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themattress · 4 years ago

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OUAT AND ME: SEASON 3

Story - Season 3 was the first season to (intentionally) divide itself between two story arcs, with the first half being the Neverland Saga and the second half being the Wicked Saga. While the Neverland Saga focused on the journey of the show's main characters through Neverland as they conquer their own inner demons in order to save Henry from the clutches of Peter Pan, the Wicked Saga focused on a new Dark Curse being cast on Storybrooke and the main characters' fight against Zelena, the Wicked Witch of the West, who is working toward a secret objective that will allow her to exact revenge on Regina, the Evil Queen.

The Neverland Saga, in the present day sequences, is the best the show has been since the Enchanted Forest quest early into Season 2. In its best moments, it's even on par with the Dark Curse Saga of Season 1. Seeing all of the characters work together toward a shared goal after all the clashing agendas from the previous season is so refreshing and exactly what the show needed, and everyone undergoes some kind of character development and gets their moment to shine. Greg and Tamara are killed off within the first few minutes of the premiere episode after finding out that "the Home Office" was the Lost Boys all along, and Peter Pan is quite possibly the greatest Big Bad in the show's entire run, and certainly among its most popular for just how wonderfully menacing, manipulative and despicable he is.

Unfortunately, I can't extend the same praise to its flashback sequences. The ones that involve Rumpelstiltskin and Hook in the 4th, 5th and 8th episodes are great and connect to the current narrative, but I take issue with all of the others in some way, big or small. The flashbacks in the 2nd, 9th and 10th episodes have fuck-all to do with what's currently happening in Neverland, and while the ones in the 3rd and 6th episodes do, there are too many issues in them to consider them good. For the 2nd, 6th and 10th, the problem is that the show is starting to contrive new "Snow White and friends vs. the Evil Queen" stories where they don't belong and aren't needed, and it especially has a negative impact on the Evil Queen since this is the point where she shifted from slightly campy to overtly campy, her menace quota reduced to virtually nil. For the 3rd, giving Regina and Tinker Bell a past connection is fine and works for the story, but the way they do it is stupid and with dire consequences later down the line, plus the show doesn't get much into her connections with actual Peter Pan characters like Hook, Wendy, and, well, Peter Pan. And as for the 9th, I actually have quite a lot to say on that so I'll save it for when I'm discussing Episode Quality.

My thoughts on the Wicked Saga have not changed all these years later: it's a textbook example of They Wasted A Perfectly Good Plot. With the set-up it starts with: a new Dark Curse, a new Big Bad, and new dynamics between many of the characters, they had the chance to take the show in a bold new direction following the ending of the Neverland Saga wrapping up the plot that's been going on since "Pilot". But instead, Adam and Eddy fall back into their bad Season 2 habits, and the result is that the show settles into this kind of bland status quo that it won't ever be able to shake off. The arc isn't actually a bad one, as it's solidly structured just like the Dark Curse and Neverland Sagas and there's a lot of great moments and developments made. It just falls short of the greatness that it could have had.

Characters - Everyone's more likable now! At least until they aren't.

* Emma takes center stage in the Neverland Saga. After finally learning to believe based solely on faith instead of always waiting for evidence to do so, she takes charge as the leader of the group affectionally dubbed "the Nevengers" by fans. In learning how to be a leader, she is able to learn more about herself and become an even more confident and decisive hero. Tragically, her character arc isn't fully resolved before it gets cut off by the events of the midseason finale, leaving her in a state of anxiety and uncertainty in the Wicked Saga before finally making her way back to the resolution of her character arc in the season finale. And on paper, this sounds fine, but in execution Emma's character through the majority of the Wicked Saga is a one-note bore who mainly exists to prop up the development of other characters. She isn't as sidelined as badly as she was in the latter half of Season 2, but still not ideally handled, especially when much of the story arc is specifically building toward only her being able to defeat Zelena only for Regina to do it instead. However, the resolution her character receives in the finale is handled exceptionally well, so I guess it all balances out in the end.

* Snow is actually back on top form in the Neverland Saga and it's wonderful to see, but it doesn't last into the Wicked Saga where she's back to the insipid, Regina-coddling weakling that Season 2 turned her into, whose biggest contribution to the plot is simply having a baby. Charming is a lot more interesting, as in the Neverland Saga we get to see his David Nolan weaknesses return but this time as a result of his Charming strengths, which is a fascinating dynamic to see at work and leads to some great interactions between him and Hook, a relationship that got started in Season 2 and will only continue to grow (and occasionally regress) as the show continues. And in the Wicked Saga, he has an entire episode dedicated to his feelings of failure as a father and how he fears that he might fail his second child too.

* Henry....still sucks, damn it! For a story arc with the mission statement of Save Henry, the Neverland Saga makes it difficult to care about saving him when he's portrayed as so stupid and gullible and easily led by his captor, Peter Pan, to the point where he literally sacrifices his heart (the Heart of the Truest Believer) to him against the pleas of his father and mothers. And while he has the potential to become more interesting in the Wicked Saga due to having lost his memories, the show totally ruins it by giving him his memories back by the end, because Heaven forbid that Regina pay a lasting consequence for her decades of villainy.

* Oh, and speaking of Regina, like Snow she's also really good in the Neverland Saga only for the Wicked Saga to ruin her again. In the Neverland Saga, she establishes herself as the Token Evil Teammate of the Nevengers, who knows she's a sociopathic villain and owns it as she utilizes her skill set for the greater good. Her line after ripping out a Lost Boy's heart at Emma's behest sums up why she works so well in this arc: "She didn't. I did. That's what I'm here for. One happy family." This should have been Regina's seasonal character arc and her status within the show going forward: a part of the family who may be evil and grouchy and not get along with everyone and even antagonize other members of the family, but who can still be counted on when push comes to shove and whom the other members of the family stand on equal grounds with and can push back against. It's the ideal recipe for a slow-burn redemption where by the end of the show she's truly become a semi-decent person. Just the act of destroying and fully reversing the Dark Curse in the midseason finale alone, at the cost of Henry losing all his memories of her while she gives him and Emma good memories of having always been together was a powerful start to such a redemption. It was all right there.

But of course, Adam and Eddy could never let their precious Regina go so long without having all of the things both she and they believe she is entitled to. So in the present-day story of the Wicked Saga (she's still fairly decent in the flashbacks), Regina gets a handsome soulmate in Robin Hood, and validation over her more powerful half-sister, and engagement in family dinners, and reconciliation with Snow without her expressing any remorse or apology toward her (Snow puts the blame on herself instead - "I was such a brat!"), and Henry with all of his memories back, and to out of nowhere and without her heart in her body become a powerful practitioner of light magic to the point where she's basically the Savior now! Yes, she seems to lose Robin at the end when Maid Marian is brought back, but that just ends up making her victim complex and blame deflection even stronger ("You're just like your mother!" she says to Emma, "Never thinking about consequences!" Because how dare she bring back one of Regina's past victims and allow her to be reunited with her family!)

In short, the Wicked Saga put a sudden fast-forward on Regina's redemption, giving her all sorts of goodies that would make sense as individual karmic rewards on a slow-burn redemption but make no sense when they happen in quick succession. And then at the end, they took one of those things away just to make her seem like more of a martyr, something they've been doing ever since the end of "Queen of Hearts" back in Season 2 and at this point I was sick of it. Little did I know it was about to be taken to a whole new level...

* Rumple wasn't bad in the Neverland Saga, per se, in fact he's amazing in the last four episodes. But early in, he backtracks on the goodwill he built up in the Season 2 finale by arrogantly abandoning the rest of the Nevengers to go rescue Henry all by himself, and all this accomplishes is getting him lost in the jungle, crying over old childhood dolls, being plagued by a hallucination of Belle, taunted by Peter Pan, and having an underwhelming reunion with the son he thought had died only to quickly come to blows with said son as he begins showing signs of temptation from his selfish self-preservation instincts at the expense of Henry's well-being once again. It just gets tiring after a while and you're glad when Regina verbally bitch-slaps him back into some semblance of his old self, which leads to the aforementioned amazing moments where he reconciles with the other Nevengers, confronts his father, and ultimately masterminds the heroes’ action plan in the midseason finale which culminates in his final redemption as he sacrifices his life to take down Pan once and for all.

But therein lies the problem: Rumple's entire series-long character arc just came to its natural conclusion. He chose love over power and courage over fear, standing up to the father who ruined his whole psyche and giving his life for his loved ones. However, since it's the middle of the season and Robert Carlyle is still contracted for more, they had to resurrect him. This decision cheapening his sacrifice is bad enough, but the writers also have no real idea what to do with him for the rest of the arc other than act crazy in a cage and then serve as Zelena's meat-slave, which is even less fun to watch than him moping around in the jungle was! While him deceiving Belle and killing Zelena at the end promises better things for him in the future, it's still a slog to have to sit through what preceded it, and you never quite shake off the feeling that the show might have been better off if it only had the balls to leave him dead.

* Hook was already one of the best additions to the cast in Season 2, but Season 3 is where he truly shines. He is in his element in the Neverland Saga, bonding with Emma and Charming while he rediscovers the more heroic and honorable side of himself. The insight into his past especially helps with this, as we better understand where he came from and how he got to where he was when we first met him. And in the Wicked Saga, he is the impetus behind Emma regaining her memories and returning to Storybrooke to be the Savior once more, as we learn that he had attempted to return to his old pirate ways back in the Enchanted Forest but ultimately couldn't do it, as his experiences with Emma and his love for her had changed him for the better. And so when he learned her family was in trouble and needed her help, he sacrificed the Jolly Roger and his pirate captain status in order to get back to her. After learning this on top of all the time they spend together, particularly in that very season finale, Emma finally lets down her walls and enters a romantic relationship with him...and I can't blame her in the slightest, because out of all her love interests, it's clear that she and Hook have the most in common and have the best chemistry. It’s True Love.

* This also might just be the best season for Belle as a character. Her focus episode in the middle of the Neverland Saga is actually about her and her desire to be a hero and contribute to the cause rather than just about her romance with Rumple, and she gets to be a badass who saves the day and makes a great new friend in Ariel. She's also good in the Wicked Saga, where she bonds with Neal, takes Hook and Regina to task for their past misdeeds against her until they apologize and make it up to her, and continues to be a valuable asset as the town librarian and scholar. Pity we can't feel happy for her on her wedding day, though, as even in his goddamn proposal to her Rumple manages to be the worst lover ever.

* Neal is promoted to a regular character this season, which naturally means he's its designated screwed-over regular who won't make it to the next season! It's a shame since despite how miscast Michael Raymond-James continues to be, Neal is better written in this season than he was in the previous one. Through both the Neverland and Wicked Sagas, he shows a passionate desire to be a better father to Henry than Rumple was to him, to not repeat the same mistakes that Rumple made. And so when he is separated from Emma and Henry, he becomes obsessed with getting back to them no matter what the cost, veering dangerously into Rumple territory as he starts dabbling in dark magic. But when the ritual to resurrect his father so that he can find a way back to Earth costs him his life, he ends up accepting his fate rather than cling to life like a coward and risk becoming just like Rumple. While I don't particularly miss him nor do I find his heroic death enough to warrant Snow and Charming naming their new son after him, I'm glad in the end he was able to break the cycle.

* Peter Pan, as I said before, is a top contender for the show's greatest Big Bad. Much of it has to do with Robbie Kay, who absolutely nails the cocky and charismatic yet malicious and frightening qualities that you expect to see from an evil version of Peter Pan. He is so utterly, thoroughly, skin-crawlingly evil that you are invested in the heroes' quest less out of concern for Henry and more because you want to see this demon child be defeated. And of course, there's his backstory and true identity - he's actually Malcolm, Rumple's father, who cruelly abandoned him in order to bond with the Eldritch Abomination personifying Neverland's dark side and obtain eternal youth. But eternal youth doesn't mean eternal life, and Pan will die unless he obtains the Heart of the Truest Believer belonging to his great-grandson, Henry.

