#what a brilliant episode though tbh

[tara-maclays-gf]

merobiba being the video that both had the highest gain in subs and loss in subs is so damn funny. we’re weeding out the weak-willed

[rey-jake-therapist]

Okay, I cooled down, watched the episode again and... cooled down because I was pissed off again, mostly at the terrible lines that came out of Galadriel's mouth during that fight... "Do you want to heal me?" (that was so random lol), "the free people of Middle Earth will always resist you" (cringe intensifies), "You want to heal Middle Earth... Heal yourself !" (Peak cringe).

I already ranted about all the things I didn't like in other posts, I didn't change my mind a bit, so I will focus on what else I liked, especially after rewatching.

There are moments of the Haladriel fight I really enjoyed. Starting with this :

(gif posted by @tpmind)

This little smile, the first time we see him soften since season 2 started, and... god, I wish we could put sound on gifs because this "Galadrriel"... oh my heart. He was really glad to see his wife !

Then this, which was comedy actually :

(gif by @letthefairyinyoufly)

First, Evil Barbie looks very cute, I want to kiss him. Ahem, I derail. But this moment made me laugh so hard. Galadriel and all of us think of Sauron of this brilliant master mind who's got 320 plans in his head, is always ahead of everyone and manipulates us all like puppets, and here he's just like.... "Wut? Nah, I improvise often actually". I liked this line because it made him a more realistic villain, finally. There's a lot he can predict and plan but he can sometimes be surprised too ! Like at at the end, when Durin and his dwarves came at the rescue : he thought the Balrog had killed them all, probably. Sauron really doesn't like these dwarves lol

And I know it was not everybody's cup of tea, but I loved most of this duel. At least the beginning ! It was everything I predicted : she was the enraged gremlin, while he calmly avoided blows and barely struk back. At some point his face even said, "she serious? She wants to keep fighting? Boring, but if that's the wife wants..."

Because this is literally what happens. As he tells her, he doesn't want to harm her at all ! That's why he doesn't use any magic against her. It would be so easy if he did. Galadriel didn't best Sauron, he let her best him, at least until she rejected him again and angered him doing so. That's only then that he changed and became actually agressive. And even then, he effortlessly owned her. The only reason why she managed to scratch his face is probably that he was pissed and caught off guard by her refusal to be with him.

We saw how easily Sauron can kill someone when he really wants to. With a hand wave he would have thrown Galadriel against a tree if he had wanted to harm her or kill her, c'mon. He toyed with her like a cat with a mouse and it was delicious to watch. Galadriel wasn't nicer with the Numenor boys in season 1 than Sauron was with her during this fight. She was stronger than he thought though, he underestimated her, hence why she made him fall on his back.

And the sexual tension during this fight ! Incredible, and it just kept culminating until he stabbed her with Morgoth's crown. I'll come back to that in a minute. And the height difference, let's not forget the height difference !

I liked that we finally got the confirmation that earlier in the season, he used Nenya to communicate with Galadriel with visions, like I suspected. I didn't like how it was executed (shapeshifting into Celebrimbor to make him repeat "Aren't they the seeds you planted?" was a bit of an overkill), but I'm glad they clarified that, for her and for us.

Halbrand's appearance ! His puppy eyes! He was totally manipulating her like a puppy begging for food, but still, so cute... Man, he's good lol

Galadriel frozing, closing her eyes when he repeats what he told her and dropping her defensiveness! I loved that moment, too bad it lasted what? 5 seconds, then it was gone? I know many of us, me included tbh, thought he was just manipulating her again, even mocking her feelings (and ours as well), and that the way it was executed could make it seem like Halbrand was really fake, after all. I blame the terrible execution of this scene for that, tbh. Not Charlie's acting! he was perfect, he always is.

But back to the point : I think what this moment tried to convey, very awkwardly, was that he reminded Galadriel of this moment in the woods, and of her own words earlier in S1, as an echo to what he said just before: "Not all of it". And he did that not to manipulate her or to mock her, but to force her to force the truth that she refuses to admit : they're not that different. But again, it was terribly executed and suffered from a complete lack of emotions. It was supposed to be his "hit her with the truth" moment, I guess? If it was the purpose, it obviously missed the mark.

But wait, I said I would only post positive thoughts...

Now of course there's THIS :

Man, that was insane. I have no other words for it. It was horrible, yet disturbingly HOT. I must say on my first watching, I screamed "nooooo, you said you wished her no harm, what are you doing?!", and seeing him insisting to get Nenya really annoying. So that was it? He only cared for his freaking rings now?

(crédit @spellofwinter)

Trusting how he looked at her straight after stabbing her, I'd say not. He may say what he wants, but that's the look of a Maiar who's still down bad for his she-Elf. I mean look at him.

I liked his speech about how he would have not rested until all Middle-Earth worshipped her and all that, I loved it. It was ridiculously romantic, especially considering he was literally twisting the knife crown into her wound. It was really, "you hurt me, my turn now". He's such a petty bitch.

Galadriel's awful "The free people of M-E will always resist you" line kinda ruined the mood for me, and not just because she wasn't vibing as he was ; why does Sauron have the best lines of dialogs while Galadriel gets all the crappy ones? 'seems very mysoginistic to me.

Then I read some posts here and came back to the scene to rewatch, and wow, some of you are really good, you know that? And no, I'm not referring to the obvious sexual innuendo behind this move lol But as it's been observed by others :

He stabs her with Morgoth's crown, just as he was by Adar.

He aimed for the shoulder while he could have very well gone for the heart (proving that even then, he didn't want to kill her)

There's an undeniable significance in the fact that he stabbed her with Morgoth's crown and not with Adar's sword. As @apoloadonisandnarcissus pointed out in this post, it contains a very powerful dark magic, that will leave Galadriel forever marked with a wound that can never fully heal. Sauron knew that, and he chose this weapon on purpose.

One of the reasons why I never thought that the show would give us Dark!Galadriel at the of season 2, is that Sauron himself doesn't want her to become his "dark queen". He's drawn to her light ! That's why he wanted her to be his queen, because she's already the Lady of Light to him. He wanted her to touch the darkness, not to be wrapped in it like he is. She was supposed to balance him, that's the whole point... But now that she's determined to shut the door on him, he realizes that if he lets her go now, he'll lose her forever.

So he stabs her with Morgoth's crown, knowing fully well what it will do to her. Saying "I would have put a crown above your head etc." is Sauron putting the blame on Galadriel for what he is, as he believes, "forced to do", exactly like he accused Celebrimbor of forcing him to torture him. It's Sauron's playbook all over again : "I didn't want to do this, but you leave me no choice", "you did that to yourself", "I'm the victim here", etc.

My first reaction to this scene where he asks her to give him Nenya was to believe that he was only interested in the ring. But Ioved the fact that he talked in her head, because it's the first time he does that. And it's probably because of the wound he just gave her that he can do it. I didn't like the scene in itself that much because it looked like he was woodoing her more than anything else.

But the fact remains that he didn't take Nenya by force. And that's when @apoloadonisandnarcissus strongly disagree about Sauron's intent here :) You think the bond he created by stabbing her was accidental because his plan was to steal her light and turn her into a ringwraith, I'm saying it was his intention since the start to bind her to him. She was supposed to stick around though lol

Seriously, he could have just taken Nenya from her finger and let Galadriel become a ringwraith. Why didn't he just do that? It's not cryptonite to him, he could have just taken it. He renounced her, right? She didn't want him, he didn't want her as his queen any longer, so why asking her to give Nenya to him instead of just taking it, if he didn't care about Galadriel at all? We saw with Adar that Nenya will "work" even if it has been stolen, so Sauron didn't want Galadriel to give it freely because he thought he woudn't be able to use it if he just took it from her.

So, my theory may be delulu but is supported by Sauron's facial expression : he was still on a power trip. Clearly lol. He knew he could heal Galadriel with Nenya, and he intented to because he didn't want her dead, but only... if she gave her the ring herself. He wanted her to submit to him, entirely. He could have told her he wanted Nenya so he could heal her, but then she would have given it just for that, and that's not what he wanted.

Of course, he didn't expect her to jump instead. He tried to catch her hand to stop her fall, again, why? Why would he care if she lived or die? If the point of it all was to get his hand on Nenya, all he had to do was to walk down the cliff and go pick up Nenya down there. He had more than enough time before Arondir and Gil-Galad would find Galadriel. But he didn't do that. He just remained stunned, he couldn't believe what she did. Then he lashed out on Glug who just happened to arrive with his complaints at the wrong time. Though, tbh, Glug wouldn't have survived for long anyway, being sort of the unionist of the Uruks. Sauron's not exactly a democrat... Plus he hates them.

So, I'm convinced that Sauron's plan at this point was to bind Galadriel to him, forcefully, since he can't get her to join him willingly. He stabbed her with Morgoth's crown so he could possess her. His design was of course way darker than what he had in mind first - making her his queen and not resting until all Middle-Earth worship her - , but I don't think that making her a ringwraith was his purpose.

Now of course, we'll see what the writers do with that, maybe he'll just keep antagonizing her which will prove that binding himself to her but not totally enslaved was purely accidental, but it has the potential to take a very interesting turn, anyway.

Last thing I liked, and which also convinces me that deep down, this moron stilll cares about her, has also been noticed by several other fans. @galstelperion published a great edit of the shots that look like very much as if Galadriel was being watched by an eye from above, by Sauron. The first one is when she's found by Arondir and Gil-Galad.

