#these two clearly bonded a lot offscreen

[ruindunburnit]

What do you think of the "punishments" Nyx put on Kalona and Rephaim? My personal interpretation of Rephaim turning into a bird and back was always him breaking every bone in his body multiple times two times a day to morph into a bird and back. I thought it was a justified punishment, but Kalona just dying once... Really? Feels very biased by Nyx. Also, everyone forgiving them so easily was weird. Especially Kalona. Rephaim at least had trouble with Dragon, while Kalona gets forgiven by Zoey after killing the love of her childhood just like that? It feels like both Kalona and Rephaim were written completely different before and after "repenting". Like, explain how they went from murdering rapists to what they were written as in the end of the series. I've always had trouble uniting these two concepts in my head. To me they're each two different characters. I was wondering what you think.

Hi! I know you sent this ask a little while ago, so I would like to say sorry for the delay. However, I have been thinking about it the whole time, and while I could say something about each of the punishments Kalona and Rephaim got individually, I'm afraid my views on each of them kind of add up to the same result. Just to bring it home, I'd like to add in a few more examples:

First, Elliott. From his first mention in Marked, he was the annoying, pasty, pudgy, ginger-haired boy whose main crime was being, essentially, "annoying to look at". The fact that he was homophobic seems to have been added as an afterthought to justify that Zoey and the narrative just hate this kid to hell and back. When he and Kurtis are abandoned by Kalona for the crime of siding with Dallas's murder attempt on Stevie Rae, and punished with exposure (I.e. forced outside the protection/succour of vampyre pheremone), there was no forgiveness there. It seems an awful lot like his crime is still just existing, and his siding with a murderer and offscreen execution was written as justification for that. He existed. That annoyed Zoey, so he is not allowed to exist anymore.

Second, James Stark (later known as Stark). From the beginning, he is written to be a love interest for Zoey, to be a kind of "bad boy" flavoured love interest -- the Jess to her Rory, the Hannibal to her Will Graham. He died almost immediately to manufacture the pining of separation and further interest (because, you know, Zoey just knew he'd be brought back to life). Anyway, what does he do when he's brought back? Under Neferet's influence, he kills the High Priestess of all Vampyres, Shekinah. Later on through her and Kalona's influence, he uses red fledgling mind control powers to rape at least one girl. We could argue that he "didn't mean" those things because he was under a dark influence, but we could also argue that it doesn't change that those things happened, and that it robs him of his agency to act like he didn't do those things. Did he get punished? Well... not really? I don't remember him getting punished, actually. He made a verbal renunciation of that dark influence and promised to be good, and that earned him the completion of his Change. He then went on to enter a warrior bond with Zoey -- making him a step above a boyfriend, a protector who knows her emotions on a mental and spiritual level. That, to me, feels remarkably like a reward.

And thirdly, the four strangers. In Chosen, two teenage boys (I assume teenage, but if they're older than Zoey, it is not by much) who are very clearly written to be Black, and in Revealed, two homeless men, assumed white because no mention is made of their ethnicities. In both cases, all they do is approach Zoey and talk rudely to her -- there's some anti-vamp sentiment there, yes, but again, it's only talk -- but by her reckoning, the problem is that they have the audacity to annoy her. In both cases, she uses her incredible element powers and kills them. Yeah, kills them. For the first set of boys, it isn't explicitly confirmed that they were murdered, but they were thrown in front of a speeding vehicle, so I have to assume they died at the scene.

I bring up these examples because they demonstrate the exact same problem with Kalona and Rephaim: Zoey's greatest weakness as a character is that she is influenced to act by the most shallow of reasons, including physical attraction; if she is attracted to someone, she will find a reason to forgive and exonerate them. If she decides she wants to exonerate them, no crime is too large nor too great for her to offer them her mercy and fellowship.

Given that the authors do not treat Zoey as a flawed and fallible protagonist, but as a perfect vent for their own views, the problem is that Zoey and the authors both live by this aesthetic principle. Please tell me if you think I'm wrong, but this tells me that the authors can and will find any reason to exonerate a man of the most deplorable crimes, including those against women and girls, as long as he is cute enough.

Thanks again @cuttoncandyhair! Please feel free to send me more asks.

[malkuvoitenoldoran]

Sooo... this is me attempting fluff with Turgon. Turgon holding his grandson for the first time, and bonding with Tuor. There is mention of the birth but the whole thing happens offscreen. Enjoy~

-

Turgon was just getting ready for bed when one of the servants who tended to his daughter and her husband knocked on his door. Frowning a little he wondered why before he remembered, he’d instructed that any time whether day or night when his daughter was giving birth to her child he was to be retrieved. The poor girl’s words confirmed his guess.

“My King, I was sent by my Lord to get you.”

Not even bothering to change or grab his shoes Turgon hurried out of the room, excitement at meeting the newest member of his family filled him as he raced through the hallways to the room Idril and Tuor were staying in. Tuor was pacing outside the room looking towards it anxiously and Turgon smiled a little seeing it. He remembered being in a similar state of worry and excitement when Elenwe had been giving their daughter birth.

“She will be fine.”

Tuor turned and looked relieved seeing Turgon. Smiling a little chagrin he nodded. “I know… well I’ve been told, but I still-”

“I know. It’s still nice to be told it anyways though. That’s something I can say from experience too.”

Tuor laughed and shook his head. “Forgive me, it is hard to imagine you as anything aside from calm and collected.”

Turgon gave a small shrug and looked at the door, his smile soft and warm as he remembered holding his baby girl for the first time. “I was quite anxious about it, I think I learned everything I could about the whole process and even then I worried. My father had to make me sit down and he and I drank until the midwife brought her to me.”

Tuor looked a bit more relaxed knowing that he wasn’t alone being anxious, and Turgon set a hand on his shoulder then gestured to a door just down the hall.

“Come, let’s go to the sitting room. If we leave the door open then when we are allowed to see them someone will come get us.”

After Tuor settled on the couch in the sitting room Turgon heated some water and dug through a basket near the room’s small fireplace for a tea blend he’d stored there recently. Finding it he prepared it, adding a generous helping of honey to the tea to help distract Tuor from his nerves.

“Here, it will help with the nerves.” He said as soon as the tea was ready, sitting down with a cup of his own.

“Thank you. It’s just…”

“I have heard that births are harder for Edain women than for Eldar women. Either way I am certain that it is difficult, and your worry for your wife is not without cause. Idril will be fine though, and so will your child.”

“You’re right. It is difficult to unlearn a lifetime of experience though.”

“It is.”

Before more could be said the midwife appeared holding a whining bundle. Turgon stood and walked over to look at his grandchild, Tuor joined him and reached for the little one. Turgon saw how awkward he felt and adjusted his arms so that the elleth could place the baby in his arms.

“Idril is resting now,” seeing Turgon’s look she glared at him, “she instructed us not to tell either of you until the baby was well on the way. She, rightly in my mind, didn’t want you fretting and worrying more than you had to. Now she’ll sleep a lot for the next day or two, let her do so, and if anything else happens let me know.”

Tuor nodded absently, staring in awe at the bundle in his arms. Turgon smiled and gently guided him to the room where Idril was. Seeing his daughter resting, golden hair spread out on the pillows, he crossed to her and reached for her hand.

“Father.”

“Daughter, what is his name?”

“I have named him Ardamire. Tuor chose Earendil.”

Turgon nodded and looked at Tuor holding the baby close. At last Tuor looked up and clearly wanted to sit with his wife but wasn’t sure what to do with the baby. Turgon laughed and carefully took the child from him, looking down at his grandson’s face. When he opened his blue eyes Turgon felt his breath catch, the last time he remembered feeling so in awe was when he’d held his daughter like this for the first time and behind him he heard Idril and Tuor murmuring to one another.

Ignoring them he crossed to the window, holding little Earendil so the light of the stars would fall on his face and seeing his fascination with them Turgon looked upwards sending a prayer of gratitude to Eru and the Valar for this gift and joy.

[shihalyfie]

The paradox of the relationship between Takeru and Hikari

The issue of the relationship between Takeru and Hikari has been a question of interest since the series first aired, and especially after 02, which prominently depicted them constantly hanging out together and clearly having some kind of relation to each other...and yet, strangely, very rarely having a real heart-to-heart or even talking to each other much at all. The constant juxtapositions of them standing next to each other all of the time in both the series and in external media, combined with the fact they’re so associated with each other in terms of being Adventure returnees and with Digimon partners with similar evolutions, makes one almost mentally geared to associate them with each other, and yet we never really get to hear what they think about each other in the entirety of Adventure or 02′s running.

Part of this is because Takeru and Hikari are the two most “difficult to read” characters in the 02 team -- Hikari because she compulsively suppresses any selfish or negative feeling she has, and Takeru because he covers up his problems with a smile and pretends everything is okay, until it’s not. And, as it turns out, that “gap in communication” exists between the two of them as well; in the web of 02′s relationships, it’s a strange mix between being “comfortable around” each other, and yet not truly knowing each other...

Disclaimer before we continue: With some exceptions related to unambiguous canon depictions, I try to write my meta about relationships between characters in such a way that both shipping readings and non-shipping readings are possible in most cases, and my main reason for this is that I very strongly believe that even if you do ship the pair in question, it’s rather reductive (and not very fun) to stop an analysis at “anyway it’s because they’re in love” or something and not go any further. If you don’t care for Takeru/Hikari as a ship, I hope you can take this analysis as-is, and if you do happen to ship it, I hope you can take my analysis of the gaps in their relationship as “things they would have to consider and overcome for such a relationship to be possible” (i.e. a possible fanfic prompt?) and not me trying to dismiss the ship as inherently possible or impossible.

A second disclaimer: A lot of the important key points below are heavily dependent on how they were presented in the Japanese version of 02, especially in regards to the key 02 episode 13. The American English dub took a very large number of liberties with a lot of the below aspects, so if you are reading this with only that version as a reference, please be aware that there may be significant differences for the sake of avoiding confusion.

Hikari didn’t get to spend much of the series with the rest of the Adventure group, having been a “latecomer”, but once she enters, it’s rather interesting how much Takeru doesn’t socialize much with her. Granted, part of this was because of the circumstances -- there was a lot to be done, and Hikari had a cold relapse not long after they’d entered the Digital World -- but you’d really think Takeru would be interested in at least socializing with someone who’s actually his age, and yet we don’t get any real depiction of doing so outside of discussing important matters. It’s not to say that they never had any kind of conversation offscreen, but by the time we get to the end of Adventure, we have zero scope of what they actually think of each other.

By the time we get to 02, it turns out that this is probably by design.

First of all, we very quickly learn that the two of them did not keep up between Adventure and 02 -- they’re meeting each other again for the first time in a long time, and the last time they did meet was when they were much younger (probably their last meeting being the one depicted in the flashback in 02 episode 27). This is understandable considering that, up until the beginning of 02, Takeru lived in Sangenjaya and not Odaiba, meaning that it wasn’t like they’d have opportunities to meet up much in real life either, but the point is that this is how little contact and how little involvement they’d had in each other’s lives up until this point.

So, once the plot of 02 kicks off and the two of them become active as Chosen Children again, the two of them end up hanging out a lot. So much that Daisuke starts accusing them of having something between them. And the two of them never say anything to really firmly deny him, which of course only makes him more confused and upset, until 02 episode 17, when the concrete connection between them is established to the rest of the 02 team, and it’s properly disclosed that they were part of a whole adventure back in 1999 together.

Takeru knew Hikari before, and she’s still the one he knows the best out of this team, and on Hikari’s part, Takeru understands the nature of “being a Chosen Child” in ways the others don’t, and both of them had that formative experience that the others don’t understand. But 02 is a series that’s not only about relationships, but also about the differing nature of relationships -- it’s true that, having known each other well beforehand and also being all-around decent people, the two of them would certainly have an extra level of investment in each other’s welfare, but...

In 02 episode 13, we learn that as much as Takeru knows Hikari, he doesn’t really know her, and on Hikari’s part, she’s still incapable of communicating the extent of her thoughts so that he can.

The conversation between Takeru and Hikari behind the school in this episode is the first time we get to really see an opportunity for the two of them to bare their actual emotions, but nothing that can be called a "conversation" is had between them. Hikari is still plagued by a compulsive desire to not be a burden to others, including the idea of “burdening” her brother, and, when Takeru finally prompts her on what’s going on, she says nothing that properly clarifies what she’s going through, nothing but a cryptic mention of the “sea”, a statement that she "might be going away”, and a reference to her brother having always protected her beforehand. Takeru takes it as a sign that Hikari’s become overly dependent on Taichi, and snaps at her angrily -- a persistent symptom of him being unable to regulate his emotions properly -- and, unable to handle it, runs off awkwardly, leaving her alone to eventually be taken away. Later in the episode, Takeru reflects that he’d basically just doomed Hikari by his own actions, and with his last words to her having been something awful.

Ultimately, some degree of progress is made in that Hikari realizes that Takeru reaching out to her earlier makes him someone she should be reaching out to for help -- in the end, nobody in the 02 group had yet been able to reach out to her emotionally because of how closed-in she was, and the only people she truly trusted with her feelings up until that point were Taichi and Tailmon. So in other words, Takeru is another person she can finally “trust” with her feelings and welfare. But while Takeru is finally able to connect to her in some sense with this, when the two finally close off the episode and return to the real world, everything ends in complete silence. They do not say a single word to each other. They’re getting by with a sense of “inherent trust”, and their disconnect was resolved with that alone this time, but this problem hasn’t been fully solved yet and will be rearing its ugly head again by the time we get around to the Jogress arcs.

And so the two of them return back to their “comfortable with each other” status quo -- but, again, 02 is a series that portrays relationships in a very multi-layered and multifaceted form, and being comfortable around someone still doesn’t necessarily merit emotional closeness (for instance, Ken was pretty clearly indicated as being “comfortable” and straightforward in terms of working with Miyako in 02 episodes 25 and 33, but there’s no doubt that Daisuke’s the one who was more properly addressing the things he emotionally needed most at the time, which could arguably be said to be exactly why Ken was having a hard time adjusting to him at first). We see them “go off together” to do...completely mundane and practical things, like discussing why they’re still able to come to the Digital World in 02 episode 22, or trying to have their Digimon partners evolve on their own in 02 episode 24 -- they’re not having any kind of emotional heart-to-heart, they’re just there.

When you look at the wider picture, you can see that Hikari and Takeru’s relative comfort around each other at this point is largely because they’re still not comfortable being alone with anyone else yet. So far, they kind of had a bonding (not really bonding) session back in 02 episode 13, and they hadn’t had anything of the sort with anyone else, and they’re still the only people who understand certain things relevant to the adventure in 1999 that the others don’t. They’re both still ridiculously closed-in and guarded, and not trusting anyone with their feelings -- they can’t even trust each other with their feelings -- so they’re getting by on hanging out with each other because it’s either that or go off to be completely alone. As the two most “emotionally isolated” people in this group, there’s a wall between them and the others, and that wall is only slightly thinner between each other -- and you can even imagine that they’re willing to hang out with each other because they won’t be bothering that wall and causing intimidation.

And by the time we roll around to 02 episode 31, we learn that, this whole time, nothing has improved. Takeru sees that something is going on with Hikari, but does and says nothing -- perhaps because he’s not sure what to say, perhaps because he’s afraid of lashing out at her again, whatever it is -- but he can’t and won’t speak to her nor address her feelings.

In the end, the person who does establish that ability to “communicate” with Hikari is not Takeru but Miyako -- an aggressive, in-your-face, overly honest person who gets straight to the point and refuses to hold back, whose messy personality causes Hikari to become assertive in handling her and allows Hikari to finally vocalize one of her truly sensitive feelings, and who’s able to use her immense emotional sensitivity to identify what Hikari needs and break through to her.

But just because Miyako ended up being the person Hikari needs to move on past this issue does not mean Takeru’s role wasn’t important, nor that Miyako coming into Hikari’s life means that all of her relationships are inferior or pointless -- rather, a recurring element of 02′s portrayal of relationships is that everything has a ripple effect, and that “opening up” one person’s heart allows them to open up to others as well (see how Daisuke reaching out to Ken eventually helped him reach out to the others in the group, how even in this very same episode Miyako expresses that this experience helped her understand Ken better as well, how Daisuke’s experiences end up giving him a healthier relationship with the rest of the group, how Iori and Takeru’s Jogress ordeal helps them both become better at reaching out to Ken...). Unlike how they’d both closed off 02 episode 13, Hikari and Takeru end this one by talking -- with Hikari’s newfound confidence from her dealings with Miyako allowing her to more openly speak what she’s thinking with Takeru.

One thing you might notice is that after 02 episode 31, Takeru and Hikari are never seen going off on their own together for the rest of the series -- because, again, their “latching” onto hanging out with each other at the exclusion of anyone else was because they were that isolated from everyone else, but not anymore! Hikari starts to hang out more with Miyako as the two of them become more comfortable hanging out after the events of said episode; after all, Miyako had come to understand the real reason why Hikari “keeps so much inside” and that she needs to actively reach out to her, and Hikari is able to properly trust Miyako with her feelings, meaning that now that Hikari is starting to open up, she doesn’t need to fall back on her “truce” with Takeru to get by. Which ends up leaving Takeru rather alone for the following set of episodes. Well, seemingly alone, but...

