#went off on a bit of a tangent away from the original point of Crown Thoughts but i'm just so excited for the trakands!!!!

[markantonys]

@butterflydm observed that morgase's crown appears to be a match for the crown elayne is putting on in the trailer!

so now that we have confirmation that this crown is present in the white tower IRL at some point, i think the elayne scene takes place IRL rather than as an accepted test AU vision or anything like that (surely an AU vision of her becoming queen would be more likely to have her putting the crown on in caemlyn dressed in queenly regalia than in the white tower dressed as a novice/accepted).

my guess is elayne goes to morgase's white tower guest room to try the crown on, either sneakily while morgase isn't around or morgase tells her to try it on as a way to impress upon her the Weight Of Duty To Andor in the middle of a lecture about running off from the tower last season. either way, some kind of scene to build elayne's character a little more and show us that she's internally wrestling with the conflict between her duty to andor/her family and her duty to the white tower/her friends/hunting the black ajah.

i'm so excited! i always felt that elayne's queen side and aes sedai side should've had more Conflicts Of Interest than they did in the books, so i would LOVE if the show delved into that more and showed her sometimes feeling torn between them or having to sacrifice one set of duties in order to pursue the other set. and having morgase visit the tower along with the brothers and elaida is such a galaxy-brain idea that i never considered in all my s3 speculation; it allows us to see the FULL trakand family dynamic with all four of them in the same place together (doubly so with this probably being the focal storyline of ep2, along with elaida's "scores to settle" with both moiraine and siuan as teased in her character blurb), and getting to witness elayne's relationship with her mom firsthand in dedicated scene(s) will tell us so much about elayne's character and upbringing. even in the books, the only full trakand fam and elayne-morgase scene we get to witness firsthand (as opposed to elayne just recalling interactions she's had with her mom) is the EOTW sequence which is all through rand's eyes. we rarely got a direct look at the family behind closed doors! (not including the reunions with morgase and elayne/galad late in the series since i'm more thinking about seeing the "starting" family dynamics to show off the initial status quo before everybody's had their character development.) i can't wait to probably get some behind-closed-doors looks at the fam in s3!!!! if s2's handling of the damodred family story is anything to go by, we'll be in for a treat.

and, much as i've been dying to see the rest of the fam (especially gawyn <3), it works so well structure-wise to have saved them until s3. because s2 introduces elayne on her own as firmly a supporting character, with all her scenes having egwene and/or nynaeve as the "stars" and her as the scene partner for them to bounce off of. but now that the audience has come to know and like elayne as an extension of our established main characters, she can blossom into an established main character herself and start being the star of her own scenes instead of always being tied to one of the s1 mains.

this makes it the perfect time to only now start meeting the rest of her family and seeing what those dynamics are like. the show-only audience might not have cared as much if the entire family was introduced at once last season, but now that they've already known elayne for a whole season, they'll be more curious about meeting the rest of her family and seeing what she's like when they're around! (another difference with the EOTW scene - not only is it outsider POV, we also don't know any of these people and aren't particularly invested in observing the family dynamics.) the show doesn't shy away from the books' big cast of characters, but so far it has been very smart about bringing them in as a slow trickle and always making sure newcomers are linked to established characters at first before blossoming off into their own, so as not to overwhelm viewers or make them feel that too much time is being spent on new people they don't care about at the expense of the established characters.

[kulvefaggoth]

HI THIS IS YOUR LOCAL GARBAGE GAY BOY AND HE WANTS TO VENT ABOUT KINGDOM HEARTS

A couple of days ago i had an enligtening talk about my favorite hot garbage series with a mutual and i kind of ended up realizing i had a lot of pent up stuff about it that i never really let out

While i did vent a little already i feel like i need to put this really out of my head because it’s been consuming me in a way. And since this site is designed for just screaming random stuff into the void i wanna take advantage of that for once

Now first and foremost this is meant as a very personal thing. This is not an elaborate critique or a well thought work. This is a vent and i want this to be read as a vent by a gay with a lot of feelings about video games. ESPECIALLY about Kingdom Hearts and some stuff about KH3. 

