#that first screencap is her Distrust face

[lavelans]

i really am so amazed at how different your playthroughs can be; as the dark urge, lialeth really has no time to deal with any illithid bullshit when she's too busy trying not to be consumed by her urge, so she never had much trust in the emperor to begin with, and reading all those notes on mind flayer manipulation at his hideout at the elfsong really put into light his manipulation tactics

it's really funny too, how he goes "oh i shared my favorite soup recipe and memories of my dog with you, i have no more secrets to hide, so place all your trust in me" when in fact he doesn't even mention the fact that he just happens to be BALDURAN i mean all of this in hindsight?? i really have to laugh

[irenadel]

And if the devil... 1/10

Making a banner for this finally for the grand finale coming soon. Excuse to rb. Credit for the Aemond screencap goes to the wonderful Liv @barbieaemond Eventual smut, Aemond Targaryen x Maid!Reader

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

“And if the devil was to ever see you, he’d kiss your eyes and repent.”

- Farouk Gouida

He’d had nothing but contempt for you the first time he’d seen you: a too tall, mannish girl mopping up baby vomit for Helaena with less tact and grace than a stable boy. He had seen the blotchy red and white of your hands and face and had thought you one of Aegon’s cruel jests for a sister-wife he did not deserve: a freakish chambermaid for a mad princess.

And far too familiar with a lady who was in every way your better.

He told himself it was not jealousy that burnt in the pit of his stomach, brighter and wilder than Vhagar’s fire. No. It was distaste and a healthy amount of distrust, he’d felt when he’d come to visit Helaena and found you rocking her gently in your arms. You’d been in drab servant red, hair escaping your work bonnet, so strangely pale that it had made Aemond squint in immediate suspicion. Whatever it was, you were no noble companion or even one of the prettier handmaidens, just a scullery girl, dress still stained from floor scrubbing, holding a Targaryen princess and gently brushing her hair out of the way.

He’d had to control the urge to snatch her from your arms and snarl at you to leave if you wanted to keep your head… It would not have been becoming. Helaena would no doubt have found it distressing. But most of all, he feared what he would do to you the moment he’d had your pale, sickly hand in his grip. Because you had robbed him of a thing which he had not known belonged to him. His right to his sister’s pain, always so far and yet so close, because he feared the things he could say if his affection were ever to escape him. And here you were, like a thief in the night, snatching his chance before he’d even known it existed.

You’d had the common sense to leave quickly with your bucket of slops, and your eyes fixed determinedly on the floor. As if you’d known your transgression.

Helaena was not half as wise as you. Her tears had been all but gone, not there for a brother to wipe away or avenge. No forthcoming confession about Aegon that he could use as an excuse to stalk his brother’s steps and pick a fight. Just her tongue loosened by the joy of Aemond’s sudden gentleness, brought on by unwarranted competition.

You’d been recently assigned to her quarters, she’d told him and you were very good at putting the children to sleep. You weren’t squeamish like the ladies of the court, would look at Helaena’s insects without problem and think nothing of her muttering under her breath, however strange her words might be. When the children were quiet, when Helaena herself hadn’t known what else to say, you had talked to her about the great locusts of the plains of Essos, told her stories of swarms of them, climbing atop the little babes, eating the grass so thoroughly no horse or cattle could survive on what was left.

But more so, you were kind and strong and willing to put the princess to bed when her head hurt so bad she could barely think. You stayed up with her when her dreams were more a punishment than reprieve from her reality, asleep in her bed besides her or waking up for her to tend to the babies. Not a wet nurse, but you had a good head on your shoulders for fussing and crying. She had come to depend on you really. 

He had not liked it at all.

He’d blamed himself for being too engrossed in weapons training and Vhagar to have noticed your creeping, insidious influence on his sister. He’d questioned his mother and had found only her relief that at least Aegon left you alone, probably less out of kindness than out of distaste. You may have been coarse and rude and perhaps unfit to deal with anything but the lower floors of a castle, but the queen had had enough problems to deal with and at least you had a strong back and a mean glare that kept even princes away.

Not Aemond though.

He’d kept his good eye on you, and a new man-at-arms he trusted always at his sister’s side. Had even thought to corner you and put the fear of the gods in you lest you had thought Helaena alone and vulnerable. Had not even considered replacing your presence with his own, uneasy with how much the prospect thrilled him. 

You’d looked up only once: a lightning quick glare for the One-Eyed Prince before the subservient mask was firmly back in place. And Aemond had been struck strangely silent by your odd red eyes and let you scurry away. Your coarse yellow hair had been escaping its thin bonnet and he’d known immediately.

Not Valyrian blood, not a misplaced bastard, not some political trick as he had suspected…

Albino.

Oh but Helaena did have quite a fondness for broken, repellent things.

He’d been less wary then, but no less watchful. He’d stopped to stare when he saw you carrying the princess’s tray or even one of her children up and down a corridor, infallible technique for getting them to sleep at last. He’d haunted his sister’s rooms, lurking in doorways, listening in to your accent (not Flea Bottom, but not court either, no one had taught you how to speak to your betters or even how to speak well at all, it seemed…) as you told Princess Helaena about having eleven cousins and wrestling them all into bed, about taking in laundry because you couldn’t take in sewing, about a crotchety old uncle who had broken his hip out at sea and needed minding now. An uncle who resented the minding and the niece and wife that kept him and his children fed. An uncle who sounded to Aemond’s hungry, savage loneliness a lot like a father and a king.

He does not hear the other talk, even if allowed to be present for it he would not consider it. He would have dismissed it as women talk, gossip, having seldom let himself dwell on kindness instead of grievance, succor instead of retaliation. He does not hear a beloved sister tell you to stay one step ahead of the dragon, as far away as you can manage, because dragons bring nothing but fire even if they love you, warm enough until it becomes death. She should know.

It does nothing to keep Aemond from following behind you. When you took the children and their mother down to the kitchens for hot milk with honey. When any of them were achy or colicky or cranky and you would put a shawl over them, babies or mother. When you insisted the princess and her children could do with a stroll and some sun, and Aemond found his heart aching with hideous envy because he could hear his sister laughing at your snappish kitchen talk, speaking softly and intimately to you, as hungry to give the attention as to receive it. (Even as his sorry, wicked heart screams out, it was mine, all this was meant for me, how dare you, how dare you take what I didn’t know I needed!) When you sang Helaena’s babies or Helaena herself to sleep and Aemond found he had to cover his  ears against your strange, foreign crooning, that didn’t sound like King’s Landing but sounded treacherously like home. He’d had to flee to the training grounds and take out this all-consuming anger on something, drown out your husky, kind voice with the din of his sword against a shield. Hitting the wood over and over again until he tore it to splinters and Ser Criston had to hold him into stillness, knowing there was no comforting a dragon without getting burned.

“My prince.”

You would say when you fled a staircase he cornered you into.

“My prince.”

When you’d courtesy, clumsily, still too sour-faced and suspicious to do it gracefully, when he managed to catch you on your way out of Helaena’s room.

“My prince.”

The day he had decided that yes, your prince, was exactly what he’d be to you, what you’d say to him, in whatever way he’d manage to tear it from your throat, in spite of Aegon’s taunting and the visceral fear at his own woeful lack of knowledge in matters of the flesh.

Because he had decided if you had no problem taking from him, he would have no problem taking from you.

Because you’d said it to him on your way out of the washing court, bonnet gone and coarse yellow hair sticking out of your pinned braid like a frightful halo, a bright purple bruise already forming on your cheekbone, as you’d glared directly at him, challenge in your head held high, and the water splashed all across your linen apron, sticking to your skin so closely that Aemond should have had you right then and there.

Because you’d said it with a curt nod, like Ser Criston when he approved of a particularly good move Aemond had just learned in the training yard, like a general to a soldier, “My prince.”

Because he’d just seen you swing a chamber pot directly into a stable boy’s face after hearing him call Princess Helaena “daft,” bringing it swinging back to the other side of his face, contents and all, just to take a step back to bring a fist into the stable boy’s friend. Aemond had been too transfixed by the sight of your heaving chest and the splotchy red of your cheeks to intervene after you’d taken a half-hearted punch to the face, returned it in kind and thrown the now empty chamber pot at the whimpering serving boys at your feet.

“And clean up your bloody mess!” You’d said before washing your hands in the fountain and strolling out of the courtyard, about as triumphant and vicious as Prince Aemond himself had ever felt when defeating knight after knight, telling himself he was better, stronger, a more fit ruler than any of them would ever be.

“My prince,” you’d said with your curt, martial nod, with your ruby-red eyes and the split knuckles of your hand, wounds taken in the defense of Aemond’s sister, wounds that should have by right belonged to him.

He’d taken your wrist in his hand, grip monstrously strong, and watched you realize the mistake you had made in the proud tilt of your head. You had forgotten for a second that pride wasn’t for your class of people, less so when confronted by a prince of the realm. He’d watched you realize your danger and how you didn’t care, that if there was a price to pay for pride you might as well pay it… and had realized himself that he didn’t care much either. Because Aemond had decided in that moment that he liked the defiance and stubborn anger in your ruby-red gaze, just as much as he had liked the ringing din of the chamber pot breaking something in that stable boy’s face. The prince had smiled at you then, his hunting cat smile, the one men all over the Seven Kingdoms would learn to fear, as he let you pass. Your prince, you would call him again, he decided as he let you go. Your prince, he would hear you call him, on your knees, on your back and beneath him, anyway he could get you. Because he wanted it. Because he had known himself to be spoiling for a fight and would be spoiling for a fight his whole life, the moment he had gone looking for Vhagar, the largest living dragon in the world, and won her. As he would win you. On your knees, your back or beneath him, as you called him your prince, because you wanted to, not ripped out of you by fear and hope for profit but because you wanted him. He would teach you that. That there were none like him, Targaryen or otherwise. That he was your prince and more than. He would teach you this, just as he had begun to teach the world.

[ponyguru]

My Little Pony: A New Generation Review

By ME, Ponyguru! Because you were all waiting for it, I’m sure! (Hee hee!)

The movie has been out for a couple of days, so I’ll list my general opinion, then add some spoilery bits behind a cut, in case you haven’t seen it yet! It’s on Netflix right now, but I’m sure (if the fandom is keeping up its pace) it’ll be mirrored elsewhere pretty soon.

So, overall: I liked the first MLP movie more than this one. (No, not the 80s one, I mean the one with Tempest Shadow!) That’s not to say that this movie wasn’t enjoyable! It was very fun, and I got some genuine laughs and ‘OMG did you see that?!’ moments out of it. I became invested in the characters! I will be watching it again! And considering that I’m not the market audience (adult woman in her 30s), that’s probably pretty good! But then again, I have watched some truly questionable stuff in the name of pony, so take that as you will.

Highlights: new pony content (always fun!), fun jokes, intriguing plot, nice songs, and the ponies are not quite as human-shaped as I had been afraid. The muzzles are actually pretty well defined from the side, so they look much less like humans than I had feared, based on screencaps and vectors. I was also worried it was going to be Social Justice Lite based on some plot spoilers, so the fact that it wasn’t (and didn’t devolve into Br*ny memes or fandom references) had me incredibly relieved. This may make me more forgiving of the movie as a whole than the average viewer, due to the psychic damage I’ve taken from viewing the Brone Documentary.

Lowlights: the plot feels rushed at the end, the resolution feels hurried; the fact that the villains are never really, uh, addressed? feels weird (I guess I’m used to the clear-cut ‘you are defeated and will face punishment/get redeemed’ pattern from G4), the music isn’t as catchy or hummable as the first movie (none of the songs ‘stuck’ with me, meanwhile Tempest Shadow’s ‘Open Up Your Eyes’ literally stuck with me to the point that I had to buy the soundtrack), some of the characterization feels very shallow and, again, rushed. I felt there was a moment where Izzy referenced not having many friends, and I thought there would be some kind of exploration of that... nope, rushing into another musical number! And, finally, after years of BLM and police brutality protests, the choice of villain feels timely (trying to be vague for the sake of spoilers)... but when one of their ‘friends’ is a ‘by the book, we gotta follow the law’ cop (which they try to soften by calling him a ‘sheriff’, which doesn’t work in a non-American West themed world), makes me distrust him more than anything. I don’t really want to see MLP redeem a cop; I want MLP to be outside of that kind of real-world ugliness. Pony xenophobia is one thing, but pony police forces feel like a step too far, at least in our current society. Even if he’s voiced by the handsome James Marsden!

Okay, some spoilery thoughts beneath the cut! Thanks for reading this far!

Only keep reading if you’ve seen the movie! I’m not kidding about spoilers! :P Proceed with caution!

Okay, so, the villain: ostensibly, it’s Sprout, right? The overpowered cop who has a grandiose sense of self, seizes power, literally pilots a pony-robot and smashes up Sunny’s home.

Why the fuck is his mother allowed to, what, remain in power in Maretime Bay? The movie ends, and it’s all “whoopsie-doopsie, I know I was a xenophobic war-profiteer who fed my followers a fake sense of fear and urgency to the point of creating a mob mentality for the sake of capitalism, but since my son (who I groomed for this) built a Gundam I guess I get off scott free!” What the fuck? First of all, Karen would have been a more fitting name than Phyllis in this case (although Phyllis is funny too, ngl), but she’s allowed to just ... stay in power? We see her standing next to the pegasus and unicorn leaders at the end of the movie, vowing to abolish xenophobia or whatever, but why the hell isn’t she in chains??? (And yes, I’m sure it’s partly because it’s a children’s movie, but that doesn’t mean we should see her face ZERO repercussions!) Alphabittle and the pegasus queen aren’t great leaders, sure; but we also don’t see extended scenes of them war profiteering, either. They both seem like more capable leaders than Phyllis!!