Even when Gil-Galad tries to save her from the darkness that's taking her, it looks like they're being watched (I took a screenshot but it's really more obvious if you watch the edit)

Then, that's the effect we see from Galadriel's POV, when she wakes up after Elrond heals her :

And then again when the camera turns on her. See how she puts her hand on her wound (also her heart, ahem) immediately? It could be because it still hurts, of course, but it could also be because she feels Sauron's eye on her. In LOTR, Frodo's wound made him suffer each time the Nazgul who stabbed him was close.

Also, Galadriel's wound looks like an eye if we look at it with attention.

So my point is : Sauron DID check on her after he realized she was still alive. He knows she's fine because he's got his 24/7 livestream now. Fanfic writers, have fun with this information ;)

Why didn't he check on her immediately then? Easy answer : petty bitch. That's what he is, after all. It's possible he was conflicted ; not happy that she may be dead, but thinking that maybe it's for the best that she is, as @darklinaforever suggested if I'm not wrong?

And to finish with a very delulu theory that will certainly never be proven true : when Gil-Galad says the darkness is too powerful and he can't save her, Elrond answers with an absolute certainty, looking at Nenya : "I can". Then he puts on the ring, which we know is a very difficult thing to do for him because until now, he was totally against the use of the Elven rings.

Where does he take this certainty from, I wonder? I know he saw Galadriel use Nenya to heal Camnir, but Camnir was wounded by an Orc arrow. It's not even remotely similar as the wound that an object as powerful and dark as Morgoth's crown, Elrond would know that (and Gil-Galad would have probably saved her without Nenya, if it was such a wound). So how is he so certain? Probably because Nenya showed him. And who proved during this fight that he was the one using Nenya to send visions to Galadriel, in the earlier episodes? I mean, maybe not of all them, but we know he was the one who showed her visions of Celebrimbor prisoner of "the seeds that she planted" at least...

Who knows, maybe Sauron did save her after all hahaha. Maybe that's what Charlotte Brandström hinted at, when she said :

"I think Sauron even really loves Galadriel and you will see that at the very end."

What else showed in this episode that he really loves her?? I can't think of anything else. Binding her to him, with the potential intent to turn her into a ringwraith? from Sauron's POV I guess it's love, but it doesn't happen "at the very end". At the end of their encounter yes, but who would look at this scene and think "this real love right here?" While Galadriel's healing happens... at the very end of the episode. I'll let that sink in...

The main obstacle to the idea that Sauron still loves Galadriel is episode 7 : Galadriel is put in a cage by Adar, threatened by a spear which he uses to make her bleed, and yet we don't see Sauron reacting to that. It can make us think that he didn't care at all what could happen to her, but the thing is : we can't be sure that he even saw that she was prisoner of Adar, since we don't know what he can see from the walls where he's standing. We don't know if he stayed on the walls to watch or if he left immediately with Celebrimbor.... We don't know if the scene where Elrond charges is happening right in front of him, or in a totally different place... We know nohing, so there's still room to think that he simply has no idea where Galadriel is at this moment. For all we know, he believes she's still with the Elves. Or he saw her but also saw Elrond going to meet Adar, and assumed he could handle this on his own. Or we will learn in season 3 that he mind palaced everyone and was in fact masquerading as Elrond (lol, I hardly hope for that now).

That's one of episode 7's many plot holes : since they didn't stop showing Sauron obsessing over Galadriel, they should have adressed this, either by filming him while he looked at the scene, either by filming him while he left the walls with Celebrimbor. At least, we'd know.

In conclusion to all this, I'd just like to say that episode 8 was still very disappointing, but all these points I've found redeem it a bit to me. At least if I'm right about Sauron's intentions when he wounded her with Morgoth's crown. If his intention was only to make her a ringwraith and steal her light... It's even worse than I thought and it's indeed probably not doomship anymore, but sunkship.

[diangelodork]

HEY FOLKS! here’s DBDA nightly analysis #10 :D

i’ve been writing about such sad shit lately so tonight’s gonna be sweet!

i’m gonna be discussing E5 (no, wait, please don’t go, i promise it’s not angsty) and how it’s the biggest and best edwin and crystal friendship episode :D (see, told ya!)

i’m gonna be moving as chronologically as i can:

first, i just think it’s sweet to see the expression on crystal’s face when she realizes that edwin agrees on the case :)) edwin looks at her so playfully like he’s trying to be annoyed but you can see the small grin on his face

tbh, i feel like a lot of the tension is lifted after charles confirms that he doesn’t really hate that he’s dead because that was a huge stressor for edwin. once charles says that he wouldn’t want to be dead with anyone else, he stops seeing crystal as a threat to his friendship with charles. he’s beginning to realize that charles can be close with her and remain edwin’s best friend. this, in turn, shows him that it’s okay to connect with her too.

he’s really not very snippy with her in this episode and that’s totally new for their relationship. he was a total prick to her until really this episode. i truly think it’s the big turning point for them.

he’s much more receptive to her idea of going in to talk to richie alone than he would’ve been in the past. it’s almost odd how he doesn’t roll his eyes or say something snippy with the context of how he’s been with her before this episode.

edwin was really affected by the secret gay suicide pact comment and charles’ jump to correct it, which you can see in his expression.

he looks very lost for most of this episode, which makes sense because it’s the case where they have to communicate with the living most often, specifically, modern day teens. he has no clue about any of this and she does. he’s really reliant on her this episode. technically, they both are when she interacts with the living, but even moreso for him and in this moment.

i also appreciate crystal calling out richie’s gay joke so immediately and forcefully. edwin looks incredibly touched when she says this line. i’ve said it before somewhere in my mess of posts, but this is probably the first time he’s ever heard queerness stood up for so strongly.

she calls richie a pussy for making fun of queer people and edwin’s face really shows us how new that is for him to hear. i think it really hits him in this moment how good it is to have such a brilliant and genuine person on his side and he develops a new warmth for her here.

he reads her so well in the following moments, when they’re fucking with ritchie. he puts out his lighter with nothing but a tilt of her head in his direction, knowing just what to do.

the bit with the scissors is also him reacting to her so fucking well. again, she simply nods in his direction and he’s pulling off some creepy ass shit making those scissors walk and it works so perfectly with her threat. they’re playing off of each other so much better this episode (as characters. the actors already did a fantastic job of working off of each other when they were constantly conflicting).

he doesn’t insult her when summoning shelby, either. he throws the slightest of jabs (though, i feel it’s more honesty than anything else) toward charles, but doesn’t comment on the fact that she should go other than saying that she’s living. she also looks rather amused at his comment toward charles in this moment.

when talking to charles, she backs edwin up in his claim that charles is lacking subtlety. this is also new because the both of them tend to agree with charles whenever the other doesn’t, but edwin’s not even here to hear her stand by his comment.

crystal has 100% corrected his usage of the word “hysteria” from E2 and that leads me to believe that there was an offscreen convo where he must’ve been receptive to her explanation and that means a lot. theres also a moment in episode three where he tells niko that he’s wearing the aunt cindy costume so that she doesn’t look like she’s “hysterical” and talking to herself. this, to me, adds even more depth to the fact that he’s receptive to her presumed correction of his usage of that term offscreen.

(something i just feel like mentioning, edwin looks so much more empathetic in this moment with shelby than he has when discussing a ghost’s trauma at any other point in this series and crystal keeps looking over at him.)

crystal makes a point to include edwin’s feelings when discussing how affected they both are about charles’ (justified) outburst with the night nurse.

i also really appreciate how little he voices his opinion after the matter, during crystal and charles’ fight. i think it says a lot that he’s not just jumping in to support charles like usual.

edwin very calmly and neutrally tells the two of them that they’re both very emotionally involved in this case and that they need to put that shit aside until after the case is done.

he speaks about the fact that maren’s mention of drugs gives more weight to shelby’s claims. which is, again, interesting considering how strongly opposed to the idea charles initially was.

he points out how shady maren is being and i believe this is primarily due to the fact that he’s worried for crystal.

charles and edwin come to the realization about maren’s possession of the phones at about the same time. while charles is trying to verbally piece it together, edwin is already visibly panicked because he’s already deciphered the situation. his first instinct is to whisper “crystal,” before running out to get her. he is so worried about her in this moment and it just makes me recall the way he said, with complete deadpan, “if she had died last night, i’d have no problem with her being here,” in E1 vs. now, where he’s so consumed with her wellbeing and survival.

it’s also reminiscent of when both charles and edwin ran in at the beginning of this episode when hearing her scream. he visibly cares more about her now than he used to, despite trying to hide it.

he looks so worried the entire time she’s refusing the gin. his eyebrows are furrowed and he’s looking at maren so intently.

she looks at him very knowingly when he says the “sometimes, when you admit something to yourself, you can no longer live with it as a secret,” line. she looks near sympathetic, in my opinion. i think she’s much more aware of edwin’s romantic feelings for charles than either of them are.

another moment that i really like with them outside of E5 is how focused she is on going into hell for him.

i think that E5 is where she really began to regard him as a friend and she is undoubtedly an incredibly loyal friend. she’s immediately prepared to go into hell for him once charles says he’s going in.

