#ugh character design is actually SO fucking hard dude!!!!

[bazpango]

2024 bazpango art purge. Don’t know if I’ve posted these yet, they’re wayyyy too fleshed out for exploratory doodles of an upcoming campaign with the besties. I’ve got a vibe for Viktor (DON’T COME FOR ME. I DIDN’T KNOW ARCANE OR JJK EXISTED WHEN I MADE HIM LOL), but his features are clearly not defined yet. I know a year from now I’ll look back on him and be like aww, who the hell is that. The only thing that is defined is that he is going to break the blonde wizard’s back out : )

[katsune-nya]

Matsuno Chifuyu x Baji!Reader. D-drable?

Ok, listen, I have a WHOLE fic about Baji!Reader x Chifuyu on the WIPs, so, this is just... Um... Me kinda babbling about the lore behind it. (The fic is fem reader tho).

GN!Reader. SFW. Fix It Fic. Idiots In Love. Baji being y'all's number one fan.

• Ryoko used to go to the Sano Dojo, after she had you two she signed you into it as well.

• Kei and you grew up with Mikey, y'all were a pain in the ass for everyone around you, but grandpa Sano tolerated it since y'all were great students.

• Shin got scolded tripple by his grandpa, these three kids showed up every class and were so good at it and... There he was.

• Power Duo, y'all can kick ass tremendously.

• When Kei and Tora plan to steal a bike for Mikey you just... Tell them no. Plus, mfs, did you not know that's SHINICHIRO'S SHOP????

• Nothing happens, Shin's alive and Tora ok.

• You go to the same school, when Fuyu met Kei, helping him write the letter for Tora, you were on recess with your friends.

• Regardless, later on, since they were always together you ended up meeting him

• You couldn't lie... He was really cute.

• Fuyu's first reaction when meeting you was to be slightly intimidated ngl.

• You had grown up with Baji Fucking Keisuke and Baji Fucking Ryoko, you HAD to build a strong presence.

• Kei introduced you two and Fuyu was just "H-Hi, Baji-san... Baji-san 2? W-wait, no! That's not what I meant!"

• Poor boy.

• Friendship quickly blossomed!

• And a mutual crush, definitely.

• Keisuke knew from the beginning, in spite of him being fucking iliterate he's actually incredibly smart and perceptive.

• He tried to get y'all together so many times but all his plans failed.

• He even got the rest of Toman involved.

• Then, the whole Kisaki thing started.

• Kei and you knew the mf was suspicious asf.

• And him instead of working together with you and Fuyu decided to go to Valhalla for info and yeah...

• But! We have a new character! That actually has a relatively functional brain!

• Welcome, Baji Y/N, you are their only hope.

• While evetone was freaking out on different degrees you took it on your hands to encourage them.

Y/N: Everything will be ok. You can not stop it.

Y/N: Everything will be fine. You have no choice.

Chifuyu: What the fuck kind of pep talk is that?

Y/N: Ominous positivity.

• Kazutora aproves.

• Yeah, as I said, relatively functional brain.

• You joined the guys on the Valhalla brawl.

• If you're AFAB it was kinda hard to convince them 'cause "But you're a girl 🥺 you could get hurt, uwu." Mikey. (If you're FtM he wouldn't say girl, dw lmao, you're his dude bro but... Sigh...)

• In the end Draken doesn't wanna deal with you up their asses about it so he convinces Mikey, you're just as strong as Keisuke ffs.

• Yall win and Kei comes back.

Kei: A decision had to be made.

Y/N: And you fucked it up!

• He's so dumb for a smart person.

• You and Fuyu hang out more together.

• You two help Takemichi with his plans and you have better ideas than them so things go much better.

• Tora and Kei join you too.

• Blah Blah Blah, lore lore lore, y'all fix things, no one dies, ok? I won't go into detail for every issue, this is about my babyboy.

• All throughout this Fuyu and you keep getting closer and closer.

• Y'all hang out even when not necessary to save everyone.

• He doesn't even hang out with Kei on his own as much. You normally are there too.

Kei: *sneaking in through their window*

Y/N: *Turning in their chair and flicking the light on* You want to tell me where you've been all night?

Kei: I was with Chifuyu?

Chifuyu: *Turning in his chair* Wanna try again?

• You spend so much time together Toman thinks you're an item already.

• When Kei says you're not they are so... Ugh. Still?

Kei: *Sees Y/N and Chifuyu together*

Kei: They're cute. I would put them on a boat.

Kazutora: You mean... you ship them?

• Kei and Tora make all of Toman design an unnecessarily complex plan to get y'all to confess.

• Just for you two to show up holding hands????

• Turns out you got tired of it and just confessed to Fuyu in the park you normally go to.

• You planned a picnic together and gave him a home baked treat with a little note on it.

• He blushed so hard and between stutters and a bright smile accepted.

• Congratulations!

• They are so frustrated that they put so much work into things but honestly more relieved than anything.

• Your relationship is so cute.

• You're always together, go on arcade dates, cat cafés, park dates, saving everyone plans, home dates in which each one does their own thing.

• It takes five months for y'all to kiss.

• Was really sweet, really gay.

• Time Skip to highschool graduation.

• You two go together and at the end of the day Fuyu takes you on a ride around the city.

• Y'all might be young, but have been dating for around 5 years so Fuyu stops at the beach and stares at you.

• You tease him for it and he chuckles shyly.

• Then he asks if you would like to move out with him to the apartment he got with his job in a pet store.

• So now you live together!

• After some time, Chifuyu has his own store in which Tora and Kei work, with you going to visit him for lunch.

• You're 25 now, living together, 10 years dating...

• On your 10 year anniversary he finally pops the question.

• He took you to the park where you confessed, the both of you sitting on the swings.

• When you stayed quiet for a bit he suddently got on his knees.

• He had a whole speech but he just... Said what came out on the moment.

"Ever since we started dating I've known you were the one. I want to be with no one else but you. You make me the happiest I've ever been. Would you give me the honour of doing it for the rest of our lives?"

• When you get married, Keisuke walks you to the altar.

• When Fuyu sees you he instantly starts tearing up.

• Kei laughs and slaps him on the back.

• The wedding is short and romantic, Takemichi sobbing his eyes out.

• When you throw the bouquet Hina catches it!

• Everyone celebrates that so much.

• In the end, you have a beautiful marriage and a few cats.

Some incorrect quotes that encapsulate y'all's relationships.

Kei: Hey, wanna help me commit arson?

Y/N: What the hell!?

Kei: Oh, sorry, my bad.

Kei: *Whispering* Wanna help me commit arson?

Y/N: *Whispering* Of course. What do you need?

Y/N: This is a bad idea.

Kei: Then why are you coming along?

Y/N: Someone has to get your injured ass home.

Kei: I love you.

Y/N: *Zoning out* What?

Kei: I said I’m selling you to the zOo-

*To Chifuyu*

Kei: Thought I was meowing back at Peke J for the past hour, but it was just me and Y/N meowing at each other from different rooms in the house.

Kei: Are you busy?

Y/N: Yes.

Kei: Cool, listen to this...

Kei: I got an idea!

Y/N: Does it involve breaking the law?

Kei: By now don’t you think that’s a given?

Y/N: I was just trying to be optimistic.

Kei: Don’t bother.

*About the Baji siblings*

Mitsuya: Who's in charge there?

Chifuyu: Usually whoever yells the loudest.

Y/N: I told Kei that his ears turn red when he lies.

Chifuyu: Oh, they do?

Y/N: No.

Chifuyu: Then why did you tell him that?

Y/N: Because I can do this.

Y/N: Hey Kei! Do you love us?

Kei: *With his hands over his ears* No.

Chifuyu: What would Y/N think?

Kei: Ok, that’s an interesting thought, but hear me out: what if… we ran an experiment where we spent the rest of our lives finding out what happened if we never told them?

Chifuyu: Do you guys ever have a civilized conversation that doesn't require insulting each other every time you get a chance?

Kei: No.

Y/N: No.

Chifuyu: Didn't think so.

Kei: Why don’t you go talk to them?

Chifuyu: *Sarcastically* Oh. Yeah, sure.

Baji: What? Just go tell Y/N they're cute, what’s the worst that could happen?

Chifuyu: They could hear me.

Y/N: Kill me nowwwww.

Kei: Sorry, no can do. I need your help with my homework.

Y/N: *Watching Chifuyu do something stupid* Keisuke, you're officially only the second highest risk here.

Kei: Hell yeah! I'm gonna-.

Y/N: Don't finish that sentence, you'll move back up.

[lonesomedreamer]

The Rings of Power Liveblog: “Adar” (Episode 3)

In which the wheels finally come off this cart. (But not because Galadriel rides a horse.)

I just don’t care about Arondir being captured by Orcs.

“Halbrand” is so punchable. Ugh.

These sailors must be Númenóreans, right?

I love how secretive the captain is being…surely Galadriel recognizes the uniforms/insignia, even if the audience doesn’t. Reverse dramatic irony, if you will.

“The island kingdom of Númenor.” Surprising absolutely no one who knows their Tolkien. Still, nice cinematography and design work in this sequence.

this is probably not how I would design Númenor, but it is gorgeous. I said “wow” out loud.

While the design’s a little on-the-nose, I appreciate the obvious visual links between Númenor to Gondor.

“Is that an Elf?” Elves—both canonically and in this series—do not look so different from Men (especially Númenóreans!) that some dockworker would look at Galadriel, with her messy hair and days-old plain white shift, and immediately go, “Oh, must be an ELF!”

Really liking the Mediterranean vibes of the city architecture.

“In time they broke off all contact [with Elves].” Did they? They envied the Elves’ immortality, and eventually, goaded by Sauron, they tried to sail to Valinor and were therefore destroyed…but this seems like a stretch for the sake of Drama.*

I’m sorry, the subtitle said this dude is Elendil??? (Whose name literally means “Elf-friend”, btw.)

Wow, so subtle. No foreshadowing at all.

It’s giving Constantinople.

They’re taking Galadriel to meet the queen and no one thinks to offer her a new dress or even a cloak to wear??

Actually, they might be leaning too hard on the Mediterranean/Byzantine aesthetic…Númenor is an island, sure, but these people don’t look like they inhabit the same universe as the characters we’ve met in Episodes 1 and 2 tbh.

Not Halbrand telling Galadriel, who is more or less an Elven princess and who was born in fucking Valinor, that she should kneel in front of royalty!!!

And of course it turns out that he’s wrong about that, lmfao.

Why are they so instantly antagonistic? The queen’s hostile, Galadriel’s defensive—why??? Frankly: why is everyone in this Middle-earth so overtly racist all the time?

This would be a nice time for a history lesson: tell the audience that Númenórean royals are descended from Elros, Elrond’s brother, which means they’re also descended from Elves (specifically, from Lúthien Tinúviel, his great-grandmother). However, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that they will not bring that up…

Again with an Elf (Galadriel now) being in an unreasonable hurry…three DAYS? That would be literally nothing to her!

I don’t understand the writing/adaptation choices made here. Elendil? Isildur?! They lived almost two thousand years after the titular Rings of Power were forged! @ the screenwriters: pick a LANE. You can tell the story of the forging of the Rings (S.A. 1500-1600) OR the events that led to the Last Alliance of Men and Elves (S.A. 3430), but how can you look at the source material and say “why not both????”

I love a good naval/shipboard sequence, and the shots of the sea are breathtaking. It’s just that all the stuff related to Isildur is wasted screentime.

I can’t believe they’re actually going to acknowledge that “Elendil” means “Elf-friend” as a way to show the queen as a narrow-minded bigot, lol…

She’s written/acted as a Cersei knockoff.

Helping/bringing an Elf to Númenor is treason? Please be serious.

He’s kind of hot, help?

“The sea is always right.” What a dumb catch phrase.

“And that’s how Elendil came to possess Narsil!” Give me a big fucking break. Warriors have swords, and in legends, many swords have names. Not everything needs an origin story!

[record scratch] So this—after the awful exchange between Elendil and the queen and the equally bad Orc torture session with Arondir—was the point when I realized: I need to change the way I approach this show if I want to keep indulging in all the eye-candy. It’s not and cannot be Tolkien, or even a proper adaptation, in any meaningful sense. It’s an especially pretty but still “edgy,” borderline grimdark fantasy show loosely based on Tolkien’s work and set in his universe. Fine. Let’s go.

Galadriel knows parkour!

I want to be mad, but it’s all so pretty.

The way Galadriel has more chemistry with Elendil than with Halbrand, oof.

How big is this island, exactly? I always pictured the Valar having to sink something like…Sicily-sized, not Great Britain/Japan-sized, lol.

Oh, it’s the infamous slow-mo horse ride that pissed off so many people online. What’s the big deal?? It lasted for about ten seconds! Jackson relied on a ridiculous amount of slow motion in the LOTR films, and people have called those “cinematic masterpieces” for decades…

[Redacted] is supposed to be a master manipulator—think a charismatic cult leader type. Halbrand is…well, not that.

Wow, is the guy who just single-handedly murdered and mutilated a bunch of grown men (after he stole from them and was confronted about it) going to turn out to be a villain? Who can say??

“You knew Elros.” By all rights and internal logic, Elros should be the Númenórean featured in Season 1 rather than Elendil. But hey, Elros is mentioned! Cool! I asked for that, after all. (Now tell us who he was and why he matters.)

Shocker: they do not tell us those things.

“I was always closer with his brother.” He’s my son-in-law. Galadriel and the writers: Celeborn whom? (And wasn’t Galadriel righteously pissed at Elrond just a few days ago?)

Yeah, definitely hot.

“By [Morgoth’s] successor.” When I was little, my dad simplified deeper Tolkien history/lore for me by calling Sauron Morgoth’s “son”…it took me years to unlearn that, lmao.

Look, I love the Harfoots and am not ashamed to say it. They’re fun and charming, plus I’m actually invested in Nori and her story arc. I almost fast-forwarded to find out when they would show up! But the whole “anyone who falls behind gets left behind” mentality makes no sense.

“You’re just a child!” Marigold could’ve piped up with that when the entire community was threatening to abandon Nori and her family…

The way Isildur is written to be a slightly whiny, thoroughly twenty-first century teenager is fascinating. Like a car crash.

“There’s nothing for us on our Western shores.” Foreshadowing!

I’m not interested in Elendil’s family drama. And regardless of how lovely she is to look at, I don’t care any more about Galadriel’s massive error in judgment wrt interactions with Halbrand any more than I do about Arondir and the Orcs. This entire Númenor subplot was a mistake!

I was wondering when the Stranger would do something help the Brandyfoots. The actors playing him and Nori do excellent facial work, too. My heart broke a little when he said, “Friend.” Though he’s not Gandalf, not the real Gandalf, he’s still kind of lovable.

And instead of ending on that shot, they throw in some more grimdark Orc content. Skip!

The Good:

The music and visuals are still great. I’m a sucker for seascapes and great architecture. All the little details in the streets and palaces of Númenor were incredibly impressive, and the visual connections between Númenor to Gondor (presumably for the sake of non-readers who might not know) were nice. Many of the costumes were also beautiful. The visuals are where the show’s ultra high-budget reveals itself.

Shout-out to great-great-great-great grandpa Elros!

Elendil’s kind of hot. Galadriel’s gorgeous. We’re already so far from the light of Valinor that Galadriel should ditch “Halbrand” before they even get involved and hook up with Elendil instead.

The actors playing the Harfoots—Nori and Poppy in particular—and the Stranger are killing it! This show should just be about them. They continue doing a lot with very little.

The Bad:

Everything else? Where to begin…

The decline of the writing is noticeable. The dialogue is significantly worse, the foreshadowing is clumsy and obvious, and of course as an adaptation of the source material, this episode threw out both bathwater and baby. Elendil and Isildur are included for the same reason all kinds of IPs now include legacy characters: instant name recognition = (in theory) a dopamine hit for the viewer.

To make this even worse, I think the writers bungled Isildur’s character in hopes of making him “relatable” to appeal to a younger audience, I guess? He’s the Wesley Crusher of TROP.

Elros is mentioned…but the audience learns almost nothing about him, not even that he was the first king!

The entire Númenor arc is, in fact, a waste. The queen is two-dimensional. No explanation is given for the Númenóreans’ dislike/mistrust of Elves. Isildur’s storyline is a coming-of-age/family drama arc this show did not need, never mind that neither he nor Elendil should be alive for another two millennia (!) anyway. Halbrand sucks even more than before without becoming any more interesting. Galadriel doesn’t shine here, either. And despite the impressively detailed sets, even the Númenórean costumes seem visually unrelated the rest of the show’s own universe.

In short, it almost feels like Galadriel was dropped into a different fantasy world for this episode.

I mentioned him, but Halbrand gets his own bullet point again.

Arondir and his gory, violent imprisonment storyline…thanks, I hate it! It’s anti-Tolkien! It’s grimdark! It sucks!!!

The Harfoots’ beliefs and customs are inconsistent and confusing. Nomadic people and hunter/gatherer societies don’t just abandon people who need care! But they’re still the high point of the show imo. Not a compliment to the writers.

It’s almost funny…my opinions on this episode are diametrically opposed to most of the IMDb reviews I read. I like the Harfoot subplot in spite of its problems, I adore Nori, and I don’t hate Galadriel (either the character or the actress—God forbid women do anything) despite the weak writing. I also couldn’t care less about Arondir and found the Orc scenes totally unwatchable for several reasons. Go figure! This show’s not really worth it even for its beauty, but now I’m sort of invested.

*I went back and looked through the Appendices after I finished this episode, and eventually (many years after this show supposedly takes place…) the Númenórean kings, jealous of the Elves’ immortality, did “turn away” from them and even “punished” people who spoke their languages in public—after which the Elves “came no more to Númenor,” understandably. But it’s at least 700 years in the future if this show is set before the Rings were forged! This kind of unnecessary time compression in an epic, multi-season TV series makes no sense to me.

[fireemblems24]

Scarlet Blaze Ch 12

Spoilers below for all Hopes routes up to Ch 12.

MAIN STORY

More backtracking.

I had Shez say we shouldn't return because I'm sick of backtracking. Hubert got mad at me. Ugh.

I also don't get why TWSITD wouldn't want Edelgard do take over. Isn't that like their plan? She does all the hard work then they kill her? Isn't Rhea's death #1 on TWSITD's Christmas list??

SIDE MAPS/CAMP

Ashe is still miserable, but no special words for Annette. I hope Mercedes does.

Marianne is actually motivated to fight this time. She actively dislikes fighting the Kingdom though. (Dimimari still alive)

Lamo, Linhardt doesn't give two shits about Edelgard's war, he just wants to go back to Enbarr and take a nap.

Petra also seems relieved she's fighting rioters and not Kingdom soldiers.

Everyone else - there riots, hung. This one random dude - so there's this dance competition

Mercedes wants to be left alone and pray for Annette. She should've known though that the Empire's actions are sentencing a sizable portion of Faerghus to death, right? I have less sympathy for her than Ashe, who was just following Dimitri's direct orders.

Hubert looks like such a try-hard with this new design. Sometimes I forget.

Hubert doesn't trust Shez. This is such a stark contract to AG, because Hubert thinks Shez will lose control and kill Edelgard and is threatening to kill Shez.

So there's another cut scene where they say TWSITD doesn't want Fodlan unified, but don't they in 3 Houses? Isn't the whole point of the experiments on Edelgard so she's strong enough to kill Rhea and take over Fodlan? Like, I get why they'd be mad that Edelgard kicked them out, but if they were smart they'd let her do all the dirty work and then just take her out and then profit without losing anyone. This whole, "TWSITD doesn't want us to unify!" really smells like bullshit bc of the backlash Edelgard got for siding with them in Houses. Now they're retconning it into "oh, no no, they don't want her to succeed!" Uh, yes, they do, that's what they spent years planning on. Makes no sense.

SHEZ & CASPAR B SUPPORT

They talk about training and how Caspar wants to surpass Shez in fighting ability.

Really the only thing of note is Caspar's persistence.

SHEZ & LINHARDT B SUPPORT

Linhardt is still investigating Shez's power, who has mixed feelings about it.

The problem is the power woke up when Shez was facing death, making it hard to recreate. So Linhardt just commits to studying Shez on the battlefield.

