#why i see amara just appearing out of nowhere and he is just wtf you can't do that

[hellblcze-archive]

JESSE  MCCARTNEY’S  BEAUTIFUL  SOUL  SENTENCE  STARTERS   godscorned said:“ no need to scream & shout. ”

𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐋𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐃 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐘 𝐌𝐔𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐑. A curse under his breath as he stares over at the Darkness herself. It seems he is going to need to update the wards of his house to also involve Primordial beings. Good thing he wasn’t in the House of Mystery, because he doesn’t want to find out what it would happen if she became trapped there. Not a nice place to be, even for darkness herself. 

“You want to learn to be bloody human? How about you pick up the phone and call if you want to pay a visit?” and he closes down the books he had been reading. A brand new tattoo pressed on his skin, the doorway to Hell in the texts, and her essence used as the ink for the brand itself. It’s meant to ward him again hell, undetected by vile creations. It had taken some time to gather all the ingredients that remained. It needed a couple more hours to be done. “Or at least learn to knock, luv.” 

[mittensmorgul]

They are filming ep15 right now (Cas and Jack are working alone on a case) and the fact that Misha will miss one more ep due to his contract makes me think they dropped the empty deal arc. I just cant see them playing it out when they have to set up Jack to be the God killer, Cas to fix heaven, Amara plotline in 4 eps. Plus Dabb implied that Michael!Adam would also come back to defeat God in some form. Thoughts?

hmmm...

*does math in my head* *admits this is dangerous*

So we know that Misha is scheduled to be in 15 episodes this season, leaving five he will not appear in. So far, he has not been in 15.04, 05, and 10. Of the remaining unaired episodes (including the ones he’s already filmed, but haven’t aired yet), that leaves two more that he won’t be in.

And yeah, I really don’t think there’s time to explore the full weight of that deal, especially given that the entire cosmic situation has shifted since he made it. I mean, even the fundamental REASON Cas made it was so Jack would not end up in the Empty. And then Jack... ended up... in the Empty...  Kind of a dick move for the Shadow to still try and cash in on that deal, right?

I just think it’s more a factor of them having committed to end the series at the end of s15 that led to the reframing of the deal, you know? If they had intended to go on for a s16, I think it would’ve been heavily dealt with in s15, or even in the back half of s14, but instead things needed to happen to accelerate dusting AU!Michael off the table to make room from Chuck to get all uppity with the story. :’D

They could bring it up as a potential way for Dean and Cas to deal with the rest of their communication issues. Like Cas could tell Dean about the deal, and Dean react to it with a Normal Amount of upset, because it IS reasonable to be upset to learn your best friend literally sold his own happiness in exchange for what he thought would make you happy, you know? Worst Gift of the Magi AU ever. All Dean wants is for Cas to be happy, but he’s willing to trade “enjoying that in a peaceful, not world ending life” and stand by Cas’s side through all their battles to make that happen. All Cas wants is for Dean to be happy, and he’s literally willing to sacrifice his own happiness and life to make that happen.

I think this was at least partly delved into in 15.09, with the very real threat of Cas having taken on a Mark like the MoC, which would eventually drive Dean to a point where he would’ve had to lock Cas in a ma’lak box forever, effectively losing Cas forever. It wasn’t the Empty deal, but the Empty would’ve never been able to collect, because Cas would’ve never been happy after that, you know? But again, I personally think that deal went out the window the moment Jack burned up his own soul to kill AU!Michael. Because I don’t think the Empty ever really wanted Cas... I think the entity was biding its time until everything was ready to bring ALL of Jack to the Empty, as we saw in 14.20... There was a bigger game afoot, and we don’t entirely know what that is yet.

Is Billie’s plan really to kill Chuck? Or is she, like Death always has, pushing at the Winchesters (yes, including Jack and Cas) to do something specific with no intention of them actually DOING the thing, but knowing that Cosmic Level Nudge will set into motion an entirely different sequence of events? Because Death... can’t act directly. Billie has come closest to just saying it outright, in 12.06, and this was before she ascended to that Bigger Picture View of Creation:

Mary: How would it work?Sam: Mom?Mary: You just kill me again?Billie: Reapers don't kill people. Rules.

So many rules... and Billie is so, so good at working around those rules. Even better than OG Death was. 6.11 is still a prime example of how Death functions.