The other ponies, like I said, felt pretty flat, characterization wise; the vibe I got from the movie was that Izzy was incredibly lonely, which while it sets us up nice for some more character exploration in the miniseries, you need to have ... SOME, for the movie itself? Pipp was a super-fun character for me, but that’s because I basically just viewed her as Ariana Grande the pony. I also was waiting for an explanation of why Hitch was so magnetic to animals that ... never happened. Does he eventually get out of sheriffing to be a friend to the animals? Who knows!

I did like how we saw the differentiation between technology levels in the movie; the unicorn forest seemed to have very little if none, whereas earth ponies were more mid-level technology, and pegasi ponies seemed very high-tech. The little advertising/influencer references I caught were all very fun, but I wish they had leaned into the pony references a little harder, like in Zootopia. The icon they used for the pony news show seemed to just be the CBS eye icon. Do ponies have CBS? It felt kind of lazy. That said, I thought I’d hate ponies with cell phones, but they made it very fun, so I enjoyed it! (I definitely had the ‘ha ha, I do that!’ kind of amusement.)

Like I said, the ending felt rushed, and it felt a little bit ‘okay movie’s over now, let’s wrap it up!’ kind of feeling. Okay, Sunny got wings and a horn; it felt almost, idk, a foregone conclusion? Almost like a letdown, like it was so hurried it didn’t feel like it gave the proper payoff. The return of alicorn magic should be a HUGE DEAL, but maybe because her dad was fridged for drama (which never really happened? it felt brushed aside unless Sunny needed to have a 30-second depression which she immediately got over) we didn’t have anyone with the knowledge base to point out how important that was for the other ponies/the viewers. 

Did I mention yet that I still don’t like the idea of having cops as sympathetic characters in the movie, even if they don’t call them cops, even if they have a good cop/bad cop dynamic to make us empathize with one? Because TBH, Hitch was not very endearing to me for a lot of the time (”I love rules” isn’t gonna sell it to me or to kids, I imagine), and the fact that he was a shitty friend to the orphaned Sunny didn’t endear him to me, either. I’m sure it was supposed to show his character growth - first he’s just Phyllis’ lackey, but soon he grows into his own man who sides with Sunny because it’s morally right - but I didn’t really feel that payoff very strongly. I mean ... he’s still a sheriff at the end, right?

All in all, I may just be more critical of this movie because A) I’m an adult and B) I’m viewing it through the eyes of a fan who enjoyed years of pony stories. It may be that all of my nitpicking is something that they chose to gloss over for the sake of the runtime or the young viewers! But I wouldn’t be a fan if I didn’t nitpick, so maybe my nitpicking will be fun to read, at least! I’m curious to see how my viewpoints change after I watch it again, or read more fandom insight. I know I’m someone who goes ‘woah, I didn’t think of that!’ when I read other peoples’ opinion pieces!

While on one hand I do hope the Br*ny thing dies, I hope that the same level of fandom interest won’t fade. I’ve gotten spoiled over the years by having tons of fan art, fan fiction, merchandise info and immediate uploads of episodes to enjoy. I will be very sad if that dies, but if it’s the sacrifice that we need to make to end the B-word stuff, it’s a trade I’m willing to make. Either way, I’ll still be here enjoying pony stuff, and making my own content! It’s just nice to do it with other people!

[eatingfireflies]

I can’t believe we’re doing this in 2019 AD, but I rise back from the dead because I heard shit-talking about my boy.

Yosuke’s character development--the ones covered in his social link and not counting how he grows with the rest of the IT as a group--is imo one of the best-written progressions in P4 and I won’t stand for this. P4 has its flaws and one of the themes that didn’t sit quite so well for me when I first played it was how the characters seem to have gone a full 360 when it came to their plans for their futures. Yukiko, for example, has gone from the independent girl who wants to live on her own back to accepting that she has to take over the Amagi Inn someday. Not exactly the best message, is it? 

But sometimes, it’s what people need to hear. After all, the main point of P4 is acceptance and in the same way adults accept and make the best of a situation they don’t necessarily like, so did our P4 protags. 

Unlike the others though, Yosuke’s problem didn’t come from the outside pressures of society so much as himself. 

Which isn’t to say there’s no pressure coming from outside. There’s a lot he has to deal with just being the Junes kid in Inaba. He’s also a teenager on the brink of manhood who had been recently transplanted into the countryside. Come on man, his problem isn’t just that he wants to be interesting. And even if it were, what’s wrong with that? How hard is it to admit you’re mediocre? Is it weak to admit you’re scared of having zero reason to be in this world because you have no connections with other people and no place in society?

Buckle up, I have 100 screencaps and I’m not sure if it would all fit in one post but would we try. Pics taken from here and here.

One of the things we keep seeing in Yosuke’s social link is how good he is at PR. He’s a good kid. He has to be: he’s the Junes kid, the son of the manager. What he says and does will reflect on his family and the business.

This even though almost everyone in Inaba distrusts him because of his connection to the department store that’s killing the local business. Above, we hear women implying Yosuke is a brazen shithead for showing his face in the shopping district when his classmates’ family businesses are failing because of Junes. And still he ‘minds his manners’.

Here he finally loses his temper with the part-timers who kept bugging him about weekend work and talking shit about Saki, and it’s only because the girls told Yu to shut up. Otherwise? I bet he’d just take it all in. He’s ignored them before and there are other things to worry about:

‘Sorry dad, they said some bad things about our murdered schoolmate, kept missing work, and yelled at my best friend, but I shouldn’t have lost my temper because that’s not what the Junes kid does.’

He admits as much in the P4G additional scene. So there’s that: people expect Yosuke to be polite because of his connection to Junes even though they treat him like shit because Junes is bad for the economy. (Which it is, but they worked around that in the end.)

But that’s not the only reason Yosuke tries to be nice. There’s also what his shadow said: he’s terrified of being alone and his move to Inaba has made him more aware of how shallow his bonds with people are:

He says so when he talked about how he hasn’t changed his email address because he's hoping his friends from the city would keep in touch. Spoiler: they don’t. 

Had he not moved to Inaba he probably wouldn’t have thought different, but I guess having no excitement in the countryside and no friends to spend time with, he has a lot of free time to ponder on his loneliness and mediocrity. 

Again, it’s hard to accept mediocrity. It hurts knowing we don’t mean anything to the people around us, that we could vanish and nothing would change. He’s 17, for pete’s sake. He’s trying to figure things out while dealing with his loneliness. And he thinks the reason he has no friends is because he’s not good enough. He pretends to be nice and carefree like his shadow said, because he thinks showing people the real him (the loneliness and insecurity) would drive them away. He also has to be nice because Junes kid, remember? And in the case of getting along with his friends, he overcompensates and gets annoying/oversteps his boundaries because he’s scared and it’s all bravado. And also he’s a bit of a shit, but that’s okay Yu is also a bit of a shit and they deserve each other. 

Can I just take this moment as SouYo trash to point out that Yu walks him home and that is probably one of the gayest things ever. Especially coming after the hug which is like P4 code for ‘we’re dating now’.

Did I mention Yosuke has a lot of free time to think about his mediocrity? Not really. Like every kid on the brink of adulthood worrying about their future--college? Work? Career? What? Yosuke is worried too. Except his path has sort of been decided because of his family. 

He’s good at PR, he does the whole Junes kid shtick well, but is that what he really wants?

Ofc he usually changes the subject after bringing that up--again, he’s so scared of you thinking he’s boring and that he only complains when you hang out that he does a 180 and starts talking about the goods under your futon. 

But also can I just say Yosuke is so busy? I see Chie and Yukiko chatting in the classroom after classes and I’m like ‘Hey I have a best friend right? Why don’t I have anyone to chat with?’

He’s a busy pal. You know I always thought Yosuke might make more friends if he joined some clubs and met people outside of the Junes thing, but he has to work part-time so. 

How does Yosuke deal with this? Well he accepts that while working for Junes is tiring and maybe not what he actually wants to do with his life, there are actually some good things about it: he likes being needed. 

Is it what he wants to do for the rest of his life? He doesn’t answer that. What’s important is that, right now, he’s happy where he is.

He realised that he doesn’t have to overcompensate for being boring or being a loser. That he can show people the ‘bad’ side of him without them hating him for it. That even if he is mediocre, it doesn’t mean people don’t need his support or his company. He didn’t have to try so hard. He just had to have a bit more confidence in himself. 

And tbh he went from this:

To this:

I think there was a reason we couldn’t date Yosuke in game: it was too soon, it would feel like Yu is a rebound, that Yosuke latched onto the first person to show him kindness and interest since Saki’s death. And perhaps for the hugging scene (social link 8?) it was too early. But after social link 10? I think that would be a good time. Ofc, the game doesn’t work that way so I can see why they took it out, and yet. And still. 

But none of that takes away from the fact that he grew from being an insecure kid who wants to prove himself into someone you can trust and count on. There’s a reason the games keep giving you the option to thank Yosuke: he’s your partner and he has your back. 

I know I’m biased af because I’m like  

whenever I talk to Yosuke, but he’s just as complex as the other characters, come on man. He’s a top notch bro and this is the hill I choose to die on. 

[hall-of-merlin2]

Magic, Monsters and Merthur - 1x02 - (Merthur)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Right! This turned out way longer than both of the other posts. I’m sure you Merthur shippers will appreciate this.

I know I do.

The Merthur content in here is incredible!

No more rambling!

<_><_><_>

03:31

*snicker*

Cutie.

<_><_><_>

03:41

CASE IN POINT.

<_><_><_>

04:55

GWEN TOO. SHE’S AN ADORABLE CUTIE FOR HELPING MERLIN WITH THIS DUMB SHIT.

This particularly <3

And, as a bonus, she’s cute.

<_><_><_>

05:39

Hmm...

You sure about that sweetie?

(Also, yes, I am purposefully making the screencaps as awful as I can. I want my eyes bleeding out of my sockets by the end of season 1.)

<_><_><_>

10:08

Ah, the infamous line. What does it mean??? Does Arthur like Merlin now??? Arthur is still mean after laughing at Merlin’s joke!!!

Means nothing, I think. Merlin probably spoke what Arthur was thinking, or it was just so unexpected that Arthur could only reply with a chuckle, basically saying “Did you really just say that?” with a quirked eyebrow, raised in disbelief.

I mean, how many people do you think could openly say something “negative” about a knight? Not a knight, that’s for sure, let alone a servant, a peasant. And Arthur is still trying to adjust to having this… This curious thing as his personal servant, just as much as Merlin is trying to get adjusted to being pressed under a boot for the first time in his life.

And I think, judging by their conversation that I will mention later, that they both feel something similar for each other.

A certain trust.

And… Yeah, trying to keep the “I want to kill him” thoughts to a minimum.

<_><_><_>

19:10

First, it was “Good Luck”.

Then, it was a pat on the shoulder.

And it’s all only happening because Merlin realizes that Arthur gets extremely nervous before every fight.

That is someone who is stressed. Very much. On the brink of breaking down.

Merlin can’t address that, and he doesn’t. He just does these little gestures in hopes that Arthur will just take a deep breath when he remembers them and focuses on the fight with a calm mind.

And that’s just… That’s just so sweet.

Merlin was handling Arthur’s stress before the pratty prince even realized he was stressed.

<_><_><_>

21:40

Gaius acting surprised that just after he mentioned that if they had the antidote, they could have a chance of proving Valiant’s guilt, Merlin immediately got up and nearly ran out of the room – Gaius. Do you seriously not understand that Merlin loves getting into trouble?

<_><_><_>

“I don’t like the guy, but that doesn’t mean he’s cheating.”

“Gaius is preparing an antidote to the snake venom, when Ewan’s conscious, he’ll tell you what happened.

“If you fight Valiant in the final, he’ll use the shield, it’s the only way he can beat you. 

“Look at it! Have you ever seen snakes like this in Camelot?”

***

“I wouldn’t lie to you.”

...

“I want you to swear to me what you’re telling me is true.”

“I swear it’s true.”

...

“Then I believe you.”

24:43

This is the convo I was referencing earlier. Just the fact that Arthur doesn’t deny the obvious proof Merlin has with him, but still is in denial because a knight using magic is unheard of, and just impossible in his mind, since knights are… valiant, but then Arthur asks Merlin to swear, like an equal to him knight would, to prove that they are not lying, he thinks of Merlin as honorable enough to understand the importance of swearing, even though he probably wouldn’t expect any other servant to. From the second episode Merlin is different from others in Arthur’s eyes.

And that’s not even taking into account the implications of this scene. Merlin comes to Arthur because he trusts that Arthur won’t dismiss him and throw him into the dungeons for badmouthing a knight, and will hear him out before giving a final verdict. None of the other knights would have even listened to him beyond “Valiant is using magic!”, they would have shut him down then and there. Arthur is different from others in Merlin’s eyes.

It’s episode 2 guys. It’s episode 2 and already we have scene like this!

How the hell can it go up from here?

It can go up and beyond what we know as gay.

I mean bisexual.

Or demisexual? I kind of liked that theory…

What we know as Merthur! There.

<_><_><_>

27:01

Like here!

Merlin whispers an important thing – not getting close to the shield – but Arthur hadn’t thought of that, so he lets himself be reminded of that by Merlin, when he could have told him to shut up instead.

IT’S EPISODE 2.

<_><_><_>

30:50

I know I’m missing the point of this scene, but…

This time?

Is he talking about…

I think Arthur’s talking about his armor.

