#the fact that i either didnt like or didnt really care about most alive characters didnt help

[wszczebrzyszynie]

Any more thoughts on tma so far?

well it is 4 am and i literally just finished the finale, so my exact thoughts havent formed yet, but i think i hated it a little? at least the 5th season. the idea itself behind season 5 is something i really dislike (even though the execution was great and enjoyable, i just... wasnt really that invested in the world and the apocalypse itself and mostly listened to get it over with + for Jon and Martin both as characters and a relationship. they werent really my number one favourites, especially at first, but i grew fond of them a little after all those seasons. as for the world and the domains... it hit a very specific worldbuilding petpeeve of mine that i wont go into detail about + it was so extremely over the top all the unease was just. completly gone. which maybe makes sense from a standpoint of this specific plot, but doesnt make a good horror for me, personally) and it just... kept getting worse and worse the more i watched. I really dont like stories that turn out to be very... alternative universes and realities meta in the end, its a twist that im able to accept in small doses, but when it all turned out that in-canon the podcast was just the web getting through to our world... its a concept that completly ruined all the remaining tension. really hated it. not the web though i think Anabelle was one of the most enjoyable characters this season, even if she really only appeared... 4 episodes before the end? its whatever. her va was amazing

the final episode itself is a whole can of worms that i could best describe as... it made sense in itself and what has become of Jon, i think, but eeeh is that really what happens ... again the execution was cool and all but the idea itself for me tastes a bit rotten... so it was all a bit doomed from the start. went into a direction i didnt like back in season 3 and season 5 became this very unpleasant harvest i suppose. then again characters in this series tend to die for literally nothing even though it feels like theyre doing something grand for both them and the listener so i just kind of. expected it. im not really the one to get upset with characters dying or push for happy endings when they dont fit, so im not really feeling much right now, other than general dissatistaction... but i guess people warned me i wasnt going to like it. expected that a little. i dont know i put 6000 hours in the past... three weeks? into this story and all i got from it was a bit of insane thoughts about the vast. i have so many feelings about the vast (which are love its my favourite kind of horror).

seasons 1 and 2 + 4 in a way were pretty cool. first one was my favourite obviously. 3rd one was a literal hell to get through and even the 5th one wasnt that bad. it was enjoyable even if i didnt like where the plot went. this is a lot of words about a story i dont think i care about much anymore . good night !

[flemlem]

okay so thoughts about creation saying that tubbo never was alive. This has been making me go wild. I have so many thoughts about his character and what this may make his character. So in we go, my inane ramblings.( warning, this is Long long)

So first off, during Fit's birthday, after Tubbo had been bugged and Etoiles had said that there was going to be a lot of tweets about how his character could see ghosts now, Tubbo responded with "look man, I was dead a long time ago". So not only has creation told people that Tubbo has Been dead, Q!Tubbo is also aware of this fact. He knows he's not human, he knows hes not alive, he just doesnt really care. Which does kind of make me confused about all his suicidal tendancies but hey, maybe since he's already died at least once he doesn't really care anymore. It's all a joke to him. That's why he always plays it off as nothing serious because he knows, worst comes to worst, he'll be back one day. Or at least thats what he might think. It might also just be the desperation of 'Maybe this time it will work. Maybe this time I will actually die'. Maybe he's been dead for a long time actually. Maybe this is his first iteration or maybe it's his fiftieth.

so my main thought is that he Was alive. Not recently. not recently at all. But he was, once upon a time. There was a time in the far far past, or the far far future where his heart beat on its own and he had to breathe to keep living, to keep creating. Then something happened. Maybe he got into a tough spot and the feds found him and changed him. Maybe in his creation he changed himself. The main reason that I think he Was alive at some point is because of what he said at the party. that he "was dead a long time ago". He doesnt say somehting like 'I've always been dead' just that he Has been dead for A Long Time.

Im personally all for him having died, time and time again, not quite robot not quite human. His conciousness just inhabits a shell. That's why he still has all his limbs despite definetly getting hands caught in crushers before. Maybe that shell is mechanical. Maybe Its something else. Maybe it is like creation. Something he made, that he molded from metal and flesh and clay that is just... hollow. A puppet with cut strings when its not being inhabited. Maybe he got too attached to this shell, maybe thats why he needs to be brought back this time.

I do like the thought that he changed himself. somewhere along the line maybe he got sick, or maybe he just got curious. He started swapping parts out Just Because. He's not Totally a robot. He still looks human enough, just that some of his joints, his muscels, his organs, well, they're not quite organic anymore. He did this to himself. He needed to keep living, he needed to keep creating. He couldnt leave his Creations behind. He needed to continue to make more and to up keep the ones he had already made. He just... forgot to upkeep himself while he was at it.

I also fully believe that he Knew that he was going to die. It wasn't that he wanted the two lives left, its just that he Knew that his body was going to fail soon. He doesn't have create to upkeep this body (this shell) for much longer. It could only take so much damage before it started to give out. That's why he made the 'deal ' with chayanne. He needed the others to think there was a reason for this, that he had signed his life away for more excitement. He needed them to not question it when he didnt get back up. He needed there to be an easy answer to point at. That's why Chayanne said that he thought that it was a joke. He didn't think it was serious because the deal never Actually Happened. But it didnt matter. He was going to die either way.

So anyway, thats like, most of my current thoughts rn. Im So Excited for this :DDDD I want it to permanentally affect Everyone.

[gizkasparadise]

final leg of a journey to love thoughts!! (eps 35-40). this got so gd long so under a cut it goes. spoilers, of course:

PLOT STUFF/PACING

pacing for the plot definitely got shredded in the last chunk, which is a damn shame because otherwise i've been finding the pacing pretty much perfect. eps 35-37 in particular felt like they could have been like a 10 episode arc. ep 38, which mostly dealt with wu palace politics, should have been cut or streamlined imo and more time given to the characters we've actually been riding along with the whole story. by the time we get back to the pregnant empress, prince danyang, the first prince whose name i dont even remember, and the prime minister, i do not care about any of them and i think this subplot was simply just trying to fit too much shit into one bag

that said, this show still let the emotional moments hit and breathe and linger. i love the grief for the fallen liudao comrades as we go, as well as the less heavy but still emotionally important moments like yang ying and tongguan bonding over their upbringing. and we got a wedding /;3;/!!! for this show, the relationships and characters matter more than the storyline so im not mad about anything at all

side note: it's so gd millennial to have a story about a bunch of 30 something year olds who want to fake their deaths and retire into obscurity but instead they go and die for a boss they hate

CHARACTER STUFF

this show consistently brought a lot of depth to its side characters (and side side characters!!). i said it in an earlier post, but it bears repeating that even someone like deng hui i didnt expect anything from, but he got such good development and writing that he became a stealth fave. his dying words essentially being "dude, quit fucking around" ? iconic.

i didnt like tongguan as much as everyone else, so im pretty meh about everything regarding him. the attempt to force-wed ruyi was tonally really weird and didnt make sense (i assume there was some cuts made surrounding it). but LOL at him reusing all the outfits and decor immediately for his wedding to yang ying. baby duke, you tacky motherfucker. i ultimately think yang ying deserves better than him, but the good thing is that she knows this, so she'll be able to hold her own and then some entering into this partnership

shisan really was the heart in a lot of ways--the mom to yuanzhou's dad for the liudao. i was not expecting him to break my heart the way he did, but the fact that he held both qian zhao and sun lang as they died and then tried his best to remove yuan lu from harm and saved chu yue and was just very much a nurturer all the way through got me. his character couldve been cheap comic relief but the writing + performance really elevated him into one of the (imo) most memorable wuxia characters. his line wondering who would get to behead his beautiful skull!!! and how his mantra was always that he was going to drink the best wine, see the most beautiful women, and make the best of friends and he dies having lost the ability to see and having just had wine in memory of qian zhao, yuan lu, and sun lang. like. shut up!!

ruyi and yuanzhou were both so great and they're gonna be the drama OTP to beat forever. i loved the gender reversals, that they both were so respectful of each other, and that they also felt very mature in how they handled things and communicated. they were really interesting characters both together and apart and that's always a win-win. they had a schroedinger's ending where it's not super clear if they're alive or dead (i interpreted it as the latter), but what's kind of beautiful is that either option is satisfying to me. if they both died, they're reunited and with their comrades and the story is truly about the journey and the meaningful short connections we have. if they both survived, it's a bookend with the beginning where they each faked their deaths to escape. A+

COSTUMING

i gotta just separately mention the costuming for this show because it was 15/10. the textures, shisan's accessories, the way red became integrated with yuanzhou's wardrobe and blue with ruyi's. the details on the liudao name amulets!! SO GOOD. i love when characters' clothes tell a story on their own

overall i just really loved this drama it is probably my favorite wuxia ive seen so far! it's gonna be in my brain for awhile lol feel free to send fic prompts if you've made it this far :'D

[lordstormageddidnt]

@cha0ticlesbian had this question on my last post:

Hi! Genuine question, I’m new to supernatural (I’m on season 4) and I can definitely see what people mean about dean and cas and obviously I know about the confession scene but I’m confused if it’s true that deans feeling are “up to interruption” or if he just doesn’t like him back? Also I’ve seen some people saying he’s like homophobic? Ive just really confused and dean is my favorite so I wanna know lol

So let's talk about that. Are Dean's feelings up to interpretation?

Simply put, yes.

Basically, in s15e18 "Despair", when Cas is giving his whole "I love you" speech, Dean doesn't say very much. At random intervals, he gives NPC-type comments* like "Why does this sound like a goodbye?" and "Don't do this, Cas". He does not ever say "I love you too" (unless you're watching the Spanish dubbed version, where he says exactly that).

On the surface, I know my friends (who only get their spn info from me holding them hostage in my discord server), took issue with the line "don't do this". They kind of read it as Dean not respecting Cas in Cas's final moments-- in their eyes, Dean didnt want Cas to confess because he's uncomfortable with Cas's feelings. But the speech isn't about Dean-- it's about Cas giving himself permission to be happy.

That line of thinking plus the past allegations of Jensen Ackles being homophobic is usually where people get the idea that Dean is homophobic. From what I can see, the "Dean is homophobic" is mostly part of the meme of the scene in general, and not something most people actually believe, but some people do genuinely believe he is homophobic. This belief is also supported by Dean's hypermasculine personality in general and the comments he makes; we never once see him outwardly homophobic to any of the openly queer SPN characters, but especially in earlier seasons, he makes jokes (like Sam being a girl because he has long hair) that you would expect someone homophobic to say.

I do think homophobic Dean a valid interpretation, but the logic kind of ignores some of the context of the scene.

For one, there's a moment after the confession where Dean gets a call from "Cas" (it's Lucifer) telling him that Cas is outside the Bunker and needs to be let out. Dean breaks into a sprint to get to the door, and I think this action speaks louder than words (or, lack thereof). Whether or not Dean reciprocates, he cares about Cas as a friend and he wants Cas to be alive again.