DEATH So, if you could go back, would you simply kill the little girl? No fuss, no stomping your feet?DEAN Knowing what I know now, yeah.DEATH I'm surprised to hear that. Surprised and glad.DEAN Yeah, well, don't get excited. I would have saved the nurse, okay? That's it.DEATH I think it's a little more than that. Today, you got a hard look behind the curtain. Wrecking the natural order's not quite such fun when you have to mop up the mess, is it? This is hard for you, Dean. You throw away your life because you've come to assume that it'll bounce right back into your lap. But the human soul is not a rubber ball. It's vulnerable, impermanent, but stronger than you know. And more valuable than you can imagine. So... I think you've learned something today.DEAN Want to know what I think? I think you knew that I wouldn't last a day.DEATH I have no idea what you're talking about.DEAN I lost. Fine. But at least have the balls to admit that it was rigged from the jump.DEATH Most people speak to me with more respect.DEAN I didn't mean --DEATH We're done here. It's been lovely. But now I'm going to go to hell to get your brother's soul.DEAN Why would you do that for me?DEATH I wouldn't do it for you. You and your brother keep coming back. You're an affront to the balance of the universe, and you cause disruption on a global scale.DEAN I apologize for that.DEATH But you have use. Right now, you're digging at something. The intrepid Detective. I want you to keep digging, Dean.DEAN So you're just gonna be cryptic, or...DEATH It's about the souls. You'll understand when you need to.

Just like Billie’s command to Dean about the Ma’Lak box in 14.10:

Billie: And just look at you now. Do you remember visiting my reading room? The shelves and shelves of notebooks describing the ways you might die?Dean: Yeah. Upbeat classics.Billie: Well, it's the funniest thing, but they've all been rewritten. They all end the same way now -- with the archangel Michael escaping your mind and using you as his vessel to burn down this world.Dean: All of them?Billie: All of them. Except one.

Except... ALL of those books... were wrong... even that one that said the ma’lak box solution was the thing... And I think Billie was HOPING to get that EXACT reaction from Dean We’ll Find Another Way Winchester. But if she hadn’t TOLD him about that one anomalous book of fate, Dean wouldn’t have known to even TRY. And in doing so, in attempting to build that box, his loved ones realized something was super fishy (lol I didn’t intend to make an undersea pun, but there you go) with Dean, and stepped up to support him until out of nowhere, a wildly unexpected solution presented itself. BECAUSE Dean drew strength to keep Michael contained beyond the original prophesied ends... Because Billie “interfered.”

I don’t think Death actually KNOWS what will happen after she shakes up reality, you know? She just knows where to apply pressure in order to force a rewrite of destiny. This was also the entire point of 13.19-- the things you CAN change, versus the things you can’t. And how to give just the right nudge to set those changes in motion.

Well, that went off on a tangent... >.>

Point is, I don’t know for sure that Jack will end up as a God Killer (I mean even in a practical sense, the ONE THING the CW has ever said was that they were not allowed to kill God... I assume that hasn’t changed and am basing my own personal expectations accordingly...). So I’m thinking that whatever the final plan will look like... we haven’t seen it yet. Okay, now back to the point... Cas’s Deal with the Empty.

So regardless of the why (because I try to avoid using a doylist rationale like Misha’s contract or the remaining number of episodes in order to justify narrative choices, because no matter how you slice it, that’s Bad Science right there...), I don’t really see the Empty deal as a threat to Cas anymore. Unless Cas is destined for a tragic end and will be sucked into the empty in the series finale-- which, again, would mean that DEAN would also never be able to be happy, because it’s been explicitly established in text that Dean can’t be happy without Cas, and again, I don’t think the series CAN have a tragic ending, so it’s so unlikely I’m not even bothering to consider it. Except... Cas might not know that because of everything else, his own happiness won’t spell his doom, you know? Which leaves some interesting possibilities on the table for really cool CHARACTER stuff instead. Cas’s fear of finishing that conversation with Dean that Dean’s Purgatory prayer began, for example... because heck that’s treading really dangerously close to words that could make Cas happy... And could be holding him back from continuing that dialogue now, at least for a few more episodes of tension between them.

They may just bring it up again as a WTF Cas? How could you not tell me? moment, just to demonstrate that Cas and Dean truly HAVE resolved their interpersonal conflicts, by having Jack confirm that the deal is null and void because of his arrangement working with Billie and the Shadow now. Or even Cas himself already knowing the deal has been nullified when it’s mentioned in conversation, allowing them to finally have a conversation about what would make them happy, using Cas’s continued existence as a prime factor in Dean’s happiness, and Dean wanting him to stay to be a prime factor in Castiel’s happiness... I think this could be a really interesting way to use the fact that the deal had existed at all could spark that revelation, you know?

