#there were some weird OOC-ish dialogue but again nothing that made me go like ???????

[bugeyedfreaks]

I bought the comic! 💖

I have a couple of my usual little minor nitpicks (as I am want to have), but I don’t even want to get into them because there were so few and they didn’t impact my enjoyment of the comic all that much. I thought it was super cute!

I won’t spoil anything in case anyone’s interested in buying it for themselves (which, I would say… yeah, buy it, totally!), but what I appreciated the most– especially since this is the first issue and it’s establishing who the girls are for anyone not super familiar with them– is that the girls end up saving the day together. It shows the importance of them not just being heroes, but also being a team (and also being supportive sisters, which… 🥹🫶) and that makes me feel like, even on a basic level, they get the characters. And that’s reassuring! Yay!

[lilacponds]

okay i finished before the storm tonight so ill post a buncha spoiler thoughts

k like, eliot was super sketchy since the start? i gave him a chance and agreed to the play when i met him first but even then i was suspicious, he just had this aura of being off....... like, chloe went thru a lot of shit, but dealing w eliot was one of the scariest no doubt, and thats sayin some shit

if someone in the game tag compares warren to him tho ill probably bite someones head off tbh, eliot is what antis accused warren to be while warren was just generally wholesome

i really liked the backtalking, i was nervous at first choosing those options bc i thought theyd be "generally rude and piss-off-ish conversation" while it wasnt always necessarily that. i liked that!

i like being able to play dnd tbh. bc dnd rules my life now. i liked being able to see different sides to different people.

i didnt like that you had to choose the romance option in ep 1 or no romance for the rest of the game (i think? i mightve just not done the right choices) because i wasnt feeling the whole "more than friends" when they knew each other for so little i was unsure whether they were already friends or not? i didnt like chloes vulnerability at rachel leaving after she got angry - or rather, i liked it as a character thing and plot thing, but its not something i liked on a more personal level bc i didnt like rachel "getting smashy when angry" - any of those moments made me reel back. i got to know and warmed up to rachel, but even while knowing the context of their relationship in the first game i couldnt throw chloe in a possible relationship like that, i just couldnt. ill be replaying for collectibles and for romance. i saw some talk on my dash of how u cant let them be gay but also get rachel to meet her mom n ppl were pissed too and that was weird to me bc i just needed to look it up for 0.5 secs to find out that u dont have to have the bracelet u just need to choose the right dialogue choice w sera and let rachel know the truth abt his dad and im like, shit this aint as queerbaiting as they said it was! (altho we all know what happens first game and im still pissed abt that. i like that steph is canonically gay and its never a big deal either, like its in chloes diary and steph talks abt pulling a move on rachel if shes single and its nice. i like steph a lot

i LOVED the theatre scene. i just went on yt to rewatch the improv part over and over again. it just kills me?? its So Good, and the voice acting is ON POINT, i love it. and it was just great all around, the talk and all... rachel was talking to chloe directly as well - when she talks about freedom, leaving the 'isle'? she hesitated before saying isle and my bets on she was about to say bay, its an awkward place to pause otherwise. honestly that scene is breathtaking, and the voice acting is goals

one thing i hate is how the choices in this game dont influence the canon of the first game. i aimed for chloe to have a better relationship w her mom and david, but i know the first game canon, and it shits on my prequel efforts canonically. same for rachel - how did she end up in a relationship w frank at all in the first game? she didnt even do drugs in the prequel. and if you play and make the girls date, would that mean they broke up or rachel was cheating or what? thats totally ooc for her tho in that case, unless - you guessed it - nothing in the prequel is canon, not when talking abt the choices anyway, because it would go to clash w the first games canon. and i understand that its not like they could remake the whole first game to be redone taking the prequels choices in consideration, and its unlikely they had anything thats in before the storm when they released the game, but im tired of loose ends and unfitting threads. chloe and frank are basically friends in the prequel but very much not in the base game. the whole rachel thing. david and chloe. it pisses me off so much? and i liked samantha and nathan together - i found it a really nice touch, nathan did unforgivable things in the base game that arent being excused in any way but i do still think he deserved a better treatment, help, therapy - and he wouldnt have gotten himself in that kinda shit if he found help, i believe that, and i like generally the way he looks and feels if hes getting help from samantha. like the dialogue at the hospital, and them sittinf under a tree to read a book together. he looks so peaceful for once and i wish i could keep that forever.