“then i’m coming too,” she says without missing a beat. when charles refuses to let her, she’s pissed and starts yelling at him for it. she tells charles about all the times they were both there for her and how she wants to be there for edwin. “god- edwin is my friend too, whether he likes it or not,” she says.

when he finally does get back from hell, he tells her that it was foolish to confront david without them and she tells him to his face that she found out that her friend got dragged to hell and that she “had to try and save him.”

finally, i think it’s really sweet when she hugs him right after he says she’s officially a part of the dead boy detective agency in E8. it’s really instinctual for her because she cares about him so much and she’s so overwhelmed with her joy about finally being formally accepted by him, even if he tells her a handshake would suffice.

i think they still have a long way to go before edwin is comfortable with her in the same way he is with charles and niko, but this truly is the episode in which he regards her as more than competition for charles’ attention and care and more as an individual that he can view as a friend.

in conclusion, i love them, your honor.

[palettepainter]

EDIT: So I totally forgot about the line where Vox is like "And hey, you still have him under contract" Sooo this entire idea is false. But the idea of Vox saying Angel quit is still an interesting one, since it implies there is a possibility sinners can "quit" in some way from a contract

So two things real quick: I know I've been talking about Hazbin a lot, but tbh If I were to do anything with that fandom it would be with my OC's/NG's, I'm still not crazy over the main cast (besides the potential dynamic between Vox and Angel, and Fizz x Ozzie from Helluva Boss, the characters don't grab me as much as characters in other fandoms do)

And second thing is I do wanna bring up an interesting point I don't think anyone else has mentioned yet

Vox specifically says "Oh Angel quit?". Obviously this happens in ep 2, but by ep 4 we know Valentino has Angel under contract, Valentino even says "I own you (Angel)". While we don't know a great deal of lore about how contracts work in Hell, I think it's a given to assume they're a big deal. More so, they're not something you can just "quit" and move on from

I just find it really interesting how Vox asks if Angel "quit" rather than saying something like "Oh you fired him?" to Val.

Is Vox even aware that Valentino has Angel under contract?? His brighter mood when he asks if Angel "quit" could be because, for all he knows, Angel is somebody who causes Val to loose his cool, somebody Val chooses to keep around, which causes problems that he ultimately has to sort out. Indirectly, Angel causes problems for Vox (I assume the reason Vox pulls out his phone while Valentino is ranting is because it's likely he's done this song and dance a hundred dozen times and doesn't take it all that seriously anymore).

And if Vox doesn't know about Angel's contract, he's left to believe that Angel is causing problems on purpose. It's probably likely Vox knows Angel is important to Val because of the money he makes him, but he also probably knows that Valentino is a literal tyrant and employs dozens of people who, all together, make him a lot of money

I think the idea of Vox perhaps not being aware of Angel's contract is further supported when he turns to Val later in the episode, when the V's are discussing about having somebody infiltrate the hotel, and asks "Do you think Angel would do it?". He phrases the question casually, like there's a chance Angel could say no, phrasing it a way that makes Angel the one who decides

Alternatively, he could have said "Can you (Valentino) get Angel to do it?" or "Can't you (Valentino) make Angel do it?"

It's very possible that this is just me thinking too deeply into stuff. While I do want this show to do good for the animation world overall, praying it'll draw more attention to other Indie Animated projects (cuz god knows Disney isn't pushing out good movies like it used to-) the writing in some episodes - looking at episode 3 and parts of episode 1 - isn't brilliant. Plus with how some of the writing is in Helluva Boss also I don't have a lot of hope that THIS much thought went into the script for the show.

It's very likely that Vox isn't written this deeply, but if it turns out I'm right and some of what I've discussed does end up being true though trust me I have my doubts, I'll be surprised

[nalyra-dreaming]

IWTV s2... an (emotional) recap

Between the spoilers dropping before the last three episodes and the content of the episodes themselves we really have gone through the emotional wringer.

I think I have rewritten this three times over, because my feelings kept changing.

I had hoped for more, I got more than I wished for, I wanted something else, they hit the nerve precisely...

And now with the season 3 announcement:))))

Maximum emotional carnage - indeed.

Everything ... up to that NOLA visit in episode 8 and the actual ending... is not the truth. Let that sink in.

The trial: scripted (and Lestat breaking out of it for the important bits)

Claudia's turning: So much... more raw.

Claudia's death: brutal. That final look between her and Lestat was one of the most painful things to witness.

Her diaries (pages): mostly unused. I am a bit unnerved bc of that wasted Merrick reveal and aftermath implementation tbh. Louis is not freed up after it, but... he should have been, imho. Though, that said, with Dubai likely a stand-in for Trinity Gate... maybe the arc fits after all - BUT I still think they could have done more with her diaries. I get why they wanted to escape the “white savior trap“ but this way Louis did not get that power-up that will ultimately bring him to where it frees him. But who knows... maybe they will implement a version of it all still.

The broadcasting and Loustat's relationship in general: Armand putting a fantasy retelling into Louis' brain. Holy shit.

Flashbacks to 1790: Self-indulgent fanfiction.

Dubai: Stepford Wives via mind gift. 💀

Daniel: Supposedly(*) turned out of spite. I absolutely get why DM fans are besides themselves with this and the comments after.

The story itself: More or less ending exactly where the first book puts us. I do NOT know why they kept that title a secret, it's not hinting at anything other than that simple fact, imho. :)

So.

You know, them using the movie "Gaslight" for the poster reference makes more and more sense now, because that is how I feel a bit at least: gaslit. Just a little bit.

Because... Nice reunion that you had there... too bad it will turn out to be the contested NOLA one, I would bet real money on it. 😅

......

Sarcasm aside, this is a brilliant show. But I am NOT looking forward to another two years of bullshit accusations (by some) because they were mostly/only spelled things out in the episode insiders, and only broke things up in the last episode. Or of people confusing the meta and social commentary level with the in-universe one.

Which, by the way, I'm happy that they went there. And I am relieved that they spelled things out in the episode insiders. Truly. But as experience has shown after season ONE... implied manipulations, episode insiders and interviews, and cast/crew/writer statements don't mean jack shit to some people.

So yeah, where does this leave us?

This was a dark season. I think I'm not totally wrong when I say that most of us did not get what we wanted from it, neither DM, nor Loumand, nor Loustat. Or Claudeleine.

"Locked together in hatred" comes to mind, though "hatred" is obviously (way) too strong a word. (But that quote fits so nicely 😏🤓)

We DID get some of what we wanted. But for a show which built so heavily on other books... to follow the first book then so closely?? I don't know, it leaves me a bit unsatisfied(**). It feels as if they just shut the book, to be done with it, you know?

I still enjoyed the season, there were brilliant parts in it. But it feels... bloodless. Sexless. Empty of affection. Harrowing. Which is, of course, the point.

This... is a depressing, hinting at suicide-through-vampires note.

Which won't happen, of course.

Because here we get to (**), which is of course ™️ them announcing s3 just prior to the last episode;))) And thereby making some things clear by that fact alone :)) 🙌🙌🙌

I said it before, I expect them to revisit... again. Given that this will be in what, 1,5 to 2 years from now? Well. Hopefully still in 2025. And I hope the arc they spun over these three seasons will be done then. And we can move forward.

I do hope this show will get 10 seasons. But for the first time since it aired I wished we'd already be ahead, in season 4 or something. 😅 Because this heap of loose endings is... taxing^^. Though definitely coming very softened as a blow now with the s3 renewal that’s for sure^^

Can't wait to hear your thoughts, if you want to share them. But these are mine. For now.

I'm sure there will be a lot of details, and analysis and meta to follow, and I'm looking forward to it. 🥰🙌

S1 and s2 were a tale... I mean we knew. But I would have preferred a bit more... truth.^^

Because that Magnus‘ tower scene?! No way. The metaphorical push off the tower??? No way, sorry Rolin but if they let that stay… that’s not giving agency that’s removing Lestat‘s suffering for their weird “toxic masculinity arc“ that Sam hinted at and which was - IN THE BOOK!!! - a misjudgment of Akasha.

AND it is removing Lestat‘s suffering to give more nuance to other characters. -.-

Given Hannah‘s episode 5 comments I hope they do not make a misjudgment of his character there. The red flags are there though, especially after the recent interviews, have been ever since that DV drop, and I have people come to me via DMs now to tell me they’re leaving the fandom bc they’re scared of another GoT…. which I get.

I… still have some faith. I know Rolin tends to put his foot into his mouth at times, he is a troll, and for all her takes on ep5 Hannah also wrote other brilliant scenes.

And we have Sam and Jacob as trump cards.

I‘m determined to enjoy this - this is what we‘ll get. I waited 30 years. I won’t go anywhere. I will enjoy what they give us.

I won‘t like all their decisions. That I am aware of.

BUT I will enjoy it, going in open-eyed, nonetheless.

(*) okay that is obviously bullshit, Armand would not turn him out of spite. Which is another hint I guess. But I talked about that in asks^^ At length 😅

[hexedwinchester]

What's your favorite Walker episode?

Hi @wantedman123

Thanks for sending a Walker ask, it's a first for me! :)

Good question. I think unlike SPN, picking one episode for Walker is tough because the main story arc continues throughout the season. But I do have a few favorite episode which i enjoy watching.

S01E05 Duke: This was an interesting one tbh and i still mourn Duke's death. Duke as an undercover was such a wonderful alias, it would have been fun to explore this alter ego for Cordi. He is aloof from his family, hates being Duke but at the same time, Duke gives him the freedom to be reckless, to fall in love in again. That episode added a different complexity to Cordell's character. And the tension between Twyla and Duke was really good!

