#the production this season is incredible

[dnd-listener]

holy FUCK the ending tonight was incredible oh my god!!! VULTURE DIMENSION!!!!

[strawberrybyers]

me trying to figure out what that script says that joe is holding 👁️👄👁️

[schrutexbucks]

I do believe in killing the messenger. You know why? Because it sends a message.

The Vampire Diaries S1 E21 Isobel

one gifset per episode 21/171

[outer-space-face]

Too Many Spirits Out of Context Pt. 1

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Chapter 110 is 13 pages long welcome to hell!!! so in a lot of ways this is just more fuel for a theory that I've had for a few weeks now, that's only gotten stronger with each recent season 5 episode, which is that the last episode of the season is gonna end on 110, and that Asagiri/Harukawa and Bones have been collaborating to make this happen, specifically because it's a major turning point that would be the only good place to end the season on.

When we started getting especially long chapters again (like from 25-35ish pages, with the exception of 107.5, the last two being some of the longest we've ever had), at first I just assumed that Asagiri/Harukawa got freed up from some other obligations they'd been having to cause the extremely short/half chapters, like promotional stuff for the anime/Beast movie, or working on light novels. But then 109 happened, with the "supposed" death of Dazai, and heavy emphasis at the end on how literally everyone is at their lowest point right now, and I got to thinking. 11 episodes is a strangely specific number for an anime season -- why not 12, or 13, or even 10, like you'd usually see? Why have we gotten suddenly gotten two 35 page chapters out of nowhere, that's almost unheard of at this point? They're both beautiful chapters, don't get me wrong (as always), and maybe A/H simply just didn't want to cut them in halves because they felt like the full emotional impact wouldn't hit/that there were no good cutoff points in them, but you can't deny that it's surprising, after all the shorter chapters we've been getting. Why has the anime been going at such insanely breakneck pacing for the most part ever since around the Sunday Tragedy chapters, even more so than it has in the past? So much so that it feels dangerously close to overtaking the manga?

Well, maybe, just maybe, it's because..... Asagiri decided a long time ago that whatever happens in 110 is the only point that feels "season finale"-worthy enough, in an arc that still isn't anywhere close to being completely wrapped up, and so both the manga and the anime have been specifically coordinated to reach that part within 2 and a half weeks of each other?

I've seen a lot of people now think season 5 will end with 109, and as much as my sadistic side would find that hilarious, I honestly don't think they'd do that and realistically don't want it to happen; it'd be so cruel to cliffhanger the anime for years like that, and just doesn't feel like a season cliffhanger BSD would do, a series that is ultimately hopeful and uplifting. Seasons 2 and 3 had a positive, conclusive ending; the only reasons seasons 1 and 4 didn't was because they're technically not really full seasons of their own, and are more like the first cour of another "season" that also came out that same year (seasons 1 and 2 both aired in 2016, so they're more like one big season, and seasons 4 and 5 have both aired this year, so they're also more like one big season, again taking into account how episodes 12 and 50 are not satisfying finales like episodes 24, 37, and hypothetically, 61, are). I really can't see season 5 ending with Dazai and Fukuzawa's supposed deaths, Sigma being unconscious and maybe close to death, Atsushi being vulnerable and limbless again, everyone we love still vampires, and the entire world being basically doomed; that's just too depressing and not like BSD at all. However, having said that, if it doesn't end there, there really isn't any good place to end the season before that, either, that feels in any way satisfying or like a finale at all. And so, to me, that only leaves after 109: chapter 110.

I think things are really gonna turn around next chapter. Like I said, everyone is at their lowest point right now, it cannot possibly get any worse, the framing of Dazai, Fukuzawa, and sskk at the end of 109 is telling us that; this is the time for the heroes to finally start winning again, with Aya being so close to pulling out the sword, and for all the thematic reasons other people have talked about to death that I don't need to go into here again. This upcoming chapter being so short again makes a part of me wary of 110 being "the one", so to speak, I won't lie, but at the same time, it's very possible that it needs to be that short because that's all the final episode of the season will be able to reasonably fit in, since it's already gonna be VERY close if they do make it all the way to 109. And at the end of the day, I don't doubt at all that Asagiri and Harukawa can make these the most monumental and game-changing mere 13 pages ever if they wanted to; a chapter does not at all need to be extremely long in order to be an important and impactful one, even if short ones we've gotten in the past haven't felt the most important.