Linhardt is stone cold. After realizing he may not be able to study Shez's power he says he'll need to revaluate the value of their relationship.

SHEZ & BERNADETTA A SUPPORT

Their plans to help Bernadetta is not going well. Everything ends in chaos.

There's moments Bernie's anxiety is treated seriously in this support at the very least.

It ends with Bernie realizing Shez doesn't scare her anymore and that the way not to be nervous around people is spending time with them.

SHEZ & PETRA A SUPPORT

Petra tells Shez he can come to Brigid once it's over.

She hopes to increase trade once the war is over and thinks having Shez around will help.

It's pretty fucked up that Petra thinks the best way for Brigid to stand out is to comply with their oppressors until they "earn" their power or whatever. Recruited Petra is always better.

Shez tells Petra she's "every bit the leader the Fodlan ones are" like fuck off, we know that. Petra just owns it though. She's like, "no, I'm Brigid's queen." We love that for her.

I'm having Shez be as much of a dick as I can though right now (fuck this route for making me kill Annette, Gustave, Rodrigue, and Ingrid - the Black Eagles deserve worse), and this was the first time I felt bad.

HUBERT & MONICA A SUPPORT

The battle of the simps.

I really wonder what the writers were thinking. Oh, I know what the Black Eagles needs, another mage and another character who wants to suck Edelgard's toes! We don't have enough of either yet.

Monica insulted Edelgard's painting without knowing it was Edelgard's. This is probably the hardest trial she's ever faced (yes, it's probably worse than kidnapping and imprisonment for her)

Edelgard got offended. That girl can't take any criticism.

Monica aspires to be Edelgard's servant and is happy that the war she's causing may make that possible. Question is, does Edelgard want to put up with a stalker?

FERDINAND & DOROTHEA A SUPPORT

Dorothea has realized that she owes Ferdinand an apology. Finally.

Ferdinand really rides that line between cringe and endearing and right now I don't know what side of the fence he's on right now. He's shouting at Dorothea so he can keep a distance and giving her the chance to laugh at him if she wants.

Dorothea's embarrassed because everyone is overhearing this lamo. And people are assuming they're dating.

Poor Ferdinand is like Dorothea's still annoyed with me. Then Dorothea tells him he doesn't need to apologize, which makes him think she'll never forgive him, but it's actually because she has too.

They both get embarrassed when she tells him what's going on.

Honestly this is a WAY cuter version of the same story and a lesson in how much execution matters. I was all team Petra/Dorothea (and Ferdinand I didn't really ship with anyone), but now I like Ferdie/Doro too.

While I'm kind of bummed we basically got the same conversation, a rewrite really helped in this case so I get why they went that route.

MONICA & DOROTHEA C SUPPORT

Why did they have to do my girl Dorothea like this? Wasting one of her supports on Monica.

Monica is upset she didn't realize Dorothea was the songstress sooner.

So, Monica is a fan of Dorothea too.

Also Dorothea finds Monica unsettling. Same.

But hey at least Monica got through a conversation without saying Edelgard.

LINHARDT & CONSTANCE C

So is this about Constance being mad that Linhardt doesn't care about his noble status or about him investigating her condition?

Linhardt calls her for siding with the church over the Empire for a bit, but it was only for survival.

Man, Constance just makes no sense fighting for Edelgard. She wants to glory of nobility so awkward.

These two aren't having the same conversation. Linhardt is curious about her crest situation and Constance is going off about wanting to revive her house.

He just walks off after getting annoyed by her lol.

JERITZA & EDELGARD A SUPPORT

Jetiza likes the war because without it he'd be killing someone "less deserving" because Fuck You random Faerghus citizen. I guess they "deserve it"

Also, holy shit, dude acts like it's just inevitable that he murders

At least he wants to get arrested. Edelgard doesn't want him to get arrested.

My question is, did Jeritza go around killing willy nilly or just House Bartels? Because he makes it sound like he can't resist killing and just went and ganked whoever was unlucky.

Or was it that Edelgard recruited him right away and made him her personal guard dog?

MAIN BATTLE

Hanneman and Leonie, not who I expected.

I love how we only see mothers crying over their dead kids when it's TWSITD's attack that does it and not Edelgard's.

Edelgard says no more innocent lives lost today, which may actually be true since we're attacking TWSITD and not commoners from Faerghus.

Is there anything you can do about Leonie? She died of poison, but since it's related to Jeralt stuff, I'm guessing it's because I didn't recruit him? If I did, would she have gotten recruited?

Solon retreated. Annoying.

Hubert, who was a dark knight the whole battle, claims he doesn't know the magic TWSITD uses.

I forget how anime magic girl Edelgard's design is in this game. It's kind of weird.

I keep earning reknown, but I don't know what it does.

Duke Aegir and co seized a fortress. Time for Ferdinand to do something cool?

Caspar's brother is a prisoner.

Does this mean I get to put off fighting innocent citizens of Faerghus for another level? Because I prefer SB bored out of my mind than upset that I had to kill Ingrid, Rodrigue, Gustave, and Annette.

Leonie's dead too now. Geeze, SB is a bloodbath.

xxx

[maya-tl]

We're getting to meet the rest of the crew!! Yes!!

Previous

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Hack-San

You know, it's honestly amazing how creative this show can get. After four seasons and almost one hundred episodes, the writers are still finding new ways to make Adrien an incredibly unlikable character, and they don't even know how much of an asshole they're making him out to be at times. It's kind of like the opposite of The Producers.

Yeah, this review's going to be a little more ranty than usual, in case you can't tell.

Let's get into the fifteenth (chronologically the sixteenth) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Hack-San

We start off with Marinette pretending to be sick so she doesn't have to go to visit her aunt in London and stay to protect Paris in case an Akuma attacks and also because the animators haven't had time to render the city of London yet for the next Miraculous World special. Like all of her other excuses, it fails, and Tikki, as always, fails to actually give any meaningful advice.

And it's not like there's a Miraculous with the power of teleportation that can help Marinette get back to Paris if she needs to, much like how she planned to do that in an earlier episode, right?

Seriously, Kaalki doesn't appear or isn't even mentioned in this episode because the writers are fully aware she would make things a lot easier.

And of course, Astruc had to play dumb on Twitter while explaining why Marinette couldn't use the Horse Miraculous by answering the question as if the only reason Marinette couldn't grab it was because she didn't have an excuse not to.

Cut to Gabriel in his lair as he contemplates akumatizing Markov, a robot created the civilian identity of Pegasus, Max Kante, once again, even though the last time he did so, he almost got killed when he went all HAL 9000 on his ass. Nooroo explains this to Duusu, and the two actually get excited at the prospect of their master getting killed.

I mean, it's true, but he shouldn't say it...

But I don't even get why Gabriel is even thinking about this when it's a no-brainer. Markov's akumatized form, Robustus was to this day, the only Akuma to come close to physically harming him (not counting the timeline where he was killed by Cat Blanc), so it makes no sense to try doing it again, especially when there are already several other Akumas he can reuse this season.

I think you all know Gabriel isn't the smartest villain, which is why he thinks it's a brilliant idea to akumatize Markov again. I don't really get what makes Robustus so special when there are other Akumas who are more loyal and came far closer to getting Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous than Robustus did, like the Dark Owl or Troublemaker. In fact, why not simply create a new Akuma with similar powers to Robustus, or better yet, just create a Sentimonster copy of Robustus? You know, like what Nathalie did in the New York Special? We're not even two minutes in, and this premise is already filled with plotholes.

So Gabriel transforms into Shadowmoth and creates a Sentimonster using his own cane instead of relying on someone else having a bad day (once again showing how the Peacock Miraculous is better than the Butterfly), the titular Hack-San. And let's just say he has a very familiar design reminiscent of something from a much better French cartoon.

Remember when the writers for Code Lyoko gave an in-universe explanation as to why the heroes couldn’t always rely on the almost literal Deus ex Machina that allowed them to return to the past and fix the damage XANA caused? Why couldn’t this show have ripped that off instead?

Hack-San is just an okay looking flash drive on its own, but I'll talk more about this guy in a little bit.

After a brief scene in the park where the audience is reminded that Markov is a character who exists, Alya gets a text from Marinette telling her to meet her at the train station. Right before she leaves, Marinette gives the Ladybug Miraculous to Alya. Now a lot people have said that Alya doesn't really deserve the Ladybug for various reasons, but I feel like this was the point. Marinette outright says this was a last resort, and we see both her and Alya are nervous about the situation. Marinette worries Alya will do something so she keeps sending multiple tips to her via text while Alya worries she can't fight an Akuma on her own, so she tries to make sure none of her friends get upset and attract an Akuma in the process. The writers do a pretty good job showing how both Marinette and Alya are uncomfortable with their temporary roles.

Back to Gabriel and Nathalie, they use Hack-San to find Markov through the internet and hack into him to get him angry enough that he's vulnerable to Shadowmoth's influence. Hey, uh... Gabriel? Quick question: Wouldn't it be more efficient if you used this on humans? I mean, you basically just created Skynet and guaranteed yourself an Akuma, so why not modify Hack-San to travel through the internet and brainwash potential victims to follow your orders? Better yet, why don't you just use Hack-San to hack into Ladybug and Cat Noir's gear and figure out who they really are? This is basically like using an advanced particle accelerator just to crack a couple walnuts. There are a lot more important things you could use this for instead of an incredibly specific situation.

So this incredibly stupid plan gets under way as Markov keeps rampaging through the streets before Shadowmoth akumatizes him and then stupidly tells him that he infected him with a virus.

DUDE! You just gave away your one piece of leverage against him! What the hell were you thinking?! Now what's stopping Markov from hacking into Shadowmoth's security system and putting the fear of God in his eyes unless he destroys Hack-San? Why didn't he design Hack-San so it could make Markov completely loyal to him instead of just making him angry enough to get akumatized?

There was a recent episode of Power Rangers: Dino Fury with a very similar premise that was done far better than this. A necromancer called Reaghoul breaks into the headquarters of Void Knight's faction while accompanied by Lord Zedd, a villain from the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers who was cleansed of his evil by Zordon's sacrifice before Reaghoul resurrected him back when he was still evil. Of course, being the Emperor of Evil, Lord Zedd would normally never take orders from anyone, but because he doesn't have his magic staff and is also being forced to wear a special collar that makes him loyal to Reaghoul, he has no choice but to do what he says. Instead of taking Zedd head-on after he captures the other Rangers, Ollie, the Blue Ranger, breaks the collar so Zedd turns against the other Sporix while Reaghoul retreats, allowing Ollie to save the other Rangers.

I think that this premise works more because 1) Reaghoul clearly had a way to make sure Zedd wouldn't betray him, and Ollie took advantage of that, and 2) Zedd is a villain who is powerful and notorious enough to bring back to your side, not a random monster of the week like Robostus.

So Robostus uses his new powers to brainwash any human who answers his call to give up their most precious possession, clearly meant to do the same with Ladybug and Cat Noir. When Marinette's parents answer the call, they chase after Marinette because they say she's their most important possession. Okay... kind of strange for a set of parents to call their child a possession, but maybe they like how they can claim Marinette as a dependent when they file their taxes. In her very next scene later on, she still gets captured, so the suspense for a potential subplot is killed almost immediately.

Alya thankfully isn't stupid enough to answer Markov's call like every other citizen in this episode, and using the Ladybug Miraculous, transforms into Scarabella. While I don't normally talk about transformation sequences, I really like the movements Alya makes here. She makes the same motions creating her mask as she does when transforming into Rena Rouge, while the rest of the suit forms similarly to the way it does when Marinette transforms into Ladybug. She even makes almost the same pose Ladybug does after she finishes transforming. It's a good visual showing Alya is still more used to being Rena Rouge while doing her best to emulate what Ladybug does.

As for the actual suit? It's hard to say. There's a nice balance of red and black, and I like how Alya places the yo-yo on her waist like a belt buckle, but there's just something... off about the suit that a lot of fans don't like about it, and I think I realized it. It's the headband. With how it's positioned, it looks like it's merged with the mask to cover her head while leaving a slight gap in her forehead. So yeah, we actually have a superhero design that's like of like a butterface.

So Scarabella takes to the rooftops of Paris and struggles to come up with a hero name for herself before she runs into Cat Noir, and... ugh... oh boy, this is dumb. Cat Noir, being just as intelligent as his father, assumes Scarabella is either and Akuma or a Sentimonster, starts fighting her, AND THEN ACTIVATES HIS CATACLYSM, CLEARLY TRYING TO KILL HER.

WHAT. THE. FUCK???

Okay, to be fair, it has been shown that Cataclysm won't necessarily kill a Miraculous user or Sentimonster. In the episode “Miraculer”, the titular Akuma stole Cat Noir's Cataclysm and used it against him, and while it didn't kill Cat Noir, it still hurt like hell and crippled him for the rest of the fight until Miraculous Ladybug healed him. We also saw in “Reflekdoll” that Cataclysm drove the titular Sentimonster out of control rather than simply destroying it. So yes, it could be interpreted that Cat Noir wasn't exactly trying to kill Scarabella, just incapacitate her the best he can without Ladybug's help.

Here's the thing: What if he was facing an Akuma instead and decided to try and Cataclysm her? He still could have killed her, or (assuming Akumas have the same protection as Miraculous heroes do) at best, seriously hurt her. I understand that he has the right to be upset at seeing some stranger instead of his partner considering Shadowmoth has a history of using evil doppelgangers, and both Marinette and Alya still had options to explain it to him (Marinette could have quickly transformed into Ladybug and sent Cat Noir a quick text saying she was being forced to leave town for a few days and temporarily trusted someone else with the Ladybug Miraculous until she got back, while Scarabella could have said she was Rena Rouge and explained the same thing while showing Cat Noir she had the Fox Miraculous to prove herself), but that doesn't even come close to justifying him attempting to harm someone who isn't even trying to fight. It's even worse when you remember the whole reason Adrien gave up his Miraculous and bailed on Ladybug in the New York Special was because he was overcome with grief from accidentally killing Aeon, so it's good to know he learned absolutely nothing from that experience.

So Scarabella thankfully summons her Lucky Charm, a trash can lid, to shield herself from Cat Noir's Cataclysm, and then despite having absolutely no experience with this new set of powers, manages to do the one thing almost every Akuma or Sentimonster in this show has failed to do and incapacitates Cat Noir so he's vulnerable to losing his Miraculous. At least when Marinette masters every other Miraculous she uses, it can be theorized that she trained to use them offscreen. Alya literally just got the Ladybug Miraculous (and struggled to get up to the rooftop with her yo-yo to show her inexperience earlier), and now she easily manages to pin down the more experienced hero of the two?

Here's an idea: Instead of having Scarabella overpower Cat Noir, have her be in a position where Cat Noir, non-lethally, mind you, manages to almost take her Miraculous away, but she uses the quick wit she's developed from her extensive time as Rena Rouge to convince Cat Noir she's the real deal by saying something only he and Ladybug know. It would have easily resolved the conflict and doesn't make one of the characters look like a homicidal idiot.

So because both heroes used their powers, Scarabella and Cat Noir detransform so Tikki and Plagg can recharge, though Adrien still gives Alya attitude because Ladybug didn't tell him she had to leave.

Hey, Adrien? Here's the thing...

YOU DID THE EXACT SAME FUCKING THING IN THE NEW YORK SPECIAL, YOU SHIT FOR BRAINS!

You have absolutely NO RIGHT to claim you're always honest when you went behind Ladybug's back and endangered Paris while you had the balls to run away like a coward and only helped fix the consequences of your actions once your ego was validated by a recording of Ladybug. It's honestly even worse because while Marinette had no choice but to leave and trust Alya with the Ladybug, Adrien willingly left Paris alone and we were supposed to sympathize with him after he killed someone, and now as soon as he's in the opposite situation, we're still supposed to feel bad for him?! BULLSHIT! And you better believe I'm going to talk about the way Adrien views his partnership with Ladybug later on.

And of course, even though lives are on the line, Cat Noir just has to continue to bitch and moan about how (and this is best read in Linkara's whiny Superboy Prime voice) “sCaRaBeLlA iSn'T tHe ReAl LaDyBuG”, showing how just like in so many episodes, Astruc and his team believes Cat Noir's feelings are more important than saving the day.

Scarabella goes to rescue some civilians, but they were actually brainwashed by Robustus, once again showing her inexperience as Ladybug which doesn't go well with her effortlessly defeating Cat Noir earlier at all. Cat Noir helps Scarabella escape and the two hide out at the city's wax statue museum previously featured in “The Puppeteer 2”, because I guess the writers only want to reference bad episodes today. Cat Noir, not getting the importance of secret identities, asks Scarabella how she knows Ladybug, and Cat Noir somehow finds out she knows Ladybug's identity from her response.

Before the two can talk more, it turns out that the wax statues of celebrities in the museum are real people who attack the two heroes, leading to an awkward fight scene where Scarabella and Cat Noir fight a bunch of brainwashed civilians with no weapons beyond their cellphones. Our heroes, ladies and gentlemen!

Scarabella summons her Lucky Charm again, creating a frying pan, but when she looks around, she can't see how to properly use it. And despite spending the entire episode complaining about how much he hates her, it's Cat Noir that tells Scarabella to get her head back in the game because “That's what Ladybug would do”. Funny, I can think of a few situations where Cat Noir could have taken his own advice, but I digress. Also, he's now just cool with Scarabella because there's only a few minutes left in the episode and we need to wrap up the conflict.

Scarabella figures out an idea that involves freeing Marinette, so she negotiates with Robostus to free everything and everyone under his control or else Cat Noir will use his Cataclysm to destroy the Ladybug Miraculous. Robostus agrees and empties his hard drive, and to show them holding up her end of the bargain, Scarabella gives him the frying pan before she and Cat Noir let themselves be captured... while Marinette simply hits Robostus with the frying pan, freeing the Akuma and the two heroes. All in all, it's a really creative climax that shows both Scarabella and Marinette in perfect sync with each other even though they never discussed their plan. Though of course, because Astruc hates writing any scene with Ladynoir, Cat Noir gets a bucket stuck on his head so he doesn't see Marinette saving the day.

Scarabella de-evilizes Robostus, uses Miraculous Scarabella to fix everything and send Marinette back to the train, and because Hack-San already failed once, Shadowmoth can't use it for a different plan so he destroys the Sentimonster.

We cut to a few days after the trip (I guess Shadowmoth decided to take a vacation himself), and Alya tells Marinette to talk with Cat Noir about what happened.

This scene was so close to ending this episode off on a positive note. There was a good atmosphere and the body language of Ladybug and Cat Noir does a good job at telling us how uncomfortable they both feel while talking. It's just that instead of getting a heart to heart between the two about the lack of trust in their relationship, we get an Angstdrien Depreste scene. Or would a more accurate term be Cat Dour?

First off, while I don't have a problem with Ladybug apologizing for not telling Cat Noir, the episode never has him bring up what happened with Scarabella. As usual, both of them were partially at fault, but only Ladybug had to apologize for leaving her “Kitty” alone.

Second, Cat Noir’s feelings weren’t hurt? You’re telling me that in scenes like this...

And this...

Didn’t show Adrien acting irrationally because of how emotional he was? Is he really telling the truth around Ladybug or is he just trying to sweep that under the rug so Scarabella’s testimony doesn’t screw up his chances with Ladybug?

Third, this was an obvious chance to Cat Noir to finally be honest and tell Ladybug how he feels about her leaving him in the dark about so many things, but the entire conversation is just about how sad he would be if he never sees Ladybug again. Even though the whole reason he was so pissy to Scarabella at first was because of some lingering resentment for Ladybug ignoring him in favor of other heroes, why is this what the two talk about? I get it's not the season finale, but it's kind of hypocritical for Cat Noir to whine about how Ladybug doesn't trust him while never being honest about his own feelings? Sure, he's all soft and vulnerable around Ladybug, but we've seen all season how angry he gets about her not trusting him whenever she isn't around, so ironically, it's hard to tell if this is him being honest or not.

And I think now's a good time to finally talk about the way Ladybug and Cat Noir's partnership has been portrayed all season, especially since the main themes of the episodes relate to it. Buckle up, Adrien stans, because this isn't going to be pretty.