For two, when it comes to "don't do this", the more common interpretation is that Dean doesn't want Cas to sacrifice himself. Again, Cas starts the speech by explaning that he will die during his happiest moment, and then transitions into saying that confessing his love to Dean is his happiest moment. Dean doesn't want Castiel to defeat Billie by sacrificing himself.

As a destiel shipper, my interpretation of this scene is a slight variation of the previous one. In my general view of SPN, Dean has known he's in love with Cas since at least s11, and he's known Cas has loved him back for a while, but he's just never felt like it was the right time to start a relationship (constant apocalypses and everything) and he's worried that he'll screw it up. In my head, when he says "don't do this", it means more like "don't do this [love confession like this]". Like, Dean doesn't want their first ILYs* to be marred by the fact that Cas is sacrificing himself.

So, last question-- how do people read the scene as Dean liking Cas back when he never verbally reciprocates?

Some people see Dean's silence as him either not liking Cas back or not realizing he likes Cas back yet, but there's another option here. The reason Cas is dying is because he believes this is his happiest moment. His speech outright states that he believes Dean does not love him back ("the one thing I want is the thing I cannot have"). It's totally possible that Dean reciprocates, but in his mind, saying that really would trigger Cas's happiest moment. There are some great fix-it fics built on the premise of "Dean insults the sht outta Cas to spoil Cas's happiest moment and stop him from being taken by the Empty".

* okay last point. I wasn't sure where to insert this but I think it's insanely interesting. The scene in s15e18 is not actually the first time Cas tells Dean he loves him. In s12, there is an episode where Cas believes he is dying, and he says the line "I love you. I love all of you" to the small crowd of Dean, Sam, and Mary. NPC behavior from Dean ensues as he insists Cas isn't going to die without ever acknowledging the "I love you". The common interpretation is that the first ILY is for Dean, and the second ILY is Cas speaking to the Winchesters as a whole. Do with that as you will lol

Anyway, that's all I got :D thank you for the opportunity to rant about supernatural and feel free to ask me if you have any other questions!

[eamonorus-blog]

Why Abby from TLOU2 is a non-compelling character.

OK, I know that what makes a compelling character is subjective. If you say you really related to Abby I can hardly tell you you are wrong about that. However, there are reasons why Abby is so controversial and disliked, and there are more than simply her being responsible for killing Joel. Let's look at other characters who have killed beloved fan favourites. Zeke Yeager from Attack on Titan, Tywin Lannister from ASoIaF, Silco from Arcane. All of these guys have many fans, and even those who dislike them tend to agree they are well written characters, they may root against them, but they don't resent their inclusion in the story. In my experience at least, a character being disliked doesnt have terribly much to do with how much the audience disagrees with them, or the bad things they do. So long as a character is understandable in their motivations, and possesses certain admirable qualities we can respect, then they will be well liked, and even those who dont like them will at least appreciate the role they play in the story. in TLOU, most people loved Joel as a character. But even if you didnt love the guy, you could at least understand and appreciate him and his story. His character is almost universally respected in terms of protagonists in video games. Does the fact that he robbed and probably killed innocent people in the past change this? Does the fact that he is mean and short with Ellie when they first meet change this? How about the fact that he is a criminal smuggler, that he tortures men for information, that he killed a doctor trying to do whats best for mankind? No, none of those things changed the fact he is well written and broadly very well liked. Why is that? Because we can understand every step of his journey why he does what he does. In the harsh setting of tlou, we expect that people have to make harsh choices to stay alive and protect those they love. And this is NOT because we see things from his perspective. We would feel the same way if he was a side character that we saw him through someone else's eyes. All the characters I mentioned before aren't ones we really see the perspective of, and yet they are hugely well liked, and even those who don't like their characters admit they are well written and compelling. So why does Abby not fit into this category? Lets start with how we are first introduced into her. We learn a few things about her fast. 1. She is willing to capture and torture innocent people on a slim chance of getting revenge on someone. 2. She is willing to put her friends and comrades at risk to do it. 3. She has no sense of gratitude or thankfulness to somebody who saves her life. 4. She shows no remorse at torturing someone to death while their loved ones scream at them to stop. This is not the kind of actions which this harsh world justifies to a degree. This is pointless self destructive killing at its most extreme. Its hard to even wrap our minds around how someone could get into the space mentally to be so psychotic.

But then we are given the supposed rationale for why she is doing this. And what do all the flashbacks with her Dad show us? 1. She was willing to kill Ellie for the cure. This tells us a number of things about her, at least, a number of different things which might be true. Either that she REALLY wants the world to be saved and is really idealistic. Or that she doesn't care about the life of a strange girl at all. The former could be something I suppose, if we got any indication of this afterwards. But she immediately gives up completely on fighting for a greater cause after her Dad dies. Which makes the idea that she is SUPER committed to saving the world a bit suspect if she gave up on it so quick. Instead Owen is the one who hangs on to it and is more likable as a result. But its also just a really bad indicator of her moral character, speaking on someone elses behalf. She really shouldnt be volunteering someone elses life. 2. She knew what her Dad was going to do with Ellie but she still considers Joel totally evil. Again, this is only a justified response if she was totally onboard with her Dads mission, but the fact she never shows any indication of wanting to continue it or trying to fight for a better world, that seems unlikely. Or maybe she was just angry for the normal human reason that someone had killed a member of her family. Well, if family was so important, why is she risking her de-facto families lives by going after him across country attacking a large, fortified settlement? The evidence doesn't support her either having a family first attitude, or an idealistic attitude, only a bloodthirsty one. And with Ellie she has the gall to berate her for coming to Seattle after she let Ellie live! Oh really? So its wrong to try and kill someone after they attack you but let you live? Well Joel didnt even attack her and let her live, instead he risked his life to save hers unprompted, but she doesnt seem to think thats valid. What all the previous characters I have mentioned have, that she does not is a kind of inner strength of character, a value and goal they fight for and remain consistent in. Abby doesnt have this. Sure she helps Lev, but this isnt related to what she did to Joel, I mean it could be I suppose, but you have to reach to make a connection there. She never goes through serious retrospection or self examination about her own hypocrisy or how she is responsible for what happened. Her connection to the WLF that she casts off to help Lev isnt related at all to what she did to Joel, so her main arc has nothing really to do with killing Joel. This means that the game never really demands she reckons with what she did. With Joel we fully understand what drives him and what he fears. With Abby we have a vague sense of a desire for revenge and a willingness to kill people who have done her no harm and are no threat to her, and a desire to be a better person without having to confront what she has done.

[ragnarssons]

Hi! Can i send another small rant?

I still get annoyed when I think about the hypocrisy in episode 6. The way Maria judges Joel. There is no way that she didnt do anything wrong in the years before Jackson. In this world one thing is certain that being a good person doesn't save you. In this world you have to do what you can to survive. And it's easy for her to judge Joel because she now lives in the comfort of Jackson and not in the world where morality has a different meaning now. And it seems like Tommy didn't even tell Joel that he was alive and well, because in the first episode Joel and Tess were looking for a battery for a car to find Tommy. And Maria protecting Tommy by saying "Tommy just followed Joel" He is a grown adult! Joel didn't force Tommy to join the Fireflies and he sure as hell didn't force him to kill people. We can't compare the world in tlou with our world.

Oh anon, the worst part remains the whole "only people who you trust can betray you" and then dun dun duuuun! Joel did exactly that! At least that's how the writing of the show wants you to see, like they're gonna rub everyone's faces in that Maria quote: "wELL MARIA WARNED ELLIE!!" *shrugs*

And then they certainly won't have the time to delve into that, Maria and Tommy's relationship cuz *checking watch* we gotta speed through yknow, the awesome events of TLOU2 and we sure aren't gonna adress Joel's brother backstory or his relationship, huuuh! (even tho by the time of the beginning of TLOU2, and Joel's confession to Tommy, Tommy will probably be a father too... but oh will they adress that? Nooo because we gotta paint Joel AS THE BAD sElfIsh GUY- and yknow, he'll have enough on his plate, hum)

Dark!Sasuke Neil Druckmann thinks his story about revenge bad, violence bad and girls suffering is so gRoUndBrEaKiNg, what you gotta do, good writers who can maintain consistent writing and respect their characters for more than 2 seasons tops, aren't on HBO *side eyes at D&D*

The most brutal part really tho, is the fact that they literally said they don't want to steer from the source material (so the games) but even if they take idk 5 years to adapt TLOU2, there still won't be enough time for a new game to have come out (if ever). So they're literally end their show Like That. I really hope Neil Druckmann gets torn to shreds by public humiliation.

Anyway, to come back to your rant, anon: don't you get it? You're supposed to think that Maria was actually right! Because see, she threw a prophetic quote at Ellie!

(Also yes I do think how Maria was presented on 1x06 was a little too black and white for the whole setting of the show, the fact that they made her into a prosecutor being like... "i put bAd gUyS in jail" didn't help either...) (cuz rotten prosecutors don't exist *cough*) (cuz at this point she seemed so self-righteous and preachy that I was like "how the hell did she end up with Tommy??" because that's some heavy mental gymnastic you gotta do to see that man as an innocent baby dove who was just forced by his brother yknow) (I do hope they give her, and the relationship, more depths later on the show, but me thinks they'll barely care)

[melissa-titanium]

OMG. takes the microphone from you.. indeed i do have comments my friend vox....... hm hm hm hmmmmmm.

ALSO anon i love you you are entirely entitled to your opinions and i hope you have a wonderful day. i hope i will not be making you uncomfortable by writing my personal thoughts on this and am perfectly content w deleting it if youd like to reach out & ask :) I JUST !! like writing about this stuff!!!

I PERSONALLY DONT LIKE DOLLZI EITHER. but just like. for my own reasons. i see them as related so my brain kinda freaks out every time i see someone shipping them because i forget its not canon haha. BUT IN THE CASE OF NOLL... i do like them (GREATEST UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE 21ST CENTURY) so im def thinking about this...

doll's whole "i push people away even if they offer help" deal is what intrigues me about her. you do have to take into consideration how she's lived her life.

uzi had no one, but neither did doll.

uzi was actively subjected to bullying on the regular throughout most of her life, and while doll wasn't, her interactions with lizzy show TO ME AT LEAST that her relationships with uzi's bullies were nothing more that superficial, perhaps lizzy being the closest thing to an actual friend shes had

but even then she seemed to keep lizzy at arm's length considering lizzy didnt really. seem to Care a lot about shit that went down with doll, being more than happy to betray her in favor of a girl she LITERALLY JUST MET who she KNOWS killed dolls parents.

uzi has had no friends. doll has had nothing more that superficial connections. but that changes for uzi when she meets n & v. she gets to sort of heal, to understand what its like to have someone supporting you. doll still does not have that.