While this backstory is divisive among fans, I'm in the camp that loves it. Not only does it add a greater layer of depth to Rumple and his story and make Pan both more pitiful and more reprehensible, but OUAT is at its best when it uses fairy tales to explore real issues, and this is a quite literal exploration of "Peter Pan Syndrome", where adult men selfishly remain in arrested development even when they become fathers. It also really boosts Pan's Ultimate Villain cred, as none of what transpired in the show would have happened if he hadn't abandoned his son and scarred him for life. He is Patient Zero for all the characters' suffering.

* Zelena, the Wicked Witch of the West, naturally feels like a step down when compared to Peter Pan, but this isn't for a lack of effort on the part of the actress, as Rebecca Mader is delightful as she chews the scenery in a blaze of bug-eyed, bared-teeth, shrieking, cackling, psychotic glory. The issues with Zelena are in the writing. First off, making her Regina's half-sister is questionable given that we just had a villain with a secret familial connection with one of our mainstay baddies, which was following from an evil woman with a familial connection to Regina specifically! And them being sisters doesn't have much bearing on the conflict beyond explaining why the Wicked Witch has green skin (it magically turned green out of jealousy for Regina), and she only has green skin in the flashbacks anyway. It also doesn't track with how they first present Zelena in her backstory: she's a girl who wants love and a place to belong, but the moment she discovers she has a sister in another realm her reaction isn't to seek her out and bond with her but "why does she have all of that power and privilege, I oughta have all of that, it's not faaaaaaaaair!" She also lusts after Rumple who, having previously insisted that no-one could ever love him, casually admits that "he has that effect on women" and stops training Zelena because he accepts as fact that she loves him more than anything else and so she can't cast the Dark Curse for him. It makes no sense.

On top of that, her big secret plan ends up being anticlimactic - she wants to create a time travel spell so that she can go back in time and make herself the one who casts the Dark Curse for Rumple - and she is defeated ridiculously easy by Regina's out-of-her-ass light magic powers and then unceremoniously shivved by Rumple in her jail cell. All while Adam and Eddy drop boulder-sized hints that she isn't really dead and we haven't seen the last of her. Then why "kill her" to begin with? Why not just keep her imprisoned? Like I said, Zelena is a good idea for a character and with a great actress, but the writing really let her down.

* Beyond the usual side characters around Storybrooke who are fine as usual, we get several new ones that all make an impact. There's Felix, Pan's creepy and fanatical right-hand boy; Tinker Bell the cynical exiled fairy turned reluctant ally of the Nevengers; the adult versions of John and Michael Darling who run the anti-magic group Greg and Tamara belonged to on Pan's behest since he's holding Wendy hostage; Liam Jones, the deceased older brother of Killian Jones; Ariel of The Little Mermaid fame played to adorable perfection by Joanna Garcia-Swisher, Blackbeard the pirate who serves as Hook's arch-rival in their mutual field of interest; and Glinda the Good Witch who protected Oz until Zelena ousted her from power.

And then there are the new ones that make much less of an impact such as a charisma-free Prince Eric; Walsh the Wizard of Oz (and Emma's short-lived boyfriend, and a flying monkey - yes, he's really all three of those); a bland version of Rapunzel; a dumbfounding semi-villainous adaptation of Lumiere the talking candle, and Dorothy Gale who is so devoid of anything special or interesting that she's a slap in the face to her literary and cinematic counterpart. I'm not sure what went wrong with these characters, but it went very wrong.

However, one side character needs to be addressed above all others: Robin Hood. He's back and involved in the present day story, now played by Sean Maguire instead of Tom Ellis, and the revelation via Tinker Bell's pixie dust that he's Regina's "soul mate" is the start of his character being butchered beyond repair. The sad thing is that it could have worked: the argumentative, mutual dislike yet still caring about each other type of relationship they have in the flashbacks was perfect and should have continued, progressing naturally into Belligerent Sexual Tension and finally romance as Regina becomes a better person. Instead, when they lose their memories and meet again in Storybrooke, it's now love at first sight and instant romance, with Robin being disgustingly courteous and compliant toward Regina (claiming she's "bold and audacious, but not evil"). Robin Hood is supposed to stand against corrupt, oppressive tyrants, not fall in love with them, and Regina is nowhere near out of her corrupt, oppressive tyrant mindset yet. But she's Regina, Adam and Eddy's favorite character, and so if Emma's getting a sexy British love interest than so must she, regardless of how it clashes with his code of honor! Ugh, such a waste of a great hero, and of a good actor.

Atmosphere - Remember when I said that Season 2 got dark in the bad way? Well, the Neverland Saga is dark in the good way, where the darkness isn't coming from a constant steam of personal misery, heinous actions, and the heroes failing against the villains, but from things that are suggested and things that lurk in the shadows, from trials the heroes must face in order to come out stronger that come off almost like an intense form of therapy, and from a particularly evil villain who will do anything to get what he wants. The fight against said villain also restores the tit-for-tat style of combat that Season 1 did so well at, with both the heroes and the villain getting the best of each other on multiple occasions so that it feels like a legitimate struggle rather than a never-ending one-sided blowout like it was with Cora.

Unfortunately, the show also takes this dark atmosphere to way too literal an extreme. The choice to keep Neverland in the present day always at night seems cool early on, but the novelty wears off quickly when you feel like you've been looking at the same backdrop for scenes and even episodes on end. I think allowing some scenes to be at day or afternoon would have done wonders at keeping up a sense of variety - many gifsets online brighten up the pictures and they looks so much better as a result. This was a big wasted opportunity.

The tone of the Wicked Saga is generally lighter and campier, with the only particularly dark things coming from Rumple and Neal's storylines, and that was definitely the right call since anything heavier after the Neverland Saga would start to feel oppressive. And again, the fight against Zelena is an even-handed one, with both heroes and villain getting to score points.

One of the biggest surprises upon revisiting this season is just how well Storybrooke was handled as a setting. It doesn't show up too often in the Neverland Saga but is well utilized when it is, and in the Wicked Saga we get a lot of new locations like Zelena's farmhouse beyond the woods and explorations of ones that were previously underexplored such as the docks and shipyard area. More importantly, magic shenanigans are kept to a minimum and for the most part there are actually sensible rules applied to them! Pan enacting the Dark Curse, the heroes counteracting him, Zelena's usage of magic, Emma learning to channel her inner magic, the séance to summon Cora's spirit, the time travel spell...they are things that don't just happen, there's stuff that has to be done and established beforehand.

It's not all done well, of course - we get the worst excuse why no-one can leave the town line yet (flying monkeys will get you if you try!) and Regina's light magic is pulled out of her ass following a breaking of the Dark Curse from her that makes no sense (Henry wasn't under any curse, so a True Love's Kiss on him shouldn't break squat!), but it's a step up from Season 2, enough to fool you into thinking that Adam and Eddy have learned their lesson.

Episode Quality - There's no bad episode in the Neverland Saga, although there are a few that stand out as weaker than the rest. "Nasty Habits", for instance, is kind of drag whenever Peter Pan isn't onscreen, since the Nevengers are stuck moping around at Baelfire's former tree house while Baelfire himself ("It's NEAL!") continues to be unable to sell the drama between him and his father in the way it deserves to be sold. And "The New Neverland", beyond having an awful title that gives everything away too soon, has a ridiculously fast-paced and repetitive plot in order to set up the midseason finale...a problem that could have been easily rectified had it not also hosted the most pointless flashback in the entire season.

And now I need to talk about the flashback in the episode before that one: "Save Henry", the climax of the Nevengers' time in Neverland. It's about how Regina first adopted Henry, and I actually really like it. It shows how she almost might have reformed after obtaining her new son but then discovered he was the child of the Savior, and unable to choose between him and her power over the cursed town, she copped out by drinking a memory loss potion. Not only is this tragic but it actually explains a lot about why Regina was so unstable and abusive in Season 1, since a flashback in that season had Snow drinking just such a potion to forget Charming and we got to see exactly what it did to her psyche as a result. However...this flashback didn't belong in this particular episode. Sure, Regina's love for Henry was a part of the present day story, but so was Emma's. And Neal's. And Pan's desire to fully assimilate his heart so that he could live forever. I really think that a flashback to Neverland in its prime, shared between Pan, Hook, Baelfire and Tinker Bell, would have been far more appropriate. After all, we hear a lot about those relationships, but I really want to see more of them.

I have few complaints about the present day narratives of "Heart of the Truest Believer", "Lost Girl", "Quite a Common Fairy", "Good Form", "Ariel", "Dark Hollow", "Think Lovely Thoughts" and "Save Henry", though, nor about the flashback of "Nasty Habits" that brilliantly composites Peter Pan with the Pied Piper of Hamelin, luring children away with a pan flute.

And then there's the midseason finale, "Going Home". Holy shit. This is the finale that gives "A Land Without Magic" a run for its money. It's not just the finale to the Neverland Saga, but the finale to the entire story that was begun in "Pilot", with every character making what appears to be their last stand. The stakes and the emotions run very high in this one, peaking with the double punch of Rumple's beautiful sacrifice to save his loved ones from Pan and the scene at the town line where Emma and Henry have to say goodbye to all of their friends and family from Storybrooke, with the town and the characters disappearing in a cloud of purple smoke as Emma and Henry drive across the town line, all their memories of the show's events forgotten but replaced with new memories implanted by Regina, memories of Emma never giving Henry up for adoption and them living happily together for years. It all started when Henry came to Emma's apartment to bring her to Storybrooke, and now it ends with them both leaving Storybrooke and heading toward their happy ending. It's perfect.

The Wicked Saga had its work cut out for it in topping what came before it, and "New York City Serenade" following up the last minute, literal Sequel Hook of "Going Home" does end up feeling anti-climactic in how quickly Stoybrooke, its residents, and all of Emma's memories are restored (also, Emma's new boyfriend being a flying monkey was so dumb), but it's still a solid and enjoyable enough episode to watch, with its direct follow-up, "Witch Hunt", being even better. "The Tower" has great atmosphere and character development, and while "Quiet Minds" definitely could have been better, it could have been worse too. "The Jolly Roger", meanwhile, is the perfect midpoint episode, mostly a breather and a deeper exploration of Hook's character and how much he's changed in spite of him doing his damndest in the flashback to resist that change, as well as the welcome return of our fave fish-girl, Ariel.

It's really just the four heavily Zelena-focused episodes "It's Not Easy Being Green", "Bleeding Through", "A Curious Thing" and "Kansas" that I have trouble with; I feel like the writers really dropped the ball on Regina and Zelena's conflict and individual character development in these episodes, which is ironic given that Evil vs. Wicked was the biggest thing promoted about this half-season arc and it ended up being its weakest element.

The two-part season finale, "Snow Drifts" and "There's No Place Like Home", is both a weird and wacky homage to Back to the Future and a return to the series' magical roots. Emma and Hook's adventure to the time of the "Snow Falls" flashback is so much fun and is the perfect antidote to the last few lousy episodes. It also could have very well made an ideal series finale if five changes had been made to both it and the whole Wicked Saga's story: Neal would have to still be alive (that way we don't get the baby being named after him, which is stupid), Rumple would have to still be dead (so no lying to Belle via wedding proposal and killing Zelena), Zelena would have to still be alive and in jail (totally doable with Rumple not alive), Marian would have to not be included in the plot at all (past or present), and of course the stinger with Elsa showing up would have to be removed. Do that and it's a happy ending. But they didn't do that, so following a quick diversion, I'm stuck having to watch Season 4.

Overall - Just as there is no doubt in my mind that Season 1 is the show’s strongest season, there is no doubt in my mind that Season 3 is the runner-up. This is an all-around solid, largely well-crafted, entertaining season of television, especially the first half of it. During this season, I was proud to call myself a OUAT fan. It’s such a shame that the Wicked Saga didn’t end up innovating more and instead settled the show down into a status quo, because if it hadn’t done that then this season’s template would have been the one to follow for the rest of the show, with truly new and exciting story arcs in each half of a season that shake up the show and its characters for the better rather than always returning them to the same tired status quo that only lessens their appeal every time it happens. Oh, what might have been...