All season, we have been supposed to sympathize with Adrien as Marinette starts to trust Alya with more things than him. Marinette revealed her identity to her, trusted her to have her Miraculous permanently, and even let her keep her Miraculous even though someone else knew her identity. While some of it is hypocritical, the idea is that Adrien feels like he can be trusted with this kind of knowledge too, when really, he hasn't earned that responsibility.

Adrien has rarely, if ever, taken his job as a superhero seriously.

Not only is he known to flirt with Ladybug in the middle of a fight, he has defied her orders and recklessly sacrificed himself because he thinks Ladybug can do all the work without him.

He has also lashed out emotionally and once threatened to quit being Cat Noir in the middle of a crisis and was willing to let innocent people suffer for personal reasons, and later on actually quit being Cat Noir temporarily while Hawkmoth was about to start World War III because he was wallowing in self-pity.

He once said he isn't cut out for the responsibility that comes with being Ladybug and never learned anything from temporarily using the Ladybug Miraculous.

He has generally refused to respect Ladybug's boundaries and doesn't understand that she doesn't like him that way while he insists they should be a couple.

He outright fell for an evil doppelganger of Ladybug because she said she loved him and turned against the real Ladybug.

And I should also mention that despite hating how Ladybug keeps secrets from him, a lot of Adrien's worst moments have been when Ladybug wasn't around and he never told her about them.

He never told Ladybug that he was the reason Copycat really got akumatized while saying he never lies to her.

He never told Ladybug he contemplated letting thousands of people die because he didn't like not knowing stuff Ladybug knew.

He never told Ladybug he briefly used the Snake Miraculous to get brownie points with her.

He never told Ladybug he figured out her identity and asked her out as soon as he did so.

He never told Ladybug he abandoned Paris to go on a field trip.

He never told Ladybug he was screwing around on patrol and was excited to see someone get akuamtized if it meant spending time with her.

He never told Ladybug how he ignored Rena Rouge's orders because “ShE wAsN't LaDyBuG” and almost screwed up the mission because of it, and also never told her how he smashed a chimney in anger at Rena Rouge being in on the plan.

And he never told Ladybug he gave her replacement attitude after trying to harm her without letting her explain herself.

Why exactly should I support the idea of Ladybug trusting Cat Noir more when Cat Noir himself has kept his own secrets from Ladybug?

Adrien has done absolutely nothing to show he is trustworthy because more often than not, he views the battle with Shadowmoth as a game. He has screwed around when lives were on the line, and we're supposed to see him as responsible? It's kind of funny that Astruc compared Ladybug to Spider-Man, yet he seems to have forgotten that with great power, there must also come great responsibility. If this was a character flaw or a sign he needed to grow up, I'd be more accepting, but the fact that the writers think Adrien is a great superhero is laughable with how much evidence has proved the contrary.

In contrast, Alya, despite only being Marinette's confidant for a few episodes, has shown to take being a hero more seriously. She's helped her escape to transform, analyze the Guardian texts, and has been shown to work well on her own as Rena Rouge while helping out Marinette. I'm not trying to say she's an amazing character (“Rocketear” in particular has shown she still has problems with keeping secrets), but compared to Adrien, she seems to be more capable of handling top-secret information with Marinette, and more importantly, doesn't view being Rena Rouge as a way to have fun like Adrien does being Cat Noir. I'll go more into detail with that next time.

But yeah, this scene is how the episode ends, and what did I think of it?

I'm honestly not sure which episode I think is worse, this one or “Queen Banana”. On the one hand, every frame of “Queen Banana” could easily be replaced by an image of Astruc flipping the bird and the overall message of the episode would remain unchanged, but the fact that all of the writers think that everything Adrien does in this episode is okay and that we should feel sorry for him in this episode is just as bad, if not worse. 

As awful as Chloe was portrayed in “Queen Banana”, it was clear it was intentional on the writers' part, but Adrien doesn't get that excuse once much like he has all season. As far as Astruc's team thinks, Adrien is an incredible superhero even when he honestly attempted to harm someone with a superpower that can cause grievous harm at best. Yet again this season, in the show's attempt to make me feel sorry for Adrien, it made him look even worse. In any other show, he would obviously be called out for his incredibly unheroic actions.

Even putting him aside, the writing in this episode is still AWFUL. The whole reason Ladybug was benched had several plotholes and poor communication with Cat Noir that only made the fight with Robostus even harder, Shadowmoth's plan to waste a potentially useful Sentimonster to reuse a single Akuma was one of the dumbest plans he's ever had, and barring the ending, the action was just forgettable.

There were a few okay moments sprinkled throughout the episode (more than I can say for “Queen Banana”), so I'm still not sure if I should call this the worst episode of the show or still give that honor to “Queen Banana”. I guess I'll leave that choice up to you and let you pick your poison for now.

I mean, it's not like there's going to be an even worse episode down the line this season, right?

RIGHT???

[sanguine-tenshi]

I just finished Inazuma and I have words

TL;DR: Hate the story, mixed on characters, love the design and tired of being treated like a 4-year-old with a learning disability.

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

Let’s start with what I like.

Inazuma is absolutely beautiful. I’ll admit Inazuma hits a lot of aesthetic points for me. All the islands are different enough to feel unique but they still look like they are a part of the same land. There are a lot of secrets to discover through just exploring. Each island has a world quest to help it (make it less hostile towards you) so it very much feels like you are saving Inazuma from itself.

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The puzzles are alright.

I like the cubes that rotate, I always put in the effort to figure them out properly.

Hate the ones that don’t rotate, they just aren’t engaging enough for me, so I just hit them at random and hope for the best.

The glowing floor tiles were fun, once you actually realized what they wanted you to do. A little bit too easy if I’m honest.

The electro compass isn’t really much of a puzzle, more of a fetch the nearest electrograna quest.

Those little pillars that require an electro connection are kinda boring to me, again not much of a puzzle, the hardest part is finding both pillars.

I love the new electro seelie, kinda hard to follow the jittery thing in certain parts but they make a nice contrast to the regular seelies.

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I’m very much mixed on characters.

Yoimiya is adorable. She is so bright and bubbly. What little game play we had with her was fun and I love her over the top style of fighting. Kinda disappointed she’s another pyro archer but I do admit it fits her character well. It was also wonderful seeing her just settle down and be quiet, just be a part of that moment that obviously meant a lot to her. It’s always nice to see that bubbly, energetic character have that one quiet thing, ya know. Kinda funny it’s fireworks, of all things, for her.

Gorou I like, from what little we’ve seen of him. My man killed a dude with his thighs so I’m down. I do find it kinda ridiculous that a resistance general has his whole damn belly exposed. There is also something about his voice that just does not fit. I cannot for the life of me put my finger on what exactly it is. Could be the tone itself, could be just voice acting. It sort of feels like the VA is trying to sound deeper than he actually does.

Sangonomiya Kokomi, mixed. I like her design, she looks like some sort of mystical priestess. Again something about the voice is jarring. I expected her to sound sort of airy, like she isn’t 100% present, like she’s seeing something we can’t. TBH she reminds me of Luna from HP for some reason. 

Yae Miko, I was interested because of her design. She sounds very arrogant and up her own ass, which would have been fine...if she hadn’t given us that god-awful line. “...I have high hopes for you, child. Don’t disappoint me.” Dear lord I wanted to punt her off the mountain. Or fucking what! Also she’s some bigshot priestess of the Sacred Sakura and yet she can’t do her damn job properly. Why couldn’t her arrogant ass come down from her high perch and cleanse the stupid roots? Why did the traveler have to do that shit?

Baal looks dead inside. Booba sword is overrated, get a life. I want a remach! And no cutscene shenanigans this time!

Kujou Sara seems like one of those ‘honor above all else’ characters. Those are either hit or miss with me. You have my attention for now. Also what are those shoes woman?! I’d rather you wear those leg-killing, needle point stilettoes instead of those Wish gag shoes. How in the name of all that is holy can you run in those?!

Thoma, I like him. At first I thought we were gonna get another Childe incident, but Thoma is too much of a innocent puppy to pull anything that horrible. To me he fits a fox a lot better than Childe does. Childe is a dingo and I stand behind that.

Kamisato Ayaka...hate her. At first I was neutral on her. Nothing about her design really spoke to me, but I was willing to wait and see. But then miHoYo started to violently push her friendship at us. We are totally friends now, this is the first time you see my face, but we are so totally friends now. And during her story quest everyone was like “Ah, you are so good Ayaka. You are so nice Ayaka. You are so perfect Ayaka. We all love you so much Ayaka. And oh, how could a mere merchant like myself...” Ew, go away. This is the first time I’m actively not pulling on a character banner. Normally I pull even if I’m not particularly interested in a character, because you never know how good their gameplay is until you take them out in the map. But I think I’ll be skipping this one. No thanks.

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And now, the worst part, the story.

We’ve been hearing about the situation in Inazuma for a long time. There has been also a lot of talk about how hard it is to get there. About the wall of thunderclouds that surround the islands. So to have it cut to black and then voila Inazuma, feel just so cheap.

I was expecting something. An animation. A struggle. A quest. A minigame. At least show us the horrible weather! Something! Anything!

Hell if they wanted to be assholes about it they could have made it so that if the player fails at this point the ship is damaged, you return to Liyue and have to wait until tomorrow for the ship to be repaired. No Inazuma for today. That sure as hell would have raised the stakes.

The next complaint I have is with Yurika, the 2 milion mora processing fee girl. Later on Thoma mentions that the agency people see the fees as easy money, so her attitude doesn’t make much sense. After all someone like her would want to extract as much money as she can, but you still want the people to be able to pay that.

So it would make more sense to me if she was overly friendly and asked way too many questions. She’d need to get a much information as she can and after all the previous hostility people would be very open with her. So she’d be able to quickly find out why someone is here, what they are selling and roughly how much money they’d be able to pay. A merchant selling expensive silk would have more many than a regular ore merchant. So she’d be able to extract as much money as she could.

“I know this is a lot of money, especially for something so simple, but there is nothing I can do about it. I’m so very sorry.” And people wouldn’t say anything bad to her because she’s the first friendly face they see in Inazuma.

The stealth mission was just god-awful and I hope we never have to do that nonsense again.

Getting off of Ritou was a bit janky at the end, Chisato should have had a better reason for coming along. But I’m honestly just glad we didn’t get out the usual way...getting stuffed in a crate and smuggled out.

As a side note, I’m getting really tired of characters overexplaining things to me, especially Paimon. Dear lord, not everything has to be said, you can leave me to come to my own conclusions and solutions. Just please, who cares if a few player struggle for a bit, you don’t have to hold my hand through the whole thing.

Ayaka’s three were...ugh. It was basic emotional manipulation. Oh no this guy forgot about the love of his life and he’s been waiting for decades. And oh how sad this guy was so good and he helped these people so much but now he can’t remember. And oh the tragedy this guy forgot his life goal and is now hunted by the demons of the past. Oh the humanity! 

And it did not work. Know why? Because I have no emotional investment in any of these people, in this land. What is happening to the vision bearers in Inazuma is tragic, true, but that doesn’t make me want to overthrow the government. I don’t live here. I just got here. I wanna ask a question or two and then move on. None of this concerns me.

I was so happy when the traveler just flat out refused to start a revolution. And then we had to go and meet some people and immediately I knew this was going to be some oh noes the tragedy moments and then we would agree to help them.

It’s so forced.

Wanna know what would have been better?

Just as we are leaving the Kamisato estate Thoma catches up with us. And he tells us he gets it. We are an outsider and this doesn’t concern us. He was hopeful but he expected the denial. We shouldn’t hold it against Ayaka.

He joins us as a guide because he knows of the people we have to meet.

And so as we help these three we also get to know Thoma. We find out he was an outsider too. He got in just before the worst of it started and then he was stuck in Inazuma. He lost someone to the Vision Hunt. They slowly lost their mind after loosing their vision, their ambition too closely tied to their personality to continue without it (what is happening to Domon hits a little too close to home and he has to walk away, this is where we hear the story of the one he lost). And the same would have happened to him if the Kamisatos hadn't taken him in. He owes them his vision, his sanity and his life.

So this rebellion is personal for him.

At the end of the three wishes the atmosphere is somber. We tell him we understand why Ayaka fights, why he fights. We know that this is all wrong, that it should be stopped...but not by us. We came here to get a lead on our brother. And rebellion isn’t an overnight affaire and we can’t loose so much time in Inazuma.

And yeah, he expected as much. He just asks that we let Ayaka down gently. It’d be a shame if someone as idealistic and hopeful as her lost their spark.

And so we are gentle but firm with Ayaka. She looks like she wants to argue with us but Thoma shakes his head at her. So she sighs and tells us that a promise is a promise. We should come to the Komore Teahouse in a few days and she’ll have a plan for us to meet with the Shogun.

Now we can still have a character story quest with Yoimiya and we can still somehow get involved with helping Master Masakatsu, but it’s through Yoimiya instead of Ayaka.

And instead of a character story quest with Ayaka we have one with Thoma. Hell, give him a whole damn hangout event even.

You can probably guess why I’m pushing the friendship with Thoma so much.

Because. He. Gets. Kidnapped. For. The. 100th. Vision. Ceremony. 

And that would have been the perfect emotional in to get us involved in the rebellion. After all we just saw what happens to people who have their visions taken away and we are not letting that happen to Thoma, someone we just got close to.

So Baal makes it personal for us as well.

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I have a few more minor complaints.

Aoi is stupid for asking for compensation after she tells us everything we needed to know because, ya know, we could have just walked away. We should have.

The whole stupid misunderstanding about the value Kurosawa’s sword holds. Kinda obvious he meant emotional value instead of monetary.

The suspicious amount of visionless NPCs and by that I mean this is the first time we have NPCs with vision. This wouldn’t have been a problem if we’ve seen NPCs with visions in Mond and Liyue.

The whole rebellion camp bit feels incredibly rushed. We just sort of lollygag over there and then there is a fight (against Sara and her stupid shoes).

Don’t make us fight Baal just to force us to lose. It would have been better if we were forced to retreat, because Thoma was injured, because there are too many soldiers for us to handle on our own. Hell, you can have a funny scene where we straight up jump off a cliff with Thoma clinging onto us and screaming bloody murder until he realizes we are slowly gliding away and he’s not about to plummet to his death.

The Sakura cleansing quest should have been voice acted.

The Mirror Maiden and Pyro Agent are totally on a date, I will not be told otherwise.

[blackberry-gingham]

ooh, def Toad!!🐸

Bless you 😭😭😭 also tagging @samatedeansbroccoli since she asked for the same character 😩

Favorite thing:

Probably his severe underdog status tbh. I am not joking when I say that literally no one genuinely likes this man or even gives him the time of day in the Marvel universe.

Which is just amplified when we consider that he's actually extremely powerful, assuming we take his toad powers to their logical and scientific conclusions and all

Least favorite thing:

Dnsjskskak the way that his creators can't settle on one design for him and so he constantly swings between "ok looking at best" to "literally the most hideous, uncanny thing you've ever seen in your life" 😭

Favorite line:

At the tail end of his run in the wolverine X-Men school comic, as he's being exiled for helping Paige do her nefarious stuff and the others are like "was it worth it" or whatever and he says

"All I did, I did for love"

Like..... Bro. Ouchie.

Especially when you consider that Toad's idea of love is kind of warped in that he is just soooo easy to take advantage of. Like, he's a willing dependent in a codependency relationship. He'll do literally anything you ask... Just as long as you at least pretend to give even a fraction of a fuck about him.

So all that to say, that while he may feel his actions are justified bc "he did it for the woman he loves" and all... That's really not even the case tbh, bc he never seemed to be truly loved by her in the first place.

But also in the invasive species mission in contest of champions during the little dialogue transmission, ronin is like "time to die, frog man" or whatever and toad is like "hey fuck you, that guys not like me, he's just a guy in a suit"

AND HES FUCKING RIGHT LMAOOOOO

Idk, not super profound or anything, but genuinely made me laugh so it deserves a spot

brOTP:

Oof, once again, Toad is another guy who doesn't really have friends lol. I'd say him and Spiderman tbh.

Two dudes who are losers irl, but also super smart and all that. They can commiserate over their girl troubles, I'm sure

OTP:

Me again, lmao. I will give him true love 😌🤲🏻

nOTP:

Probably like.... Magneto or something. Ugh, that's so foul. Just the concept hurts to type 😭

Random HC:

I'm trying to think of something I haven't said already lmao

Uuuuuh, he basically starts to fall apart once he hits middle age tbh, lol. He just wants to retire and live a normal life with his s/o after like... 43. Eating bugs starts to give him really bad heartburn and he really hates to crouch down and do that toad hop thing he's known for.

Age and dad bod weight come together for pretty shitty back pain afterwards if he does it for too long.

Unpopular opinion:

Well, there's not really many people to pitch against for me to even have a truly "unpopular opinion" tbh 😂😂😅

But I guess I'd say Todd kind of annoys me tbh. I think it's his diction style more than anything tho, so 😭 That, and it's like... I get why he's more of a popular choice in fanfictions, but also.... Idk. What about the og tho 😭😭

Song I associate:

Probably listen up by Oasis off of the very excellent The Masterplan album. One bc I just associate Liam Gallagher and his voice and image so hard with Mort, but also the mood is right and the lyrics are accurate.

That and the titular song off that same album. The Masterplan, the song, is sung by Noel, Liam's brother, but idk. I really love his voice for like.... Adult Toad.

The first is more about making up your mind to be your own man, even if it means you have to go at life on your own.

The second has a lot more to unpack tbh lmao, but basically it ties into the idea that "the plan for life is that there is no plan" and while that may sound scary, and sure it can be... But we should also realize the potential it has in that good things can happen too, even when we don't expect them.

Favorite picture:

Lmao am I wrong to post one of my drawings 😭

I'd say I'm caught between this panel of the comic, bc like.... W I D E. Plus, canon dad bod confirmed lmao

And this scene from days of future past just bc I literally died like LMAO. Even in an alternate universe, this man is forced into a crummy job. That, and the fact that a man who's poisonous enough to take out literally anyone in an actual fucking heartbeat...

Is cooking FOOD and with no gloves or anything. Like.... This is such an absolutely God tier FDA violation 😭😭

[sunjaesol]

Can’t handle the heat? (Try me.)

“Put that AC on, folks! It’s gonna be a whopping 105 degrees today and it’s not going down any time soon! Best to stay inside and keep your head in the fridge! Next up - “Positions” by Ariana Grande!”

The band groaned as the radio host clicked off, Ariana Grande blaring through the stereo. The sweltering heat had them all on the floor, fanning their faces with composition papers and one measly portable fan. It did shit, but there was nothing else available in the studio. Reggie’s face was completely red, Alex’s hair has turned brown from sweat and Julie was this close to begging them to teleport her to the Arctic. Everyone was beat. Well... all except one person. 

Luke Patterson would literally be the death of her. And the second death of the boys. 

Though sweating like a pig as well, no heatwave could temper that perpetual energy of his. 

“Come on, guys!” His foot prodded Alex’s side, the blonde swatting him away. “It’s just a lil’ heat. Nothing we’re not used to.”

Alex groaned. “Dude, those lights in the 90′s were for thirty minutes, max. This has been going on for days.”

“Literally!”, added Reg. 

Julie hoisted herself up, cringing at the way her body was suctioned against the cement floor. “I think we just have to wait it out until this ends.”

“It’s LA,” he deadpanned. “It never ends.”

Ugh. He was right. Summers in Los Angeles felt like simmering in an oven for months on end, hot enough to hallucinate, just cool enough to not actually die. It didn’t help that the trees were burning too. There was no shadow or shade for the Californians to hide beneath. 

“Come on, Jules,” he grinned, giving her that face he knew she couldn’t deny. It was an unfair move of his, but she had also been secretly hoping to play a little. Days without music felt like not breathing properly, or sleeping on the wrong side and having a kink in your neck afterwards. Music was, despite the heat, still the thing that tipped her over the edge. And when Luke asked her with that sweet smile... 

It probably helped he looked good all sweaty like that. She couldn’t even feel embarrassed about it. She was seventeen and he was seventeen and hot and it was the only logical reaction one could have.