But again, all of this is just theory at this point. I could be 100% wrong about all of this. But as you said, with only 9 episodes left (and two of them theoretically not even including Cas... and heck they could do a speed run through the Empty for one of those episodes too... I have no idea what they have planned), I don’t think it’s going to be a long, drawn-out ordeal, you know? They’ve refocused all of the character arcs back into the main story now, and they’re all converging on what will eventually be the series finale, not flinging them all out in opposite directions to generate drama and angst, you know? Different point in the story, different options available to wrap up open threads.

[eisforeidolon]

Episode: Moriah

So the Carry On montage kicks in and it starts off actually making the season look interesting … until about halfway through it switches over to contrived nonsense focused on Perpetually-Clueless-Nougat and Inexplicably-Not-A-Vegetable.

I really feel like it's a clear illustration of why for me this season takes the cake with “The Worst” in big frosted letters across it.  I think twelve had some pretty good ideas, it was just that the execution left a lot to be desired as it shuffled to a vaguely unsatisfactory and perfunctory conclusion.  I can't remember if thirteen ever felt like it was properly doing anything other than treading water, which was boring but in a stolid sort of way.  This season?  Just took every halfway interesting idea it had and gleefully dropkicked them all off a steep cliff of stupid.

As for this episode in particular, it picks up where the last left off with Jack having broken out - and holy crap are the effects terrible.  Like, laughably whatthefuckweretheythinking terrible – it seriously looks like a low budget bad comic book movie regurgitated onto the screen.  Yikes.  

Not surprising at all that Dean is the one pushing to do the necessary thing and just get it done even if it hurts, while Sam says nothing but goes along and Castiel whines because he doesn't care if Jack is running around killing people indiscriminately.  It is kind of hilarious to me that Castiel thinks at this late date he can just stare down Dean and make him change his mind.  Even if Dean wasn't already pissed off at him, seriously?  IS there some kind of defect where angels/partial angels are literally incapable of learning?

I had forgotten about the whole truth spell spoiler, so I was confused for a bit whether or not Jack was actually hearing people's thoughts or, since there was such a theme to them with several people being rejected, was hallucinating again and projecting his fears onto others.  (It was giving me weird I'm Afraid of Americans vibes, tbh.)  Though I guess actually it could still go either way?

I'm not sure what the point of Jack's whole truth spell actually is, though?  Like the show is trying to build up tension to some kind of a climax – but wait!  Let's pause in the middle for an exaggerated humor break!  Again, this feels to me like the current writers have heard people say that the show is so good at juxtaposing humor and pathos and thinks that means they are – when it really refers to the show of yesteryear.  They simply don't have the subtlety for it to do anything but wreck any momentum that's building.  Not to mention that too often their “jokes” make no sense for the characters in their desperation for a cheap laugh.  What does lying have to do with that bizarre nonsense with the woman with the staplers?  Since when has Sam ever shown any affection for Elvis or Celine Dion?  Sigh.

I did like the scene between Dean and the receptionist.  I also did think it makes sense that Jack would go back to his mother's parents in trying to connect with someone who might not reject him - and they would have since realized what happened to their daughter. I actually think it does work well as a way to show Jack that he is just as guilty of telling lies, too.  

I am not impressed with the writers whipping out a complete ripoff of the Colt via Chuck except guess what?  Now it's also TEH MOST POWERFUL EVAR version of itself!  With a dumber name!  Yay.  If I was even hopeful enough to create a season fifteen wish list?  Not having every conflict come down to arbitrarily fluctuating powers or sudden ass-pulls of McGuffins to solve things would be right near the top under NO MORE FUCKING PELLEGRINO GODDAMN IT.

I still don't buy all this crap about how Jack is supposedly the Winchester’s child.  Both from the stupidity of acting like he’s an actual child and from how the execution has been so much tell, so little show.  Nor do I buy that Jack doesn't have feelings, as much as we've been subjected to him angsting all over the place the last two episodes.

I do otherwise like the conversation between Sam and Dean about what has to be done about Jack, though.  

Castiel happily tosses over the Winchesters without a second thought? I am shocked, shocked I say!  Okay, not shocked, but vindictively gleeful that what his bullshit ever fickle loyalties gets him is tossed the fuck aside by Jack.  That I fully support.

Same with Dean not choosing to shoot Jack in cold blood.  Jack just accepting that Dean intends to kill him and surrendering shows that despite how fucking weird his explanation of what happened was, Jack does regret and care about what he did.  Obviously Dean is still upset about Mary, but it was that Jack didn't seem to care and was killing others which was the real problem, not that Dean was looking for revenge.  Again, if everything hadn't been so contrived to get us here, I think this moment did really work.  

