into this normally rather simple quest. They just didn’t have anything to do for so much of this season.

It was also the half-season where the “villain has a good core and can be turned good” trope became way overused.

Regina. Yes. The original for this.

Rumpel. Also yes, of course.

Maleficent, who just wanted her baby… okay.

Now Zelena.

And Cora.

And just… why would you try redeeming Cora? Cora is your one strong, pure villain. You keep giving every single villain a redemption arc, but if you literally track two of those directly down to Cora - Regina and Zelena - then don’t attempt to give the source of all evil a redemption story. It was so unnecessary and too much.

That Hercules and Megara were such throw-away characters in this also pissed me off. They really should have gone with leaving Snow and David upstairs and instead bring Herc in sooner and have him bond with Emma and help her and be a hero. Instead of retconning him into Snow’s past to be convenient. Why not let Emma make… a friend? Crazy thought, I know.

And then came the Jekyll/Hyde plotline. I think they brought too much of that in this season already. If you tease a new season with the last scene of the season finale, that’s fine, but if you focus like an entire episode of such a thing… that’s just too much.

Aladdin was cool. I think the whole “savior” arc was… very retconned in here though, considering that both Hercules and Mulan had more than just the potential to having been Saviors in their own rights. But this show established that Emma is the Savior. Now, all of a sudden, Aladdin is another previous Savior. As I just said; retconned in.

I also still think that instead of turning Arthur into a fucking villain, he should have been a great Savior. Because he is the once and future king, for heaven’s sake.

Now let me get into why this arc pisses me off.

What was the fucking point of Once Upon a Time in Wonderland?

I love spin-offs. I love elaborate universes. But why would you make a spin-off if it doesn’t fucking matter to you at all?

But they kept Will Scarlet. If they had at least not included him, then ignoring the spin-off would be simple. But him being in Once - and don’t get me wrong, I fucking adore Michael Socha and he was literally the reason I watched Wonderland. It just messed shit up even worse.

I mean. Not just did they recast Jafar, but they also completely disregarded Jafar’s canon from Wonderland, where he ought to be Jasmine’s half-brother because he was the sultan’s son. But the sultan was completely different, Jafar’s relations weren’t mentioned. It was a completely different story that had not an ounce of regard for the spin-off.

Not to mention how the Red Queen was Anastasia, aka Cinderella’s step-sister. But instead they elaborate Cinderella’s backstory with step-sisters that have completely different names than they do in the movies - why would you do that? Why? You did such a great job at keeping Cinderella looking like in the movie. She was so gorgeous. Why would you retcon her story into something non-movie related? This had been such a great way of tying Wonderland in but instead, it was disregarded.

Just how it was disregarded with Aladdin and Jasmine.

And that just pisses me off. A lot.

Now. Let me move on to the final season.

I consider the final season to be really very weak. Like. Seriously. If you know my stories, you know I love angst, but that season was even too angsty for me. Holy shit. Emma was just so angsty. It was hard to bear.

Then the rift between Rumpel and Belle again. The really not very likable character of their son and how they just aged him up via magic (a trope that I hate nearly more than the “added baby for the sake of adding a baby because we ran out of plot” at this point because it’s just… getting tired).

So yeah. Gideon had literally no character. He just… existed. And was so bland.

And the Black Fairy?

I know I’ve been using the term a lot in this, but she was so retconned in. And a disappointment.

Maleficent is the Black Fairy. That is literally who Maleficent is.

How do you bundle Pinocchio’s Blue Fairy, Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother and Aurora’s Merryweather all up into one Fairy, but you create two separate Black Fairies? That just pisses me off a lot.

They could have come up with something better. I wish they would have brought Maleficent and Lilith back for this final act. Heck, if you have to retcon Rumpel’s mom the Black Fairy into being Maleficent’s sister to justify this. Or just… ysomething. Anything. But what they did was… not enough.

And just one more thing that pissed me off.

That waste-of-space musical episode.

If you know me, you know I love musicals. I love musical episodes nearly more than actual musicals because it excites me to see how they fit it into the world. And nothing screams musical episode as muchas a TV show based on Disney movies.

But they completely wasted it.

I loved that they wanted to make the Hook/Emma wedding that musical episode.

But instead, it was all in the stupid so fucking retconned in flashbacks. In the most omnious shit-stunt they had ever pulled before. Holy shit.

I thought maybe Henry accidentally would get Storybrook cursed into singing because he wants the wedding to be perfect for his mom with all the shit going on, and it would be a truly in the now focused episode focusing about the wedding. The wedding was a total side-note in this episode and such a let-down. You know, just a fun musical episode about the wedding.

Not one where all the songs are between Snow and David and Regina and completely retconned in.

It was just… a giant-ass disappointment.

But I did however really like the grand finale with the picture-esque Last Supper imagery and the fact that Rumpbelle got to dance together and got their happy ending were just perfect.

Season 7 does not exist.

I just… really can’t. I really-really can’t.

I just this show so very much, I can’t watch them ruin it, I can’t allow them to make me hate this show. I love it too much to be able to endure that.

And I know they’ll make me hate it.

That they’re doing a “soft reboot” is in itself already bullshit. You do not reboot a show literally the second it ends. If you’d have ended it there and brought it back in ten years - five years, if you have to rush it and be greedy - or so, when Henry is older. Okay. Yeah.

But to do this now?

I’m sure they’ll pull explanations out of their asses. About why Snow and David won’t return as regulars. Why Emma the fucking main character and mom of the ‘new’ lead won’t return to the show. Why no one but Henry actually aged. Why they’ll now include multiple incarnations of the same fucking story. But I am too tired of them retconning things in to listen to them completely breaking the lore of this show just to make more money.

Because that’s what it’s about at that point. “Half the cast won’t be in it anymore? But we still wanna keep going? Let’s call it a soft reboot”.

And no. Just no.

Not to mention, it literally does break the lore of this show. The very foundation this world operates on.

The Author documents the stories. The very same stories get documented by different authors. That is why fairy tales had fdifferent authors and variations, why Walt Disney wrote them down differently. That was what the whole fucking point of this universe was.

And now they suddenly say “Heeey, there’s a Cinderella now married to Henry. but it’s a different Cinderella than the Cinderella you met in the original story. Because out of fucking reasons we now suddenly have multiple incarnations of the very same character just because we fucking can!” is just so weak. So very, very pathetic.