...he’s not truly alone, because this is also where Iori realizes that there’s a lot more going on with Takeru and that he needs to make a proactive effort to understand him, and it doesn’t take long for Takeru to realize what Iori’s doing (especially when Yamato tips him off that Iori asked about him in 02 episode 35). Once again, very much unlike Hikari, Iori is straightforward and to-the-point, and is much better at cutting through all of the complicated layers Takeru puts up in an attempt to cover up his emotions.

The rest of the series has them in significantly more emotionally tense situations than before, and while the fact they end up spending the rest of the series with their respective Jogress partners instead of each other is partially sheer pragmatics, it’s also how the two of them start taking a more active role in actually checking on the others’ emotions and communicating with them in regards to their feelings. This is a huge deal -- compare this to back in 02 episode 13 when they were practically the only people willing to have this kind of serious, emotional conversation with each other -- and said attempt at a serious conversation exploded in their faces. (The other time one of them had made an attempt at something vaguely resembling a heart-to-heart during that time was 02 episode 11, which also resulted in Takeru blowing up explosively.) But here they’re capable of communicating clearly and openly and making their positions known in a way that gets through to their respective Jogress partners’ issues, without being stifled by anything.

But, again: just because they don’t “go off together” anymore doesn’t mean they stopped being important people to each other or comfortable around each other -- it’s just that now they’ve stopped wandering off together for the sake of blocking themselves away from others, and no longer trapped in this strange, paradoxical relationship of knowing-but-not-truly-knowing each other they had all the way back in 02 episode 13. The relationship they had back then was something built off of coping mechanisms, and not something you could truly say was healthy, not when their communication was stilted and Takeru had snapped at her so badly -- but both of them learning to open up more and be more honest with their feelings means that they may well have an actual healthy dynamic going forward.

And for all it’s worth, we learn that they’re still on very good terms by the time of Kizuna, getting breakfast together in the opening -- but it’s left ambiguous if their reason for doing so like this was because they still have a penchant for particularly hanging out together, or whether it was just circumstance because they were free to get breakfast after the Digimon incident (they act independently for the rest of the movie). Moreover, their relationships with the others in the 02 group are still going strong, because as per the drama CD, Takeru’s happy to hang out with Daisuke like it’s nothing and actively join in to reach out to Iori (it’s said Daisuke was approaching Iori “first” despite Takeru being there, so both of them were hanging out independently and decided to pick up Iori together), and Hikari comes in with Miyako, expressing a very firm intent to hang out with her for their trip, and ultimately it’s established that them not being with the rest of the group at the time of the movie was sheer scheduling circumstance and not necessarily them going out of their way to operate away from them.

So in other words, whatever relation you can say they have at this point, or their ability to get along, is not based on them falling back on each other as an unhealthy coping mechanism of silence, but one carried out in a more genuine manner.

[exitpursuedbyasloth]

@atroupeofpigeons said “@exitpursuedbyasloth you seem so Knowledgeable please can you explain to me what on Earth is going on with the whole djinn wish thing and Yennefer and Geralt??? I only watched the show and in s1 in Rare Species I think (?) they sort of vaguely explained how it binds them but frankly it came off to me horrifyingly rape-y :/ did I miss something? Or is their romantic relationship separate from the whole ‘their lives are bound by Destiny’ deal? It just puzzles me to no end”

Answering this in a new post cause my answer was too damn long.

Well, you’re not wrong. Nor are you the only one who feels this way, nor did you miss anything. The exact nature of Geralt’s last wish was intentionally never clarified by the book’s author Andrzej Sapkowski. The showrunner for the Netflix adaptation SAYS they will eventually reveal the wording. But their version and Sapkowski’s are very different, so I don’t know if this is their own invention, or something Sapkowski told them, or if they’re just bullshitting because they have said things about the show that ended up WILDLY different (like Eskel). All we do know is that the wish created a unbreakable bond between them. Destiny in the show isn’t just poetic hyperbole, it’s apparently an actual force of nature, a Magical Whatevermabob. The wish created a bond, the bond creates an influence, it’s something that can be felt, which we see in other Destiny bound folks, Geralt and Ciri, Pavetta and Hedgehog Knight. It’s not a love spell, but it does create something internal which can be felt. Which means Yenn/Geralt were engaging in a sexual relationship with an outside influence effecting them, an outside influence that was not freely chosen. Which, yes, brings consent into question. That is the bare fact of the matter. It’s an already questionable situation made far worse by the show’s lazy writing and story gaps, by the show not explaining the situation at all.

I think they want you to see the romance separate from the bond, but the problem is they never showed the romance. They just told us they had a romance, trust us it was like really awesome and they’re meant for each other, but it happened almost entirely offscreen. Why is the audience supposed to be invested in something you never showed? There’s a couple of softer moments, but most of their interactions are sex, Yenn being duplicitous, or Geralt being a dumbass. We see a lot of betrayal and hurt. Toxicity. All while a djinn wish created a bond between them. You meet someone, and you feel this bond, this connection with them. That bond could influence you, make you think it’s love. Then you find out the bond was created by a djinn who bound you two together. How could you NOT question if anything is real between you two? How could you separate the djinn bond pulling at you, and your own emotions pulling at you? How can you be sure the bond does not effect emotions? Yenn on the mountain was right. And I don’t know how the show can fix this, cause I don’t think the show particularly cares. Therein lies the problem.

[And to be clear, I like both characters on their own, I think they’re strong and complex and interesting. I empathize with both of them. I am simply criticizing the weaknesses in the writing and how the show treats their relationship.]

The writing for the show is clearly relying on the audience to fill in all the gaps of the show-verse with all the lore and backstory of the games/books. BUT the show-verse deviates so dramatically from the gameverse and bookverse that their lore/backstory is no longer applicable. I can’t take Geralt and Yenn from the books, and implant their romance into the show because it’s all too different. Which just leaves huge gaps in the show, sudden dramatic character shifts. It’s lazy, bad writing. Your character development shouldn’t happen in a completely different medium. There’s a lot I like about the show, but there’s a lot the show does poorly. It can do individual moments well enough, but the show is BAD at telling it’s overall story. Pacing, plotting, organic character development. It’s weak story development when looked at in isolation, from a show-only perspective. Stuff just...happens.

Super-long analysis of the Geralt/Yenn dynamic and the show’s writing flaws under the cut...

The set-up in the books is similar to that of the show, with a couple of key differences; Geralt’s not looking for a djinn he just finds it while fishing, Geralt’s first wish doesn’t accidentally harm Jaskier/Dandelion (the djinn just starts strangling Jaskier because it’s annoyed by him; Geralt’s first wish actually saves Jaskier because he wishes for the djinn to ‘fuck off’ and off it fucks), there’s no creepy dubiously consensual orgy at Yennefer’s (when Geralt arrives, she’s sleeping), and when Yenn is trying to trap the djinn, it actually starts destroying a town full of people not just her house, meaning the whole town was in danger.  But the biggest difference in the book version is that Yennefer hears the wish from the start. She’s shocked by it, doesn’t think there’s any force in the universe that can grant it, but if there is, she tells Geralt that it means “You have condemned yourself to me”. The nature of the wish also causes them to doubt if their feelings/bond is organic, because the wish bound their destinies. Which causes them to be insecure and uncertain with each other, constantly coming together and breaking up. It’s never really resolved, they just kind of live with it. The most likely theory of what the wish was, is that since a djinn cannot kill his master, Geralt wished to bind his and Yenn’s lives/fates/destinies/deaths together. So it can’t kill Yenn without killing Geralt, which it is bound by its own magic not to do. Now, I don’t think Geralt was malicious or anything in that wish, and it may have been the only way out of the situation that saved himself, Yennefer, and the town. These stories are VERY influenced by Slavic folk tales, where using clever wordplay and methods of trickery to get out of magical shenanigans is a common theme (one thing I mourn about the Netflix adaptation is how very un-Slavic it is, and no, I’m not referencing the PoC they cast; I mean the whole feel, the aesthetic, is very ‘vague Anglo-Saxon artfully grungey pseudo-medieval’ which has been done to death). Yenn knowing the nature of the wish in the books is a large departure from Show! Yenn having no idea. Book!Yenn would at least know that there was a wish created bond, and wouldn’t have felt so betrayed by Geralt not telling her. Show!Yenn had no idea, and was shocked and angered when learning about it, because it IS an influence on them and she had no idea she was under the influence. It’s not a direct mind/heart control like a love spell or anything, but Destiny does create bonds you can feel. This was shown with Pavetta and Hedgehog Knight (Calanthe was right to be pissed and object on that ground), and Geralt and Ciri (but being a parent/child relationship, and Ciri being orphaned and in need of family, it’s much less problematic). This is made worse by the show using Destiny Bonds as a short cut, instead of actually taking the time to show bonds forming naturally. Pavetta and Hedgehog Knight said they fell in love almost immediately. Geralt is almost immediately in Dad-mode with Ciri; I feel it came on too suddenly, I would have liked to see more of an awkward struggle for him to learn how to be a Dad, but that’s just me. We do see Geralt actively trying to connect with Ciri, be emotionally available, help her with her problems, we SEE their relationship). However, we see almost nothing of Geralt and Yenn together, yet they are apparently hugely influential on each other, have an incredible bond...built on what? We never see. Which is a problem for the reasons you stated. If you don’t show any reason for them to be so in love other than a djinn wish, what are we, the audience, to assume? 

By leaving it vague, combined with how the show uses Destiny, and it’s unfortunate habit of lazy writing and short cuts, it DOES have the effect of making the basis Yenn/Geralt relationship questionable. By the way the show works, the ‘bond’ that Destiny creates is something that is emotionally tangible (as in, you can feel it like an emotion). So it would be easy to confuse that feeling for one of genuine connection, it could influence your choices even if you know its there. So, are they enamored with each other because of love, or because of the bond of Destiny? We, the audience, cannot know because the majority of their relationship is off-screen, we never see it. We have no basis for judgement, we don’t see them forming an organic bond, a connection, loving one another. What we see is they meet in episode 5 during a dubiously-consensual orgy, she promises to help Jaskier, makes Geralt remove his armor and take a bath, then uses a mind-control spell on him to make him go nuts so he’s locked away just so she can get Jaskier alone so she can take the djinn. Geralt returns, they fight, he makes a wish, they bang, he gets the hell out of there. BY THE NEXT EPISODE, they’ve been having a years-long off-and-on torrid affair that is supposedly so life-altering and formative for them (we never see this), they have sex, have some soft pillow talk, fight, Geralt acts like an ass about her desire to have kids, they save a dragon baby, whoopsie the wish-created bond is revealed, Yenn fucks off like she absolutely should. And the next season Geralt says Yenn is the reason for him being a changed man, they eventually meet back up BUT WHAT’S THIS?  Oh, Yenn tries to sacrifice his daughter so she can get her power back (she did not know Ciri was his at first, but kept on the plan even after knowing, her plan simply didn’t work). Geralt is pissed, as he should be, but their final conversation at the end of 2x08 doesn’t make a lot of sense, he says he doesn’t forgive her but that they’re destined for each other but there needs to be more and ciri is the more...which, Geralt, honey, a baby is not going to save a failing relationship. And then he says “Us three will help each other. What is destined cannot be avoided.” which...is okay for a partnership, but that is REALLY not the basis for a romantic relationship. Like he seems resigned, he has no choice in the matter. And he might not, if he bound their fates together; but that doesn’t mean they need to be in a romantic relationship. Because if Destiny forces you, it’s not your choice. And a sexual/romantic relationship that is not your choice is, well, non-consensual.

Now, Geralt should have said something to Yenn early on, it would have at least ameliorated the issues of informed consent somewhat, put both of them on equal footing. I don’t know if the Netlfix writers didn’t do this because they didn’t care/didn’t see it as an issue or just never noticed (given their track record, either is likely), or just wanted to create drama/strife and didn’t care about the implications. I don’t think Show!Geralt was trying to take advantage of Yenn. He may not have known or believed the wish could create such a bond. His emotions would also be influenced, which he may not have recognized. Show!Geralt is also kind of a himbo, it just may not have occurred to him. We don’t know because they’ve clarified nothing. Both because of their own ineptitude and their desire to create drama cheaply. And because they have a track record of not really understanding consent (the dubiously consensual orgy at Yenn’s where everyone was under her spell, the “These women are too drunk to remember where they are” bullshit with the prostitute invasion of Kaer Morhen). It could be that in never occurred to them that the way they wrote the wish/bond could have an influence over Geralt and Yenn, or that Geralt not telling Yenn about the nature of the wish is really, really fucked up. Or did they notice, and simply didn’t care. Which I sadly think is more likely, because the wrote Yenn being furious about not being told about the wish, so they saw that it was wrong. But do they think her concerns were silly? Unfounded? Of course they’re not. The concerns would be valid for anyone, but ESPECIALLY someone like her, who was constantly thrown into situations against her will, who fought to control her fate/life, who was failed by people/institutions she tried to trust. Her desire for power, control, didn’t come from nowhere.

The situation was already bad. But the the writers made it worse with their inexplicable decision to have Yenn attempt to sacrifice Ciri for her own power. Geralt would be perfectly in his rights to not forgive or trust her after that. Yes he has his own mistakes against Yenn, he should have told her about the wording of the wish, he’s absolutely wrong in not doing so (the show has given us no reason why he didn’t); but this is not about Geralt and Yenn, Yenn didn’t do something to Geralt she did it to Ciri. I like Yenn as a character, I want Ciri to be safe with her, for her to have a mother-figure and magic instructor without having to deal with Aretuza’s bullshit; I just don’t know if I can realistically see this happening now, so soon and with her facing so little consequences for her betrayal of Ciri. And yet, Geralt seems resigned to the fact that they’re all stuck together by Destiny. That’s one thing in a parent/child relationship, it’s a whole other can of beans when it comes to romantic relationships.

I generally don’t think the show is intentionally creating a questionably consensual romance. But every once in awhile, something will throw me off, makes me wonder if they are (and keeping it on the backburner for shock!). Some of the lyrics in “Her Sweet Kiss” for example (but they also see Jaskier as comic relief, don’t really take what he says seriously, so...). Yenn’s reaction on the mountain, or Geralt’s resignation that they can’t be rid of each other, so might as well be a family. Like...waht? What am I supposed to do with that?

In the show, Geralt/Yenn a really poorly written dynamic all around. The audience probably wouldn’t be questioning why they’re together if the show ever bothered to actually SHOW (show, not tell) us why. They’re strong characters on their own, it should not have been difficult to show them falling in love. But the show just...didn’t bother. I can’t even fully tell if they are deliberately trying to make the audience wonder about the consensual nature of their romance or not, if they truly think they did enough by just telling the audience they, like, super into each other. For some reason. Trust us. We’d show you that reason, but that would get in the way all these tits and CGI.

[dedicatedfollower467]

Here’s fanart for the wonderful fanfic “see the fire in their eyes” by @radiantmists for the Rusty Quill Big Bang this year! You should also check out @phenomenice‘s wonderful fanart - we worked together to create a series of comic pages for each chapter of the fic!

I had an incredible time working on these pieces! Thank you to @pilesofnonsense for putting this whole thing together!

Image descriptions for each page under the cut. I know that’s not ideal, but I tend to go overboard when describing comics.

Image 1

A five-panel comic illustrating a scene from chapter 2 of Edgedancer’s Rusty Quill Gaming fic, “see the fire in their eyes.” It is boldly colored in shades of blue and orange.

In the first panel, Grizzop drik acht Amsterdam and Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan are discussing things in a kitchen. Hamid is an Egyptian halfling man with curly black hair, wearing a suit. Grizzop is a bald goblin with large ears, wearing a button-up shirt tucked into his trousers. He is clutching a kitchen knife.

Grizzop: “You think she’s powered. She’s not registered?”

Hamid: “Not as far as I know. I mean, you heard what she said about laws. and it's not like we have any proof…”

Unseen person off screen: “Proof of what?”

The next panel shows an extreme worm’s-eye view of Grizzop throwing the knife, colored in bright orange. Hamid is in the background in blue, shocked.

The knife flies through the air.

In the next panel, the knife was clearly heading towards Sasha Rackett, but she has bent slightly out of the way. It is now heading towards Azu, who has a panicked expression. Sasha is white human woman with short black hair. She is wearing a leather jacket with studded shoulders. Azu is a tall black orc woman with a shaved head and tusks. She is wearing a leather jacket with pins on the lapel.

In the final panel, Sasha is looking down at Grizzop while he glares back at her. In the background, Azu is reassuring a panicked-looking Hamid.

Sasha: “Good throw. What are you looking for proof of?”

End ID

Image 2

A five-panel comic illustrating a scene from chapter 4 Edgedancer’s Rusty Quill Gaming fic, “see the fire in their eyes.” It is boldly colored in shades of blue and orange.