“If I find what I’m looking for, I’ll help you too.” Ok but like. Why not help her now?

i imagine she was still grappling with the fact that she's not alone. i talk about this alot in my own analyses (?) solely because i think its very interesting but. again i cannot stress enough how long doll has lived in solitude with motivations festering over the course of her life stemming from the fact that she thinks doing one specific thing (killing v) will solve a good portion of her problems, only to have the rug pulled out from under her. she has this thrown at her with literally no warning and she must be internally torn. she wants to complete her goals, and believes she'll be capable of helping uzi, but she's been working at them by herself for so long that she really isn't ready to step into the unfamiliar territory that is having someone at your side. and she ALSO has to grapple with the fact that if she's working with uzi, she's working with her parent's killer. clearly, considering the events of the entire episode beforehand AND in episode six, she had not gotten over that quite yet.

“You don’t even know that that thing does.” THEN TELL HER INSTEAD OF STEALING WHAT SHE KNOWS AS “The only clue to what’s wrong with [her]” GAAAAAAHHHHH

IM ACTUALLY NOT TOO SURE ABOUT THIS PART MYSELF... i do think its an extension of "i need to see if i can do this myself, since working with others is literally my least preferred option." i doubt she was intentionally just trying to be mysterious because. i really don't think she... planned to die before being able to tell uzi everything. like. you get me. okay im sort of getting lost on this I DON'T REALLY KNOW HOW THIS RELATED TO NOLL B UT LIKE . YOU GET ME this was just how i feel about dolls character.

i think doll could change. if, by some fucking miracle (please liam vickers for the love of robo-god,) doll comes back fresh and alive, she could definitely change. sure she's defensive and often has impractical approaches to problems with obviously simpler solutions... but so was uzi, to be fair! which is where n comes in. you saw what happened with n & uzi, you saw how he helped her change. i could say a LOT about the parallels between uzi, doll and v but ultimately because this was meant to be a shipping analysis (OOPS LOL) i think doll and n could work. if the situation was different, they could absolutely work. now, i could say alot about how romantic relationships make no sense to me, but that's like. another post.

OKAY THANK YOU FOR READING. i love my yuri

Found out what bugs me about NxDoll (and Dollzi I suppose) outside of it just not getting the ship(s)

Doll did the same fucking thing to Uzi that V did to N (minus the whole “had a romantic relationship in the past” bit).

Episodes 3-6, she refuses to communicate to Uzi what she’s looking for and why, pushes Uzi away despite Uzi being willing to help one of her literal bullies (pushes other people away too but, y’know), fucking antagonizes Uzi while she’s vulnerable, and guess what fucking happens to her because of this.

“If I find what I’m looking for, I’ll help you too.” Ok but like. Why not help her now? And what are you looking for? Wouldn’t teaming up make finding this thing easier? You obviously have an idea of what to look for, why not tell them? No dont fucking run- and she’s gone.

“You don’t even know that that thing does.” THEN TELL HER INSTEAD OF STEALING WHAT SHE KNOWS AS “The only clue to what’s wrong with [her]” GAAAAAAHHHHH

Doll i love you and most of the other characters but lordy loo you brought your demise unto yourself. Godspeed Ms. "Pragmatic"

.

[la-pheacienne]

Lol if it was ShOckING then how can it be expected and something "we shouldnt feel surprised by"? Even with shocking character moments in got they were still expected and made sense for them. Events like the jaime attacking ned or cersie putting joff on the throne never left an audience confused after and go on the internet to try scramble an excuse for them because we understood who these characters were and what matters to them as they played on screen. No one was actually thinking that daemon would still be hung up over being replaced as viserys' heir 20yrs later and be so angry as to hurt rhaenyra his brothers daughter and wife over it. Like if the writers had done their job in showing who daemon really is than the moment daemon and rhaenyra started having conflict and were alone together we shouldve felt nothing but dread for rhaenyra. But we didnt and the choke came out of nowhere. Because to us the show was building towards daemon never hurting his family as his one(1) and only redeeming quality that was keeping him away from straight up villain territory. And the fact that even the writers had to come out and explain that scene is proof they either failed to do what they wanted to do or they used a scene of domestic violence as ultimately just for shock value.

"Shock value is the potential of an image, text, action, or other form of communication, such as a public execution, to provoke a reaction of sharp disgust, shock, anger, fear, or similar negative emotions".

Unfortunately American media is full of it. It's kind of their thing. It's easy to provoke an emotional reaction, it's very difficult to create a multilayered story. So they prefer the former.

House of the Dragon particularly suffers from it. Examples:

Viserys ordering the slaughter of his wife and showing that slaughter on screen. No guys it's not a feminist take. Showing a woman's belly being cut in half is not feminism. It's shock value.

Laena ordering her dragon to burn her alive when she was already dying anyway. Again, not feminism, sorry. The quiet tragedy of a woman dying in childbirth and the grief of her husband are obviously not impressive enough for dumb Americans so let's include a totally idiotic suicide that makes zero sense narratively just to provoke a reaction = shock value.

Larys masturbating on Alicent's feet. Adds nothing to the narrative, we already know that Larys is evil as fuck and we already know that Alicent is using him to USURP the rightful heir. These things are already established. A negotiation that should have been meaningful for Alicent's character, by showing her cunningness, determination and plotting skills is reduced to meaningless victimisation, thus objectifying one of the main ANTAGONISTS of the series in order to evoke a reaction of disgust = shock value.

Rhaenys' girlbossification. Added absolutely nothing to the narrative apart from shock, sure, kill a bunch of civilians just to threaten the usurpers? And then leave? What? One of the most stupid scenes in the show.

Crispy Cream killing Laenor's lover. Another extremely stupid scene. Didn't make ANY sense, Crispy got zero conséquence for it, I literally don't understand why that scene was included other than its shock value because it's a game of thrones wedding.

Daemon killing Rhea. Jeez. Horrible, horribly shot, horribly acted, Daemon had less human traits than a fucking Dementor I mean WTF. Am I supposed to care about this woman that appeared on screen for 1 minute? Lol I literally dgaf. It was included merely for shock value and it didn't even shock me because it was just so pointless. That's another level of lame right there.

Daemon choking Rhaenyra, the woman he spent 10+ years pining after, the woman he wanted to protect by exiling himself. The woman that just lost their baby and her throne. That woman. Sure guys domestic violence can occur in a couple that seemed to love each other deeply before the first violent strike, but that's real life. In fiction, it doesn't work that way, sorry. In fiction, when you show a character having a certain trait, you fucking STICK.TO.IT. You don't change that on a whim. If you show that Daemon is loyal to his family, he needs to stay loyal to his family, period. Characters in fiction have an interior logic that doesn't exist in the real world. Real people don't necessarily have that interior logic but fictional characters do. You mess up that logic, you fuck up the story. Aristotle said about tragedy that characters need to be static and that is the most important part. STATIC. It's the narrative that moves the characters forward. They don't just randomly throw a fit out of nowhere because of a random change in personality. But if you use the word STATIC to an American producer they may faint out of boredom because they have literally two brain cells. So yeah again, adds nothing to the narrative apart from shock. Not feminism, just stupid shock value.

Ned's death and Cersei putting Joffrey on the throne were shocking scenes but we ALREADY KNEW that Joffrey is a piece of shit and Cersei wants to put him on the throne. We were only interested in the how the hell are they gonna do that. And when we saw it it was magnificent. It elevated their character arcs by moving the plot forward. That's great storytelling.

[gh0st-t0wn3]

(Kinda a continuation of my last post, but not really?? Idk)

We are perfectly capable of excusing bad behavior irl when we are presented with "extenuating circumstances", but for some reason nobody cares about that when it comes down to Six .

Something I wanna talk about in particular is how the Fandom uses the Guests as a means to prove she's malicious. Why do people hold it against Six for killing the Guests of the Maw, as if that's evidence to her being evil? And as if the Guests didnt willingly come to a resort that specializes in cooking and serving dead children to their guests, like??? Firstly, most of the guests in that scene LUNGE at Six, fully prepared, and in fact excited, to eat her. Six NEVER looks excited to eat when the hunger hits her! She's in pain, doubled-over and practically incapacitated with no other choice than to eat or die. She kills the Guests, yes- but I'd warrant that out as self defence more than anything.

It's truly upsetting in this Fandom to see so many different media sources which misinterpret events and favor particular interpretations/misinterpretation over others, ignore in-game evidence, lack perspective, and overall demonstrate inconsistencies and double-standards in their judgment of many characters.

For example:

Six killing the Guests - the guests, who previously attempted to consume her alive,  chased her, threatened her life and safety on multiple occasions. In the final cutscene they first lunge at her, again, in an attempt to eat her. They demonstrate excitability and willingness to abandon large quantities of cooked and prepped food in front of them, in order to consume a living child.  (This is not comparable to Six's hunger, as she goes long periods of time without food or water, and the hunger debilitates her, causes her to groan in pain, double-over, and struggle to even move - her option is either eat or become immobilized and die. The Guests are provided with all the food they could possibly want or need - they do not need to eat a living child, they WANT to). So yeah, Six kills something like several Guests who have demonstrated that they will kill her if she doesn't act. This scene is one of the few in the LN games where Six is empowered to not just run and hide, but to protect herself. Yet this is counted, by the majority of the Fandom, against her as making her villainous.

In contrast:

The Thin Man is responsible for the death of, at least, 18 children, based on the glitching remains in LN2. He is the only individual who is capable of causing glitched remains, so it's only natural that he would be the one responsible. 18 children, all of whom had no real way of hurting him, nor of defending themselves against him. That is 18 defenseless children killed by Thin Man... and honestly, there is absolutely no justification for that. Those children did nothing to him. I know there are theories about how much autonomy he has, but the creators have already confirmed that Thin Man is the face behind the Signal, he is the one in charge of everything, he is not being controlled or manipulated by another entity. And even if that wasn't the case, if he really was being controlled or manipulated, the fact is - 18 children are still dead because of him. And yet he is portrayed by fans as a "cinnamon roll" and an overall sympathetic character whose actions are, more often than not, justified.

What makes his actions justifiable and non-villainous in comparison to Six's?? Why are the actions of traumatized children (children who's minds aren't properly developed yet, at that) held to a different standard to a grown adult, fully capable of understanding his actions?  Why is every violent act Mono commited ignored in favor of focusing on times he was good and sweet? Why is every violent act commited by Six hyper-focused on, while her kind moments are overshadowed and completely ignored/forgotten? Why are so many willing to deny that the Thin Man has any agency in his villainous acts when he is so obviously portrayed as the antagonist of the game?

People who only portray Six as some kind of villain who needs to be taken down and killed, just because of her actions that were influenced both by trauma and Mono himself, truly show how little they understand real trauma and how unwilling they are to try and understand it.

(Also, whenever I see comments about killing Six, I wonder if they remember the fact that she's literally a traumatized 9 year old living in a post apocalyptic world with anything and everything out to kill her at every turn, and the fact that so many people are so quick to wish death, or worse, on a literal child for a natural trauma response just because that response didn't end how they wanted it too in regards to a character they liked better in comparison to her is honestly disgusting.)