For years, that was not a thing that existed. There is one Snow White. One Cinderella. One of every single one and they all interacted and knew each other. How did they not know of other versions of themselves? How does the Author plot still make sense with that? It doesn’t. That’s just it.

And that they plan on bringing the freaking Princess and the Frog into this is even more ridiculous. Yes, she is the only black princess and I can understand the need to include her, but her story doesn’t resonate with how the world of Once Upon a Time works, because her tale was never the Frog Princess or the Frog King, it never even tried to be either of those fairy tales. It cleary had the actual fairy tale displayed in the movie and was referrencing “Oh, so it works like that, yeah?”, meaning this was never trying to be an adaptation of the fairy tale, it was just an original Disney movie essentially. Does that mean Once doesn’t just include idconic books and fairy tales… but also random, unrelated movies now? By that logic, what’s next? Star Wars, because it’s Disney too?

So how does that even remotely fit in? How much retconning do you hve to do to make that movie work in this universe? Definitely more than with fucking Frozen. (Even though Princess and the Frog is a wonderful movie and definitely better than fucking Frozen. But that has nothing to do with how little this fits together with the show.)

I just…

They obviously stopped giving a fuck. So I will stop watching, for the sake of my own sanity. It’ll be better for me.

Now. To wrap this up, I want to focus on the characters.

The weird thing is that… I don’t really care for Emma.

Normally, I either love a protagonist or hate them. But that I’m completely indifferent about them… that’s a first. She’s just very bland and neutral. It’s the rest of the cast that get me.

Like. All of them.

Hook is amazing and I love Regina and Rumpel is such a great complex character and just… all of them.

And the ships.

This show totally does the Disney thing by making me ship a lot of straights. A lot of canon ships. I normally rarely get on board of canon ships. The highest of my feelins is “Hey, this one doesn’t make me constantly roll my eyes or want to claw said eyes out. Yay.”. But with Once?

Charming/Snow

Hook/Emma

Rumpel/Belle above all else

Robin/Regina

Hades/Zelena

And just… all those regular Disney pairings too. It’s so easy to ship them. To love them.

I mean, OTP is totally Regina/Emma, which confuses me because I do love their canon matches.

Ruby though, I have special love for Ruby, because Red Riding Hood is literally my favorite fairy tale. And that she’s a werewolf and that she’s best friend with Snow - I did not understand what they pulled there until like season 5. That the English treats Schneewittchen and and Schneeweißchen as one and the same character and translate the RED Riding Hood and Rose RED as one and the same too…. Really weird. But sure. It works. (I don’t get why they gave Ruby the civil identirty of ‘Ruby’ and not of ‘Rose’  though considering they use her as both Red Riding Hood and Rose Red.)

So, yeah.

Overall, I really fucking love this show, but it sure as fuck ain’t flawless and I will not allow new flaws to drag it down for me.

[lokgifsandmusings]

Definitive Ranking of Book 4 Episodes, #1/13

1. 4x02 Korra Alone

Non-linear all around perfect episode that explores Korra’s struggles with PTSD and I can’t even be funny about this. Oh and Toph.

This is a post that’s taken me some time to write, because addressing the perfection of this particular episode is a daunting task. I mean it. It’s not just the best episode of Book 4, it’s the best episode of the franchise. The most daring as well.

For a little bit of context, there’s an incredibly popular episode from Avatar: the Last Airbender called “Zuko Alone.” It picks up after he leaves Iroh in “Avatar Day,” because his uncle kind of pointed out that the hunt for the Avatar might be a tad on the futile side. His brain can’t reconcile this, so the episode instead shows him trying to blindly stick to this task, while feeling as though he has no place in the world, and being rejected by anyone who finds out who he really is. He struggles with inner darkness, inner pain, and the whole time his story is punctuated by flashbacks of his relationship to his sister, his mother’s disappearance, and his father’s ascension to Fire Lord.

I’m not sure I’d call it the high point of ATLA (“Crossroads of Destiny” gets that honor), but it is kind of everything with regards to Zuko, easily one of the strongest characters Bryke have ever written. Also it did a great job of not endorsing his self-destructive tendencies or making excuses for him.

“Korra Alone” was announced (and screened) at the 2014 New York Comic Con, and when Bryke first said the episode title, the audience screamed. Smugly, from the comfort of my couch, I shook my head at the livestream and declared that there was no way this could measure up.

Well, color me dead wrong. I forgot that it was starring Korra, and she not only measures up, she creates a new goddamned reality the world didn’t know it needed.

Just thinking about the episode for first-time viewers, it does exactly what it needs to do. It’s impactful coming off the [mostly] Korra-less “After All These Years” to not just see her, but feel what she’s going through and feel that isolation, even when she’s surrounded by her parents and other loved ones. Though it somewhat takes on the travel+flashbacks format of “Zuko Alone,” even Korra’s present-day plot isn’t strictly sequential—most notably with us learning the real reason she entered the earthbending cage-match, with the flashes moving faster to get her to the swamp. It gives the entire episode a very ungrounded feel, which for the viewer does two things:

You desperately begin to want Korra to connect and be stabilized, because there is an inherent discomfort from the loose form for your brain (not a bad thing...an effective discomfort)

It REALLY gives the impression that time is passing in this episode

The second point is especially striking when you consider the scope. We’ve got in one “plotline” (for lack of a better term): Korra underground fighting, following a ‘dog’, and getting sucked into the swamp where she meets Toph. This alone covers significant ground. Then we have her flashbacks of leaving Republic City, not improving in her home and Senna begging her to go to Katara, Katara’s first healing session, the letters from friends that paint time as passing, Katara’s ‘wiggle your toe’ session, Tenzin visiting, Korra’s narrated letter to Asami while she meditates and trains, her leaving the SWT, her failing to apprehend the thieves, turning from Yue Bay, cutting her hair and donning new clothes, the tree of time scene, then traversing every possible landscape.

HOW WAS THIS ALL IN A 22 MINUTE EPISODE?

Yeah. This is three years, no question about it. It’s visually stunning, but there’s also this extreme sense of loss that the viewer is clued into, and the aimlessness that is heavily felt. Korra’s physical appearance changing was the external manifestation of this, and the symbolism surrounding it was as clear as when Iroh and Zuko did the same nearly 8 years prior. Toph popping out at the end is the one bit of relief, and it *really* shines, especially given her voice actor being perfect and sounding instantly familiar to us (did Philece Sampler just watch hours and hours of Jessie Flower footage or something??).