Like… Yeah, it actually is quite important. If the armor’s not tightened properly, or it’s rusty, or if it’s not fixed/cleaned since the last day, then it’s a pretty big deal in a fight. It can cost one’s life, and Arthur’s putting his in Merlin’s hands with all of his duties.

This is why this episode breaks my heart – because Arthur truly had no reason to distrust Merlin or not believe what he’s saying, and Merlin had no reason not to share what’s going on with Arthur when they’re going on a dangerous journey. After this whole mess Arthur is far more dismissive of what Merlin says, especially since the boy doesn’t have nearly as much proof as he had this time. Yes, Valiant did prove to be using magic, and what Merlin said did come true, but I think Merlin himself is less keen on sharing his suspicions with Arthur or anyone else other than Gaius, if not to avoid this whole emotional mess, then to avoid the difficulty of explaining how he knows things and their legitimacy. No more just… walking up to Arthur and saying what’s happening, no more Arthur believing him.

It’s just… agh.

<_><_><_>

“[Valiant] will use the shield against you.”

“I know.”

“Then withdraw. You have to withdraw-”

“Don’t you understand? I can’t withdraw.”

***

“Valiant will kill you. If you fight, you die.”

“Then I die.”

36:01

God… Damn.

This is how every knight is, isn’t it? It’s better to die with honor than to live in shame.

A perfect tenant to live by to die before you’re 20.

Unless you have a secret warlock to protect you, then you’ll make it.

To 30.

<_><_><_>

36:38

Some people say that Merthur became canon in the second episode.

I just want to do my part and point out that this is how Arthur reacts when Merlin leaves after the prince shouted at him.

First time was right after that god-awful court session, the second after Arthur sadly admits that he can’t withdraw, and he must die before he disappoints his father.

<_><_><_>

44:19

I don’t think he is. I think he’s just repeating what Uther has ingrained into him – to only care about himself, and his own accomplishments, to never take the help of other people, because he doesn’t need other people, he alone can and will take on the world.

That’s not talk of someone who’s ashamed of being saved by a girl, but someone who thinks that they were capable of doing whatever it is by themselves. And because they didn’t, it turns to denying facts and just propping themselves up, focusing on what they did rather than what the their helper did.

He will never know that it wasn’t just Morgana who saved him that day, but also Merlin, Gaius too and even Gwen, but acknowledging that getting help from other people is a thing he did and understanding that without them he would be nothing is something he still struggles with until season 4 and a bit beyond, so let’s just…

Let’s just hate Uther for making Arthur so hard to deal with in the beginning.

And let’s praise the people around him for having the patience to live with him and the gall to call him out on his bullshit from time to time. Those people deserve a holiday, several of them.

<_><_><_>

44:37

Arthur approached Merlin to sneer about Morgana! Out of all the people in the ballroom, Arthur felt that he couldn’t talk about Morgana behind her back with anyone, except for Merlin.

How would a knight react? How about another noble? A servant?

Neither of them would either agree with him or tease him about it, which Merlin would do if only he didn’t feel slightly awkward that THE PRINCE FUCKING ARTHUR JUST WALKED UP TO HIM AND STARTED TALKING LIKE THEY WERE FRIENDS.

Heh…

Yeah.

Merthur was canon by episode 2.

AND THEN HE APOLOGIZES FOR TREATING MERLIN HARSHLY ONCE HE NOTICES THAT THE POOR BOY IS CONFUSED ABOUT WHY HE’S TALKING TO HIM.

SJGNOIUDRHNGIUJSRGUJNRDOIUNGVJKJNGRNIUERJNGUIHNJHBK

PRECIOUS BOYS.

<_><_><_>

45:25

I think Arthur just enjoys putting that look on Merlin’s face.

Don’t take that out of context.

<_><_><_>

The episode starts with Valiant getting his snakey shield, and murdering a guy. It ends with a feast in Arthur’s honor! Even though all he did was stab his sword into Valiant. Quite heroic. Uther approves.

<_><_><_>

The Magic

The Monsters

[themattress]

My Top 11 Danganronpa Characters

I love many characters in the Danganronpa series, but these ones are truly the Ultimate.

11. Monomi

Don’t get me wrong, Usami is a sweetheart and all, but on her own (as seen in DR2′s Island Mode) she’s pretty bland. While her forced conversion into Monomi caused her no end of grief in-universe, it made her a much stronger and more memorable character outside of it. Her interactions with Monokuma and position as his good counterpart / “little sister” are just perfect, as is the voicework done by Rebecca Forstadt. She, like her “big brother”, is iconic.

10. Sakura Oogami    

I may love Nekomaru and Gonta too, but neither of them hold a candle to the original “tall, muscular giant who looks scary as Hell but is actually the nicest, most loyal friend you could ever hope to have” in the franchise: Sakura Oogami. Her lower placement on this list is only because she kind of recedes into the background among the cast until the reveal at the end of Chapter 3 (which is fitting given the nature of that reveal), but once Chapter 4 centers around her she easily steals the show as a powerful, noble and tragic figure who is nonetheless such a beautiful human being that she successfully ends the Killing Game.                             

9. Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu

A textbook case of a character you hate at the start and love by the end, Fuyuhiko’s development from a perpetually angry wannabe-thug who refused to be friends with his classmates and routinely threatened them with violence as a cover for his insecurities to a humble, honorable, brave, supportive team player was amazing to watch unfold, and Derek Stephen Prince sells it magnificently with his most touching performance since Ken Ichijoji . He may still be rough around the edges, but Baby Gangsta has always got your back.

8. Byakuya Togami

If you merged Sherlock Holmes and Seto Kaiba, and in the process filtered out all of the redeeming qualities, you get Byakuya Togami: an elitist prick of the highest order who has a dangerous intellect to back up his ego. As despicable as Byakuya is, he is also fascinating: I both hate hanging around him due to his constant insults and love it because I’m drawn to watching him work as he displays just how well the Togami family-sponsored education has served him. He’s as useful as an ally as he is formidable as an enemy, and once he learns there are some things beyond his sociopathic grasp and that it’s best to stick with those who know it, he mellows out into a reliable anti-hero. So yeah, awful person, fantastic character.

7. Chiaki Nanami

Hey, hey! Chiaki, as portrayed in DR2 anyway, is such a lovable character, at first seeming like an anti-social girl who would rather play video games and sleep than converse with people, but steadily revealing just how big a heart she really has and what a great friend she is once she connects with someone. As naive and weird as she is, she quickly picks up on things once she learns them, and is consistently one of the most perceptive people to have around in a class trial. And just when it seems like she’s becoming a tad too perfect to be realistic, we find out that she isn’t real and suffer one of the biggest emotional gut-punches in the series as she is cruelly taken away from us...except that even then, the bond she and Hajime forged is strong enough to keep her digital spirit alive within him. And Christine M. Cabanos brings it all home with her vocal performance. Chiaki, we will never forget you.

6. Nagito Komaeda

Who would have thought that a guy who at first seems like a weird, equally bland retread of Makoto from the original would end up being one of the franchise’s most famous characters? But it’s super easy to see why - when he shows his true colors it is bone-chilling, and the creepiness factor that Nagito brings with him only keeps on growing from there, as he shows how far he’s willing to go in order to create despair just so that hope can triumph over it. The story of DR2 would not nearly work as well as it does without Nagito in the role of the arch-antagonist for the other characters, all while he develops as a character too in a deliciously negative way which ends up culminating in what is probably the best class trial in the series.

5. Celestia Ludenburg

In a mystery-solving game like Danganronpa, Celestia honestly stands out as one of the most complex characters because she herself is a mystery. The game doesn’t really spell out her backstory, motivations or character arc given that as the Queen of Lies she has to keep a poker face about all that, but does allow the player to decipher it by themselves. While those unwilling to indulge their minds write her off as “crazy evil gambler lady who just wants money in order to become a vampire queen”, the people who pay attention to everything she says and does across the game (including / especially in her FTEs) can separate the truth from the lies and uncover the sad, pitiful reality of the character, a reality that haunts her all the way to her final moments. Call her Celeste or call her Taeko, that kind of depth deserves respect.

4. Gundham Tanaka

That’s right, my favorite DR2 character isn’t Monomi or Fuyuhiko or Chiaki or even Nagito - it’s GUNDHAM TANAKA! This man is a fucking legend, with Chris Tergliafera’s voice-acting perfectly capturing how endearing he is with his persistent delusions of villainous grandeur. But as funny as Gundham may be, he ends up not being a purely comic relief figure, playing a serious, emotional and noble role at the end of his run that gets me and many other players choked up. He may play at being evil, but in actuality Gundham is too good for this Earth.

3. Junko Enoshima

Do I need to explain myself here? It’s Junko fucking Enoshima! One of the most unique Big Bads in recent video game history! From the fact that the ultimate evil is a teen fashionista to the bizarre way she keeps changing her personality just to keep from getting bored to her ungodly despair fetish that has no rational basis for existing but simply does, Junko is less like a human being and more like a force of nature: gleeful, nihilistic despair incarnate. And though it’s true that she wore out her welcome past DR2, in her prime she is magnificent.

2. Kyoko Kirigiri

As far as I’m concerned, Kyoko Kirigiri is the real main character of the original Danganronpa. Makoto is just the POV character; the Watson to her Holmes. And what a character she is; truly one of the greatest female detectives in all of fiction. What I love best about Kyoko is what a unique take on the Emotionless Girl / Ice Queen trope she is. It’s made clear quite frequently that she isn’t really emotionless and that she’s just really good at masking her feelings as a necessary part of her job, and that this doesn’t stop her from being a kind and compassionate person toward others in her own straight-faced way. The narrative doesn’t condemn her for the way she is and she doesn’t have to change it either; what she has to change is her distrust toward others and reluctance to rely on friends, plus her hypocrisy regarding that and her personal goal vs. everyone else’s. It makes her such a rich, nuanced character and I love her for it (fuck the Danganronpa 3 anime though, it did her so dirty).

1. Monokuma

I think I’ll just conclude this post with a screencap:

[missanthropicprinciple]

Super-long rant-review post about Werewolf of London (1935) with images and spoilers...

I love Werewolf of London, this 83-year-old film. It’s got some problems typical of 1930s Hollywood, but I still find a lot of value in it. 

The setting, the moonlit hills of Tibet. Accuracy? not so much. 

Apparently the “Tibetans” are actually speaking Cantonese...and the white actors are clearly not speaking anything. 30 years before Star Wars and it honestly sounds like they’re speaking Ewok...but it’s just gibberish. I think the only realistic part of this scene is the fact that there actually are bactrian camels in Tibet. At least it’s quite well filmed. 

The sequence where Dr. Glendon (Henry Hull) is attacked by the werewolf is really eerie and holds up well.

The actual bite is so quick but if you screencap that second it’s creepy AF.

Despite the attack, Dr. Glendon gets his coveted “Mariphasa Lupina Lumina” flower (sadly, completely fictitious) and heads back to England.

In his lab, Dr. Glendon lives out his mad-scientist aesthetic surrounded by some high tech equipment. He even gets buzzed by his wife on what is basically an old-timey FaceTime device that lacks audio. Even though we know it’s superimposed footage it’s fairly seamless. 

Next we get a little portrait of a marriage. He’s working on an experiment with flowering and artificial light and his wife Lisa (Valerie Hobson) wants to know what the hell he’s up to. He’s secretive and she’s understandably annoyed. But she calls him “dear old bear” which is quite sweet but ironically hints at the animalistic transformation to follow. He says that after the experiment he will try to be more “human” but we know that ain’t gonna happen. 

Henry Hull’s accent. It needs its own paragraph. It’s not bad for someone from Louisville, Kentucky, and in fact sometimes it’s really amazing, but other moments it crosses your mind that the dialect coach was out sick that day of shooting. He enunciates very strongly. His jaws much have hurt him a bit. He’s fun to listen to though and you gotta give the guy credit because he doesn’t shy away from being über-Brit. 

Enter Lisa’s old childhood sweetheart Paul, played by the adorkable yet suave Lester Matthews. He and Lisa, whom he refers to as “Lee”, reminisce about their joint childhood exploits. 

Cue Dr. Glendon’s jealousy:

Understandably, Dr. Glendon is quietly dying inside because he hates all the socializing that comes with being a world-renowned botanist. Seeing another man making his wife smile does not help his mood.  

Lookit ‘em; holding hands for heaven’s sake. Aunt Ettie also likes to stir up trouble and add to Glendon’s jealously which isn’t very nice of her. 

Side note, Dr. Glendon has some tricked-out plants: 

Now we meet Dr. Yogami (Warner Oland).

Warner Oland, who was often cast as Asian characters because he “looked Asian”, was actually Swedish. (One would think that 80 years later this casting of white actors in non-white roles would have come to an end but we’re still dealing with this crap.) While Oland is a fairly good actor, he’s still NOT Asian and it would have been so much better if they had cast Sessue Hayakawa as Yogami as he was not only gorgeous but a better actor. 

However, Yogami is implied to be Chinese or Tibetan and Hayakawa is Japanese. Still, if the character was stated as Japanese it would have been perfect. Ironically, later on in the film Aunt Ettie keeps calling him Yokohama which is the second largest city in Japan. And I can’t find the surname Yogami anywhere. I can find Yagami and that’s a Japanese surname, not Chinese or Tibetan as far as I can tell. Oh, Old Hollywood and your stomach-churning whitewashing. 

Dr. Yogami says that they met before in Tibet...in the dark. He’s giving him a really big hint that he’s the one who bit him (...either that or he’s implying they met for an evening liaison). Dr. Glendon is trying to piece it together. 

Dr. Yogami says, “The medical term is ‘lycanthrophobia’.” WRONG. The medical term is lycanthropy, if being a werewolf was actually real. (The uncommon thing were people grow all the excess facial hair is hypertrichosis.) Clinical lycanthropy is a rare psychological condition that is linked to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and/or clinical depression. (More on that later.) 