in the end i think that in my consumption of the game and my dabbling in fandom, ill enjoy myself with my own canon - i do love happy everybody lives aus, but theres so much that conflicts normally that its more than a simple everybody lives au

its getting late and i lost my point, but.

this was an amazing game, one that leaves me disappointed when i remember none of my choices really matter in the canon just like the first games, but it still evoked a lot of emotions in me and ill be replaying it again soon already. all in all, im happy to have spent money on it.

(altho it was on sale.)

[kinetic-elaboration]

March 2: Thoughts on 4x05 The Tinder Box

Finally watched 4x05. I have to say… I was anticipating that it would be bad (by which I mean uninteresting to me) based on the trailer but it was actually SO BAD that not only do I think it might be worse than even the shittiest S3 episodes, but I also think it might have tanked the whole season. And I was really optimistic and giving generally positive reviews of the season so far! But this was ATROCIOUS. I am so disillusioned and upset tbh.

Putting the rest under a cut so as not to harsh the buzz of anyone who might have liked the ep and/or not be so fatalistic about the season as I am.

Okay, a few things I liked-ish first.

I think the Raven stuff, with her brain going on overload, was interesting and I didn’t have a problem with it so much as it appeared in this episode, although it does make me wary. I’ll put the wariness below with the other ‘bad’ stuff but I will say I liked the floating sequence and I liked seeing a happy, excited, super-smart Raven even if the context was not so great.

Generally speaking, I had the least problems with the Becca’s lab story. I liked seeing more of Jackson and I thought Abby had some good moments too. Plus, while I don’t think tech-heavy sci fi of the bright white sheen variety fits this show very well, Becca’s lab was cool I will give it that.

It was a good Monty episode.

Yet again Bob Morley tragically under-used but his subtle expressions when he first suspected and later found out Octavia was alive = A+.

I’ve never had very strong feelings about Niylah since we’ve seen like 5 minutes of her before but I thought she was great in this episode and if we see more of her and more of her like this I’ll be happy. I loved how she and Clarke greeted each other this is my ideal ex-gf/ex-hookup scenario personally.  

I liked seeing Clarke in doctor mode.

…That’s it lol. The rest sucked major rhino balls.

 The stuff I didn’t like:

Oh where to start? I think I’ll go plot by plot.

Becca’s lab: I realize they’re somewhat constrained based on what they set up in that shitshow that was S3 but the narrative quality of the Becca story line was so poor last season—like I don’t care if the science is fake, even obviously fake, but it needs to be internally consistent and the Becca stuff was 100000% nonsense all the way down to the core, and pretty shallow and childish nonsense at that—so anything they come up with this season, whether “consistent” or retcon, is going to be side-eyed by me. The bar is VERY high for me to give a fuck and this episode didn’t meet the bar. Basically any time I hear about Becca’s lab or Becca’s experiments or Becca in space I just have this Pavlovian eye roll response because I know it’s going to be dumb; like I’ve just given up on any sense being made in this “story.”

I see you, Star Trek reference. (Okay, to be fair the concept of putting criminals on a boat and sending them away isn’t something Star Trek created and it is sort of an important detail of “Space Seed” that the criminals were super humans AND the tragic ham handed way that sci fi is dealt with here makes me think the PTB aren’t really familiar with sci fi let alone such classics as TOS BUT I’m sorry why did they have to be criminals? What sort of random detail is that? How does that make any sense? That just screams gratuitous “Space Seed” reference to me. And I put it in the negative column because I like The 100 but it’s often a mess and it’s not allowed to put its grubby paws on TOS.)

It was weird that last episode we had this big crew of people at Becca’s lab and now like half of them have disappeared. I mean, I know most of them are guest stars but, first of all Harper’s been in like every episode so far so fuck that and second of all it’s just jarring, like where the fuck did EVERYONE GO?