Now let’s get to the meat of this course of mind screaming

I’ve been into Kingdom Hearts for a very long time. The first game i played was Kingdom Hearts II (the original KH was kinda hard to find here for some reason) circa 2005/2006. Bear in mind i had no idead what KH was. Game advertisement wasn’t (and still kind of isn’t) a big thing here in Brasil specially if you were a poor kid like me. Hell consoles were pretty inacessible to most of the people i was close with and me and other 2 kids must’ve had a PS2 in the same time frame. The main way you would know about new or cool games was through word of mouth or recognizing brands like Castlevania and Mega Man. 

But i was always kind of a freaky little avant-garde child which meant i ended up having a very different taste from most of the people around me. I had like 1 other friend who had actually played a Final Fantasy around let alone something like Shin Megami Tensei for an exemple which i also didn’t even knew was a thing. And i’ve always tried to find something new. Something that gave me some new experience. I’ve ended up playing a lot of more niche games like Drakengard and the Atelier Iris games (god i still love 2 and 3 a lot) and it was this mindset that eventually led me into the game that had a bunch of random anime kids and disney characters in it’s cover.

To say that i was confused by KH2 is an understatement. I knew absolutelly nothing about the previous games. Who is this “Sora”? Who was the red haired man? Why the fuck am i fighting with a giant key? Again what the hell is up with the Disney characters? Also bear in mind i must’ve been 9/10 yo brazillian kid whose entire english vocabulary came from video games and a couple of songs. Some stuff wasn’t even the plot getting dense it was just me not getting the actual language. 

And yet it’s also an understatement to say the i fell very deeply in love with that weird little game. The combat was great. The plot had SO MUCH DRAMA and i knew only about 1/3 of what was happening at any given time. Keyblades where fun and ridiculous. Demyx was a bitch.

As soon as i’ve finished KH2 for the first time i used what little internet i had back then to learn more. I found out there was a game for the easy emulated GBA. It kind of sucked but it was more Kingdom Hearts. Being unable to locate a copy of KH1 for a while i did the only thing i could actually do: i’ve played and replayed KH2 to exaustion. I did most of the stuff except a couple of the minigames and gummy routes because they where boring. The feeling of learning how to fight against Sephiroth, mastering his moves and eventually being able to beat him with a Kingdom Key in proud was a big moment for me. Beating all the Hades cups felt great.

About a year later i was able to get a copy of KH1 and by this time Re:CoM was out so i got that too. Played both of them throughly even thought KH1 clumsy mechanics kick my ass to this day probably.

Then another year passes i hear two new games where coming out... to consoles i didn’t own and honestly i couldn’t justify the cost of to my parents. I was pretty bummed but still i kept getting invested. Hell i was already balls deep into this series and only dreamed of how it would take off in the future. I even remember kind of writing a “script” for a sequel that i tried to make with two other randoms in RPG Maker. Never went anywhere and i know in my heart it sucked but still. That was how into this i was. The prerelease hype for Days was killing me even. Member XIV? How?

Also side note: to my edgy ass 12/13 year old self the idea of playing as Organizattion XIII was literally a dream. 

Days came out and if you where like me in the good old days of youtube videos that had like 5 minutes at max then you know that video game let’s play were almost impossible to do. I had to get a LOT of info from second hand about what actually happened in Days. Then i ended up getting a “decent” pc and was able to emulate it with absolute WORST frame rate. Still it worked and i was able to know what was happening.

But BBS was a completly separate beast. PSP emulation was basically non-existant when it came out so it actually took me a couple of years to actually play it. I had a friend that had a PSP (and that to this day i feel only got a PSP because i kept raving about it having both a KH game and a Final Fantasy fighting game on it because he was 100% that little shit but that is completly besides any point) and of course he couldn’t lend me because it was pretty expensive around here and that’s a very useless tangent.

Anyway time passes as it must and just as Sora fell deeper and deeper into the realms of sleep i too fell into as much Kingdom Hearts stuff as i could. The complex theories, the AMVs (GOD the AMVs), the plot summaries for games i didn’t play, all that good shit. So for years i’ve built within myself this... tension i shall call. The grand plot momentum that mr Nomura seemed to be building. The misterious indentities the hinted at hidden plots. The nature of stuff that seemed very vague and opaque. And as the new games where released it seemed more and more that they where building blocks into the grand prize: Kingdom Hearts 3.

Now here’s the thing. I don’t 100% agree of the narrative that we waited “13 years” for KH3. I think if you where actually a fan of the series back then then each game in it’s own way seemed to be it’s own event. With that i want to say the while we ALL waited for KH3 for me at least it seemed it needed time to build up. 