Speaking of Six's trauma, can we please actually acknowledge the symptoms that we literally see her experiencing in-game (and the comics)?

Some PTSD symptoms include:

   -  Memory issues, including forgetfulness of

      important aspects of the traumatic event(s)

   -  Difficulty maintaining close relationships

   -  Lack of interest in things you once enjoyed

   -  Difficulty experiencing positive emotions

   -  Feeling emotionally numb

   -  Being easily startled or frightened

   -  Always being on guard for danger

   -  Self destructive behavior

   -  Trouble sleeping

   -  Irritability, anger outbursts, or aggressive

      behavior

   -  Overwhelming guilt or shame

   -  Trying to avoid thinking or talking about the

      traumatic event

Six does practically all of this!

   -  Memory issues, including forgetfulness of important aspects of the traumatic event(s):

It's heavily implied in the Little Nightmares 1 comics that Six has little to no memories of the events of Little Nightmares 2.

   -  Difficulty maintaining close relationships:.. must I explain?

   -  Lack of interest in things you once enjoyed; In Little Nightmares 1 Six passes through several area's, notably the daycare (nursery?), and the residence where there are several music box's, all of which are practically identical to the same music box she fought so hard to protect and shows absolutely zero interest in them despite it having once brought so much comfort.

   -  Difficulty experiencing positive emotions; I mean- I think this can be applied to every character in the world of Little Nightmares, tbh.

   -  Feeling emotionally numb; in Little Nightmares 1, Six hardly reacts anymore to the dangers around her, she's grown accustomed to being the target of monsters and almost being killed at practically every waking moment, and even when she hugs the Nomes, she doesn't do anything else, she doesn't smile, there's no indication that it makes her happier or calm, she just hugs them, puts them down and walks away, as if she's numb to emotions.

   -  Being easily startled or frightened

   -  Always being on guard for danger; I think these two are self-explanatory.

   -  Self destructive behavior; there are several close ups of Six's game model which include faint scars of bite marks on her hand, assuming these aren't from enemies she's faced before the events events LN2/1, it may suggest that Six bites herself often and hard enough to leave marks, a form of self harm, perhaps?

   -  Trouble sleeping; we see this clearly in the beginning cut scene of LN1 when she jolts awake, gasping. Of course this could be from her nightmare about the Lady, but I don't think it's unusual to assume this happens often.

   -  Irritability, anger outbursts, or aggressive behavior: Six killing the bully can be seen as unnecessarily aggressive behavior, to some (though I personally believe it was a natural response to, y'know, being kidnapped, tortured, and hung upside unconscious, but that might just be me)

   -  Overwhelming guilt or shame: Not only is it hinted at that Six suffers from Survivors Guilt after the events of the Nest, but she also looks shameful after she drops Mono.

   -  Trying to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event: Again, in the Little Nightmares 1 comics, although she doesn't seem to remember much, we see Six actively try to avoid talking about her past.

In conclusion: you guys seriously have to stop pinning the blame of everything horrible in this game on a traumatized child who's terrified and probably has little to no idea wtf is even going on half the time. Like seriously.

[leossmoonn]

Hiiiii,

Can I request tvd characters reacting to the reader being egirl? Like the reader is their friend and she is and e girl, and i think for the vampires this style is very odd. Also could it be a female reader?

characters - stefan, damon, klaus, elijah, rebekah, kai, and katherine x fem!reader

includes - language, nsfw themes. me really badly describing e girl fashion 😭. some of these i imagined as the readers relationship w them being platonic or romantic, ill let yall know the difference

————

stefan salvatore - platonic

okay i love stefan but tbh i don’t think he’d like your style….

AT FIRST.

it’s just different, you know?

and like i said, i love stefan but he’s a little bit basic 🌝

it just took some time for him to get used to

he isn’t used to seeing a someone with split-dyed hair, lots of eyeliner, drawn-on hearts with eyeliner, dark and layered clothes

but soon he grows to love your style and you!

you two are literally THE best friends

damon salvatore - romantic

lets be honest here

damon LOVES it

ofc in the beginning he would tease you bc you would always be dyeing your hair, wearing chokers that could puncture somebody if they got close enough to you, and long earrings that reached the floor

lol no but seriously, he always was attracted to you

he adores your style

obviously its a lot different from the other girls (quirky 🤪🤪🤪) but he likes the difference

you also look like someone who could kick ass and who is pessimistic and sarcastic and funny, and honestly, that’s his dream girl

you two definitely wear matching outfits

OMG AHH

i can imagine it now

cute couple fits!!!

he even lets you paint his nails

you find it so hot you two def stayed up all night 😏😏😏

and he loves loves loves showing you off at the mall, knowing that everyone is jealous and wants a piece of both of you

you two ALSO jam out to music in his car

you two def always get matching tattoos

he lets you do his eyeliner too!

damon with eyeliner…..

puts the dam in damon

klaus mikealson - platonic

i think klaus wouldn’t like it much either at first

but he quickly warms up to you

of course, hes just so used to seeing girls in big, period dresses or jeans and a nice blouse

but he quickly falls in love with your style

and honesty, he kinda wants your style too

i imagine him always asking you what to wear when he goes to mystic falls so he can impress caroline

i feel like he would see you as his little sister and so when you wear tight clothing and lots of make up hes like 👹👹👹👹👹

but he of course supports you no matter what

i don’t really have much to say about klaus 😭

elijah mikealson - romantic

elijah on the other hand…

your style and whole personality just intrigues him so much

like with being alive for so long, he’s def like seen literally every single different style

but this… you were new

and he was very very interested

and intimated

like he didnt realise one could be so alluring in dark clothes, chains, and different colored lipstick

he befriended you at first and you also found him very attractive

he was very charming and so different from literally everyone, he also intrigued you

its not really a question as to whether you two were the most hottest, but also surprising couple to step out

when you two walked together, elijah in his suits and combed back hair and you in your different colored hair, tattoos, and fishnet stockings

you both were quite a pair

and elijah really really loves your style and the bold, confident attitude you bring towards the table

youre not afraid to wear what you like, youre not afraid to say what you want to say, and you look fine as hell doin so

elijah even lets you dress him up one day and you had so much fun hehe

he looked like 10 years younger w his hair messy and the necklaces and the painted nails hehe

bottom line is, elijah fully supports and loves your style. its really his favourite part of you :)

rebekah mikaelson - platonic

rebekah looooves your style as well

your style is one of the reasons why she was like "yes. we have to be best friends."

she has a flair for the dramatic and she loves fashion, so of course she would love your style

unlike klaus, she has seen and even dabbled in the e-girl style

i feel like what she wore was more on the goth but like, whatever

you two definitely do your makeup for each other and pick each other's outfits

borrowing clothes does become an every day thing

you two are literally conjoined to the hip

you introduce her to music that she's never heard of (even in her 1,000 years of being alive)

you get her to wear fishnets socking, cool different coloured eyeliner, and cool hairstyles

you two are the baddest bitches in mystic falls and new orleans

kai parker - romantic

kai is all over you from the start

doesn't help the fact that he hasn't had a girlfriend in like, 20 years lolllll

but anyways, you just attract him so much

from your makeup, to your clothes, to your laugh, to your caring and strong persona, you got him wrapped around your finger 😉

he loves going shopping with you and seeing all the cute outfits you make up

he also lets you do his makeup. he is very in with the eyeliner

he likes lookin' like a bad boy, you know him lol

you two definitely fit in with each other so well

like if soulmates were a thing, you two being together would be fate!

katherine pierce - romantic

okay so katherine def saw you as competition first

she was like

“ugh she likes she so better than me? bull 🙄🙄”

but you decide to try and get around her little grudge and force her to hang out with you

she then sees how cool you are and becomes your friend!

after hanging out for a while you two develop feelings for each other, especially katherine

like homegirl has fallen haaarrrdddd

every thing about is just so perfect and not to mention, just your style and your personality tie it all in together

so she asks you out after a lil and ofc you say yes

you two def do each other's makeup

you show katherine new tips that she swore she's always known (no she never has lol)

matching outfits are definitely a thing between you two, too!

katherine just loves you so much and really just supports yo u101% 24/7 :))

————

hope you liked this! :))

[shoezuki]

Tommy's prison/revival arc isnt well written actually

Anyways ive been wanting to talk on it a while for a bit here but havent had the Time or like. The thought to. But im gonna go off now.

First off im gonna say im ASSUMING this stream and plot of tommy being in the prison with dream is written entirely by tommy and dream. Wilbur May be involved in the latest stream but im not sure.

Bringing tommy back to life after only three days of him being dead did practically nothing to progress plot, the characters, or audience's understanding. In fact i feel that it damaged Other characters' potential and plot and already established plotlines.

The 'development' aspect

A really, really easy way to see if anything has changed or developed through an arc or plotline is to straightup just compare the 'beginning' to the 'end' in terms of the barebones situation. So;

Beginning: tommy is trapped in an isolated prison cell with dream, his own abuser who has hurt him in the past, for an unknown amount of time. He's terrified of dream and being stuck there with him.

End: tommy is trapped in an isolated prison cell with dream after being killed then revived by him, his own abuser whos hurt him in the past, for an unknown amount of time. Hes terrified of dream and being stuck there with him.

Okay. This is simplified obvious. But the point stands. ALTHOUGH the troupe of 'going back to the beginning' is common in the heroes journey its. It doesnt work here. Has tommy learned anything? Has he changed as a character? Is the severity of their situation any different? Have we, as the audience, learned anything new?

Im going to expand on that last point because i think it has the strongest potential argument. Technically for progression in literature and development of plot/characters, things can Change without them being Aware as characters. It can change just by the audience's perception changing or being challenge.

Slight example: i've been reading a webcomic called Your Throne. Its a fantasy/political drama about a noble lady who entered a competition with another noble lady to become the empress. The main lady lost despite her being a better fit, and the comic starts with the main lady trying to assassinate the empress. Its assumed and stated by the main lady that she 'ruined her life' and so thats all the readers know. However, later in the novel we see flashbacks to the competition itself and find that the two ladies were extremely close friends, neither wanting anything bad for the other, but it was the emperor himself who manipulated both of them for his own agenda. Those flashbacks gave us an entirely different idea of who the real antagonist is and completely changed the two main ladies' relationship. THAT is how the audience's understanding of the plot and novel can be used to change the entire story. We dont get such here though

Some things that were brought to light during tommy being dead/revived:

Dream is capable of reviving people infinitely

This was already implicated and assumed. The book dream has being a means of reviving people has been around Technically since schlatt's death. This just 'confirmed' what was known

Time works differently/feels longer in the afterlife

This doesnt really impact much beyond emotions and implications. If we had more insight into what the 'afterlife' is like beyond nothingness perhaps so. But really it just makes it so wilbur being dead for what feels like 9 years and tommy having been dead for 2 months appeal to emotions.