I can’t see this not landing for someone the first time through, to be perfectly honest. It sets up Korra’s journey for the season, and with her still out of touch from Raava and still away from friends and family, there’s a lot that needs resolving, and that the audience should definitely want to see resolved.

Placing “Korra Alone” in the context of the entire season, and the series at that (or even the franchise) is a different ballgame. Not a worse one, but it certainly means that you can consider this in Korra’s healing arc as a whole.

I’ll fully admit I was not 100% on-board with Dark!Korra being the representation for PTSD at first, even though this is, at the end of the day, a Y7 show that needs to break down these concepts to children. However, it worked within this episode, and given how the whole thing was resolved through mindful meditation (plus how the little bit of metal Korra extracted didn’t end up being a cure-all), I think it justified itself in a general sense.

In the case of “Korra Alone” alone (lol), it worked in a sort of 3rd person omniscient way, to quickly convey Korra reliving this moment and having a ton of anxiety each time it occurred. What had the potential for being a bit of a cheap visual metaphor instead mostly landed, giving us a kind of visceral understanding of that anxiety (and as someone who’s had to explain what that feels like to people who’ve never experienced it, that’s really no easy task).

When it comes to Korra’s healing arc as a whole, I’m going to have to be an asshole and tell you that Gretchen ( @theonewithpurplehair ) and I are planning on writing something about it when she gets back from South Africa. It will be lengthy and emotional and talk about THEMES and how important this is. We do that.

But even in advance of it, I think there’s a point to be made about Bryke choosing to have a healing arc in the first place. They didn’t have to, you know. And for some, especially in light of the indelicately worded “I needed to suffer” quote from the final episode, having two white men use a bisexual indigenous woman to explore a story about recovering from extensive trauma is uncomfortable, which is absolutely a valid tension.

However, something I think @glamourweaver highlighted best back when fandom dialogue was more...heightened, was that like it or not, Korra’s gone through major traumas throughout the show. In Book 1, she lost most of her bending and was so affected there was not-subtle-at-all suicide imagery included. Then Aang’s magic touch fixed her depression! Yay!

In Book 2, she had Raava ripped out of her and lost her (admittedly newfound) connection to her past lives, calling into question her very identity as the Avatar. The whole astral-projection thing she did? That was just Korra’s strength of soul, separate from anything to do with reincarnated powers. So yeah, reconnecting with Raava and becoming the first Avatar of a new spiritual age would totally be healing, but the idea that there’s no trauma she’d need to explore? Book 3 is near and dear to me, but in many ways it almost feels like a new show, complete with not bothering to tap into implications of the first 2 seasons. Whoops!

It’s yeah, not great how much she was put through the wringer when you get down to it. But Bryke are conscientious and tend to fix their mistakes. In a lot of ways, Korra being given PTSD—like...realistic PTSD—and an ensuing healing arc in Book 4 was the direct answer to everything previously glossed over.

The result? To that, I’ll just go ahead and quote @beccatoria’s essay (seriously, read it), because it lays out the meaning so well:

“This brings us to the final part of my argument: forming new meanings. The therapies I have mentioned so far focus on the physiological issues. The brain blows a fuse and can't process what it has experienced, so if you fix the fuse, you fix the processing problem. This still leaves a person who has been through an extremely traumatic event. PTSD almost always presents alongside issues such as depression and can lead to feelings of isolation and guilt. Individuals may either feel emotionally disconnected or emotionally out of control and have often internalised damaging messages as a result of their trauma. There is often a focus on creating new meanings as these memories are re-examined. We see this in Korra's evolving attitude to her own experiences.

Zaheer asserts that her power is limitless. She should never have been able to survive the poison. He offers her an opportunity to recontextualise her survival as evidence of her enormous resilience and strength rather than as a failure because she did not survive unscathed. While she is recovering, Katara tells her about Aang and how he chose to find meaning in his suffering. “What will I find?” Korra wonders. “Won't it be interesting to find out?” Katara asks. The answer comes in her final conversation with Tenzin. Korra chooses to form new meanings for her experiences, and chooses to find a message of compassion and empathy.”

Yes, the landing was not 100% perfect, but the recontextualization of her suffering and subsequent empowerment through that was clear. Korra ended the series hopeful about the future, and more at peace than we had seen her—certainly more at peace than that flailing teenager who was more willing to demand a duel with Amon than admit fear. She had grown and found ways to reconcile what happened into how she wanted to lead her life.

Do you mind if I get personal for three seconds? I have general anxiety, as well as a very specific (and admittedly mild) trauma associated with driving, and though I’ll never equate my experience to Korra’s brutalization (seriously, mine just involves a hangover, a large cup of coffee, pizza, and a bridge), there is something about that terror of being out-of-control I identify with, and it features so strongly in Korra’s arc. I also know what it’s like to want to will something away and fight against everything that’s happening. Why can’t my stupid brain just STOP?

But the thing is, like beccatoria said, it’s about contextualizing it. Anxiety never goes away, and it certainly can’t be willed out of the forefront. But you can choose to look at things with a new point of view. To be able to sit with a feeling and recognize what it is, even if it’s massively uncomfortable or puts your body in flight-or-fright mode. Personally, I’ve come to look at my anxiety/intrusive thoughts as a very badly behaved cat. The cat is weirdly trying to protect me, and truly thinks this is what will help keep me safe, but well...it’s an idiot:

Still, it’s *my* idiot, damnit, and now when I drive, I can just picture her in the passenger seat chewing on the emergency brake. She’s also the survival mechanism my brain came up with to shield me from more chaotic forces in my life, and that’s kind of neato, when you get down to it.

*Kind of*, okay? (I still need to replace this chair, though Trystane Nymeros has done more damage to it with his many toes).

The point is, Korra’s story is powerful and salubrious because she just...goes through hell and back, she really does. But she not only finds meaning in it, she finds positivity and hope. She is at her MOST secure when she flings herself in front of that spirit gun, and then talks down the season antagonist with a few words. It’s uplifting, without pulling *any* punches on how ugly and terrifying and isolating PTSD can be.