An additional thought I've had, though this is much more crack territory than all this already is, is that since we know from Anime Expo that a Stormbringer movie at some point is highly likely (judging from Asagiri's reaction when someone brought it up), it's possible that chapter 110 and thus the final episode will involve the long-anticipated return of Verlaine and/or Adam, or at least some other major reference to Stormbringer, that would naturally and smoothly lead into a Stormbringer movie to explain things to people who haven't read the novel. It would make a lot of sense, especially since the s4 OP has the Old World sign behind Chuuya, which might be a hint that this has been in the works ever since seasons 4/5 were first in planning with Asagiri. We also know that Dazai and Chuuya's voice actors apparently struggled to record their lines together this season, which probably relates to 101 and possibly 109, but it could be 110 too.... I could be very wrong, as I'm no expert on this kind of thing, but I kinda doubt they would bring Chuuya's actor in for just the vampire growls, and Asagiri placing heavy emphasis on Chuuya's importance this season in that one interview gives me the impression that he's talking about much more than just 101/109. But that's the least solid evidence I have, that's just mostly based on vibes I get.

So basically, I think a lot of factors -- the unusual episode count, how close the anime is to catching up to the manga with three whole episodes left, the seemingly arbitrary recent chapter lengths, and the climactic events of 109 -- can tell us that 110 might be a very, VERY big deal. Again, there's of course no way this arc is anywhere near close to being finished, with so much left to address and resolve, but since it is currently incomplete in the manga, unlike the previously adapted arcs, if the anime was going to adapt it at all, they'd have to find a place that feels satisfying enough to end this season, knowing there won't be more anime for a long time after this, and so I think they specifically planned for that, from both Bones' and A/H's sides. 10 episodes might not have been enough to reach that point, but 12 or 13 might have been too many it wouldn't have been if Bones actually decided to slow down and let the story breathe the way it needs to, but this post isn't meant to criticize the anime, so maybe 11 was just right. And maybe Asagiri and Harukawa specifically pushed to make recent chapters longer than usual, in order to make sure that the manga reached the story content in 110 the monthly release right before season 5 was to end.

Is this just copium? Absolutely. Am I going to look like an absolute clown in two days when this post ages like milk? Probably. But the evidence is There, so let me just enjoy my delusions until Sunday, okay 🥂🫡

[the-commonplace-book]

Walked into my roommate's room halfway through watching XO Kitty to tell her about how it was an enjoyable silly new Netflix show but that they weren't giving the queer relationships as much development and screentime as their straight counter parts.

Finished the season and had to burst into her room again to correct myself because HOW WRONG I WAS. I could not have been more wrong about the queer rep. Holy shit was I wrong.

[universitysunflowers]

Happy Bad Batch Eve

One last time seemed right before the finale. See you on the other side <3

[3416]

I really love equally 16-34-88.

It’s interesting the interchanging of the attitude of the fans and media towards William and Mitch.

For years, William was criticized over and over again. His relaxed and laid back attitude. His game. And his contract year back in 2018, he was in those trenches. And anyone who said anything positive about him was called crazy. And also, Don Cherry and his low key like discriminatory remarks due to the fact that he was Swedish and not the tough goon kind of playing style. He was also kind of the « guinea pig » (always changing line mates, and lines—and last year we saw that too, he’s always moving and they always throw new stuff) and he was , out of the core, the punching bag.

Now, Mitchy has always been criticized because of the toxic hyper masculine mindset of many hockey fans: he’s boyish and not buff and tough and all that jazz. But, he never got the hate and disrespect that he is getting at the end of last season and right now. He was however still well liked and respected and was often associated to Auston and scene in a more favorable light. He was second to Auston in the « it » boy factor. If this NHL documentary was made 2-3 years ago, Mitch would have been considered.