Wilbur is evil

This one fuckin sucks i cant lie HSKSHSISSGEGDV. Like i was gon go on bout it and i will but it jus sucks. We have nothing to go on besides tommy's word, no examlles of what Horrible things wilbur said could make tommy assume this, etcetc. Ill most likely make a seperate post on how this feels like we're just going to get 'wilbur is a horrible villain' type with him. But still. I feel wilbur Not Being Good isnt a new development.

Dream is going to revive wilbur

This doesnt feel new either, part because phil had wanted to revive wilbur before (ill get to that more later) and that tommy had kept dream alive/initially imprisoned him with the idea of him reviving wilbur.

Dream believes wilbur will break him out of prison

Okau this makes no sense to me actually. I cwnt understand How exactly wilbur would be able to do this? Or why dream believes he even Could? Mans been dead for like 9 years and all we Know of the afterlife is that its black... nothingness. How would 9 years of that make wilbur capable of busting the prison open?

So. Yeah. All in all this plotline hasnt done anything new, developed things, or altered people's perceptions. We just ended up back at square one. Back to tommy being traumatized, dream being 'evil' and horrible and doing villain monologues, and them being stuck together.

Other characters and plotlines

Im pretty damn sure tommy's revival fucked up a LOT of other characters' plotlines and potential development. Honestly i feel this has a lot to do with the writers not communicating with other ccs well enough. But Ill talk about specific characters from least to most fucked over in my opinion:

Sam

He's the best off. He hqd been there during tommy's death, had been close to tommy, had majorly blamed himself and his own mistakes for tommy's death. His grief and self hatred was actually really heartbreaking and well done. The attached character of Sam Nook being unaware of tommy's death and simply waiting for tommy to return was a really good parallel to sam's own grief and anger. like it really snapped sam the guy who cares for tommy and wants to do Right by him back together with him as the Warden of the prison. Mixed personal life with 'just business'.

I feel it wouldve been nice to have him like. Have more time to grieve properly and come to terms eith tommy's death and his own involvement/influence over the events. Him finding tommy alive again Could be a means of him like. Facing his own grief head on if done well.

Ranboo

Mostly in the context of him and sam's argument do i feel it got screwed over. The weight of them yelling at each other and trying to find who to blame and the implications that Maybe ranboo was the one who caused the security breach that closed down the prison on tommy just.... doesnt hit so hard anymore. Because how can there be blame and arguments and a 'who done it' mystery when tommy popped up all fine again?

Puffy

I dony know much of her involvement or how she found out tommy died (besides metagaming shhhhh) but i saw her monologuing of how they 'failed' tommy and like. Her whole 'he was so young we the Adults failed him' spiel is like........... inconsequential? Now??? Like no dont worry he died but hes alright now.

Philza

BET YOU DIDNY EXPECT TO SEE THIS FUCKER!!!!!! But actually though i want to talk bout how this ties into phil. A LOT. for Zalbr ❤. But also because i see ppl tying phil to tommy's death n like nah shutup u doin it wrong. Ill go off more in a Wilbur Post. But essentially: i dont like that dream is now going to revive wilbur. I feel they arent going to tie philza into this Despite phil having originally been trying to revive his son and studying on it and Attempting and Failing. But now suddenly dream can just. Say some magic words and Poof wilbur lives? So we're just going to Kill philza's revival attempts plotline and leave that hanging? This made his efforts seem pointless and Wack like oh why didnt you just Say The Magic Words phil????

Niki

I feel really bad for niki. She hasnt been able to do a lore stream during tommy's 'death' (she tweeted she wanted to but her computer wasnt working) and considering her entire character.... that shit is important. We seen it with Jack Manifold how tommy's death impacted Him considering he literally wanted tommy dead. And since niki is in a similar boat to jack of trying to kill tommy and it being her Only goal...... thats extremely important.

BUT. i feel there wasnt any communication. Did she or anyone even know tommy would be revived? Did no one consider they could At Least let her do a single stream on it? Like jack manifold????

We couldve gotten a Really good niki lore stream. I genuinely was so excited for it and i dont regularly watch her. But we seen it with jack manifold which is why i dont feel he got screwed because mans genuinely did So Good he could pop off with anything n i think it works in His favour. But now........ for niki. Canonically she never even knew tommy was Dead. So its like nothing even happened for her. Is she just supposed to continue on trying to kill tommy with no progression?

What i think would work

This is more me being like 'hey @ the dsmp writers let me in' type speculation sbosegussgs. But i was thinkin on a Really easy way to 'fix' this without rewriting lore and the streams.

Dream should kill tommy again now that he's been revived and Leave Him Dead.

More development for the characters who are affected by his death Especially niki. More time for grief and self reflection and development

A chance for the audience to figure out what the 'afterlife' really is.

Dream is supposed to be smart and a master manipulator or something right? Why doesnt he use being able to revive tommy as a bargaining chip with sam for his own freedom?

The audience would now Know dream's intentions with tommy better, that this death isnt 'final', but we could still see other characters' grief and reactions and coping without it feeling cheap. Ive seen some 'but people dont know tommy is alive so hes still dead in their mind' but that sucks imo.

We'd know more on dream's ability to revive people and that he can just Do It on a whim (which i think sucks but hey im trying) but no one else would know this canonically

Okay. Im done. If you read this. Thankyou. I love you. Hmu.

[mittensmorgul]

do we know why the boys were not allowed to have facial hair on the show? i feel like it was more in character than to assume sam and dean had to time to just always be clean shaven in the middle of apocalypses, being demons or possessed, fighting gods ect. on the flip side, im still confused as to how cas grew facial hair in purgatory when i didnt think that was something that happened to angel vessels?

Hi there! There's actually quite a bit going on in this question (I think this is my way of saying sorry it's taken me a few days to get to it :'D)

I'll start by saying I don't think it was a matter of "not allowed" to have facial hair, but it's actually more complicated than that. Not to mention Dean especially was almost never what I'd call "clean shaven" outside of when they were beginning a hunt and posing as FBI.

There's a video I think on the s1 dvd's called something like "a day in the life of Jared and Jensen". Wait... I found it on the youtube...

It's only about 10 minutes long, and if you haven't seen it, it's worth watching all of it. It was shot during the filming of 1.20 Dead Man's Blood, so they hadn't even been at this a full year yet. About 2 1/2 minutes in, they go through hair and makeup, and talk about shaving.

Back in s1, Sam had to be more clean shaven to look younger, and Dean had to have a bit of scruff just to look a bit older. So at first it was to visually make their ages more obvious. But it's also about continuity on camera. Remember, each episode of supernatural was filmed over eight weekdays (with a couple days for weekends in the middle). Episodes are NOT filmed in scene order. It would make it almost impossible to show normal, chronological beard growth over the span of two weeks of filming, you know?

If they film scene 38 first, then scene 12, then scene 19, then scene 2 over the course of four days, their facial hair has to remain believably consistent, not grow and shrink :'D So having a designated easily duplicatable facial hair style (and hair cut, because head hair can grow noticeably in two weeks, too, especially when it's as short as Jensen's on the sides/back) makes visual continuity actually possible. Especially when they're filming entire EPISODES out of airing order.

Think about Jensen's beard in the AU bunker battle scene in the beginning of 15.04. That was the first episode filmed of s15, and those were the first SHOTS filmed of s15 before Jensen shaved off his hiatus beard for the rest of the season. Those scenes were probably filmed in a single day, two at most, before he had to resume "standard Dean." Also think about Demon Dean's slightly longer hair that went back to normal, or Sam's beard from the first three episodes of s14 before he shaved in 14.04. Those times the longer hair/facial hair was used to show a lack of self-care for various reasons.

I think Cas's Purgatory beard was used to show the same. He was doing "penance" in his own mind, but I do think it was also the seeds of his entire depression arc that would run right through 15.18 and then never get an actual resolution (sorry, I had to at least grumble about that a little bit...). I remember Jensen saying when he asked why Dean was clean-shaven in Purgatory and Cas wasn't, he was told by someone that "Dean has knives," and would actually continue shaving for some reason, while Cas wouldn't even bother using his grace/powers to maintain his appearance there.

I don't believe the show has ever made any sort of statement about angel vessels NOT growing hair/facial hair. Plus by this point in the series, we really do have to consider that Cas's body, not as much his vessel anymore. Jimmy was long gone, and the last at least two times Cas had been resurrected, that body was also remade for him. We're at least two degrees of remove from that being a normal vessel, so even if angel vessels aren't "supposed to" grow hair or change their appearance, Cas would have an exception asterisk attached. :'D

The thing is, we HAVE seen other angels change the appearance of their vessels. I mean... Lucifer, for one, especially in s13. He grew scruff, looked messy, etc. And it was explained to be a result of having been imprisoned and his grace seriously depleted to the point he couldn't even perform small magical tasks for himself.

So why did Cas grow scruff in Purgatory? Because television is a visual storytelling medium. If you had a friend in real life who usually looked like Cas normally does, and then saw him after months and saw the guy Dean found in Purgatory, what would your immediate thoughts be about how that friend had been doing lately? Did similar thoughts about how Cas's last few months in Purgatory alone, running from Leviathans, staying alive primarily to keep the Leviathans focused on HIM instead of on Dean?

I think the phrase "run ragged" applies to Cas's Purgatory look. Sometimes facial scruff combined with smudged on dirt is the fastest visual shorthand for "yikes this guy has had it rough lately." Hence his "get clean" scene in 8.07 restoring him entirely to "normal," including clean-shaven and a decent haircut somehow. I think he'd been entirely able to have given himself that look in Purgatory, but he just never bothered to. For whatever reason, Dean did bother. And that was part of the visual narrative telling us that Dean still cared, and that Cas (outside of his mission of keeping the leviathan away from Dean) didn't.

Like, even when Cas was human in early s9, when he was on the run and homeless, even when he was given opportunity to shave his scruff (at the beginning of the episode while brushing his teeth, and at the end after showering at the bunker and before being kicked out) he still retained the scruff. The next time we saw him in 9.06, when he was settling into his "new human life" as a sales associate, even though we understand he's still technically homeless, he's actually maintaining his appearance, demonstrated by his care for himself and the fact he bothered to shave. For him, it was a visual signifier of his growing to accept himself.

To go way back up to that video above, in the makeup trailer are dozens of photos of different looks for each of them. Yes, some are purely silly, but even as shown in 6.15 The French Mistake (the "I'm a painted whore!" scene) are a few similar continuity photos. Every day of filming, every change to makeup and hair (including FX makeup showing wounds, bruises, etc.) has to be documented for the sake of continuity. Or you'd have an episode with alternating scenes of them having longer/shorter/longer facial hair over the course of what's supposed to be a single day on screen. The easiest way to maintain that continuity is character consistency, only having a drastically different look occasionally, for a specific reason.

So why couldn't they have chosen to go with a beard for an entire season? It's just as easy to maintain beard consistency day to day on set as it is to just have them shave to scruff, right? Crowley did that... he was clean-shaven the first few seasons he was on the show, and then grew the beard, so why not Sam and Dean?