There were punches thrown outside of “Korra Alone” too, but that was the episode that waded in most deeply, and somehow did it in an appropriate fashion for a Y7 show. I can’t sing its praises enough, truly.

Having laid this all out, it seems almost trite to mention the Korrasami aspects of the episode. It didn’t escape the fandom that Korra telling Tonraq and Senna she wanted to go back home read like a coming out conversation, and the “Dear Asami” sequence is without question the most stunning of the episode. Though @queertoonqueertoons lays out why there’s other reasons for that as well. But like, what can be said? Korra lets herself be vulnerable around Asami in a way she won’t with others, and Asami asks for very little in return. It was a nice, continuing thread, but it never became a focal point of the episode, or the series, so shame on me if I buck the trend.

I can give overall thoughts on Book 4 when I pull together the final post for this ranking, but like Korra, I think I’m ending on a pensive and positive note. “Korra Alone” will do that for you, even though it may be the darkest episode of the franchise. What a masterpiece.

#13: 4x08 “Remembrances”

#12: 4x11 “Kuvira’s Gambit”

#11: 4x09 “Beyond the Wilds”

#10: 4x07 “Reunion”

#9: 4x06 The “Battle of Zaofu”

#8. 4x12 “Day of Colossus”

#7 4x01 “After All These Years”

#6 4x03 “The Coronation”

#5 4x04 “The Calling”

#4 4x05 “Enemy at the Gates”

#3 4x10 “Operation Beifong”

#2 4x13 “The Last Stand”

Book 2 ranking/essays found here

[feathersandblue]

What makes you convinced that Silver didn't shoot Flint? I've seen arguments for both theories, and everyone seems to think that Flint is dead though eventhogh we never saw a body (no body = no death). Do you listen to fathoms deep? Daphne and Liz are pretty insightful and they seemed to be pretty sure Flint is dead.

Same anon here. Also, Toby Stephens apparently said on twitter that it is an open ending…. I guess I simply don’t know what to think.

Oh, Jesus. I had kinda hoped I wouldn’t get this kind of question. I’ve listened to Fathoms Deep, and I’ve also seen Stephens’ tweet, and I’ve read tons of interviews of the writers stating that the ending was real, and tons of reviews pointing out that the ending was ambiguous, and I’ve seen losts of post listing reasons for why they believed Flint was dead … 

It’s a bit of a mess at this point, which seems to have been the intended outcome. 

Well, @blacksailsstarz, congratulations. 

What a bit of washed-out colors, an overdose of sunshine, and a cleverly cut scene in the woods can do to a fandom, it’s truly impressive. You pulled quite a number on us.

Anyway, I guess I have to do this, if only for myself, so here we go. 

Why I believe that Silver’s story about Flint’s ending is true. 

1. The showrunners have confirmed that theyhad intended to bring back Thomas for a long time, and repeatedlyreferred to the rule of “no body, no confirmed death” in recent interviews.Which, in turn, implies that Thomas as we see him on screen is real and not simply ahallucination. 

2. We saw the cold open, which wasframed as a flashback, but not as a part of anyone’s narration ormemory. That makes it a true scene, one that really happened. It’s tied to the snippet of Max’ and Silver’s conversation about thatestate through the “Previously on Black Sails” montage.Which makes it a direct follow-up to that scene. No ambiguity there.

3. We saw that scene of Flint belingdelivered to the exact same compound, with the exact same people, andand we saw that reunion scene with Flint and Thomas.

That scene existed.

The events therin existed.

It follows that this scene has a placewithin the narrative of Black Sails.

I’d argue it has to be either:

a) Silver’s story, based on his ownimagination,

b) Flint’s hallucination of his own death,

c) the metaphorical version of Flint’soff-screen death,

d) a real flashback that showswhat actually happened, with a heavily metaphorical aspect to it which reflects Silver’s narrative about the end of Captain Flint and thereawakening of James McGraw, which has been heavily alluded to in earlier seasons.

So which one is it?

Now, whenever this show included memories orhallucinations before, the writers were very careful and good at onlyfilling these scenes with details that the characters who wereremembering or hallucinating them knew. 

It holds true for Vane’s visions ofEleanor, where everything Eleanor said was what Vane had beenthinking about himself.

It holds true for every singleflashback of season one and two, from the scene on the Maria Aleyneto the scenes in London. For the London storyline, the events weretied to either Miranda or Flint, and we only saw  scenes in which atleast one of them had been present. The Maria Aleyne, we got fromMorley’s point of view, then later from Gates’ resp. Flint’s. There’sa second-hand flashback when Silver tells Max about the scouts Flinthad sent to the beach to watch the Urca gold, with the Spanishsoldiers dying. 

It holds true for Flint’s hallucinations of Miranda, which werealso full of details and images he knew. His mind did not create a newvirtual environment in any of these. 

Unless the writers have entirely changed their modus operandi for the final episode, it stands to reason that the same rules would apply to Flint’s ending as well.  

Which leads me to the conclusion that:

a) If the reuninon scene had beenSilver’s imagination, and nothing more, then neither the interior ofthe compound, nor the people in it, nor Thomas, should have lookedthe way they did simply because Silver had never seen them. 

If it hadbeen nothing but Silver’s story, it would have made more sense tosimply have Silver recount it, as was the show’s habit with stories –Spaniard named Vasquez, the hanged pirates of Charles Town, the bird that was dinner, and so on. But if it had only been a fabrication, if, in fact, Flint’s delivery to Savannah had never happened, the setting would notmatch the scene in the cold open in such great detail.

b) The same applies to the idea thatthe reunion scene would be Flint’s imaginary version/hallucination of his owndeath. Flint has never seen that place in Savannah, he coudn’thave imagined it like that. He also would not have imagined Thomasbeing older or bearded, simply for lack of reference.

c) If the reunion scene is meant to bea metaphorical version of his death, including a version of ahappy afterlife, then a couple of things don’t add up. For one, an important element is missing, and that’sMiranda. And again, If they had meant to indicate something like paradise forFlint, there is very little reason to depict it as a labor camp inSavannah that has no relevance to Flint at all – without Miranda,but with a bearded Thomas. In short, the reunion scene was lackingeverything one should expect of an actual afterlife, and had all the signs of being tied strongly to the show’s reality and present.

Also, for both version b) and c): if thatscene was meant to be a visualitation of Flint’s actual death, thereare various details that simply don’t fit.