#Once Upon a Time #ABC #OUAT and Me #Opinion #Analysis

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drunklander · 5 years ago

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Drunj!Der Yells About Outlander

Thoughts on Ep. 502

Watched this episode after winning Wynonna Earp trivia (fuck yeah, The Shit Tickets!) at a bar, put on by a queer af podcast, followed by going to see a queer af movie, and was all ready to get my Beauchamp fix... And it was like oh here’s a taste and a hint that we’re gonna end up in a story line similar to what we’ve already done multiple times, but now on to the menfolk.

For real though, this episode was like an OL greatest hits clip show. It had all the stuff we’ve seen before. A time traveler who wants to go home? Check. Rape PTSD? Check. A man being a dad to a kid who isn’t/might not be his? Check. That same man being the absolute worst? Check. Claire being reckless with future medicine? Check. Townsfolk questioning Claire’s medical knowledge in favor of the local Man of Importance? Check. Jamie trying to be on both sides at once? Check. A villain who seemed to have died the previous season and should have fucking stayed dead? Check.

We’ve literally seen all of this stuff before.

For a show that spent the first part of season two claiming to be a political drama and then last season claiming that they “weren’t political” I see we’re back to just leaning hard into politics that have direct parallels today.

No fucks left to give about the system Murtz is kind of my favorite Murtz. Like this dude spent his whole life living by a code and an oath and was fucked over by the system so many fucking times that he’s ready to just burn it all down. Curious to see how they walk the domestic terrorist vs. freedom fighter line with him for the rest of the season.

Got all excited about the bread title card because yay medicinal mold, but of course, the lead character was relegated to the B story.

Old timey medicine baffles me. Like the fact that bleeding someone was like a catchall remedy boggles the mind.

I feel rull bad for Mrs. Whoeverthefuck though. She tried.

Also, shit like this makes me be like, yo Claire, you sure you wanna stay here? Jamie’s really not all that and a bag of chips. But you do you, boo.

Speaking of Jamie, his hair looks really good. A thousand fruit baskets to the new wig person.

Lulz at Knox thinking the Gathering was about being loyal to king and country. Dummy.

Srsly though, Murtz Valmurtz is really getting under their skin. Is he like the *only* Regulator leader?

The convo between Knox and Jamie is literally as relevant today as it is in the 1770s. But yeah, the show IsN’t PoLiTiCaL.

The fact that fuckers think those at the bottom should be happy with their lot because “lol it could be worse” need to be punched in the face and taken out of power. Stat.

Also any time someone in power talks about civility as a reason not to rise up against injustice, I want to punch them. Because they deserve it.

I want to punch a lot of things.

This whole episode is very Les Mis, tbh.

Literalol at Claire covering dead guy’s face and not his body cavity before Bree comes in.

Aw Bree, why you gotta be a buzzkill? We were cheated of badass Doctor!Claire in S3. Let us have this.

Also, yeah, Claire, Bree’s fucking right. Which you’d think you’d know by now what with alL THE FUCKING TIMES YOU’VE BEEN CALLED A WITCH. AND NOW YOU’RE UPPING YOUR GAME TO LIKE NECROMANCY?!

Also the more she says no one will find out the more annoying it is because *clearly* someone *is* gonna find out and we’re gonna be back on the “she’s a witch!” “I’m not a witch!” “you literally have a dead guy in your closet!” merry-go-round again.

Today in most on-the-nose shots ever: How convenient that Marsali just happens to be doing some butchering right there, right then.

Petition for the show to go full Shondaland and just turn into a backwoods medical drama with Claire and Marsali, and all the others (cough the men cough) can fuck on off.

Tarring and feathering is like the old timey version of #AlwaysPunchAFascist but dialed to 11.

Oh the baggage behind Jamie saying redcoat man will someday wear his scars with honor that none of these fuckers know about...

Ok so clearly the English know that Claire’s a doctor so whenever shit hits the witchy dead dude fan, can we please have a quick resolution and not that dumb af “Claire goes to jail and of course her cellmate is a lesbian because Diana sucks at writing queer characters” nonsense?

Man Jamie is *not* subtle with this convo at the jail. Like Knox is right there and he’s just like hey buddies, I have people and we’re Scottish and y’know how we feel about protecting people vs. obeying the English.

I AM SPARTACUS FITZGIBBONS!

Aaand, naturally, the fuckwit preaching civility is the one to kill a man in cold blood. Rise up, motherfuckers. Rise up.

THANK FUCK ROGER IS A TERRIBLE SHOT BECAUSE IF THAT SQUIRREL DIED I WOULD LEGIT QUIT THE SHOW. RUN AWAY AND BE FREEEEEE YOU PRECIOUS LIL WILDERNESS FLOOFER!

Roger is, and I cannot stress this enough, the fucking worst.

He’s like look how shitty I am at being a soldier but then bitches about having to try to learn. And then he bitches about how dumb it is to shoot at squirrels as if being able to hit a squirrel wouldn’t make hitting a much larger thing, like a man who is shooting back at you, that much easier. And also, how the fuck does he think they get meat to eat? Shooting it, you twatwaffle.

And he’s like so fucking butthurt about being left behind. Like no shit, asshat. You’re bad at being in the past and have made no real effort and you whine a lot and are generally the worst. Of *course* you were left behind. Stop being emo about it and maybe actually try.

“He doesn’t respect me, Bree.” Yeah, no shit. Because you’ve done LITERALLY NOTHING to earn his respect. WHY ARE YOU SO TERRIBLE IT’S LIKE THEY’RE INTENTIONALLY TRYING TO MAKE HIM SUCK.

He also is like butthurt that his wife is a better shot than him when she gets the turkey he misses. How the fuck are we supposed to ship this. Ugh.

#BreeDeservesBetter

Oh Bree, sweetie, Jem won’t get hit by a car, but there are like eleventy million ways to die in the past. Just stick with the “you want to stay with your family” stuff.

Roger clearly doesn’t want to stay and is gonna pull a Fred and make Bree feel bad about wanting to all season, isn’t he. Fahkin’ doucherocket.

“I want to go but I’ll stay for you and look how magnanimous I am as I whine about it and make no effort to acclimate to the time.” Take your martyr card and shove it, Rog.

Shorter Jamie Fraser: “If you stand for nothing, Knox, what’ll you fall for?”

I’m already over Roger singing all the time tbh. Mostly because it reminds me that soon he won’t be able to do that anymore and we’re gonna be subjected to like half a season of him being more insufferable than he already is.

Wait, was Joan already born last episode? Or was there another time jump? Is Marsali preggers with baby #3? I lost track.

I love this scene between Claire and Marsali with my whole heart. Marsali especially.

CAN WE PLEASE JUST HAVE A WHOLE SHOW OF THESE TWO BEING ALL BADASS AND DOCTORY TOGETHER!?

Although, quick question, how fucking long is Claire planning to keep that un-embalmed body lying around in an un-refrigerated surgery/root cellar? Just curious...

Because you know someone’s gonna find it eventually and that’s gonna be a whole to do and I really need to stop being preemptively annoyed at plot lines that haven’t actually happened yet.

And with all this talk of plowshares and swords, I really am going to be singing Les Mis for days...

How long have these biddies been living on the Ridge? The fucking Leoch folks spent like a minute with Claire before they were like yep, she knows what’s up. These folks have apparently been here for months and are like loool, pass. They live in the fucking woods. You’d think they’d be more open to Claire’s brand of medicine.

Omg are they like the accidental antivaxxers of the Ridge?

#VaccinateYourFuckingKids

I mean, Bree, I think there’s some difference between Claire pretending to be a dude doc and telling folks to wash their hands and Otter Tooth.

Season 2 Claire and Otter Tooth on the other hand...

Ok so Jamie needs more men so that means next week is AHS: Beardsley Farm and then maybe (hopefully) instead of being like lol jk you can all go home, it actually goes right into the battle thing. Still not sure if they’re gonna do Roger getting hanged as the mid-season big thingy and then do the Bonnet nonsense in the back half or keep trying to do both of those at once.

Hey, Roger, pro-tip, next time you see Morag MacKenzie, maybe don’t fuCKING MAKE OUT WITH HER YOU FUCKING DUMBASS.

Claire’s totally right about how they should go back. Honestly, they should. But instead of talking with her like Claire is now with Roger, he’s just being all moody about how he’s bad at the past and wants to go back. You’re shooting yourself in the foot, broski.

Oh hey Husband the Quaker. And is that a fellow Quaker named Hunter with him? Are we gonna get Denny and Rachel this season?! Please and thank you that’d be great, I love them.

Murtz talking to his squad is full on Enjolras being like don’t worry fam, Marius will stand and fight with us. His place is there, he’ll fight with you.

The two very different but very similar ways Murtz and Jamie approach being Laird of their squads is fun to explore.

Bree lecturing Claire about changing the future by saving a few backwater hicks like Claire didn’t spend years trying to fucking change all of Scottish history is a bit rich. Like writers, we get it, you’re trying to be like oh snap, wait for the consequences of this bread!science! But like come the fuck on. We sat through all of season two.

“You’re a good dad, you know that?” Oh man, I’m getting that déjà vu about a shitty man getting kudos for being a good dad to a kid as if that negates all of his shittiness.

Oh hey, Bonnet’s back. Clearly we couldn’t have just let him die last season. Gotta drag shit on for longer than it has to. This is the [Outlander] Way.

If they were gonna keep him around as a villain, they shouldn’t have (in addition to all the other reasons) included him raping Bree. Jamie, Murtagh and Bonnet all making choices within and outside of the law to various degrees in order to make their living in the Colonies would be a really interesting contrast. But nope, gotta just go all in. BeCaUsE tHe BoOk.

Also I hate with the passion of a thousand fiery suns the Jemmy’s paternity stuff. Le sigh.

Remember in season one when the show was about Claire and she was in episodes for longer than 10 minutes?

I miss Claire.

#*#outlander starz #outlander 5x02 #drunj!der yells about outlander

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wotwotleigh-prime · 5 years ago

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Jeeves and Wooster vs. Plum, Part 2

S1e2: Tuppy and the Terrier

The second episode of Jeeves and Wooster is again based on three of the short stories, all of which were eventually published in Very Good, Jeeves: “Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit,” “Jeeves and the Song of Songs,” and “Episode of the Dog McIntosh.” There are also elements borrowed from “Jeeves and the Kid Clementina,” which was published in the same book.

One general difference I wanted to mention before I go on is that the TV episodes are not arranged in the same order as the stories and novels. For the most part, it doesn’t really matter, but it does lend a slightly different feeling to the development of events and the relationships between the characters. For example, Bertie spent a lot more time early in the stories bouncing around in America, whereas most of that takes place later in the show. These particular stories take place after most of Bertie’s American adventures in the book!timeline.

Anyway, let’s look at how these episodes stack up against their corresponding stories!

There are a few general changes here that make a great deal of sense. For instance, the three main stories involved here seem to take place over a longer period of time in the book (maybe a few months), whereas in the episode they are compressed into a few days, or maybe a couple of weeks at the most. The order of events is somewhat changed to help the stories fit together more seamlessly, too. For instance, McIntosh is with Bertie from the very start of the episode, meaning he’s there through the events of both “Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit” and “Episode of the Dog McIntosh.” Bertie also first meets Cora when he’s at Bobbie Wickham’s country house at the start of the episode.

Also, as the title suggests, “Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit” was originally a Christmas story, not that the Christmas setting really matters that much. The only thing that’s really lost is Jeeves’s brutally chipper “Merry Christmas, sir!” when he greets Bertie in the morning after he’s spent a terrible night sleeping in an armchair post-water bottle incident. Oh Jeeves, you magnificent bastard.

But there are several other big changes to the events of “Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit” that I really don’t get. First of all, Bertie’s rival in the water bottle war was originally Tuppy Glossop, not Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps. Bertie had sworn ~*~*~HIDEOUS REVENGE~*~*~ against Tuppy for betting him he couldn’t swing across the ropes and rings above the Drone’s swimming pool, which ended with Bertie being forced to drop into the pool in full evening attire when he found that Tuppy had looped back the last ring. This was a long-running joke in the short stories and novels, and something for which Bertie never completely forgave Tuppy.