S03E01 World on a String: I am sorry, the episode starts with major whump! what's not to like? I loved how Emily acts as the defensive part of Cordell's mind. She helps him through it. The origami with knots as a Morse code was a nice touch. Cordell's awareness in the first few minutes even though he is blinded folded was good too. I loved how strong Cordi is shown during the interrogation because of his military training as opposed to Liam. I have seen Jared portray himself small and tiny during Sam whump but to see him headstrong was really amazing!

S04E11 Let's Go, Let's Go: This was a masterpiece all around whether it was writing, direction or acting. Everyone did an amazing job. Throughout the episode i was so confused but it all made sense in the end. I loved how they shot the whole episode, the amazing touches to show what the event actually portrayed! brilliant episode

Thanks again for this amazing ask! What about you? what's your favorite Walker episode?

[lymooniee]

I've come to another realization--

This scene in particular is so important ahem let me do some sort of analysis:

Firstly, Shadow's desperation to stop Sonic right away by exclaiming they're not real. This right here shows us that he empathizes with Sonic by trying to protect him from getting hurt. He understands these are the closest projections to his reality, so he does what he can to keep Sonic at a calm level instead of letting him spiral. We see this too by the way he guides his hand out to Sonic, but pulls back because Shadow has a difficult time expressing his emotions. I've stated before that I see Shadow as autistic. This, to me, kind of adds to that hc of mine. There's actually a lot of scenes in this episode I could pull to make my point ngl. Anyways, that's off topic a bit, but yeah he has a hard time with placing his empathy into comfort. Yet he still knows the right things to say, I believe this is because he's able to place himself in Sonic's view in some sense.

Shadow gets annoyed by Sonic for being stubborn and once again reiterates how Sonic has much more important things to live for. Like his "real" friends, I think Shadow saying this is so significant because it reminds me of his own backstory. He knows how hard it was to promise to save Maria and end up losing her, so he knows how Sonic would feel if he were to die and not be able to keep his promises or vice versa, where he couldn't save anyone else because of his impulsive decisions. The way Shadow becomes so adamant that Sonic needs to focus on those who are real and truly need saving makes me happy because it once again shows his empathetic side. He may not come out and say "I want to save everyone" but the way he expresses his desire to save those around him and to encourage Sonic in doing so as well, is brilliant. It's why he has in the past saved Rouge and other characters of course too. It's why he does sacrifice himself at the end of Sonic Adventure 2. He isn't heartless, he cares deeply and a character doesn't need to say they're a hero to do hero things either. Shadow can be a hero in his own way, but because of his past and because of him teaming up with EGGMAN. He came to be known on the dark team. You know the funny thing though, is that the dark team weren't even bad, they helped those around them, helped Sonic in many ways, I just believe they have different ambitions hence why they are on a separate team. I've always loved that they never considered them as evil. It makes Shadow such a realistic character in a lot of ways, he wants to save those around him, but he doesn't want to gain praise from it.

The fact that Sonic at first pushes Shadow away, but then pauses in realization. It's so good, the dynamic between them is why I'd love to have a game where they just have to work together and you play as both. It'd be interesting to see them write them as something other than rivals, because tbh, they weren't ever the typical rivals to begin with which I love. I think too it'd be such a refresher from all the poorly written Shadow characterization, it'd do justice for him and Sonic in a lot of ways. I also do hope one day that Sega allows us to play as all the characters again but i digress as I ramble on and on.

To go back on topic, they both wish for the same things but have such different mindsets. Sonic needed Shadow in this, because without Shadow, Sonic would be struggling to keep his head straight.

[atamascolily]

Lily watches: The Legend of Heroes, episode 3

This episode is a great example of how eavesdropping is one of the main ways exposition is delivered in C-dramas. (Other classics include flashbacks, lectures, and convenient but random conversations/rumors overheard in passing on the street.) by which I mean there's so much eavesdropping. So, so much eavesdropping.

Guo Jing: this place is huge, how are we going to find the herbs?

Huang Rong: i have my ways.

[Cut to her beating up a guy to find out while Guo Jing looks on, impressed.]

and it works! well, mostly.

I hadn't made the connection when I was reading the book, but wow, there are a lot of parallels between Yue Fei's martial treatise and the as-yet-unmentioned Nine Yin Manual, aren't there?

"There are no heroes here." "There are two." YESSSS GOOD.

The snake turned out better than I expected, though having it be both a constrictor and venomous is a bit overkill from a natural history perspective. Then again, this is a snake that's been living for the last ten years on mercury and ginseng, so realism is not really the goal here.

(for what it's worth, this will not be the most eyebrow-raising snake behavior in this story by a long shot)

In a brilliant and inspired move, Guo Jing decides to bite the snake first, thus triggering an unexpected power-up. I love the cosmic vision imagery and accompanying music to symbolize this.

SPIKED SOFT ARMOR ALERT!!

those guys from the last episode return solely so Guo Jing can show off his new snake power-up and wipe the floor with them.

gosh, that's a lot of cannibalism/vampire energy in that fight with the Ginseng Codger, lololol

More flashbacks, but I have to say, I prefer them in small chunks like this. Also it mirrors how the characters are finding out about a lot of these things, too.

Wanyan Kang got the rabbit thing from Wanyan Honglie, who did the same thing on a much larger scale to his mom. Poor Bao Xiruo was repaid for her kindness by having her entire life destroyed, sob.

can we talk about how creepy it would be to be wandering around a palace and discover your house just... there in the middle of it all. And not just a replica or a model, but your exact house, picked up and moved on site without your knowledge. That's like something straight out of a horror novel!

Ouyang Ke had a great entrance, and I love his entourage. He and Wanyan Kang occupy similar ecological niches in the narrative, so I'm pleased that this adaptation keeps them visually distinct.

love how Huang Rong just walks out on a technicality, lololol, she is the best

The pace is still incredibly fast, but tbh, I am relieved that the story is moving so quickly, because all the digressions into backstory and character introductions work better in a novel than it does in a visual medium. There have been so many adaptations of Legend of the Condor Heroes already that I think it's fair to assume that enough people know the story to plunge right in, kind of like how Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood rushes through the early parts of the manga covered by the 2003 adaptation so they can focus on the later stuff. Which is to say that it's working for me, anyway!

[ooglywooglies]

FINE, LILY ORCHARD DUNGEON MESHI RESPONSE POST I GUESS

im just going through all the video points and making oppositions to them based on what i think, thats it.

laios useless in the red dragon fight: this is setting up the premise of the story where laios is spacing out because he cannot strategize on an empty stomach which is why the party loses.

there is no urgency to rescuing falin after everyone escapes the dungeon: thats to show that all the adventurers are so used to the dungeons immortality that theyve forgotten about the consequences of death (and also they are not thinking straight bc they are hungry)

dungeon meshi is not slice of life in the traditional low stakes way a slice of life set in the real world might be. the entire premise is about making a fantasy dungeon crawler and its heroes more grounded and showing things that aren't shown in video games, eating, sleeping, bathing, etc. a major theme is life and death, what is needed to sustain life and how death is a necessary part of it.

the tone of the show is not meant to be serious/silly/serious/silly, its not supposed to be wholesome, fun, and heartfelt, though it can be those things, its supposed to be weird and demystifying because its about real life (though a fantasy lense) and real life doesnt adhere to tone either.

resurrecting falin, having a bath and dinner, and then thistle coming to collect her happening in two episodes is not crazy thats almost an hour of runtime

MISGENDERING THISTLE

some of the problems with this video are just the anime format which i cant completely fault, i think the manga is better paced and the humor lands better ill probably ignore those points going forward. but i feel like if you dont watch anime very much you probably dont really know them the common genre tropes, like i certainly dont.

the reason marcille is "infinitely more popular than the rest" is a) lilys girl bias b) everyones girl bias and thats it, a lot of people like decently written generically good looking female characters. but thats not even true laios is probably equally as popular as marcille is and senshi is VERY close behind both of them.

laios is literally only generic in looks and if youre going to bring it up you might as well mention how marcille is therefore EXACTLY as generic as laios is, they are some very regular white people. in terms of looks.

laios only cares about monsters and is an asshole: this is an intentional mischaracterization the OTHER CHARACTERS IN THE STORY make about laios, which is a result of his real flaw which is struggling to connect with other people. this is a character flaw, which is intentional and something laios himself is aware of and tries to overcome, it is part of his character arc. laios is also heavily autistic coded, im not sure if ryoko kui is even aware of it or if she herself is autistic and just wrote a bit of her own struggles into laios's character but this reading is widely recognized by people who are autistic so. like its hard to argue with a mass of people who see their disability in a character. (me included)

comparing his deadpan affect to lloyd (i dont know him tbh)s intentional controlled one makes no sense bc i assume lloyd is yknow a super secret agent who IS a super secret agent because of his self control or whatever. laios is just a guy. literally just a dude, who is autistic.

marcille and laios react to falins resurrection differently because they are different characters, showing different ranges of emotion are part of their characterization. having a limited range of expressed emotion in serious situations where emotion is expected of you is also a commonly recognized autistic trait (see me not crying at the airport when my now husband had to go back to his side of the planet when we were dating)

falin is also autistic coded and shares a lot of traits with laios because its supposed to be funny that everyone thinks falin is so talented and brilliant and lovely when she yknow picks up a bug or something but they think its annoying when laios presents the same traits.

refer to point 10 again

they are literally moving through the dungeon as fast as they can. it gets brought up, laios feels guilty about it but hes not indulging in his special interest as opposed to rescuing his sister, the adventure is enabling it. whats he supposed to do brood the entire way? do you think anyone would be physically capable of doing that? see points 1-4 again if not.

just because a different character would do something different doesnt meant the story would be better, the point of THIS story is an exploration of THESE characters

this is retreading a point but "marcille is the only character who feels like a human being" .... girl the ableism - it can be argued that marcille is a bit ND herself but she is laios's neurotypical foil, the entire point of their dynamic is she is the normal person to compare him to, to act like shes the only character that matters because shes the only one thats normal has some nasty implications.