The scene shows Flint cleaned up, hisscratches and injuries older and scabbed over, but not entirelyhealed. This indicates that time has passed between the scene in thewoods and his arrival at the field. 

If the scene was meant as a codedversion of Flint’s off-screen death, we’re also lacking a cause ofdeath. The most popular theory says that Flint was killed bySilver’s gunshot. But if his arrival at the plantation is thecrossing of the threshold, where is the deadly wound that caused it? All other wounds are still visible and he’s wearing thesame clothes. Moreover, if it was Silver’s gun shot that was his end,why are Hands and Morgan delivering him into the realm of deathinstead of Silver? Or if they have killed him on Silver’s behalf,where are his other injuries?

So these are things that I simply can’t dismiss, things that, for me, are a clear argument against any of these explanations. 

The fourth one, on the other hand…

d) If the reunion is real, but framedand filmed in a way that there is a metaphorical aspect to it as well, thenit shows us the real events, coded heavily in a way that tiesback to greek mythology – symbolizing the death of Flint, anddelivering the happy ending to James McGraw’s personal Odissey all at once. Itmakes sense to shoot it with a different filter, it makessense to have the actual way from the gate to the end of the tunnel be accompanied by Silver’s narration, and it makes sense for Silver’s narration to stop at some point because the actual reunion is no longer a part of it. 

Silver talks about the reawakening of the man who came before. That part of his story ends when Flint steps out into the sunshine. But because Silver doesn’t really know what went on in that estate - he can be seen lurking in the background while Hands and Morgan accompany Flint in - it would be a part of the story that Silver has not been witness to, meaning that he has nowords to accompany it. That particular scene is not narrated by Silver, but if the hole story only existed in Silver’s mind, why would the story stop there, and not recount how happy Flint looked when finally reunited with Thomas? 

“And when he saw Thomas - Madi, when he saw Thomas, he looked as if he was finally at peace. For the first time I knew him, he seemed well and truly happy.” 

Silver’s words about Flint recounted what he knew, and the change he, personally, had witnessed in Flint. Meanwhile, what we saw on screen was a flashback playing out, one that, since it was true and real, extended beyond what Silver could tell us.

4. We know that Silver did not wantto kill Flint. It was not his intention to kill Flint. Heexplicitly states that he would stand there and talk until Flintaccepted the outcome. If he had intended to kill Flint, nothing wouldhave stopped him from doing so once Flint had stated that thetreasure would stay in the ground.

Instead Silver states, explicitly, thathe has made arrangements, and that he has ensured that “compromises”would be in place to prevent the war, and that he wants to leave thatisland together with Flint. 

What would these arrangements be,if not Flint’s imprisonment in Savannah?

5. The ambiguity of Flint’s fate - thescene cut off in the forest, including the uncertainty over whetherit was actually a gunshot that alerted the other crew members, or somethingelse, matched the suspense before Madi was found alive. It was justthat, suspense, and the resolution to the whole thing camethrough Silver’s explanation toward the end of the episode. There isno detail that cannot be explained fully by the explanation we’regiven by Silver. 

6. Jack tells Grandma Guthrie thatFlint has retired. If Silver had killed Flint instead, it would notmake any sense to tell an explicit lie when the truth wouldhave served him just as well, if not better. The official version of events would still be Flint’s retirement, but why deny in front of Grandma Guthrie that the cat was drowned, if that was what she wanted, and also what happened? 

7. This is maybe the most important point, because the showrunners have repeatedlystated that their ending had the goal to bring the characters intoplace for Treasure Island. That only works if Flint is leftalive. If Flint had died in that forest, there would be notreasure map, because only Flint knows where the damnthing is buried. Taken at face value, the ending fits. It’s still decades before the events of Treasure Island come to pass. Billy can still get off that island. Silver can still lose some moreof his leg. Ben Gunn can still be marooned. But if Flint were dead, any canon-compliance would have gone right out of the window.  

One does not simply make a prequel to Treasure Island for four entire seasons only to arrive at a point wherethe ending is contradictory to Treasure Island.

I don’t think that what I’m saying here will convince anyone who has already formed an opinion. 

But I personally don’t find the theory that Silver might have killed Flint convincing, and unless you find a way to dismiss all of the things statedabove, that theory simply does not have the same credibility, and in any case, it’s not enough for me to speak of an ambiguous ending - which is different, in my understanding of the terms, than an open ending, which simply does not answer all the questions.

The terribly beauty of this finale, imo, is that itleads its viewers to believe that the ending is more ambiguous thanit actually is… 

[agl03]

Hi...I just saw the last ep and I... really don't feel fine. :((( Once again no Fitzsimmons... x( How the hell did we end up there? with this insignificant on-screen time. I want season 1 Fitzsimmons' screentime back, 10min of them by episode talking, doing science, bickering even being happy for a change. I'm down with the dark tone, dark theme, dark whatever... dark is definitely not better!!They are the "jewel" of this show since the beginning (1)

and I really don’t understand the idea of diminishing “them” even more every freaking season. It’s worse than season 2 how the hell did it happen? I don’t want to wait 15ep every year to get something “good”, when did this become the norm and a good idea!?!? It’s bad and terrible writing. :/ And I don’t care about them having individual stories for a long time now, we already saw that and it was not the time to do that anyway. 

And the frustration was on when they would get their shit together and be together. They have passed that point now, so this artificial frustration they create makes no sense and they make it last. They work together for over a decade and they know each other by heart, their qualities, their flaws and even probably every mood, every breath almost everything of each other and now just like by “magic” their work is a problem in their relationship, it’s total non-sense

And I’m down rationalizing it to make it works, it just legitimates the writers’ choices and it is plenty wrong, they need to know that it’s all crap, and that some people are angry and sad and etc. Jemma’s statement on the lack of Fitz felt like a finger from the writers, and I don’t even want to talk about the generalization on men that I’ve read… :(I don’t want fiction to be “life-like”, life is an ice cold shitty desert, fiction is my escape plan, and Fitzsimmons are better and deserve better than that. They are my hope and light and I don’t want their relationship to be off-screen, there is no point in that.I feel so empty and sad and desperate… and I’m actually crying writing this message, and this is so completely the opposite of what I had expected to feel for when they got together… :’(( And worse than that I feel like I betray/failed the show, failed THEM by not loving the show anymore.:’( 

I know people will think I’m ridiculous and maybe I’m a terrible person but it’s what I feel… I’ll let them mid-season to get better but if not it fucking breaks my heart but I’ll be done with it, they manage to destroy my pleasure, my cheerfulness to watch the show, I didn’t think it was possible… :’( I’m so sorry to inflict you that, you are an amazing kind person and member of the fandom but I needed to tell someone that

I’m down rationalizing writers choices, it just legitimates them… I know it’s not a question and it’s probably my “last ask” because I don’t see any light coming, you can call it a rant, a painful comment, a cry for help, a farewell… and you can published it or not, it’s really not that important. :) But thank you very much for all your time, explanation and kindness. :) Once again I’m really sorry… 

Hi Anon!