I’m not sure why they chose to change this, because A) it’s hilarious, and B) Tuppy’s right there the whole time in the episode! I guess they just wanted an excuse to feature Barmy? Anyway, this also necessitated giving Bertie a reason to get back at Barmy, hence the extended golf sequence at the beginning where Barmy shows up Bertie in front of Bobbie Wickham.

Also, in the story, Jeeves was particularly salty because they had been planning a Christmas vacation to Monte Carlo, which Bertie canceled in order to visit Bobbie Wickham’s family home. Jeeves’s big goal, other than souring Bertie on Bobbie, was to get the Monte Carlo vacation back on track so he could chill at the casino. Instead, we have a more low-key disagreement over Bertie’s hideous golf trousers, which is an element borrowed from “Jeeves and the Kid Clementina.”

Finally, the original victim of all that water bottle piercing was Sir Roderick Glossop, who was replaced with the new characters Prof. and Madame Cluj. Again, I’m not sure why this was changed. In the short story, the whole incident reinforced Sir Roderick’s notion that Bertie was insane, so Jeeves’s gambit was a double whammy against two marital threats (Honoria and Bobbie).

There are also, as in many of the TV episodes, little touches here and there that seem calculated to make Bertie seem a little dumber. For instance, in “Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit,” Bertie is the one who uses the word espièglerie in reference to Bobbie, not Jeeves (although, as usual, he second-guesses himself about whether it’s the right word).

Otherwise, the events of the episode are fairly similar to those of the stories in question. One difference is that Bertie had already met Blumenfield and son in the short stories, in the early story “Jeeves and the Chump Cyril.” (This story is adapted in the season 3 episode “Introduction on Broadway.”) Bertie is alarmed at the prospect of meeting Blumenfield Jr. again. He’s afraid the kid will tell him he has a face like a fish just like he did to Cyril, in which case Bertie fears he will not be able to resist “doing his upper maxillary a bit of no good.” (“Perhaps the young gentleman will not notice that you have a face like a fish, sir,” says Jeeves. Harsh, bro.) It is for this reason that Bertie takes off during the lunch and isn’t around to stop Bobbie from giving away McIntosh.

The sequence where Bertie witnesses Jeeves giving Blumenfield Sr. the McIntosh clone and freaks out is also a change from the story. Originally, Jeeves explains what he has done after the fact. It’s a solid change, IMO, because that scene is hilarious.

It’s also worth noting that Bobbie comes off more sympathetic in the original story than she does in the TV episode. She actually apologizes to Bertie for troubling him with the lunch at his apartment, and, even though she’s the one who gives the dog away in the first place, she ultimately helps Bertie with the scheme to get him back. Bertie is also sympathetic to her desire to make a hit with Blumenfield, and doesn’t seem to hold a lot of ill-will regarding the water bottle prank.

One more minor note: In “Episode of the Dog McIntosh,” Bertie makes reference to the song “I Lift Up My Finger and I Say Tweet Tweet,” which Bertie performs in the season 3 episode “Right Ho, Jeeves.”

The segment with Cora Bellinger and everyone in the universe singing Sonny Boy is a solid adaptation of “Jeeves and the Song of Songs” with few differences that are really worth mentioning. There are changes, but they’re pretty minor. I am sad that we miss out on this particularly Extra monologue from Bertie after Tuppy’s performance of Sonny Boy, though:

“’Come, Jeeves,’ I said, and those standing by wondered, no doubt, what had caused that clean-cut face to grow so pale and set. ‘I have been subjected to a nervous strain unparalleled since the days of the early Martyrs. I have lost pounds in weight and permanently injured my entire system. I have gone through an ordeal, the recollection of which will make me wake up screaming in the night for months to come. And all for nothing. Let us go.’”

@cuddyclothes (I will cross-post this and Part 1 to G_S later!)

#Jeeves and Wooster #P. G. Wodehouse #tv canon #book canon #Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit #Jeeves and the Song of Songs #Episode of the Dog McIntosh #jeeves and the kid clementina #Tuppy and the Terrier #Bertie Wooster #Reginald Jeeves #Tuppy Glossop #Roderick Glossop #Bobbie Wickham #Cora Bellinger #barmy fotheringay phipps

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amostimprobabledream · 5 years ago

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My thoughts on Peaky Blinders...

Now I’ve finished Season Five, I wanted to get out my thoughts/ideas/opinions regarding the show. So strap in! - So first of all, the fucking cinematopgraphy in this series is gorgeous. You could take almost any scene and it looks like a painting. The lighting, the way it’s staged, it’s all just so visually pleasing to look at. My inner film student was just sighing dreamily at the shot composition. There’s a shot of John, Arthur and Tommy walking somewhere and you could fucking frame it and put it in your wall. - CILLIAN MURPHY, CILLIAN MURPHY, CILLIAN MURPHY. I mean, I always knew he was a good actor and also a pretty one, I think the role I remember him best in is Batman Begins, but holy shit, I never realised how hot he is until like two months ago. I know he apparently hates his Tommy haircut, but good lord, he can pull it off. The cheekbones! The eyes! The eyelashes! The sexy voice! Needless to say I saw him and immediately developed the biggest fucking crush. Apparently when I talk about Tommy to people my face goes pink. Thank you so much, show, for enlightening me to this human. Tommy is such a fantastic character, and I do wonder if another actor could pull him off quite as well. So much debate over his actions, motives, mindset, etc. I could probably write essays about the complexities of Tommy, but I won’t because this is a long-ass post anyway. He’s such a boss and I would die for him. - I actually really like Arthur??? So the very first clip of PB I ever saw was accidental, when I happened to turn the TV on and the Blinders were taking over the Eden Club and Arthur was glassing a guy in the face. I thought, “Oh, he’s probably like the dangerous thug character everyone is scared of.” (I didn’t know he’s Tommy’s brother at the time.) But actually he’s kind of endearing despite being the Shelby’s pitbull? Idk, the concept of the “failure” elder brother, how Arthur is the character the verbalises PTSD the most out of everyone, how one minute he can be lashing out like a rabid bear and then sobbing like a kid the next... I’m always like, “Oh, Arthur,” because you can see he wants to be a better person, but he just...doesn’t know how. - JOOOHN. I miss him! And it’s weird because in the early parts of the Season John doesn’t DO much but tag around after Tommy and Arthur, but his marriage to Esme is actually So Good and again, he’s actually kind of a softboi under the hard gangster act. (Also his “Do THIS, John, Do THAT, John, KILL YOUR FOOKIN’ TEACHER, JOHN!” is so fucking good.) He kind of provides a lightness when contrasted to Tommy and Arthur that I really do miss, because the last two Seasons have been very grim and I think John’s absence has something to do with it. I liked Esme too, even if she’s a stroppy bitch, her love for John but resentment of her role in the family and also she’s HELLA PRETTY. I’m sad her character has gone for now, but at least she wasn’t killed off. - I also love Ada a lot - I was really shocked when I read that Sophie Rundle hasn’t been acting all that long before she got the part in PB, because honestly she’s very good! And her concept again is a fun one - the only girl in a family of violent gangster boys. (Or as Freddy puts it, “The only princess”, which she is.) Having said that, I’m not sure how I feel about Ada’s character arc over the course of the season. In One she came off as kind of childish and still sort of stuck in her Rebellious Teen phase, then she became a mother and Freddie died, then in Season Two she’s trying to distance herself from the family and go legit, then in Season Four and Five she’s helping run the business and taking money from Tommy. Idk, I wish she’d play a more major role like her brothers because her motivations seem to change based on what the screenwriter wants, not what feels natural for her. Plus it annoys me that Ada blamed Ben Younger’s death on Tommy, but Tommy gets a lot of blame for things that aren’t his fault so I guess he’s used to it. Still, Ada is still a lot of fun when she does get to play a big role and gets some great lines later on. “Tommy Shelby is going to stop a revolution with his cock.” - POLLY, MY QUEEN! Easily the best woman on the show (sorry, Ada) and such a fucking badass. She’s definitely the voice of reason within the family and conflicting loyalty is a really interesting theme that gets explored with her, between her arguing nephews and niece, between her family or whether she wants to marry again and leave, her relationship with Michael, it’s all so great. Helen McRory is such a brilliant addition to the show. Also I love that Polly kinda represents women taking over after all the men went away to war and now they’re back, but the women aren’t just going to creep back into the house - World War One changed the workplace forever for women and I think Polly being the second in command after Tommy reflects that really well. - I think overall my favourite seasons have been Seasons One, Two and Four, I tend to find I get a bit bored in Peaky Blinders whenever it gets especially heavy on politics like in Season Three and Five and I admittedly kind of miss the simplicity of the early days of the show when it was about horse-racing, but the Changretta vs Shelby feud was genuinely really gripping and Adrien Brody was also Very Good. (I mean, I couldn’t take him seriously because of Brodyquest, but I like him a lot.) - I HATE GRACE. There, I said it. And honestly I have SO MUCH to say on why I hate her and also why I think she is the epitome of bad writing that has happened on this show that I might as well save it for a whole nother post, but Tommy and Grace’s relationship always felt so unnatural and forced to me, like they are in love because the screenwriter said so - Grace is the only woman Tommy knows who isn’t related to him and also because it pisses off Campbell. Like, she was tolerable if highly irritating in Season One, but then Two came along and she just got worse and worse. She’s annoyingly convinced she’s better than everyone else, pulls off a LOT of questionable shit that NO-ONE except Polly ever pulls her up on and Tommy repeatedly pining over a woman who lied to him and betrayed him makes no goddamn sense. I wish Stephen Knight would just let him get over her, because her showing up over and over again in the show after the bitch died two Seasons ago is so infuriating I want to throw my remote at the TV. The best bit of Season Three was someone finally putting a bullet in her, honestly. /rant - On that note, I really wish that they’d use May properly. She was introduced in Season Two and honestly her chemistry with Tommy is about a thousand times more believable than anything he had with Guuuhrayce and also May doesn’t consistently talk in that annoying, breathy voice and also she doesn’t shamelessly manipulate Tommy constantly. It’s too bad Stephen Knight couldn’t get Charlotte Riley back for Season Three owing to her pregnancy, because I think the trajectory of the show would have been very different. But her scene where she spoke about her husband and tried to hide that she was crying? So good. The fucking Face Tommy gives her when she asks for a mixer in her gin? Priceless. Agh - May’s been chronically underused in the show but she keeps getting mentioned every now and then, so I’m hoping there are plans for her to come back in Season Six. I really like her and I honestly think Tommy/May has been the best relationship he’s had, because it’s the only one that’s felt A) Natural and B) Equal. - Lizzie Stark. Okay, so I have mixed feelings about Lizzie. I liked her in Seasons One and Two, because she was this down-on-her-luck woman who was treated like crap by everyone, but she wasn’t wholly without her own flaws or personality - she did lie to John and Tommy did act in his brother’s best interests to tell him the truth. The scenes she had with Tommy in Season Two when he promotes her to his secretary were honestly very cute and my heart broke for her when that solider nearly (?) raped her in Season Two and she cried in John’s arms. But over time she’s started to irritate me. I know that people feel bad for her because Tommy honestly does treat her badly at times, though other times she’s also one of the few people he’s nice to, their relationship is complicated. But truthfully I don’t see Tommy/Lizzie every working out properly because Lizzie was a whore. She’s always been Tommy’s inferior and while I do think he cares for her, she never seems to think it’s enough. He doesn’t love her enough and she’s never satisfied with it and she’s always resentful of him. But you can’t FORCE someone to love you and it’s interesting that the minute she learned she was pregnant, you could see her thinking of how to make this work. She pulled the Baby Trap on him just like Grace did and got married like she wanted, but Tommy still doesn’t truly see her as his equal. And honestly, I don’t think she’s smart enough for him. Add that to Lizzie being EXTREMELY petty to other women (including her being really rude to May and slut-shaming her - bit rich from you, isn’t it, Lizzie?), and I don’t think they have a healthy relationship. I do like little Ruby a lot (way more than Charles, who is a spoiled brat because he’s Grace’s son and has a martyred dead mummy), but honestly I don’t see Tommy/Lizzie working out. I just hope that she doesn’t leave and take Ruby, I think it’d break Tommy to have his daughter taken away from him. - Alfie Solomons. So...I have to confess I have mixed feelings about Alfie. I liked him in Season Two because he’s batshit crazy, Tom Hardy is clearly having the time of his life and it’s refreshing to have a rival to Tommy who isn’t cartoonishly evil like Billy Kimber or Sabini. He ties into Season Two very well and yeah, I can see why he’s so popular. Also he’s pretty attractive, so that always helps. But. Alfie is starting to come across a bit like a creator’s pet to me. He consistently betrays Tommy every goddamn Season and while I know the fandom love to joke about this, it’s pretty inexplicable that Tommy would bother to continue to do business with him after being burned so many times and now it turns out he’s alive. Why? Why bring Alfie back? I feel like he was brought back because he’s a fan favourite and to add another suspect to who betrayed Tommy. I don’t hate Alfie at all, but I am starting to wish he’d face actual consequences for his actions, considering every Peaky Blinders character who fucks with the Peaky Blinders tend to suffer horribly for it, but not Alfie...for some reason. - Michael. Okay so Michael’s actor is pretty damn good and I thought it was cute that he and John’s actors are actually brother irl - you can see the resemblance. And honestly bringing back Polly’s missing kids was a really clever idea because there’s a family tie, but one that isn’t so strong you can always be sure of where his loyalties lie. His subplot with Father Hughes in Season Three was both very sad and very well done - I was cheering him on the whole way. But Season Five has made my opinion of Michael take a dramatic nosedive. He’s gone from sorta-sympathetic to an entitled brat almost overnight. I get he’s probably salty about being banished to America by Tommy in Season Four, but where has this sudden desire to rule the company come from? How did he meet Gina? Is he lying about Gina being pregnant because he figured it’d win him sympathy? I don’t know. He’s changed so drastically, and when Polly gave him that slap, I think she was doing what everyone wanted to. It’s too bad they just wrote Anna off as being dead, though, Michael having a sister and Polly a daughter would have been interesting. - The music?? Is so good?? I love it! Especially the themesong, obviously, but so much of it is always ON POINT. It makes me wanna buy the entire soundtrack. - Unpopular opinion, but I think Campbell was the best antagonist of the show, mainly because he was a vile person but still believable and had the best dynamic with Tommy. - Season Five was honestly kind of hit-and-miss for me, it seemed like a lot of people are pissed at Tommy for fairly silly reasons in the beginning and I just didn’t find the political subplot all that interesting...but I still will definitely tune into Season Six. (Also these are all just opinions, so please don’t send me hate if you don’t like something I’ve said. Ain’t nobody got time for that.)