Here’s a cap of Dr. Yogami intimately stroking Dr. Glendon’s injured arm while making hella awkward eye contact. As modern viewers we may or may not have a strong impulse to read this as somewhat sexual, or maybe as an identification of repressed homosexual desire. Lycanthropy in literature and film mythology has occasionally been used or identified as a metaphor for homosexuality. 

In a world where stabbing yourself with a plant gets rid of monthly hair growth. I’m curious to know why it looks like his stabbing it into a dorsal metacarpal vein and not the palmar (inside) side of wrist....medical side of Tumblr help me out here. Maybe they just wanted to feature the hairy hand. 

Dr. Yogami essentially asks Dr. Glendon for a blossom of the glow-in-the-dark flower to save his soul (and his fellow botanist as well), albeit in a cryptic way. He says “But remember this Dr. Glendon, the werewolf instinctively seeks to kill the thing it loves best.” Sadly, Dr. Glendon thinks he’s full of crap and ignores his warnings despite knowing that stabbing himself with this rare flower magically makes his moon-grown hand-hair disappear. Dumb or in denial? 

So of course Dr. Yogami steals not one, but two flowers. For two of the four nights of the full moon. Technically there is only one night of full moon at any given time but I’m going to give this a pass. Maybe during the time that the moon is still almost full, though waning, it still have the power to change man into the “satanic creature.”

Meanwhile, skeptical Dr. Glendon does a little lycanthropic research: 

Lisa drops by and asks him to join her and Paul at a society party but he pegs out or course, and then adds a jibe about not wanting to hear anymore childhood memories. Is the werewolf infection making him bitchy or is he just like that? Hard to tell. 

Lisa is hurt. But he says she should go out and enjoy herself. She tries to show him this brocade he bought her but he flips out when she turns on the lights. Presumably being a werewolf makes you sensitive to light. 

He responds with the “I put some medicine in my eyes” routine and they clearly don’t buy it. 

Seems fake, but ok. 

I feel like this is one of many allusions to depression in this film: sensitive to light, wanting to be alone, disliking small-talk and society parties, general introversion and distrust of others. We get a sense that he’s kind of this way anyway at the core of his personality but the werewolf contamination has made that all worse. 

Dr. Glendon may be a jerk but it’s hard not to feel sympathy for him. He really does love her. She’s still too annoyed to reciprocate. 

Even his cat’s pissed at him.

When animals start rejecting you, ya know you got problems. 

And lo, he thought, “oh shit.” 

The moonlight transformation sequence is quite simple by today’s standards of physical and special effects, but it’s still effective. Using the shadows to break up the footage isn’t fooling anyone, especially nowadays, yet it has a kind of fluidity that makes it oddly very evocative. 

A word about Jack Pierce’s makeup. Believe it or not it was originally going to look like this: 

Oink oink. Thank heavens someone talked Jack into a more minimalist look. Jack Pierce, known for his incredible work on films like Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), and The Wolf Man (1941), to name but a few, appears to have been a tad stubborn depending on the actor he worked with. He had a great relationship with Boris Karloff as far as I’m aware but the harmony working with Hull didn’t last long. There was a rumor going around that Hull was super vain and didn’t want the makeup to obscure his face. The truth of it was there are a couple scenes when Lisa and Paul both recognize him and if the werewolf makeup was applied too heavily, this part of the plot just wouldn’t work. Apparently Hull went over Pierce’s stubborn head straight to Carl Laemmle to fix the problem. The book Universal Horrors: The Studio’s Classic Films, 1931–1946 by Tom Weaver and John Brunas has more on this. (And in the Svengoolie intro to the film featured on ME TV.) The incident paid off because the final makeup was stellar. 

That awkward moment when someone steals your flowers: 

Suddenly filled with jealous rage...

...but wait lemme just put my hat and coat on first. If he does that when he’s full-on werewolf can you imagine how much time it takes for him to get ready normally? Diva. 

The obligatory party scene...

...with a comic interlude from Aunt Ettie who drunkenly says to “Dr. Yokohama” as she calls him, pointing to a dodgy district visible from her flat, that people there would “knife you for a shilling.” But then they hear the howl of a “lost soul” which is the chilling call of Dr. Glendon and it’s time to go inside. 

Drunk lady trope scene. No point in rescuing her she already made a fool out of herself but off they run: 

There is a ring of sadness to Aunt Ettie’s drunk scene because she says “she gets so nervous.” Hello social anxiety. She is a tad obnoxious as a character but this part makes her seem so much more sympathetic. 

“A-woooooooooooo!” 

Ok, that’s not a dog. 

Dr. Yogami is quaking in his spats at this point. 

Even though you know that this is Dr. Glendon, this remains creepy. Who hasn’t thought of a monster clawing their way into your bedroom late at night? They really milk the suspense in this scene. 

Lisa is offended by Dr. Yogami’s seemingly sexist and controlling behavior but in reality he’s trying to save her life. He knows that Dr. Glendon is on the loose and can probably smell her and will likely kill her. But she goes up to comfort her friend anyway. 

Cue the “you just had a bad dream” scene. For once Ettie isn’t full of hogwash. 

Poor Ettie. Seeing a werewolf will sober you up pretty quick. 

Mr. Hyde? Oh wait, wrong movie. 

Apparently all young women of a lower class looked like Hollywood starlets back then. Pretty stylish. 

This is why I don’t have a Tinder. 

Dr. Yogami executes an A+ facepalm. His wrist-leaning skills are classic. 10/10:

I mean, what did he think was going to happen? You can’t blackmail a guy who’s in denial about being a werewolf, it doesn’t work. But then, if he left one flower there you wouldn’t have a second act. 

Paul says that it might be a werewolf attack. He’s almost joking but he makes the suggestion anyway. His uncle, head of Scotland Yard no less (now that’s convenient) thinks this is ridiculous.

Meanwhile Dr. Glendon reads about how he accidentally murdered a woman last night: 

“You’re being utterly hateful, Wilfred.” She sees that he’s not happy and we all know that he’s past the point of no return. Someone has already died. His bitterness at her relationship with Paul is exacerbated by this revelation. But he doesn’t storm from the room or hurt her. He actually acts like an adult, says he’s sorry, and says that he will go out horseback riding with her after all. A lot of reviewers don’t like his character but I find him continually sympathetic. 

Again, it’s a realistic portrayal of a marriage. Dr. Glendon “forbids” his wife to go out on a midnight horseback ride with her ex. As sexist as his I’m-the-man-putting-my-foot-down-with-the-wife routine is, he has a couple genuine reasons for acting this way. He’s worried about her safety cause he knows the moon is gonna make him crazy and he could unintentionally kill her in a fit of jealous rage. And of course he’s ticked off that Lisa is galavanting around with another man. She in turn is appropriately angry with his controlling remarks without having good reason for his concern...plus she wants to prove a point that he’s not making enough time for her in their marriage. 

Mrs. Moncaster explains how decking her “dearest friend” Mrs. Whack was an appropriate action to take in the sake of business.

Dr. Glendon calls himself “Singularly single, madam. More single than I ever realised it was possible for a human being to be...” Which seems to evoke qualities of his situation and depression. He feels so isolated. 

He prays that this transformation won’t happen again but it does.

“If I ran the zoo I'd let all the animals go”  - Dr. Seuss. This is Glendon’s way of causing a distraction so that he can attack another woman but it’s also symbolic of him releasing his inner animalistic nature. 

Ya gotta appreciate the special effects: 

Dr. Yogmai hails from the University of Carpathia. Here to represent.....an institution that I’m fairly certain doesn’t exist. Unless they mean Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University but that wasn’t established until 1940. Still, he’s a professor of botany so that’s cool. Kind of like Professor Lupin. 

Presumably, Dr. Yogami goes to Paul because he’s well connected and he wants to prevent Dr. Glendon from doing anymore damage. 

A+ usage of the scary uplighting effect. 

Dr. Glendon instructs a servant to lock him in until sunrise. Oh the upper-classes and their odd demands.

Paul still loves her. Duh. She can’t reciprocate because she’s married. 

Those bars are toast.

Henry Hull does a great job of prowling with just the right balance between animal and man.

Now that’s a scream:

Paul to the rescue. 

Paul recognizes Dr. Glendon. (Thanks, Mr. Hull.)

Dr. Yogami’s rooms “smelled like a kennel" when they found the mutilated maid. Yuck. Did he pee all over the room? Not something anyone likes to think about for too long. Especially the head of Scotland Yard. Just look at his face. 

Paul digs through the trash and finds the discarded flowers. 

Maybe Paul should work for Scotland Yard instead of his uncle. 

Hey how was your trip? So, Hawkins (J.M. Kerrigan) doesn’t think it’s odd that Dr. Glendon is hiding from the police? Does he even know why? Did Glendon tell him “hey I’m a werewolf and I accidentally killed people?” or does Hawkins just give him a pass like “it’s his life and none of my business.”? Well, as the scene suggests, Hawkins clearly does not know because he’s confused by how important this damn flower is to Dr. G.

I have to say, I get this excited about my sweet peas every year so I totally identify with his reaction. #humor

How does he even get into the lab?! Dr. Glendon needs better security or just, ya know, locks.

Somehow Glendon doesn’t see Yogami tip-toeing down the steps. How bad does your peripheral vision have to be?!

"You brought this on me that night in Tibet!” (You don’t say.)

The problem with stealing a plant that only blooms as the moon emerges is that the werewolf might kill you mid-transformation. Exhibit A:

They were both doomed anyway. 

Dr. Glendon goes looking for Lisa. 

Lycanthropy makes Dr. Glendon strong. Those chintz curtains and flimsy doors are no match for him.

Paul also lacks clear peripheral vision, apparently. Funny how ya don’t see a werewolf perched above a door you’re about to go into.

With all that jumping off buildings, werewolves must be prime candidates for knee replacement surgery. 

More great uplighting to do justice to some remarkable makeup:

“It’s Lisa!”

Who the hell is Lisa?

Maybe he remembers at this point. Hard to tell. 

A regular bullet does the job. The myth that a werewolf can only be killed by a silver bullet most likely dates back to the legend of the Beast of Gévaudan, in which a humungous wolf is killed by a hunter named "Argent" which is Latin for silver, who uses a gun loaded with silver bullets. The filmmakers clearly don’t feel that this is a necessary part of this movie’s mythology. And in a way, this is a good decision because it makes the werewolf more pitiable and certainly less mythological. If a werewolf has most of the same vulnerabilities as a human, most of the same human rules of existence apply because werewolves are not semi-indestructible. It also just makes werewolves more human and more sympathetic. Werewolf!Glendon is basically afflicted with a kind of disease that could hypothetically be explained by medical science; he isn’t some mythological beast.

We can presume his soul is saved. “Thanks...thanks for the bullet. It was the only way. In a few moments now, I shall know why all of this had to be.” 

“Good-bye, Lisa. Lisa – good-bye...I’m sorry...I couldn’t have made you...happier...” 

(This is immediately followed by the sound of my heart breaking.) Seriously, this isn’t a guilt trip like he thinks Lisa is some overly-needy wife. He knows that he’s not always equip to give Lisa what she needs out of a relationship. He genuinely feels bad. It isn’t because of the lycanthropy, he was like this before, as a scientist. Did he have depression anyway? He might have. He really does love her and they have an understanding. This is probably some of the best acting in the film, the way that Hull delivers his lines and the look on Valerie Hobson’s face tells you so much. 

Thankfully, his death means that he is free of lycanthropy. 

The sun comes up. 

A plane is in the air, presumably Paul and Lisa are off to California. 

And then we get a nice transition into the Universal Studios plane. 

What a trip. Hope you enjoyed my rambling. Until next time. 

[kolivance]

Kolivance is obviously canon I mean it's hitting you in the face the first episode. The blade could choose any lion to ride in and they chose blue? Not red, the fastest which is piloted by one of their own members? It's obvious Koli wanted to ride with his boo and wouldn't take no for an answer

Hi there nonnie! Mod Blob here taking over this reply!

First of all, you should know that all of us mods screamed over this ask in our chat and we all agreed we love you.

Like. This ask is us.  This is us in a nutshell.  Amazing.

Moving on! I’ve been waiting for an excuse to talk about S3EP1 for a while now and I finally have it!!!!! I’ve got the screencaps ready! I hope you guys are in for a long post because goose do I have stuff to say…

I introduce you to a guide on how to read too much into less than 5 minutes of an episode, written by me

In EP1 we are shown that each member of Team Voltron is basically doing their own thing.  Keith (with Coran’s aid) is looking for Shiro among the remains of their previous battle with Zarkon, Allura is getting ready for diplomatic meetings, Pidge is on her own looking for her family.  Out of all of them, only Hunk and Lance are the ones fighting to liberate yet another alien civilization that fell under the claws of the galran domination.

Both Yellow and Blue are big lions, bigger than Red and Green, and out of the two options we are shown that Kolivan and more BoM members are riding on the back of Blue.

(I’ll put the rest of my reply under a read more so it won’t be tiring to scroll past this post on mobile)

Now this could’ve been entirely a casual thing, but I don’t think it’s something we should look over and ignore.  We know that Kolivan doesn’t trust others easily unless proven they are capable warriors.  For him to accept being in Blue along with the ones he’s in charge of, it means that at least to some degree he trusts in Lance’s skills.

Not only that, but he trusts that Lance will take them to the place they need to be.

I would also like to put emphasis on the fact that Lance calls him by his name.  We know that Lance is a generally friendly person, but I believe that him specifically saying “Kolivan” also supports my idea that there’s an undercurrent of trust between them.