I am sorry to hear how frustrated you are. And I want to sincerely apologize if my metas are contributing to this.  By nature I am what my family calls a ‘fixer’ and I try to make everyone happy and put a positive spin on things.  

EVERYONE is entitled to their own opinion and feelings on things.  You have every right to feel upset, betrayed, and frustrated right now.  We were downright misled by Jed.  I know I do.  I waited a LONG time for Fitzsimmons to be canon, I couldn’t wait to see what that would look like, and needless to say what we’ve seen hasn’t been what anyone expected.   

This is my escape too, you all have no idea how much being on here, answering asks, chatting, and doing metas has helped me these last few months of recovery.  And its hard when that escape causes stress or isn’t an escape anymore.  

As hard as it is not to get the shippy moments I was hoping for I really did enjoy the last episode.  Jemma had an awesome episode.  Fitz had an awesome episode.   And I want to support them as individual characters as them as a couple  Because, yes, Lil and Iain are the heart of the show.  Fitz and Simmons are the heart of the team..  I think Iain  especially has a very strong arc coming with LMD and the Radcliffe fall out.  I personally (my opinion) would rather see them dealing with angst on individual arcs rather  and real couple issues than a ton of angst in their relationship in order to give them more screen time.  Because AOS is not a romance driven show, is a very small component of everything else going on.  We see little from most couples after they get together.  We’ve gotten more Fitzsimmons shippy stuff after they got together than StaticQuake did, and that ship had one of the shows main characters in it.  

That is not to say this is all okay.  Relationship frustration being part of the story or no, the writers could “throw us a bone” at some point, take 2 seconds to assure the fandom and give us something to buoy us until the next time they can be together.  We got a fantastic one in 07, despite them hardly seeing each other.  For me 07 was a very strong episode in terms of FItzsimmons as we got validations from EVERYONE else at how much they meant to each other.  .

I did THIS post yesterday that gave me a lot of peace of mind.  That while months have passed for us, in terms of the characters less than a week has gone by.  Fitzsimmons have barely had time to sleep, let alone sit down and talk about the love nest and hurt feelings from having to hide AIDA.  

The other thing I know is at this point in the season

Sunshine and rainbows now = Pain coming

Pain now = Sunshine and rainbows around the finale

I look at where we were this time in B.  I did a lot of asks then.  A lot of people where we are now.  Mad, frustrated, and feeling hopeless that we’d get Fitzsimmons together.  We didn’t get the aftermath of Maveth I’d envisioned, no good conversations or discussions of feelings.  There they hardly had screen time as they set up Huntingbirds departure.  Heck  I am sure some on here were ready just to deck me when I kept saying be patient, it will happen.  And the BIG difference we had in B vs now is we don’t have that carrot.  In B we had the undercover pic that told us something good was coming.  Because it came back later we had the cast doing cons and we got talk of kisses (present and plural) to help us too. 

So I’m going to say now what I did then.   Hang in there good things will come.  Pain and suffering now means that something good will be coming.  I can’t say when this time, but something good is coming.  They are aware of how important this ship is to the show.  They are on social media they see/get the tweets demanding more.  They know what spoilers are being shared and asked at the entertainment sites.  And I know some from the show pop onto Tumblr.  They set up the ‘separation frustration’ for a reason.  And like Space BF was one contrived roadblock too far they are getting to the point where the the separation frustration has reached a breaking point too.  

We get them at the very least in the same room next week.  We see them in the lab with Talbot.  Don’t get hopes up too high, but they MIGHT be at the base ‘alone’.  And just because they get a scene together it doesn’t mean its going to be a super happy one.  They still have issues to work out surrounding AIDA.  But at least one of them isn’t lost in the woods with Mace, Mack, and Coulson. May and Daisy were on the Quin Jet.  Daisy, Coulson, Mack, and I expect Mace are at that speech  That’s not to say one or both don’t have to head out later but they will at least get some time together. 

This season feels like its been going for a long time and it has.  I personally feel this is contributing to the frustration factor.  All the breaks thanks to the election and holiday and we only have 9 eps in the books, that leaves 13 episodes to go.  Plenty of time for Fitzsimmons stuff.  This point last season we had just hit Closure…and look how far we came after Closure.  Every season has had at least one really good, solid, Fitzsimmons episode.  Season 1 FZZT (6), Season 2 Afterlife (16), and Season 3 The Singularity (18) are a few examples.  All came at different points in the season….though the last two were more in the back half.

I hope everyone knows my opinion and takes on this are my own.  I put out metas, theories, answer asks and hope they help others.   But I don’t expect anyone to feel the same way I do about story lines. Just because I enjoy one doesn’t mean you have to too.  Just as just because I have gotten to a okay place with the separation/frustration doesn’t mean you still can’t be upset with it.  Everyone enjoys and watches for different reasons.  I completely adore Fitzsimmons as a couple and want to see more of it but I am also enjoying them having their own story lines and am excited to see the Fitz/Radcliffe one play out.  

I don’t know if my rambling helps at all but you do what you need to do to take care of yourself and I don’t know who you are but you are a valued member of the fandom and would hate to lose you.  

[cumberblocked]

The Six Thatchers Reaction and Theories

To start off, a disclaimer, this is almost completely different than other theories I’ve seen about what’s going on in The Six Thatchers, but I worked really hard on it and I’m fairly new to the fandom so bear with me (and correct me) if something is deviant from accepted fan theories and stuff. I’m taking things on a more literal level here and then I’ll digest some of the more layered theories afterword- can’t wait to see everything! I saw a post that talked about the Sherlock fandom theory acceptance, and in the words of the blogger, I’m going to see if anything sticks. Maybe I’m not a Sherlock of fan theory, but I can at least be a conductor of light, right? Here goes:

I’m not nearly as eloquent and good with words as some people in the fandom, but I saw @moriarty ’s post about how people theorizing about John and Sherlock premeditating Mary’s murder is a bit off, and I got inspired.