"you or i would-" thats making some assumptions

marcille is tormented the most by the show because the show is about exploring a dungeon, a major character trait of hers is her inexperience, shes squeamish shes young and naive because she has EXCLUSIVELY studied dungeons in books she has only seen the dungeon in person for like a year or two (i dont remember the time frame but we know how time works for marcille anyway). senshi by contrast has been surviving exclusively off the dungeons resources for like 60 years. you mention that marcille grows a lot by the end but its not just about eating food she learns survival skills, she learns ecology.

sorry i need to take a break to just rant, isnt this woman a writer? i feel like all she can only see characters through common media tropes and so dungeon meshi is just breaking her brain because all of these characters are written from a strong foundation they all have roots that inform all of their flaws. i feel like she isnt willing to see them that way because she assumes that because this is an anime the author didnt put any thought into the characters beyond their designs and gimmicks, thats just speculation obvs its just the impression im getting

but like i see the way people talk about kui on here how she feels like one of us because the dungeon meshi characters are her ocs. how theyre not just characters for a story. its like imagine someone talking this way about YOUR OCS, your babies, the characters you put your heart and soul into and especially for someone like kui who has created so much depth for her characters for someone [who also calls herself a writer] to brush it all off bc it got an anime adaptation and anime has tropes.

i really dont like people who approach media from "ive seen this before" and i mean im a little guilty of it but its kind of a useless thought isnt it, for the most part things get made because someone wanted to make it not because it needed to exist. i guess its a hard thing not to think when theres just SO MANY shows and stuff out there but idk, i dont think its a healthy perspective most of the time.

chilchucks a bitch you cant listen to what he says and be like "the narrative is bullying marcille" chilchuck is bullying marcille, chilchuck is a bully

(oh it seems the numbers have reset, oops)

shes talking about why anime sucks again, i havent seen spy x family and i dont care to it doesnt appeal to me

retreading points but i forgot which ones laios thinking falins dragon form is cool is another example of how laios's character essence is that he doesnt think like other people. and i have to imagine that if not for the mind control aspect falin wouldnt be horrified by her dragon form either. neither of them care about the "obvious" socially expected reaction of "horrified" theyre thinking about a) what they like to think about which tends to be ooh monsters are cool and then b) whatever is most practical at this moment - i think its not just lily that struggles with this i think its a lot of people who follow social scripts tend to follow what the main cast of dungeon meshi is thinking so theyre horrified/confused by whatever laios is doing but he just intuits what actually materially matters and what doesnt. him thinking falin getting to have a cool dragon form has NOTHING to do with his feelings about saving her.

"your experience with autism isnt universal" neither is yours???? isnt that kind of the thing about autism (this is from her comments not the video but thats kind of her point about this point in the video is that she doesnt relate to laios's autistic traits) - guys shes saying sheldon cooper gets called out on his shit and grows as a person but laios doesnt... guys i dont even know what i can specifically say to make someone stop believing that because i dont know why anyone could believe that in the first place.

i dont want to write this point bc i dont want anyone to think i dont have any concept of like pervasive preferential trends in media but i think she specifically hates laios because hes a white man with autistic traits. i think if laios was a woman those traits would be not as bad (which is kinda funny bc i was talking about that being a joke with falins autistic traits earlier)

laios is funny to me :) (in the manga mostly)

i think she shouldve read the manga instead of watching half the anime but i guess thats it. if you (anyone reading this) see this out in the wild please dont make assumptions about me based on this post, it doesnt really tell you anything about me or my wider opinions.

i guess you can assume im autistic i did say that part, go ahead and assume that i suppose.

i think i have some clarifications i was gonna make but i got tired so i cant remember where they go or what they are, this isnt really meant to be a discussion its just me writing down some thoughts indirectly bc i didnt want to comment on her video. but its in response to a video so its only fair i guess if anyone wants me to clarify i can try my best to do that

[visualtaehyun]

Rules: List 10 of your comfort shows, then tag 10 people

Thanks for tagging me y'all @sorry-bonebag @twig-tea @rocketturtle4 ✨

My criteria for a comfort show are gonna be 1) any piece of media 2) that I've watched more than once and 3) that I will keep reaching for. That's it. I can't even explain what the common denominator is tbh?? It's just- the kinda movie or show that I need on DVD to easily put on again and quell the brain worms (yes, I physically own all but #4-#6).

1. My School President: What can I say, this show took me entirely by surprise! I started watching a few days before episode 4 aired - aka the pinky touch ✨ the conversation in the stairwell ✨ and the origin of Gem4th's fanclub name being Khun Nuu ✨ - and fell right in love with it. I love musical storytelling, I love coming of age stories, I love a good romance, and I love found family/friend group dynamics so this really hit the spot for me. I guess these apply to a bunch of my choices for this tag though haha

2. Cutie Pie: I've talked about this show in another tag game (as "A show people find bad but you will defend") and all of that still holds true so I won't repeat it here. I'll just add that this show introduced me to Nunew who's my favorite artist these days. :)

3. Love In The Air (Love Storm): Yup! The show that most people on here seem to recall as that extra horny one lol It's one of the first Thai QLs I watched along with as it aired, maybe even the first one. I started watching when episode 2 came out, I think? And I just loved the D/s-dynamic, lovable brat Rain, and these rookie actors so much that I not only went looking for the bts, cast reactions, and interviews but I even started following Twitter translators for the show and cast. This show (and ZeeNunew lol) was basically my introduction to how the Y industry works, what Thai fanclubs are like, and got me well and truly interested in learning Thai. I think I've seen it enough times to speak along by now cause I also used my familiarity with it to study Thai. And now that BossNoeul are finally getting a new show, I'm really looking forward to seeing them in new roles!

4. Not Me: It's simply brilliant. And it's so grounded! You know how lots of tops in Thai QLs are rich, a CEO, drive a supercar, and live in a gorgeous modern home with huge windows (and death stairs lmao)? I love that Not Me starts in a place of privilege but has White leave that behind pretty early on. Bangkok really is a city where you can constantly see the divide between rich and poor. So I appreciate this show even more after having been to Bangkok. Not Me's characters look unfiltered and real and that's how the entire show feels as well. I just love what P'Nuchy has given us here! Oh and +1 for White narrating his entire story, I just kinda love that in general (also enjoyed Kawi narrating Be My Favorite). The next two kinda fall into one category: shows I loved as a kid, remembered - found - rewatched as a teen, and still fondly remember.

5. Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne: This is a magical girl anime that I first would have seen on TV in 2001. In hindsight, this show's religious themes may have influenced me in my love for fictional faith and devotion. Just a thought, haha, totally don't have more than one dnd character who is majorly connected to divinity, faith, and devotion, even though I personally am agnostic...

6. The Weekenders: I routinely cite this as my favorite cartoon (and I watched- just- So Many as a kid omg). Since I watched this on German TV, I only know the German dub which was honestly really fun. If any Germans read this and have seen that show: Wirsing! The rest is movies all the way down!

7. Timeline: A 2003 movie with a bunch of well-known actors that arguably qualifies as a B movie because it flopped so hard at the box office. It's my trash though. I chose it at the video store, brought it home, loved it, and then proceeded to rent it like once a year lol! It's basically a bunch of archeologists and history nerds travelling back in time to the Hundred Years War to save their professor. It has my preferred time travel dynamic of Everything is fixed and whatever traces in time you leave were already there to begin with.

8. Inception: There's several Christopher Nolan movies I love but this one is just so grand and fun and maybe I also had a bit of a crush on Elliott Page back then 👉👈 I'm a born nerd so naturally teen-me used "Non je ne regrette rien" as my alarm for years lmao This category is basically just Disney & co. musicals lol

9. Mulan (1998): If you asked me to choose my favorite from the entire classic Disney musical line-up, it would always be this one. It's the queerest, of course I'd always choose it!

10. Anastasia: You know, I looked at my shelf full of cartoon musicals- no wait, High School Musical and Pitch Perfect are next to them, hm, wELL- at my movie musicals shelf and it came down to choosing between this one and The Swan Princess (1994). And this one just kinda won out because "Once Upon A December" is impeccable! And now I've got it stuck in my head 👍

Since it took me a few days to get back to it, this has clearly made the rounds already. Who to tag?? Uh-- @pharawee @airenyah @telomeke and whoever sees this and wants to do it of course!

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s2 ep1: The 37s

The first episode of season 2! I've always liked this one, and I still do. Is the concept of finding Amelia Earhart cryogenically frozen on a planet after being abducted by aliens a bit silly? Sure, but who doesn't want to see Captain Janeway meet Amelia Earhart? I sure do!

The scene where the crew investigates the truck they find floating in space is all kinds of adorable; impossibly brilliant science nerds from the future being mystified by a car is peak fish out of water comedy, and I laughed out loud when they all got scared of the car starting up. I don't think Star Trek gets enough credit for being funny, and they did a great job with this scene. We also got our first glimpse of Tom being a total nerd as he geeks out over the car, and I love to see it. It's such a relief when they let him be a relatable human person instead of trying to make him a bad boy, which ends up being cheesy at best, and cringe inducing at worst.