Now, Kolivan doesn’t have doubts at any moment of Lance’s actions or skills.  I believe that this also goes to show that he recognizes Lance’s potential as a good leader, considering Lance is technically taking the leading position during this mission and that Kolivan (a more than well experienced leader) treats him as an equal.

Immediately after this scene, we are told (by Hunk) that they are past the drop zone, and Lance replies that they cannot stop.  They are under heavy fire by the enemy ships and doing so would leave not only the lions exposed, but also it would turn Kolivan and the BoM members (side note: kolivan and the bom, good name for a rock band) into easy targets.

In this situation, now it’s Lance the one showing clear respect and trust in Kolivan’s judgement.  He could’ve easily done anything else without consulting the other passengers within Blue, but instead he diverts the final decision towards Kolivan, trusting that he’ll know the right thing to do.  This shows that Lance is willing to give others key leading decisions and that he is aware that Kolivan has more experience, therefore his opinion/decision would more than likely be better for their current situation.

I mean, we know Lance is full of self imposed bravado, yet we are shown that he has no trouble fitting into co-leadership roles with noticeable ease.  His interactions with Kolivan here go smoothly, and later on in the next episodes of S3 he proves to be an excellent right-hand man.

Kolivan never once says anything remotely judgemental of Lance asking him for guidance.  And I know I’ve been saying this so much but Lance!! Trusts!!! Kolivan!!!!!!! And!!! The!! BoM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I’m mainly including this screencap because it’s a super cool shot and I love Kolivan. No, I’m not biased. Also, I think his braid necklace is super cute and adorable and ohmygod guys Kolivan has long hair, I know this is obvious yes, but whenever I think of it I always feel so weak for this gorgeous alien.)

The fight continues on for a few moments longer until Kolivan requires for help because how can they, a bunch of tall purple furry generally handsome aliens with cool blades and awesome fighting moves, fight against a canon lodged in a place waaay above their heads that’s targeting them specifically? 

Clearly, the best course of action is asking for help.  Which is what Kolivan does. I’m inclined to believe he’s actually directing himself to Lance, who is the one that replies (while keeping his eyes on his buddy Hunk and only looking away once Hunk emerges from that cloud of smoke).

(Look at Lance’s cute face here. I love him. So cute. Another screencap I’m adding mainly because Lance is cute and I’m the one replying this so I can do what I want and get away with it :D besides, who’s gonna complain about cute Lance, huh? Who? Not you, that’s for sure)

(Sidenote: the microphones/whatever you wanna call their communication devices that are inside the helmets are on the left side, proven by how Lance turns his attention towards that side.  Also, you could also say that by doing that he’s technically placing a good part of his focus on Kolivan.  Shippy goofy smile, get off my face.)

Ehem ehem.  Going back to what I was trying to say.  The BoM dealed with the situation as best as they could (which means: they are the best of the best even though they do the Naruto run. They even have saNdALS-LIKE FOOTWEAR), until this canon thing blew that up (heh) and turned them into easy targets.  They do need help.  They cannot fight blasts with blades, guys.

Here’s Lance immediate reply:

And then we are immediately shown that he cannot take it out.  Because he rushes in without really assessing how that weapon works and tries to shoot it from the front.  Which in turn almost ends in Lance getting shot.  Then Hunk, who stayed behind as Lance rushed in, does notice that the weakest spot of the canon thing is the back, and he is the one to effectively destroy it.

So far in this scene we’ve seen a Lance that was generally smooth in his actions, and this is the only moment in which he fails to effectively eliminate a target.  He notices that he needs to get rid of that thing as soon as possible, but in his hurrying up to help Kolivan fails to see the best way to counter-attack.

Fast forward to when the battle is won and the galran ships are flying the hell outta there.  We have the whole alien people come out of their hiding spots to celebrate their liberation and gape in clear admiration at the Lions.  Yet in that same scene we are shown something that, in my opinion, is a gem:

Some of the aliens, which are then declared as the leaders or most influential ones of that community, clearly glance at Kolivan and the BoM with obvious distrust (and prejudice) in their eyes.  Kolivan notices, and the change in his expression is painfully obvious:

His face falls.  He lowers his gaze and bows his head.  This is the moment I went like “I want to hug him and tell him he’s doing great and that he’s amazing and that I love him”.  I’m not biased guys, I don’t know what you’re talking about. 

What’s clear here is that he’s hurt.

This gives a whole new level of importance and relevance to what Lance does a few moments later:

He literally stands up for the BoM and Kolivan.

Upon rejection from the aliens towards them based solely on their race/appearance, what Lance does is openly and proudly stand up for them and defend them.  He extends the reason of the victory to them while also showing his gratitude for their assitance.  

He could’ve said nothing and accept the worship the aliens were giving them and the Lions, but no, he also redirects that attention and acknowledgement (rightfully so) to Kolivan and his team.

It would’ve been enough for Lance to say: “We couldn’t have done it without them”, referring to the Blade of Marmora in general.  Yet he put special emphasis on Kolivan, stressing his value as leader and showing how much Lance appreciates him.

It’s also important to notice that Lance is doing this while standing right besides Kolivan, who, in turn, has his body turned towards Lance and redirects his gaze towards him.

This scene is really beautiful and the first time I saw it I screamed. Also: LOOK AT THEIR SIZE DIFFERENCE!!!

Kolivan’s reply is the reply of a leader.  He doesn’t say it was his honor, he consciously includes his whole team.

Also, look at Lance’s fond expression.  He’s so proud and grateful.  I love him.

Anyway, I’m forcefully stopping myself here because I could go on and on and it would get repetitive.

Is Kolivance canon?

It is in my heart and nobody will be able to tell me otherwise not even after I die.

— xoxo, Mod Blob 👽

[oumakokichi]

I'm not completely sure why Ouma wanted to trap everyone in Gonta's lab and make them watch the motive videos?

These asks are not exactly the same, but they are related to the same topic, so that’s why I’ve decided to answer them together. The second ask also made me realize that summarizing from that particular conversation between Momota and Saihara is perhaps one of the best ways to explain why Ouma did what he did.

The discussion they share in Hoshi’s room while looking for the motive video he had pretty much hits the nail on the head. As the second anon says, it starts when Momota admits that he actually wanted to have everyone get together and share all their motive videos right away, rather than holding onto them and not talking about them like Kiibo suggested. He talks at length about how he believes that’s the true meaning of “cooperating,” and how doing so would probably have actually strengthened the group as a whole. By embracing those motives and watching them, Monokuma couldn’t have used them against them. Here’s a screencap, to show what I mean:

As shown, Saihara realizes belatedly that that’s exactly what Ouma tried to do by holing them all up in one place and trying to force them to watch all the motive videos. For all that Ouma talks at length in Chapter 2 about how the group shouldn’t cooperate with each other and how he doesn’t believe that cooperation will solve anything, his plan was actually about cooperating in the truest meaning of the word.

The reason Ouma talked so emphatically against cooperating with the rest of the group’s plans while actually putting a plan of his own into motion to try and force everyone to cooperate and review their motive videos was because he knew that he had to act the part. Acting friendly and trusting and cooperative, not only in ndrv3 but in any DR game, is a surefire way to make sure the ringleader will just send out another motive in order to cause more paranoia and suspicion. Ouma himself says in Chapter 2 many times that it’s exactly when they all start getting along with one another and trying to cooperate that Monokuma comes around “to torment them.”

Kirigiri even alludes to this as early as dr1, in fact. I’ve been doing a dr1 reread recently, and I was amused to see in dr1 Chapter 5 that Naegi has many questions for Kirigiri similar to what many characters in ndrv3 have for Ouma. She says that she knew from almost the start of the killing game that there was a disconnect in her memories, and that her talent and purpose at Hope’s Peak must have been disadvantageous to the mastermind, which is why she was made to forget them. Naegi then asks her why she didn’t just talk to everyone else, so they could all cooperate together and act as one big group of friends in order to find out her talent and her reason for coming to Hope’s Peak.

She responds by saying that such a plan wouldn’t have worked for quite a few reasons. The first, of course, is that cooperation would only have drawn the mastermind’s attention. Acting like a big group of friends would only have given the mastermind more cause to try and split them up and get them to distrust one another. The other reason is that she couldn’t eliminate the possibility that the mastermind was one of them, someone actually hiding within their group and only pretending to be their friend.

Even in dr1 Chapter 1, Kirigiri says point-blank that trusting people too much is just as dangerous as not trusting anyone at all. So she couldn’t trust the group enough to cooperate with them in order to find her memories, other than Naegi—and her bond of trust with Naegi was something only built up gradually throughout the story, not something immediate and inseparable.

All of this sounds… well, very familiar. Ouma’s reasons for acting in the shadows and putting these plans into action without telling anyone his reasons why are pretty much exactly the same as Kirigiri’s. Like Kirigiri, he knew that open talk about cooperation and being friends would only cause the ringleader to give them even more motives and incentives to kill. And like Kirigiri, he suspected the ringleader was someone in their group only pretending to be friends with them (and in this case, he was right).

So, his plan with capturing everyone and forcing them to watch the motive videos in Gonta’s lab was the perfect way to try and neutralize the threat of everyone’s motives, while still seemingly refusing to cooperate. After all, he pulled off his plan in such a way that he seemed incomprehensible, chaotic, and self-serving—but even Saihara notes that Ouma doesn’t actually seem evil or malicious when putting that plan into action. He thinks to himself that he can’t actually see a single trace of “evil intent” on Ouma’s face, before quickly shaking his head and thinking that that could very well be another one of his lies.

But we know, of course, that it’s not. Given all the evidence we’re presented with in Chapters 5 and 6, Ouma’s objective was to stop the killing game. He hated killing and death; that’s simply a canonical fact about his character, not a subjective opinion. And so he was willing to use extreme measures in order to try and force that game to a halt.

By watching everyone’s motive videos, not only would they all have been able to theoretically shoulder the burden by knowing everyone’s motives in addition to their own, but they would also have known immediately who was most likely to kill. While motive videos were originally an incentive in dr1 Chapter 1, I’m honestly more reminded of dr1 Chapter 2, with its “secrets you don’t want anyone else to know” motive.

In dr1 Chapter 2, all the characters similarly considered sharing their secrets with each other—the idea was proposed by several characters and considered heavily, but ultimately everyone was far too embarrassed and paranoid and afraid to share them with one another. Had they actually done so, however, Mondo’s murder of Chihiro would’ve been avoided entirely. Knowing everyone’s secrets at the time would’ve taken away Monokuma’s leverage over them, and caused them to come to terms with their own dark secrets, all the while enabling the rest of the group to keep an eye on the characters they knew had the secrets most worth killing for.

The same applies to ndrv3 Chapter 2. Kirumi’s motive video was rigged to go to her from the start precisely because it was such a guaranteed trump card that would start the killing game up again. Her motive video “went to her by mistake, because the Monokumerz messed up,” but that’s simply an excuse; the Monokumerz do whatever they’re scripted to do, as part of the killing game show, and that means that Kirumi was absolutely going to get her own motive video no matter what, because it had the juiciest incentive of all to kill for.

Had the rest of the group seen her video, or even seen Hoshi’s video with its blank and depressing message, they would’ve had a much better idea of what was at stake. Everyone would’ve been able to discuss the potential fate of their “most important loved ones,” everyone would’ve been able to talk to both Kirumi and Hoshi and keep an eye on them to monitor what they were likely to do after seeing such horrible videos.

And of course, everyone would also have known about Maki’s talent as a SHSL Assassin, which was something Ouma wanted to make clear to them as soon as he found out himself. Having an assassin hidden in their midst who wouldn’t come forward or tell them about her talent even though she was extremely dangerous and had killed plenty of people in the past was a very dangerous, unstable scenario.

Having that fact brought into the open might not be something Maki herself liked very much—but it was undeniably necessary. Keeping her talent a secret was unfair to the rest of the group, and the longer she kept quiet about it, the worse the backlash would’ve become. That’s the reason Ouma goes ahead and exposes her talent at the end of the Chapter 2 trial anyway, in order to try and force the group to come to terms with the fact that Maki is a threat and should be watched carefully.

In addition to all of these things, I strongly believe that watching all the motive videos together would’ve exposed several inconsistencies, both in the videos and in their own memories. Having these inconsistencies exposed would’ve made them seem less credible; without even knowing if the videos or their memories were even real, the characters would’ve been a lot less willing to kill for them.

For example, Kirumi’s status as the “shadow Prime Minister of Japan” can be called very easily into question just by looking at Momota’s FTEs. Momota mentions in one of his FTEs that he actually introduced the current, elected Prime Minister of Japan to politics. In fact, he wholeheartedly seems to believe this. If that were actually true, then he and Kirumi should, theoretically, know each other, or at least know about each other. Even if Momota never knew Kirumi, because she was such a well-kept secret, there’s no way Kirumi, as a SHSL Maid whose duty was to remain diligently on top of everything, wouldn’t have known who one of the Prime Minister’s close friends was.

And yet, they know nothing about each other prior to the game. This inconsistency can’t be easily explained away by “they were made to forget before the game started,” because Momota did know about Hoshi prior to the killing game, having looked up to him as a sort of tennis-playing hero in middle school. Therefore, if Kirumi were really the “shadow Prime Minister,” then she should have known about Momota. But she didn’t.

Realizing and discussing this fact would’ve made her motive video seem instantly less believable. Without believing it to be true, the likelihood that she would’ve been willing to commit murder for it decreases significantly. There’s no reason to risk one’s own life or to kill everyone else over something that seems so obviously fake, after all.