If you would have told that the Toronto fans and media would be all over William two seasons ago, I would have laughed. Like never would I have thought that I would see the day where people would actually give him credit and actually respect him and see the great things he adds. I love seeing that , but at what cost? For Mitch to become the punching bag of the team?

Fans are now saying how amazing Willy is and now figuring out that he is a good player and cool. But those same fans, a couple years ago were dragging him through the mud saying how useless he was and how he needed to get traded. And they liked Mitch. And they respected him. But now, you’ve « always hated Mitch Marner », « He should be traded ».

And I fear that it will always be this: once Mitch will be in the public’s good graces, something with William will happen and back to Mitch. It’s always been like this and will always stay this way. I don’t know why, I guess that’s the dynamic the city chose.

Even when it came to the core’s contracts: Willy and Mitchy always get this EXTRA je ne sais quoi. Like this extra negative energy and they can never satisfy anyone. They are greedy weaklings or whatever.

Also, I was thinking about Auston captaincy and it reminded me about how he was heavily considered in 2019 but the whole allegations and the story about him harassing this woman when he was drunk ruined that chance. And, people did criticize him and he got scrutinized. But, it kind of, I think, it fizzled away pretty quickly within the Toronto scene considering how heavy that story was. It doesn’t haunt him.

Now, if it was Mitch or William, people would bring it up and it would tarnish them way more. They could not escape it.

Sorry for the long ass rant, it’s just so funny and frustrating: if one gains recognition, the other one has to go down.

gonna start out by saying i don't think mitch/auston/other ppl weren't asked about the doc. i think they're way more private esp in a time that was gearing up for the playoffs, lol. and i think anyone with a brain right now knows mitch is still the second best player on the leafs. everyone just gets high off point totals alone from the prior seasons.. like i seriously saw ppl claiming matthew tkachuk would be drafted higher than auston after the 22-23 season, lolll.

i agree there's a divide about them in the coverage and i have a lot of thoughts of my own about this too. i'm not a longterm leafs fan beyond the past couple of years so i can't speak to how willy or mitch were treated before 2022 beyond old headlines/stuff i've seen but not lived through, but i've definitely been here for the shift about mitch lately and well...

i think some of it is by virtue of them playing the same position. everyone 'has an issue' with the core 4 (ive never understood who the fuck the core 4 even refers to.. sometimes its about the forwards, sometimes its about the leadership group flkdjsklf... whatever fits the current narrative ig) being all forwards and taking up the cap bc that's not 'proven', but it's such a bullshit excuse. i think if you look at their contract situations of the past, willy did a lot of things mitch is getting shit for now, lol. he did hold out into the season for money while mitch gets lambasted for using that as a negotiation tactic (which again.. i wasnt around for those negotiations and i get it was ugly to ... leak or use public perception or whatever but) on those first contracts. willy's father was also involved in his holding out in the most recent negotiations but that's not smth i see thrown around at him despite every comment under every post about mitch including paul's name without him so much as uttering the word contract, lol. it's frustrating to me to see the double standards at this point. i understand longtime fans have lived through shit about willy, but i have a hard time imagining the vitriol levels of right now being topped. it's just every single day about every single thing compounded by the fact that leafs fans have even less hope than they used to bc of how many years in a row they've lost.

i admittedly don't love them equally at all, and if anything, the fanfare about willy the past year has made me like him less. it's not really his fault but i do think he's slightly overpaid now (and watching ppl now claim mitch has to take willys deal or less is hilarious) and overhyped for what he actually brings. his playoff stats are being overrated too. since it all comes at a cost to mitch in the media, it's been way worse to watch for me and unavoidable that i come away feeling negative about him, lol.

i'd be interested to see if the tides ever do turn back toward willy now that he's bulked up, grown facial hair, proven he can score with an up-to-this-point useless clutchness. i doubt they will, but i have a hard time envisioning what's gonna happen after mitch signs an extension and who will become the scapegoat w players locked up for more years. the constant hate has to get exhausting at some point, right? like jflkjdsklf... but not with leaf fans so who knows what will happen. i can't really say what would have happened if mitch or willy were ever involved in scandal like that, but i think if it happened right now, ppl would be ready to forgive willy for anything and sentence mitch to death over nothing so. some people were blaming him for his own carjacking when it happened like.. lol. i can't see into the future but all i know is i'm VERY fed up with the way coverage and reaction is right now. and i don't even think the media is an accurate depiction of how a lot of fans feel about any of it, but if it's hammered home enough... idk.