I think this episode was the first time Star Trek had ever landed a ship on a planet, which is really cool. Knowing that Voyager has secret little feet for landing on planets is so cute! The shots of the ship on the planet look great, I'm glad they filmed on location because it gives it more realism and a bigger scale. Whatever park they went to is maybe a little too Earth-looking though- you can see butterflies flying around behind the away team as they walk around lol. (But tbh, that's cute too!)

I love how it makes the ship scenes look when Voyager is parked on the planet- you can see sky outside the windows where the starfield usually is!! All the rooms are so brightly lit with the 'natural light' coming in, I didn't even recognize the Captain's ready room at first. The lighting being different changes the whole look of the ship, and makes the whole episode feel lighter and brighter. It's pretty much unique in Trek to see a starship in daylight, so that alone makes the episode a treat.

On rewatch, the one thing that bothered me about it the first time around actually makes sense to me now. I used to think it was unrealistic that Amelia Earhart wouldn't choose to go with Voyager, since obviously she loves flying and adventure. But this time around, I realized that of course she'd choose to stay on the planet- if she went with Voyager, she'd never get to fly again. Presumably, the humans on this planet have aircraft she could fly around with and explore the planet with, which is what she really loves to do. In the part where Tom shows her Voyager's helm, it's clear she realizes that what he knows as piloting is entirely different from what she knows- Voyager flies billions of miles per second through dark, silent space. Amelia Earhart knows flying as seeing the sky around you and the ground below you and feeling the rattle of engines and air currents around you. She couldn't ever have that on Voyager, and she wouldn't even be the pilot if she went with them- they already have Tom, and she'd have a nearly impossible task trying to learn 24th technology well enough to helm a starship. It actually makes more sense for her to stay.

(And I'm just noticing for the first time in my entire life that Tom sits on a rolling chair at his console, lmao. Every other chair on the bridge of a starship is attached to the floor, and people are still falling out of them and cracking their skulls open and dying every other space battle. So not only do they not have seatbelts (apparently OSHA doesn't exist in the 24th century lol) but they have an essential bridge officer in the most unstable type of chair ever invented. How did he not die?! I guess maybe we're meant to infer that it's on a track or a magnet or something to anchor it to the floor and keep it from rolling across the bridge all the time, since you can see in one shot that the wheeled part is covered up with a metallic disc, but still. Even in real life, how did they keep it from rolling around on set?? I have so many questions lol.)

The scene with Janeway and Chakotay expecting to see crewmembers lined up to stay on the planet, only to walk into the empty cargo bay, actually kinda got to me. I was a little misty eyed, I'll admit. I knew it was coming, but it's just so lovely, and gosh, Kate Mulgrew sells it. I love that she lets Janeway wear her heart on her sleeve; it never once undercuts the aura of authority she has as captain, but it does make you feel for her and understand her as a person. So, so good.

Tl;dr: I love this episode. It's fun, it's different, it's funny, it's sweet, it's the heartwarming comfort food kind of Star Trek that I am here for!

[violivs]

NMTDaily: Project II - One Shot

- Dogberry and Verges accidentally photobombing is cute. They’re so panicked about it!

- Love how the crew tries to pretend they’re not all one big friend group, and yet they all sit together at lunch.

- Ben, why would you bring something so messy and cumbersome as a whole mango to school? Slice it at home at least! Oh my god, evidence that Ben’s parents are slightly neglectful because they don’t notice or stop him from packing weird lunches? I don’t know, just wondering.

- Ben and Bea hate each other so much that they make sure to sit as close together as possible without actually being at the same table. I see you guys.

- Peter mugging for the camera and blowing it a kiss! (It is now an active struggle to remember we were calling him Pedro at this point, I always default to Peter.)

- The boys just talking about food as their intro-to-scene chatter just tickles me. Mango and chili, chocolate and chili. Ooh- things you wouldn’t think would go together but actually really do work as a pair? Hmm… (I haven’t tried them, but just go with me here)

- “We’ve known each other for a long time, right?” Oooh, another “I know you of old.”

- Ben’s name spiel, truly spoken like someone who has been fighting the “just call me Ben” fight for years. I bet his least favorite day of school is the first day, because he has to endure the two minutes of being laughed at when the new teacher calls roll and everyone is reminded of his full name again. Before he gets the teacher to put a note in the attendance book so that won’t happen again.

- And then Beatrice deliberately ignores him and keeps calling him Benedick, because of course she does.

- Honestly I just had to sit back and watch the rest of this episode. It’s too damn good to even liveblog, you’ve just gotta let it happen. I love it so much. I did rewatch to finish the liveblog but it’s such a tight episode it’s hard to know what to say.

- I mean. The fact that for as long as they’ve known each other, Bea and Ben have literally had a game on with their friend group of “let’s argue about stupid stuff for fun”- brilliant. Perfect. So them.

- Also love how resigned their friends are to B&B’s arguing. It’s just normal to them. Sometimes Pedro or Meg or Claudio try to intervene, but they know it’s useless in the end. But it’s ok because they also find it pretty funny for the most part, at least for now.

- Obsessed with them citing academic studies of mango skin back and forth at each other. To be reading academic articles in their spare time, they are both such a specific type of nerd. I love them.

- Ben fishing for a compliment from Bea is adorable and cringy. Everything he does makes me more sure this was a “Ben fell first, Bea fell harder” situation. They’re gonna be in LOVE.

- “You said I looked ‘mighty fine!’ ‘Babein’!” Oh my god the origin of “Babein” was here and not in PIZZA?! Mind blown.

- I don’t think I ever caught that the flamingo argument involved “would you rather be pecked to death by flamingos” before. Ben’s argument is definitely that flamingos are too majestic and amazing to be violent, and Bea’s argument is that that’s stupid because they’re still wild animals and wild animals can mess you up if they want. They never even get to the other half of the would-you-rather!

- *smacks both Ben and Bea for the ableist would-you-rather, high-fives Claudio not finding it funny, then smacks Ben again for jokingly saying ‘that’s racist’ about British stereotypes*

- *smacks Claudio for ‘you sound like a gay Australian’* *high fives Pedro and Ben for telling him to shut up* *wonders whether Pedro was already questioning his sexuality by now*

- The making fun of each other’s accents does crack me up. Low-hanging fruit though, they’ve both got better insults.

- “Queen Elizabeth is gapping it over here to come scissor-kick you in the head!” And “How do you know about the microchip?” Some of Ben’s most iconic lines tbh.

- Ben is SO performing in this entire scene. Trying so hard to make everyone laugh, asking for high-fives, trying to one-up Bea at every turn. He’s holding court, honestly. And you only really know that he’s acting and putting on a show of confidence upon rewatch.

- Whereas I do feel that Beatrice is always 100% herself. She says what she feels. And she always gets the last word. Though he does bite the mango at her, so he gets the last action, lol.

💖🥭🦩

[tonydaddingham]

sideburn theory strikes again

idk if its just that i have been fully driven around the bend by this show or is this is Big Brain special, but if all fails this is the lore of a crossover you might not have known you wanted.

so i posted way back in the bygone era of pre-s2 that i felt that there was something potentially behind the different sideburn lengths in the trailer and first promos, and my darling @theeminentlyimpractical added into this, plus the added spot of crowley's sunglasses changing. now this appears to have been debunked by further s2 content (and indeed s2 in its entirety), because there didn't appear to be rhyme nor reason to the sideburns, but there was to the sunglasses. so we kinda left it alone (although people keep rb'ing the original theory, frankly god knows why).

now we kinda came up with some explanation for this, which ive summarised in this ask earlier, but then. then. we saw this brilliant observation by @rebeccasteventaylor, and thought - well, fuck it, let's take another look.

note: reference screenshots of nearly every crowley scene, per episode, at end of post.

so main observations so far:

crowley seems to exclusively wear the silver sunglasses in ep1 and ep2

then switches to the new grey sunglasses from ep3 onwards

he has a mix of long and short sideburns ep1 to ep4, and switches sideburn lengths in those eps between scenes

then seems to exclusively have long sideburns in the 'second half'* ep5, and in ep6.

then i have the following thoughts from both seasons:

we know that crowley is a singular demon in that he has an imagination

we know that he is pretty powerful, including the ability to stop and hold time

there are indeed plenty of doctor who references which - absolutely, may be an innocent homage to david tennant - but seem so pointed in s2 that it's almost unnerving

two quotes! first: "if any harm comes to aziraphale because of this, i will... oh, it doesn't matter, it's too late for that now, isn't it?... its always too late."

second: "i know... looking at/working out where the furniture isn't..."

the crow road by Iain Banks is introduced at the very end of s2, being read by muriel, and has very prominent features on screen when metatron asks them about it. crow road plot involves the main character piecing together notes/sketches left by their late uncle. (by the by, very purposeful feature in s2 that aziraphale keeps multiple diaries, and can sketch real good - including specifically a picture of gabriel)

now, before i start parsing out the theory (though tbh, by this point, i imagine you can see where im going with this), i will add that as i said in the above linked ask, im fully on board with the sideburn thing being bc of AP/confines of filming in COVID, and so it may just be a detail that had to slide or was missed. but that isn't as fun as putting on the tinfoil hat.