As someone who clearly distrusted his own memories and the motive videos right from the start, Ouma knew these things, and that’s exactly why he tried to put his plan into action. Had he actually managed to succeed, I do believe there was a very good possibility it would’ve worked—not least of all because Tsumugi looked very shaken up when she realized his plan herself. If the ringleader looks so obviously dismayed after hearing about a plan like that, then that seems to indicate Ouma was probably on the right track.

Anyway, this has gotten long, so I’ll stop now, but I hope I could clear up the first anon’s question. As for the second anon, thank you so much for stopping by—I was also very glad to see Momota and Saihara hit on the right track in that conversation, even if it was only briefly. Going back and seeing all these little clues and hints to the fact that Ouma was doing things with the group’s best interests at heart is so rewarding, because I feel like there’s always something new to see.

Thank you both for asking!

[dngrs-untld-hrshps-unnmbrd]

Before the Fall (Pt 2)

Destiny fic. A Dead Orbit scavenger is resurrected as a Guardian hundreds of cycles after her death but can remember everything from her old life. While she struggles to understand why another new Guardian brings back memories of a time Zavala wishes he could forget.

Part 1 | Destiny fic master post

Andara, Early City Age

The northern quarter of the City was given over almost completely to Dead Orbit members and the streets were dark and treacherous after the sun had gone down. She kept a tight hold on her bag and its precious contents as she picked her way along lanes strewn with discarded tech and broken weapons. Rival Faction heavies liked to lurk in the shadows and she’d already lost enough that day.

That Warsat had been her ticket out of this dump. She could have exchanged the data it held for a crate of heavy ammo and used it to pay the rent on her own room for four months, upgrade her Sparrow and buy a new set of gauntlets. Instead those two brainless punching machines had destroyed it out of petty revenge.

That’s for brainwashing our buddy you cult bitch, one of them had called before they’d both jumped on their Sparrows and sped away.

Cult bitch? They’d thought she was from Future War Cult, the Faction who worshipped bits of tech and went on and on about the Darkness getting them all in the end so what’s the point. 

I’m Dead Orbit you fuck-knuckles, she’d yelled after them, before racing for her own Sparrow and giving chase.

That Awoken Guardian had given her the possible coordinates for a new Warsat, though maybe it would turn out to be bogus. It wouldn’t surprise her if he’d just been trying to get her off his back. Still, it was worth a look. She’d be at the gates at first light ready to head out in case he’d been generous enough to give the coordinates to anyone else.

When she shouldered into the room she shared with three fellow Dead Orbit scavengers she found one of them had dumped a bagful of greasy engine parts onto her bed, and she wanted to cry. Did they have to be so thoughtless? If she complained to them they’d only laugh at her. Who made you queen of the slums? Get over yourself, Andara.

Hurling her bag under her bed she grabbed a nutri-bar from under her pillow, yanked off her chest plate and gauntlets and went outside again. The night was warm and she swung up onto the wall and then onto the roof of the building.

It wasn’t much of a perch, but the City lay spread before her, thousands of flickering lights and halo of the Traveler above, a blank, uncaring sentinel.

The City was filled with idiots like those two Titans, undead warriors who thought they were better than everyone else just because they couldn’t die. Clinging to this planet like fungus. The other Factions weren’t much better with their fanatical preaching and squabbling over people and territory and resources. It was getting downright dangerous in the City.

Even though her roommates drove her up the Wall she was thankful that she’d fallen in with the right Faction. When she’d come to the City as a refugee only Dead Orbit’s message had made sense to her. We will not allow hope to wither on a dead Earth.

The Guardians and their City could go screw themselves. The sooner she got off this crappy planet the better.

Zavala, Late City Age

‘What am I doing out here, Ikora?’

The Warlock smiled in her arch manner, and instead of replying turned Zavala to face the railings. She looked out across the City with him, breathed deep, and let it out in a long, slow exhale.

Oh, so that was it. Whenever Ikora felt he was working too hard she dragged him away from the Vanguard room to look at the view. He frowned at the Traveler. Was that a flicker he saw on its blank surface? 

No. Just a trick of the light.

Ikora finished her breathing exercises and said, ‘When was the last time you spoke to Lord Shaxx?’

‘About thirty seconds ago. He said hello. I nodded.’

She gave him a wry look. ‘Properly talked to him, I mean. You two haven’t spent much time together lately.’

Zavala and Shaxx had gone to the Blustery Brew for a pint about a month ago. It had used to be the three of them who would go, he, Shaxx and Saladin, and he missed those days. 

They’d shared an easy camaraderie. Shaxx and Saladin’s fierce delight with every victory. With each other. There had been love, then. And his own –

But that was then, before Twilight Gap. Before Mare Ibrium. Before Lyssa.

Before Osiris.

It had been a hundred cycles since Twilight Gap had caused a rift between his two friends, but when he brought up Saladin a wall had slammed down behind Shaxx’s eyes. Did he put you up to this? If Saladin wants to apologise he knows where I am. 

It had never occurred to Shaxx that he might be the one who owed the apology. That Saladin was a scarred wolf, losing his first love, Lady Jolder, to SIVA and then his second, Shaxx, to obstinacy and betrayal. 

‘We’ve been busy.’

‘Still, you–’

‘You’re clucking over me, Ikora. Stop clucking.’

Ikora cast her eyes at the sky. ‘All right. How’s Lord Saladin?’

He made a non-committal sound, and Ikora sighed. ‘You think they would have made up by now. Twilight Gap was such a long time ago.’

They were still paying for their mistakes at Twilight Gap. Their power was not what it was. So many Guardians dead and the number arriving at the Tower not as steady as it used to be.

‘Does it feel that long ago to you?’ he asked.

‘No. I suppose it doesn’t.’

Zavala turned around so his back was to the City and he contemplated the Tower. This was what he did to relax. He liked to look at the Guardians in the courtyard coming in from the field with their weary but bright faces. The engrams being handed to Rahool. The antics of the Guardians waiting for their Fireteams. He missed being in the field, but leading the Vanguard and mentoring the Titans was his job now and it took up all of his time.

Let the young ones be fierce and delighted. Like Saladin said, they were old wolves now.

Like she was a physical manifestation of the past, a young woman appeared, walking across the plaza in a daze and a Ghost trailing behind her. She was dressed in the sort of armour common among Dead Orbit long ago and had an antique rifle strapped to her shoulder.

Memories assaulted him. The attack. Fighting in the streets. Lyssa.

Ikora noticed that Zavala was staring and turned to look. ‘Ah. A new arrival?’

Andara, that was her name. A new arrival? She hadn’t had much love for the Guardians but the Traveler had seen fit to make her one of them. She’d been feisty and a good fighter, so would probably take well to this new life. Remembering all that had happened it was a good thing she wouldn’t remember anything from that time. 

‘I know her. She was a Dead Orbit scavenger around the time of Six Fronts.’

This happened sometimes with the older Guardians. Someone they’d known long ago would be resurrected and it was always unsettling. Sometimes even upsetting if they’d been a friend. Because you couldn’t tell them. That new Guardians couldn’t remember their old life was a gift from the Traveler that had to be respected.

Zavala was about to go forward and meet her when Andara spotted him and headed his way. Before he could launch into his ‘I know how confused you must feel but your travels are over and you’re among friends now’ speech, she spoke.

‘Zavala? What the hell is going on? Where am I?’

He frowned, and then glanced at her Ghost. It must have given her his name. ‘You’re in the right place. Things probably seem strange right now, but you’re a Guardian, and this is your home now.’

Andara’s mouth fell open. ‘Like hell I’m a Guardian. I’m a scavenger. You know that.’ 

There was that some distrustful look in her eyes that he recognised from long ago. But how did she remember her past? It wasn’t possible.

At his elbow, Ikora murmured, ‘Are you sure she’s a new Guardian?’

‘A Guardian?’ the young woman echoed. 

If she’d been a Guardian back then they would have known, wouldn’t they? Had she kept it secret all these years? But then why turn up now and pretend like she didn’t know what was going on? 

She doesn’t seem like she’s pretending. That’s the face of someone who has no idea where she is.

‘You know my name. What’s yours?’ 

She gave him an indignant look. ‘You know my name. It’s Andara.’ She waved a hand at the City and the Tower. ‘Now, do you want to tell me where the hell we are? Because I know one thing for certain. This isn’t the Last City.’

Thank you for reading! *showers you in hadium flakes*

This is Andara with our lovely commander. She’s most definitely not in love with Zavala but you think can I recreate this beautiful screencap with Piax? Gdi.

[oldsunandstars]

Why it drives me insane when televison writes strong women poorly: a novel

OKAY boyos, time to get into something that has been bothering me for quite a while: how writers in mainstream television write “strong women.” We’ll be delving into a few of the obvious characters, like Daenerys Targaryen from the HBO show you’ve heard about unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 6 years, Game of Thrones. We will also take a look at someone you might not have heard of, Dr. Tara Knowles from the now defunct but excellent Sons of Anarchy (minor plug: I’ve been bingeing this show for a couple weeks now and it is fantastic, I definitely recommend it). We will then look at one of my favorite characters from Orange is the New Black, Sophia Burset and her relationship with her wife. Then we will turn to the opposite end of the spectrum, with everyone’s wife we love to hate: Skyler White from Breaking Bad. We will also look at a character from a show I’m betting absolutely none of you have heard of but was an integral part of my childhood, Northern Exposure and the character of Shelly Tambo. 

Okay, pals. Let me start off by saying I really appreciate what the mainstream is trying to do with women on TV nowadays. There really are some genuinely strong female characters out there right now. Once Upon a Time, despite having outlived its usefulness like literally five years ago, has a whole fuckin cadre of strong badass women (Snow White, Emma, the evil queen, Mulan, to name a few. I’ve only watched the first two seasons of that one so if I miss any other good characters I”m sorry). Orange is the New Black despite arguably going down in quality the last couple years, is chock full of dynamic and fascinating women of color. 

But I have this theory. You see, boyos, I have noticed this happening time and time again when a TV writer or writers wants to make a strong female character. Great! You’ve taken one step in a thousand step series to make women equal to men on television! Wahoo! But instead of actually writing these women as strong, they write her, you see, as The Bitch. 

There is a very distinct difference between The Bitch and an actual strong female character. A strong female character (I’m going to start referring to that as SFC) is layered. She is dynamic and interesting and would be so without the men in her life. She has no problem raising her voice when she needs to, but knows when and where this voice raising would have the most effect. She is a BadAss (tm). She has relationships with someone other than her husband/SO, and her relationship with that SO is compelling and they are on equal ground in the relationship.  

The Bitch, on the other hand, is none of those things. I am not going to get into it in too much detail, but two of the characters I previously mentioned I think solidly belong in this category. TV writers who write The Bitch think that she is a SFC but she is actuallly not because all she does is scream at her husband who is trying to (in the case of Breaking Bad especially) give her the entire world. The Bitch of course may have other layers, but in my experience the character is mainly remembered for being shitty to her decent SO for absolutely no reason because some writer thinks that makes her “strong.” We will explore this in more depth later. TV writers sometimes think that to be a SFC a woman just has to scream a lot and throw things, and while SFC do do this sometimes, their characters have way more substance beyond just pitching a fit. 

Okay boyos let’s get down to the characters I mentioned previously. First, there is Dany from GOT. 

Ya’ll know Dany, I bet, even if you’re one of the small fraction of humanity that hasn’t seen GOT. She’s the cool dragon lady. She is literally the badest bitch in the whole damn series of GOT (sorry not sorry, Cersei). She went from being just the younger sister of one of the biggest assholes in GOT (which, let’s face it, is pretty hard in GOT where assholes abound. Looking at you, Peter Baelish!).

You’ve probably seen some screencap or another of her being strong and awesome like this one.

So, let’s discuss. Is Dany a strong female character or The Bitch?

Well, first off, the leading causes of why I label a person as The Bitch is they are shitty to their otherwise well-intending significant other. Dany in the first season of the show is married to the still-missed Khal Drogo. She is absolutely not shitty to him, despite their relationship getting off to a bad start (there’s controversy over whether he raped her in the books or not. I’m not getting into that can of worms here, but we can all agree in the books and the series their relationship develops into one of mutual respect, right? Right). 

She is calm and poised. She knows exactly when she needs to strike and when she needs to show mercy in a city she has conquered (did I mention that she fucking CONQUERS CITIES???? Not even freaking Jon Snow does that), She also knows when she needs to burn the whole motherfucking city down as she did in the last season of the show. And, she has complex and interesting relationships with other women, whether it be her handmaidens or her friend Missandei who she literally rescues from slavery. 

There’s also her relationship with middle-aged eye candy Jorah Mormont. 

Seriously look at this guy. This actor has aged like fine wine.

We’ll overlook how much creepier their relationship is in the book where he is still a middle aged dude and she is thirteen at the outset of the books (problematic yes but thankfully Dany’s been aged up in the series so it’s maybe a little better? Sorry I digress) and look at how they treat each other. Jorah is one of Dany’s most trusted advisors. He’s been with her since she married Khal Drogo and has been loyal to her from the beginning. There’s just one small hitch: he was originally spying on her for the old dead king, Robert Baratheon. Once Dany finds this out, she completely does the right thing and kicks his ass right out. She is 100% justified in doing so and it completely breaks her heart because she knows how much he loves her and he literally wandered the desert with her and almost died of dehydration with her back in book 2/ season 2. He gave her the motherfucking dragon eggs for christ’s sake, but he betrayed her and Dany has no problem throwing his lying ass out. 

BUT, she also gives him the chance to redeem himself when he returns to her a few seasons later with Greyscale, the debilitating GOT disease I am so thankful does not exist in real life that literally gradually turns the afflicted into a statue. Dany tells Jorah to leave her, and find the cure, and return to her, because she knows just being away from her slaying presence is punishment enough for any man. 