[yourheartinyourmouth]

me listening to Mockery Manor for the 100th time: oh ho ho not quite Bette

[sophfandoms53]

Putting Ratcole, Cameron, Frankie, and Cauliflower on the same level of legendary status as Britney, Taylor, Danielle, Josh, and Xavier is kinda nuts imo

[shayneysides]

As much as the writing sucked this season, The Umbrella Academy has had one good thing be consistent over all 4 seasons and that is that this show is so beautiful. Like every season is just downright gorgeous. All the midcentury design and the weird archaic technology makes the show's setting and environment so interesting and beautiful.

[klysanderelias]

So apparently there IS a throwaway line in the antilles episode about how fulcrum is a codename they give to EVERY secret informant. I think I have to walk back some of my previous statements - I think I'm right, still, but I'll admit that like, the reveal isn't 'kallus was fulcrum ALL ALONG' but instead 'kallus is A fulcrum agent' and that's less offensive, but it still smacks of poor planning when they completely drop the idea for a full season AND in all of star wars (that I know of, I'm trying not to dig too deeply to avoid spoilers) there are only 3 fulcrum agents (kallus ahsoka and andor) that we see. Getting to see more use of fulcrum as a network would have made it less irritating, and of course the way Ahsoka worked in the first season-

Hey wait a second! She wasn't a fucking informant at all! She was literally giving orders to rebel cells! Ahsoka as fulcrum was literally calling shots for the ghost crew. You could argue she was GIVING them information, but as a handler, not as a secret spy!

And it's stupid to argue, because it doesn't matter (and because the sample size is so small) but at the core of it is that the kallus shit feels so forced. I'm not like 'oh wow that's cool', I literally immediately went back and brought up old episodes because I was like 'that's fucking wrong'. I literally stopped watching the show so I could argue the point. Regardless of whether I'm right, my reaction was to stop everything to check because I couldn't believe it.

And at the end of the day I don't feel like the difference between 'kallus was fulcrum ALL ALONG' and 'kallus is A fulcrum agent' changes anything about my core criticisms - that it's completely rewriting a villain to make them more palatable and set up an undeserved redemption arc OFFSCREEN. If you're going to redeem the genocidal white guy (WHICH YOU SHOULDN'T) at LEAST do it onscreen! At least SHOW ME him putting in the goddamn effort to be a better person instead of going 'oh he did it you just weren't looking in the right direction, now stop asking about it because it makes him feel bad'

[july-19th-club]

i love when characters suck and are bad people like the thing about murphy is that i liked him before he was the incredible wife guy (which is also pretty great, dont get me wrong) but like. i thought he was cool when he was a horrible jackass that everyone hated . like he was interesting before he got morals; he was interesting as a guy who gets lynched in a frontier justice display of retaliation for a murder because he just seems like the kind of dude who would murder someone. and he is! just not that dead guy, specifically. whereas the actual killer is a twelve-year-old girl who the whole crew spends the episode trying to proctect from any kind of punishment, while murph runs around trying and failing to get anyone to admit out loud that the only reason there's a difference between punishing him and punishing her is because he has a bad personality . and also the murders but at that point in the show he hadn't killed anyone, he just seemed like he would

[interpolationz]

you guys should be very thankful i wasn't online during my criminal minds phase

[scattered-winter]

was talking to the gc about six of crows and shadow and bone and was suddenly hit by a wave of nostalgia for the weeks before the shadow and bone tv show came out......truly a wonderful time...

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

for whom good omens is being written

Hey maggots and the rest of the fandom, it's the Good Omens Mascot here. Today I read a post about this tweet:

The accompanying video genuinely made me cry. And I've been thinking about this for a long while, as far back as February, when I saw a lot of conflicting opinions on what people wanted from the third season. It really is true that no matter what you do, some people will be dissatisfied. But what matters is that Neil is writing this for Terry.