She sighed. “Fine.” Holding her hand out, he went to grab it and pulled her up. Too hard. Julie flew forward with a squeak, straight into his chest. Instinctively, she grabbed onto his warm shoulders to steady herself while he gripped her waist. Both froze, mortified.

Because they’ve been here before. 

Last summer, after a gig in a tiki bar, the boys and her had been dancing on the beach. Far enough for no one to suspect anything, close enough to still hear the music. Luke and her had been wrapped around each other, executing salsa and tango miserably but having fun either way. She’d been giggling uncontrollably and he couldn’t keep the beam of his face when all of a sudden, their lips were a brush away. If Reggie hadn’t exclaimed he found Patrick Star, she was keenly aware of what would’ve happened. They didn’t talk about it afterwards and Julie filed it in the “Luke Patterson, My Idiot Crush”-map of her brain. 

His body was buzzing with warmth and his muscles rippled under her fingers and his shirt clung to his chest. Her physique probably left little to the imagination too right now. As if burned, Julie let go and settled her eyes back on the boys. They were, of course, eating it up like the bastards they were. 

She clapped her hands, voice an octave higher than usual. “Come on, guys! One run through!”            

Fortunately, everything went back to normal. They were still huffing and puffing, but Reggie was smiling as he found the bassline and Alex discovered that the slam of the drum relieved some heat and Luke was, you know, Luke. Julie pushed the moment to back of her mind. She only allowed herself to indulge in her dreams.

It was hard though. His hair was pushed back and his muscles were glistening like some CW character and with the heatwave, he has somehow become hotter. Did he get a tan? Was that possible? Regardless, Julie’s stomach was in knots. She tried her hardest to give him neutral glances and not like she wanted to slide her hands up his arms. Dios mio, get a fucking grip, Molina.

But then it happened. She should’ve known it would happen. And there was only Reggie to blame.

One run through became five and by then, every pore on their skin was drenched. If only she had a pool. Maybe she should text Kayla after this, beg her to let her use it. As she was debating on that, Reggie pulled of his wife beater. Which was fine. It was Reggie. It was like seeing Carlos run around shirtless after his shower. Five minutes later, Alex exchanged his t-shirt for one of Willie’s crop tops. That also, was fine. She was itching to remove her top as well, a bikini underneath, but she wasn’t sure if her nerves could handle it. 

And then Luke set his guitar down with an annoyed puff and threw his muscle tank on the ground. Julie stilled. Was he going to...? Nope. He wasn’t getting another tank. This was it. This was where she joined them on the side of the unliving. His chest was defined and smooth, abs peeking through the skin. This boy was stupidly hot. It felt illegal: a seventeen year old boy sculpted like Apollo. Her breathing quickened just like that. 

If she thought her throat was dry from the heat, she was mistaken. Julie swallowed back saliva, licked her lips and forced herself to stop ogling. Her actions weren’t fast enough though, Luke having noticed by now and grinning like he won the lottery. 

He sauntered closer, eyes gleaming with mischief and challenge. She held it, levelling his intensity with her own. “Can’t handle a little heat, Jules?”  

Internally, she was happy to be sitting behind her keyboard. Externally though, she could not let him win. If his cocky attitude was normally dialled on five, it was now up to eleven. Try me, Luke.   

She stood up and gave him an unimpressed once-over. “I’m happy you guys are getting comfortable,” she said to Alex and Reg. “Okay if I do too?”

The two nodded, Alex barely holding in a snicker and Reggie letting one out anyway. Luke’s eyes widened, bravado crashing to the floor as he put the pieces together.  

“W-wait, wha-?”

Julie grabbed the hem of her shirt and shed it off her skin. She sighed - finally, some relief from this fucking heat - and let the advantage of surprise push her to throw a prideful smirk his way. Her bikini top was nothing special, but if she had to suffer, then so did he. 

His eyes went from her chest to her face again, stammering and paralysed and yeah, she felt pretty damn attractive right now. She was going to be relishing this moment till the end of time. Smiling innocently, she leaned forward. 

“Something you wanna say, Luke?” 

Frantically shaking his head, he backed away, fingers clenching around his guitar and retreating to his designated spot. The boys were leaning against each other, giggling. 

“Nope,” he coughed, fixing a stressed smile. “Let’s keep going, yeah?”

(When later that day Luke and Julie were cleaning up the studio by themselves and he quietly told her she looked pretty in blue, the tension resolved. She then told him his eyes popped in the sunlight and after, they smiled at each other for a beat. Not heated or shy - just smiling. Open and achingly genuine. It felt like a promise, a hopeful wish that their moment on the beach would happen again.) 

(It would. Two weeks later, right at the end of the heatwave as they played at yet another tiki bar, Luke pulled her aside. Sweaty and sandy and happy, they met the other halfway for a warm kiss.)

Yeah, they could handle the heat.  

@mouse-fantoms @heademptynothoughts @blush-and-books @willexx @unsaid-emily @sophiphi

[faorism]

somehow @darkfinch your undercover eliot au made my brain jump a couple of beats and now im like. fast and the furious au aka we drop the leverage crew into what camp looks like if designed for straight men. (characters and the relationships from the saga dont perfectly align, but! they serve as a reference. and sorry im ot3 obsessed so this touches on that even tho your au finch doesnt mention ships.)

eliot is not a narc but instead moreau's top dog in what is a very dynamic criminal enterprise. moreau wants to expand his operation from los angeles to the bay area, and has sent his lieutenant to look into the competition and what business prospects look like. he aims him at one of the major players' known fronts, a bar named mcrorys owned by a guy named nate ford. eliot will have to send updates to chapman, who will be put in charge of the expansion because even though eliot is higher ranked and trusted enough to give moreau the clearest analysis of the bay's situation, moreau wants eliot close and secure and his, so! eliot has to lay the groundwork for fucking chapman.

at mcrorys, eliot orders a burger like a NORMAL FUCKING PERSON and its god fucking awful, and he complains at his server, a handsome af chatty dude who is curious about this beauty bruiser of a man who showed up in a suped up challenger. hardison flirts teases that if eliot thinks he could do better, hardison was gonna talk a break for a late lunch and wouldnt mind being fed well for once. eliot takes him up on the challenge and goes to the back where parker (the gorgeous, the fuck is everyone a model around here cook who is also the bartender) is moping because the big boss has her and hardison to cover the pub during slow hours to "keep them humble." she's suspicious of eliot but! eats the food he makes for her too. its soooo good and ugh, why doesn't nate hire real cooks instead of having them there. at this, eliot is like... oh shit you know ford? i had business with him, parts to sell.

and thus, eliot inadvertently gets his "in" with nates crew.

from this meet-cute, plot unravels and eliot learns the inner workings of the crew's leadership as he picks up hours at mcrorys as a cook.

what he reports back to moreau (via fucking chapman) is this: nate is head of the crew, but after losing his kid to crossfire gone wrong, he drinks too much to drive even a hot wheel. hes the planner and the numbers guy, but the face/driver of the organization for the past few years is now parker. shes the best driver the bay may have ever seen and her name is whispered like the demigod we know she is, even by their rivals. she is very suspicious of eliot not for any particular reason, but because shes protective of her family and how easy this stranger fits in worries her (they are just... so alike and she knows how hard it was for her to join in, why is it so easy for eliot).

her boyfriend hardison, however, is so trusting (too trusting) and even if at first he and eliot play at irritation (or feel it, actually) theres a quick friendship budding that further rubs parker the wrong way. hardison is too important to let drive because he is the man behind the tech and motors of their operation: he just knows how to make a car purr before pouncing on the nitro.

he works closely with sophie, nates... wife? girlfriend? years long eye fuck partner? eliot also doesnt quite know what to name her role because she's a chameleon. she has got an eye for aesthetics so she gives hardison instructions for car detailing, but also she does orders and somehow gets huge discounts, but then she turns around and sells at a huge profit. she also races and she's goooood.

as eliot establishes himself into the crew, and as (against parker's suggestion) he joins their thievery, what eliot reports back becomes this: nates crew may be pulling a lot of attention because of their success in the races and because they do their elaborate heists... they really arent moreaus competition. they dont push drugs or sex work or guns. they are big time for their field of car shit but small time for everything else. theres the triads you really have to worry about. and the cops out here are dirty: the commissioner blackpoole, in particular, is an asshole. this crew doesnt even kill anyone wtf. they are basically a bunch of conmen and grifters. not serious players.

chapman accuses eliot of "going native." eliot tells him to go fuck himself. moreau decides to trust eliots judgment.

plot plot plot and also racing and also eliot earning the trust and companionship of everyone, even parker. but basically, moreau eventually sends some people in (including chapman) to start interfering with shit, once eliot reports on a score against the triads nates crew is looking into thst is very very tempting indeed. eliot finds out and realizes this big heist (big enough to require nate on scene) is going to go really fucking bad with the interference. so he tells hardison, the only one of the main crew left behind to coordinate shit and... god, hardison is crushed but they have his family to save.

eliot's warning and hardison's assistance means the difference between life and death for nate, sophie, parker, and the few others they got helping them (quinn? peggy? hurley? and do harry and bre make an appearance somewhere? idk). particularly nate eliot saves, because chapman and two guys had cornered nate and was gonna shoot but eliot kills them first.

and here... now everyone knows what eliot is and who. and... nate yells at him and hardison (now) cam be pissed and sophie knew he was lying but not Like This and parker... parker (who tore her ACL but could have fucking lost a leg) is the softest with him, and each person's reaction just tears eliot apart. but yet. but yet they offer him a place. a refuge. but he's moreau's man. a loyal dog. and moreau is already recalling eliot, saying they need to regroup after this unfortunate (but acceptable) loss and try again later. and what eliot doesnt report to them is that if he doesnt go back, moreau will send everyone in after him. (its safer, better... this way. this family was never his.)

and so they let him go. they have to. and eliot cant even look at hardison and parker, who he... they... had something. they did. or could have had something. maybe. at the end. but... he leaves. he has to. for them, and for nate and sophie, and for the whole crew.

and well, nates crew was small time before, yes, in comparison to moreaus operation. but as the screen fades to black, they look at each other and go yeah, apparently, we gotta go big because we have an eliot to steal (back).

[memethemastermonarch]

Mass Effect Tag Game, Except I Get No ME Mutuals

 To celebrate finishing 3, here I go!

Been a fan since: Late February 2022. I got into it from a combination of this Youtube video by a Tali simp about ME3 and I just finished Dragon Age Origins after watching some TikToks on it and figured I’d go on a Bioware marathon. I originally meant to switch between Dragon Age and Mass Effect to keep myself balanced. I ended up playing the whole ME Trilogy one after the other.

Favorite game in the series: Absolutely ME2. I love all the games for different reasons, ME1′s exploration and ME3′s combat, but 2 is the most balanced. The large cast, the companion side quests, the way the ship was bigger, WAY better outfits for Shepard, and the scanning feature were all so fun. My main gripe in MELE is that ME2 is the only game that limits your weapon arsenal. Why the hell do Vanguards need an SMG? They don’t hit hard and suck unless it’s the DLC one!!! Other than that it’s so full of content despite being shorter than 3 by how many hours I’ve played.

MShep or FemShep: FemShep. I am female and I always prefer female MC voices in games anyway. Although props to MShep’s VA, love VAs that interact with communities.

Earthborn, Colonist, or Spacer: Colonist. The side quest in ME1 is very sad and that one little clip of dialogue in 3... my heart.

Biotics or Tech: Biotics. Nothing beats floating enemies in the air or blasting them with Flare.

Paragon or Renegade: Paragade. I feel it fleshes out my Shepard more, although I’m a massive hypocrite sometimes with my choices of dialogue. It’s fun as hell though, and it’s how I could easily save both the Quarians and Geth.

Favorite Class: Vanguard supremacy! I also really love ME3′s Sentinel since I wanted to change up classes and wanted to keep up with my character’s biotics gig. Vanguard was super fun, but kind of hard to master for ME2. I’d say Vanguard would work best for me in 3 since I charge in or just run around the battlefield. I definitely want to do an Infiltrator playthrough though.

Favorite Companion: Garrus! I kinda of forced myself to use him and Liara in the first game to see why everyone likes them, but only Garrus stuck the mark for me. Liara’s cool, but Garrus surprisingly was so cool an in depth in 1 compared to many other characters for me. And how they develop him even further with the next games.. ugh! He’s amazing, like if Nick Valentine and Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd combined but before either was even an idea.

Least Favorite Companion: Zaheed is the only companion in the games I do not like, which actually shows how the casts is either very well written or at least likable. Not Zaheed. With how he and Kasumi’s dialogue was designed, it’s hard to get to know and understand him as a character. Plus he is a boring asshole WHO SET A FACTORY ON FIRE! Look, I’m all for revenge, I let Garrus kill that stupid traitor because that’s not something you can forgive, but don’t fucking put other people in danger for it. Dude even dies pathetically too in 3.

Squad Set Up: Garrus is always there like a little girl’s worn out teddy bear, balancing out my biotics. And Tali whenever she was avaliable. Liara, Kasumi, and Samara were my backup teammates

Favorite In-Game Romance: Garrus 100% all the way. I love his chemistry with Shepard, especially my Shepard. They are opposites in playstyles, and they are each other’s impulse control on stupid decision making. I love romances who banter like an old married couple but balance each other out on a deeper level.  I also have massive respect for Tali and Thane fans, Tali being my second favorite character, and Thane just being a sad character. Thane simps make me cry because those guys are the queens of angst.

Favorite NPC: Donnelly and Daniels by far. Going down to Engineering felt a lot more alive with them around. They were cute and really funny. I wish they got together :(

Favorite Antagonist: Uhhhhh... uh oh. I don’t really any particular favor towards any of thems. Saren is cool, that fight cutscene at the bomb area is way cooler than with the Salarians. The Illusive Man has cool motivations and corruption arc, especially with the comics. The Reapers being ruthless AI is cool. The Collectors are sad too. Nothing sticks out to me though. I’ll just say the ME2 final boss I guess. That shit was badass and made me so hyped up.

Favorite Loyalty Mission: Miranda and Tali’s are so good!! They aren’t tedious like Thane and Samara’s, and the emotions I’ve felt during them were very sweet. Kasumi’s would be up here too if I didn’t suck at undercover missions.

Favorite Mission: Virmire is the mission in Mass Effect 1 that let me truly realize that my choices would be rewarded or punished VERY heavily at certain points. Doing Wrex’s mission before, choosing which teammate to sacrifice, and the hype before going to Ilos was what ruly made me enjoy this series. Mass Effect 1 is a good game. Virmire and beyond make it a great game.

Favorite DLC: CITADEL! CITADEL! CITADEL! CITADEL! Call it the inner weeb from me, but I do believe that the new Mass Effect would benefit from a companion system similar to like Three Houses or even Persona 5. I KNOW I KNOW it sound cringe but Citadel shows us that we love those moments between Shepard and the crew. AND they could get more character development and dialogue. No more calibrations! Or at least let us invite the gang to the bar or nightclub or just to watch a movie. I loved eating with my students in Three Houses, and I’d LOVE to go on dinner dates with Garrus and Tali. Other than Citadel, Omega and Shadow Broker are really good too! Aria’s Flare really made me know why you should not fuck with her. The Shadow Broker DLC was also a nice little archive for the squad’s personal information, getting money, and just watching people be stupid as hell in the vid showcase. Definitely has a nice reward for completing it.

Control, Synthesis, or Destroy: I chose Destroy in case we can port our Shepards from LE in the next game (I doubt it but I don’t like taking chances) but all of them feel sad. At least Control has a badass idea behind it. So... Idk I just want some Garrussy man. Just let me be happy in the next game

Favorite Weapons: I’m a very bad Vanguard. I like the geth assault rifle from the first game, and the Widow sniper rifle. Guess I have another reason to like Garrus. By 3 my Sentinel used snipers, assault rifles, and pistols in case I have no ammo. My power suffered as a result but I WAS RIGHT ABOUT AMMO AT THE END! I like to be prepared :(

Favorite Place: The Normandy SR2 before the Alliance fucked it up, and the Plaza from the Citadel DLC. I loved playing arcade games and getting decorations for my house and then hanging out with my friends :)))

Favorite Quotes: AHHH I SUCK AT REMEMBERING BUT THAT VOLUS THOUGH

“I am a biotic god! Fear me!”

-Niftu Cal, the Volus from Samara’s recruit mission

Thank you for reading this. I loved reading other people’s experiences and I hope more people get to have fun in the Milky Way in the future. I have no ME mutuals, so anyone is up to doing this too! I’d love to hear more opinions on the series.

[threeeyesslitthroat]

So I watched Chaos Walking(2021)

Yeah, lucky for me, my local theater was open and showing(side note, I love my local theater so much. Like, not to brag but seven dollars for a movie and a snack is so great)

Anyhow, I watched Chaos walking. This is sort of my review. 

First off, I read The Knife of Never Letting Go and one third of The Ask and Answer, almost two years ago. When they finally dropped the release date and the trailer, i made the choice not to go reread the first book because i wanted to give the movie a chance and make an exercise of managing my expectations(in preparation for Disney’s Percy Jackson adaptation). Which means not only do I not have a complete understanding of the source material, but I also have a shit memory, so I don’t have a great shot at analyzing this films in adaptation terms, but i’m gonna try anyhow.

So first off, The Noise.

I found it a bit sketchy that they decided to make the make Noise have visual elements alongside audio but I decided it was fine, since it be pretty hard to bring this to life with only just audio and not make general audiences confused.

But they did try and do a solid job. Minus not letting us hear the Noise of animals, which sucks. we do see the Noise of a Spackle, but briefly.

The part that really pisses me off is the final confrontation, when the Noise is treated like a Super Power. we see this when Todd scares Davy’s horse by conjuring up an image of big snake, when Mayor Prentiss tricks Viola into a false trap, when  Ben tricks everyone by pretending to give Viola up when in fact he’s buying Todd and the real Viola time to get away, and in the final, Todd distracts Prentiss by conjuring up the image of his mother(complete with bloody wounds) and the various women that died when he was a baby, which caused Prentiss to fall to his death.

I don’t know how the Noise is depicted in the later books, if it was anywhere remotely like this, but i know for sure it doesn’t happen in the first book, which the film is based on.

(Also, how the fuck does Todd know what his mum looks like, or any of the other women and how is he able to bring up their images so perfectly how is ANYONE ABLE REMEMBER SOMEONE WITH THAT MUCH DETAIL That goes beyond photographic memory)

Second bit, the Spackle.

 The design is boring. Its clearly an alien, buts its dark grey, tall, holds its own when Todd attacks it in the film, has zero impact on the film as a whole and pretty boring. I do recall reading the book and imagining them to have faces similar to real world lemurs or Sloths, with big expressive eyes and such, but the CGI monster doesn’t emote for shit in this film. Todd comes at with a knife with every intention of killing it and it shrugs him off and walks away like it wasn’t fucking attacked my gods.

But in short, they only brought up the Spackle because they’re a thing in the world and it teased the bigger concepts of the next books with like, one measly exchange between Todd and Viola. (it went something like this)

Viola:We’re the aliens, though. They’re the natives.

Todd: huh.

Third bit, New World itself. Not a big deal, It looked like how i originally imagined it, no mention of swamp apples, though we see Todd Hewitt use a knife to stab a big ass bug thing for food. i hear some critics consider it lame that the planet isn’t actually alien but eh, whatever, Didn’t really feel an alien vibe reading the book so it doesn’t matter. 

Now there’s one bit i have to acknowledge in passing. At one point Todd decides to go get lunch by going into the water with his knife and wrestles with some big ass thing with tentacles. Which is fine, just have a couple of questions.

A: is this in reference to the books? Where there big ass tentacle creatures in the novel that are hunted for lunch?

B:if not, was this the film makers deciding to remind the viewers that yes, they are not on planet earth and to make Todd look cooler and justify why he’s useful for the quest and show how much Viola doesn’t know?

I kinda have to acknowledge the thing.  In that scene, Todd and Viola take a break, and Todd removes his clothes (all of them) and decides to go hunting in the water naked as the day he was born. You may have noticed that the Tom Holland stans are all over this scene because One) the camera focuses on Tom Hollands muscles when he takes his top off and Two) one can see his bare ass in the distance. 