As I said above, the visual language of the show actually means something. These aren't real people who might casually decide to grow facial hair for fashion reasons. They're fictional characters being used to tell a specific story. Their appearance and their clothing choices are visual shorthand to give us information about their current mental state, their internal priorities, etc. It's all part of the story, and in this story, Sam and Dean generally care enough to maintain their chosen physical appearance. They only seem to grow beards when they're either being run ragged or otherwise lack the ability to care for themselves, whether by choice or by circumstance.

I think it's less "they were not allowed to grow beards" and more "this would not be in character in the visual language of the show."

[garrothromeave]

the hell is mystreet season 6??

(warning, long post ahead)

ok so before i start this

1) ive never posted shiiiit on tumblr before so watch me suffer, im just here to talk about stuff that my friends who dont know anything about aphmau have to listen to me rant about for hours on end

2) i havent seen mystreet in like years (except season 3, i watch that frequently since im laurance and shadow knight deprived) so please bear with me because i might be completely wrong on this lol. it’s just like, pointing out things i remember

3) im sure someones already talked about this but who cares

4) im gonna do this stupid thing where i just explain myself a bit at first, if you dont want to read that just skip to the part where you see “the actual thingy:” in bold and italics 

5) mild disclaimer; i am completely aware that jessica is not a professional writer. i know that she did her best to appeal to her fans, and honestly, respect for that. while this post will come off as aggressive and probably look like hate, that’s not my intention in the slightest. it’s just... intense criticism. im sure y’all probably already know that, but yeah, just stating that anyways. i do believe that jess is doing her best, and in no way do i want to dismiss any hard work she’s done. that being said; prepare for a very strongly opinionated post.

haha watch there be 10000+ typos in this making me look like a complete dumbass

ok here we go 

one of the main reasons i stopped watching aphmau back in 2017 was the mess that was season 4. like, in the first few episodes of the emerald secret, i thought “woah!! this is kinda cool, im a sucker for mystery!” because of course i was, it was something new and something exciting. the only problem i had with it at the time was kim, but that’s just because i always found her annoying and out of place. i just didn’t understand why garroth dragged her along and honestly i still don’t to this day BUT, moving on.

anyways, as the season progressed, 13 year old me was of course just “:0!!” the entire time--that is, up until the reveal of the main villain. i remember watching the episode, seeing the reveal of ein, and then stopping. like, just for a quick break, but i was still just overwhelmingly disappointed. like, and this was the time when pdh was airing and ein just got made alpha (i think?) and i had really really liked eins character in pdh. either way, that really sucked and actually opened my eyes to a lot of things.

one of the main things bein’ the fact that this was supposed to be a slice of life kinda series that decided to take a turn to a more edgy kinda approach. which, i guess i regularly wouldnt mind? but seeing as mcd was kinda bein neglected at the time it just didnt sit right with me. BUT WHATEVER, point is i stopped watching mystreet all together at the end of season 4.

like, a whole year later my brother tells me that shit’s getting intense in season 5 + 6 of mystreet, and my brilliant self decided to give it a shot--but i refused to watch all of season 5, so i only stepped in when ein made an appearance. so whenever that was, that’s where i picked up because i didnt care enough to see 

and y’know--i honestly didn’t hate it at first. in fact, i found it oddly cool. it wasn’t enough to get me into aphmau again, but it was enough to where i was intrigued. i dont know why, but i never watched the finale, so i didnt see the ending until just a few weeks ago--but back then, i thought it was neat. looking back on it however... im just so confused. 

side note: only got back into aphmau this time around because of mcd. mainly because like, i adore the first season and the first half of the second season. and being nearly 18 now, im a lot more appreciative of plot and well-written characters n junk. 

the actual thingy:

ok back on track. imma stop spilling out my story of how i got back into aphmau, and lets just skip to what rewatching mcd made me realize of season 6′s plot and shit:

-emmalyn. how the fuck does ghost even remotely exist? if she’s emmalyn as claimed, then why have we already seen emmalyn in the mystreet universe alive? look i get that creators can do whatever they want with their stories but at the same time please provide some sort of explanation good god. and maybe they did and i just havent seen it, so if there is one--let me know. but until that day imma just sit here confused as fuck

-ok so imma just be real, the whole ‘ultima’ thing is just... not great. in my opinion, anyways. like... i saw someone mention this in another post, but if this ultima stuff was like, a really big deal, why isnt it mentioned in mcd? though i suppose since its a curse of sorts, it could be later on past the time period in which mcd takes place--but even then, how did it manage to make its way into aaron’s family bloodline? 

-WHY IS EVERYONE AT STARLIGHT ITS JUST SO CONVINIENT like what happened to this place being the most expensive shit on the planet or whatever, and how the gang happens to run into like, the werewolf trio and blaze and kai and guy and nate all of these people like god damn life doesnt WORK LIKE THAT 

-im sorry but turning people into relics? thats... thats the best you could come up with? plus, like, how does that even work? in mcd it’s established that relics are separate entitles that choose their wielder, based on a ‘personal’ connection (being a descendent of a previous wielder) or if they’re a good match personality and (i think?) moral wise. so the whole turning-people-into-relics doesnt make much sense to be honest. 

-irene really over here using her god powers to only keep her friends alive like god damn not a great god if you ask me 

-can i talk about how incredibly predictable aphmaus death was? like i just kinda sat there waiting for it to happen and when it did i literally went “haha! wonder when she’ll be revived” because god forbid we actually kill off characters 

-when aphmau + demon warlock fought in the irene dimension there was no passage of time whatsoever in the real world whiiiiiiiiich really bothers me because they fought in there for at least a few minutes

-speaking of aphmau and the demon warlocks fight does it bother anyone else that it had to be aaron who took over the fight?? like we get it hes the big protector blah blah blah but god damn it wouldve been cooler if aphmau had fought this battle as her. aaron fighting this battle was so underwhelming

-...love. like, thats the only thing thats needed to break out of a forever potion? love? LIKE YEAH, GOOD GUYS GOTTA WIN SOMEHOW, but its just so cliche and overdoneeee

-oh yeah and also when travis went bonkers and became the demon warlock or whatever, why’d he only take over katelyn and garroth?? like, zane had been influenced by the potions in the past as well? DONT GET ME WRONG--i do love some good brother edge, but uh, the demon warlock was just bein kinda a dumbass by not possessing zane too just sayin’

-can aaron please go to fucking jail for mass murder now like holy shit, he just got sent home on a fuckin boat. also why did blaze forgive him for killing him thats not even remotely realistic. then again, nothing in mystreet has ever been realistic when it comes to characters and motives and personalities, (cough katelyn being actually abusive and travis being an actual pervert) but yknow whatever

-katelyn and kawaii chan literally added nothing to the plot whatsoever. like lets be real, katelyn lost her personality the moment season 5 started and kawaii chan just kinda sits there :I

-ok im sorry this was bound to come up but cmon guys imagine laurances potential if he was in season 6 like god damn this is beyond maddening. AND YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A REALLY REALLY COOL PARRALLEL?? IF IT WAS LAURANCE WHO SNAPPED GARROTH OUT OF HIS MIND CONTROL THING, because it would mimic laurance’s speech to get garroth to snap out of his rage in season 1, episode 100 of minecraft diaries. like how fuckin rad would that have been? missed opportunity 

-also?? why does kim/ghost know magicks?? like, if i remember correctly, emmalyn is a scholar--not someone who knew magicks. i mean, i guess research? study?? but its been established that knowing how magicks works =/= being able to use magicks. i dunno, just doesnt seem right i guess. maybe its explained, i wouldnt know (yes i know that makes me look like a dick leave me alone)

-melissa should have stayed dead. LIKE, NO, ITS NOT AS SIMPLE AS “haha it takes more than a few bullets to kill me”??? look ive got nothing wrong with melissa (cough lie cough) but yknow it would have just been cool a character... stay dead? for once? its just too fuckin cliche that shes alive god damn

-can i also just say the only good thing that came out of season 6 was travis’ dads sacrifice like damn that made me actually sad

-howww was lucinda turned into a relic. or yknow, anyone else? like im sure they explain it better in the actual show i just dont remember, but its just that easy? turning anyone into a relic? granted, a normal person wouldnt be able to produce a good relic, but idk man. IM JUST SAYING; that the only really powerful relics that aphmau should have been able to wield is the one that aaron + zane produced because shad relic and esmund relic moment. lucinda isnt even like, connected to a divine warrior. ALSO, another point, if its seriously that powerful of a relic getting one from just a magic user like lucinda, why go through the trouble? i mean i guess ofc youd want the “all powerful” one that the ultima produces but i mean damn whats the point

-ok this is just going to bother me but in one of the episodes (i think might have been in season 5 actually) where that like, guardian dude was chasing aphmau and zane and at one point they split up and the dude just chuckles at zane diverting paths and goes under his breath “youre not the important one here”, suggesting that aphmau somehow is? first of all, id argue that any ro’meave is significantly more important than aphmau was, especially not knowing much about her other than that shes with aaron. i might be missing some bits an pieces, but if i was that dude id forget about aphmau and go after zane 

-killing off derek for shock factor sucked, and i know the moment was supposed to be really sad because like “oh :( aarons dad is sacrificing himself for his son” but lets be real dereks still was a shitty father and i dont think his reasons for doing what he did was very good at all

-less about plot or more like: why the absolute fuck did the gang bring kim along instead of, oh i dont know, a life-long friend? like, laurance or dante maybe?? im sure its explained, i never saw aphmaus year or most of season 5, but god DAMN id hate to be apart of this friend group AND GOD LIKE, imagine reconnecting with an old friend who ends up getting closer to your best friends and taking priority in their lives over you (cough laurance) like god damn lol

-im just going to preface this one with: i dont remember everything that’s happened, so if im wrong i apologize in advance--but (you actually can correct me if im wrong and please do) didnt like, irene reincarnate her friends in order to give them better lives? I DONT KNOW IF THIS IS TRUE, ITS JUST WHAT I REMEMBER--however, if im correct, then:

a. why the hell would she bring back someone like zane, or gene, or ivy, etc.

b. why the hell do they all have the same exact names? first and last? again, im aware that the whole mystreet+mcd tie wasn’t originally supposed to be there, but i dont think that means such a coincidence can be excused? its just a bit much if you ask me.

c. why the hell is the fact that (as much as i literally hate this) aaron is a decedent of shad being ignored? like, you’d think that something like this would be something thats actually important, or something the demon warlock couldve taken advantage of. or are we completely erasing every other connections to divine warriors besides aphmau + irene? because even if irene did reincarnate them or do whatever it is she did, does she even have the power to sever the connections between them and their ancestors? my guess is, no.