I’m getting pretty tired of the torture Raven Reyes show. Like it’s just literally never fucking ending.

I can’t believe they unveiled a fucking space ship and now they’re going to go into space? I’m sorry I’ve suspended a metric fuck ton of disbelief for this show but this is just beyond the pale I have rolled my eyes so far back into my head that all I can see anymore is the back of my skull.

The tinderbox: I anticipated finding this to be stupid because I am BOOOOOOOOOOORED of war stories I have literally seen 50 of them in this show alone I’m done. And there was nothing new here. Like...was this not literally the situation in 2A when Lxa’s army was ranged outside Camp Jaha? And Clarke has to negotiate to make it work? I’m not saying plots can’t be re-worked and called back to but there’s a difference between ‘we’ve shown you a similar moral problem in the past, here’s a new twist, do you still feel the same way?” and “this is literally the exact same scenario, without nuance then and without nuance now, that you’ve already watched. Let’s spend a good 50% or more of the episode on it!”

From a story telling perspective this plot suffered from two major and related flaws: First, the tension was created using Riley, a character who anyone with two brain cells to rub together should know should absolutely not be given a gun and brought to a tete-a-tete with the Ice Nation. I mean that’s just good sense. At the very least, perhaps they might have learned from previous Jasper experiences that mentally scarred people shouldn’t be armed and then set in front of their former tormentors. (Not that I blame Jasper for the Unity Day thing just saying that he has multiple times proven himself a liability for reasons very similar to the ones creating today’s Riley situation so not only is it obvious it’s a lesson they have literally learned before.) And people even note this! Repeatedly! Like 2, 3 different characters are like ‘hmmm maybe we shouldn’t given Riley a gun….?” YOU THINK SO HUH? Anyway I’m having a lot of fun mocking this but it’s just hilarious to me that not only do they write in this gigantic plot hole they have multiple characters point it out louder for the people in the back.

Second, and on a related note, there were too many main characters at stake for me to ever believe the tinder box would be lighted. Kane AND Bellamy AND Monty, plus potentially Harper and Riley (already credited in another three eps btw) and Papa Miller? Um yeah that bloodbath isn’t happening, I don’t care how long you stretch out that Bellamy/Riley/Echo scene. The result of these two issues was that there was no dramatic tension and the whole thing fell flat.

On a more personal level, while I loved Bob’s acting in the aforementioned show down with Riley and Echo it was VERY obvious to me that the point of that scene was not Riley, or Echo, or Ice Nation, or developing a theme, or developing the plot, or literally anything at all other than yet again shaming Bellamy for the massacre. I mean my fucking God Monty and Harper are given dialogue that implies Monty wasn’t part of the Pike Kill Squad (I know he joined up post-massacre but he was a Pikist let’s not forget that) and yet here Literal Male Lead Bellamy is STILL FUCKING ATONING I mean I’m bored of this. If the audience hasn’t forgiven Bellamy now they never will. Stop beating the dead horse.

And on an even more personal level… I’m sorry, I don’t like Harper, she’s yet to show a personality and this episode managed to simultaneously include a metric fuck ton of shots of her and not develop that non-personality in the slightest. I don’t think it would be clear that she and Monty were “dating” from this episode alone but I’m sure it was supposed to deepen their relationship for the viewer, yet for me it just yet again made it quite obvious that there is nothing here. This is the Emperor’s New Pairing. Why do they like each other? Why do they care about each other? I saw a million shots of Harper looking worried about Monty but that could have been any delinquent at all (except…wait…THEY’RE ALL DEAD WHOOOPS). So I just felt like it was a lot of shallow fuckery that did nothing but remind me of my hatred of this pairing without doing anything alleviate that hatred. (I’m being really incoherent here but my point is I hate Monty/Harper and I’m never going to pass up a chance to say this.)

“Ain’t we a pair?” Hilarious, but if this were fan fiction, I’d say “that’s so OOC Roan would never say that.” AND LOOK IT’S CANON AND I’M GONNA SAY THE SAME THING. ...That’s so OOC Roan would never say that.