Not a big fan off this, just find it interesting because its the most recent example of a Male being objectified by the camera when this never happens once to any of the female characters in the film, including Viola. Also, a touch of weird character detailing because haha, get it? Boy’s never seen a girl before in his life and doesn’t know what modesty means.

Also, very weird because Todd Hewitt in the book was so fucking self conscious that he would never have done that. 

Now I gotta talk about the characters.

( i understand why they aged them up, i truly do, better to get established actors instead of child actors that could more easily break to movie than sell it. its easier to make movies with legal adults instead of working with child labor laws. but damn it you lose so much of the fucking nuance of the novel when you age them up. There’s so much shit that makes an impact because of how young they are. Around the ages of eleven and twelve is when ones understanding of good and evil has its foundation, to me it was like the story was grappling with Todd Hewitt’s very soul and you lose so much of that when you change it to them being older because instead of being just kids in fucked up situations its younger adults in messed up situations. Like ugh. and aging them up leads to even more problems but we’ll fucking get to that)

Tom Holland’s Todd Hewitt is not the Todd Hewitt of the novel. He just ain’t. There is nothing there that reminds of the boy. The acting is solid, don’t get me wrong, but it just ain’t the Todd Hewitt i remember. Neither is Daisy Ridley’s Viola Eade.

(excuse me while i get Percy Jackson flashbacks)

Now, I have to acknowledge the fact that neither actor(actually none of the actors in this film) slouch on the job. They bring solid and at times very good acting.(If Tom Holland is in the film, its not going to be complete waste of time. He brings quality.)

Honestly, respect to Mr Holland because he was basically the main character, not only acting but also doing voice  and various stunts(also huge credit to the stunt coordinators and stuntmen) and I heard that filming wasn’t that great and bloody broke his nose how many times like damn boy, hats off to you.

But here’s the thing. I don’t want to say that Holland was playing himself or just a version of peter Parker, because i really don’t think he wasn’t but it just. Didn’t feel like a legit character? Especially when compared to the novel. Like Todd Hewitt in the novel is such a raw force of emotion and such a smartass and i was so looking forward for Holland to own this role but in the movie he just? Awkward dude going through some stuff?

but yeah, Holland works his ass off and there are some scenes and moments in the movie that work just because this fellow is just that charming, so (shrug emoji) like i said, He doesn’t waste your time at least.

Ridley....sigh. i know this woman can act. But next to the character who’s thoughts are heard constantly she’s very boring. And it hurts so much because Viola has an actual personality in the novel like; I’m ninety percent sure that Viola hits Todd with a big stick and I do remember that there were multiple moments where she lets Todd know when he’s being a dumbass.(seriously, i may have a shit memory of the book, but i do remember that they play off each other well and hugely entertaining seeing two twelve-year-olds handle the shit getting thrown at them)

Like, Viola in the film doesn’t really have much going on. We see the crash, we hear about the graves she dug herself, we see her be sad, we see her look at Todd like weirdo, we see her look horrified or shocked. (its so sad that I only remember the facial expressions more clearly than the actual dialogue) We really have no idea what the hell is going on with Viola Eade. I don’t think we can blame Ridley, only the film makers, because how can you see Viola Eade in the novel and then turn her into that????

i do have to talk about the relationship between Tom Holland’s Todd Hewitt and Daisy Ridley’s Viola Eade, even though its painful. In the novel, them is just two kids on a really tough adventure.  Because they aged them up, its not two kids old enough to run for the playground when recess starts. Its Teenagers. 

First question, HOW OLD ARE THEY??? Is Todd sixteen? Eighteen? Seventeen? He sure as hell ain’t Thirteen in this. What about Viola? I mean, big shout out to the hair and makeup team for making 28-year-old Daisy Ridley look so much younger but how. OLD. IS.SHE? Nineteen? Twenty? Twenty-one? Pretty sure she’s older than him in this? I ask because it MATTERS.

The way they play off each other has a vastly different energy to the novel because they are aged up. Its pretty obvious pretty fast that Todd’s feelings are basically a big crush, though not all of it is superficial as the film progresses. And Viola is clearly not receptive to that in the film. (honestly i cringed so hard at the “daydream kiss’ and whatever the hell that was in the Farbranch mayor’s house)

The relationship in the film just doesn’t have the nuance or the energy that the novel had in depicting their relationship which is depressing for all the Todd x Viola fans i’m sure. There’s some adorable bits though, like Viola seeing Todd’s dream of her playing with Manchee, and not so adorable canon bits like when Viola read the diary to Todd.

I’m just grateful that the film at least ended with them being friends instead of trying to force the romantic relationship. That right there is why I like the movie. It’s a crush, its used for a couple laughs, they’re friends, its fine. Even if you didn’t read the novel that’s really great for a movie in this day and age to not end with forcing two opposite sex characters into a relationship. To be honest, I like the idea that the film leaves us thinking that yeah, maybe these two could be real friends one day.

I just want to touch on Manchee real quick.

Manchee’s Noise is not seen or heard in the film. It is briefly acknowledged by Todd ins their first scene but other than that? Nada. Which is a low blow in comparison to the novel because Manchee was a character in his own right, which is why the death hit so hard. 

Todd?” he barks, confused and scared and watching me leave him behind. “Todd?” “Manchee!” I scream. Aaron brings his free hand towards my dog. “MANCHEE!” “Todd?” And Aaron wrenches his arms and there’s a CRACK and a scream and a cut-off yelp that tears my heart in two forever and forever. And the pain is too much it’s too much it’s too much and my hands are on my head and I’m rearing back and my mouth is open in a never-ending wordless wail of all the blackness that’s inside of me.”

in the film, it takes place in white rapids, So its chaotic, its awful, the veiwer’s all stressed out because Viola can’t swim, everyone's getting separated and Aaron’s there and he is seen drowning Manchee. 

Dude, its brief, but not pretty. Because you can see Manchee’s legs trashing above the water, struggling to get free. Aaron is drowning a dog, letting its lungs fill with water. For the folks that don’t like watching dogs die in graphic detail on screen, this isn’t great. 

Personally, I love this scene in the novel. Its the first time i had to put the book down and take a moment. It hit really close to home for me, because i watched my own dog die in real life. It was emotional and horrifying and had such a fucking impact because we could hear his thoughts. Todd had to make the choice to leave him behind to keep Viola safe. To be honest, i think the death is better in the novel, since Manchee basically dies instantly instead of drowning, which takes time(I’ve always assumed that his neck was snapped but I’ve heard others say it was the psine but whatever) it would have been easy and necessary for them to not show that on screen. I personally just think that in terms of depicting a violent death, the novel did a lot better.

Anyway, on to the other characters

(I had to choose the one with the big orange fluffy coat, and i couldn’t find a good pic og Ben and Cillian on google images.)

As for Mayor Prentiss, he’s played by Mads Mikkelsen, and he delivers. But for the most part, we don’t really know why he’s the bad guy, he just wants to get Viola because “she’s the key” which isn’t really explained, and at the end he tries his hardest to kill Todd. 

Because i only read the first book, I don’t know what exactly his character arc is. And since its been a really long while, I don’t remember what he’s like in the novel regardless, other than the cliffhanger ending.

I did take a quick crashcourse  through the wiki and it turns out that Todd and Prentiss have a relationship in the later books, which the film sort of touches on, because Todd looks up to Prentiss in the film from the get go. 

To be honest, I knew that the trilogy was a lot more complex, and even though I didn’t read the whole thing I knew it would be really disappointing for the fans to see the mayor be hollowed out to almost unrecognizable and not getting to see the whole picture on screen.

As for Davy Prentiss Jr., he was an asshole and stayed an asshole. I know he improves and gets killed off in the novels, so yeah, exhibit B of character foundations not being laid down because there isn’t gonna be a movie after this. Also, why is he played by Nick Jonas? Did they actually have more in mind for him when they decided to go with a Jonas brother or was it just star power? 

As for Aaron...don’t have much to say about him, other than just being pretty weird fit to the film. I think he’s after Viola because he’s just that full of delusions but other than that, his character is just flat and useless. (I wish to the gods that writers would actually think instead of going with “religious delusion” to explain insanity) He only brought tension in a few scenes for the most part. I’m pretty sure that in the novel Todd and Aaron have a confrontation, like the final fight of the novel, and I’m 90% sure that its where the Novel gets the Knife of never Letting Go as its title, because the knife is big deal at that point. But I guess they wanted Viola to have a quick boss battle for the ending and set him on fire. 

Ben and Cillian were fine. They did a good job, the actors were pretty great, I liked Cillian, and i like how they acknowledged that these dudes were family(i know that they’re gay and a couple but the film doesn’t say it outloud beyond letting them sleep in the same bed, be Todd’s parents, and having Ben hold Cillian in his arms) I get a kick out of the fact that the official reviews by Movie Critics are openly curious about why the film doesn’t make it more obvious that they’re gay, but whatever.

As for the overall plot, this is a fine example of mashing three books into one film and not having good results. Instead of going to Haven, the movie decided to shortcut the ending and go to the original ship that somehow has working tech but whatever, Viola needs to communicate to her ship. So not only do we not get the great relationship between Todd and Viola, not only do we not get the Spackle, Not only do we not get to see the noise of Manchee, not only do we have poor character adaptation, we also don’t get to have a plot that matches THE ONE BOOK THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO ADAPT. THEY HAD ONE FUCKING JOB AND THEY COULDN'T ADAPT THE ONE BOOK-

Its only so sad that they decided that this was going to be a one-shot deal because they didn’t have faith in the film and chose to have all the threads tied up. I mean, its so sad for the fans because the movie makes it very clear that we are not going to have anymore movies. sigh. 

slight respect towards the film makers for tying up all the story threads instead of leaving them hanging. they did a neat job, even if it wasn’t a great one.

Anyway, maybe later on when google images has more than the promotional material I’ll do a review of only the good stuff this movie did, even if its a sad pathetic failure of an adaptation. Anyway this review is a bit of a mess and already so long so i’ll stop now. 

May the gods give us strength against all the Tom Holland stans that will inevitably clog up the Chaos Walking tag with their Todd Hewitt x reader fanfics.

[oksanasanna]

Is 2x07 your favorite because of villaneve (ear)phone sex?

I could write a whole essay on why 2x07 appeals so much to me specifically

I know no one likes Aaron, but I love him. I relate to him a lot (minus the murder and the billion dollars). I’m obsessed with his speech about how he never gets lonely, has no desire for human interaction, and would rather observe people’s lives from afar. I’m the same way, and he’s the only other person real or fictional I’ve ever seen who also doesn’t experience loneliness.

Rome. I studied Latin and Classical Culture in college.

Villanelle gorging on pasta, my favorite food. It’s soo satisfying watching her absolutely stuff her face. I completely understand Aaron’s weird kink.

The bread hand touch.

Bread in general. I would also like to watch Villanelle eat bread and ice cream and chocolate and pasta. Those are the best food groups. Again, Aaron’s onto something.

Eve fixing her hair for Villanelle before going to give her the mic.

The atelier jacket is one of my fave Villanelle outfits.

I also enjoy the outfit Villanelle first wears when she gets to Rome. And the outfit she wears to the lunch date. Billie’s outfits are on point the whole episode, and I love that scene of Villanelle being amazed by all her new clothes in Rome.

I love Billie.

“I don’t like rich men.”

“I will not be needing the pill.”

“Ugh, get a room” and the way you can hear Villanelle’s wet smile after she says it.

The way Villanelle asks for the shepherd's pie recipe and then repeats all the ingredients to herself under her breath to memorize it.

“Always close the curtains. You never know what kind of pervert might be outside.”

“See? That wasn’t so hard was it?” ‘Are you going to leave us alone now?” “Of course not. Why don’t you sit down.”

“The sexy maths teacher.”

Eve’s wide awake speech was Sandra’s best scene of the entire season. The way she doesn’t blink because she’s so focused on the convo and so ready to talk about Villanelle. The tears of intensity. “Are you in a relationship?” “Define relationship.” It’s so powerful.

The earpiece sex!!

The morning after softness!!

Just the fact that we got that (micro)phone sex was absolutely wild. That’s still the sexiest Villaneve have ever been, and that “good morning” and snuggle into the pillows rivals some of the best 3x08 softness. I can’t believe how blessed we were.

Edward Bluemel in his underwear. (I’m gay, but he’s my exception, don’t judge. It’s not straight if I say #NoHetero)

Hugo’s stupid smile and “hey” when he wakes up

Eve’s absolute disdain for Hugo’s entire existence when he says “hey”

“Thanks for the threesome”

Villanelle’s threesome in the beginning of the episode. That whole first scene is fabulous. The slapstick of the girls interrupting them one by one. Jealous Eve. “Thank you.” “For the sex? You’re welcome!” The sexiness of “I’m not with them when I’m with them” and the emotion of “I feel things when I’m with you.” Villanelle’s robe. “I’m not dressed.” “I don’t care.” The framing. The acting. Literally every second of that scene is a masterpiece.

Villanelle having an alley cat for 2 seconds (cats > dogs fight me)

Carolyn asking the same questions for Eve and Villanelle “Any escalation, increased attention seeking, recklessness?”

That beautifully creepy shot of Carolyn in the mirror hovering over Kenny as he watches Eve leave their house.

The way Aaron drags that poor closeted gay dude for watching Gossip Girl with his boyfriend and the way Villanelle just watches on enjoying the tea as she eats her meal and pretends she doesn’t understand Russian.

Villanelle singing and Hugo bopping along.

Hugo being a bi king calling Aaron “not bad looking”

Eve “He Could Kill the Shit out of Me” Polastri getting horny for some rando psycho dude and liking him even more when she finds out he’s killed people. It’s so fresh to see her openly flirting with someone other than Niko and really marked a turning point in their relationship. It wasn’t just that Villanelle was her exception, it was that she was a completely changed person willing to flirt with a psychopath and take advantage Hugo “Human Dildo” Chambers/Turner/Tiller just because she felt like it.

In the same vein, Hugo changing and saying “Don’t watch me. I know what you’re like” and Eve being offended because he’s right lmao

“Cooped up in a hotel room with nothing to do. How will we pass the time?”

“Set up everything in here.” “Why’s it got to be in my room?” “Because I don’t want all this shit in my room.” I love selfish Eve.

I think 2x07 was actually the peak of Dark Eve. Sure she kills someone in 2x08 and again in 3x07, but she kind of regrets it both times or at least feels guilty. In 2x07 she’s taking advantage of people and manipulating them and giving in to her own desires without a care in the world. She stands up to Villanelle when she gets jealous, she ignores Kenny’s warnings because she wants to see Villanelle, she sends herself and Hugo to Rome knowing its dangerous because she wants to see Villanelle, she flirts with the murder dude, she makes the conversation with the therapist about herself because she wants to indulge, she gets impatient with the Peel case and is quick to insult Hugo every time he disagrees with her methods, she doesn’t care when Hugo gets upset about being out of the loop with the threesome (the 2x08 coffee scene where Hugo is pissy about the night before and Eve’s only concern is that her coffee is cold has strong 2x07 energy and is an honorable mention scene). She doesn’t give a fuck about anyone but herself and Villanelle the whole episode and it’s beautiful.

“What happened to her profile?!” “I don’t know, maybe you shouldn’t have fired Kenny!”

I love Hugo with my whole heart. Aside from Aaron, Hugo is the second character I see the most of myself in. I relate to his sense of humor and I think I would probably be some rich posh douchebag boy like him in an alternate dimension. I love that he gets featured so much in the episode, and it’s really his character’s climactic episode. He finally gets to succeed in his missions of banging Eve and taking down Aaron before going down in 2x08. I just like seeing my boy happy.

Villanelle having that really stylish gorgeous piano that I wish I could have.

Eve leaving those voicemails for Villanelle and Villanelle laying down, listening to them, and stroking her scar with that giddy smile on her face.

Villanelle packing her suitcase by balling everything up and throwing it in there and then acting surprised when Konstantin finds razor wire.

The directing juxtaposition of Villanelle and Aaron entering Aaron’s (STUNNING) palazzo and Eve and Hugo checking in to their grubby hotel.

The cheeky face Hugo makes when the receptionist mistakes Eve and Hugo for a couple.

The way you completely forget about Niko and Gemma in the storage unit until the very end of the episode when you least expect it and it shows you their fate as a shocking cliffhanger juxtaposed with the morning after Villaneve softness in the scene immediately before it. What a rollercoaster. What a way to end on a high note.

Gemma’s murder is probably the most gruesome murder of the show for me. Not that I enjoy gruesome murder, but it’s another aspect of the episode that really stands out. Her face in that bag? Genuinely creepy. Yet the fragile tape is funny. It’s a great example of that blend of comedy and darkness that makes this show so unique.

The pink and black title card is one of the best opening color schemes of the whole show.

“Non Voglio Piu Rivederti” by Paola Neri and 

“Vai Tu Sei Libero” by Dalida are songs I listen to regularly

This list is an unorganized hot mess and I probably missed stuff, but you get my point.

There’s not a single weak spot in the episode. From the acting, the directing, the writing, the music, the costumes, the set design, I love every moment of every scene, and I can’t believe Emerald Fennel wrote it just for me.

[thatdamnokie]

so, as everybody knows, our man, the lovely mark strong, turned 57 this past august 5th

since the kingsman films have had a huge influence on several aspects of my day-to-day life (gee, wonder what group of people i could be referring to...), i decided to sit down and do something i’ve been thinking about since getting my medical card earlier this year: getting high as a kite and watching them back-to-back.

to celebrate mark’s birthday, i decided to do another running commentary post like the one i did for rocknrolla ages ago, under the cut. it’s a pretty similar style, which is to say not necessarily super coherent and might be hard to understand if you’ve never seen the movies. D:

there are some mentions of the roanoke society, but not many.

if even just one person finds this mildly entertaining for four seconds, then i’ll have done my job. there is a lot of cursing and this is NOT spoiler-free.

enjoy~

edited 9.1.20 to correct typos and such, please remember that i was Not Sober while i wrote this lmao

how many times have i watched these movies at this point? i don’t even know.  

i always liked the nifty like—retro arcade marv opening animation

and the thing with the tapes! we love book-ending devices!

kingsman: badass motherfuckers worldwide incorporated

like why was merlin even with them? i understand why lee and james would be there, but merlin, was he not acting quartermaster then?

i have SO MANY FEELINGS about lee unwin

i think it haunts harry and merlin more than anyone thinks, but these are fun spy movies so we just don’t talk about trauma and shit, don’tcha know

don’t look at how merlin tears up and tell me he doesn’t drink about it *HEAVILY* later

it’s such a stark contrast to see the 1990s interior vs. what it’s like when eggsy’s grown :(

michelle baby i’m so sorry. you deserved better than this.

and BABY EGGSY

omg. like this scene is both heartbreaking but is also adorable.

colin firth has gd anime legs, that dude had to straight up unfold himself as he stood up lmao

aaannnnd swooping logo, whooooo, goin’ over some mountains~

and mark hamill, ladies and gentlemen!

this whole thing with james deciding to kinda go rogue makes me wish that we knew more about his backstory as well. like, is this james being james, or was this a weird one-off situation and he was just unlucky?

YES unlucky. nobody could plan for the hurricane of sleek destruction that is gazelle

who has one of my favorite aesthetic designs as a villain (although i guess i’d put her more on maybe henchman level? but idk, it seems like valentine looked at her more as a partner, less like an assistant? and they had a very interesting chemistry together too, like i would’ve added more valentine x gazelle scenes)

i would LOVE to be this chill about just—draping blankies over bodies

blankies over bodies sounds like a cool band name

DIBS you guys can’t have it

i am SO GLAD samuel l. jackson gave valentine a lisp!

valentine, to me, does fit a lot of the usual spy movie villain tropes

but since this movie doesn’t take itself super serious, it’s more fun than annoying

and we never hear about any of the other knights?? like

half of this is just gonna be me whining for additional footage that there just wouldn’t have been room for realistically lmao

michael caine, you are lovely

MARK STRONG, LADIES AND GENTLEMAN

WITH LEGS THAT DON’T QUIT AND AN ACCENT THAT I’D DIE FOR

i’m an embarrassment

like let’s all stop and thank god that mark didn’t have time to learn the welsh accent

not that i would’ve been disappointed, because all accents are good accents on this blog

but at this point i can’t imagine merlin as—not scottish

“try picking a more suitable candidate this time”

arthur you DICK

like were you this cold-blooded when lee died, you fuckin’ reptilian-ass son of a bitch

no wonder you were charlie’s pledge person thing

and enter the fabulous taron egerton, stage left!