#Peaky Blinders #Tommy Shelby #Arthur Shelby #John Shelby #Ada Shelby #Polly Gray #Michael Gray #Esme Shelby #Grace Burgess #May Carleton #Lizzie Stark #Alfie Solomons #Chester Campbell #Blogging #Thoughts

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the-nysh · 6 years ago

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Thoughts on ch207

Now that Kacchan’s match is underway, I’m gonna compare/contrast my thoughts and predictions from last time to what actually went down this ch, because oooh, I am pleased! 8D As written before (bolded for emphasis):

The situation may be a huge gamble (especially if the reinforced holding cell is impenetrable by his explosions/ap shots, then his team may lose, also not accounting for any tricks class B may have), but what’s a thorough challenge without taking some risks? ;) This is Kacchan we’re talking about. All he has to do is focus on what he does best: prioritize disabling the enemy with precision and efficiency while evading capture, with or without using the extra options/firepower/movesets from his teammates, then IF any of them get caught (because honestly he’s not likely to take responsibility or coddle them for their own safety; rather he’d expect them to carry their own weight) he has a fallback plan to regain the lost score.

To pull this off successfully would require both a complete victory over the other team AND the necessary follow up to rescue any remaining captured teammates to secure an indisputable win. Sound familiar? To save the match by both winning and rescuing? That’s right: Kacchan, apply all that you’ve experienced (after coming back from an actual villain kidnapping before, he already knows what it’s like to be captured) and show Deku exactly how much you’ve learned from him!

Similarly as predicted, Kacchan swiftly aiming for an aggressive initiative (which is not unlike his approach in his test with Deku vs All Might actually), and expecting his team to catch up to the same speed and pull their own weight according to his high standards of efficiency (again, while not being nice about it either) is no surprise. Him being watchful and aware of his teammates, while actively going in to 1) cover for them

and 2) protect them from capture IS a very welcome surprise! 8’D OHHHHHHH!!! (YUUUS PROTECTIVE KACCHAN <3) I like this a lot! Especially for adapting the ‘win and save’ theme he learned back from DvsK2 that I figured would be a key part of his match. ;A; I am extremely pleased! For both All Might supporting him and especially Deku to take notice of his moves!

(^Omggg that is a screaming ‘Kacchan sugoi’ moment from Deku, right there from the shining recognition in his eyes. ;A; Yes I have ascended on this thxgiving holiday from Hori’s blessed bkdk meal! 8’D)

How Kacchan applies this ‘save’ mindset from Deku is slightly different from where I thought (I supposed he’d go back and save his teammates IF they get captured…well actually it’s still too soon to tell if he might go back and do that anyway, as the match just started and no one’s captured yet) But applying this so soon before they’re captured is interesting, because I feel he’s spreading his active duties too thin like this. He’s just one person and physically can’t cover for ALL his teammates in both offense and defense at the same time...even more when they’re all trapped and outnumbered too. Truly, it’s just as All Might once admitted to Deku: he can’t save everyone as he’s just one person and physically can’t exist/reach everywhere at once. As much as Kacchan’s eager and impatient to demonstrate he’s a self-reliant hero and a one-man show to Deku with control over the whole situation, I feel the difference in All Might’s experience here is a telling factor. Meaning, this is one of the first times Kacchan’s attempted this ‘win & save’ approach…so he likely doesn’t have the experience yet to handle when & where he should apply either mode for max efficiency. But again, his adaptability and tenacity are strong, so he may realize this dilemma quickly and that yes, he still has areas he can improve.

Another telling factor is teamwork (and proper communication!) to work cohesively as a unit. Not everyone can subconsciously sync to the speed of his plan and thought processes (like Deku can), so some leeway will likely be needed for their team to pull out a win. Relying on and incorporating his team’s strengths instead of covering for their deficiencies all on his own. Unless of course, he momentarily falls back to weigh his options, knowing where to save himself from becoming a needless martyr for the team (aka in his hasty attempt to be omniscient for everybody, he realizes he can’t do everything. Oh wait…that’s also why it’s an interesting match up vs Setsuna’s ability to DO just that: by splitting herself up everywhere, however she lacks the power he has.) …But he comes back later to save his team once the main enemy threats are dealt with, which is the possible scenario I predicted last time: by targeting the prison cell to successfully rescue and free any captured teammates to win back their score. Anyway, whatever happens, I’m definitely looking forward to what he’s got, and hoping he finally gains a well-deserved win he can be proud of! :’D

Bonus + omake comments under the cut:

Bonus: aside from the feels on the last page with Deku’s expression, fav individual panel is this one because yoooo!!! That’s a really good focused/intense shot of him (also I’m not blind to those jacked shoulders, dang.)

Bonus 2: the family omake was a huge welcome surprise! 8’D For showing more about his parents and home life. Gosh what an absolute dysfunctional disaster of a family. XD But also HORI. H O R I…!!!! He can’t just follow up after that last bkdk page with THIS pov from Masaru (ohhhh yes I’m very aware of the similarities between Masaru & Deku with their soft-spoken nerd parallels, along with the obvious one of Kacchan closely taking after Mitsuki too)

(specifically, in the ‘Romance’s Start’ one on the left) and then especially after previously establishing reoccurring moments like THESE!!?!! 👀

Just WHO is the one now similarly ‘on track’ and consistently taking the initiative to ‘fiercely approach’ and check in on the other person this generation!? 👀👀 FUUUUUU!!!! (why yes, I’ve been onto Hori’s agenda for a while now, but was still caught by surprise with this omake’s addition and succumbed to a double k.o. of bkdk feels this chapter, ahahaha! 8’D)

#bnha #kacchan #bkdk #bkdkpositivity #meta #manga spoilers #speculation #long post #yeah my 👀 are still on fire taking note of everything that might happen here #still gotta hold down the fort here so unloading all my thoughts :')#because OHHHHHH damn do i have plenty 8D (thank you hori <3)#also pertaining to what i posted about the omake too...one of these days i want to collect all of kacchan's 'deku radar' panels bc dang

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ourimpavidheroine · 6 years ago

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Hmmmm. So my thoughts on the sneak preview of the new Korra comic on EW.

Well, it has to be an improvement over Turf Wars, right? My god I loathed that entire thing. The crappy half-assed story, the drawing that was downright embarrassingly bad by the third book (not that I blame Irene Koh for that, she did her very best under apparently pretty lousy conditions), the flat, ugly coloring. Ugh. All of it.

I have to say, though, that I do appreciate here that Kuvira is not at all remorseful for what she did as the Great Uniter. She’s lawful evil; she genuinely believes that the “sacrifices” she made were both honorable and necessary for the greater good. That’s why some fans think she’s good deep down and/or redeemable; she’s lawful! Lawful means there has to be good in them somewhere, right?

Eh. Not so much!

I mean, that’s why she did her level best to kill Baatar Jr. She loved him, in her own way. But his death was a sacrifice for the greater good, because in killing him she’d also kill the current incarnation of the Avatar, the one person who could potentially slow her down, if not stop her. It had to be done, no matter how she might feel about it. Her cause - the Earth Empire - was far more important than his life or her feelings for him. The ends always justified the means as far as the Earth Empire went. (Baatar Jr, not being lawful evil, did not consider the Earth Empire more important than their love for each other. Poor fucking deluded bastard.)

Kuvira was certainly not interested in killing anyone for the sake of killing them. She didn’t do it for revenge; she didn’t get off on it. She’s not chaotic evil, after all. She might have even regretted the necessity. Not enough not to do it, of course. But she wouldn’t have relished killing, though.

If Opal had died (along with Bolin and Zhu Li) because she happened to be where the spirit cannon was blasting during its trial run I am sure Kuvira would have apologized to Su about that as well. She was not aiming the gun at Opal - unlike Zhu Li, who was a traitor, Opal just happened to be in the way. However, she certainly wouldn’t have stopped the weapon from firing, despite Baatar Jr’s frantic call for her to stop as soon as he sees Opal. Nothing personal. Sorry about it. But the weapon needed to be tested because it was a necessary means to the end and Opal shouldn’t have been there helping a traitor anyhow. And that’s exactly how she sees everything.

Lawful Evil: Kuvira. Delores Umbridge. Lucius Malfoy. Magneto. Thanos. Darth Vader. Tarrlok, even! Amon, for sure. All of them followed the rules, their own code, firmly believing that the ends justified the means. I mean, the ends included wholesale evil and frequently murder, for many of them! But it was still, in their minds, lawful.

In other words, Peace And Order Through Destruction isn’t really peace at all. Sorry, for all of you that like to believe that Kuvira is actually good under it all. No, my dudes. She’s just lawful. Not the same thing in the slightest.

I do believe she is sorry, in a Lawful Evil way, for causing personal pain to the Beifong family, by the way. She’s not sorry she did the things she did, because they were necessary for the good of the Earth Empire. However, she’s sorry if she hurt their feelings by attacking their city unprovoked, putting most of them in a wooden cage for who knows how long, and trying to straight up murder Baatar Jr. And I do believe that because she has a really, really, really fucked up moral compass, she genuinely does not understand why the fuck Su Beifong won’t just accept her apology and be good with it. Nor does she understand why these people who are putting her on trial won’t accept the fact that she stepped down and surrendered to Korra - not because Korra was right, but because Korra demonstrated greater power and for the record, those two things are not even the same - as being enough. She does not know why they expect her to be sorry/guilty of war crimes because in her mind, she committed no crimes. She just did what needed doing. In her own mind, she is a fucking hero and a martyr. She really believes this, as is made very clear in that little snippet of text.