the main thing for me is that the long sideburns seem to consistently appear on screen after aziraphale and crowley talk in justine's restaurant in ep5*. once crowley goes over to the bookshop to confront gabriel, the long sideburns seem to remain. this is also where crowley appears to be at his angriest which, tbh, is kind of at odds with how he seemed to speak about and treat gabriel in ep3 and ep4.

let's start with ep3 (ill come back to ep1 and ep2*). in the vavoom scene, crowley almost seems quite chummy towards gabriel, perhaps slightly condescending, but warmer than he is after shax arrives. now, shax turning up to remind crowley of the stakes involved (ie threat to aziraphale) is completely trackable against how crowley then speaks to gabriel afterwards. but it is this quote that has baffled me slightly:

"if any harm comes to aziraphale because of this, i will... oh, it doesn't matter, it's too late for that now... its always too late."

and the reason it baffles me is because... well, i don't really get what crowley is talking about? he's rescued aziraphale on plenty of occasions, and seems to always be in the nick of time (or stopping it, if you consider 1793), and aziraphale has previously rescued crowley back with impeccable timing.

aziraphale hasn't actually come to much harm in any of the story we've seen so far; the only time crowley wasn't on time was with the bookshop fire, and whilst that was resolved, it would match up with what crowley's saying about being too late... but 'always too late'? ie, more than once? seems like there's been a pattern where crowley is too late.

the other thought i had on this is that crowley says "too late" in reference to saving morag in the same episode (but in the resurrectionist minisode within) but that was on aziraphale himself for dithering - why would crowley talk about it? so it seems to me that there are other instances where crowley himself has been too late to save aziraphale. the only time i really think this happens, where aziraphale ends up in danger, is the Domestic at the end of ep6 when crowley is too late to tell aziraphale how he feels - which probably would have influenced his decision to stay and not walk willingly into the clutches of the metatron... but in the s2 narrative, that hasn't happened yet.

furthermore, @theeminentlyimpractical brought up this little detail up from the book:

which doesn't necessarily mean anything in this theory's context, that crowley has one of his watch's clocks programmed to hell's timezone, but appears to be a detail specifically related to crowley nonetheless; futile fight, helplessness, the concept of always being Too Late.

the last thing however to mention about ep3 is that there appears to be a very clear before and after where the sideburns are concerned. where muriel turns up, and crowley and aziraphale talk in the back-back room, crowley is sporting shorter sideburns. but after aziraphale leaves, crowley comes down from upstairs carrying books, and has longer sideburns. i don't necessarily have any explanation for this, but do observe that it seems quite deliberate for the episode that he has the longer ones once aziraphale leaves, and continuing into ep4 when aziraphale comes back from edinburgh.

ep5 however, crowley arrives on whickber street, and is back with ye old short sideburns again. the only time this changes in the beginning half(ish)* is when he and aziraphale visit Arnold's. once again, don't really have any theoretical explanation for this, but one thing i will say is that when crowley and aziraphale approach the archway/alley that goes to Arnold's (just after "can i watch?"), they're in step with each other... but when aziraphale gets to the window, he's alone for a good few seconds and crowley doesn't appear - he might be out of shot, but then does appear just as aziraphale enters the shop... just an odd amount of time to have not followed aziraphale to the window.

in any case, crowley then follows around, gets waylaid and epiphany-slapped by nina, gets somewhat pissed in justine's, and then heads over to the bookshop. where he next appears upstairs, and suddenly sporting long sideburns again. it then seems somewhat pointed that this is where he really lays in to gabriel - now, contributory factors here are he's just been hit with the realisation that he loves aziraphale and aziraphale loves him, and he's probably about five sheets to the wind.

but it's particularly venomous and angry which - yeah, tracks - but i wonder if this is in response to something more? that crowley has more to be angry at gabriel over, more to be resentful of, than just that gabriel's presence in the bookshop could bring harm to aziraphale, and gabriel's involvement in the botched execution?

add to this, the line that we're all losing our heads over?

"i know... looking at/working out where the furniture isn't..." (subtitles conflict on amazon re: the first bit vs what im personally hearing, but neil has confirmed it's at least 'where the furniture isn't.')

now this all relates in the conversation back to gabriel's analogy of his missing memory feeling like a house with missing furniture, and trying to work out what in fact is missing. many have speculated that crowley might have gone through the same predicament of forcibly losing his memory (and s2 certainly does set it up like that), but i do wonder if it in fact twists that crowley is actually investigating the missing furniture, piecing together his own clues?

his tone being resigned and bitchy, even mocking, could well just be him laying on gabriel again, or indeed he could be empathising because he too has lost his memories, or because he's in the same boat and trying to piece things together... just, not in the same way?

so let's come back to what im actually getting at here; does crowley expand on his time-stopping powers, and does he essentially step back into his own timeline? and has to piece it together à la crow road?

was there an alternative timeline that still resulted in aziraphale going to heaven, but under different circumstances, and crowley comes back to change it to no avail, and that's where we leave s2? or, in this aborted (?) timeline, does aziraphale get got by hell, or gets taken out of the BOL (and falls?), crowley is trying to work out how/why, tracks it back through to the events we see in s2, ends up helping to hide gabriel (eg. he comes back after the So Did I argument), but then that leads down the path of losing aziraphale to heaven anyway, just in a different way? "it's always too late"?

now, don't let it be said that i won't poke holes in my own theory, because this is absolutely crazy and relatively baseless... and is so easily explained as just being One Of Those Filming Things (i simply felt it was slightly remiss to not mention these thoughts floating in my noggin).

the main issue of course is that *ep1 and ep2 are literally a mess where this theory is concerned. there are some short/long sideburn differences that can't be explained away, because the scenes literally follow in succession to each other - eg. ep1 goes from leaving the coffee shop (short), to the gabriel reveal (long), to So Did I (short again). another eg. ep2 goes from leaving the pub (long), to the walk across the road (short), to the job segue (long again). i could try to explain this with "oh crowley stopped time and switched", but that would probably be a bit of a cop out, however possible it might technically be within the narrative.

i don't even really know where to leave this off, but im still just of the mind that for a show where attention to detail is Everything (take the neil ask about the records, for example; he immediately spotted that the holes weren't right for jukebox compatibility, but they had to accept it as a good regardless), this feels like a pretty Big Goof?

alternatively yes, it might be AP whereupon david was going into another job fairly shortly after reshoot work was needed, or there were COVID related filming issues, but a) seems like a lot of reshoot work/pickups, and b) couldnt they have just trimmed the 'burns/be able to fake the length? idk but my brain is scrambled and im so confused.

screenshots!

S/L (red) - short/long sideburns, S/G (grey) - silver/grey sunglasses

episode one:

episode two:

episode three:

episode four:

episode five:

episode six:

[crayonurchin]

So yesterday marked what I think might be a new chapter of self healing and growth in me, and with my inner child.

You hear it a lot- 'heal your inner child', and tbh I always just thought it was a nice sentiment about accepting hurt in your past.

Yesterday, I had a very severe mental health episode with my OCD, and I realised I couldn't handle it, and had to have an emergency session with my therapist. She guided me though the panic attack and helped me untangle the web of intrusive thoughts that had me trapped in a loop. I'm so fortunate to have such a brilliant longterm pyschotherapist working with me.

Anyway. She used a mixture of emotional guidance and science to finally show to me how the inner child is behaving when you're in a crisis. That kid is panicking, they're doing anything they can to survive, they're using the skills they had to learn to stay alive when they were being hurt.

And then there's you. The adult. You're also there, but, you're still letting this child look after you. And that is not fair to that poor little kid. They should never have had to suffer, struggle and survive the way they did.

Well, you're an adult now. For better or for worse, that kid is yours. And your job is to protect them. Validate them. Let them know that you will personally never let them be hurt the way they were again.

I was a victim of online grooming from ages 10-19. I was forcibly shown sexual content, made to be peoples therapists, forced to stay awake for literal DAYS just so a grown adult could have a power play with me. And the child in me adapted to make sure that never happened to her again.

And it won't. Because I will take care of her. She doesn't have to fight anymore, an adult is going to look after her.

My OCD is severe, but it is not impossible for me to thrive. All my intrusive thoughts and feelings are valid, my mistakes are okay, my worries aren't evil and my condition will not rule me. I accept it. I thank it for showing me I still have work to do. And I love my inner child, exactly as she is, trauma and all. We're gonna enjoy the little things she loved, and my job is to look after us both.

Yesterday I felt like a failure for reaching out for help. Today, I want to give yesterdays me a big kiss on the forehead and thank her. I'm nowhere in the clear but I'm ready to keep pushing on.

[kierancaz]

Ok so I just watched episode 5 of the pjo show and honestly I might get dragged for this but I have some very real criticisms of it that I want to share. And if you enjoy the show that’s fine, I’m enjoying it to but at the same time I have a lot of issues with it and want to talk about it because I think being able to be real and critical of stuff that you like is important.

I think I’ll start with the pacing because that’s my biggest issue with it rn. It is moving so fast it feels like it’s just doing the spark notes version of the book. And ik we are all on the train of adaptations not having to be exactly like the book anymore, (which is literally just a thing that came about bc of this show and if it was any other show to book movie I think ppl would have a different tune but that is an entirely different conversation that maybe I’ll talk about later because I find it very interesting tbh), but the show is cutting out a lot of stuff that I feel was very important to the characters and in the books. I don’t know if this us because of the episode count or the episode length of if it’s the right, maybe it’s all three, but I feel like because the pacing is so fast the story is just breezing past a lot of emotional beats.