In the first panel, Azu, Grizzop drik acht Amsterdam, Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan, and Sasha Rackett are portrayed in silhouette, standing in front of Barret Rackett, a white man with dark hair, who is seated at a desk. He is pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand.

Barret: “And if I just have the four of you shot?”

Grizzop: “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

The next panel is a close-up of Grizzop wearing a button-up shirt tucked into his trousers, holding a couple of darts. His eyes are closed and he is smiling smugly.

Grizzop: “First, because I’d shoot you before you could shout two words of that order.”

Barret (offscreen): “Ashen!”

The next panel takes up the entire center of the page, and does not have borders. A large “snarl” sound effect covers the top of the panel. Hamid stands in the middle of it. His hands have transformed into claws and his face has a dragon-snout, horns, scales, and a forked tongue. Smoke blows out his nose. A pair of wings spread from his back and stretch to the edges of the page.

The next panel shows Grizzop standing in front of Hamid’s wing, one hand on his hip. The other is holding a handgun, stretched out and pointing at Barret offscreen. His eyes are open and he has a very smug grin.

Grizzop: “And second… because those bulletproof scales come with a fiery temper, if you know what I mean.”

In the final panel, we can see the silhouette of Ashen standing in the doorway. He is behind Hamid and Grizzop, who are both oriented towards Barret with furious looks on their faces. Grizzop still has the gun. The back of Barret’s head and shoulders can be see in the extreme foreground, although he is looking at Hamid and Grizzop so his face is unseen.

Ashen: “Sir?”

Barret: “Get out.”

End ID

Image 3

A five-panel comic illustrating a scene from chapter 6 of Edgedancer’s Rusty Quill Gaming fic, “see the fire in their eyes.” It is boldly colored in shades of blue, orange, and red.

The first panel depicts an underground cavern. In it, Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan is bound, and looming over him is Franz Kafka. Hamid is in blue, while Kafka is in red, wearing a bright red shirt and a long black cloak. Behind the two of them, Oscar Wilde, Zolf Smith, Azu, and Grizzop drik acht Amsterdam are also bound. However, a white silhouette of Sasha Racket shows that she has disappeared from this lineup.

Hamid: “So, what, you make things like… the squizzards?”

Kafka: “The… ah. No, they were a creation of Hades and Persephone, some strange combination of their powers. My creations, when they’re finished, will be far better.”

In the next panel, Hamid and Kafka continue to speak offscreen. However, the panel itself depicts Grizzop leaning forward and grinning at the silhouette of Sasha behind him.

Hamid: “Better? They already have two superpowers, I’d say that’s pretty impressive.”

Kafka: “Their bodies can only handle the strain because they’re half plant matter, and even that is slowly taking them over.”

In the next panel, Kafka and Hamid have been portrayed very small in the distance, and their word balloons are filled with scribbles instead of real words. In the foreground, Wilde and Zolf are both looking over their shoulders towards the silhouette of Sasha, who is looking at a pair of handcuffs on Wilde’s wrists. Wilde has a bandage over the side of his face.

The next panel is a close-up of Hamid, glaring defiantly upwards.

Hamid: “If you want me to shift, you’re going to have to wait for the suppressants to wear off.”

In the final panel, Hamid is grinning. Kafka is still looming over him, but looking back over his shoulder.

Kafka: “Oh, it will have begun to. That’s why I have your--”

Kafka’s face is surprised and upset at what he sees behind him, and he is colored in paler, bluer colors than in previous panels. Behind him, Wilde, Zolf, Azu, Grizzop, and Sasha are standing, free of their bonds, and ready to threaten him. Sasha is grinning and twirling a pair of handcuffs in one hand, while Grizzop has a gun aimed at Kafka. They are colored in bright, vibrant orange.

End ID

Image 4

A five-panel comic illustrating a scene from chapter 8 of Edgedancer’s Rusty Quill Gaming fic, “see the fire in their eyes.” It is boldly colored in shades of blue and orange.

In the first panel, Zolf Smith and Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan are having a conversation.

In the background, we can see a flashback of the two of them in their superhero outfits. Zolf is wearing something like a firefighter’s jacket, boots, and gloves. Hamid has his wings out and has clawed hands with scales on his face. He is wearing a thaub or long robe-like piece of clothing that reaches his knees, which has a small cape-like piece of clothing around the neck and shoulders, though it doesn’t extend beyond his shoulders. They are standing back to back.

In the foreground, Zolf is leaning forward and not looking directly at Hamid, his face slightly pinched with discomfort.

Zolf: “Lot of things I could say about you, Hamid, but you’re not a coward. And it’s not… unfair, to need some confirmation, even if…”

The next panel is a close-up of Hamid, who looks slightly hurt.

Hamid: “Gods, Zolf, if it’s that hard, you don’t—”

Hamid’s speech balloon is cut off by a balloon that crosses into the next panel. It is outlined in bright orange.

Zolf: “I love you, alright?”

In the next panel, Zolf has turned to Hamid with almost a glare. He is colored in bright orange, which stands out against the blue background.

Zolf: “As—as family, like you said. You’re not pathetic, Hamid, I’m just an arse. So—"

In the next panel, Hamid has thrown his arms around Zolf’s neck and is hugging him. There is a broad smile on his face and small tears at the sides of his closed eyes. Zolf’s expression is mostly hidden, but he sighs.

In the final panel, Zolf is hugging Hamid back, looking contrate. Hamid has buried his face in Zolf’s shoulder.

Zolf: “I’m not going to leave.”

End ID

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 19, part two

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff) (Previous Post)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

The Man Comes Around

Over at the Wen Indoctrination Tower, which seems to exist just to torture Lan Wangji with stair climbing, Lan Wangji is climbing the stairs. Too bad his cultivation level is too low to be able to just jump up. At least this time his leg isn't broken.

This is the first vengeful stair-climb in the show, but not the last. (Parallel gifset here).

The Wen guards are stationed all the way at the pinnacle of this tower to guard...what? Why are they not at the bottom of the stairs? What is this location for, actually? This is further up the stairs than the scenes with the indoctrination lectures. Anyway, it's been three months since Wen Chao threw Wei Wuxian into the burial mounds, so naturally these guards are talking about that exact thing as Lan Wangji approaches.

Lan Wangji knocks them all down with a blast from his guqin. Did you know his guqin is named Wangji, by the way? It is. A guy who is that lazy about naming his quqin maybe shouldn't feel so superior to a guy who named his sword "whatever." 

(I'm suddenly remembering a plush lamb I had as a child, whose eyes were orange, that I named "orange eyes.") (I, however, was three. And I had a lot of plush lambs. Little ones. Grown-ups found it hilarious to give them to me.) (Native speakers of English can probably guess what OP's real name is. Hint: it rhymes with Canary.) (Everybody else: there is a kid's rhyming song called Mary Had A Little Lamb. OP's name is Mary.)

Anyhoo, after Lan Wangji is finally finished with his dramatic entrance, Jiang Cheng comes flying in from wherever he's been hovering for the past 20 minutes of stair time. A bunch of Lan sidekicks also flood into the frame from wherever they were hiding during the wide shots of LWJ on the staircase.

In case you hope that CQL Lan Wangji is as much of a top (offscreen) as MZDS Lan Wangji is (on the page), here's a gif for you.

(more after the cut)

He uses the patented Lan string attack to choke this guard.  Lan Wangji doesn't have to hold a guqin string in his hands to choke someone with it. He doesn't even have to tighten it, judging by how absurdly not-tight this string is.

Or maybe this guy is choking on the chin strap of his helmet. This is exactly how OP's son reacts when OP sticks a bike helmet on him. (Note: it's GOOD that they are following choking safety protocols on set. Very good. However, they could have just left the string out and pretended, and it would look better, in this instance)

The Wen guard tells Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng about the whole "thrown into the burial mounds" thing.  Team Let's Find Wei Wuxian is not happy to hear this.

A Vengeful Ghost

Meanwhile, in some Wen office somewhere? Where the hell is this? Yiling, we get an ominous shot of the rooftops where Wei Wuxian is lurking and then we see Wang Lingjiao trying to sleep and having a nightmare.

Wang Lingjiao has gone to sleep with a full face of makeup on instead of washing her face before bed. She has forgotten the important maxim, Go To Sleep Pretty, Wake Up Zitty.

She leaps out of bed to go cling to Wen Chao and freak out about Wei Wuxian's ghost. Wen Chao is trying to read the sports section and has clearly had enough of this crap. This has presumably been going on for a little while now.

Wang Lingjiao is in a new outfit, which is...pajamas? It has the feel of a 1930's French peignoir set, and it's much more softly colored than her usual bright red-purple combo. If this is her pajamas is it weird that her day clothes are a lot more aggressively sexy-looking than her nightgown? A freak in the streets but a lady in the sheets.

Wen Chao rants about the Sunshot Campaign and talks some smack about Wen Qing, and then leaves to go to the bar and watch the game with Wen Zhuliu. After he leaves Wang Lingjiao freaks out for a bit and then looks at the notice he was reading.

The notice basically says that the Sunshot Campaign is kicking their ass. She should be proud for inspiring the name of the campaign with that kite-shooting bullshit she made up at Lotus Pier. Before slaughtering everyone.

No Matter What You Do, I Only Want To Be With You

Back at the Indoctrination Tower, Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng are having feelings about Wei Wuxian. Jiang Chang does all the talking but Lan Wangji's thoughts are louder because a sad violin is playing Wangxian while they talk.

Jiang Cheng tells Lan Wangji about their meetup plan and says he thought WWX had dumped him to go find Lan Wangji in Lanling. Lan Wangji telepathically indicates that this didn’t happen. This means two things: 1. Lan Wangji has been hanging out in Lanling, where Jiang Yanli has been hanging out, so maybe they have bonded over the past 3 months and 2. This is the first time Jiang Cheng has talked to Lan Wangji since Wei Wuxian disappeared. 

Much as my fic-loving heart would like to believe these two spent three months on the road together looking for Wei Wuxian, in fact they are both important high-level fighters in an active military campaign, and Lan Wangji was busy taking back the Cloud Recesses while Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were having elective surgery. They probably both were assigned to the "Indoctrination Bureau" mission and this is the first chance they've had to talk about Wei Wuxian.

Is it heartbreaking that, while Wei Wuxian was helplessly getting his ass beat because he'd sacrificed his golden core for Jiang Cheng, Jiang Cheng believed Wei Wuxian had abandoned him for Lan Wangji? Yes. Yes it is.

For some reason Jiang Cheng is hesitant to believe that Wei Wuxian really was thrown into the Burial Mounds. I mean, I understand not wanting to believe Wei Wuxian is dead, but given that Wen Chao is the dude who oversaw the massacre of all of the people at Lotus Pier, including kids, why would Jiang Cheng think his guards are wrong? Maybe he just feels like Wei Wuxian is invincible, since so far he kinda has been. 

The Sword is Mightier Than Not Having a Sword

While they've been chatting, the Lan disciples have found their swords. One disciple is holding Bichen (LWJ's sword), Sandu (JC's sword), and OP consults wiki Suihua (Jin Zixuan's sword). Another disciple is holding Subian (WWX's sword).  

Jiang Cheng grabs Sandu while the Lan disciples, who apparently know their gongzi’s heart, offer Wei Wuxian's sword to Lan Wangji. 

Lan Wangji takes Subian (Bichen: What am I, chopped watercress?) and immediately tries to draw it. Like you don't do. It's sealed itself, which apparently means that it's upset. It's unclear if it's upset because Wei Wuxian is dead or if it just misses him, however.  

Lan Wangji definitely misses him, and wonders, out loud inside his own head, where Wei Wuxian is. Um, he's in the Burial Mounds, dude, they just told you. Well, I guess he's actually in Yiling proper at this point, haunting Wang Lingjiao as he promised her he would.

Twa Corbies

The scene shifts to Qinghe, where there are about 12 dead bodies lying around, which in this show means that there are really a few hundred. In fact, per Jiang Yanli's statement "nothing can be seen but corpses covering the plains." The camera can't see most of them, is all.

Wen Xu's head is hanging in the doorway, and the Jins talk about how Nie Mingjue killed him, cutting his head off with just one swing. Is this foreshadowing anything, like perhaps someone else's head being cut off by Baxia in just one swing? Nope, definitely not.

A couple of crows are perched on a body, totally not eating it, but Jin Zixuan gallantly zaps them with a talisman to make them fly away anyway.  It might be noteworthy that nobody used to use talismans but gradually more and more people are using them - particularly people who have spent time with Wei Wuxian.

With mony a lock of his golden hair-o, we’ll theek our nest when it grows bare-o

Asshole cousin Jin Zixun says “scavenger rights,” so Jin Zixuan puts him in charge of collecting all the bodies. 

Since OP just finished watching fur-collar-happy Nirvana in Fire, these crows look to me like they are wearing luxurious fur collars. Where OP lives, crows are not this fancy. 

A Romantic Corpse-Filled Interlude

Disaster het Jin Zixuan goes to help Jiang Yanli get out of the carriage but she rejects his hand just like he rejected hers back in Gusu.

Jiang Yanli is extremely shocked when she sees Wen Xu's severed head, and turns away in horror, preferring to calmly rest her eyes on dozens of crow-pecked corpses.

Jin Zixuan tries to comfort her and she tells him she'll be going now, thanks for the hospitality. He tries to say that he has to personally deliver her to a representative of the patriarchy one of her brothers, but then one of her brothers shows up.

Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng arrive, having presumably flown there from Qishan. They show that they are flying by blowing a fan on the ground and then jumping off of a box, which is better than the effects we were subjected to earlier in the episode.

Jiang Cheng rushes over to have an emotional reunion with Jiang Yanli, while Lan Wangji rushes over to have an emotional reunion with Wen Xu’s severed head. Jin Zixuan kind of spoils it for him by talking about Wei Wuxian's absence while Lan Wangji is trying to have a moment.

The whole time Jin Zixuan is talking to him, Lan Wangji appears to be gazing into the middle distance but in fact he is staring at Wen Xu's severed head. This is the guy who led the burning of Cloud Recesses, killed a bunch of disciples, and personally broke Lan Wangji's leg. Lan Wangji stares at his head for more than a full minute before glancing away.

Jiang Yanli hasn't seen Jiang Cheng since they were in Wen Qing's clinic, and she is happy he's recovered. When she asks about Wei Wuxian he gives her the bad news in the classic Jiang fashion, which is to say nothing, but look stricken until your interlocutor figures out that something is horribly wrong, but not precisely what.

Four Angry Men

Inside the fortress, Nie Mingjue is slapping the table and saying, this bad boy can hold so much resentment and vengeance. They're having a mini war council and we're getting a better sense of Nie Mingjue's anger management problem. Note for those who don't get the gif reference: this is a The Godfather joke, not a sex joke, but it can be both, if you like.

We're also getting a little more info about Baxia, who seems to be eager to go fight even without anyone wielding it. (Her? Him? Them? do swords have gender? I don't know). Well done, person below the camera frame whose job is to rattle Baxia in a menacing manner.

They've got a giant model of the battle targets, which looks like it was carved out of real rock (I mean, as much as any of the rocks on this show look like real rocks) and has its own table and everything, decorated in Nie colors. Where was this before they took Qinghe back? Has Nie Mingjue been traveling with it? 

Anyway, I'm assuming Nie Huaisang made it, because it's pretty nice. Hopefully they will keep it around for tabletop gaming after the war is over.

Jiang Cheng is upset but is using his anger management mantra to help control his temper while Jin Zixuan and Lan Wangji talk with Nie Mingjue. 

Lan Wangji talks by leaning forward meaningfully, mostly not by using any words, but he asks for a battle assignment and Jiang Cheng immediately joins in. They both want to go find Wei Wuxian. 

Nie Mingjue says Yiling is too difficult of a target, but Lan Wangji puts on his determined face, which is apparently very persuasive.  

After Team Find Wei Wuxian leaves, Nie Mingjue asks Jin Zixuan to hang back so he can ask him how Meng Yao is doing. This is the first time he finds out that his ex didn't go to Lanling. Jin Zixuan tries to delicately remind him that Dad's got, like, SO many bastard children, they really don't have space for all of them. Nie Mingjue dismisses him immediately and abruptly. 

Nie Mingjue might invite the straights to his party but he isn't interested in actually socializing with them.

Unconditional Soup is Only for A-Xian

Jiang Cheng can't sleep, and takes some time, now, to be sad about Wei Wuxian. Presumably he spent the prior 3 months being mad, not sad, because he really thought he just buggered off without saying anything for all that time. Which is sort of fair, but sort of not. One thing about these two bros is that for as close as they have been and as much as they love each other, their mutual understanding has some big, messy gaps.

Fortunately while he is feeling sad, Jiang Cheng does not try to draw Subian from its sheath, because wouldn't THAT be awkward.

Jiang Yanli can't sleep either, and comes to sit with him. Jiang Cheng feels bad that she's wearing herself out with worry and she says "As your sister, I have nothing to do but to worry about you." Jiang Yanli isn't one to complain but she doesn't like being inactive or helpless. In Lanling she was far from the war, but now that she's in Qinghe she'll make herself useful by tending the wounded, and later she'll help Jiang Cheng shoulder his responsibilities as he takes over the Jiang clan.