The fact that she clearly DOES have some personal feelings about the Beifongs and how they did and/or did not treat her is also clear. However, it is also clear that she herself rejects those feelings as having anything whatsoever to do with what she did to them, Zaofu, Republic City, or the Earth Kingdom/Empire in general. In her mind, she and Su should be able to apologize to each other - “Su, I’m sorry for the hurt I caused you by doing what I needed to do AKA overthrowing your city, imprisoning you and your husband and your teenagers and attempting to murder your firstborn,” “Kuvira, I’m sorry for the hurt I caused you by not being the Mommy you really wanted,” and everything would be copacetic between the two of them.

Because, once again, she does not think what she did on behalf of the Earth Empire was wrong. Because she is lawful evil; not redeemed, not good under it all, not misunderstood. She is lawful evil.

Other notes just based on the small teaser:

So Mako is no longer wearing the weird sling which held his wounded arm but not his hand which apparently was fine just weirdly dangly in Turf Wars? So I take it at least his arm is working again, if not his bending?

Apparently he’s still stopped combing his hair, however.

WU IS THERE. Being King Wu and having medals on his chest, bless his adorable little heart. Will he have any contact with Mako? I am not holding my breath. Apparently there are only about 60 people total who ship Wuko and that does not include the creators. Never mind, my good friends, I will keep giving you fanfic. WUKO LIVES.

Where the fuck was Lin? Not at the trial? I assume Baatar Jr is hanging out in prison,waiting for his own trial.

I did like the identical arms crossed and Beifong death glares from the twins and Huan.

The Earth Kingdom’s transition to democracy will be rockier than expected, and when Korra, Asami, Mako, and Bolin disagree on the right solution to rising tensions, drastic measures might be required to prevent another war.

With all due respect, what the fuck do Asami, Mako and Bolin have to do with the Earth Kingdom’s transition to democracy? Aren’t all three of them citizens of Republic City? Doesn’t Asami have a business to run? (Which she never does seem to do, one wonders how it is thriving when she’s constantly taking time off to swan around for months in airships and vacations in the Spirit World.) Isn’t Mako a local cop who would have exactly zero to do with anything regarding the Earth Kingdom (who apparently can also get unlimited time off of work to fuck off around the world)? Isn’t Bolin...well, Bolin? Who the actual fuck cares if they have solutions to anything? They don’t matter.

I mean, do not get me wrong, I think it’s good to deal with the whole Earth Empire vs. Earth Kingdom vs. dissolving the monarchy and the entire fucking mess that would be. (What are we doing with Kuvira’s army? How about all those people left in camps? What about all the people who liked her and what she did and want her back? And oh my lord, the economy! It takes countries years to recover from wars like that.) But that’s Wu and Korra’s business, not theirs.

But damn. Either stick to the Krew and follow their lives or branch out and deal with the larger problems at hand that Korra has a responsibility for as the Avatar, but quit putting the Krew into situations they actually have no business being in just for the sake of shoehorning them into a story. BAD WRITING.

#impavid gets crabby #this is why I write fanfic

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musings-on-bucky-barnes · 7 years ago

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Q & A with Owlet re: The Infinite Coffee & Protection Detail series

Along with many other people, one of my favourite Bucky Barnes fic series is The Infinite Coffee & Protection Detail. I was very happy when its author, Owlet @vmohlere kindly agreed to do the below Q&A with me about it, which is under a cut for length.

Q. How did This, You Protect come about?

1. After my third time seeing the movie [Captain America: The Winter Soldier], I thought it would be fun to write a one-shot about how obnoxious it would be to only partially remember and have to look after Steve.

2. "Oh great," says I, "I can practice writing humor."

3. Hundreds of thousands of words later: what even is my life.

Q. From your comments as you were writing This, You Protect, you did not set out to write such a long fic or a series, but you kept having more ideas and tangents and loved writing Grumpy Bucky?

Accurate! It really did just take over my brain.

Q. Now that the main stories in the series are done, after you have a well-earned rest and work on your other writing and poems, are any one shots likely in due course for the IC&PD?

Mmmmmmaaaaaaaybe. I have notes for a few, that take Steve & Barnes out to the end of their lives, but I hesitate to commit, because I need to focus on my original stuff for now.

BUCKY BARNES:

Q. Coffee addict (did he like it in his old life?) and quick to get back to personal grooming (he was a metrosexual before it was popular).

In my mind, coffee: no – the Bucky-Person drank coffee for warmth & caffeine, but I do picture him as pretty dang vain, until his time under Zola’s “tender care” broke him.

Q. What appealed to you about Bucky? What did you learn about him when writing this?

Initially, in Winter Soldier, I immediately latched onto this character who was set up to be remorseless & relentless, but who was confused in a way he didn’t understand by that *face*. In the fight on the helicarrier, you know his handlers would’ve been incensed by his hesitation, when he was obviously standing there thinking, “Okay, asshole: input me some data so I can determine just what kind of irritant you are.”

Q. Where did you get the idea for the Mission and the Briefing?

You see the Briefing in Winter Soldier, in the memory flashes during the bank vault scene. Mission just erupted into my head out of this sense that there are parts of him HYDRA never tore down.

Q. The climax of This, You Protect – when did you decide that sheep pants would help save the day?

It was one of those beautiful surprises that happen when you make stuff, and I cried all over my notebook.

Q. Bucky’s recovery – a slow, realistic process with some setbacks, pain and humor: learning how to open up to others, to get used to physical contact again eventually, how he helps himself and lets others in, safe spots, good things list, reading, long baths, personal care, baking, sheep pants, coffee, helping others and much more.

There have been a couple of times when a really small thing has saved my life. Everyone’s small lifesaving thing is different. Barnes’s are PJs, baking, and concrete assistive actions.

Q. What I love particularly about this Bucky is how others are drawn to him like Steve was as his true, kind self is able to start emerging again, and how his involvement with those people affects them in turn, like the Avengers interacting with each other in new ways (e.g. the ice cream tasting) and them getting to meet the Olds, which is beneficial all around.

People who don’t recognize how valued they are is a trope I never, ever, ever get tired of. We’re all stuck in our meat bodies, and we see all the messy bits in the inside (my best friend says, “Oh Virginia, you will never irritate anyone as much as you irritate yourself”), and we forget that there exist people who just LIKE us, and that that’s enough. I’ll be writing about that my whole life.

STEVE:

Q. The readers find out in this series that Steve tends to cheat at card games and has been doing so for a long time. Is that because it was the only edge he had when he was sick and frail and tired of being underestimated & he can’t or doesn’t want to break the habit now?

Steve’s a snotball and a contrarian. In my head, he learned to cheat from the women in the Star-Spangled Man show, because they liked to fleece guys who were looking to get the women drunk & take advantage of them. So to him, it’s both a habit and a tool to annoy jerks. Also, he thinks it’s funny to be Captain America, Cheater At Cards. Because the one thing other than Bucky that has always been a constant in his life is people underestimating him/trying to define him by one thing (illness/size vs the costume & shield).

Q. And why does he cheat against LYDIA (which is asking her to serve his ass to him on a platter!)? Does he have a death wish?

He recognizes a similar level of sarcasm in her and thinks it’s hilarious to try to fool her and then get walloped by her.

Q. What things did you discover about Steve along the way?

The cheating at cards thing, which was a throwaway line in the first chapter where I referenced it and then grew in the back corner of my mind like a “volunteer tomato” in a compost heap until it became A Thing. Writing “Truth, Justice, and the Cheating Cheater Way” was SO fun.

It was important to me to give Steve a temper and a wide impetuous streak, which I felt both Avengers and Age of Ultron TOTALLY got wrong about him. Except that we pretend Age of Ultron doesn’t exist.

Q. In A Chance to Try Bravery, we get to see Bucky and his behavior from Steve’s perspective, including that Bucky talks out loud to himself, seemingly without realizing he’s doing so. How often does Bucky do that, or does it vary/lessen as time goes on? And what things does Bucky ramble to Steve and others about when high on medication after the robot fight?

At the beginning, he talks to himself out loud a LOT. There are some hints about that in the text. Over time, that does lessen, except when he’s stressed, which makes him mutter pretty constantly.

Doped-up Barnes is verbally affectionate and has a little bit of the Bucky-person’s Brooklyn twang.

TONY:

Look, I HATE what Civil War did to Tony. There is too much in Barnes’s history for Tony to IDENTIFY with. Tony's arc in Iron Man - capture, body modification, his tech being stolen for nefarious use - has similar touch points to Barnes's story.

Also, for pity’s sake, do we believe for one second that Pepper didn’t make him go to therapy? We do not.

PEPPER:

I am not a Gwyneth Paltrow fan, so it surprised the hell out of me how much affection I developed for Pepper approximately 5 words after she popped up in This, You Protect. I just loved writing her, because she’s so dang together and sensible.

MARIA:

It just made me cackle to set her up as the Alpha Badass. I love her.

SAM:

I’m not going to go back and rewrite, but if I did, I would put in more Sam. Sam’s IMPORTANT. He’s the voice of Real People who go through similar crap to Steve & Barnes and have to deal with it all using Real People methods. He’s what it looks like when you make it to the other side of the wringer – his compassion is deep and wide, but he’s not a martyr and his energy isn’t endless.

NATASHA:

I feel like there’s a heft to Natasha that I don’t even know about in my own fictional universe. She’s like Sam – a picture of what it looks like to Survive Some Shit, with more broken-off edges than Sam has. She carries a lot of burdens that she’ll never tell anyone about.

CLINT:

Truly a poetry nerd.

JARVIS:

The helpful busybody (from better surveillance equipment, to books and lubricants!)

I really enjoyed writing JARVIS, because it was cool to think about a being that was omnipresent and largely non-judgmental. I felt like I had to be careful not to use JARVIS too much or it’d turn out to be a deus ex machina.

CAT ELEANOR:

My own personal Cat Eleanor, who was similarly judgy and protective, was a grey tabby named Boadicea (Boadie) whom I collected as a very ill stray kitten and who lived with me for 13 years. She liked to eat her dinner from a plate on the table and was a terrible stealer of French fries.

Sidebar: I still have her ashes in a bag in my sock drawer, because what the heck am I supposed to do with them?

THOR:

Thor’s compassion & wisdom caught me off guard every time he showed up, even though I was *trying* to remember that he’s powerful and practically immortal. But he outdid my ideas for him.

THE OLDS:

I guess in some parallel universe that I’m channeling, they must be real people, because they popped fully formed into my head like a trio of hilarious Athenas. Esther has a couple of great-nieces on the West Coast, and Ollie has a few distant step-ish younger relatives from his de facto late husband’s side of the family. Functionally, they are each other’s family.

THE CARP, TOSHIRO HAYASHI AND KAZUE:

Based in part on Sushi Gin in Lawrence, Kansas, where I once had a delicious and fun solo meal at the sushi bar, and Masa’s Sushi and Robata Bar in Spring, Texas, whose nabeyaki udon I’m crazy for.

THE COFFEE BAR AND KATIE:

I mentioned her briefly in Team-Building Exercises as if she were important, so then I had to create her for The Long Road Begins at Home. She was a bit of a conundrum until I thought of making her one of the victims of the Chitauri attack.

THE ANTI-VALENTINE’S NO TOUCH CLUB

Q. What were its origins?

Honestly I just wanted to write more Hill, because I surprised myself with how much I liked writing her, and I knew she’d hate Valentine’s Day as much as Barnes. From there, it was a matter of thinking who else would hate it and then add Steve, because of all his “whither thou goest” vibe.

Q. How do you picture the next Valentine’s Day meeting of that club, since two of the members are now bonking each other every chance they get?

That’s not until the NEXT year. And they spend the whole time very purposely not touching one another until they’re cross-eyed and jump each other in the elevator. Hill grumps at them a lot.

THE HAIR CLUB:

It was important to me that the women of the Tower be one another’s support group in the midst of all that testosterone. One of the things that I enjoyed about writing Team-Building Exercises was that it was vignettes that appeared out of thin air without any explanation.