Now here’s the thing. Between BBS and DDD being both in consoles i didn’t own and me getting an Xbox 360 (PS3 prices where absolutelly INSANE here) i seemed to drift a bit away from KH. While before i waited for new game releases with baited breath i now found myself very blasé about DDD. I was getting used to it i guess. Also high school came and a lot of stuff started changing. KH felt like a bit too connected to my childhood too i guess. I was still a fan and still loved it to death but KH ended fading away a little for me even if it lighted a fire in me when people talked about it. This must’ve been around 2010.

I think it wasn’t until KH3 was formally announced that it all came back to me. The drive to find and consume and engage with as much of KH lore and theories as possible. Also i didn’t really get into “proper social networks” as a whole until 2012/2013. Weirdo i know. By then consuming these thing was a lot easier. Internet was a lot more acessible. I could just open up a tab of a KH wiki in my phone and read away from there.

And there was this rush y’know. This thing of finally seeing a finish line. Not that actually expected or even wish for KH to end but it was KH3! The big one! And remember the tension i’ve mentioned earlier? It was always kind of present and it ended up skyrocketing during this period. I was already knowledgeable about KH but during this time i was almost a goddamn lore master. I knew the whole gig inside and out. Even the weird shit from DDD. The stuff they added to the collections just kept it going too. As did X/UX (which in my grand KH tradition i too didn’t play but i think most people feel me here).

All a big ball of complex yarn and plot and madness that would SURELLY burst with KH3. After all this time all this tension it would come. Release. Answers.

But to me that was the aspect in which KH3 failed.

Now don’t get me wrong i actually like KH3. Quite a lot. And Nomura did apparently tied up a lot of arcs. The lost are found and saved. Piss Grandpa Xehanort is dead.

But it didn’t release my tension. It didn’t burst it into the magic fireworks and ecstasy. The tension is still here. Hell the tension seems even stronger now.

And a lot of it has to with how KH3 seems to still be hiding so many fucking cards from us. Literally in one case. It was a vague feeling of unceartainty before but when i came through the Sleeping Worlds theory it just RUSHED onto me. The story doesn’t feel complete.

Now this is not the same as FFXV. I have a couple of... harsh opinions about it and it’s plot and story are front and center on the list. That story was absolutelly unfinished but not in the same way. To me it feels like Nomura just HID parts of the story. We are not getting the full picture. A lot of shit is really really REALLY weird. I’m still not over Riku’s sudden haircut.

But here’s the real gag to me. Nier: Automata gave me the same feeling the first time i played it. But then i came upon route B. And then Route C. and that’s when the TRUE game showed itself. Nier kept a lot hidden but it was hidden within itself. If you just keep playing you actually can access those hidden parts and eventually you reach your true goal. The actual ending. An ending so final that you might even like giving up your save data to help somebody else achieve it too is the only true option.

Yet KH3 has no such crowning grace. At least not for now. And that’s half the reason i made this. 

KH3 feels incomplete but in a way i could really love if the game eventually completed itself. Reading the Sleeping Worlds theory i was like “omg this makes VERY much sense. but if it makes so much sense why isn’t it in the game?”. And then it clicked. DLC. It’s 100% possible the actual plot may come as DLC. 

But an even darker thought crossed my mind and it’s filing me with actual rage: This is meant to be another game. This is the Powers That Be (Nomura, Disney, Square-Enix, take your pick...) unaturally extending this “Saga” beyond it’s ending point. If it does turn out that KH3 had some dream hijinks going on then it was 100% possible and BETTER to include that in the actual game. But since KH is known for having so many side games what is the harm in doing another right?

Well you harm the integrity of your plot. I know we say the plot is hot garbage but come the fuck on that is what is holding us here. Or at least it’s what is holding me for so long. Setting up another saga is absolutelly fine but breaking away for you ending like this is even worse. How? Why? The why is probably money but still.

Or maybe KH3 is just meant as that. There is no twist not weirdness. Maybe all that is by design y’know. 

This is long enough already. I’m tired. I started writing this at 2:30 am. It’s about 4am now. I slept very little last night.

This is a big colletion of nothing i guess. Not even sure it helped me. Oh well.