Which brings me to my next point. I have not felt a single thing watching any of these episodes. In fact I felt more about this show when I watching a single clip from episode 5 on TikTok than I did while watching the actual episode even at that clip. The show is so bad at building tension for literally anything. And I know everyone hates the movies and all that but the movies scene with Mrs Dodds had more tension and life than the scene did in the show. And I’ve heard people dispute “oh Percy has been seeing stuff all his life he probably thought that this was just that and didn’t realize it was real” but that has nothing to do with this. Why didn’t Mrs Dodds lead him away from all the other students? Why would she attack him in broad daylight when she’d aware that Chiron and a satyr are there? Or even if she didn’t know Chiron was there if she knew there was a demigod there she should’ve at least suspected the presence of a satyr.

The chimera fight was also very disappointing. Now I don’t remember exactly how this fight went in the books or in the movies but I don’t need to remember to know that this fight as equally tensionless and emotionless as the Mrs Dodds fight. And yah, they’re kids, it doesn’t need to be some epic battle or anything, but there should be tension. We should feel a least a little nervous even if we know what’s going to happen. Ngl. I don’t even know what to say about the Medusa fight bc I don’t even remember what happened. I don’t remember what happened in the books when it came to Medusa besides Percy cutting off her head and sending it to the gods. I’d definitely have to reread the books again before I comment on the change of theme surrounding Medusa and like half of the main theme of the series because Rick did some serious reconning with this stuff but unfortunately my books are lost somewhere in my basement.

I do think the Minotaur fight was fine really good though. The bond between Percy and his mom was built up really well and it was pretty devastating with that last scene between them. You could really feel the impact that Sally’s “death” had on him. However, it was so fucking dark it was hard to see half of what was happening and I’m gonna talk about that more later.

The next thing I want to talk about is the acting/casting. And before anyone says anything this has nothing to do with Annabeth being black or Percy not having black hair. Their characters feel flat and honestly I think that if it’s anyone’s fault it’s the directors and the script. I’ll use Walker as a reference because he’s the only one I’ve seen in anything else, in The Adam Project he was brilliant. Like there were multiple times where his performance alone had me in tears. That movie had me ugly sobbing at least three times and Walker was definitely part of the reason why.

In the pjo show he just feels… dull. And a tad bit lifeless which is baffling. How do you even make a character like Percy Jackson that, I’m sorry to say but, boring. Even the movies managed to give him more personality than the show, and I genuinely hate to say that but if I had to rank all the Percy’s show Percy is at the bottom which is so hard to say because Walker is perfect for this role but still he has more Percy Personality in that Kraft Mac and Cheese ad that he did with Ryan Reynolds. I do realize that part of this could be because we don’t have Percy’s inner monologue, sorta like what happened with Harry in Harry Potter, but there are ways to combat that like having a character be more expressive and stuff and that is also just not happening.

*(Also if anyone of curious my Percy Ranking goes 1: book Percy, 2: musical Percy, 3: movie Percy, 4: show Percy).

Speaking of expressiveness, Leah as Annabeth is also very disappointing because in her interviews she seems so Annabeth and I can see why Rick choose her but in the show all of her lines are delivered the exact same and the most emotion we get from her is a pinch of her eyebrows. And it’s a similar issue with Walker because he doesn’t emote that much either and neither does Aryan so I’m definitely thinking that it’s an issue with the directing instead of the actors. I don’t have much to say about Aryan. He’s ok, he has the same issues as the others of just not having a lot of emotion or very good dialogue/line delivery but again I don’t think that’s his fault and instead the direction of the show.

Listen I think they’re all incredible and the chemistry that they have in interviews is amazing. But the fact that I can see more of their characters in interviews than the actual show is insane, especially because it’s so obvious they all care about their characters and the world of Percy Jackson so much that I think if they were left on their own they could do this show perfectly but someone behind the scenes is stamping down their performances for the sake of the show taking itself too seriously.

Charlie and Dior were both great for the screen time they had. I mean not much to say about them tbh bc they didn’t have that much screen time but Dior’s scream after her spear was broken was literal gold. Adam Copeland as Ares was amazing and Lin Manuel Miranda as Hermes is quite possibly the worst thing that they could’ve ever done.

I know a lot of people were praising the change they made with Annabeth and Percy’s relationship and how that instead of disliking each other because of their parents they disliked each other because of bad personal impressions. But honestly I have to disagree. If I remember correctly Annabeth disliked him because he was son of Poseidon, and Percy disliked Annabeth because she was rude to him. And to me that made perfect sense because Annabeth was literally being indoctrinated by the gods/what they teach at camp for years/half her childhood why wouldn’t she hate Percy based solely on the fact her mom hates his dad? And I think that was actually kind of important as a character trait and I’m pretty bummed it was changed. (Ngl tho like I said earlier I haven’t read the books in a long time so I could be wrong about this, I’m just basing this off what other people have said about the beginning of their relationship in reference to the show and the books).

Also going back to what I said about the lighting ‼️SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 5 ‼️this really pissed me off because so many shows do this and it only started becoming a real problem in recent years. In episode 5 when Percy and Annabeth are entering the amusement park it is so goddamn dark I could not see what was happening. I have no idea what that machine over Percy’s head at the entrance was or looked like. I don’t know why it made him so scared because I could not see it. I could not see their faces as they were talking. I could literally barely see where they were when they panned out to show them walking through the amusement part and this makes no sense to me. You have this huge elaborate set that I would really like to see but it is so dark the only things I can make out is a ferris wheel and maybe a bumper car? I could not see shit, it was so annoying and so many new shows do this where the scenes at night are just so dark you cannot see anything. And I get that sometimes it’s intentional, you’re not supposed to see what’s going on, but this is not one of those scenes so why am I having such a hard time finding our main characters?

I really need to reread the books again and when I do I will add more to this probably or just remake the post. But so far I think the show is really mediocre and pretty disappointing, and I think it’s important to point this stuff out and not just heap piles of praise onto the show just because it’s written by the og writer of the book. We’re definitely going to get more seasons and I would like those seasons to be better than this one and actually let the actors shine and for the show to reflect what was so amazing about the books. Also, I just want to say that there are moments/stuff that I like about the show and as critical as I am of it it’s because I like the series, not because I’m just trying to be a hater. But seriously, I used to hate the movies with every fiber of my being but because of the show I have a new found appreciation for them, which I think that in and of itself says a lot about how the show has been so far.

[mywingsareonwheels]

What I wanted characters to say to each other this year so far...

(Spoilers behind the cut for: "Endeavour" series 9; "Shadow and Bone" series 2; "Good Omens" series 2; "Heartstopper" series 2)

Fred Thursday, to E Morse: I love you, you're my best friend and like a son or brother to me. I don't want to leave you behind, or neglect you. But I'm burned out, and exhausted, and scared, and you seem to be doing a lot better and meanwhile my son is disintegrating and my daughter is getting married and I am *so tired* and so terrified, so you can't be as much my priority right now as I'd like. It's hard for me to confide in anyone or let you help me. But I will try, and I do love you, so so much.

E Morse to Fred Thursday: I love you, you're my best friend and like a father or brother to me. I find it so hard to believe that you care about me, and I'm scared that everyone is leaving me behind yet again, and I'm hurt that you are, and I don't know how to help you. Please confide in me and let me try. I do love you, so so much.

Kaz Brekker, to Inej Ghafa: I love you, but I'm in a bad way and I don't know how I can be with you in a way that works for us both. But I do love you, so so much. Please come back one day.

Inej Ghafa, to Kaz Brekker: [actually she pretty much said it all, bless her] [but another affirmation of love would have gone well I think]

Aziraphale, to Crowley: we aren't going to agree on this, but I'm not leaving you behind because I don't love you. I think I'm doing the right thing. I'm scared and broken and everything is hard right now. But I love you, I ache for you, I know that you are good and kind and worthy and you don't need to be an angel for me to love you, *I will be back*.

Crowley, to Aziraphale: we aren't going to agree on this, but I'm not staying behind because I don't love you. I'm desperately worried about you and I wish I could change your mind. I'm scared and broken and everything is hard right now. I'm worried that you can't love me as I am. But I love you, I ache for you, I will try to trust you, *I will wait*.

Pretty much everyone in Heartstopper: ACTUALLY USED THEIR WORDS even if it took them a while, excellent, well played good gentlebeings. If Stephane Nelson can get his act together by s3 that'd be great (hey, Thibault has form for redeeming himself as a dad ;-) ), but Nick will cope if he doesn't. 9/10 at least for all the characters who aren't shits.

Disclaimer: this is not in any way a criticism of the writers of any of them except I think Endeavour, for I have... complicated feelings about that final episode, and whether doing That was actually really, totally necessary to set up Inspector Morse (I don't think it was, for at least two reasons, so it feels to me like gratuitous pain and the fucking up of a precious character arc tbh). But wrt Shadow and Bone and Good Omens? Fair play, that's brilliant storytelling, some things need to take their time, and romantic cliffhangers are awesome actually (provided they then get resolved at some point!). And Shadow and Bone has multiple awesome relationships, in some of which communication does actually happen. <3

But that doesn't stop me yearning for those characters to say those things, even though I think it's artistically better that the ones in S&B and GO didn't just yet. <3 Heartstopper is a different kind of show, where that would be less appropriate. But in S&B and GO it is actually brilliant. Just... ow. ;-)

Watching Heartstopper after the other three was rather a particular blessing tbh. :)