So, Dany is actually indeed a SFC and not The Bitch because she can actually have a healthy relationship with the men in her life without being a complete asshole for no reason. Shine on, Khaleesi. 

Now let’s talk about one of my favorite characters from SOA (besides Tig. I fucking love Tig. You guys should all watch this show its fantastic and based off Hamlet) Dr. Tara Knowles. In case you haven’t seen SOA, this is the lovely Tara.

SOA mainly focuses on the “motorcycle club” the Sons of Anarchy, but there are a couple women on the show who really make the show what it is. One of them is Gemma Teller (another fucking badass woman but sadly not the focus of today’s blog post) and the other is Tara Knowles. She is the “old lady” of the VP of the club and star of the show, Jax Teller. 

Jax and Tara have an interesting relationship, in part because the club kind of has a way of treating women who are not considered “old ladies” and therefore untouchable but other members of the club, pretty shittily. Before the start of the show, we learn that Tara and Jax were in love when they were teenagers before Tara left their hometown of Charming, CA for ten years to go to medical school in Chicago and complete her residency. 

Now Tara is an interesting point on this list because she could very easily be put in The Bitch category, but I will argue that she should be placed squarely in the SFC camp. First of all, she did leave Jax all those years ago, but you have to remember that Jax is the heir apparent (his father started the club) to the SOA, and they do a whole mess of nasty, illegal shit, including but not limited to, murder, maiming, arson, robbery, witness intimidation, gun-running of illegal weapons, and so on. What eighteen year old wouldn’t be terrified? She is also known to be kind of shitty to Jax, but to be fair he is shitty right back. He sleeps around, even after she becomes pregnant (unbeknownst to him at the time) and is even mean to her to convince her to leave him because he doesn’t want her to have to spend the rest of her life with him, because he knows he can’t leave the club. 

Tara can be kind of seen as the Hilary Clinton of SOA. She stays with Jax no matter what happens between them. They hurt each other, but they love each other. What makes the difference is that Tara doesn’t put up with Jax’s shit anymore than he puts up with hers. Tara is arguably in the worst position of any of the women on this list. Her SO is a member of this godawful club and part of how they deal with it is through him being brutally honest to her. She gets all the gory details of what the club is up to. Does she scream at him, distrust him, and act like a “strong woman?” No, she takes the hard path. She does trust him. She loves him. But she is not afraid to tell him the truth. In Season 4, Ep. 6 she tells him, calmly and with no screaming or bitchery, “It’s about this. How you guys treat women.” Multiple times throughout the series, she gets her point across without resorting to pitching a fit, because she and Jax consider themselves to be equals to one another. Their relationship is far from perfect, but they make it work somehow.

To sum up, go Tara for being a strong woman without being an asshole to Jax!!

A small disclaimer before we discuss Sophia Burset, played by the always fantastic Laverne Cox. Sophia is the only woman of color or transgender character on this list, and for that I sincerely apologize. I picked characters that really stood out to me one way or another as an SFC or Bitch. There are tons of other strong WOCs on OITNB, like Taystee, Poussey, Suzanne, Daya, Gloria, Flaca, and Maritza to name a few, but I chose to focus on Sophia because of her relationship with her significant other, which is also why the other characters on this list were chosen. 

Anyway, OITNB shows in flashbacks the relationship inmate Sophia Burset had with her wife and son before she was imprisoned. She is kind to her wife through all the stages of her transition, and it’s clear in the flashbacks that they were respectful of each other before Sophia was arrested for credit card fraud. This is why Sophia fits solidly into the SFC category. Also she’s just generally a badass and I love this character so much. She is a perfect example of how a character can be a strong female character without having to be an asshole to their SO for no reason. The show could have chosen to have her turn on her wife or vice versa while she was transitioning, but instead it chose to have them stand by each other, even having Crystal visit Sophia while she was in prison. 

Sophia is just an all around badass to be honest, which is why  she’s on theis list. She is a transgender character played by a transgender actress and isn’t on the show just to the the butt of transphobic jokes. I hope OITNB does more with her!! you go, girl.

Okay, now we’re crossing into territory of women who I do consider to be The Bitch. Let’s start with arguably the worst character ever to grace the small screen in recent memory, Skyler White.

Look how smug she looks 

Anyway, as most of you know, Breaking Bad is about a high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with lung cancer who starts cooking crystal meth so he can leave behind money for his family when he’s gone. Anna Gunn plays his wife Skyler, and I can honestly say she’s pretty great at her job because every time shes on screen I want to tear my hair out. Let me just say I have not seen all of Breaking Bad because of Skyler. I want to like this show. I love Walt and Jesse and I think they’re great characters and I really want to see Bryan Cranston develop Walt into the super villain I know he becomes, but I honestly don’t know if I can. I’m a few episodes into season two and I absolutely cannot stand Skyler because she wrote the book on being The Bitch. The entire point of her character is to harass Walter and I guess be his domestic foil? Let me point out two things about their relationship that drives me crazy. 

First, how she distrusts him right off the bat. It makes sense by the time you get halfway through season two, because honestly Walt has been acting pretty sketchy sneaking into the desert for long stretches of time to, you know, make meth, and there’s also the incident where he faked a psychotic break to explain why a drug dealer kidnapped him and held him in the dessert for two days. I understand her distrust for him then, I get it. But right from the very beginning, when Walt is diagnosed with cancer and doesn’t know what to do, she doesn’t trust him! She keeps asking him why he’s been out late when she knows he has a second job at the car wash, even going to the point to go to Jesse’s house and stalk his website when she overhears Walt talking to him. Like, who does that? How did they ever get married in the first place if she’s just always been up his ass like that? Maybe there is some backstory that the show just hasn’t told me yet and I haven’t got to because I can’t fucking stand Skyler, but it just makes no sense. Have her get there naturally over time because Walt is being sketchy as fuck please, don’t just start her off there and expect us to accept it, because no one in a healthy relationship does what Skyler does.

 Second, Walt has fucking lung cancer and he has months to live. Months. Cut him some fucking slack, for the love of god. Give him some space. She even forced him into having treatment even though he repeatedly told her he didn’t want to, just out of her own selfishness. 

Maybe the writers of Breaking Bad just want her to be emotional in the early seasons because she’s pregnant, but let me just tell you how unacceptable I would find it if they just wanted Skyler to fit into the “emotional pregnant woman” trope. Very, very unacceptable. Pregnant women still have plenty of control over their bodies and what they do.  Being pregnant is not a catch all excuse to be an asshole, and it’s offensive to presume that she’s emotional just because she’s pregnant. 

It’s so clear that the writers want Skyler to be a “strong” woman but they just don’t know how to do it without making her be shitty to Walt. In an episode in early season two, Walt is trying to make amends for his snafu after being kidnapped and he’s being so nice to Skyler, making her breakfast and talking to her and trying to offer an explanation for how he doesn’t have a second cell phone (even though he does), and she just literally leaves the house while he’s talking. When she gets back, she just says she’s been “out.” It’s clear that she’s trying to do to him what she thinks he did to her after all those times he was out late, and I’m just like who the fuck does this? They’re supposed to be in a relationship but all she does is passive aggressively try to teach him a lesson, and need I remind you that HE FUCKING HAS CANCER, HE”S ALLOWED TO BE A LITTLE EMOTIONALLY DISTANT. Please stop trying to say she’s strong because she treats Walt like a child and also like garbage. He is literally risking his life for her every day to make sure she has money when he’s gone, and all she can do is shit on him and distrust him. 

And one more thing. Women can do whatever the fuck they want. Don’t work, do work, I don’t care. Both can be empowering. But maybe when your husband has cancer you miiiiiight wanna think about going back to work so he feels a little less pressure to cook meth for you? Just a thought. 

Now we’re going to turn to the absolute worst character on Northern Exposure, Shelly Tambo.

Here she is, in all her smiling 90′s glory. 

Northern Exposure was an early 90′s tv show that I for some reason watched growing up and absolutely loved. It was the story of a young NYC doctor fresh out of residency who for some contrived reason is forced to spend four years in a small Alaskan town treating patients to pay back his med school debt. I honestly have no idea why this idea was ever thought up but I’m so glad it was because this show was the shit. 

In this small town in Alaska there is one bar owned by the OG Holling Vincoeur, played to perfection by John Cullum. 

Who was I to mock Shelly when Holling looks just as 90′s honestly.

As you can tell from the above pics, Holling is canonically old enough to be Shelly’s grandfather. How they ended up together I am honestly not sure because Shelly spends the entirety of the show’s five year run treating Holling like something she found on the bottom of her shoe. 

I’ll admit I haven’t seen this show in a while because the last two seasons kind of dissolve into insanity, but I do remember a specific example of Shelly being terrible to Holling for absolutely no reason. In one episdoe she gets addicted to television. She can’t stop watching it. She spends hours ordering things off the television, until Holling asks her where she got the money for it (she literally buys a fucking tiara off an infomercial) and she tells him she fucking spent the money he had saved up for their honeymoon. Need I remind you that Holling is an old dude who owns a bar in small town Alaska? He doesn’t have a lot of money but was putting some aside for Shelly because he loves her crazy ass for some reason. And she spends it all.

Another example is an episode when Holling reveals that he no longer holds Canadian citizenship because he’s lived in the US for so long, and Shelly, who is Canadian, loses every ounce of her shit and runs away back home because she can’t believe he gave up his citizenship. Uh, dude, get over it? Like being sort of sad is one thing but like running away without telling him just because he gave up his Canadian citizenship after living in Alaska for decades anyway? I think at one point he says he’s been there since before state hood so he’s literally been living in America for 40 years, even he tells Shelly there’s no point to him having Canadian citizenship. 

to sum up, she is actually why I wrote this post because she’s supposed to be a “strong female character” just because she treats Holling, who literally never does anything but love her and support her through all the weird things she comes up with, like shit. For no reason. 

anyway boyos, if any of you have stuck with me for this long, thanks for reading! And remember, it takes more than being a dick to a SO for no reason to make a SFC! If you think of any characters that fit into these two categories let me know!!

[scarlethaki-archived]

[ I’m writing this to explain my side of the story since I’ve been painted as some heartless witch that can’t stand people making ooc/silly posts or even like I’m trying to turn people against others.  The only reason I’m making this post is because I’ve been vagueposted about and blocked on my other account, so my follow-up message to reach out and discuss things had never been responded to. I honestly don’t give a shit about the blocked part. What has made me the most frustrated is that they are ignoring the main point of this issue that has now ended up involving one of my friends too. We are NOT upset about the ooc posts or how you run your blog, it’s how you’ve gone and painted us as villains and you as the innocent victim in all of this. This is not to say that we are the victims in this situation either, because I for one prefer not to act like one.

Here is a screen cap of the message I sent. The hate-filled attack that started this all:

“Hey! I just wanted to pop in and tell you beforehand that the reason I unfollowed you on this blog and on scarlethaki is because I was uncomfortable with the amount of ooc posts that ended up taking over my dashboard. I just want to reassure you that it’s nothing against you as a person, and I’m still okay with interactions if you want to. :)”

That was the message I sent. Please tell me if that was uncivil in any way. Everyone has their preferences, and when your blog is 90% ooc that floods my dashboard, that’s my personal choice to draw the line there. I don’t mind ooc or crack posts at all-- I do them a lot too, but it was the amount in even just a single hour, and this in undeniable to anyone who knows this blog. You can post as much ooc as you want, but some people just don’t want their roleplay dash to be flooded with ooc conversations, shitposting, and pictures of girls in bikini and underwear. It’s even stated in the rules pages of all my accounts-- I may unfollow if the amount of unrelated ooc exceeds my preferences. Perhaps it would have been more tolerable to me if an ooc tag was used, but this person did not use that either (at the time).

They have every right to post as much ooc content they want, and I have every right to unfollow them if it gets too much for me. The only reason I messaged them first is because I didn’t want them to find out I unfollowed them later on their own and feel even worse/more awkward about it.

These were some of the responses on that person’s blog.

#DO U EVER LIKE GET ONE OF THOSE DAYS WHEN THINGS JUST SEEM TO GO WRONG EVERYWHERE SOMEHOW #... #IDK MAN #ITS LIKE EVERY SMOL THING OF BAD THAT HAPPENS YOU GET LIKE #.... #OKAY THEN FUCK IT #TBD. #JUST #PLS GET THIS THING ON YOUR HEAD GUYS IF PEEPS DONT WANT YOU THEN ITS THEIR LOSS #TBH #TBH DONT SET UP UR EXPECTATIONS TOO HIGH #ALSO DO KNOW THAT IF YOU HAVE THAT HOUR WHER EYOU'RE LIKE HAVING FUN OOC AND REBLOG/POST TOO MUCH SHITPOST I WILL NOT UNFOLLOW YOU FOR THAT. #I DO THOSE SMTMS BUT AS YOU CAN PROBS SEE WHILE SCROLLING I DELETE IT LATER ON #LIKE... #OKAY THEN. #NO ITS FINE RLLY #IM JUST. #AT LEAST TELL ME BEFORE I SEND IN THINGS TO YOUR ASKBOX BCS SOMEHOW THAT S HUMILIATING? #I MEAN. #OKAY THEN. JUST. #IM NOT NORMALLY THIS MEAN BUT WHEN I FEEL LIKE DIS I HONESTL DONT LOOK BACK AND CONSIDER BLOCKING PEEPS BCS #IM ALREADY INSECURE AND HAVE LOTS OF TRUST ISSUES FROM MY BULLYING YEARS AND NARC ABUSE EXERCISED IN MY TOXIC HOUSEHOLD #I DONT THINK I NEED MORE SHIT TBH. #I KNOW PROBS IM OVERREACTING AND THAT IF YOU APOLOGIZE FOR IT AND ALL SHOULD BE FINE BUT. #..... #HONESTLY. #ITS NOT. #EXCUSE ME IF ITS TOO MUCH OOC FOR YOU THEN. #BUT TBH EVERYONE HAS THOSE TIMES WHERE CRACK IS IN THE BLOG OR SHITPOST ENSUES #BUT DID YOU EVEN SEE THE TAGS SAYING TBD - TO BE DELETED?