[timelessish]

[text: “I didn’t know where else to go.”] source: mine

Keenler Week Day 1: why I love them/the moment they became my OTP

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So, some backstory first: this is a show I only saw bits and pieces of on TV during season one but what I saw intrigued me. I remember seeing the Judge, Ivan, and Mako Tanido episodes in their entirety with my parents (they were hooked on the show during its first season) and being enthralled. The scenes I remember most from watching live were the Liz/Tom shower scene with blood on his hands (so sick but so compelling) and the Tom/Jolene scene while the song Jolene is played. That song just got to me, and I remember thinking, “Oh my god, this is perfect.” So that summer when The Blacklist got put on Netflix, I watched the full first season and loved it. I’d really never loved a procedural so much (or at all) before. I think it was a mix of the Liz/Red connection, Red’s mystery past, the Tom intrigue, creepy Apple Man, Liz being a badass, rootable-for heroine, and the unique, crazy Blacklisters in each episode that drew me in. I could and have watched season one over and over again without growing tired.

As for Keenler: while watching the show originally, shipping wasn’t on my mind. I just loved the story and plotting that was going on. I loved Tom’s story season one and all the second-guessing that went on between him and Liz, the questions of his connections to Red, Gina, and Victor Fokin, and just his being an awesome villain/spy/double agent. I loved his and Liz’s dynamic portraying the illusion of a perfect, happy marriage, but I loved it even more when it came shattering down around them. I thought Tom’s story season one was resolved perfectly with his death by Liz’s hands, and I was so thrilled to have writers who weren’t afraid to kill their darlings when it was time. Though I was more saddened by Meera’s death, I was more shocked by Tom’s. He’d had more of a main role, so I thought it was such a brave move by the writers and it reaffirmed my love of the show.

… but little did I know, the writers weren’t actually that brave. I rolled my eyes and sighed at the “Tom’s alive!!” reveal in season 2. I wasn’t surprised, but it did made me think a little less of the show. I think all the questions surrounding Tom could have been better answered after his death, because at this point, the answers haven’t been satisfactorily explained to me, and I still have so many questions. So while I loved their dynamic season one, I didn’t ship them, giving me no problem jumping onto the Keenler ship once they reeled me in.

Honestly, I saw something there from episode one. “Who the hell is Elizabeth Keen?” is such an iconic line, and it sets up so much of the story. Just who is Elizabeth Keen? Lizzie, Liz, Masha Rostova; adoptee, daughter, wife, profiler, agent, criminal, killer, fugitive, asset, mother, survivor. Her story keeps unfolding and I don’t think we’re done figuring her out yet. But beyond that, just who is she to Donald Ressler, and who will she become?

Then he shows up at her doorstep with helicopters and an army of SUVs. I mean. That’s such an amazing first meeting. You really can’t top that. Also, okay, the cinematography of the Pilot is just incredible. The way the focus shifts to Ressler watching Liz as she speaks to Cooper? That shot of him watching her, framed by golden light? It’s absolutely stunning and you can’t convince me that wasn’t the show setting the basis for a power couple. And the Pilot also gave us Ressler breaking the rules for Liz for the first time when he let her see Red in his hospital room, though it’s certainly not the last time he breaks the rules for her. It becomes such a recurring theme for him: he always follows the rules, except when it comes to Liz.

The tense banter Liz and Ress share in the next few episodes is amazing. It’s a dance of learning to trust each other and work together despite their misgivings, and I love every bit of it. There’s that shot of them squaring off after he busted in with the Canadian police to Red’s dinner with Liz, which pisses her off, and the way the camera circles around them and the way they play off each other there is insane. Can I just say: HOLY CHEMISTRY. HOLY SEXUAL TENSION.

Then comes the Stewmaker (my favorite episode of all time) and that infamous hug. Seeing that was my first, “… hmm.” I saw something there between them from the beginning, but this was the first moment I really felt it.

A highlight from the Courier: “That was hot.” “You know he can hear you, right?“ When Meera says that (oh, how I miss Meera!), Liz gives her this great side-eye and I’ll be honest, my first thought was - is someone a little jealous? Also there’s a lovely moment later when Liz asks Ressler about what he said about having nothing in the world, recognizing that on some level, he did mean it despite his denial. In that moment, she sees his vulnerability like he saw hers post-Stewmaker, and she knows not to push him, but I think she sees a bit of herself in him - in putting up a facade against the world to hide insecurities and loss. The way she described herself as being called a bitch, the way Ressler gets called an ass. There’s more alike there than there is different.