And I was reminded of some paragraphs from the Good Omens TV Companion, which I'd read in Amazon's sample excerpt of the book. I know this is a long post, but I really truly do think you all need to read these, I've done my best to select only the most important parts. Here you go:

'His Alzheimer's started progressing harder and faster than either of us had expected,' says Neil, referring to a period in which Terry recognized that despite everything he could no longer write. 'We had been friends for over thirty years, and during that time he had never asked me for anything. Then, out of the blue, I received an email from him with a special request. It read: “Listen, I know how busy you are. I know you don't have time to do this, but I want you to write the script for Good Omens. You are the only human being on this planet who has the passion, love and understanding for the old girl that I do. You have to do this for me so that I can see it." And I thought, “OK, if you put it like that then I'll do it."

'I had adapted my own work in the past, writing scripts for Death: The High Cost of Living and Sandman, but not a lot else was seen. I'd also written two episodes of Doctor Who, and so I felt like I knew what I was doing. Usually, having written something once I'd rather start something new, but having a very sick co-author saying I had to do this?' Neil spreads his hands as if the answer is clear to see. 'I had to step up to the plate.' A pause, then: 'All this took place in autumn 2014, around the time that the BBC radio adaptation of Good Omens was happening,' he continues, referring to the production scripted and co-directed by Dirk Maggs and starring Peter Serafinowicz and Mark Heap. ‘Terry had talked me into writing the TV adaptation, and I thought OK, I have a few years. Only I didn't have a few years,' he says. 'Terry was unconscious by December and dead by March.'

He pauses again. 'His passing took all of us by surprise,' Neil remembers. 'About a week later, I started writing, and it was very sad. The moments Terry felt closest to me were the moments I would get stuck during the writing process. In the old days, when we wrote the novel, I would send him what I'd done or phone him up. And he would say, "Aahh, the problem, Grasshopper, is in the way you phrase the question," and I would reply, "Just tell me what to do!" which somehow always started a conversation. 'In writing the script, there were times I'd really want to talk to Terry, and also places where I'd figure something out and do something really clever, and I would want to share it with him. So, instead, I would text Terry's former personal assistant, Rob Wilkins, now his representative on Earth. It was the nearest thing I had.'

(...) As Neil himself recognizes, this is an adaptation built upon the confidence that comes from three decades of writing for page and screen. But for all the wisdom of experience, he found that above all one factor guided him throughout the process. 'Terry isn't here, which leaves me as the guardian of the soul of the story,' he explains. 'It's funny because sometimes I found myself defending Terry's bits harder or more passionately than I would defend my own bits. Take Agnes Nutter,' he says, referring to what has become a key scene in the adaptation in which the seventeenth-century author of the book of prophecies foretelling the coming of the Antichrist is burned at the stake. ‘It was a huge, complicated and incredibly expensive shoot, with bonfires built and primed to explode as well as huge crowds in costume. It had to feel just like an English village in the 1640s, and of course everyone asked if there was a cheap way of doing it. 'One suggestion was that we could tell the story using old-fashioned woodcuts and have the narrator take us through what happened, but I just thought, “No”. Because I had brought aspects of the story like Crowley and the baby swap along to the mix, and Terry created Agnes Nutter. So, if I had cut out Agnes then I wouldn't be doing right by the person who gave me this job. Terry would've rolled over in his grave.'

And, finally, this paragraph:

"Once again, Neil cites the absence of his co-writer as his drive to ensure that Good Omens translated to the screen and remained true to the original vision. 'Terry's last request to me was to make this something he would be proud of. And so that has been my job.'"

I think that's so heartwrenchingly beautiful, and so I wanted you all to read this, too, just in case you (like me) don't have the Good Omens TV Companion. It adds another layer of depth and emotion to this already complex and amazing story that we all know and love.

Share this post, if you can, please, so that more people can read these excerpts :")

Tagging @neil-gaiman, @fuckyeahgoodomens and @orpiknight, even if you've definitely read these before :)