At the moment, however, all she can do is fret and make soup. As she gives Jiang Cheng a bowlful she reminds him that he absolutely has to rescue their brother who has, according to his captors, been reduced to bone dust.

With all the impossible shit that Jiang Cheng is expected to achieve - and in many instances, does achieve - he is absolutely the embodiment of the Jiang Clan's motto. Fuck his father for disrespecting him because he hadn't figured out how to do everything by the age of 16.

Definitely Not Chilling in Yiling

Back in Yiling, Wen Chao is hearing the news that the Qishan Indoctrination Bureau has fallen and that he's being called back to Nightless City. Wen Chao says he shouldn't need to go back because his dad has a new right-hand man. That new right-hand man, we will eventually learn, is Meng Yao. Wang Lingjiao, meanwhile, is hiding under the bed covers and deciding it's time to dump Wen Chao.

She locks the door and goes to pull out her jewelry box, which is locked and hidden under the bed. Maybe this is Wen Chao's jewelry box, because she acts kind of squirrely about opening it. Upon opening the jewelry box, she doesn't find jewelry but a pair of bloody fake eyeballs staring at her.  She screams and freaks out and then the wind picks up and we hear the sound of a flute, playing the "I'm here to fuck your shit up" tune that Wei Wuxian likes.

Wang Lingjiao runs to the door and pulls down the protection talisman that's pasted above it, and pastes it directly to her chest instead, which is, we will learn in the next episode, the worst idea she could possibly have at this point.

Then she uses a poking stick to go flip the jewelry box open and finds it's full of ugly-ass jewelry again, plus an improbable number of weird round paper-mache biscuits that have been painted gold. None of this jewelry looks anything like the exquisite accessories people wear in this show, which means this stash was put together by the practical effects department, not by the costume department.

Anyway, Wang Lingjiao apparently thinks she can sell this fakeass stuff for a good price, so more power to her. But then we get a short glimpse of the menacing eyeballs again, this time on the floor, having moved out of the box and brought their little blood pool with them. Screeching ensues.

Next episode: Lady in Red!

Soundtrack: Twa Corbies, by Steeleye Span

[crossovereddie]

Actually, here is an alternative thing for you to occupy your time with, and a question I have been meaning to ask you for a while. I have finished 911 finally! So I'm ready for the new season. And I wonder, realistically, what do you think the roadmap would be for a buddie endgame?

I absolutely see how their story has been framed and filmed in a lot of parallels to how a romantic storyline would be set out. But there has been no outright mention of either of them being bi - although the conversation about Maddy setting Buck up with whassisface was very casual and could very easily have been an example of canonically bi Buck - and they are both at the end of season 4 in 'relationships' with women.

So, in your estimation, what's the timeline? What's the transition? How do they go about this and how long does it take? I wanna know your thoughts 👀

okay yes i have lots of thoughts on this and it's actually one of my fave questions i get asked. I've always watched a lot of tv shows so I'm just estimating on what I've seen before and what I would personally do. IMO this love story is a slow burn. We only have four seasons so far and only three of those seasons have Eddie in them. This unsurprisingly got long so ill put it under the cut.

So I'll go by seasons bc to me its important to look at everything that has happened so far by seasons and by love interests and not as a whole. Its the best way i can form a timeline that I think would make the most sense and why

S1: So we don't get any hints at Buck being anything other than straight and I think this is because he was supposed to be. They hadn't planned for Eddie yet and they definitely hadn't planned for the chemistry Oliver and Ryan were gonna have. S1 Buck was this reckless kid who didn't take anything serious. He was definitely super immature. Then he meets Abby and he starts to get serious about his job and his love life. I'm not gonna say "Abby changed him" because she didnt. He saw the person he was and the person he was becoming and decided on that change himself.

S2: Eddie!!!! So we get introduced to this army medic turned firefighter in the least heterosexual way. Then Buck is angry because Eddie is hot and really good at his job. they work together and Eddie compliments Buck and now they're smiley bffs. Seriously wtf was all that? Anyway this is all sus bc from what ive seen before in other shows when a main love interest leaves and a new main character replaces them, that means something. JLH replaced Connie Britton as far as big name actress but i really believe Eddie replaced Abby as far as importance in Buck's life. Do i think they brought him in with the intentions of turning him into a LI? No but they sure fueled the narrative from the get go. I think they saw fans reactions and started testing the waters.

Moving on to LIs in this season. We find out Eddie has a kid and the mother is not in the picture (eddie made sure buck knew that right away). Then later on we find out he's technically still married. shannon comes back and we get Eddie finally getting to confront this head on. He tries to get his family back together for the sake of his son. Its big for Eddie's character bc all he does and all he's ever done is for his son. Then Shannon asks for a divorce then she dies bringing this arc to an abrupt end and leaving eddie heartbroken.

meanwhile Buck is still waiting for Abby. Then he finally accepts that shes not coming back and decides to move on. He goes right back to being "Buck 1.0" with Taylor and feels bad about himself because that really isnt him anymore. He wants a real relationship. So then Ali calls and asks him on an actual date and he agrees. This is his first try at a relationship after a heartbreak. in tv these don't usually work out but are used to develop the main character's growth. We don't really see much of her but she breaks up with him so.

S3: This is Eddie finally dealing with his feelings/guilt season. This is also the season I think we really see how important Buck is to the Diaz boys. S2 had cute buckley-diaz family moments but those could still be interpreted as a best friend and his best friend's kid. This season though... after the tsunamic episode was when i really started to fully believe buddie was going canon. This season is solidifying their bond not only as Buck and Eddie but as Buck Eddie and Christpher. As I'm writing this I realized neither of them really has a love interest in this season do they? Ana is introduced but then is clearly presented as definitely NOT the right choice for eddie and especially for Chris. Then they counter that with Buck helping Eddie build a skateboard for Chris that he can use as opposed to Ana's ablest remarks about how he can't do it so just move on to something else. Then we get Buck's reaction in Eddie Begins. Buck has seen his team his friends his family get hurt on the job before but he has never reacted the way he did when it was Eddie in danger. Again solidifying just how much these two mean to each other. Don't even get me started on this season being when Eddie changes his will offscreen. Anyway we get Abby back and Buck finally gets the closure from that relationship that he needs to move forward into a serious relationship.

Now S4: jfc s4....IMO this is the only logical season to get the ball rolling on Buddie and they sure did that with 4x14 despite everything else. So i never thought they would be the first serious relationship for each other after the heart break theyve both experienced. It wouldn't be fair to their character developments. Buck tries dating Veronica and that clearly doesnt work but we know hes now open to dating again. We get Buck Begins where we see why Buck is the dare devil he is. The only way he got his parents attention as a kid was to put himself in danger. They bring back taylor and how to they ultimately get together after she friendzones him? She thinks hes in danger and suddenly wants him. As much as i hate it this is really gonna be a relationship where Buck finally stands up for himself and sees his own worth and realizes he deserves more. He deserves someone who sees him and loves him for who he is. He deserves to be chosen, something Abby Ali his parents dont do and what i think taylor wont end up doing. I feel like shes gonna choose her career over him. Maybe not in a "I'm breaking up with you" way but maybe she takes a new job and want to do LD (hes tried that twice and it didnt work for him. hes not gonna want that) or she could ask him to go with her but he wont. His family is in LA. His job is in LA. Eddie and Chris are in LA and he won't leave them. Then we have Eddie finally deciding to move on and try dating again so they bring back ana. To me it's not gonna work out so I'm not bothered at all lmao. It's interesting that they'd choose her though. Someone we already know Eddie doesn't trust with his son. There's also more buckley-diaz family scenes of them being coparents. The hildy episode, Chris running to Buck when hes mad at eddie, Buck being the one to tell Chris Eddie got hurt, then Buck staying with Chris and taking on the guardian role without him even knowing just how much that role really does belong to him. He didn't do it out of obligation. He didn't do it because he was asked to. He did it because he thought it would be best for Chris. Finally to 4x14. This is by far the biggest "Oh shit this is it. This is the beginning of buddie". We find out Eddie changed his will a year ago and has just been sitting on this info. I think Eddie knew back then what it meant but he wasn't in the right mindset to accept what it means so he kept it to himself. I think he finally started allowing himself to go there during treasure hunt. The man was jealous yall. Carla coming back and her comment about doing whats best for him and not chris is his oh shit moment. I think he wouldve broken up with Ana a few days after that if he had the time lol. He gets caught up in the mother/son sl then this poor mf gets shot by a sniper. The way that whole scene was filmed btw was not in a bff way. That was a lover watching his beloved almost die in front of him. Buck again puts himself down and Eddie decides this is the moment. He needs Buck to see how important he is. He wants buck to know how loved he is. So he sits there talking himself up to it and finally lets Buck know just how big of a part he is in Eddie's family. Buck's previous scene is him saying he wants someone who wants him back then here is Eddie saying he needs him...Chris needs him. wtf.

So with S5: I think Eddie knows and Buck has a feeling but he's not sure so what i would do is spend s5 with Eddie basically showing Buck his feelings but not exactly getting in the way of Buck's new relationship because Buck has to be the one to make that choice. Id also have chris feeling the different shift with buck having a gf like he did with Eddie. This newfound info wasnt just dropped on us for a "Aww so sweet" moment. This will business is gonna be a part of a bigger storyline. I'm hoping its with Eddie's family during maybe 5b.

So what I think would be the best timeline for canon buddie is 5a eddie already having either broken up with ana or is gonna break up with her, Buck choosing himself and ending things with Taylor by midseason finale, them bringing in Eddie's family in 5b and maybe then being when Eddie confesses his feelings for Buck. Then 6a we could get them walking on egg shells around each other not really knowing what to do bc this is all so new for both of them. This could bring just the right amount of comedy and angst especially them awkward and flustered around each other at work. A big blowup can happen between them for added angst (maybe an arguement before one of them or both of them is put in danger) then a midseason finale kiss. Then trying to find the balance between their personal relationship and their work relationship during 6b.

I don't know how long Fox shows last but procedurals can last a long time. I'm not sure thats gonna be the case for 911 especially with all the main cast staying that long so i think this would give us at least a whole season (S7) of canon buddie.

As far as then being presented as straight, there's been more seeds planted about buck being bi. A few i can remember off the top of my head: all of 2x1 lmao, maddie's comment about bucks boy crush on eddie, buck hinting at thinking eddie is cute when he thinks maddie is talking about him, the christmas elf, the comments on the instagram livestream, idk if youve watched it or not but TK's comment to Buck in the crossover episode, and like you mentioned Maddie's casual comment about setting him up with Josh. All we really know about Eddie's love life is he married Shannon when they were young and is trying with Ana so it could turn into a whole storyline for him.

I'm so sorry this is so long and took forever but i I hope i actually answered your question and didnt just get lost in rambles lmao.

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

What do you think about Demetri being so included in Hawk and Moon's relationship? He was always in their dates and I mean, he was literally the reason why they broke up.

This was, in fact, pretty damn funny. Like deadass I can only think of like...a couple times we get a Hawk/Moon scene where Demetri isn’t nearby??? Like he’s like max 10 feet away when they’re kissing at the beach party, AND when he’s got her arm around her later when Aisha gives Yasmine the wedgie. Like Demetri’s at the All-Valley with Moon, Demetri’s at the afterparty with Moon, Hawk, and Aisha, Demetri’s at the beach with Moon and Hawk, Demetri goes to Valley Fest with Moon to support Hawk. He’s literally ALWAYS third-wheeling, it’s so funny. The ONLY time I can think of that Demetri isn’t there is when Hawk gets the moon tattoo and leaves the tattoo parlor with Moon--and by then, he and Demetri are already having issues a la the whole “Kreese punched you in the face and I’m telling you to suck it up and stop being a little bitch” thing. And then the scene later that episode where they break up because, you know, Moon had issues OVER HAWK’S TREATMENT OF DEMETRI SPECIFICALLY lmao

I think the most TELLING thing about it is that if Hawk didn’t want Demetri there hanging out with him and lowkey third-wheeling, it would just be so easy to like...not invite him??? Especially considering how much of Hawk and Moon’s relationship in S2 takes place over the SUMMER, when the kids aren’t in school and you actually have to make an EFFORT to get together with your friends. It would’ve been SO easy to just...not tell Demetri about the All-Valley, the victory party, the BEACH HANGOUT, VALLEY FEST, if they truly didn’t want him there. Honestly these two just unironically seem to really enjoy Demetri’s company and want him around constantly. They both definitely like having him there--otherwise they wouldn’t invite him to basically all their hangouts that we see.

It also makes me kinda wonder if like...Hawk and Moon weren’t nearly as invested in their relationship as we’re meant to think??? Like what sorta couple like...barely spends time alone together??? We’ve only seen them hanging out one on one TWICE, and in one of those instances Moon was LITERALLY DUMPING HIM. Like Sam and Miguel, for example, get plenty of scenes alone together--where they’re on their date, when they’re video chatting, at Moon’s party, when she’s visiting him in the hospital, when they’re hanging out at the Miyagi-Do dojo. Like we have plenty of chances to see them being able to hold a conversation and spend time with just each other without it getting awkward. Even with Sam x Robby and Miguel x Tory, neither of which I’m really a huge fan of, we STILL got to see them spending time alone together to establish a connection. With Hawk and Moon, like...we never really got to see them establishing that kind of connection about anything more than just skin-deep stuff (i.e. finding each other hot lmao). And sure, they’re more minor characters than Miguel, Sam, Tory, and Robby, and they could have bonded more offscreen, but like...are we just supposed to take the show’s word for it??? Because I don’t see a deeper connection in the way they interact AT ALL. They honestly strike me as one of those high school couples who date more for the social clout of being able to say you have a boyfriend/girlfriend but only actually go out on a date like...once a month XD And most of the interactions they DO have are like...either making out, fawning over each other’s looks, or just hanging out as what could be no more than like...platonic friends. Like the fact that Hawk rarely seems to want to hang out with JUST his girlfriend, but always Demetri AND his girlfriend??? Kinda makes it seem like either a) he’s actually not all that comfortable being alone with Moon or b) he seems to prioritize spending time with Demetri almost as much, if not MORE, than spending time with his LITERAL GIRLFRIEND (I mean look--does he pull MOON up on the stage at Valley Fest??? Nope), which is, uh...kinda sus. I mean yes, your friends are still going to be important to you while you’re dating someone, and you’re going to prioritize them in addition to your SO, but typically during the “honeymoon phase” at least you’re gonna be kind of all about your SO and you’re gonna prioritize them at least a LITTLE more than your friends. But we don’t see that with Hawk and Moon at all??? Hawk seems to prioritize spending time with both of them equally from the jump.

Almost like he lowkey wishes he was dating Demetri instead and lowkey only has a girlfriend for the social status, how about that???

It’s also kind of amusing how okay MOON is with Demetri always being around??? Like you’d think she’d be a bit irked that her boyfriend’s best friend is always third wheeling, but nah--she genuinely adores him as a friend, and seems to be pretty amused by his antics. And it speaks a lot to her platonic loyalty to him that she was willing to end things with Hawk over his treatment of Demetri. It also indicates to me that, like Hawk, Moon might not...actually be that comfortable spending time alone with her SO??? XD Which makes some degree of sense--when Hawk tries to use the tattoo to guilt her into staying, she says “I didn’t ask you to do that!” indicating that like...she very much WASN’T ride or die with this relationship. And honestly good for her--I don’t blame her for not wanting to follow Hawk down that dark path. But also I feel like it shows this relationship wasn’t a top priority for her, and she’s more than happy to sacrifice it for the sake of her friendships (i.e. Demetri). Either way, I didn’t get the sense that these two were attached at the hip or deeply in love or anything like that--from both Hawk and Moon’s side, it seemed pretty shallow and almost for show. Granted, Demetri claims Moon “loved” Hawk later on, but even that seemed like kind of a shallow love--we don’t have any proof that Hawk really ever opened up to Moon and showed her a more vulnerable side, since he was so busy repressing the “nerdiness” that’s still very present in his personality. And we only see him trying to be macho and tough around her, and she only ever seems to fawn over his looks and his fighting skills. Doesn’t seem like love to me :/

Basically I think Demetri always being there when Hawk and Moon hung out shows Demetri is a really, really important person in Hawk’s life--it’s kind of a big deal that he seems to prioritize him just as much as his own girlfriend. Also pretty definitively proves to me that the “Eli and Demetri were only friends out of desperation/loneliness” theory is bullshit because like...why the hell would Hawk STILL want Demetri around after he made new friends if that was the case??? Why would he constantly nag him to join his dojo, where he would Demetri MORE??? Why would DEMETRI do things like go support Hawk at the All-Valley and then later at Valley Fest (I mean FFS, the kid shows up in a COBRA KAI T-SHIRT--that’s commitment, my dudes!!!)? These two clearly value their relationship a lot and are really important to one another. Otherwise, they wouldn’t make each other such a priority before their relationship falls apart.