I feel like the events of TST don’t explain a strong enough motive for a man like John to go to the aquarium with the sole intention of shooting Mary. He has such a strong moral compass, as shown by the shooting of the cabbie in the first episode (it was one of the first really important things we learned about John, right? He only kill in Sherlock’s or his defense) all through the series to him turning down the Bus Stop Woman’s advances (accepting the theory that John was texting Sherlock in the Devil Baby scene at the Watsons’). “E” might be important in the next episode, but she was put in TST for a reason, and I think showing John’s self-control once again might be one of them.

Mary literally shot Sherlock, and almost killed him. I think if John were to kill Mary, it would’ve been after he found out, right? Of course, she was carrying their child, and he wouldn’t want to kill the baby, but if he’d really wanted to kill her he would’ve divorced her right after he found out she shot him. He didn’t. She doesn’t really do anything worse in TST, so why would John decide he wanted to kill her after that? Ok, she lied a lot, but HER SHOOTING SHERLOCK WASNT A STRONG ENOUGH REASON FOR HIM TO WANT TO EVEN DIVORCE HER. It seems unlikely that anything Mary did in the new episode would even be a “last straw” to John, and I think he would have just divorced her rather than kill her, mainly stemming from the fact that she’s the mother of his child, no matter how much he comes to hate her. He doesn’t divorce her = he likely doesn’t even hate her.

Conclusion: Mary either did something even worse than shooting Sherlock that TST episode covered up so that John wouldn’t get executed/exiled/jailed for her murder (I’m not familiar with murder punishment in the UK), and/or John killed her at the aquarium in self or Sherlock’s defense and Mycroft and Crew covered it up Magnussen style (supported by previous things I’ve reblogged about the Hollywood cheesiness of Mary’s death, how fake the scenario we see seems, and the showing of the doctored video in the beginning of the episode). I also believe that John didn’t hate her, and was genuinely grieving at the fact that he’d had to kill her in the end, even though the scenario we saw probably wasn’t what happened actually.

This conclusion satisfies Johns tendency to do the right thing soldier-style, the genuine emotion the asked Ben, Martin, and Amanda to show during her “fake death” scenario, and Mary’s “go to hell, Sherlock” line at the end of the episode that puts us right back into seeing Mary as a villain.

In short: Mary’s really dead, John really loved her till the end, John really hates Sherlock at of the end of the episode (keep reading for more on this), and Mary’s death scenario, as well as probably the events of nearly the whole episode, are fake.

However, I do think the alibi theory (I reblogged earlier) is legitimate BECAUSE the episode seems fake. The timeline’s a little wonky, but Sherlock’s cases throughout the beginning of TST could be shown onscreen to not only show Sherlock hiding his grief at John and Mary’s happiness (as suggested by the “Norbury” conversation with Mrs. Hudson) but also to show the cases Sherlock went back and sifted through in order to make John an alibi to give to Mycroft to fabricate and paste into “what really happened” like with Magnussen. This doesn’t mean John was actually a part of the planning other than to inform Sherlock that he knew what they fabricated, maybe via the letter? (Written things are nearly untraceable), and was going along with it.

FURTHERMORE: (Accepting TJLC-) John’s “anyone but you” hatred of Sherlock in the end: we don’t know what really happened, so John could actually hate Sherlock, making Moriarty’s threats of “burning the heart out of” Sherlock come true. After all, burning requires the situation to progressively get worse: Sherlock can’t be with John for two years, causing John grief; Sherlock returns, only to find his “heart” unavailable in the hands of another person; John married said person, who turned out to be a liar about practically everything, which is DEVASTATING to Sherlock; said person then causes their further separation even after her death, and this plausibly could’ve been predicted by Moriarty if Mary was, in the end, Moriarty’s metaphorical matchstick with which to burn Sherlocks heart out.

OR they might be required to act that way because they know that was part of Moriarty’s plan and they both could both be in danger if they don’t fake it (parallel to why Sherlock had to fake his death and leave in Season 2). That would support the theory of John’s letter being a secret correspondence of sorts, entrusted to Molly, but not a very good explanation of Sherlocks decline back into drugs in the upcoming episode (The Lying Detective), his conversation with Mrs Hudson about “Norbury”, and him seeking Ella out at the end of the episode in order to figure out how to help John.

So what the heck really happened to make John kill Mary and hate Sherlock? There’s definitely something deeper going on behind the scenes.

Either way, it seems likely that Mary was working in Moriarty’s web, especially since she would’ve been out of a job after the British Government (literally Mycroft, teehee) stopped employing freelancers.

Predictions: - We don’t have an answer to what Moriarty’s intention was with DID YOU MISS ME and that whole thing, so we’ll probably see more of his plotting somewhere in the rest of the whole show. Mary will be involved with it, as well as another living person, maybe Culverton Smith or maybe even Sebastian Moran, whom we haven’t seen yet on the show.

- The Lying Detective will probably end with John forgiving Sherlock (which follows right along with John’s forgiving nature), but we might have to wait for the boat scenes we saw behind the scenes until the last episode. Previews for The Lying Detective don’t have a ton of John screen time, which also suggests his appearance toward the end (because who includes footage from the ending in the Trailer??) I don’t think Mary was kidding about Sherlock needing to save John, and that might be what brings them back together.

[niktizzy]

*~Myspace Survey~*

1. describe yourself.

I guess I would just call me different. I’m not saying that because it’s hip, I’m more or less lost for words on how to describe myself. I guess a weird cool? Am I cool? Bruh idk 

2. if you could go anywhere for a week all expenses paid where would it be?

Honestly, I would love to take a trip to Australia 

3. do you have siblings?

Yesm

4. what is your favorite constellation, why?

I honestly don’t know, I haven’t dove into that before. 

5. favorite color.

Black

6. what kind of music do you listen to?

I listen to a mixture of everything except like country and blue grass. Mostly listen to pop punk or metal but I do listen to a lot of rap and pop too. 