d. speaking of irene why on earth was aphmau able to talk to/see irene, they’re literally the same person are they not? did she like, fuckin reincarnate herself without actually doing it?? BUT--i will give it to them, the demon warlock did refer to aphmau as something along the lines of being “one of the 3 parts of her broken soul” or something like that. however, my point still remains. also what are the other two did i miss that or is it never explained

now; if irene in fact did not ‘reincarnate’ her friends then please ignore that little bit right there :)

but yes, those are a few of the problems i have with season 6 off the top of my head. i would go into like, season 4 and 5 more as well, but i honestly didnt feel like it. at some point i might go into other things, like how important laurance could have been to the plot of these later seasons, or HELL, even dante. i might also go into what could have made season 4, 5, and 6 actually good--maybe... a rewrite? perhaps? but im getting too far ahead of myself, so i just leave you with this for now.

and i know that as soon as i post this 15 more things are just going to pop into my head BUT im going to try and not edit this post because why stress myself with that even more

anyways thank you for coming to my tedtalk 

[newtedison]

my thoughts on the crank palace

i touched about this a bit on twitter (@newtedison_) but i figured i would Try and touch on my points more here (spoilers obv) again, its sort of lengthy

1. im gonna start with talking about the ending because i need to get it out of the way. either i havent read the books in a while and i forgot some canon (which could very well be true, i literally forgot that Bliss was a thing) or this ending makes no sense and is (somehow) setting up for a tdc sequel? so first off, newt was shot in the Head with a Bullet and somehow didnt immediately die? i know that that can happen in real life but it just seems so unlikely that not only would he not die, but he would survive long enough for someone from WCKD to transport him back to their labs and try to revive him. and who the fuck was he talking to? did thomas get newt’s journal at some point and i just dont remember? like i said, either im forgetting stuff or this ending doesnt make sense and is setting up a sequel which...i’ll get to later

2. why was this written? like, what was the point? i understand that this wasnt going to be all sunshine and rainbows but i feel like i was reading torture porn. like, literally all that happens is newt gets tortured (which is described in detail) by WCKD soldiers, has bouts of insane-fueled rage where he KILLS MULTIPLE PEOPLE, and then he dies. ??? what did this contribute to the canon? what was this trying to accomplish? truthfully, i never really wanted a newt-POV...well, anything except for maybe those little nuggets he wrote some time ago. but even if i HAD wanted a newt-POV novella, this is not what i would have wanted. he KNOWS that newt is almost universally the most loved character in this franchise. you can tell because he constantly uses him as a way to get fans in his good graces again. so why on earth would he take that character that so many people love and write a novella where its torture porn and a descent into madness before death? i am not interested in that At All. i’ve read fics (and even written a drabble) where newt is a Crank, and those were more respectful and easier to read than tcp. the parts where newt is having bouts of the Flare were literally exhausting to read; it was described in such vivid and torturous detail that it made me sick reading it. and it didnt help that newt is a character i care a lot about. i didn’t need to know what becoming a Crank felt like. the way it was described in the other books (and even the movies) told me everything i needed to know. the way thomas and everyone found newt at the crank palace in tdc and hes described as obviously not well, but not knowing what exactly happened to him...thats good enough on its own. the mystery of what exactly newt had to endure is part of what gives his journey more emotional depth. not everything needs to be written out and explained. not every gap needs to be filled in. 

3. me saying “the characterization felt off” is going to make some people roll their eyes because ‘duh, sami, the characterization will be off because he’s going insane’ to which i say...exactly. we weren’t really reading a newt-POV novella, were we? even if he isn’t past the Gone in the beginning, hes clearly not the same person we knew him as. the whole novella felt like an uncanny valley situation; i knew i was supposed to be reading about newt, but it felt like i was reading about someone else who looked like him. and that is part of what made this such a disconnect and made me lose interest at parts. not only that, but the world building and lore is inconsistent. newt makes a comment about how it used to rain in the glade, and apparently (as ive been told) that is simply not true. keisha having somehow working cell phone that magically connects her to her family also doesnt make sense. how would they have each others’ numbers? what are the odds that they BOTH found working cell phones in an apocalypse? i get that its a novella but you cant just throw something that crazy in there as a plot convenience. actually work on your plot and world building in a cohesive way, please. and another thing that doesnt make sense...

4. ...is newt finding out that sonya is his sister. if there was anything i would have wanted from a newt-pov novella, it would have been this. him finding out that not only is sonya his sister, but he already knows her post-WCKD. something that would have made this novella actually captivating, contributing something worthwhile to the canon that i would actually want to read, is if newt found out while in the crank palace that sonya was his sister; the Flare would remove that part of the Slice in his brain, and he would realize it was her. then, knowing that he couldnt go past the Gone before seeing her, he would try to find a way to get back to her. he could learn this after thomas and everyone originally see him, so it could match up with the canon. and then, by the time 250 comes along, hes lost all hope of that actually happening, and lashes out to thomas in a fit of rage. the journey of him trying to find his ACTUAL sister would have meant more to me than the story of keisha and dante. trust me, i love a found family trope as much as the next girl. but this series is FULL of the found family trope. it pretty much is the backbone of the franchise. so to see a blood family dynamic would have been a refreshing change of pace that i actually would have been interested in reading. also, the way that newt DOES find out about sonya is...underwhelming. he just randomly says “you remind me of my sister, sonya” to keisha in the WCKD truck. first of all, sonya is not the name you would actually know her by. you would know her by her birth name (which is lizzy? elizabeth?). second, why does he act like he didnt already meet her in the series? when the WCKD doctor tells him sonya is his sister and is alive, hes so surprised. wouldn’t he have known that already? why is there not more emphasis on the fact he already met her? that would have been a really interesting dynamic to explore, and im sad they didnt

5. the pacing and dialogue of tcp is so dragged out. i remember specifically there was a section where newt goes to talk to keisha after she starts abandoning dante, and i swear to god there was a page and a half of text before anything ACTUALLY happened or anyone ACTUALLY said anything. dashner described a launcher at one point as “the energy dependent electric firing projectile device.” that’s SIX words to describe a stun gun. a fucking stun gun! we know what it is! why did you have to use six words??? it just felt like everything was dragged and stretched to the longest it could possibly be and it added to the exhaustion i felt while reading it

6. okay i cant end it without talking about newtmas. its very obvious by now that newtmas is a VERY large part of this fanbase. its clearly the most popular ship and what keeps a lot of people interested in this series. even the marketing team for the MOVIES used newtmas as a advertising tactic (i.e.; using thomas and newt standing face to face as a thumbnail for the trailer, emphasizing newtmas based questions in interviews, even making a fucking facebook memories video for them. yes that last one is real). not only does dashner use newt as a way to lure fans in; he also uses newtmas. the parts that were sprinkled into this were so obvious that it didnt feel authentic. i cant speak for the original trilogy; i dont know the culture around ships back then, and i dont know how much it influenced his writing at the time. but the scenes in those books felt more genuine than tcp. by genuine i mean; he wrote scenes without a relationship in mind, but the chemistry had noticeable subtext that, while unintentional, was largely agreed upon by the larger audience. the parts of newtmas he added into tcp felt artificial and forced, likely as a way for people to take snippets of and use as a free marketing tool for him. one example you might have already seen; “he had already gotten used to his post-thomas, post-WCKD life.” the fact that dashner SPECIFICALLY used the phrase “post-thomas” rather than “post-his friends” or something similar shows that he is using newtmas as a hook on purpose. not only that, but to make newt’s last thoughts as he died “tommy. tommy will understand...” is...wow. first of all, i never wanted to know what newt’s dying thoughts were, but thanks, i guess? and second, when we all initially thought newt died underneath thomas with a gun to his head, i was pretty much inferred that newts last thoughts would probably be about thomas; they would sort of have to be, given the circumstances. so adding that in gives me the same feeling that “i’m coming for you, newt” at the end of the fever code gave me. not as offensive, but written very much on purpose. and the ending is implying that there will somehow be a sequel where thomas gets newt’s journal from...someone. at this point, i can only think that this sequel will retroactively make newtmas canon somehow. now that newt has been confirmed as gay, it could happen. which brings me to my last point...

7. hearing dashner confirm newt is gay was already mind-boggling before. now that i’ve read the crank palace...im angry. im very angry. i think its safe to say that newt is the character that suffers the most in this series. you can argue with me but hes definitely high on the list, if not #1. so; you take this character. you give him a horribly sad arc in the original trilogy, then decide to expand upon it and tell us, your largely QUEER fanbase, exactly how painful and torturous his last days were, in detail. and then you tell us he’s gay. something that is never mentioned in the canon, only in an offhanded reply to a tweet of someone calling you out. on a base level, i can understand why people would be happy. representation (i guess), seeing themselves in the character, having their headcanons be confirmed. great. but what i see is you telling your largely queer fanbase “hey, you see the only confirmed gay character? im going to literally write torture porn about him before killing him off and offer it to you like im providing a service to your community.” how fucked up is that? “hey, kids, if youre gay, you WILL be violently tortured and become violent and a danger to the ones you love. then you will die and your love will never be reciprocated.” what a message! and if he DOES end up retroactively making newtmas “canon” in some weird sequel...i will start foaming at the mouth. THIS is an example of how not all queer representation is good or genuine.

i’ve definitely forgotten some points but this is long enough already. let me know if you agree or if theres anything else you want to add! im interested in what you guys think

(8. I JUST REMEMBERED!!! if WCKD needed to study newt so bad bc sonya is his sister and is immune while he isnt, why did they let him run around the crank palace in the first place??? you cant test his vitals or anything you’re literally just watching him. what is the point????)

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Maybe unpopular; but i’ve never really liked the ending of TFS where we play as AJ. The first time i played it i was so upset about Clem ‘dying’ that i couldn’t really enjoy it, it bothers me that they just did that to shock the player. I would much rather see a scene of AJ running back to the school with Clem in the wheelbarrow, and see everyone’s reaction. It just sorta felt like a cop out to me, like the devs and writers didnt wanna write something so emotional and dramatic

But anon..... they couldn’t show the wheelbarrow bit or everyone’s reactions to Clementine missing a leg... if they did that, they couldn’t take the easy route of emotional manipulation and would have to put more time and effort into the ending. 

...Okay, but seriously, I totally feel you. 

Though I will say that I do enjoy playing as AJ at the end. I think that the transition from Clementine to AJ is done well, though I agree that when you’re in that emotional “fuck Clementine is dying” state, it’s hard to enjoy it, y’know? It’s much easier on replay when you know Clem’s gonna be fine and you can focus on the AJ sections themselves. 

But honestly, the last episode is just kind of a mess....

I know that when it was coming to Clementine getting bit and just this whole story in general, they forced a lot of parallels with Lee.... which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but when you go as far they did over the course of the season, it can come off like they aren’t confident in their abilities to create this story on their own so they have to rely on everyone’s love of S1 by drawing parallels and that’s not great. 

I get it’s fun for us to put screenshots side by side and point like “look it’s like S1! isn’t that neat?” 