[inmyarmswrappedin]

So, because Fatou’s season ends today and, as far as we know, Druck hasn’t been renewed yet, I want to go over the things I feel the team did well in this season and the things I hope they take with them when they sit down to write the next season (which I’m manifesting will be Ava’s).

I think that s5 and, perhaps to a bigger extent, s6, were the team’s attempt to address fan feedback for and criticisms of s3 and s4. So I have hopes that, after possibly the most scrutinized season of any Skams, they are still willing to read even more feedback and sit down once again to craft a couple more seasons (possibly even 3 or 4 more seasons!).

So, without further ado, things that were done well! (Do I have to add “in my opinion”? Do I??)

I liked that for both s5 and s6, the thorough-line for the season wasn’t made obvious or shared in a press release, but rather it was up to fans to connect the story threads for themselves.

I loved that the team sought to address one of the biggest criticisms of s3, that is, that Matteo was given so many symptoms of a mental illness, but it ultimately went unaddressed in the narrative. They did this by giving Nora a dissociative disorder, and Fatou dyscalculia. (Matteo has been headcanoned as being mentally ill and having a disability.) It allowed the teams to develop both fan theories into full-blown seasons and give each of them the importance they deserved.

I have said this already, but I really appreciate that the team chose misunderstood, misrepresented and underrepresented mental illnesses and disabilities. I feel like s5 and s6 will be referents for many years, because they really took the time to portray a dissociative disorder and dyscalculia in a down-to-earth, unhurried way that isn’t meant to shock and awe, but simply allow us to understand why and when Nora and Fatou will struggle. Druck got the viewers to anticipate when Nora and Fatou would struggle, and that’s the first step in being able to anticipate and accommodate the needs of the Noras and Fatous of the world. I really can’t overstate how important this is and what a difference it makes in a real, tangible way. These seasons aren’t meant to be enjoyed for voyeuristic reasons, but they will legitimately help people.

One of the biggest criticisms of s4 was that Amira and Sam didn’t connect as women of color. In fact, it seemed like in s4 Sam was treated as another white friend, when in s2 both she and Amira were the victims of Kiki’s racism. The team addressed this by giving us Ava and Fatou’s friendship, which I want to say might be the first friendship between main characters of color where their race is a substantial reason for their bond. (There are the Sanas with their Jamillas, but the Jamillas aren’t main characters, and then there are friendships like Jo and Megan and Zoya, or Imaan and Liv, or Luca and Yasmina, but iirc in every case their bond as women of color isn’t made explicit.)

Another criticism of s4 was the way Kiki turned into the world’s most understanding white friend offscreen. The team addressed this with the Ava and Mailin storyline, which I think was wonderfully and subtly set up in s5, then built on with the biology test leaked answers.

On the topic of race, I think a major criticism of s3 was that David’s ethnicity wasn’t acknowledged (to the point where a white actress was cast to play his sister gvhvhv). The team has made up for this with Josh (more in the s6 sm than in s5, but I still count it) and with Kieu My. Fatou and Kieu My bonded over being first/second gen children of immigrants, and in doing so, they acknowledged that these characters aren’t white and have different experiences than white Germans.  

The first 6 episodes of this season were some of the finest writing in the Skams. The storylines all connected and built on each other. The motifs were just so good and beautiful and fitting. The themes were all clearly defined and easy to follow.

The tortoise plot was one of the most fun and imaginative storylines in any Skams, it connected Fatou and Ismail in a believable way. And not to rave about a fucking tortoise, but animals can be really uncooperative and that tortoise delivered every fucking clip. Druck has a reputation for being one of the most depressive versions of Skam, but the Maike/Burger plot was just plain fun.

I feel like some of the old gen’s instas were a bit self-indulgent. I’m thinking specifically of Matteo’s memes and how they they weren’t necessarily the kind of memes a gay dude born in 2001 would pick, but someone a decade older. I think this is much better done with new gen. Fatou’s memes reflect her age and her sexuality, and not just that, but Ava, Mailin, Kieu My, Josh, etc. all pick memes and even focus on different aspects of recent news, based on their gender, race, personalities, interests, etc.

I appreciate that the team found a way to fit a sex scene between Fatou and Kieu My to add to the small catalogue of wlw sex scenes on Skams (I’m including the scene in lovleg or we’d only have two lol). While I understood the reasons eskam opted not to include one, I thought there were ways to feature a sex scene that didn’t sexualize the actresses and didn’t require nudity. Cases in point: the lovleg scene, and this scene in Druck.

And it also needs to be said. This is the first original season with a main of color, and the third season overall (after Liv and Imane) where 10 episodes are given to a character of color and no one else. Of the three, it’s certainly the season that loved and respected its main the most. The bar is so low it’s in hell, but Druck did clear that bar!

With all that said, let’s talk about the things I would really want the team to address in following seasons:

The thing I most want them to fix might be small or unimportant for a lot of people, but I think it’s at the core of why the season has been unenjoyable or certain plot points haven’t come across the way the team wanted, for many people. I am talking about the overly expositional nature of the writing.  It appears as if the team approached the writing of the clips with the intention of hitting each beat as noted in their agreed upon outline, and absolutely nothing else was to be added. This is an issue both in s5 and s6. It’s just less noticeable in s5, because s5 is setting up stuff for Fatou’s season, and possibly even seasons that haven’t been written yet. The fact that absolutely every second counts makes for a stressful watching experience for me, because the narrative tension is always heightened. Whereas with Skam, the narrative tension would build throughout the clip. Take the Pride scene in Skam, for instance. The clip allows for Isak and Eskild to get increasingly more agitated as they butt heads. I feel like if this Druck team had done the Pride scene in s5 or s6, the clip would’ve started with both Isak and Eskild already on edge, and cut much of the dialogue that got them there.

On the topic of naturalistic dialogue, this season doesn’t have it. Here is an example from ep 10 clip 2, Wieder vereint/Reunited 11:37.

Fatou: I’ll get a certificate too and bring it over to you. And I checked it, I only have to change one course and my schedule will work.

Teacher: Miss Jallow, you are not the first one to come to me with an epiphany. We could fill entire school weeks with the lessons you missed. In addition, Doctor Steinberg told me about your, well… activities. You don’t have a lot of arguments on your side. 

Fatou: But I’ve spoken to all of the teachers and they said they are okay with it. 

Teacher: You seem to have friends among the teaching staff. Mrs Pavlovic put in a word for you. Okay then, do it and go before I change my mind. [translated by @kieu-tou! Thank you!] 

Like. This is the bare bones version of a dialogue. This should be the first draft, not the final version. The coordinator goes from absolute no to yes, with just one line from Fatou. The coordinator gives reasons that would necessitate more than one sentence of counterargument, like Fatou’s absences and the Biology test leaked answers. The coordinator even says Fatou doesn’t have a lot of arguments on her side, and yet it takes Fatou one line to change her mind!

And of course we viewers don’t want or need a lot of time with the coordinator. And particularly at this point in the season, no one would enjoy a naturalistic dialogue with the coordinator of all people.  But my point is that this is an issue with the dialogue all this season (and last season as well, but this season has been more scrutinized), the reason I picked this example is because of how easy it is to see here.

Which brings us to the pacing of the clips, and specifically the Friday clips. Because the script goes straight to the information the team wants to convey to the viewers, skipping the build up to it, many Friday clips have fallen flat, felt abrupt, and have been, tbh, unsatisfying. Again, I had this issue in s5, but as that season went on, I felt like the team had a better grip on Friday clips. But then they did it again in the first Friday clip this season, and so I think this is something the writers really should work on. The first Friday clip in Isak’s season closes on Isak being sandwiched by Emma and Even on a bench, visually setting up the love triangle, or more accurately, the personifications of who Isak should want to hook up with and who he really wants. But in order to get there, we’re shown a good amount of info, from the way Vilde, Eva and Sana are handling Noora’s absence, to Chris and Kasper, Even hovering around Isak, Emma trying to impress Isak, Isak escaping and, like, draping himself on the walls because he’s so over it all. Isak playing a game on the bathroom to stall for time. The paper towel maneuver to immediately give us a sense of what a weirdo Even is. A conversation between Isak and Even that gives us some clues about Even’s shame, as well as establish interests in common (like weed), and this is all before Emma even joins them! Just think of all the stuff we learn about who Isak, Even, Emma, Eva, Vilde or Sana are as people, before we get to the point of the clip! Fatou’s season simply didn’t have that. Compare it with the first Friday clip of Fatou’s season where the cashqueens quickly talk about the leaked answers, one of the major storylines this season that only gets a couple lines, before Fatou says she doesn’t want to talk about school (Fatou’s struggles with school, another major storyline), and then we’re onto the point of the clip, which is that Kieu My likes girls too. AND FADE TO BLACK. When people say they want longer clips, what they mean isn’t artificially inflate the clip length or add more plot stuff. Just let us watch the characters interact with each other so that we get a feel for how they relate to each other. I know I wish we’d have gotten more of Ava and Fatou interacting with each other before things turned to shit, and Ava with the other girls, so that I know why they all like and value Ava so much. I wish we’d have gotten more of Kieu My talking to the cashqueens about, like, why she didn’t make use of the biology test answers, instead of getting it on a chat. Or food combos they don’t like. So it makes more sense that later on Kieu My actually thinks she and Fatou are friends.  And every line doesn’t have to count. In Skam España, the characters are constantly talking and not everything they ever talked about ended up being relevant. When one of the characters lied about her house undergoing renovations to hide the fact that she was poor, the characters joked about Italian marble and put on bad Italian accents and made that Italian hand gesture. None of this was important to the plot because those renovations weren’t real to begin with, but they made viewers feel like these were real friends joking around, instead of characters needing to hit every storyline beat in a clip.

I have this joke with my friends about Druck always going 🤪🤪 in the last third of every season, in which a season that was very tightly written and cohesive suddenly pulls something inexplicable and pretty much impossible to resolve in 1-3 episodes. Hanna’s season suddenly switching to Mia, Björn creeping on Mia in episode 9! of a total 10, David getting outed in episode 8 and then disappearing for a whole week, Amira’s season pivoting to Mia and Hanna. It has happened in every season except Nora’s, so I thought the team had learned its lesson, but then the forgotten date with Ava happened. To be clear. It really makes no sense that Nora would have hung out with Ava several times since Tuesday, and the topic of the cashqueens being officially introduced to Kieu My wouldn’t have come up. it’s just not realistic.gif I feel like at that point the writing for the rest of the reason became super contrived to keep Fatou miserable and apart from Kieu My and Ava to artificially delay the reunions until episode 9 and 10. Why add a cheating insinuation and the main checking her partner’s messages in episode 8 if you know you won’t be able to properly resolve it? Why make Kieu My mock Fatou’s “uhm” if it’s not going to be addressed in their reunion clip? Kieu My had taken the initiative for a lot of the relationship, so it’s okay for Fatou to take the initiative when it comes to making up. You don’t have to add things that can only be resolved through an expositional info dump. (Please no more exposition than it’s necessary! I think we’ve established that at this point lol.) In the case of Fatou’s season, this is even sadder because I feel like Kieu My’s intimacy issues could’ve been the reason to drive them apart for two weeks, rather than the Maya/uhm stuff. This could’ve also been resolved through Fatou and Kieu My explicitly negotiating their boundaries and how they want to be comforted and how they want to comfort each other, which I thought was the issue with Fatou rejecting Kieu My’s attempts to help while wanting physical touch, while Kieu My didn’t want to be touched but rather seen.  

There are going to be many thinkpieces on why a myriad of stuff didn’t work for people, so I’m going to keep this simple and address one last thing. I think that choosing to focus on Nora’s mental illness and Fatou’s disability is a great choice that doesn’t complicate the themes too much, but Druck (and all the Skams, but I’m invested only in Druck succeeding at this point) still struggles with being intersectional. This is the major reason why the Ava/Mailin storyline ended not with a bang, but a whimper. There just wasn’t enough work done to connect Fatou’s struggles not just to her disability, but also to her race (and even her sexuality). I think that if people really want (and lbr, it’ll be mostly poc who will put in that effort and work), they can see how Fatou’s race affected the way other people and especially adults reacted to her, but this wasn’t made explicit. If Ava and Mailin are going to argue about racism all season, why not connect that with Karin firing Fatou from Aquarius? As it stands, Karin fired Fatou because of a disability neither of them knew Fatou has, and that was the resolution to that storyline. Why not make it explicit that the Physics teacher had preconceived ideas about Fatou because Fatou is black? Why wasn’t Fatou’s disability addressed in the meeting with the coordinator? Why didn’t Fatou express to Mailin that Fatou, too, had issues with how Mailin was acting wrt racism? It felt like, with the way the season was putting so much emphasis on racism, all these threads were going to be connected. In the end though, it almost felt as if only Ava is affected by racism (aside from Mailin mentioning Fatou in the last episode). It’s not like talking about how racism affects Fatou is going to make the topic redundant for Ava’s or Ismail’s season. As a light-skinned black lesbian with a disability, Fatou’s life is going to be impacted by racism in a different way than Ava’s will, as a dark-skinned black fat straight cis girl, or Ismail’s, as a Turkish-German possibly Muslim possibly non binary person. All these experiences are specific enough, and different enough, that they can be touched upon in different seasons without becoming redundant. The fact that Fatou’s season almost seemed to forget at times that she is a black lesbian, doesn’t bode well for Ava’s and Ismail’s season to acknowledge all their struggles.

The bottom line is that this season really was great and did a lot of good, and I feel like the writing just needs to be tweaked a bit for further seasons to be even better and more enjoyable overall. I am very pleasantly surprised by how the team took s1-s4 fan feedback to heart and worked to implement suggestions, and so I really trust them and hope they keep working on the show. It’d be a shame if Druck wasn’t renewed, with this team at the helm.    

[bigskydreaming]

Thinking about Kings of the Sky and Jason's titans. Kid Devil, Beast Boy, and Danny Chase are shoo ins. Who else? Arisia Rrab would fit. Sprout? (Damn a lot of options are sexually controversial.)

LOL actually I do have the full, extended lineup of Jason's Titans in that AU all figured out: 

Here's the initial post explaining the background of my fave Jason ship, JasonTom, and possible choices for Jason's teammates and my reasons for each. 

And here's the post laying out the finalized list of Jason's lineup of Titans and who each one's respective mentor from Dick's lineup is.

Beast Boy is solidly a member of Dick's lineup because this AU only diverges from canon around the point where the Garzonas case happened, and despite being younger than a lot of the others, Gar was still well established as one of Dick's Titans by then. And tbh, Vic and Gar are one of my fave dynamics and I can't imagine not writing them as BFFs forever, which just works better with them in the same age range. One of my biggest RAGE, I RAGE, DC! changes to the New 52 was them aging down Gar and Raven, because I just love their friendships among the NTT so much and just look at that choice and get stuck on a loop of going yup, that was a choice that happened alright, but WHY was it a choice and does it HAVE to be a choice? Let's make it not a choice that happened. 

Danny Chase floats in a kinda in between state between Dick and Jason's lineups, due to his age and established dynamics with the characters present here. This goes AU well before Titans Hunt so Danny, Joey, Arella et al don't die as they did there, so he never becomes Phantasm, so he's kinda the slightly older, more experienced confidante to Jason's generation of Titans and is like lol yeah fuck the older Titans, I heavily endorse you doing anything and everything that will make them groan in exasperation, particularly Dick.

Kid Devil I didn't make part of the lineup because I most primarily associate him with being part of Tim's lineup of Titans during the year of Countdown/52, and okay that's also clearly a total cop out since I made Amy one of Jason's lineup and she was literally a traitor on that same lineup of Tim's so what is the truth, me, hmm?? 

Okay, lol lbr, the reason I didn't include Eddie was total pettiness/personal reasons. I just kinda have a.....grudge, I guess you could say, against his character for the way his 100% offscreen friendship with Jason is hyped by a lot of Jason's fans while they actively ignore the ON the page moments we got between Dick and Jason back then, where Dick actively tried to build a relationship with Jason, and they just default to being like "no. Dick hated Jason. Is canon. No shut up it totally is." 

And then two seconds later its like okay and now let's talk about Jason and Eddie's epic friendship which consists of two whole pages referencing them being pen pals and teaming up one time pre-Crisis (which again, was where Dick and Jason's brotherly relationship truly lived and we saw tons of at the exact same time, so its like okay so Eddie and Jason, still BFFs forever because of a couple pages, but Dick and Jason, mortal enemies because Dickhead was an asswipe to Jason all those times we didn't actually see because he wasn't actually an asswipe. Got it!)

LOL so the point is, that discrepancy, let's call it, just annoys me on principle. When its like, painfully obvious that almost an entire fandom's view of Dick and Jason's dynamic is contrived and literally just a choice Big Name Fans with a large influence over what new fans do and don't know, like, made a long time ago, and people just decided that oh okay, we can hype the hell out of two pages of bonding with a character most people don't even know exists while ignoring multiple repeated displays of genuine sibling affection between brothers just because we don't like that narrative and prefer Jason be misunderstood and resented by his brother for Reasons, I'm just like.....mmm, don't love that. 