… That being said, it made sense to me that the women’s sense of ease with one another would draw Barnes in just like Esther did. He has no idea how much he lurked and stared at them before they invited him over. Once she Got It, Pepper’s natural caretaker tendencies kicked in, and Barnes was in. Pepper is a Fixer.

Q. Present tense isn’t often used all the way through a long fic. I think the only time I’ve used it in a fic was when I gave the POV character amnesia, and present tense felt right, as he was in the current moment and it was all he had, with no memories to fall back on. But you used it so well that it suits and isn’t jarring. What led you to decide on present tense?

There’s no other option for that character, in my mind. Barnes experiences everything with almost complete immediacy, and present tense was the only way to convey that.

Q. Are Bucky and Steve likely to get their own cat at some stage?

Yes.

Q. YES!!!! Do you have a name in mind for it? And does it love Bucky more than it loves Steve?

I don't want to say anything more about their cat, in case I write that part!

Q. When will the public find out about Bucky being alive, and when will they find out about Bucky and Steve being together?

I have no head canons for these questions. Miracle on Park Avenue is not part of Infinite Coffee, though.

Q. It was interesting that you released Steve and Bucky getting together in Advanced Happiness Skills before you did The Long Road Begins at Home fic. Did the muse direct you to write and release it early?

I tried really hard not to write Long Road – I knew it would eat up acres of time, and I wanted to be done after Advanced Happiness. But it got to the point that I had to write notes or have my head explode, and eventually I had so many dang notes that I figured I’d better type the damn things up.

Q. So, you actually started writing Team-Building Exercises as a standalone instead of as a teaser for The Long Road Begins at Home?

Yes, I really didn't intend to go any farther than that.

Q. And at what point in the series did you realize that it would become Stucky?

Oh gosh, I guess it was always in the background, from the early chapters of This, You Protect. But it was a long time before I thought I’d actually write that part.

Q. Did anything change due to fan comments? What went off in directions that you hadn’t planned on in the plotting stage? What things got left out?

There’s a funny bit about Barnes freaking that Steve will drown in the reflecting pool in the National Mall, until he discovers that it’s only about 18 inches deep.

There was one small detail that I put in because of a fan comment, but I’m sorry to say that I can’t remember what it was.

“Planned on in the plotting stage” … uh.

Um.

Er.

I wrote this whole thing by the seat of my pants.

Q. It can be fun and fraught to do a series, as there is a lot to juggle and things to seed in to set up plots and developments for further down the track. How did you keep tabs on what needed to happen when?

Gotta be magic. I mean, I held the whole thing in my head for years and could see it as clear as day. It crowded out many other things.

Q. What is your writing process like, or was it different for this series?

I write and tinker almost daily, but I’ve found that my best pieces tend to be the ones that build up like pressure in my head and fall out all at once. My Star Wars fic, Generational Mistakes, is over 17,000 words that literally came out all at one time, starting around 1:00 am, when it woke me up. I had to take the day off work, and by the time I had the whole draft out on paper (hand written!), I was literally crying from the pain in my hand.

That’s an extreme example, of course, usually it’s more like the beginning of a thing blooms, and sections build up until they attain enough gravity to ooze out in blobs. I generally have to start out writing by hand until I pick up some inertia and can switch to typing, though I also do a lot of editing in the first typing pass if a whole piece is hand-written.

I write very badly to self-imposed deadlines and very well to feeling like I Owe Someone, so the reader comments really propelled me along throughout the whole series.

Q. The fics have really shown the therapeutic power of cooking, as well as different recipes, especially in the comments section.

There is not enough I can say about the comments section. It took on a life of its own in a way that I would not even have imagined – not just the screaming and the recipes, which were great, but the way people jumped in to comfort and support one another. It is really beautiful, and I’m beyond grateful, and so proud of all of them and to be a part of them.

I’m sincerely humbled by and thankful to all the comments, but especially those from people who found comforting or useful bits in Barnes’s recovery. Even if this one life isn’t the only one we get, it’s the only one we *remember*, and damaging shit is a pure fact of existence. To have provided material help to even one suffering person (much less the dozens of who’ve reached out) makes a strong place in my own heart. I have a concrete thing that I can look at with my own eyeballs and say for real and for sure that I Did Well and I Helped. That gives a human life ballast. It’s an honor.

I started Long Road at a time when I was feeling super demoralized about my original works, and the life it made for itself in fandom still just knocks me over. If y’all were going to have that much faith in me, I figure I’d better lift up my head and have faith in myself. Thank you for that.

xXx

Thank you very much to Owlet for putting up with all of my questions, and if at some stage down the road she is willing to do another one, I already have some questions written down for it!

This Q&A will also be available on Owlet’s AO3 page.

#infinite coffee and protection detail #fic #q&a #owlet #bucky barnes #fanfic #my posts #author q&a

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tumblunni · 7 years ago

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Random list of still WIP npc charries I need to make for this game, yo

* Mayor Grandma The Ultimate

Not actually anyone’s grandma but like... Everyone’s Grandma. That whole ‘village elder as a goddamn force of nature’ kind of character. She’s the Big Good. She’s this tiny unassuming gran who had a history as a legendary hero and is now the super amazing mayor who can solve goddamn anything and defeat any threat against the village and just... HOLDS US ALL WITH HER GRUMPY LOVE I’m imagining her like the protagonist’s gran in The Wee Free Men, or Granny Weatherwax from other discworld books, or the grandma from Summer Wars, or the grandma from Jade Cocoon 1 who even turned out to be literally the deity of badass grandmas who came down into mortal form to slap the shit out of some fools. (The “grim midwife of life and death” is a really fucking badass title)

Anyway she isn’t actually technically the ‘mayor’, she’s just like.. village elder under old country rules, but Regis is the duke that was sent down to Officially be ruler of this province. Officially. It’s just that absolutely everyone knows that the duke is just a figurehead and Ancient Powerful Gran Of The Old Ways is the real power behind this well-oiled machine of a town. Even Regis knows, lol! The previous duke was a total asshole that got served a slice of humble pie by gran and they were fighting at every turn, but now Regis and Mortimer are the Comparatively Less Stuck Up Noblefolks and the town is better off for it. Still, even if Regis isn’t evil like his brother, he’s still a bit foppish and occasionally stupid about what it actually takes to run a town. So they do come into conflict sometimes, but mostly its like BFFs quarrelling instead of the old Shephard Grandma Brings The Wrath of The Heavens Upon Rich Man No Matter How Many Rich Man Guards He Has, Seriously We Found One Of Them Upside Down On Top Of The Roof How Did That Even Happen

And then also i think that she might have a larger role in Blair’s plot cos Blair is kinda like the new Village Hero In Training. But she’s INTENSELY reluctant about it! Not cos she doesn’t like being buff as fuck and punching through walls, but because she doesn’t think she could ever be better than supergran. Cos like.. “yeah I’ve got the muscles but I don’t have the brains, how could I ever cope without you?” She gets really fucking sad at the very idea that supergran might be retiring, and like.. might die someday. So it’s someone who’s clearly qualified for the role repeatedly rejecting it and bringing up more and more perfectionist excuses why she isn’t ready yet, just because she cares so much for her mentor figure and wishes she could fight the tide of time. And that’s how Blair became the Miss Perfect rival type character, and why she’s so humble and oblivious of her own strengths. Also I think this same plot would have links to mortimer and sorrel too, because there was An Event that happened 15 years ago that was what caused mayorgran to start feeling as if she’d hit her limits and the town needs a new Hero. Apparantly ~something~ happened that was like.. the one time mayorgran ever found a problem she couldn’t solve. And also at that time mortimer and sorrel used to be childhood friends, since they’re cousins, but suddenly sorrel’s mum fell in status amoung the noble family and there was a huge upheaval of the town’s status quo. What exactly is this mystery...?

ALSO! she must have a big hat i just want her to have a really big hat (mayorgran, not sorrel, she’s fine with her medium hat)

* Sorrel’s mum

(and Regis’s sister and Morty’s aunt. It IS cousins when someone’s the son of your mum’s sibling, right? I can’t remember all the rules for first removed and stuff...)

Generic Mom. She’s just so NICE! Isn’t she nice? Don’t you agree? For some reason she had a falling out with Duke Regis in the past, and now she lives in comparative poverty and like.. no press statement has ever been released on WHY this happened, and everyone’s become rather distrustful of Regis because of it. What exactly is going on?

I kinda wanted to leave it vague at just this, cos you can’t exactly talk about her at all without spoiers. So yeah the next paragraph is gonna not reveal exactly what happened in that backstory, but it’ll talk about this character’s personality and what it.. actually is, I guess..??

SO...

...

A kind of over the top cloyingly “nice” person who really isn’t. A bit of Umbridge and a bit of an overbearing soccer mom. Like.. at first you’ll be wondering ‘why is Sorrel so self hatey when her mom is so nice to her’ but then it becomes clear that’s not what’s really happening. Mom only supports when you act how she wants you to, its a classic ‘living through your children’ situation where she pushes her kid way too far to achieve some goals they never wanted in the first place. And she’s a bit of a moral crusader, like she’s just.. SO convinced that she is ‘nice’, and that if she just acts ‘polite’ and ‘mumsy’ and cute and harmless and follows all the feminine stereotypes it balances out any horribly not nice things she does. Because she’s ‘not that kind of person’. Anything she does is good because she’s good, yknow? And anything Sorrel does is bad if it shows any sort of personality outside of what her mum has so kindly picked out for her, I mean why would you be so selfish, seriously! She kinda always lives like that, seething with resentment and selfish desire and looking for excuses she can use to paint someone as Bad so she is Justified in feeling superior to them and/or ruining their life. And her Nice facade covers up a lot of rather bigoted attitudes she holds, in addition to all the abusiveness. Ones that can be far more insidious cos she delivers them in such a Nice way and appeals to Logic and Compromise and oh but You Know, Everyone Knows, Isn’t It Just Natural And Biological, look at them getting Emotional. She’s very much the archetypical horrid nobleman that we were all so grateful that Regis wasn’t. Except she’s also way more devious and able to hide it beneath a relateable facade, so she can get these stupid naive townsfolk to do stuff that only makes life harder for themselves for the sake of like.. mythical trickle-down benefits that don’t actually exist. And oh, Sorrel, you know you could pass so well for a good Narcian lady if you dyed your hair, you know? Not like Regis’s filthy child. (She says, even though she also married a foreigner, just one from a majority white country...)

Basically she’s just gonna be a detestable monster, and the only pure evil person in the plot. And even more evil because she does such a good job hiding it, and has been able to spread her toxic influence to so many victims undetected for so long. Cos seriously, the story starts off with her being treated as a martyr and people clamouring to replace Regis with her, and it’s just gonna be So Damn Uncomfortable in retrospect when you do a second playthrough and see even Sorrel’s friends completely oblivious to her mum’s evilness. (″Friends? Honey, you don’t HAVE friends. Well, who do you need except little old me?”)

Also I was thinking randomly as a subplot there could be a thing that her mum was in charge of the town library once, and her planned renovations fell through and now the town doesn’t have a library at all, just this big abandoned building and The Enduring Shame. It’d be a good example of how she handles things, cos this is an Enduring Shame for Sorrel and not her. from Sorrel’s perspective she thinks that her mother trusted her with a big responsibility and she fucked it up and thus deserves the scorn. But really her mum just threw a sinking ship at her so she could take the blame, and then was all like “OH THE POOR GIRL IT WAS JUST TOO MUCH RESPONSIBILITY, PLEASE DON’T BLAME HER”. Spreading all these negative rumours to encourage Sorrel to never try and be independant ever again, but in a sneaky reverse psychology way so she could still look like a loving mother. But anyway this is how Sorrel ended up running a Secret Underground Library, her one form of rebellion against her mother’s control. She rescued as many books as she could when the library went under, and now she keeps them all crammed in her room and tries to spread them around without leaving any threads back to her. Cos she knows that her mum is super trusted, and that even good people can’t be trusted to keep secrets from her, and nobody would believe her if she tried to explain why it needs to be secret. So instead she just plays it off as if she’s just another person receiving books from the ghost library, and she’s totally searching for an answer to this mystery too, honest! It’d be a sign that you reached high friendship level with her when she’s like.. able to believe that you’d believe her if she told you her mum abuses her. And the first step of that is ‘hey remember that library we were questing for? its literally under my bed.’ Welcomes you to the secret trapdoor book heaven and you have a strangely romantic evening going OOOOMG FIRST EDITION TOLKEINS (or whatever the equivelant is in this universe XD) But it probably still takes her a while after that to open up about exactly why the library has to be secret, and to come to terms with the fact that she really doesn’t deserve how her mother treats her. So I’d definately give you an opportunity here to Fuck Up Massively by telling the mum about the library, yup. Gotta torment the player every now and again! XD ...but I mean if you’re reading this you know all the spoilrs so you’ll be fine, lol

* Quincy’s grandma (or possibly grand aunt?)