So they’re finally getting past their rocky start when Sam dies and then Anslo Garrick happens. Liz is such a brave badass, fighting instead of running away until she gets caught and brought to the box where Red and Ressler are. Her face and Ressler’s kill me there. Her expression, so sad and scared but determined, shaking her head no, don’t do it, don’t give him the code. Him in clear physical pain and indecision as Cooper tells him no. Agent Ressler, no. That’s an order. and all the while Red has a gun in his face. And Ressler gives up the code.

That’s a pivotal moment. I don’t think he gives up the code because he’s afraid of dying. I think it’s because he’s afraid of Liz dying. The Agent Ressler who’d been presented to us before would have followed his commanding officer’s orders. He would have followed protocol and protected the asset no matter the personal cost. He’s a by-the-book guy, not an emotional decision-maker. And with the career he chose, you have to figure he’s not afraid of dying in the line of duty. So he’s okay with his own death, but when it comes down to it, not Liz’s.

On top of everything, the code is Romeo. Liz loves Shakespeare, as stated by Aram at her funeral. Romeo and Juliet is a tragic romance. The connotation of Romeo in that moment draws the possibility of romance between Liz and Ress.

To go on a side tangent here, you could choose to find more connections. Romeo (Ressler) is enamored with Rosalind (Audrey), though she isn’t interested (left him), until he meets Juliet (Liz), who’s engaged (married) to Paris (Tom), who was chosen for her by her parents (inserted into her life by Red/Berlin). Romeo and Juliet fall in love but can’t be together. They get separated (she shoots the AG and goes on the run with Red) and Juliet, with the help of the Friar (Mr. Kaplan), fakes her death (she does this twice: once in Arioch Cain, once in Mr. Solomon: Conclusion). Romeo doesn’t receive the message that Juliet is actually alive (this fits slightly more for the Arioch Cain death, when all of the team was in on the plan except him), so he buys poison from the Apothecary (interestingly, they had a Blacklister by this name in the last episode) and travels back to see her body. Paris comes and they duel, Romeo killing him. Romeo then drinks the poison. When Juliet awakes, finding Romeo to be dead, she uses his dagger to kill herself. After their mutual deaths, there’s finally peace in Verona. Obviously, I don’t think all of these parallels are exact, but I do think that there are a lot of connections to be drawn between Shakespeare and the Blacklist. At any rate, it’s interesting to see some of the groundwork laid. Okay, end of side tangent.

Ressler and Liz keep growing stronger as partners and friends. He trusts her enough to talk about Audrey and Tassles, and she trusts him enough to talk about Tom. He offers to rough Tom up for her.

Another big moment: he chooses Liz over Audrey in Madeline Pratt. She’s distraught, saying she thinks Tom is going to leave her. Ressler is on his way out, but sits down at that. She tells him to leave. He says no, ditching his dinner date with Audrey, choosing to stay and be with her instead.

Then comes the Kingmaker, and this is the episode that did it for me. This is when I went … crap. I have an actual ship in this procedural crime show. First it was their moment on the bridge when he tells her it’s not over. The way they look at each other there, with the beautiful blue sky behind them… it’s breathtaking. And then he saves her life, killing the Kingmaker while he’s strangling her. I have a thing for Liz and Ress saving each other, okay? Don’t judge. And then comes the crowning moment (haha, Kingmaker, crown, get it?) : she shows up at his apartment. “I didn’t know where else to go.” No questions asked, he lets her in. For whatever reason, that’s when they got me. That wordless communication, those beautiful mooneyes. And then they cut the scene at the close of his door, which I both love and hate because yay, I get to come up with my own headcanons about what happened, but boo, I want to know what happened.

So. There’s that. And then the next day, they go to Liz’s house (now a crime scene) where she tells him, “I should have let you rough him up,” with this sad smile that he returns, and her body language is so relaxed around him in her home, where you’d think she’d feel more defensive and self-conscious. But there he is, standing in the ruins of her married life, and she seems okay with it. Alright with being vulnerable and real around him, and that’s what I love the most about them: when they can be wholly themselves with each other.

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Anyways, that’s about all from season one that sums up the development of my Keenler ship. Sorry for the long post, it sort of got away from me! I’ll be back tomorrow with my Day 2 post :)