As you can see, it gets me easily worked up into a tizzy, lmao, and while I don't MIND being in a tizzy while posting meta thoughts all tizzily, I prefer not to WRITE write while in a state of being tizzified, and so I just decided to swerve around making Eddie a Titan here and putting a lot of focus on his and Jason's friendship, since I don't trust myself to be objective and nonpetty about writing it. I'm just like...eh, I don't want to write them, and I know and understand why I'm making that choice, so I'm fine with it. *Shrugs* 

(Which is basically what I actually always argue for people to do more of so I try to take my own advice. Like, I truly don't think anyone should HAVE to write characters they aren't thrilled about, lol, like why would they, but I just believe its better to just be fucking honest about the why of it and own it, even if just to yourself, so that it doesn't leak into the actual writing in the form of like, resentment that you feel you HAVE to write someone you don't actually want to invest page time and effort into.)

So for the record, Eddie and Jason ARE still friends in this, they do still have that penpal relationship, just modernized, and I didn't do away with that or anything, I just keep it mostly just referenced and happening off the page while on page I focus on the lineup I outlined above and the friendships I develop there.

Arisia and Sprout just didn't come up when picking my lineup because I'm not as familiar with their characters and at this point there's already so many characters even peripherally in the mix that its unlikely I'll throw them in, but eh, you never know. Most of the people I did pick though are like, C and D list faves that I always thought had mega untapped potential DC remains committed to untapping, because I can delve the hell into characters like that, with all the gusto. 

So yeah. That's the What and the Why of all that story direction!

[my-mt-heart]

When Daryl and Carol talked about possibility of Daryl and Connie getting together he said that is not like that but then Carol pushed forward asking why and he couldn't tell her. Don't want to be a Debbie Downer but in past i was thinking scene about caryl but now i think with Leah as part of that maybe it was about donnie? Since it was painful to Daryl he didn't move on Leah but recently he gave Carol that knife and was said he moved on. What if not like that was about him not wanting go romantic with Connie because of his past with Leah and not Daryl's lack of romantic interest to Connie? Someone admitted that he's very alike with Connie as he was with Leah. Flirtatious, has no game(unlike with Carol he brings her flower with dinner which Kang commented as friendship gesture) etc.

I think i was blinded by Norman's acting in that scene in Bonds, how he looked on Carol i decided it was about caryl. Sorry for this ask, im not troll but don't want to fall painfully when season 11 comes. They can do timejump and make donnie offscreen, or make them even onscreen. With throwing Carol into that episode where Daryl compares relationship with her to his with Leah and writer commenting they're completely different relationships was that commentary made to point caryl isn't romantic like Daryl/Leah and/or could adding Carol there and Daryl's comparison and mistrust to Carol eventually being written to set donnie as canon because he's closer to her than to Carol now. What if we don't understand what we watch and it was about donnie all way along? Kang never friendzoned donnie in her interviews as she did with caryl. What if even if caryl is endgame Kang won't pass through possibility of making donnie canon as midship?

Also: did you watch pre-10c interviews where Melissa and Norman talked about Carol wanting to find Connie for Daryl or something? What if they spoiled it for us, Norman was touching his lips during Mel's answers, they laughed so i assumed they're bothered by these where's connie questions. But now I'm concerned they were warning us without saying things out loud. And Melissa didn't promote season 11 like other actors it scared me. She always does, even if she doesn't tweet anything else. But that day she came on twitter to promote Negan's episode but made zero s11 promotion. She doesn't promote only when things are not bright for her character or can get her fans upset. I don't know what to think. Sorry if scared or bothered you by this concerned ask.

Oh, wow. Okay. You’ve raised a lot of concerns here, and I’m sorry I don’t have the mental capacity to touch on all of them at the moment. Here’s what I’ll say though. Using Donnie as a mid ship makes no sense. It doesn’t fit Daryl’s character. I don’t like Daryl/Leah at all, but I could make some arguments for it at least. I can’t do that with Donnie. I don’t know where you look for insight, but I first and foremost look at what’s being shown on screen, followed closely by what the Showrunner aka the decision maker/visionary for the show says, and neither source has done anything to convince me that Daryl and Connie are going to happen. Both have convinced me that Daryl and Carol will. Could I be wrong? Totally, but I do have enough faith in my analytical skills to not be overly concerned. As for the scene in Bonds, I’m just going to copy and paste a couple things I’ve said in previous posts. Again, please forgive my laziness: 

Find Me adds some new context to the scene in Bonds, but overall, I don’t think it changes what we took from it initially. Carol clearly assumes that Daryl is still hung up on Leah, but his behavior throughout S10 shows otherwise. Yes, he feels guilty that Leah is gone, but instead of that guilt hindering him, I think it’s actually motivating him to try not to make the same mistake again.

From Find Me, we learn two very important things: 

1) Daryl has been in a romantic relationship before.

2) Daryl has opened up to Carol about this romantic relationship at some point. My best guess is between their return to Alexandria after The Storm and Carol getting on the boat. 

This means certain theories about why it’s “not like that” with Connie – that Daryl just doesn’t know how or doesn’t want to talk about his love life because it’s new and uncomfortable for him – are no longer valid. 

It could be argued that Daryl is suppressing his feelings for Connie because he’s scared to move on from Leah. At the very least, this is definitely what Carol is calling Daryl out on when she says, “Years pass. You can’t hide out with her dog forever.” But is that actually what’s going through Daryl’s head? I’m inclined to think not because while he certainly still harbors guilt for Leah leaving, all of season 10 and even Find Me have shown us a version of Daryl who is ready to put that behind him, build a future, and finally entertain the possibility of being happy. So it stands to reason that if he was starting to feel that with Connie, he might actually try to chase it, but who do we see him literally chasing instead? Carol. 

Also take into account the significance of the “lucky” double capper, which just so happens to crop up in this scene, as well as the scene in the next episode where Daryl is alone with Dog (the thing that Carol warned him against). I think when he acknowledges those acorns on the table, he acknowledges that he wants to be with Carol. But that of course gets thrown into question, or so we are led to believe, in Find Me with lines like “Has our luck run out?” and “Our luck’s run out, you and me.”

Once again,  I could be wrong, but I still believe Daryl’s line “It’s not like that, not at all,” is sincere.  

Also, when in doubt, spinoff. 

[snowflake-of-destruction]

let's hear about FFVIII seifer, if you're still doing this XD

Why I like them: You know my tastes. A green-eyed man is introduced throwing fireballs around, is kind of a condescending jerk but in a fun way, instigates deep conversations on high ground while staring at the sunset...Well, before we even get to villainy, immolation, and redemption arc, I start going “Is this a favorite character?”  I’m joking...kind of. Some of that does factor in, even the fire. 

Okay, so my favorite thing about Seifer’s arc is that, in the limited focus he’s given, he’s complex and layered from the beginning, and his villain arc is a clear and fascinating illustration of “No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks” ….with a side of brainwashing.

Let’s break this down:

What are some of the words used to describe him by those that know him (by himself, by Squall, by Fuu and Rai)? Romantic. Idealistic. Sensitive. He is the one who believes in making a difference in the world--not just as a wish or goal, but as an imperative to do what your heart says is right even if it’s going to cost you--where Squall is just follow-the-orders-and-do-the-job. If you’re already reading this and objecting, I’m not saying Squall doesn’t care...obviously he does, defrosting Mr. Go Talk to a Wall and getting him to a place where he admits how many layers of mask he wears is his character development...but Seifer isn’t just a hothead. He wears his heart on his sleeve. 

Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to deny that Seifer can be an abrasive, self-serving, hypocritical jackass sometimes,  who can fight dirty, wants to “wreak some havoc,” and has a history as a bully--though, gentlefolk of the jury, I submit to the courts that he puts on a tough act like Squall does and they are both different flavors of trying to mimic toxic alpha male--but let’s not forget that some of his establishing character moments are throwing out his future to disobey orders because he sees that the higher-ups have possibly misjudged the situation and civilians could be in danger, and, again, going AWOL because he thinks Squall and Rinoa could be killed. And he calls himself the white knight and holds up a code of honor until the end, even though it gets twisted. He is about duty and honor, with honor even over duty.

Oh, this was only going to be the beginning. I haven’t even begun to touch on what I would want to touch on--this is just surface personality and the beginning of the game before we even get to joining Sorceress Edea, and even then not all I would say-- but this post isn’t actually supposed to be my Ted talk on what you missed if you just think of Seifer as a recurring boss fight. Let’s move on.

ONE MORE THING ACTUALLY. Even though we see a lot of Seifer at his worst, you can use Fujin and Raijin as a mirror. What do they say near the end of the game if we paraphrase/summarize? They knew pretty early on, before even the senseless slaughter and torture era that Seifer was going down a dark path with the sorceress, but they knew it wasn’t him and stayed with him, not because they agreed with his actions, wanted power, or out of fear, but to take care of him and try to break through to him--and not because they are saints, but because he, despite what had happened in the past year, is the type of person who deserves and inspires that kind of loyalty. Let’s think on that.

Now the rest goes under a read more, because I am going to keep rambling and be wordy

Why I don’t: He can be an asshole, and he’s an asshole in an embarrassing way. As in, if one is trying to say he’s not the little punk his KH counterpart is, you remember he still uses the insult chickenwuss (though that is a legacy insult/nickname since he’s known Zell since childhood--and, fyi, Squall uses it too) and he had a little gang in school. Even once he’s a military commander of an evil army set on world domination, he has some moments where his level of petty undermines him.

Favorite episode (scene if movie): The Dollet mission

Favorite line: Sorry, not sorry that the following is my favorite exchange of lines and that the prison torture scene is another of my favorite scenes. For context, Seifer has captured Squall, has him hanging up on the wall in crucified hero imagery, implied to be shirtless even though his character model isn’t because they talk about scar tissue or lack thereof from a recent shoulder injury/Squall being stabbed in the chest/shoulder area. Seifer has been electrocuting Squall for information. By this point, I might as well have put the whole scene here. Also, I am now going to blame Squall and Seifer text boxes in FFVIII for my own abuses of ellipses...

Seifer: " I was hoping you'd be there, Squall. So... how'd I look in my moment of triumph? My childhood dream, fulfilled. I've become the sorceress' knight."

Squall: [internal monologue] ...Sorceress' knight... ...His...romantic dream...? But... Seifer... Now, you're just a…[Out loud] "... torturer."

[Squall passes out.]

Seifer: "What did you say? [Steps closer] Passed out cold, eh? This is the scene where you swear your undying hatred for me! The tale of the evil mercenary versus the sorceress' knight!”

This isn’t just me all “mmm, tension.” Seifer has passed the moral event horizon, and it’s not just faceless NPCs that are collateral damage anymore. We’ve seen him on screen torture the protagonist, who is also one of the only people who he’s shown to have a real bond with that goes beyond superficial. Then we get this and see Seifer thinks he’s the good guy still, on a noble mission where he’s had to make painful sacrifices, and Squall is a representative of the power-hungry evil. Seifer’s been playing a different game, and had his will twisted via magic.

Favorite outfit: The Amano art where the white coat is cast off and he’s wearing the simple black shirt and black jeans under it. Symbolic? Maybe. I wouldn’t give up the coat though. I love the long white/gray coat, the outer embodiment of wanting to wear the white hat, but the desire easily getting tarnished, and the red cross that turns into a sword and becomes Seifer’s symbol and soon to appear other places, emblazoned nice and big on the sleeve. It’s the Cross of Saint James. TRADITIONALLY red represents the blood of Christ, the three lilies represent the honor of the apostle and reference Christ as lily of the valley, and the sword shape represents the torture that St.James suffered before his murder. HOWEVER, my opinion is that here it’s more vague/altered symbolism (For starters, there are other gods not the Christian God in this world) with a side of “looks cool.” We still have something that clearly calls to mind a mission from on high, innocence in the lilies, blood and blood cost, and then war/violence with the sword. And I love it. 

OTP: Seifer/Squall. I should not even start, but lest you think I am just in it for kinky torture scenes: We have these two who, in the beginning, are generally callous or mocking toward everyone, but make each other laugh/smile, see who each other are underneath and describe each other in “soft” terms even if they tease each other for it, repeatedly check in on each other to see if the other is okay, respect each other’s opinion and skills, and...you get the idea. In the words of Zell Dincht, I thought you two were rivals, but you’re all buddy-buddy. 

Pause for a second and let’s just say first impression. That opening fight where they scar each other’s faces? It takes place outside Balamb Garden and the area is shown so we see they are alone. Squall passes out. Squall wakes up in the infirmary within the Garden base. Squall has to explain what happened; people don’t already know. This kind of implies after Squall passed out, Seifer, bleeding from a head wound himself, picked Squall up and carried him home, allowing himself to collapse only when Squall was being safely tended to, because he’s that extra. This is his first (okay, second, after fireballs and face slashing) action in the game even though it’s offscreen. I mean, he could have also just called for help/ran for help, but that’s less fun.

 Seifer is so concerned with being a badass, but he’s admits to Squall all he’s ever wanted was to be the fairytale knight, not a mere soldier. Vulnerability and confession he wants romance....with the first time it’s brought up in game being while they are watching the sun set together, the traditional Square Red Sunset of Shipping. 

Seifer hesitates to defy orders, not for himself, but until he sees Squall is with him. Even though there were other “children of destiny” who all came from the same orphanage, Squall and Seifer were the ones who were never apart, never adopted until it was by a military/mercenary training program, and, even though it may speak more to brotherly than romantic from some angles, there’s a feeling of being the same, knowing each other down to the atoms, adopting an us against the world mindset that trumps trying to best each other when it comes down to it because they are the only constant. When Squall has his breakdown/ breakthrough of why he pushes people away/doesn’t let himself care/tries not to need anyone because people leave/are taken from him and he is scared he isn’t worthy of love and happiness until Rinoa challenges him, this may seem like a dismissal of Seifer, but you can also look at it from “I had no friends or family. I didn’t even have interest in speaking to anyone. I strived to be an unfeeling machine, because all emotion is pain...But also I couldn’t go 48 hours without seeing Seifer.”

Yeah, yeah, we know their main form of hanging out was beating the tar out of each other, but sometimes, especially in older media, this was its own brand of subtext. For more on how Seifer miiiight just view sparring let’s point out that “Isn’t this ROMANTIC?” and “Kneel” as a less easily interpreted as innuendo version of  “I want you on your knees” are battle quotes even in Kingdom Hearts sooo draw your own conclusion. 

We get a line where Squall makes it clear these were friendly matches looked at as pushing their limits beyond what they are allowed to in sanctioned spars, and he feels prepared to take on anything  now because of Seifer. Is it healthy communication  in real life? No! Is this real life? No! Plus, the facial scar was an accident, pretty clearly...on Seifer’s side...I could write another essay on how Seifer draws first blood, but it’s because on Squall’s failed block, AND THEN SQUALL GETS ANGRY AND RETALIATES WITH CLEAR PURPOSE AND MAKES THE OPENING SHOT INTO THE FIRST SIGN GOOD VERSUS BAD GUY ISN’T SO CLEAR CUT (even though they both shouldn’t have been going so hard in a friendly training match to begin with).

 Seifer’s later, repeated threats/expressed desire to give Squall additional scars once he goes evil? That is a different animal, and a horrible one, objectively. Not objectively? No comment. Okay, one comment. Mark you as mine. Two comments. He knows Squall’s lost some memories and he can’t stomach being the next thing forgotten so Squall needs physical reminders.

Hmmm, I was supposed to be talking about the ship, not just the sparring and scars. We can wrap it up with a Marge Simpson. “I just think they’re neat”

BUT ONE MORE THING

Squall’s jacket when he becomes Leon in Kingdom Hearts. His outfit is mostly the same, right? Except the back of the jacket now has a red patch of an emblem (of Rinoa’s angel wings, not Seifer’s cross...for the OT3 feel), and his fight with Sora he throws a fireball like Seifer’s signature. Just, you know, if you want bonus references/feeling.

Brotp: Fuu and Rai. They are willing to commit war crimes with this man, nurse him back from death’s door, and go into exile with him if he can’t return to a normal life even after a redemption arc. This section deserves to be long, but I am beginning to get talked out. Don’t take that as devaluing the friendship though. I’m glad he was allowed to keep his ride or dies in Kingdom Hearts. FRIENDSHIP! They love him, ya know?

Head Canon: What we see of him at the end of the game is a temporary situation and after he heals and refreshes for awhile he’d go back to Balamb and face consequences for his actions, and probably insist on consequences instead of leaning into “an evil sorceress bespelled me and slowly took my free will.” No hiding away in the wilderness. No crossing into and living his life in Esthar. No, “but in the end I broke free and would have been an active, onscreen part of saving the world if Square had let me join the party!” He would insist on being cast into a deep, dark cell. Squall uses pull to get him pardoned, but not before just, flat out, yelling at him for being a martyr.