7. favorite flower. (you can name as many as you want cause flowers are 

awesome)

I love lavender, but it’s more like a plant, so lilacs? I also enjoy white daisies 

8. if you could do magic, what is the first spell you would learn?

Immunity 

9. favorite childhood memory.

Going outside and playing or going on a walk with your friends. No cell phones, just laughter and care free living

10. have you ever been cheated on?

Y E P

11. if you could describe your perfect room, what would it be?

Dark room, candles lit, 65 degrees, plenty of blankets, computer screen lighting up the room 

12. favorite animal.

Sharks

13. what was the last photo you took of?

Baseball field

14. do you believe in soul mates?

Ehhhhhh, 1%

15. do you hang toilet paper over or under?

The right way, under

16. your go to place to eat & your favorite thing to get there.

Barrio: stoner shell, chicken, shit ton of cheese, sauce, pinco, lettuce 

17. do you believe everything happens for a reason?

Absolutely 

18. guilty pressures?

O O F, watching old ass vines, cleaning when I’m getting emotional, listening to my childhood music

19. favorite mythical creature, why?

Probably a mermaid 

20. something most people don’t know about you.

I use to do vocals in a couple bands

21. where did you grow up, what was it like?

In a semi small town, it’s alright, I’m still here but traveling for work. I live away from most people now so that’s helpful

22. do you believe aliens exist?

Y E P

23. what was your last google search?

I think something to do with stats

24. what did your last relationship teach you?

Trust is earned, also, if your gut is telling you to leave, you need to leave

25. would you relocate for love?

E H H H 

26. do you hold grudges or forgive easy?

A weird mixture of both

27. favorite book.

Anything John Green writes honestly

28. do you consider yourself an extrovert or introvert?

I’d like to think I’m a extrovert

29. have you ever kept a journal, do you now?

Still do yeah

30. top 5 favorite movies.

Fight Club

The Taking Of Deborah Logan

Major League 

Beatle Juice

You’re Next

31. do you believe that everything happens for a reason?

Yes again

32. what is your greatest fear?

Drowning and not like physically just emotionally 

33. favorite alcoholic beverage.

Beer

34. most embarrassing thing you’ve done.

Wear my emotions on my sleeves. Don’t worry, I don’t do that anymore

35. do you believe in ghosts?

Y E P

36. what is the best and worst part of your personality?

I’m very trusting, so that hurts me a lot

37. should you split the dinner bill?

All the time

38. are you a good liar?

Yes?

39. what keeps you up at night?

Dumb situations I brew up or like, you know, science

40. would you rather go without your phone or music?

Phone

41. do you believe in god?

Yes

42. how do you relax when frustrated?

Clean

43. what’s something that offends you?

Ahhh, honestly I don’t really get offended. I guess when people say I have an easy job?

44. favorite food

Mexican anything

45. if you were on a 10 hour flight and could sit and talk to any person the entire time, who would it be?

This is weird, but, Zac Efron 

46. when do you feel the most confident?

When I’m in shape

47. what do you do on your free time?

Do dumb surveys, Nah, I usually do projects around the house or I go out for a drive

48. is there anyone who has completely lost your respect

Yeah lol

49. have you ever broken someone’s heart?

Mhmm

50. did/do you play sports in school?

Yeah: Soccer, volleyball, basketball, dabbled in softball and swimming

51. when are you happiest?

In the Fall

52. coffee or tea?

Coffee

53. what is one possession you own you wouldn’t want to live without?

Probably my laptop

54. what is the first thing you notice about a person?

Their smile or their eyes

55. what is your favorite season, why?

Fall, summer is a close second 

56. what makes you laugh?

Literally everything

57. are you a clean or messy person?

Very clean

58. what is important for a successful relationship?

Communication 

59. what was your upcoming like?

Like growing up? I never begged for anything, my parents did everything they could to keep me happy and for that I’m so thankful.  

60. favorite holiday?

Halloween

61. what is the first thing you’d do if you won the lottery?

Pay off my parents debt

62. what’s the best pizza topping combination?

Bacon, pepperoni, extra cheese, light sauce

63. favorite outdoor activity.

Fireworks, baseball, fires, water ballon fights, fires

64. how are you? honestly.

I’m hanging in there, I’m doing pretty well but I still feel like I’m drowning in my emotions and I fucking hate it

65. would you rather go camping in the woods or stay at a beach resort?

Beach dawg

66. what is the most beautiful thing in nature?

This is going to sound weird but, the fact that things die then come right back to life. Like flowers, they die at the end of a season then boom they bloom right back and as beautiful as ever. That and just the seasons, everything changing yet everything so beautiful 

67. favorite type of candy?

Seasonal Reeses

68. if your life was a book, what would be the title?

Rollercoaster

69. what movie quotes do you use of a regular bases?

It’s weird because like I’ve watched so many so it can just be a mixture of a lot of them but I see myself saying a lot of Talladega Nights

70. what was cool when you were young but not cool now?

Smoking cigarets, get real

71. what’s the craziest conversation you have ever eves dropped on?

Lol any work conversation 

72. what’s the most interesting documentary you’ve ever watched?

Ted Bundy tapes atm

73. what’s the worst hairstyle you’ve had?

I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad look, but the whole different color in the bangs, ehhhhhh not a big fan now

74. what do you like to cook?

Fajita’s 

75. what’s the coolest animal you’ve seen in the wild?

I use to work next to a safari and they had this temperamental camel, which was understandable because he had shitty people riding him all day, and like he was a dick and was pretty fun to watch the workers try to wrangle him. So he was pretty cool I guess

76. what’s the funniest tv show you’ve ever seen?

Letterkenny is up there now

77. do you usually follow your heart or your head?

Lately my head, in the past, my heart

78. what is your favorite quote?

“It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish”

79. what’s the weirdest crush you have ever had?

Dude, I have weird crushes to this day. Idk, I don’t like it

80. what’s your love language?

Bruh what, honestly if someone bought me food or took me to a horror movie that would be my “love language”. Super easy boys

81. do you ever feel alone?

E V E R Y   D A Y 

82. ever been bullied?

Yeah, lol. It was rough, then I started taking comedy and you know physical force, and success to bury them

83. are you usually early or late?

The gray area in between

84. what kind of art do you enjoy most?

Music 85. what do you wish you knew more about?

Science