DEAN you are DISGUSTING

god, michelle, you need better friends, if you were my bro this entire relationship would’ve never happened

;-; and eggsy’s so sweet with his sister! i know there probably wasn’t “room” for it but i AM glad that there are scenes showing that family is one of eggsy’s kinda “core values”or whatever you want to call it

dude is a hufflepuff through and through imo

can you imagine eggsy as a villain? we would be so fucked. he’s sly, he’s smart, he could’ve made life v e r y difficult for lots of people if he really wanted to

but look at him with the squad!

eggsy’s just like the british version of a good ol’ boy

this car scene is some dukes of hazzard bullshit (ramp-jumping and fun car horn aside)

if butterflies are harry’s main symbolic critter, would foxes be eggsy’s? or would it be a pug instead? i guess that’s like asking if harry would be either a butterfly or a cairn terrier, like mr. pickle. let’s say both.

this fandom is pretty on top of character associations like that

you get symbolic associations! YOU get symbolic associations! EVERYONE gets symbolic associations whether they’re actually in the canon or not! don’t have any? don’t worry, we’ll assign you at least one!

the guy playing the interviewing officer is ALSO the patriarch in the witch which i didn’t realize until—like, a while after

and it was while @circlesofbone​ was visiting, and we were just “oh, okay, guess we can’t escape this cast at all, this is fine”

“your father saved my life.”

harry you’re such a fucking peacock, waiting all posted up and posing so you’ll look cool

you big doofus

i’d kill to be inside his head during this first conversation with eggsy though

like is eggsy like lee? is harry seeing lee the entire time he’s talking to his son, in his mannerisms, how he carries himself, how he speaks?

or is eggsy the opposite? which—i don’t know if that would somehow be sadder?

there’s just a lot going on in the background of this bit that’s left up to interpretation

“although i’m sure it’s well-founded—“

harry’s just so casual about this entire thing, nobody’s that casual without practice

harry you rabble-rouser, what kind of life have you led

“manners. maketh. man.”

our timeless motto, my flowers

kingsman STILL to this DAY has some of the most well-choreographed fight scenes i’ve ever seen??

like yeah the church scene but even just this initial bar fight

harry could’ve been a dancer

in a way i guess he already is

like he moves so fluidly and gracefully, it is BONKERS

colin you did so good! i’m so proud!

the way eggsy’s just O.O

whether or not you ship hartwin, like, you gotta admit, that was hot

and his BODY LANGUAGE, he’s sitting like RAMROD straight, this poor dude lmao

nobody prepares you for a situation like that in public school is all i’m saying

harry, exiting stage left like a suave, smooth motherfucker

remember when iggy azalea was relevant

ugghhhh i hate this part

“I WASN’T WITH NO ONE”

can you imagine being harry hart listening to your dead friend’s son getting the shit beat out of him

like, surely he heard the cleaver, he knows dean was going to fucking gut eggsy right?

listen to how cold and icy his voice gets, oof

yeah, he’s pissed, and dean is lucky

PARKOUR

ugh, i want to go to london ;-; i want to walk in front of the shop and visit harry’s house and kiss cute english boys

i’d like to think harry’s super excited to show eggsy everything but he’s gotta keep it dialed back because “decorum”

the way eggsy pauses though

“come on.”

and he says it so softly.

if i was eggsy, i’d be nervous, too.

but i didn’t realize how quickly harry tries to give off signals like “hey there’s no reason to be scared.”

“like my fair lady?” “well, you’re full of surprises.” <3 one of my favorite sceneeesss.

harry’s voice is so soothing but eggsy is so freaked out by the elevator that he’s just—there’s no room for anything else beyond processing the elevator lmao

“how deep does this fucking thing go?” asking the real questions

aannnddd KINGSMAN BULLET TRAIN

i’d like to think they have like soft jazz or something playing in there

and then they get to the hangar and there are obviously a buuuuunch of people out on the tarmac that we just—never hear about? i just assume they’re all like technical officers or maybe other agents

“your father had the same look on his face. … as did i.”

harry is already rooting for him.

“late again, sir.”

that. brogue.

fuck, i could listen to him talk for hours, scottish accents are my favorite thing

#squadgoals

not a very diverse cast :/

the body bag speeeeech

and of course nobody was in any actual danger, but merlin doesn’t want them to know that so he becomes mr. hard as steel, i am emotionally stoic at all times, do not test me you bunch of rugrats

“classic army technique.”

ROXY

ROXY I WANT TO JUST HOLD YOU IN MY ARMS TT.TT

aannnnddd charlie, also

who we might’ve found sympathy for if we knew aaannyytthiinnggg else about his backstory

like, could he just be Like That, yeah

but most people i know who are assholes like that are that way because their parents were first /shrug/

can hardly fault the dude for turning out like that when poison was all he was given to drink

anyone else a hundred percent positive they would’ve drowned in the first trial

i would absolutely have panicked and bit it

but then again, i’m not kingsman material, i’m roanoke

and if this is the exact same test that merlin and harry went through, does that mean there might be some weird drowning trauma hidden back in there that’s just ANOTHER thing we’re not gonna talk about?

(yes the correct answer is yes)

god that’s such an american response to the problem though

glass can’t cause problems if it’s in a million pieces!

“yeah you can wipe those smirks off your faces…”

i wonder if there was ever a situation where a trainee actually drowned

and i don’t mean like amelia, i mean some poor kid who just failed the test

merlin knows how to put the fear of god in people though!

and mark strong, very handsome, yes, very scary, also yes

he and colin both look like they’re 80 percent leg in every single scene

harry literally had brain matter smatter ALL OVER HIS FACE and still somehow had the mental facilities to be aware of those dudes, leave a bomb and dive out of a window (and then escape said dudes)

billy badass, y’all

“just get it done.” okay, i took back what i said earlier, maybe he does see her as more of an assistant, less than a partner. their relationship is weird.

the puppy scene!

“it’s a bulldog innit?”

YASSSS the golden trio

because of what happened with our other canon charlie has become a weird character for me to watch, like, yeah, i “watch” charlie be himself in tss but the charlie i “see” is like—”our” charlie.

“bollocks!” and then he just runs with jb in his vest, makes me smile

aannddd we see valentine’s super cool factory

harry your hair gets so long <3

“water!” wow, who wants to bet that the fact he was instantly screaming means that maybe he’s gonna have some stuff to talk about in therapy later

roxy baby i’m sorry they made you hold the balloon and have to trust these dumbasses to not shoot you on accident

i would trust roxy to not shoot me

i love, love love valentine’s house

it’s gorgeous

set design is always such a cool way for filmmakers to include details about a character using pure aesthetics and i’m such a slut for it

tilde!

see also: one of the characters done the WORST by these movies imo!

the fact that she not only says no, she says no with enthusiasm and gets blatantly pissed, is one of the best insights we get into tilde’s character and then it just—gets wasted

like it takes three steps and then gets mowed down in the hallway like her guards

i would never be given the opportunity to be asked if i wanted an implant but i draw the line at having stuff put into my neck

awwww harry’s so proud!

that finger point “yeah, see, be more like your uncle”

merlin is SO TALL

“a bit much innit?”

he’s just—tapping a normal clipboard

… nobody wanna talk about how that’s a normal clipboard

anyway

i also love how they show him in professor sweaters for the beginning acts of the movie

definitely a softer aesthetic than one would guess for a dude who apparently did field missions sometime within the past decade or so, but i also have a theory that lee’s death directly contributed to merlin maybe being the man behind the screen as opposed to afield

because trauma is a thing but this is a FUN movie so we’re NOT gonna talk about it

“you’re gonna be all right. you’re top of the class!” this was the scene that made my mom a reggsy shipper

regardless of how you feel about them as a couple, their friendship is one of the best things about this movie, along with their dynamic with charlie, asjdnaskdjna WHY could we not have had a trio movie instead

eggsy you show-off “lemme just throw my arms up and dip outta this plane like it’s not a big deal”

roxy you can do it!

ugh, there goes my baby, off to have a near-death experience under merlin’s immediate supervision lmao

“good girl, rox, glad you made it!”

guys, they’re just kids.

i love this big group scene because it reminds us that these are just young folks, still

“my, my, you’re all very cheerful...”

“rufus, come on!” dude eggsy—and not even just eggsy, charlie and rox too--at least made an attempt at teamwork. you get points for that bro

but man, for all they know, they’re about to beef it in a very permanent way, i’d be freaking out too

merlin getting caught up in the drama

because again, he’s supposed to know that eggsy has a parachute

i think he wasn’t prepared for these two to get that close to not making it and that’s why we see him break face and drop his mug

*WHAM*

i HATE the sound of them landing

it’s not like you can hear bones breaking but it hurts me, guys

and then there were three

plus one daddy long legs quartermaster

“if you have a complaint you come here and you whisper it in my ear.”

yes SIR

“you need to take that chip off your shoulder.”

merlin coming’ in with the tough love portion of the kingsman core squad

there’s no reason for me to think harry’s persona was inspired by cruella de ville somehow but i do anyway

she reveals the mcdonald’s and valentine is just :D

idk if he was expecting a specific reaction or was just excited to see a reaction period

valentine is definitely a fun villain, which, given the tone of the movie, makes sense, it’s all supposed to be fun

one of the reasons i love kingsman is that it’s like, this golden ray of goofy cinematic fuckery in a world of grim!dark remakes and other superhero/spy films who are presented as more serious stories

“and thank you for such a—happy, meal.”

harry got a puppy smile

but see, then, here at his house he’s a lot more relaxed with gazelle! like, patting her butt, etc.

maybe what we see of their relationship is dependent on setting, because valentine himself has it compartmentalized?

perrrrrrhaps

“and i am never, EVER GOING TO AGREE!”

tilde, you deserved better, and i think all the weird hate you get from our ohana is unfair

you don’t twist a runner’s ankle before the race starts and then get mad when they don’t win

your story was mishandled from the beginning

asmr: hanging out with the golden trio watching worrying news in the kingsman trainee bunker room

the way he says “biblical sense” lmao

i have never been able to figure out if the way he says that line is supposed to infer spiritual respect, or lack of it, but i might be looking too into it

“it’s an acquired taste, mate.”

what—what would you even do if you were at a club and three people as hot as taron, ed and sophie all came up and start talking to you at the same time

like i know the target got up and left pretty quick because of the training exercise

but i’d be doing it because i’m ugly and if three hot people are all talking me up at a bar something is Bad and Wrong

which—the CAHONES on both eggsy and roxy

they both literally said “yeah i’m willing to die for this organization that hasn’t even given me a permanent place yet, what of it”

look at harry’s dimples in this scene, he is fighting a huge grin, he’s SO PROUD

i know that charlie’s response is supposed to be just more fodder into the “charlie hesketh is a tool” fire

but given that i’m not unconvinced that his home life wasn’t super shitty, like—

idk, this makes this scene a lot less fun to me. it makes it sad.

like, maybe charlie didn’t even want to be there deep down, maybe this was all for like, arthur, or his dad, or some other person he looked up to

and the way merlin looks when he tells charlie to go home, the way that he’s kinda grimacing? i’m wondering if he’s along the same kind of feeling. he’d know more about charlie’s history

have i also mentioned how much i love harry’s war room?

“YES harry!”

an evil plan is being born!

“true nobility is being superior to your former self.”

eggsy is still in his club clothes, so like—has he slept? y’all let those kids sleep after fucking drugging them, right? … guys?

“—when one is popping ones cherry.”

and eggsy is just CHEESING he is SO EXCITED

am i the only one who wants to learn more about the store clerk guy though?

he’s like the one person around who’s legit just there to run the shop

has no idea about any of the spy stuff happening

his name is donald, he’s married with three children and has two spaniels he loves

“THAT is sick.”

i would KILL for this room.

i don’t need anything in here for any reason but still

foreshadowing, foreshadowing, foreshadowing, more foreshadowing—

harry is such a NERD

“put it back, eggsy.”

the amount of self-control it would take to not have a sudden change in expression in that moment, omg

i wonder how THAT gets trained up in kingsman

“i guarantee it.” ha, get it, it’s a reference to that one commercial

“y’all—talk so funny.”

and this all means that they had a contact at that hat shop and got all that info to them before valentine got there, and somehow made sure he did end up buying a hat that they could also successfully put a bug on, how deep does this goooooo

“jack bauer?”

it says a lot about eggsy that out of all the jb’s it could’ve been, it was jack

uggghhhhhh of course they HAD to do this scene with eggsy with arthur

obviously harry couldn’t do it

i just think most of us would NOT be fans of arthur at this point in the movie, we’re all rooting for eggsy, like, he needs this moment with this other character because we gotta drive home that he’s an asshole

also—would have absolutely failed that test

and i’m not sorry at all

“welcome to kingsman--lancelot.”

i was really happy that it was a female agent who ended up getting the handle

aannddd more echoes of past scenes, man, nobody can say that this crew wasn’t intentional with their cinematography

when eggsy rolls the window down you can see his chest moving up and down, like, he is MAD

dean you asshole

so no wonder he gets so pissed that the car suddenly decides “nope, no, we’re not doing this, c’mon”

this entire conversation at harry’s house is—tense

and you don’t pick up on it the first time, i don’t think, but uh

i’m seeing it now

harry’s not just mad, he’s hurt, and eggsy’s furious but he’s also maybe regretting his actions.

it’s these two men who are rapidly trying to figure out their headspaces and trying to figure out how to navigate this situation with each other

and the way eggsy tries to apologize ;-;

kentucky is a beautiful state, actually

ohhhhhh y’alllll

we’re at the churrrccchhhh

we’re gettin’ closer to the coolest part of the movieeeee

it’s telling that gazelle was trying to make sure that they’d be safe

“… so hail satan, and have a lovely afternoon madame.”

the most metal lines colin firth has ever uttered on camera

the siren noise after it’s switched on bothers me in a way i can’t quite articulate

it might be because i have silent hill-colored trauma, who knows

FREEEEEE

BIIIRRRDDDDDDD

THE GREATEST ACTION TRACKING SHOT IN THE HISTORY OF CINEMA

but then eggsy and merlin are reacting aaaanndddd it’s—a lot less fun

because you realize that they’re watching their bro mercilessly slaughter innocent people and not stopping

and still not stopping

and still not stopping

but plot twist, i’m really glad they kept the track going, because if they’d suddenly picked *this* part of the scene to get serious, that would’ve brought the mood down so low that i don’t think there would’ve been any bouncing back

i just

how do people exist who aren’t attracted to harry hart

that man is a machine

and colin worked so hard to be able to do the scene himself, and that work SHOWS, that man cuts a FIGURE

i don’t know how they managed to somber it up just the right amount, either? maybe because they waited for the “fun action sequence” to be over so there wouldn’t need to be noise that had to be masked by a fun rock track?

“… what did you do to me.”

i cannot imagine what harry was feeling in that moment.

the way he spoke it was like he didn’t even have time to be afraid to die

“that tends to happen when you shoot somebody in the head. feels good, right?”

“no, it does not feel good!”

i love that exchange because we normally hear the opposite.

also—whiplash.

mark has this way of expressing grief without showing any—blatant signs.

like merlin’s not especially tearful, or crying, but his eyes look MASSIVE. and SAD. and he has just the tiiiiiniest tremor in his voice.

and eggsy, dude, like, we’ve all had it come on us really quick and suddenly it’s like your chest is pumping like a piston and when did it get so hard to breathe?

ARTHUR you REPULSE me

like look at how egssy’s shoulders sag when he realizes that arthur isn’t on his team

and in a way, this is eggsy’s final test as a kingsman trainee, imo

do you realize how quickly he had to assess what was happening and figure out what to do, all without arthur noticing?

“you are all alone. it is all up to you. remember all you have learned. good luck.”

it’s a very—almost horror-esque situation from that pov

and he passed with flying colors to go on his first true mission, because after he puts on the suit, that’s his visual cue of graduating, if that makes sense

that’s the knight putting on his armor.

“i’d rather be with harry. thanks.”

“so be it.”

*click*

me: *laughing at arthur’s big dumb stupid head*

… man i’d love a replica of that decanter and glasses set though

not to mention that eggsy recognized the flaws in arthur’s character and weaponized them, which is a whole other level of shit that isn’t necessarily easy; he knew that arthur carried the kind of pride that would leave him open

god, he looks so exhausted though when rox has him at gunpoint.

i think he was being pretty serious, about harry

sick helipaaaaaaad

that thing looks vaguely like a rock-‘em sock-‘em robot but in pieces though

more grandpa sweaters <3

man. you can see roxy swallow, you know she’s scared, but then she just sets her jaw and—

roxy baby you are the best i love you

i like the vintage vibe of the mountain lair

i think that’s another visual poke at the aesthetic themes of some of the older, og spy flicks out there

merlin looks SO LANKY walking back to the plane for some reason??

he stays until the last second for roxy. that’s love right there.

“a bespoke suit always fits.”

which can be good spiritual life advice too but that’s a separate conversation

“what the fuck is WRONG with you people?”

and his fuckin’ disco ball

uuggggghhhhh his speech reminds me of so many… “public figures” that i dislike

even though it’s obviously a bad thing that the chips are everywhere, i appreciate that phones and such are being shown in a positive manner (like, michelle talking to someone in the park, people at a ball game taking selfies, people at the beach, etc.) because i get so sick of that anti-tech boomer humor tbh

and the big reveal of eggsy in his suitttt

A KNIGHT IS BORN

“how’s the view?”

“hideous.”

you’re allowed to be crabby baby, you just let it out.

“lookin’ good, eggsy.”

“feelin’ good, merlin.”

merlin is so calm heading into the fortress and i don’t know if it’s because he’s very, very good at compartmentalizing and that’s genuinely how he is at the moment or if he’s that way through extreme self-control and effort

he can rock a pilot’s uniform though

just like eggsy can rock a suit

they’re both so handsome, help

i also wonder how eggsy’s feeling right then

like, i’d imagine that the pressure of having to perform a role to literally save the world would be enough to distract him from the bite of grief

that’s—probably enough to distract everyone, tbh

i a hundred percent believe there are breakdowns we don’t see

i wonder if eggsy told tilde he’d spoken to lindstrum(sp?) after everything was said and done

like, that’d be some kind of weird foreshadowing in hindsight

this scene is anxiety-inducing in a big way so to distract myself i imagine roxy as a mech pilot

dude i’d totally watch sophie in a role like that, like, let her be in a movie like pacific rim, she’d kick ass

and now we have The Chaos

otherwise known as that point when Everything Is Happening All At Once All The Time

also a thing that doesn’t exist in spy movies: hearing damage

because like his voice is right in eggsy’s ear and without it he’d have a LOT harder time surviving

imagine being an agent, merlin trying to talk to you, but something either hits your ear or goes off right next to it and suddenly it’s just silent

SYSTEM FAILURE

YAAASSSSS

WE WIN

GGOOOAAAAALLLLLL

THE AUDIENCE IS DOING THE WAVE

except JUST KIDDING

The Chaos 2 Electric Boogaloo!

merlin with a huge gun: hot, also, very scary

eggsy is just 10000% done

“this is mine. i’ll show you yours.”

i wonder who e man was supposed to be that valentine called.

like is that a reference to a real person that i just did’t catch?

… elon musk? maybe? idk

eggsy slides like a gd anime character

when he uses the rainmaker, it’s just like harry’s protecting him from somewhere else

(oh—wait, technically kentucky, i guess)

“merlin, i’m fucked.” you can hear the anger there. not only did he fail, but he—and everyone else—is about to die

but this? this is the pinnacle of eggsy showing himself as a kingman agent

he was staring death straight in the mouth and STILL

SOMEHOW

REMEMBERED THE IMPLANTS

so i guess if i say that the moment when he puts on the suit is when he becomes a true agent, then maybe this is the moment when he becomes galahad.

*bobs head to pomp & circumstance*

i remember getting a huge kick out of how colorful they made this

because in real life you know a bunch of people literally blowing up would be like—DISGUSTING

viscera everywhere

no fun rainbow mushroom clouds

“i’ve always wanted to kiss a princess.”