#BUT TBH.... YOU MIGHT NOTE THAT EVEN IF THERE ARE CANNON CHARAS BLOGS AROUND ...I WILL NOT FOLLOW THEM ALL #THE REASON IS NOT ALWAYS THE WRITING OR PORTRAYAL BUT WHAT JUST HAPPENED #LIKE I RECEIVED HATE BEFORE FOR JUST SAYING SOMETHING A SHIPPER DID NOT LIKE #I DID NOT LIKE CROSS BOUNDARIES OR HATE ON THEM AOR ANYTHING IMERELY SAID THAT THERE WAS THIS TROPE THAT WAS LIKE BEING OVERUSED OR SMTH #AND YEAH #BUT YEAH THIS IS ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS WHY I DO MAINS CALLS BCS OF THESE SITUATIONS. #TBD.

H**** pls *raises hands* (anditsokayimajudokaicankickpeoplesassesnowrries!!) its fine rlly. thats their loss tbh. its just that it was a bit humiliating bcs the person sent me a mssg about how they werent folowing me anymore bcs of the ooc posts and i had just sent in a ic ask too - posts which later on get deleted anyways tho i do keep the content in a private paste or smth saved in case there’s something i need from it like the post about inviting u guys to gow tih me next year but—\ rlly i dont want drama !! they did apologize it just does still hurt bcs u know i just had sent in a interaction ic, but….its fine . it wont do any good causing chaos over this rlly. ^^’

yeah i totally share the opinion! which is why i think that this is a hobby and we’re humans not machines so ofc we’ll have those times where shitpost just happens and like when u guys this week calmed me down bcs i was having a nervous breakdown due to the late events …like this is our safe space so. but tbh im just not to have drama bcs i already have so much shit to deal on my dramatic life tbh ya feel? i dont want  like to be the one starting some kind of chaos here in the fandom bcs i totally know i will not get along with everyone thats scientifically impossible. i can tell u in private who it is if u want to know anyways but do promise me that you wont go to their inbox or anything for my sake. i honestly dont want to start drama or cause things.

Those were ALL in reaction to that single message I sent. As admittedly pissed off as I was, I decided to let it go. Strangely enough, despite the fact that I said I ran scarlethaki, this user has continued to follow me on here even though I unfollowed weeks ago. They also still follow my other blogs which I’ve mentioned I’ve run before, so I really don’t know what the thinking is here. But I didn’t block you and I never will, because I’m leaving the option of coming to me to discuss things open to you. I’ve tried approaching you once and that clearly didn’t work so the ball’s in your court now. Shutting your ears to someone never fixes a problem, it just gives you a sense of blissful ignorance to the real situation at hand.

The thing that frustrated me to no end was the amount of hypocrisy and victim-playing going on.

I sent you a private, friendly message. Instead of responding, you blocked me and then go off on your blog. Your messages were very clearly directed at me. So why couldn’t you just speak to me face to face? Is it because you wanted the sympathy of the public?

You say you don’t want drama... and yet you make several ranty posts to the public to see? How will this not incite drama? “I don’t want drama.” “It won’t do good causing chaos over this.” Are you not seeing what you’re doing? 

“I won’t get along with everyone” Please tell me WHERE in my original post I was ever hateful to you or said I didn’t like you. You’re making things up in your head.

“I can tell you in private who it is if u want to know anyways but do promise me that you wont go to their inbox or anything for me sake. I honestly don’t want to start drama or cause things.” So the people that are being slandered have to just sit quietly while you go off about them, even when you say that you’ll tell anyone that asks you about it? You may not have actually told anyone in private, but at this point I’ll be distrustful of everything you say due to the victim-playing and manipulation of the public going on here.

I won’t add too much about this next part since @jurakyuru​ has already defended their personal case, but since it’s tied into the original issue involving me, I will summarize it because I’m at my wits end.

This user had sent my friend a message asking them why they unfollowed and if it was a tumblr glitch. Funny enough, this is the exact situation I had wanted to avoid putting her in when I sent her that first message. I didn’t want her to feel awkward or embarrassed asking about such a thing and she blocked me for it, yet just a couple weeks later she does it-- and gets very upset when my friend civilly states why they unfollowed. So you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t I guess.

There was a very very long response written to my friend which is not in my right to share, but I can at least comment on the public posts that had been made. Foolishly I did not screencap the actual things in the heat of my frustration, but I had copy and pasted them into a conversation with a friend.

Let me tell you one thing: I never told anyone to unfollow you, nor tell them what to say to you. My friend showed me the message they sent to you and they themselves made it clear they unfollowed of their own accord. But keep going on thinking I’m telling people to unfollow you.

Also funny how you say the door’s open and to get out, but when we did that you got severely upset.

We did unfollow you. You went into rants.

You’ve been reasonable? Really? As soon as either of us said something not sugarcoated you blocked us.

I would go through your blog, but you deleted everything. I mean, I had copy and pasted pretty much everything, but if I hadn’t then your claim of evidence would have been meaningless.

No you didn’t send us harmful message directly, but you went on public rants and even offered to tell people our names if they just asked you.

I won’t go on about this for much longer. You said you wanted people to see both sides of the story and here they are: my message vs. your reactions. A quote I’ve always stood by is, “You’re not responsible for people’s reaction to you, just the words you say.” This is why I still feel no guilt for the message I sent you. I know what I said was reasonable and civil. I am not responsible or at fault for the way you decided to react to it. 

And now we’re here.

As I said before, I haven’t blocked you and I won’t. Despite everything, I still don’t hate you as a person. I am just very frustrated and disappointed at the reaction over the past two weeks, and now I’m a little bit worried as well because I don’t know who you spread your lies to or when. I did not want things to come to this because callout posts are generally looked down upon, but this is the best way for me to lay everything clear. All the screencaps and what both sides have done. I never conspired against you-- in fact I was still kind to you on my Whitebeard blog until I unfollowed you there as well after yesterday’s shitstorm.

In the end I really don’t think you’re a bad person. I don’t think you’re evil or a villain, but I do think how you have been behaving has been hurtful and irresponsible. I’m sorry to be posting this publicly, but I need to make sure that if you said anything about me in private, the truth is clear. ]

[drink-n-watch]

Just a few minutes ago I somehow managed to loose all the screen caps I had taken for this episode. It’s a bummer. I had so lovingly chosen each one. Oh well, I guess I’ll do it all over again in a little bit. Happily, this minor annoyance has not dampened my enthusiasm for the episode. Irina here, I will be hosting this week’s Demon Slayer discussion. First, how are you Crow? Recovering from Easter yet?

  Doing fine, thanks for asking! Trying to recover from Easter as much as from the excitement of this episode!

you weren’t supposed to cut the rope, start over!

The episode quickly reminds us that Tanjiro was finally able to cut the boulder thanks to Sabito and Makomo’s help. The music got a touch overbearing this week but once again the CG was on point!

What’s more. The scene showing an exhausted Tanjiro quietly listening to Urokodaki admit that he had given him an impossible task to keep him from the dangers of the final selection and the cathartic release that followed were genuinely touching. I could feel both men’s grim determination an mutual respect. Am I reading too much into this??

If you are, you have company! I thought that was a beautiful, touching, and authentic moment. After all that training and effort, after slicing the boulder, Urokodaki saying “Tanjiro, you’re a remarkable kid” meant a lot to both of them.

d’awwww

As bittersweet as it was, Urokodaki could not hold Tanjiro back from his destiny and meter they chose to celebrate with fasts and a gift of masks. I really like masks. Especially kitsune ones.i think more rites of passage should be marked with gifts of masks.

Unless they’re like the masks from that Twilight Zone episode. < shudder >

had to look it up – is this it?

You know, I have been a bit judgy on the perceived motivations in this show and kept reminding people that Tanjiro never wanted to become a demon Slayer in the first place. However, if I remember correctly, he’s been training for this for close to two years now. Even if he may not have set out for it, becoming a demon Slayer is the only purpose he’s known for a while now, I bet it’s beginning to mean a whole lot to him.

And in all that time, Nezuko has not woken up once. Do you miss her too Crow?

Yes, I do! I’m also wondering if Urokodaki is turning her from time to time, because if she doesn’t, she’ll get bed sores! And that bamboo bit has got to be chafing by now! And secretly? Part of me wonders if her slumber is a bit too convenient…

oh no Crow suspects something – quick, knock him out

I’m just going to say it: told you so. Told you those two were Yokai!

Yes, you did! In the comments from the last episode, Lynn was close, guessing they might be spirits. And didn’t you think how the episode presented them was so sad? They were dead themselves, but they kept worrying about Tanjiro! But I’m getting ahead, aren’t I? Please, carry on!

yes you are Crow

Thank you! As Tanjiro made it to the final selection, I got a bit nervous. It reminded me of the Hunters Hunter exam and that’s not a good thing. Maybe it was the creepy twins or the brutal nature off the exam but I have a though time trusting the demon Slayer organization.

The show is teaching me to distrust cute, that’s for sure.

The second half of the episode was basically one tense survival/fight scene. One thing that has consistently impressed me about Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba is how well it creates disturbing scenes.

this freaked me out

The mega demon was nothing short of an abomination and it was a little difficult to watch him with the victim. Am I just too precious here?

That monster was horrifying! And do you know what helped sell that idea? Tanjiro’s reaction! The other candidate was screaming, but we have no idea who he was. Maybe he screamed in terror at the sight of kittens! But Tanjiro? We know he’s tough. So if he’s scared, there’s something to be scared of!

But a lot of shows can’t stick the landing. Even after we saw the creature – it was still horrible!

The episode also did a great job at creating an emotional reaction. After all, I know Tanjiro is going to be OK, I see it in the opening credits. This fight doesn’t have that much riding on it all things considered and yet. I was wringing my fingers holding my breath and rooting for Tanjiro like my life savings were on the line.

I’m gonna punch you except you’re super scary – Tanjiro, you do it!

The scene pulled us in so deeply that were were in the flow, so to speak; anxious to know what was next! That’s a great sign.

I think they managed this through a couple of tricks. First you had that rather brutal introduction to the big Demon that instantly identified it as not just an antagonist but an abomination. Second, you had that other student playing the role of damsel in distress to get our protective instincts ging, and finally you had the demon bring up a personal connection and history with both Urokodaki, Sabito and Makomo. And what a history it was.

I am not a blood thirsty person by nature nor do I find vengeance particularly motivating but I really wanted Tanjiro to kick his but!

you go!

Did you see Tanjiro’s reaction? His moment of realization? Powerful stuff. For me, his motivation at that point was less revenge (which is completely understandable!) and more a primitive instinct: to remove a threat to your kind.

If we overthink it for a second, there’s quite a bit of fridge horror going on here. Basically they are all on a mountain which is surrounded by a wisteria grove. For reasons not yet revealed (and maybe never to be revealed) demons stay away from the flowers to the point that they are trapped on the mountain. I’m not sure how often these final selections are held but I’m thinking no more than once a year. Potentially even once every other year or less. Those demons are starving. Even one that’s been around for eras has only managed to eat 50 hopefuls. Considering a demon like that could probably get quite a few every time.

They are sending a lot of trained but still completely green recruits without backup or supervision in there to survive or 7 days. With no food, shelter or light. No provisions at all. Just their weapons.

Tanjiro was incredibly lucky to have run into that thing right off the bat. Imagine if it was night 5 and he was exhausted, hungry and mildly dehydrated, show would be over.

whatever, let’s take a nap

If the training and selection are this brutal, what’s waiting for them after graduation? For the few that graduate, I mean. I suppose one way to look at it is if they send poorly trained slayers into the field, they just become demon food, which makes the demons stronger. They can’t have that!

In any event, you’re absolutely right about how lucky Tanjiro was. And did you notice how he had thought things through? He was planning to stay mobile at night when the demons were active and sleep during the day. He was also heading for the spot on the mountain where the sun would hit first! He’s a smart kid!

I’m happy we finally got to see those ‘water’ animations. Seems it’s the style Urokodaki teaches. I find it visually stunning. Do you think other masters wield different elements?

That’s something cool to think about, isn’t it? What did you think of the moves’ names, like Striking Tide, Water Wheel, or Water Surface Slash? I geek out over that kind of stuff!

I liked them!

We saw a few faces that I recognized among the kids at the selection. If I had to guess, I’m thinking we’re going to be seeing more of them next episode. I’m pumped this is a 24 episode run. Even with everything that happens each week, I always feel like we’re going to run out of time. Maybe that’s just because every week, the episode is over before I know it!

An I got my screencaps back! And then some.

That’s a relief! Oh — did you notice how Tanjiro said “Rest in peace” after killing the first two demons? That reminded me a lot of Allen Walker from D.Gray-Man! That differentiates those two heros from their peers.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 01: Cruelty

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 02: Trainer Sakonji Urokodaki

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 03: Sabito and Makomo

and here are those screencaps in question. Some are very pretty, the wisterias for instance!

      Review Of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Episode 04 – The Names of Dead Children Just a few minutes ago I somehow managed to loose all the screen caps I had taken for this episode.