Unpopular opinion: He did love Rinoa. It may have been a “shallow love,” but he wasn’t just dating her to pass time or because she played into his damsel who needs a hero mindset. There was emotion. He was prepared to die for her and Squall in Timber, and almost did--only being saved by Sorceress Edea...which wasn’t a kindness, but it all worked out in the end. Sure, he gets mind-controlled into using Rinoa as, basically, a human sacrifice and it isn’t Rinoa he wants stripped and brought to his room when we’re taking prisoners, but he cared about her. He does taunt her about their past relationship, but we’ve already established this is just part of his communication skillset.  Yes, I will elaborate more if asked, though it’s more feeling based than text based. 

A wish: If there’s ever a sequel, let him have put out the good in the world that was his dream and be seen as a hero. Let us see a matured and peaceful Seifer. 

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: My one fear if they ever remake FFVIII instead of just porting it, is that some of the creative team have said they like the fan theory where you are dead part way through the game and the rest is a dying dream or purgatory. It’s creative stuff; I will say that. It’s not my favorite, and I don’t agree, but those kinds of fan interpretations when they go in depth are super cool. PLEASE LET THE INTEREST IN IT JUST BE THE SAME AS MINE OF THINKING IT’S CREATIVE BECAUSE MAKING THIS  CANON WOULD BE SO, SO BAD FOR EVERY CHARACTER.

5 words to best describe them: stubborn, misguided, paladin, romantic, petty

My nickname for them: I don’t really have one

[formless-monkeys]

What is your favorite relationship(s) in the show (romantically or platonically, doesn’t matter!)

Anon you will regret opening pandora’s box. Or not. In any case, this post is going to be very long because I’m full of love. Also, anything marked romantic does not need to be romantic for me to lose my shit over them. In no particular order, either. Just in the order I thought of them.

1. The Black-eyed trio

Characters: Otto, Sparx, and Gibson.

Type: Platonic, Romantic,

Explanation: These three are grouped together by virtue of not being obscenely powerful and serving more practical uses on the team. Also, their eyes are all the same color. Besides the poetic connections of the colors of their design, they were alone in the robot together while the other three monkeys were out training.

Sparx and Gibson’s interactions give me life, going from playful jabs to genuine fighting right back to ride-or-die is amazing. The beginning of Night Of Fear, the battles in Brothers In Arms, and a bunch of small moments throughout the series are wonderful for this.

I could write an essay about Otto and Gibson, and someone else already has, but I’ll summarize it as ADHD autism solidarity with a side of Shut The Fuck Up Gibson. They care about each other and learn to respect each other in a way that’s better for both of them. I know a real-life Gibson to my Otto and learning that she’s just pretentious and doesn’t really hate anyone, and figuring out that we’re both equally brilliant and incredibly similar has made life a million times better.

Otto and Sparx don’t have as much development as Gibson with both of them, but their jokes together and general trust is amazing. Sparx is the dumb monkey and Otto supports him in his himbo endeavors. 

These three together make an unstoppable technical team, and the only reason they probably couldn’t be a superhero team on their own is because of the raw power and fun dynamics brought by the other half of the team. 

Romantically, these three would make the DUMBEST polycule ever. There is no true mediator here. It’s three dumbasses figuring out how they could possibly share a twin-sized bed when they have the ability to just make a bigger bed. Gibson calculates the most efficient 3 monkey makeout and none of them follow the statistics. They all give Chiro equally useless and conflicting advice on homework. Trying to give them a mediator in the polycule just makes me go back to shipping polymonkeys because I literally can’t decide if Antauri or Nova go better with them.

2. Quiet trust and encouragement

Characters: Otto, Antauri

Type: Platonic, Romantic

Explanation: When Otto is being dismissed by the other monkeys, or by the show itself, Antauri is usually the first to say “that’s bullshit, Otto is wonderful”. Circus Of Ooze is a notable example, but there are little moments in other seasons as well. 

I just love the idea of the historically MOST SERIOUS and strongest monkey, sometimes even elevated to god-like status by some fanworks... paired with the monkey that has been infantilized and disrespected to no end. I personally like making Antauri have to lean on Otto, just to subvert that even further. 

Beyond spite, I ship this simply because I like their dynamic. Antauri needs someone to ground him with more tactile physical things, and Otto needs someone to share his more nebulous thoughts I can’t imagine the others listening to. I love them.

Also, I want Antauri to unlock his true dumbass potential. He has the abilities, but not the will. Be silly with Otto. I want to hear him snort-laugh.

I literally forgot all the silver monkey stuff but I got three fics about that you know I go nuts over mechanic x robot shit.

3. The monkeys and their human son.

Characters: Chiro, Antauri, Nova, Sparx, Gibson, Otto

Type: Familial

Explanation: This family gives me joy. They were forced together through astronomical means and they made the best of it. 

Everyone living in the robot is absolutely fucked up. They help each other in the darkest of times. They lift each other up when it’s light. They are a perfect team and nobody can be missing without it feeling wrong. But they can add people!

“Girl Trouble” as a concept is AMAZING to me but my secondhand embarrassment is so strong that I hate the episode. But never once is any of the monkeys resentful of Chiro. Not even Mandarin is like “wow I wish he didn’t take my place” no he’s also struck with the urge to nurture this kid to his fullest potential. Whether you see the team as a bunch of older siblings or 4 dads and a mom doesn’t really matter, they’re a family.

I mean, this also has a sprinkling of shipping all the monkeys in a really domestic way because I like seeing my optimal future in characters I like, but like literally all of these, it doesn’t need to be romantic for me to go nuts. I just think it would be fun to throw just a big monkey wedding or whatever. And funnier for Antauri to go “Chiro I’m having a baby. The baby is you” and holding up adoption papers because on the principle of Toby “Radiation” Fox I love that joke, especially when made much less weird than the original context.

I have a set of characters who is just 5 people in a polycule raising kids and living life because I really love this concept as a family.

4. Evil Coworkers

Characters: Mandarin, Sakko

Type: Romantic, Platonic,

Explanation: Why the hell are these two, in particular, working together? SK could’ve put Mandarin with literally anybody else and he chose what on the surface appears to be the LEAST compatible person on the account that they’re both monkeys. Some bitter asshole who now looks like the epitome of toxic masculinity and this tiny pink pet who used his femininity both as an advantage and a style. They’re different but it ends up working really well for both of them because they’re different in ways that cover each other’s bases. It’s wonderful. Pink and Orange go well together. Green and Purple go well together. Mandarin and Sakko go well together. Also, they clearly trust each other. During almost the entirety of “Hidden Fortress” Sakko was presumably just chilling inside of Mandarin’s armor. Mandarin trusted him enough to have Sakko in a place where he’s able to mess with his cybernetics, and Sakko trusted Mandarin enough to go into the battlefield with him and probably get tossed around.

If they were both human and in a more modern media, then they would definitely be shipped in the straightest way you can get without actually being straight. The Straightest Gay Ship. 

5. A Witch and her Accidental Evil Coworker

Characters: Skelemandarin, Valeena.

Type: Platonic, Romantic, 

Explanation: These two have been through some shit. Skelemandy was made to serve Skeleton King only to have that purpose yanked away from him. Valeena was groomed to idolize and serve Skeleton King for nearly her entire life. They were forced together by SHEER CHANCE and they both hated it. Arguably they both died at some point. 

They both have absolutely NOBODY they can trust so let’s make them trust each other. All hilarity and sweetness comes from that. 

Their dynamic is so good that I have them on a blog for a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FANDOM and people love them with no context. 

This is the only cross-species ship I have (besides chinmay and the antauri ships but that doesn’t count), but the fact that Skelemandy isn’t actually a monkey and needs no cybernetic assistance to be human-level sentient makes it a lot less weird. Just put them on equal ground power-wise (like by nerfing Valeena’s magic) and you have the ingredients for bonding. 

They have like, no cute moments in canon, but that’s why we have fics and art. They have potential. I want them to help each other figure out who they are without their purpose. I want them to survive this horrible life together. I want them to figure out how to trust again. I want a lot but Valeena is fucking dead.

But she doesn’t have to be.

(Also Valeena is REALLY HOT and Skelemandarin is just me as a monkey)

6. Gay Dads

Characters: The Alchemist, Captain Shuggazoom

Type: Romantic, Platonic

Explanation: Oh my stars. Oh null. Oh me oh my hhougfhfakjghf. These two have the angst of Mantauri but on crack. 

They only appeared in about two episodes each and all three episodes are top tier. They call each other “Friend” multiple times in their shared episode. THEY’RE FRIENDS!!!!!!!!! The face Al makes when he realizes that Cap is visiting makes me really happy. The fact that Cap had this whole Batman Double Life thing and he shows the Alchemist BOTH OF THEM is amazing. The alchemist is a hermit living in the woods and he lets Cap into that life. 

There isn’t a lot shown, much less than everything else here. But that makes every single fanfic so much richer since they’re almost completely based on headcanons. Friends who have a mutual crush on each other but are No Homo about it? Secret boyfriends? Husbands with 6 monkey kids? An Old man and a grumpy Skeleton making it work? Literally just platonic friends? Dude, you can do whatever you want. 

The tragedy of these two losing each other to one big horrible event crushes me. It influences my every move in my creative work. I have an entire character dedicated to reuniting these two in the most astronomical and ridiculous way possible because the alchemist angered the gods but she thinks he needs some company in his eternal punishment.

I want Clayton to unlock Al’s less serious, more fun side. I want them to work together. I want them to hold hands. GHGHGHDFBG UTTHTYE CNAZSNT EBCV ASUA ER

7. The girl power duo

Characters: Nova, Jinmay

Type: Familial

Explanation: These two were my only comfort during the uncomfortable nightmare that is “The Hills Have Five”

Nova was the one who trained Jinmay, and it seems like they hang out a lot offscreen in season 4. They fulfill the early 2000′s cartoon archetypes of girl and Girl, so they’re supposed to get along. If they didn’t I probably wouldn’t like Jinmay.

Nova is a really good big sister/parental figure to Jinmay, who never had any family to speak of. 

Anyway, this entry has to be shorter because most of their bonding is in “The Hills Have Five” which is either #1 or #2 in my least favorite episode list. Not because it’s bad, but because it makes me viscerally uncomfortable. I really wish literally any other character than Jinmay was in her role in that episode. Or that the “taken to an offscreen area by an adult man while she screams” just wasn’t there. SHE’S 13!!! Nova did literally all she could to help. 

I really like that scene in questionable where Valeena kills almost the entire gang. It’s what they deserve.

Look I just really like Jinmay and I always have. She deserves a good Mom.

8. "My Second In Command”

Characters: Antauri, Mandarin

Type: Theoretical

Explanation: The fandom has really made this ship go from “literally nothing to stand on” to “integral plot point in a lot of fics”. Seriously. I have TWO screenshots that vaguely imply these two ever stood next to each other on the battlefield. This was entirely title-based and fan-made until ProjectAfectivity interviewed Ciro. Yeah he knows Antauri but only as well as the rest of the team. Anyway. Wow. This ship.

This is by far the worst breakup in history. These two, despite what Antauri says, were on equal ground at some point. According to Ciro (and fan speculation), they trained together. This (and other Mandy ship) changes wildly depending on if you think Mandarin was corrupted by the portal or not. Maybe Mandarin was once a kind leader who just crossed the wrong boundaries and paid for it. He could’ve held Antauri gently before battle. He could’ve been the monkey Antauri went to when he needed someone to talk to. He could’ve hyped the team up like Chiro does.

Or maybe, they were constantly fighting against each other in small ways. An incredibly unhealthy relationship, yes, but an interesting story. I like stories where Antauri isn’t this all-knowing pillar of stability. He’s got weaknesses. One of them may have been Mandarin.

Now that’s a good nickname from one to the other.

Imagine Antauri, in a moment of complete trust, declaring Mandarin his weakness. A sweet sentiment. They both know the other is incredibly strong, and trust that the other would never take advantage of that connection. They love each other. Until...

9. "My Closest Ally”

Characters: Otto, Mandarin

Type: Theoretical

Explanation: Okay I'm looking at the screenshot I put for this entry while also having watched Evil Ages recently. My brain is making uncomfortable connections. Combine that with the fandom and the show’s general treatment of Otto and I’m about to slam my head into a wall. I really do not like that, but I feel like there’s somebody out there who does. 

Anyway, this is Gibotto and Ottauri but with all the spice that shipping Mandarin with one of the other monkeys brings. When done well, it’s all the respecting Otto that comes with Ottauri and all the intimate partnership of Gibotto. And the Angst of Mantauri, but a lot more grounded. 

It paints a lot of stories. A story of a single point of comfort in a world Mandarin thinks is out to get him. A story of powerful validation from the one authority in Otto’s life. Of letting your guard down. Of trust, then breaking that trust.

I’d LOVE to see some things with Mandottotauri because that’s epic and cool and poggers. Don’t see a lot, though.

10.The Hets, I guess.

Characters: Jinmay, Chiro. 

Type: Romantic. Platonic. Canon.

Explanation: Look two entries on this list are polyamorous and four of them are mandarin so I have to say SOMETHING for the heteroes following me. Picked this ship over Spova because when I was a young child still suffering from comphet, I never watched the last episode of the show. I only saw up to season 3 at the most. This was the only canon ship for me. And out of all the ships, it’s the most relatable. I’m currently a teenager with black hair who looks really good in eyeliner dating a girl with pink hair who can pick me up and is unbelievably sweet. Except we’re gay and polyam. Wait a second I totally had a crush on Jinmay as a kid and now my gf is the Jinmay in this situation. Oh my god I was going to make this comparison if I did Spova too and I liked Nova.

ANYWAY

These are two LONELY kids. Chiro had bullies during school, and now he doesn’t even go to school. Jinmay hasn’t really had friends at all. Two kids with places in their universe that they aren’t too sure about, and just need someone to lean on. Their date was cute. They instantly bonded over their love of monkeys and I love that. 

The super robot is sometimes an analog for Chiro, in the first two season at least, and the way the super robot held Jinmay’s hands to keep her steady on the COB while her head flew in was SO SWEET. Chiro’s instant recognition and reaction to Jinmay’s head being thrown at the team, as well. He really loves her.

I think it’d be interesting if she didn’t love him back, though. I might take a stab at writing that.

[tacosandtomcos]

Honestly, I get why people are upset about how the shipping was handled in season 4, but seriously, why are people so triggered over kellco? They were literally nothing but a rebound ship. Neither of the characters took actual romantic interest until Tad left Kelly and Star was with Tom coincidentally. And I mean, they straight up called themselves "Break-up-Buddies".. clearly nothing good was going to come out of that.

Well, kellco was seen a little more then that.

I mean, this was a ship that had been going on and had setup for at least 2 seasons? I mean not as heavily as jarco was but still.

While Marco was dealing with the fact star was with someone else, it became clear he and kelly were starting to connect and become friends who were supporting each other through these rough times.

And a lot of people actually liked the idea of that, that these two unlikely characters going through struggles that were similar started bonding and realizing they had a lot in common.

After LLB it became obvious to the audience kelly and marco were hanging out a lot more offscreen, they hang out in monster bash, kell is implied to like marco in the holiday special, they clearly seemed to go to the wedding together in BB as almost like the other’s date (though that’s more implied then anything), marco even considers kelly to be one of the first people he calls to help with meteora….

the show doesn’t lean on them like it did with other ships, but people could clearly tell marco and kelly were having a budding friendship/romance going on, and i think people liked the fact it stemmed from these characters supporting each other through their romance issues and bonding over time.

not to mention, this was one of the few things marco had that didn’t make him so star-constant.

Marco lacked much of his own personal relationships or hobbies or plots that weren’t extremely rooted to star. Marco lost karate, school, his earth relationships mainly, any of his self discovery episodes.

He barely was in s3 unless he was in the romance plot, or doing stuff for star.

Having him have this new friendship with kelly where they support each other and have marco deal with his emotions and where marco seemed to have someone he hung out with regularly outside of mostly star and tom and that entire love triangle was probably a breath of fresh air.

And this was a thing with kelly, kelly herself seemed to be implied to be having a rough time dealing with her past relationship and the show treats her chance with marco as a chance for her to finally move on and be with someone who really understands her.

Kelly’s not the most detailed and explored character but the fact they spent so much time on focusing on the fact these two were hanging out and there was some romance blooming between them, and then just instantly cut it off for no reason kinda sucks.

In ways i think people liked seeing marco with someone who shared his love of martial arts, and sword fighting, and adventures because while star kinda liked that in s1, her character is flipped a lot in s3 and 4 and it kinda seems more like kelly and marco just end up having a lot more in common.

If jackie was perfect to marco as his opposite, her chill personality working well with his safe-kid persona and worried character.

Kelly was perfect in the almost opposite direction, having a lot in common with him and matching his interests and the two of them bringing out each other’s wilder sides.

Star used to almost be an opposite, but then she got more serious and marco got more wild, and marco just seemed to mostly go on his own adventures, without her.