ANOTHER knight reference, very clever matthew

mmmmm Do Not Like that noise

aaaannndddd *that* line

which—maybe that’s mr. vaughn’s sense of humor, or what he thinks the sense of humor his core demographic has, idk

but it always kinda rubbed me the wrong way

the mass brawl scenes are edited so like--jarringly compared to the other fight scenes in the movie

that’s probably for a reason

also, a showdown to the tune of something disco: kind of another trope homage

this shot of gazelle is so sick, i love everything about it, she is so cool

this entire fight with eggsy is awesome tbh

we got a little bit of what gazelle can look like in combat earlier with tilde’s guards, but now we get this epic showdown seeing her at her full potential against someone who’s actually a challenge

and the way valentine is shouting for her to kick his ass from upstairs and yelling encouragement lmao that’s how real friends act when there’s a fight

daisy ;-; ugh, that’s the visual gutpunch that makes it juuuuuust serious enough by reminding us of the stakes

which is why it’s fitting that then we see the Slo-Mo K.O.

and that smile with the fun little chimes in the back, lmao

and eggsy, quick on his feet again byyyy being quick on gazelle’s feet—foot—whatever

man, impalement deaths are always fun.

coulda done without the vomiting but that’s also one of valentine’s quirks that makes him different from a cookie cutter villain

aaannddd have a heavy sigh from merlin

that dude needs a full-body massage and a drink

“is this where you say some really bad pun?”

reminder: i love that this movie is self-aware! i could not picture a super serious kingsman movie! i just picture something depressing!

there had to have been a better option besides—this, for this eggsy/tilde ending scene

i’m not saying i’m mad it ended with them fucking, i’m mad that the extent of the joke was anal and that was it.

also the idea of my boss possibly seeing me having sex would have me a little more concerned about the hardware on my face, but okay??

aannddd the tapes.

gah, we love visual throwbacks!

we love being able to see that despite all this growth and change, family remains very important to eggsy—he hasn’t changed into a different person, he has grown more into himself than ever before! THIS! THIS is eggsy unwin!

… GET READY FOR IT

time for tgc! (and to get into my roanoke feels, maybe, this is the nexus where our canons connect)

the BAGPIPES

okay

i did not stop to consider how unpleasant this was going to be to watch stoned but we’re gonna power through it and get through it together

if i cry i cry

the way the music swells into the main theme <3

and the perfect reveal for our boy eggsy!

reflected in gold, looking sharper than broken glass

and SUDDENLY CHARLIE

the pacing in tgc leads me to believe that matthew had huge plans for this movie, and a lot of cool stuff probably ended up on the cutting room floor for time

i also love that they brought charlie back

i love his voice box and his cool robot arm

and i’m not just saying that because it made it super easy to blend him into our canon, either, this is like—charlie’s evil twin in terms of his new aesthetic, the contrast is really cool

YYAASSSS THIS SCENE

WITH PRINCE PLAYING??

*CHEF’S KISS*

like we are IMMEDIATELY thrown back into the gold parts of it all, like how physics is a little broken so we can do cool shit like have a knockdown drag-out fight all within the space of a small cab

i wonder what would’ve hurt charlie worse—being thrown onto his organic side, or having all his weight land on his metal arm if it hadn’t disattached

but then he’s up and standing so i guess we’re fine?

MERLIN! <3

otherwise known as the character entrance that literally changed my life

i try not to think about it too much or i get weirded out

ANYWAY

(and to think i almost never even saw the movie)

Sick Car Chase, Bro

and as an american, like, everything’s on the opposite side to me, it’s stressful to watch a little bit

“i seem to remember in your training you were rather good at holding your breath.”

man, that’s uh—kind of a macabre thing to say, merlin

just a little bit

i’m not even gonna attempt to hold my breath to see if i’d survive this scene just assume i’m dead in that universe

we all live in a kingsman subarmine, a kingsman submarine, a kingsman submarine~~

“not boasting, but i trained him well enough that even he wouldn't mess that up.”

merlin are you okay??

gah, i love that chest-deep laugh though.

is it real love if they won’t crawl through the sewer to get to your house in time

i love that harry’s house looks basically the same

i know they talk about eggsy not wanting to change anything in the novelization but i haven’t read it yet so I’m not a hundred percent sure what all is in there

and we still get to see him hanging with his friends, and his girlfriend, like, this dude is still all about the family

“wwwwOOOOO!”

i love this group so much omg

for as much as he’s galahad, he’s still eggsy

the transition in the weed bag looks super cool

… oh, i guess watching this while high makes the main storyline hit a bit different

welp

i love that poppy is an aesthetic slut and really doesn’t give a shit about anyone’s opinion about how she makes her space

like, “i want a big 50s-style diner with a gourmet kitchen that i can cook people in, soooooo i’m getting one”

it’s also refreshing to see julianne moore in a bad guy role!

not that i’m super familiar with her filmography but i feel like i’ve mostly seen her cast as like a good guy?

i could be wrong

awwwww jet and bennie!

there’s so much to love about this set

cannibalism and the fact that she bulldozed jungle to build all this aside (suspend that belief!)

the breakfast sceeeeeene

it’s so bittersweet, for obvious reasons

and it’s more evidence that he’s not super ready to move on into new territory yet, like making new memories with tilde that ring close to home

“i wish i could have met him.”

and the way he has to turn away, ugh.

eggsy. i’m sorry.

tilde, i’m sorry, too. you had good intentions, but they lost against his pain.

michael gambdon! the new arthur we didn’t know we wanted until we got him.

charlie had a moral glo-down, it’s fine, happens to everybody

FFFFFF his imitation of merlin lmfao

man, poor charlie, like

you wake up, you can’t make a sound, your arm has been blown off and your family’s dead

like his reaction to that entire scenario isn’t entirely unrealistic, i’m just saying

also LOOK AT ROX

omg everyone in this movie can wear the FUCK out of suit, y’all

man, i’ve gotten a few tattoos that were exquisitely painful—i can’t imagine how much it would suck to do it with literal molten metal

dude this means clara laid on her stomach and probably screamed at the floor as she got hers D:

this kinda—riffs off of hannibal, a teeny-tiny bit

like we’re so overloaded with the aesthetics and behavior of a certain character so it’s like, we forget about the much darker parts untillllll there’s a mood change and we’re looking at that dude’s legs, to the burger this other dude puts in his mouth, and thinking “oh, oh dear, ew”

i love eggsy in the orange jacket <3 snaps for the wardrobe crew across this series.

tilde’s face, omg, she was heart-eyeing so bad. and like, that little proud nod at her dad (who was of course being Like That on purpose)

and roxy, coming in in the clutch, you are tonight’s MVP

uggghhhhh i hate this part

because again, it’s just--a bunch of bad shit colliding outside of anyone’s control

(it was also really jarring seeing the war room with blank walls the first time i watched this)

like—granted, you should maybe not touch stuff that’s not yours, but…

like we *just* saw eggsy and brandon in a very casual, intimate scene with each other, how can anyone get angry with brandon?

this is all stress-inducing

i remember being in the theater watching this and feeling like i was watching some awful slow motion car wreck and i couldn’t look away

idk what other story i would’ve wanted to see but i was NOT a fan of Sudden Death For Christmas, especially concerning roxy!

and poppy is such a *bright* villain, not just because of taste but because of her personality, which is another weird thing to have next to the cannibalism

gaaahhhh charlieeee your arm is so cooooool

this shot is gorgeous and incredibly depressing.

what do you do?

gah, and the way merlin comes out of the dark, like

i probably would’ve drawn a gun on him too

“you think *i* would?”

this scene shows 1. how much he trusts eggsy to not shoot him, and/or 2. how good merlin is at compartmentalizing, because this is an even bigger blow than harry’s death, and he’s following the protocol like it’s an art form

i hope that we see some reference to this safe in the next movie, that’d be a cool way to tie the narratives all together

“i suppose that must be upper class humor. … i don’t get it.”

reminder, merlin is working class.

if you’re a ho for this fandom and went and bought this whiskey specifically because of this movie clap your hands *clap clap*

and they proceed to just get HAMMERED

“country rooaaddsss… take me hoooooome…”

another reminder: kentucky is a beautiful state!

i would love to tour a whiskey distillery, that’d be super cool

“shame it’s not scotch”

again, with his weird night vale clipboard.

who would win: two highly-trained kingsman agents vs. one (1) cowboy

channing tatum, ladies and gentlemen!

“y’all look damn sharp!”

i am forever gonna be mad we didn’t get more of tequila in this movie, and not just because of roanoke either, but like, “that dog don’t hunt,” whatever he has in his mouth sealed a leak in a barrel, and it took him all of two minutes to incapacitate both eggsy AND merlin? hello??

i’m glad we’ll get to see more of him in the another movie.

“you know why the measurement of alcohol is called proof?”

just dumping it on their laps, so disrespectful

“—and you can go fuck yourself.”

eggsy fucking just giggling.

these two doofuses

also it’s hot to see merlin be sassy ngl

“HARRY!”

these guys have been fast thinkers in stressful situations but as it turns out, people being unexpectedly not dead can kinda fuck with your day

aaannddd halle berry, everybody! i love ginger ale omg

(and so does merlin, he is instantly enchanted)

;-; this reunion scene

i don’t know how colin manages to be two completely different people at once

like there’s a huge difference between former agent galahad and harry hart the lepidopterist and i can’t explain it

i really, really hope we see at least one little hint at kinsman’s relationship with statesman in the new movie, i just think it’d be really cool

in roanoke canon, there’s an office rumor that the nanobot tech used by statesman was influenced directly by the same technology developed by dr. wernicke in the outlast games. i still think it’s one of my better crossover ideas.

also

god bless whoever decided to get elton john involved with all this?? because i was DELIGHTED

i love poppy’s wardrobe as much as i love her weird 50s-land in the jungle

i also really love the main statesman theme? it reminds me of all those fun epic westerns

jeff bridges! :D

champ vaguely reminds me of my dad

“can you imagine us in the tailor business?”

and he’s super quick with the questions. my headcanons for champ are all over the place but one that i really like is that he was maybe a sheriff or in law enforcement before being recruited by statesman.

aaanndddd pedro pascal, everybody!

otherwise known as *another* character that this movie did dirty, that’ll probably come up in this later

imagine being harry hart, not remember all of yourself, and suddenly your entire room just—fills with water

that had to have been so terrifying, and it was just as hard for merlin to watch (and possibly remember something unpleasant)

and like

that sounds like SUCH bullshit, too, like “yeah we thought if you came close to drowning it would help”

which, is that what merlin meant, no, but is that what harry heard, probably

enter jb the second ;-; <3 sweet baby

tilde’s trying so hard. i see you!

aha, penis jokes.

and all of the unnecessary weird festival stuff, uuggghh

there are so many different things they could have done, like, all of this is just weird from the get-go

first of all, whiskey striking out? hello?? saying no to a man like mr. pascal???

not realistic

the way whiskey takes a shot as he walks away lmao, relatable

and poor clara, like, it’s not like she was asking for any of this D:

hmmmmmmm don’t know how i feel being a stoner watching other stoners get this blue rash thing when i know it kills some of themmmmmmm

i love charlie in his newsboys cap!

poppy has a little bit of a point. like, booze is way more dangerous than pot, as is tobacco. like i would never advocate anyone try meth or heroin, but i think weed and some hallucinogenics get bad wraps.

seeing a dude get torn in half in the reflection of elton john’s sunglasses is the surprising bit of gore we need to remember that oh, yeah, the villain isn’t fun, she’s a murderer

uuggghhhh the TENT SCENE

and, look, i’ll defend tilde forever, but i did NOT like the weird marriage ultimatum. i still think it’s a dick move, like, in that situation either decide to trust your boyfriend or break up with him

the tent interior is super cool-looking

and like, man, he tried, he tried to bounce D:

/sigh/ work hazards, i guess

mmmmmm we don’t need any of what’s happening on screen right now so i’ll just sit patiently and wait for it to be over

and like, there’s nothing funny about merlin and ginger being able to hear everything that’s going on, it’s so grosssss, poor ginger has to have heard some shit before to be so nonchalant about it

everything about this sucks

and then he tries going to the one person who he needs the most and having to deal with him still existing in some state between alive and dead

his body is here

but harry is not

“maggots turn into flies, perhaps you mean larvae!” :D he is SO CUTE

but this entire conversation, with harry still not remembering and eggsy trying so hard to reach him through the fog, is so depressing

like, i’d need a drink too

*and* a joint

i’m seeing my coping mechanisms on screen here folks

the way he comes up with the idea is kinda ingenious though

like, he’s looking at stuff to make himself bummed on purpose, but therein he finds the thing he needs to fix the issue

harry’s smile when eggsy hands him the puppy TT.TT

and then eggsy just becomes a stone cold motherfucker with no emotions

“no one’s sick enough to shoot a puppy!”

hi, flashback!harry

and as SOON as he remembers himself, it’s like his eyes are different, something about him looks like it did before kentucky

“… eggsy.”

one of my favorite movie hugs

and eggsy has to stand on his tiptoes because harry’s so tall

like yeah merlin and harry’s reunion isn’t as overtly emotional, but there’s definitely a sense of joy and relief there.

harry my baby ;-; much better with the sunglasses (and merlin was so close to telling him he looked spectacular)

“now is that any way to welcome a visit from outta town, moonshine?”

he! tried! to! defend! harry!

i hate that jack got a villain story line!

we could’ve had something so much better and infinitely more compelling!

“hurrrr durrrr morgan you just like redemption arcs because you don’t want anybody being a villain permanently” i also like them because sometimes that’s better writing, y’all sit down

“that is NOT what i call a kentucky welcome.”

i love so many things happening in this scene, like

we get to see whiskey kick ass, like yassss gimme those sweet action sequences and give us some character development by showcasing his fighting style

and also NOBODY shits on harry for not being able to handle the situation. both eggsy and merlin were like “dude we’re still celebrating the fact that you’re alive tbh it’s fine if you’re not back up to speed right this second”

you can really tell that this was penned by british people writing american slang because having grown up in the southern half of the u.s. i have never ONCE heard ANYONE say shit like “i feel like a tornado in a trailer park” lmao

and poppy’s fun little death threat infomercial, so great

“what have you done to me you FUCKING BITCH” oof, that’s a mood

!!!!! gonna be honest i kinda forgot that bruce greenwood plays the president

okay but save lives, legalize isn’t an entirely bad idea tbh

hnnnnnnng the scenes about people not being able to get into the hospital hits different in the year of our lord 2020 huh

… y’all i’m being weirded out by all this hospital scenes, this is unpleasant

i, too, wish i could pull a tequila and just be slipped into a chilly coma until shit wasn’t so fucked up

“the fact is, this presidency has won the war on drugs!”

THIS SCENE!

look, y’all can come into my inbox and call me a pothead, or a lazy stoner, or some third insult, but this dude’s VP is bringing up some very, VERY important points when it comes to any kind of discussion about drug use in the u.s.

am i drug-friendly, sure, but i’m more friendly to the notion that we stop demonizing addicts/users

harry looks fucking SCANDALIZED when he sees champ spit into his spittoon thing

i don’t think whiskey even brought up harry not being ready to return to the field in an insulting manner, he literally just saw him get his ass beat in a bar, but eggsy’s faith and loyalty are up there in the category of unstoppable force/immovable object, so here we are

am i the only one curious about the whole charlie x clara thing? because he’s definitely grown up a bit by tgc, and i wanna know how much of that might be because of clara

and he MISSES, e for effort harry

“so sorry about this—“ WHAM

and now that guy can say colin firth busted his face with a fire extinguisher, which is very cool

“*you’re* wu ting feng?” “… yes?”

“you motherFUCKER” ohhhhhh charlie maaaaaad

ginger and merlin though, #couplegoals

the only person more pissed off about the hallucinations than everyone else is harry

imagine remembering that you’re one of the top people in your field and you just keep seeing imaginary butterflies everywhere

like, yeah, i’d be pissed at not being able to do what i knew i was capable of, too

if it wasn’t careening towards a random retirement center, getting stuck in a wildly rotating gondola thing could be fun

nice tuesday afternoon activity

i would loved to have seen more galahad/whiskey field stuff

“you’ve got to be fucking kidding me—“

meanwhile, in the continuing adventures of eggsy and jack: shit goes from bad to worse like a formal spiral only going downward

their expressions as their both just SCREAMING always make me laugh

”that’s the first decent shit i’ve had in three weeks.” <- as does that line, that old dude’s just telling it like it is

eggsy’s comment about the antidote just reminds me of when boromir looks a the ring and says something like “all this for such a tiny thing”

dun dun DUN what are THOSE? hints that whiskey may not be who we think he is??

great. so excited about that. i say, rolling my eyes into the sun

“i’ll fix their wagons.” no one says that matthew!

i. love. this. scene. because now we get cool gun tricks AND the second most metal thing that happens with a lasso in this movie (we’re coming up on the most metal thing)

like please please PLEASE show us more lasso tricks in the statesman movie

“well thank fuckin’ christ i didn’t need any backup.” i wonder if whiskey’s acting angrier than he actually is to throw off the fact that he might’ve caught harry’s glance at him betraying suspicion

RIP jack

imagine the timeline where whiskey was never a bad guy and harry hart just blew a dude away for NO REASON

now THAT would be an interesting movie

because harry and eggsy, for all they went through in the first film, never had a conflict where it was harry in the position of mangling the ropes up

but of course eggsy would never, never tell merlin what happened because he’s still ultimately on harry’s team

damn, charlie, literally blowing up your girlfriend seems kinda extreme

“THIS is vital!”

and here we get to see the biggest difference between merlin and ginger

now, i know there’s extra stuff in the novelization about their relationship and i can’t talk about it because i have no idea what’s in the book

but!

i DO still headcanon as merlin quitting fieldwork after lee’s death

his comment is either what he genuinely believes, or maybe what he fashioned his beliefs into after stepping down from his field role, and ginger is just as sincere in her desire to break into that aspect of working for statesman

it’s like seeing the same character but in two points in time, and it’s really cool

that balance would’ve also been a fun aspect of their romantic relationship to explore but alas! ’twas not to be

colin and mark could both play slenderman

look at those limbs.

gracious.

also this facetime scene with eggsy and tilde T.T

that has to be so terrifying to watch when you know the steps of death and what they look like as they get closer

but it also puts a fire under eggsy though

“i’m leaving with, or without you.”

and of course they’re both gonna go because that’s NOT characteristic eggsy behavior based off of how we know he views family/squad

that’s how they know he’s being for cereal

uugggggGGHHHH and THAT FORESHADOING

stacey pruitt, attorney at lawwwww

hmmmmmmmmm

what does this conversation between poppy and the president remind me of

gonna just sigh into the void

and now we have harry and eggsy on the jet along with the BIGGEST LIE harry hart has ever told in his LIFE

kingsman and statesman aesthetics at least tend to be the same color schemes. lotta golds, yellows. browns.

eggsy, yeah, it’s a bummer your gf dumped you, but this relationship wasn’t very well-developed or written so i’m not as bummed as i could be

“… and in that moment, all i felt was loneliness and regret.”

harry shut the FUCK UP

you felt NOTHING??

you weren’t thinking of, gee, i dunno, EGGSY? or MERLIN?? your MOM???

like these lines from him just seem to come out of left field and i can’t even halfway suspend my belief long enough to come close to believing him

like mr. hart you just gonna be like that in front of jesus and everybody????

so, yeah, of course he’s on board with saving tilde! because he recognizes (apparently just right that second) that “having something to lose is what makes life worth living”

and i don’t know if they felt like there need to be some weird, deeply contrasting reason for harry to swing around to being in support? or something?

like

i’m forever pissed about this characterization and i don’t even know if i’m expressing my anger in a way that makes it easy to understand lmao this is fine, i’m fine, literally not a single person in this fandom ever believed those lines anyway, it’s fine

moving on

... and even if they WERE true then honestly that just makes me more excited about butterfly knife, because that means that harry acknowledged both the bad side of the coin, and also the side with rae on it (which would mean seeing her for who she was and also recognizing his feelings for what THEY were) and drew the ultimately correct conclucision that love! is! always! worth! it! let that shit in like a welcome guest in the home of your heart, and they will stay as long as you let them!