In the end that kinda fucked over the ending. I don’t have a problem with Clementine getting bit as the season’s final big thing, or her surviving the bite. However, I agree that not showing anything until she magically shows up all like “What’cha doin’ goofball??” is an easy cop-out. 

They knew that by doing that, they didn’t have to go into the complexities of the characters reacting, especially AJ, Louis, and Violet, or show anything about her recovery process but they would still get that emotional reaction out of the player, y’know? 

Though I’m sure if you asked anyone working on the episode why they didn’t show anything, they would blame the budget, time, and the fact that Telltale literally ate shit on its way down and we should be grateful we got a final episode at all.

Which is fair, but those excuses, no matter how true, don’t automatically make the final episode a perfect conclusion. The final episode isn’t exempt from criticism because Kent or Mary or whoever explained something about the behind-the-scenes. 

The final episode is flawed in many ways-

 It’s waaaay too short, it tosses aside most of its interesting cast that it spent all season developing, does nothing with the season’s big baddie Lilly if she’s alive, does nothing with blind Violet and mute Louis, there is no mourning for dead Tenn/Louis/Violet, it gives us a flashback scene that feels shoved into the story rather than being placed in a more natural place, and gives us an ending that, while a happier conclusion to Clementine’s story, falls flat because suddenly everything is okay. 

Many of these things probably could’ve been fixed with a 5th episode, but since the writers were so confident they could tell the story without it, this was the result and I can’t help but wonder if they second guess that confidence or not. Then again, during the commentaries, they talk about how they nailed the final episode so I doubt it. 

It just feels like a missed opportunity. 

You have a cast of characters that I would argue are the most likable group we’ve been in across all four seasons, but they’re tossed aside because there’s no time. I get the main focus is Clementine and AJ and the progress of their relationship, and that’s fine. I love that, but neglecting your supporting cast isn’t great. 

Especially when it comes to Louis and Violet. Whoever you develop a relationship with becomes the story’s tritagonist, meaning they’re the 3rd most important character. Granted, they get more development than the supporting cast if you bond with them.... but I guess fuck the one you didn’t, huh? 

Violet went through hell on the boat [I know this because Clementine had to tell me because the writers suddenly became incompetent and showed literally nothing with Violet’s garbage cell scene] and now she’s mostly blind from the explosion but she’s fine. No lingering resentment for Clementine, no signs of the mental abuse the writers said she went through, no bother to show any recovery or struggle with her not being able to see. Nope, she’s super okay guys. She and Clementine are friends again. It’s almost like she didn’t punch Clem in the face or that Clem didn’t choke her out. 

Because happy ending. 

Oh and Louis? Yeah, he’s fine. It’s almost like he didn’t go through the traumatic experience of having his tongue cut out of his mouth. Sure he doesn’t talk and he’ll never get to sing again, but he’s fine. No recovery time shown, he has no issues eating, no attempts to show how he’s coping without a voice, or how he feels about Clementine because I guess they’re totally cool now. He’s fine. He’ll get over it. 

Because happy ending. 

Oh, and if they’re dead? We get a shot of their grave but like I guess no one really cares that they’re gone because we never got to see anything and they’re never really mentioned by Clementine or any of the others aside from Tenn and AJ so I guess we’re not supposed to care the 3rd most important character much either. 

Because happy ending. 

So yeah, I could go on and on because no, I don’t believe they nailed the final episode. It’s not terrible, of course, but nailing it would’ve required more time, effort, and the desire to get deeper. So anon, I totally understand where you’re coming from. 

[littleblackqrow]

((I think the most frustrating part of watching people analyze the actions of characters in vol8 is that the biggest complaint is that logic is thrown out the window and I would argue that’s the point. Especially because of the perspective of the show. I really hate to keep picking on Ironwood, Qrow, and RWBY, but those characters are the ones driving the plot, so I guess we gotta.

Lets start with RWBY. They’re kids first off. WBY are all about 19-20 years old and Ruby is 17. Lets start off by saying those are ages not exactly known for smart, long term decision making. Most people that age are trying to figure out what they want to do for the rest of their lives, struggling with college, dates, drinking, sex for the first time. They’re stumbling around in adult bodies while still having more or less the mind of a teenager because society has suddenly stopped treating them like a kid and expects them to be an adult. Except instead of having to struggle with decisions about their near future, RWBY is being asked to save the world. If you think you could handle that pressure well at 17-19, you’re lying. 

Does it make their decisions right though? No. The way they treated Ozpin for hiding the worst of his abuse and the fact that his ex-wife was an insane bitch who is functionally immortal is wrong. But again, I ask you, could you handle having all that dumped into your lap in an already stressful situation? The person who should be (and rightly is) condemned for his reaction is Qrow for throwing a punch. No matter how upset you are no hitting. Once you throw a punch in that situation, you’re the bad guy. And until he makes an effort of an apology he’s the bad guy in that situation. 

The biggest problem that team RWBY has is that all of their terrible decisions throughout the show have either been rewarded, or the got bailed out from having to see the real consequences. 

Ozpin allowed Blake to hide her White Fang past and therefore missed the least subtle component of the Fall of Beacon. Things could have been significantly less bad if he’d known about their involvement and was able to send Qrow in to spy on their operations. Maybe he could have figured out what Roman or Adam was up to, realized they were working for Cinder and by extension Salem.

Ozpin allowed team RWBY to do a mission that was a couple grades too advanced for them because he knew they’d break the rules otherwise. That was a tacit acknowledgement that he thought whatever they were up to was alright, and that they had his blessings on whatever it was that they wanted to do.

The best example of terrible decision after terrible decision that RWBYJNR makes is Argus. They have no idea how they’re getting the Relic to Atlas, and they seem road blocked. Jaune suggests stealing an airship, and Qrow, the adult in the room tells them that this is a bad idea, and if it goes bad it has the potential to screw up their entire life. He’s right. The problem is that he’d run off on his bender, and therefore the kids, and we in the audience, are supposed to see this as an unreasonable suggestion. 

However, it plays out as him being right. The incredibly complicated plan did go wrong. Now, they had no reason to suspect at the time that Adam was stalking Blake at the time (and I could go into why thats perfectly ic for him at another date), but there were a lot of moving parts in this plan and literally any of them could have broken. Everything that happened after they put this plan into motion was reactionary. Cordovan, obsessed with showing the Might of Atlas (TM), jumped into the mech suit. At that point, Ruby didnt really have a choice of not breaking it. But the ensuing fight created enough general unease that it summoned a Grimm hoard.

By rights, Argus should have fallen because of their bad decisions and in spire of their best efforts. Instead, Cordovan had a change of heart at the last moment and bailed them out.

This just reinforced the flawed idea that RWBY is always in the right and directly lead to s7′s climax. They are the unstoppable force.

Now you have Ironwood, quite literally the unmovable object, which I now realize is sort of his name. Ha.

Ironwood’s behavior does not come out of nowhere. Since his appearance, he’s had problem stamped all over him. He showed up with an entire goddamn army to a supposedly peaceful event that is to promote unity and the excellence of each kingdom. His rationale is that the people are going to be impressed with his big guns and feel safe. Ozpin gently points out that those big guns also signal to people that there is something out there that those big guns are designed to shoot. 

If its not a Grimm, could it mean that Atlas intends to shoot people?

Remember we’re not even 100 years out from the last World War, one that was basically started by Atlas. People are nervous. There are still grandparents and great grandparents alive today that were kids when the Great War was happening. Not only that but we’re also made aware that Atlas has rolled in the apolitical protectors of the people, the Huntsmen, into its military. This elite fighting force that is basically above the law and can go to any country in the world whenever they want, is now part of the military. The ONLY standing military that Remnant seems to have.

All of this has obviously caused friction in the Inner Circle. Qrow is not quite and never has been quiet about his disdain for James’ heavy handed techniques. Glynda calls James’ actions a dick measuring competition, and Ozpin was trying to be gentle about it, but he was clearly telling Ironwood to get his army off his fucking front lawn. And what did Ironwood do? He’d gone around Ozpin and talked to the Vale council.  They were threatening to remove Oz fro his position because they agreed with Ironwood: he was being too passive. Ironwood even tells Glynda that he cant believe that a man he trusted for so long would just sit by and stand to the side instead of meeting the problem head on. He didnt seem to understand why Qrow would want to go gather intelligence on an operation before sending in the big guns. 

Ironwood has never been a man to put a well thought out plan with all his ducks in a row into motion. This is a man who plows through opposition at every opportunity.

And when we see him again, we can see him steamrolling through opposition again. Somehow he got himself two seats on the council. That gives him an enormous amount of power. And his position as general means that at any point he can declare an emergency and become the de facto dictator of Atlas if he deems it fit. The problem is that he’s having these arguments against Jacques Schnee a man that the audience rightly hates, so he seems reasonable. Who gives a fuck about Jacques loosing business, he’s a dickhead. We’re not noticing the fact that James is consolidating power, or that he’s using that power to make unilateral decisions with no one telling him no.

There’s no one left in the room who is able or willing to tell him that these are bad ideas, that there will be consequences that he cant foresee. His  bullish behavior lead to both Robyn Hill and Jacques Schnee running for an empty council seat, and that created the environment that we walked into in s7.

Now, not all James’ ideas are bad. The Amity Project is actually a really good one, and James is right in wanting to keep it from the general public until its near completion. But you know who should have known? The other fucking council members. Probably the candidates. Playing your cards too close to the chest when you clearly need help and allies is a bad thing. But again, James didnt even trust Ozpin to be able to run his own kingdom, so durr hurr of course he’s the only one who can take care of Amity. And run a kingdom. And run an academy. And protect an ageing, ailing Maiden. And of course he doesnt have time to treat his horrific PTSD from the Fall of Beacon.

So when things go tits up because again, of course they will with a plan that complex James Ironwood doubles the fuck down on his terrible solo decision making. Clearly, non of this is his fault. No one is listening to him. He cannot trust others to make decisions so he’s going to make all of them. There’s no one around him to tell him no, especially because the first person that tried was publicly executed. 

James is scared. He’s had a mental break because of that fear. His paranoia, his PTSD, and the fact that there’s nothing there to help him back to stability means that he’s just going to be bouncing from one terrible choice to the next. He’s Hamlet in the throes of paranoia, heading down a road that is going to get everyone, including himself killed. He is King Lear as the world crumbles around him, acting cruel and making unreasonable, horrible demands of those around him. 

Working with Watts seems like an absolutely terrible idea, but to someone who thinks that he is in control of the situation because he has to be in order to keep functioning, there’s no way that this can bite him in the ass. For James, if no one is willing to follow his orders, he’s going to make them. This attitude is probably exactly why Watts did what he did and joined Salem in the first place. 

So when you combine the unstoppable force of Team RWBY, who’s been told they’re the child saviors of the world, and who’ve been either rewarded or bailed out of their bad decisions against the immovable object of Ironwood and his absolute conviction in himself, you have the mess Atlas is in now.

Honestly I find it kind of brilliant.