A stern and super professional businesswoman who has a bit of a quarrel with him over how exactly to balance profit vs like.. morality. She’s not a BAD person, her business isn’t so profit-heavy that its like all the actual atrocities you see in mega corporations nowadays. But she’s very distant from her customer base and also from what it’s even like to be poor. And she doesn’t believe that such minor things to improve the shopping experience would like.. actually change anything. What is ‘brand loyalty’?! What is this principle that if people are able to live more comfortably they’ll be able to spend more money on luxuries?? She used to be less greedygrump once, but she gets more jaded every year and keeps bumping money higher and higher up her priority list, abandoning things that used to seem important. And similarly she’s become super ‘I don’t need anyone, I’m better off being alone’, and developed this strained relationship with her grand-nephew. I think maybe I could add another layer of sad to this, woo! I think she raised Quincy alone after his parents were Giant Assholes and ran off. Probably stole a bunch of the family money, probably left her with a failing business that they’d ruined with all their selfish decisions over the years, and an angry mob out for blood against the brand name. And Quincy was very sickly as a kid, so she had to work a lot, leading to the distant relationship and obsession with profit. But she’s become so obsessed and paranoid of losing her money even after it became less of a death sentence, and she just keeps working super hard even though now she has time to spend with her family. And she gets scared seeing Quincy grow up cos she remembers how his parents turned into absolute monsters when she used to trust them so much. Being distant is better than getting hurt again... and god damn why does he have his mother’s eyes...

So yeah, they’re a bit estranged, and you can potentially help with that, woo! But mostly during the main game you’ll just hear about her cos everyone is like ‘oh, are you from [grauntie’s brand name]? why don’t you have this thing, she always has it’ and Quincy is like ‘no, this is my own store.. we’re a small business.. but umm, we’re cheaper..’ He’s trying to step out from under her shadow and prove that her philosophy is wrong, so maybe he can bring back the loving grauntie that he remembers from his childhood. i think maybe the ending could be that she turns up to inspect his new shop and they have some sort of merchant showdown and like... even if Quincy loses he still ends up proving her wrong because she sees just how much everyone in this town cares about him and how he’s improved various parts of their life by bringing access to these imported goods and just generally being a supportive community member. Maybe there are some things more important than profit...

Oh and also I think she was the one responsible for helping out Blair and Dionne when they were running from their abusive parents, and that’s why the two of them are the most friendly with Quincy at the start of the game. They hadn’t seen each other since they were kids, and Blair is kinda like I Owe You A Blood Debt, Is There Anyone You Need Me To Stab Grauntie looks back on this as a moment of weakness tho, and that’s why she stopped keeping in touch with them, she’s embarassed she used to be so sentimental. Cos like.. she spent so much money helping set up these girls with their own house and she lost out on a business opportunity (it was a property she originally purchased to turn into a franchise store) She can’t stop thinking about how tight the funds were around that time and how if she messed up she could have lost her own kid for the sake of helping some other kids... But then she turns up in town and its like Oh No I Walked Down The Street By Accident *gets buried in blair hugs* And she can’t stop crying seeing how much they grew up, and then they’re all like “we’ve been trying to send you a cut of the cafe profits for the last seven years!” and she’s like “NOOOOO, KEEP IT” *even more embarassed at doing even more irrational sympathetic actions*

Also possibly she could get a crush on mayor grandma cos they are both grumpy badasses of opposite? Strength gran vs wisdom gran!

+++

so yeh i made a bunch of grans/demigrans of various kinds, and now I am thankfully satisfied with this story’s gremp quotient

#test game thing #but should i add more grandpas too??#regis kinda counts as one even though his role in the plot is as a dad #but i mean you could give him grandkids if you pick his son as your love interest route! :3

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themanicgalaxy · 3 years ago

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SPN 5X13 The Song Remains the Same

aw nuts I'm still one behind

ah well I'm severely burned and prom is tomorrow

god I hope Cas is in this one

HEY! CHERRY PIE!

Listen I actually like this song

He's dreaming isn't he

HI ANNA

this is a nice set

Ah right when Cas was Conflicted I see

ok so meeting

I still think Angel Anna popping in to say hi and shit was fun man

thE FUCKING LIGHTS ARE THE ENTRANCE

wait no I see Cas is lamp and where that came from I see it now

they told Cas, Cas didn't let them

'no on escapes' oh?

sAM WINCHESTER HAS TO DIE?

that was a cool scene why don't we have more

just...disembowlement

"another way" here we go

"you've changed" "maybe too late" : (

"come near Sam Winchester and I kill you"

are...are they even friends though?

"who's glenn close" aw

oH THE GREASE POSTER

MA GIC

no give me more Sam and Cas too goDAMIT

yes I know why leave me alone

the Exasperated "I don't understand that reference" and Dean's "my cool guy-ness doesn't work on him" IS SO FUNNY

also cas looks FUCKEd

ohGOD HE LOOKS F U C K ED

ah way back when things weren't horrible and not disillusioned

LITTLE NERDY DUDE WITH WINGS OH MY GOD

the fucking trench coat

did they steal a car off screen lmao?

THOSE MOVIES HAVEN'T EVEN COME OUT YET LMAO

Dean please chill

oh this is gonna be fun

THE LITTLE GLANCE AT MARY NO THAT WAS SO GOOD

"you look familiar" *Dean and Mary exchange a panicked look*

oH MYGOD

Sam is not taking this well

Sam and Dean, Sam and Deanna

Sam is just staring at his mom :(

oh sHIT HE NEVER RLY GOT TO MEET HER

Dean DESPERATELY TRYING TO BACKPEDAL

Dean you little shit

HearT Attack Huh Mary

I LIKE MARY AND DEAN'S LITTLE FACE OFFS THEY'RE FUN

ANNA! SHE CAN DO VOICES?

the little half smile before he says "not exactly"

shit..SHIT HE'S GONE UH OH

she'S SO SHORT COMPARED TO THEM

MR WOODSEN IS FUCKING DEAD THE ANGELS GOT HIM

the like...half power, but half not is COOL

were times tough? was it Anna projecting?

"you too Dean" HER VOICE SHOOK :(

KNIFE FIGHT MARY KNIFE FIGHT M A R Y

tHAY BLOODY SHOT WAS COOL

B L O O D S I G I L

oh good time to explain it to John he's gonna take it well

THE IMPALA

"OR SO HELP ME I WILL TURN THIS CAR AROUND" IT'S THE MOST DAD THING HE'S EVER SAID

AWKWARD FAMILY ROAD TRIP

Dean explaining hunter things to his dad has to be fucking weird

Well...John doesn't seem like an ass, he wants to help

just cuts his hand ok then

"how big"

"you remind me of my dad" HE LOOKS SO FUCKING SAD

he's also so much more subdued

"my dad raised me in it"

John: proceeds to trash talk himself for like...a whole minute

"your father was supposed to protect you" SPOKEN BY THEIR FATHER IS

fuck it I'm tearing up

"I get it" Sam and John are super similar ok I see you

HE COULD HAVE DONE BETTER, HE COULD HAVE BEEN LIKE BOBBY FUCKING CHRIST SAM

no what happened is that John made Mary this martyr that didn't exist, this exalted thing

HE COULD HAVE BEEN MORE PRODUCTIVE

"I understand" SAM I S W E A R TO FUCKING G O D

OH THIS IS YONG URIEL

"I'm still your superior" ooo?

"They will kill you uriel" THAT WAS YOU AND CAS

"you're just gonna have to trust me" D E A N

"i'm your son" oh my god Dean

oh this.scene.

I'm crying again

"I raised my kids to be hunters, I did that to you?" aofs'

yeah I'm like...actively crying fuck me

that date is...burned into his brain isn't it

god Mary's reaction of "no not this, not again" oh my god no no no no I'm crying

This is not hyperbole I was actually sobbing

"leave John" IS YOUR PLAN

Sam...

"you can't have that normal life" oh Sam :(

'your children will be cursed' jesus Christ

oh god she's pregnant that's why she reacted like that

shit both of them

I cannot see ANYTHING

SAM GOT IMPALED?

JOHN IS?///DEAD??

MICHAEL POSSESSED JOHN??

IS ANNA DEAD FOR REAL? WHAT THE FUCk?

bloodline, like novak

CAIN AND FUCKING ABEL

THEY DIDN'T EVEN CAST A B E -

"well get some therapy pal" dean...dean you can't say that it just looks funny if you say that

"I practically raised him" oof

"you're gonna do whatever god says' "yes because I am a good son" OHHHHHHHHHH

Dean: that is a dead end street

holY SHIT GET FUCKED

"I got to believe I choose what I do with my unimportant little life" HOYLS HIT YHES

SMACK HIM WITH THE DESTINY HAMMER

you...planned it..oh my god

free will's an illusion NOT IF CAS HAS ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT

ah he scrubs their minds so she can't remember

ah fuck he's failed this plan twice now it's gotta HURT

the arranging the jacket was so fucking sinister

"you made it" "I did? I'm very surprised"

I love him

TEAM FREE WILL!

"one ex blood junkie, one dropout with 6 bucks to his name and mr. comatose over there"

"i'm not laughing"

you guys fucking suck at making objective decisions

thE FUCKING ANGEL THING

" i can't even put my finger on why I like it" I hate this

"angels are watching over you" I'm going to eat glass I love the glass it's so crunchy

1. hunting. FUCKING- BOTH OF THEIR PARENTS WERE LIKE "HeY whoever got you into hunting probably fucked both of you up" AND THEY'RE LIKE NAH It'S FINE. THIS IS THE SAME ENERGY AS LIKE...several people staging an intervention and you still not getting it. Young!John is great! He's rightfully concerned! Mary is badass! with knife fight

2. free will. The EXPLICIT free will vs destiny thing, the basically dragging free will into existence despite everyone telling you that's not how it goes, the subtle reinforcement with the angels at the beginning, Michael coming into the bloodline, the whole thing with hunting, how they still ended up hunters it's just. Fuck me.

3. Sam's giving up, that's not good. Like you can see it in the "I forgive my dad," you can see it in the "just give up, I don't want to exist anymore" thing. Like...he's tired of fighting, he wants it to stop? I think is what I'm getting.

4. I FUCKING LOVE CASTIEL. He doesn't get the pop cultural references, just kinda does HORRIBLY bad shit that's bad for him, and in the end just kinda is Out of It. I love him. He makes every scene he's in better. Also I'm seeing the more...Sam thing? like I see potential, and they're both the Weird Kids of their crowds?

5. I like the sets. Like the art direction for the sets was nice, and the costuming felt especially on point this episode? Like they changed Anna's look a lil, and I thought it worked really well.

6. ANNA. She seemed so remorseful, and she had this whole thing going on, and she was still their superior and she was great. Also, she's trying to execute free will too! like it's in an entirely different manner than Sam and Dean's but still? This better not be her last appearance.

It FUCKING IS? I HATE THIS WHAT THE HELL

7. For posterity, that scene where they're talking to their mom and Dean just kinda...breaks down instantly and says "you're my mom" and both of them say "leave our dad, no more existence," and the "I'm pregnant" and the "I raised you to be hunters, I did that to you?" and the "no john did." fucking broke me. Like so much pain is happening there and it broke me

#pawswatchesspn #5x13 The Song Remains the Same #that title fucking #I'm tearing up again #god the glass is crunchy tonight

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