as SOON as he wakes up ginger looks a thousand percent done lmao

and the “process” that they use to wake people up or whatever is—interesting

because all it is, is trauma turned into a tool which is kind of a weird concept to see in a “fun spy movie” imo

and this is one of what i feel were like only what, two? glimpses we get into whiskey’s Tragic Backstory

and the other scene isn’t a glimpse it’s just straight up exposition in his dialogue :/

jack, i’m sorry, you deserved better than this as a character

i’m sure the name “silver pony” is a reference to something but i don’t know what

“lookin’ GOOD merlin!” “feelin’ good, eggsy.”

ladies and gentlemen when i tell you that i lost my pool-noodle mind seeing him put on that suit watching this in a theater, i--

ANYWAY

because now that i have the horrible burden of having seen these movies a million times

i know it’s more symbolic

he stays in sweaters so long, as an agent of the background, because he walked a man to his death

so it figures when he puts the armor back on for the first time in ages

he walks to his own

uuuggghhhh the minesweeper

i hate this

i hate it

i hate everything about the feelings i’m having while this is happening

*beep-beep*

“you move, we die.”

i HATE IT

but like, i don’t know, how preferable is this to the end scene we almost got, which was merlin dragging his newly-legless corpse through a doggy door?

because it’s been literally multiple years and i still have no fucking idea

they’re both horrible in their own terrible, awful ways

damn, matthew, it’s not often someone manages to come up with multiple versions of a thing and have every version be so gut-wrenchingly horrific, i’m truly impressed and completely disgusted

“do as your told!”

god

everyone just going through twenty shades of Bad Feelings in the space of fifteen seconds here in the jungle

and colin and taron do this thing where it’s like—their eyes go dead? like, there was a light here, it’s gone now

it SUCKS

oh

oh no

ALMOST HEAVEN

WEST VIRGINIA

… fuck

LIFE IS OLD THERE

OLDER THAN THE TREES

“… singing?”

this sucks.

this sucks this sucks this sucks

MOUNTAIN MAMAAAAA

TAKE ME HOOOOME

COUNTRY ROOOADDSSSSS

*THUNK*

and he even took off his glasses before he hit him, he had his end coming towards him and he was still a gentleman

TAKE ME HOOOME

COUNTRY RROOOOAAAADDDSSSSS

his EYES AT THE END

FUCK

… okay i had to get up and go for a lil’ walk

anyway

(and again, roanoke canon, fucking fixing’ shit left and right, because we’re the goat)

harry and eggsy look MURDEREROUS

MERLIN SAID KNOCK YOU OUT

it DID make the grand ending fun action scene a lot more satisfying

because like, without merlin there, that means harry and eggsy get to go full feral

poppy you big idiot you just robbed them of all their motivation to show any kind of restraint and now everybody’s gonna get blown up

except for those dudes who get kicked by elton john

which would be an HONOR first of all

(the part where eggsy’s using his gun and shield vaguely reminds me of the specialist, @bloodofthepen​)

and harry and eggsy just—they’re drift compatible! that’s it! the teamwork! the grace! the flow! my god!

eggsy vs. charlie: round like 4 if you count the first movie

it was also satisfying to see charlie’s new arm in action

we love fun robotics and gadgetry in this house

colin firth is really just not afraid to throw himself full force down a bowling lane huh

ugh, seeing charlie slam eggsy over and over again makes my chest hurt

the sound mixing on all these films is top notch which isn’t always a good thing T.T

ROCKETMAN~~~

that shit will never NOT be funny

a wild elton john appeared!

eggsy is indestructible, he can walk off anything

but charlie, charlie i feel really sorry for, imagine being attacked by a superior version of your own limb, i.e. something that you can’t exactly quickly remove from yourself, that would be TERRIFYING

harry + elton = dream teaaaammmm

“darling if you save the world, you can have a backstage pass.”

i love you elton john :(

i would have been the most OBNOXIOUS hype man in the background of the entire kingsman vs. poppy land face-off

“let’s make this fair.” eggsy you’re fuckin’ cheeky

and poor harry, all that lank just getting tossed like noodles

i thought the robot puppers were very cool

“for the record charlie i’m more of a gentleman than you’ll ever be.”

mmmmmm do NOT like this death for charlie

SUPER glad we fixed it

and another scene where i can’t stand the sound mixing T.T it makes me cringe every time

“i don’t consider genocide especially lady-like.”

and are we gonna talk about how merlin knew how to make heroin?

… no?

nobody wanna talk about that?

ugh that houndstooth dress is so PRETTY though

high!poppy is weirdly comedic for all of two seconds and then it stops being funny real fast

whiskey D:<

this is so dumb

this is all so, so dumb

“our agencies were founded to uphold peace, to protect the innocent—“

there’s that nobility again

is what happened to whiskey fucked up, yes

i’m not saying we have to completely remove that from his story

i just

literally anything but this would have been preferable

and then HOT DOG it’s one of my favorite shots in the movie with the whip where harry’s just chucking it away from his face like a bamf, YES

how great is this cover, let’s be honest

like, i’d be lying if i said i didn’t enjoy this scene visually

plus

HARRY GETTING PEGGED RIGHT IN THE FACE WITH A FRYING PAN

gracious

it’s one fluid tracking shot, so kinda in alignmentment with what we’re used to

some people get annoyed with repeated junk but when you can do it THIS WELL you can get away with anything

D:

but then jack

you did NOT desert that

yes, you were in dire need of an attitude adjustment but jesus

“this is for you, merlin.”

/ugly sobbing/

and tilde is all betterrrrrr ;-;

you guys did itttttt

COUNTRY ROOOAAADDSS

TAKE ME HOOOOOOMMEEEE

TO THE PLAAAAAACCCEEEEE

I BELOOOOONNGGGG

and the scene with jamal and liam T.T #wholesomecontent

poor tequila, after i knew that you would have a bigger role in another movie, i was less annoyed by the fact that they iced you so quick into the story

#FOX2020

“… now we’re brothers, working side by side.”

spoiler alert i actually love champ’s toast

“y’all shittin’ in high cotton now” WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???

and ginger becomes the new whiskey like she always wanted T.T

merlin is proud from heaven (or london, depending on which canon)

iiiiiii have mixed feelings about the whole wedding scene, which is probably because i take HUGE issue with the weird proposal ultimatum thing that happened earlier

but the way eggsy says “not a doubt in my mind,” he says it so seriously and i remember that tilde almost died

there was such good intention packed into this couple that was so badly written that i just

augh

“but it is perhaps the end of the beginning.”

there’s ***merlin! lmao i see you dude, they did you dirty

look

i was pissed off about a lot of things that happened in this thing but i was honestly hype seeing tequila at the very end walking into the tailor shop

like, yeah, i’ll stick around to see what happens in this universe but i’m gonna complain the whole time

GO JACK RABBIT

RUNNING THROUGH THE WOODS

and again, i almost didn’t see this movie.

… i think about that morgan sometimes.

hope she’s doin’ okay.

…

she’s probably not. D:

[noobsomeexagerjunk]

thoughts on starry after multiple listens

(dated July 8, 2020 because i might make another one)

Edit: I SHOULD FACT CHECK MORE

the Starry soundtrack is as impressionist as the painters it invokes by energy alone, which is impressive given the style of music used (of which i’m fine with, but not partial to)

the Prologue does this right off the bat

the people of Monmartre are very critical of the rest of France and I adore it

i can feel theo’s overwhelment in Impress Me

Impress Me does a wonderful job at introducing the setting of the show

that song is a ball of pulsating yearning—no wait that’s the whole show

Theo got so stressed he walked blindly into Madame Segatori’s cafe

learning that the Le Tambourin was named as such due to its tambourine aesthetic via Vincent’s portrait of Segatori is just incredible to me; the table is shaped like a tambourine

“If Paris is the world, Monmartre is Bethlehem; and art is our Amen” sounds so powerful

A New Horizon is so warm

i expect Theo and Vincent to be very cuddly with each other everytime they interact

“dream with me, dear brother” is the energy of this song

french wheat fields will forever haunt me because of this damn musical

*insert Do You Like the Color of the Sky? post here*

like, so much emphasis to the sky

Vincent’s dreaming leaking into Theo’s trading practice surely must be a sight to see

chain imagery hits hard after hearing Wheat Fields/Finale Ultimo

in this yellow house, we dream of freedom

“should I really take this giant risk?” “brother, I took a giant risk coming here—fuck yeah do it!”

United in Distaste reeks of Vincent’s intimidation—it has new kid in school energy and I am living for it

Vincent coming to Monmartre (and when he arrives in Arles) like “Hey, I’m new in town, and it gets worse,”

Bernard has apparently spent enough time with Theo to be able to identify Vincent by frowning alone

Rude of Gauguin to yoink Vincent’s painting like that; Segatori immediately hangs it tho—

Gauguin sounds like he’s going to corrupt anyone who approaches him—dude announces his horny nature during his introduction

Gauguin IS a savage and a whore and the best thing about that is that he knows it; even better knowing the vision of his costume

Segatori’s displeasure throughout the song implies that the artists that frequent her cafe also argue amongst themselves frequently

“keep in mind that we’re academic rejects, Vincent”

with the way Degas, Pissarro, and Morisot tease at Gauguin (noting that Gauguin, Bernard, and Toulouse-Lautrec are together in a later song), it sounds like they’re are hurling insults from a separate tambourine table

Toulouse-Lautrec sounds dramatic; Bernard sounds like he’s not sure where he is artistically—both are a mood

Of the post-impressionist table, the only one retaliating with genuine insults is Toulouse-Lautrec; Bernard and Gauguin only end up defending themselves while Toulouse was ready to tear down Degas and Morisot

Pissarro IS old (at this period in time in the musical) damn

Morisot is unyielding with her insults, “speaking of size—“ holy shit oh no

i reiterate—why is Toulouse-Lautrec the only one actually speaking in a French accent; almost everyone there is French

since I’m aggressively referring to him, I think Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec merits a musical of his own, and that’s based on what first learned about him when I first listened to Starry

by extension, also Berthe Morisot

Monmartre’s artists be like “We’re very critical of ourselves and each other, and while that’s worth being intimidated by, don’t be intimidated by us! What do you have to bring to the table, foreign painter?”

Something poetic about how what Vincent wants being what all the artists want hereby making him a member of their squad is so warm to me—galleries are gravity INDEED

“We will embrace the madness we design, or lose our mind,” IS THIS FORSHADOWING BECAUSE IT FUCKING SOUNDS LIKE IT

“i am loving this! YES, GET ANGRY!” if only i can identify who said this

Something After All is directed towards Vincent, right? It better be, I lack context

Theo’s yearning is so relatable and I fear not being able to fulfill it

bless Kelly and Matt for giving Jo so much depth in Enlightenment

apparently she deadass learned English for the purpose of translating the letters she had compiled??? yo i love that

poetic how Jo invokes making a legacy since she’s the one who actually preserves her brother-in-law’s legacy (and by extension, herself and her husband’s legacies)

at first listen, i immediately drew a comparison to Hamilton’s Eliza; Jo is better both musically and literally, given that Vincent van Gogh is far more relevant than Alexander Hamilton will ever be, even with LMM’s musical

not trying to start beef, just an observation

Jo’s yearning is also such a mood

fire, light, and road imagery being invoked huh

it is by this point i’ve to the realization that the reasons one goes to Monmartre that was cited in Impress Me tie in very well to the individual characters’ desires in this show

Where Are We Going? goes so hard ugh yes

“I need a stronger strategy to seize my immortality!” Gauguin’s incredible ambition is the root of his dissatisfaction; doesn’t help that he’s impulsive both in the musical and IRL

Toulouse prioritizes integrity and Bernard prioritizes progression—I wonder what this means for their characters in the show

Toulouse and Bernard calling Gauguin out on his known shitty behaviors feels like they’ll be problems Vincent will have to deal with in Act 2, when they live together

this is where Gauguin leaves for Martinique, right???

which one is the act 1 closer, really??? The Sower or The Road??? help me please

everyone in town is really concerned for Vincent

it wams me how much Segatori believes in him

Bernard’s right, Vincent van Gogh’s artstyle IS a melting pot

learning that Toulouse-Lautrec capitalized on his art during the peak of his career really adds weight to his concerns on Vincent’s inability to sell

i like to imagine the everyone’s in the gallery during The Sower

Theo and Jo’s relationship progressing as Vincent’s works don’t sell hits upon realization

Theo falling hard when he learns that he and Jo yearn for the same thing tho

recontextualizing the imagery that Vincent found beauty in into imagery that demonstrates his person is just mighty good of Kelly and Matt

then again, so much of his person is in the artwork to begin with

“and everyone knows your reap what you sow.” w o a h!!!

The Road starts like a dramatization of one of Vincent’s breakdowns and how he copes with them, or perhaps this starts after one??? The opening verses suggest a lot

also ties his road to his dream of freedom with what i believe is his travel to Arles

“North, South, East, West—navigate from inside you,” = “With conscience as my compass,”

“i am guided towards the night” this Vincent knows the answer but is so clearly far from its reach and is desperately trying to figure out how to

soul of fire, crystal heart and blizzard-like brain; the man is passionate and everyone knows it

“Fascinating, but maybe just a little too soon,” sounds like that at this point, Toulouse-Lautrec and Bernard genuinely recognize and admire Vincent’s talents, but also understand that the world is still against him and that they have the experience to prove it

the “sunlight and storms” imagery always concern Theo, Jo, and Vincent’s relationship with each other

Gauguin popping up in this song with the compass imagery implies the show’s going to make him a pretty interesting foil to Vincent; this sounds like him traveling back to Paris, or at least him attempting to vibe in Martinique

this hurts when you remember what happens to Vincent

“curse of the gifted” is a phrase i am too afraid to understand

DYLAN SAUNDERS CAN SLAY ME WITH HIS VOICE

The Yellow House sounds yellow somehow

who clears their throat before writing a letter???

Gauguin’s frustration’s against Vincent’s admiration of him is amusing

sounds like Gauguin hasn’t found his “freedom” yet

Theo is one generous fellow

this arrangement lasts for only 2 months; given the apparent span of this musical, The Yellow House is a very “calm before the storm” song

wait a minute—

apparently, Vincent REALLY admired Gauguin and was so excited for his arrival at the yellow house

i fear the dramatization of their disagreements

“Don’t tell Theo I said that,” it amuses me how the van Gogh brothers’ relationship is so well-known to these painters

based on the gifs lurking, the ear incident WILL be dramatized and I am terrified for my heart on how it will be depicted

Sunlight and Storms quotes the original letter from Jo to Vincent surprisingly well (i attempted to read some—there’s so many! this was one of the first ones i came across)

this song hurts when it hits how little time Jo and Theo had together as a married couple

I am convinced a lot happened between Sunlight and Storms and On the Threshold of Eternity

this definitely was after a breakdown

i skip this song just so i don’t think about the obvious implications, i must confess

the meaning of “sunlight and storms” hits the hardest here

“we will not let your illness keep you from finding your freedom”

The Red Vinyard is so full of a brother’s love

this hits me, and i speak as an only child

“You’ve carried me more than you’ll ever know,” AH—

when Theo finally sees the new horizon, Vincent is seeing it too

and what Vincent saw he put on a fucking canvas

“i can see it—a new horizon” = “the sight of the starry night”

they say that at the time, not much was thought of the iconic painting

i could only wonder what might’ve happened between The Starry Night and Wheat Fields

all the piano motifs coming together in Wheat Fields/Finale Ultimo, just like that

“I’m ready for harvest time” is melodically similar to “The road is bright”, particularly when it’s just Vincent singing the line alone

despite the obvious, I don’t think I’ll grasp the meaning of the final song; i also skip this one so i don’t think about it

[catboyminato]

Some fucking Marvel quotes y’all are sleeping on

“It’s gonna work.” “I know. Because I don’t know what I’m gonna do if it doesn’t.”

“You couldn’t have done that earlier?” “I hate you.”

“Can you move your seat up.” “n o.”

“How about we secure [location] and then you can find me a date.” “I’m multitasking!”

“I’m very protective of humans because they’re so helpless and ridiculous.”

“I’ve been falling...foR THIRTY MINUTES!”

“Sorry, Earth is closed today.”

“I see this as an absolute win!”

“Whatever it takes.”

“See you in a minute.” (Bonus points if the character dies and does not get to see a minute)

“If they hit you, hit em harder. If you get killed...walk it off.”

“I love you 3000.”

“I am inevitable.”

“No do overs, plus 2 test runs. OH-!...one test run.”

“No, I don’t think I will.”

“I can do this all day.” “Yeah I know, I know.”

“Because I’m with you till the end of the line.”

“Ugh, I almost forgot. That suit did nothing for your ass.”

“On your left.”

“*slow nodding* So he/she/they’re an idiot?” “...yeah.”

“If you do this, you’ll die.” “Only if it kills me.” “Yes...that’s what dying means...”

“Shit!” “Language!”

“You didn’t see that coming?” (Bonus points if Character died saving other character and this was their last words)

“Can somebody get that [insert enemy]?” *enemy is compelled demolishesd* “*very quickly* thank you.”

“Oh actually, they’re the boss. I just pay for everything and design everything and make everyone look cool.”

“I’ve seen them flirt. Up close. This ain’t that.” “Wh-what do you mean up close-”

“They tried to warp my mind, I doubt a human could keep them at bay. Fortunately, I am mighty.” (Bonus points if mind warp actually works as they say this)

“*repeatedly punching someone* Go to sleep go to sleep go to sleep go to sleep-”

“I’m half human, so that 50% of me that’s stupid? That’s 100% you.” “Your math is blowing my mind.”

“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?!” “I WAS ATTACKED!” “GET IN THE CAR RIGHT NOW!”

“WERE YOU HEADING FOR ME OR [instert enemy]?” “I was trying to scare them!” “CAUSE I CAN’T TELL.”

“I just wanna say that if an alien implants it’s egg in my chest and I accidentally eat one of you I’m sorry.” “I do not want another single pop culture reference coming out of your mouth for the rest of this trip you understand?”

“I don’t want to hear it.” “But they were-” “And now I have to hear it.”

“*after almost dying* alright heyyy...let’s just-let’s just not come in tomorrow. Let’s just-just take a day.”

“Dude, don’t call us plucky. We don’t know what it means.”

“*after collapsing* Uh, check the brain check, check the brain.” “Nothings wrong with it.” “So I’ve been poisoned?” “My diagnosis is you’ve experienced a severe anxiety attack.” “...me?”

“*after doing something cool* I’m the BEST.” (Bonus points if 5 seconds after they say that they’re completely embarrassed.)

“We’re done here. Move out of the way or I’m gonna run you over.”

“You’re from Earth.” “I’m not from Earth I’m from [Place on Earth].” “Yeah that’s on Earth dipshit.”

“Did you hear what I said?” “I stopped listening after you said we needed a plan.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” “I wouldn’t stress about it.”

“So if you wanna arrest me, arrest me. You’ll know where to find me.”

“We’re still friends, right?” “Depends on how hard you hit me.”

“I don’t know.” “Stop lying.” “I only act like I know everything, Character.”

“I’m sorry, did I step on your moment?”

“Do you wanna keep staring at that wall or go to work? I mean, it’s a pretty interesting wall.”

“Shall we play a game? ...It’s from a movie-” “I know, I saw.”

“You have dinner at 9:30.” “Cool, I’ll be there at 11.”

“You took everything from me.” “I don’t even know who you are.”

“You’ve got incoming!” “Ugh, I think the incoming already came in...”

“Character, I have come to bargain.”

“My greatest creation is you.”

“I don’t want to kill anyone.”

“Pains an old friend.”

“He may have been your father, but he wasn’t your daddy.”

“They’re my friend.” “And so was I.”

“Before we begin...does anyone want to get out?”

“You shouldn’t have killed my mom and smashed my Walkman.”

“If you really cared, you’d be here right now.” (Bonus points if the character is actually there)

“Get up, Character, this is no place to die.”

“The hardest choices require the strongest wills.”

“This isn’t about fighting wars, it’s about ending them.”

“Is that a personal attack, or something?”

“Don’t do anything stupid.” “How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

“You should’ve gone for the head.”