And the two had things in common in earlier seasons, not all that much in later ones, they don’t really hang out much tbh cause there are more episodes with star dealing with eclipsa and other matters.

in summary here i think kelly just seemed to really compliment the character marco was at the time, and people really liked the direction the show seemed to be taking with it.

like these two characters forming a friendship and support group with each other, and moving on from their heartbreak to find they like each other? That’s wholesome and would’ve been wholesome to see in the show-

-if they had sticked with it.

people are triggered over kellco because the show spent it’s focus on this relationship and building this budding relationship built on support for each other through rough times….and then ended it for no reason.

like even if it was in the bg mostly, it was still a relationship the show put focus on, they even had an entire episode to get them together.

And then ended it? Without a real reason why?

Kelly and Marco’s relationship was built on support for each other and marco just goes off and ends it? Leaving Kelly once again, sad and alone and clearly heartbroken despite marco KNOWING how tad made her feel? And then they just ignore it and pretend it didn’t matter when they clearly tried to make it matter?

Marco knows how much kelly had been hurt over the tad situation and he knows how much their relationship meant to kelly to help her deal with it and move forward, and no, he doesn’t owe it to her to be with her if he doesn’t want to…..but he DID want to!

Marco actively said he didn’t really want to have feelings for star because they were in the way of these new ones for kelly. He wanted to move on and he wanted to be there to support her….expect somewhere offscreen he changed his mind.

He never interacts with kelly again after the breakup btw, their entire friendship/relationship basically goes poof and neither of them talk about it again.

I mean, the fact star and marco’s other relationships are almost treated like nothing in comparison to their own is it’s own issue, but kellco is a prime example of it.

Spent a long time on this relationship, these two are supposibly close, then after they break up marco pretty much pretends all that time we spent with him and kelly and the friendship they had meant little to him.

Doesn’t even worry when she’s on her deathbed.

Same thing with Tom, where the writers try and pretend these relationships we spent seasons on meant nothing to star and marco and we should only care about their relationship.

Having star and marco give a heck about these other relationships we spent so much time on would probably make them seem less selfish, but nah, kelly is gone forever in her own dimension? Who cares about the fact we were friends with her and she’s gone forever, we get to date now.

Breaking them up like they did removed all the good merit the show was trying to preach with their friendship.

Moving on is a thing that doesn’t seem to exist in this show as long as it’s keeping the main couple apart.

You have these episodes showing that it’s healthy for star and marco to accept they should move on for their betterment and it all entirely goes to waste because they end up together regardless because neither does move on.

And this is another thing.

Kelly had nothing to do much when she wasn’t with marco.

and like, this is the same problem jackie had, but at least the show didn’t have jackie almost presented like a main character.

They presented kelly as a main character by s3 and by the end, they did nothing with her outside of her and marco’s relationship, which again, they scrapped randomly.

And kelly just never does anything after, she’s basically gone, just like jackie was, because as soon as a character is done dating star or marco they’re useless to the crew apparently and their relationships no longer matter to them.

Kelly wasn’t the deepest or most developed character, but a lot of people were attached to her, liked her relationship with marco, it would understandably piss them off to see the crew give this girl so much attention all of a sudden…

only to immediately remove her and all importance she may of had just to get starco together.

And this isn’t mentioning the fact that kellco didn’t need to exist in the first place, they didn’t develop any characters because marco goes right back to pinning over star and who knows with kelly, they didn’t have a function on the plot directly, didn’t serve to make star or anyone jealous.

It’s a relationship they spent time on, only to go nowhere with, it really had no reason to happen at all and if it was just to make kellco shippers happy….well i think they would’ve rather had no ship then the crew randomly ending the relationship quickly after and pretending it didn’t exist.

by itself, kelly’s world is a cute episode, but it’s so disappointing to see they have it and then pretend it didn’t matter at all.

why did they take so much time to get them together and focus on them if they were just going to break it off after the fact?

It’s easy to be like “Oh, they were rebounds, who cares, it didn’t matter”

Clearly that’s not how everyone felt.

it seemed pretty obvious to people kellco felt like an opportunity for two characters to move on with their lives and find happiness in each other, because that’s literally how their relationship is presented several times in the series.

and with all the focus this relationship had the last thing people wanted was to see this rather wholesome relationship just be tossed aside for starco, especially since it’s entire message rode on both parties being together and getting over starco.

Kellco made people mad because:

It has no reason to exist by the end

It wastes a character they didn’t care enough about to get any resolution with marco

all the goodwill it had is removed by getting rid of it for starco

the show spent time on a relationship they ended without giving any reason for it to end

it was something entirely wholesome that people enjoyed watching because it was a step away from all this romance drama and gave marco character outside of star, and the show decided to destroy it and make marco so star-centered he seemed to lack any character or ambition or anything outside of her anymore

There’s nothing more hurtful then a show making you care about something and making you feel like it mattered and then tossing it away and spitting on it.

[rafael-silva]

(long) thoughts on 10.22, mcdanno and the ending

Okay, so. The finale. It took me a while to digest everything and turn my thoughts into coherent sentences. Also, this is long. Like an essay. Literally. If you read till the end, bless you.

I have mixed feelings, and they’re tugging at each other. Part of me wants to scream but another part of me is like, there’s more to this. This is me trying to make sense of the whole thing without my heart shattering. So you’ll definitely get glimpses of each side during this essay.

First, here’s a scene I imagine happening after the series finale ends:

It fades back in. And we’re in Steve’s house. We don’t know how much time has passed. Keys rattle, and the front door is pushed open.

Offscreen, we hear, “you better not have forgotten the malasadas.”

It’s a little raspy, a little slow, a little croaky, but so unmistakably Danny’s voice.

A chuckle. And then, comes the reply, equally raspy, “right here, Danno. Come and get them.”

“And you better have bought a lot. Clara is coming over in a bit. You know how much she loves malasadas. And no, you come out here, the breeze is nice,” Danny replies.

And Steve goes. And sits in his chair next to Danny as they look out into the water. He opens the box and Danny grabs a malasada.

They’re home.

Fade to black. Roll credits.

In my opinion, the ending was supposed to be about McDanno. And as much as we did get so much McDanno in the finale, I’m talking specifically about the last thing we see on the screen. And I’m not talking about them becoming canon. The chances of that happening were slim to none.

I’m talking about their friendship, their partnership, their bond. I’m talking about the two men who put their lives on the line for each other, time and time again, without hesitation; the two men who traveled to the ends of the earth for each other. That is what the ending should have ended with.

From the full-blown panic Steve was in when Danny was being followed. Steve's only priority is saving Danny’s life. The person you care about most in the world. Steve holding Danny on the way to the hospital. Steve constantly reassuring Danny that he’s right there, to hold on. Steve holding Danny’s hand. He thought he was going to lose Danny and it broke him.

(Also, All For One playing during the scene where Steve sits next to Danny’s hospital bed and holds his hand? Yes, I cried.)

I knew the Catherine part was coming, from the moment she was brought up, I knew what was going to happen. I just didn’t want the Catherine scene to be the final scene of the series. 

Because the truth is, while Catherine kept ducking in and out of Steve’s life, the one constant thing in Steve’s life was Danny. And they didn’t do that justice.

And I think that’s what I’m mad about most. I knew the chances of canon McDanno were slim to none (even though the first half of the episode was screaming McDanno, as should have the entire episode been and a part of me was like, hold on...maybe...because 95% of the episode? McDanno.) 

All throughout season ten, we were constantly shown how important Steve and Danny are to each other, that they can’t live without each other. It truly was a love letter to each other and to McDanno fans. We know the love is there, but I wanted to see Steve choosing Danny. Yes, we got a heart to heart, some of their classic banter in there, I love you’s and a powerful hug, which I am grateful for and will always cherish…but I wanted the last scene of the series, to be of Steve and Danny.

And it breaks my heart, because at the end of the day, Steve left Danny.  After everything.

Hawaii. Danny moved 4,948 miles away from his home to be close to his daughter. He hated Hawaii. But then he met Steve and Steve chose Danny. Then he slowly began to love the Island. Until the Island was home. Until Steve was home. Danny was alone in the beginning and what hurts so much, is even after ten years, the last time we see Danny, is him, sitting on his best friend’s private beach, alone. It breaks my heart.

And I want to say that Danny hops on a plane and goes to Jersey to Steve but I wanted Steve to pick Danny. I wish Steve had realized that going away isn’t always the answer. That healing can happen with the people you love. Should happen with the people you love. Because that is what the show is about. How to save and be saved at the same time. Heal, and be healed.

My hopes are for a Steve and Catherine friendship. I have a few issues with how Catherine treated Steve, and how she hurt him. And for me, it seems out of character for Steve to just dive back into a relationship with her, after everything they’ve been through in the past. Especially after clearly saying how much Catherine is like Doris. And how he’s done with Doris. Because if Steve is just repeating history, I feel like during those final two minutes, the writers went, Steve’s character development? Don’t know him.

I get needing time away. I get that there’s so much history and pain for Steve in Hawaii. And I wholeheartedly agree that Steve needs a break. I just have a little problem with the timing.

Danny is recovering. Plain and simple. While yes, Danny doesn’t need Steve to hold his hand and hover during his recovery. But he nearly died and Steve nearly lost his mind at that thought. And yet, a mere week later, Steve just leaves.

And just like Steve needs to heal, Danny needs to heal, too. It’s been a hell of a year for both of them. Danny’s been through so much too, and the person who helps him through it and who Danny leans on, has left. And I hate how they undermined Danny’s hurt, his pain, they put him through hell and then take away his number one support system. I think Danny needed to get away, too. And with the whole “if you’re out, I’m out” thing that’s been going on between Steve and Danny, I doubt Danny will remain in Five-0 without Steve.

Whether anything comes out of Steve and Catherine, it doesn’t change the fact that Danny was left behind. And that just angers me so much. I just had hoped that Steve would have chosen Danny, just like Danny has been choosing Steve time and time again for a decade.

Steve says Catherine was the one who got away. Because, yes, she got away. And when he tells Cole that he’s good, I believe him. I think he accepted it long ago, that maybe it would have worked out. But it didn’t. And I think Steve deserved some closure, and that’s why Catherine showed up at the end.

The first time I watched the episode and the ending, I thought, “yeah, why did I expect anything different...” but then after really thinking about it, I realized nothing is set in stone. And I started thinking, maybe Catherine is there to support Steve, maybe this will lead to them mending their relationship and becoming friends. Because I honestly pray and hope Steve’s development isn’t gone. He’s lost, he needs to find himself again. The few times we’ve seen Catherine since she left the show was either because she needed Steve’s help or he needed hers. Maybe it’s still just that. And it’s just purely that. A friend helping a friend.

And I suspect Steve couldn’t do that with Danny because it’s all still so fresh, and it’s eating at Steve. Danny almost died. Because of something Steve had. And it shook Steve to his core. He almost lost the person he cares about most in this world, and it would have been his fault.

Catherine’s last words were, are you ready? And I think they meant, are you ready to heal?

I don’t mind a Steve and Catherine friendship, just not a romantic relationship. She can help Steve with his PTSD, they can talk and get closure. Maybe that hand holding was Steve saying, thank you for being here. Thank you for helping. That hand holding felt more like holding hands in support, rather than romance. I think if it were romance, he would have intertwined their fingers together. He tells her how much he appreciated her help and that she will always mean a lot to him but they’re history. They had their shot. It didn’t work out. Romantically, at least. And maybe they’re better as friends.

Steve has his face in his hands, and he’s terrified. The look in his eyes during the entire episode speaks of fear, worry, concern, pain, guilt. When Danny wakes up, Steve lets out a long, shaky breath. He was holding his breath. Literally. Then Steve says, “she used you to get to me, she almost killed you...” and that realization, it flipped something in Steve. He couldn’t handle history repeating itself.

So I’m going to believe that that’s the reason Steve left, because otherwise, I see his leaving as out of character. He needs to heal away from Hawaii, away from seeing Danny’s battered body and knowing he was indirectly the reason for that. So he heals. And he returns to Hawaii, to Danny. And they continue healing together.

Maybe, after receiving the miss you already text from Danny, and if Steve wasn’t getting off the plane, maybe he could have texted back, “me too, Danno. But I’ll be back.” (But, come on, the way Steve looked back at Danny sitting on the beach, the look of longing already in Steve’s eyes…yeah, I thought he was getting off that plane.)

Bottom line is, I hope Steve and Catherine rebuild their relationship as friends. And maybe Steve could start rebuilding his trust towards Catherine, too. I think that would be good for him, to heal that part. Because I know how much they mean to each other. And honestly, I think there’s so much romantic history, and just history, good and bad, maybe even too much, for them to move past on the romantic side.

When Danny woke up in the hospital, he said, “you can’t get rid of me that easily.” Even after being kidnapped, beaten and shot, Danny is never leaving Steve.

So I hope Steve returns to Danny, and to their beach, and they do grow old together. As husbands or platonic life partners, either way, I hope they end up sitting side by side watching sunsets. I’m praying they both get the happy ending they so deserve. 

My true ending to the show is Danny’s final dream in 8.10. Steve and Danny have grown old together, Danny’s granddaughter had called and Steve forgot to tell Danny. And Danny saying he wouldn’t change anything about his life, there is not a single thing he would change. If he had to do it again, he’d do it the same way. That’s my ending.

[heroesandmasterminds]

Hmmmmm 3, 11, and 35 for the unusual asks <3

3. Rant. Just do it.

I'm going with my favourite ranting topic: Voltron! VLD and its characters deserved so much better because it genuinely started out as such a good show! The characters were lovable and multifaceted, the plot was interesting, the relationships between the characters had so much potential and honestly any two members of Team Voltron could have an amazing bond.

Even as late as S8 there are individual scenes/episodes that are enjoyable enough to watch in themselves, except when you take a step back and look at them in the context of the whole show the problems start emerging; Hunk and Keith on Clear Day was adorable, as was Pidge bargaining with her mother and Shiro's arm wrestling with the team supporting him, but look at it in the context of the whole show and it's soured by the fact that Allura is doing her own thing yet again, and there's no connection between her and the rest of the team. Hunk and Keith's fledgling friendship will never develop beyond that scene. Shiro has no meaningful interactions with the team beyond that scene for a considerable length of time. It's sad!

And there are some great character or friendship moments that are so lovely to watch except then you look at everything around it and actually it makes no sense? The Sunset Scene! I love it so much but actually they haven't had a meaningful conversation since S3 and there's clearly a lot of hurt and miscommunication to sort through - they can't just automatically be at this deep-bond stage of friendship again.

Coran had about three meaningful scenes but they felt like random appearances in the middle of being a background character. I wanted to see more of how the loss of the Castle affected him, he who loved it probably more than anyone. How losing Altea hurt him, when he was awake to witness Allura going into the pod and likely had to say his last words to Alfor and others knowing they would be the last words. Not just him being totally chill giving away the last piece of his home to a random Earth warship. Comforting Allura about her father and Altea without getting the level of comfort he deserved in return.

Lance's death or Keith's almost-sacrifice at Naxzela, such important things for their characters, except they are never talked about. In fact Lance, shortly afterwards, seems to be daydreaming about Allura when surely the fact that he died affects him somehow? Same for Shiro, we never really see that affecting him the way PTSD did in S1. Keith was away from the team for so long but how did that affect him?

I love Pidge's bits searching for her family, or Allura missing hers, but over time they only seemed to pop up when plot-relevant so it takes away from how believable it is and how invested we can be. I wanted to say something about Hunk except there isn't really enough to talk about. Maybe that Shay, after S2 when she asks after Hunk once, disappears completely until S7? If you aren't in fandom, keeping that ship going, you basically stop caring and I know this because I've been showing VLD to my dad and we watched the end of S7 yesterday. Most fans freaked out over Shay appearing but he had no reaction because he hadn't seen her at all since S2.

Or Lance's broadsword? I LOVE that scene so much (as I messaged you about a few hours ago, Lizzie!) but it means nothing in the wider context of the show except that Lance has grown as a character, which we could see from other scenes, and it parallels Alfor which they were doing as early as S3 anyway. They needed to do something with it.

I loved James and Keith's interactions in S7 but in context, them being civil came kind of out of nowhere, they are just suddenly okay with each other or if they did talk about it we didn't see it. Which is a huge problem with this show, so many things happen offscreen or we're supposed to imagine they happened when they're things we should really be shown (e.g. Keith telling the team he's Galra! That was the first time I thought hey, something's a little lacking in the writing here...)

The Journey Within is the episode I dislike most of VLD except S8 which is on another level, to be fair. It's ok in itself, even if it hurts to hear them treat each other like this, but then instead of sorting through some of the long-term emotional baggage they add to it. And it never gets resolved.

I guess VLD's biggest problem is that everything is disjointed. Things that work individually don't work in the wider scheme of things because long-term arcs keep getting lost along the way. It isn't smooth storytelling. And especially for relationships (of any kind) towards the end it felt like they just didn't have time for most of them. I think this show could have benefited from time - both screentime and time to produce the seasons.

So yeah, long rant, practically a meta, but there you have it!

11. What unusual talent do you have?

I'm not sure actually. What counts as unusual? I guess I'm very intuitive when it comes to helping people with anything emotion-related?

35. What does home mean to you?

It's cheesy, but people. Home is anywhere I feel safe and can do the things I want and be the truest version of myself and for me that's with certain people.