Also I never saw anything particularly amazing about L or her leadership and it’s a little ridic that Roan is praising her now but tbh the thing that bugged me the most about that dialogue was the way he was shaming Clarke for caring about her people? I mean it’s all well and good to say you’re “tired of taking sides” (coughBellamycough) but at the end of the day literally everyone would choose their loved ones over randos, let alone their former/current enemies I mean DUH. If you can only save a few people you’ll save yourself and your family. A slightly larger handful, yourself and your community. This is just the human response to a dire situation, not Clarke’s Grand Moral Failing. Also if you think for one second L wouldn’t have chosen her people first and foremost you didn’t watch 2x16 you’re crazy. Also also what is Roan doing right at that moment but planning to kick Clarke’s people out of their own home to save his people like way to be a huge hypocrite you asshat.

The Arkadia plot: By which I mean the Arakadia explosion. Only the destruction of Mt. Weather has saddened me more. I LOVED the Ark. That was (is, in the form of the still living people) my favorite society on this show. And I don’t just like the people I like the whole aesthetic of it and now it’s gone, all gone, and I’m just like…. Was that really necessary? The need to make Nightblood the only true viable solution already exists: only fifty Arkadians saved? Several major characters not on the save list? Please, they didn’t need to do an extended reign of destruction scene to make the other solution more important.

Besides destroying a set I motherfucking loved which I’m not going to lie is my main complaint here, it also just…like we’re almost halfway through the season? This was the midseason finale? And I just feel now like every episode so far has been a giant waste of time? Like literally what have they accomplished: the peace with Azgeda is (was?) broken; a whole episode was wasted on a trip to get a piece of machinery that was destroyed and would have been useless anyway; another episode was wasted on the main characters going on a mission to find a bunker that was useless; the result was that that plot was really the catalyst for the making of the list; which was allegedly destroyed in the next episode anyway and is AGAIN useless now post-explosion; this whole episode with the extended Roan/Clarke negotiation was important for literally .2 seconds, then it becomes...wait for it...useless too--almost everything that’s been done so far is UTTERLY WITHOUT POINT because of the Alpha Station explosion… I mean I know that filler is necessary sometimes. I would say, at a conservative estimate, that 1/3 of 2A was filler. But this just… I have real complaints about the narrative structure of this show; I think it is incredibly sloppy and so many things—little things that build up—make me REALLY question the ability of JRoth/the writers to construct a narrative in even the most basic sense. It’s very, very disorientating and dissatisfying to me.

I never liked Illian and now I’m like…lol bye get outta my face. I should have seen this coming when JRoth (?) said that the killing-his-family scene was included so as not to repeat the Bellamy massacre story line mistake, by making it more clear what the motivations for the character’s bad actions are. But here’s the thing. First, Bellamy is a lead and from the protagonist society so it’s a lot more important that his motivation be clear and viewer sympathies remain with him, than in the Illian situation. It’s not that every character has to be sympathetic. It’s that main characters who the audience is supposed to consistently identify with and root for over time have to behave in understandable ways and maintain sympathy even when they behave badly. (Again—do they not get basic concepts of narration?? A legitimate question because it kinda seems like no.) Second, I will NEVER EVER IN A MILLION YEARS put my sympathy with anyone being antagonistic to the protagonist society. Yet again, a basic middle-school-level English class concept here. If some fucker steps up and destroys the people I care about I’m not going to give a fuck about his sob story. (This is different from morally ambiguous villainous characters like Dante or love-to-hate-them villains.) Third, because I actually know how technology works and I also know the back story of how ALIE got out into society, I know that Illian is just fundamentally, objectively wrong when he says “Skaikru made me kill my family.” Lol nope you’re wrong they didn’t. I understand why you think that but you’re wrong. And on a related note, because the ALIE stuff was so inconsistent and poorly constructed, I’m not super sympathetic to any “this is the consequences of ALIE” story generally because I just want to forget that bullshit entirely. So yeah basically Illian is a villain I don’t need to see him redeemed, I don’t need to see him and O hook up. I don’t give a fuck about him.

Misc. complaints: NO MILLER. NO JAHA. NO JASPER. SAD.