Only to be pretty much ruined for me by the Chuck reveal.  I don't like what it says about the entire thrust of the storyline of the first five seasons in regards to free will.  I don't like what it does to the character of Chuck in service of yet again just trying to scale up to TEH MOST POWERFUL EVAR antagonist, that is totally more powerful and more scary than the last!

In a less abstract way, I don't like how obviously contrived the reveal itself is here.  Okay, say it's true that Chuck has been playing them their entire lives.  For that to be true, he'd need to have actually been good at it before now.  A real master manipulator able to play a very long game – but this episode, he just suddenly becomes shitty and transparent about it for reasons?  Why appear and intentionally try to goad them, why not just make the gun appear where they or an ally will find it?  Why not further manipulate the Winchesters' beliefs about what Jack's doing with some decent frame jobs?  The Winchesters don't even get to catch him out in a lie or a manipulation, he just suddenly goes full on I'm A Villain, Ask Me How!  

What Dabb & Co. don't seem to get about twists – since they keep throwing them out willy-nilly seemingly every time they get bored?  Is that a genuinely good twist doesn't just blindside you out of nowhere.  It's unexpected, but after it happens, you can see exactly how it makes sense and all ties together.  The impact of the shock being juxtaposed against the realization that it does totally work is what it gives it that WHAM! of impact.  When it doesn't connect like that, it's just shock for the sake of shock.  Which is weaker to begin with, but then when you do that over and over again, where your twists connect to nothing and mean nothing and a great deal of the time actually contradict the world's established continuity?  Even the shock ultimately just becomes a disinterested WTF.

And of course, even putting all that aside, what this sets up for next season is just a repeat of all the things that didn't work with the Amara storyline.  Remember how she was totally going to destroy all creation, but, you know, there were basically no consequences anywhere further away than Sam & Dean could drive or in more than one place at once?  This is the lesson they never learned about setting your human protagonists against ludicrously overpowered entities - you can’t actually scale up enough and everything just comes off slightly silly.  

[rockthistowninsideout]

Oh oh!

So, I have watched Pacific Rim: Uprising.

Though my watching experience started with Springsteen’s Out In The Street, which made me even happier and more excited.

Anyway, the movie. It was amazing! (at least partially) Grand! (that’s exaggerated) Extraordinary! (nope, nope, certainly not.) If I may say so.(I may not, after a couple of days of distance and constantly turning it in my head I was probably just flashed by the bright pictures.

John Boyega is really the suitable successor of Idris Elba. His Jake Pentecost is a snarky son of a gun with great self-irony but also the heart of a warrior. It works especially well if you look at PRU as a remake that’s not really a remake of PR. It pays tribute but takes its own spin. I was first sceptical about the new looks and the movements of the Jaegers but it works rather well.

More, plot-relevant spoilers under the cut. Whatever you’ve read in The lost son or Burdens of the past - it’s not true.

I might add more later or make a second post, this is all a little randomly because it’s just so much to comprehend! And I’d really like to watch it again some time soon!

First off, we get a little introduction to the world of Pacific Rim, just like John promised to Mark Hamill on twitter.

It starts like PR - straight to the action. Jake is immediately lovable even though here he is some shady dude. And he’s always the main. He’s always in focus, the white dude doesn’t steal away the spotlight. (Btw, a German tv magazine said Scott Eastwood would be cooler than Charlie Hunnam as Raleigh. Big surprise: he is not. He says he comes from nowhere but we don’t know anything about a possible tragic backstory so there’s that, for example.)

Jake has regular contact to Mako, who we see first as a hologram. She doesn’t work for Shao Corporations, she merely collected Liwen and takes her to the Shatterdome. But Newt does work for her, which is highly relevant.

In the beginning, Liwen looks like the absolute villain, ice-cold and building Jaeger drones, therewith making the pilot-steered Jaegers obsolote. But she is not, in fact, she is here to safe the day as well as Jake and Amara.

Now, the more shocking things:

Mako dies.

Relatively early in the movie, when the rogue Jaeger Obsidian Fury attacks Sydney.

I cried when that happened, I truly did. When stills of the memorial scene should appear, I have to examine them carefully. Because the memorial wall consists of holographic images. We see her, Pentecost and the Kaidanovskys but there are at least two more. But I couldn’t get a look at them, it was too quick and the movie still doesn’t disclose wtf happened to Raleigh and Herc. Raleigh is mentioned a couple of times and Herc is referred to as a veteran (along with Chuck when they talk about Onibaba as a simulator enemy). But no mention what happened to them. Dead? I hope not. Retired on a sunny island as far away from the pacific rim as possible? Heck yeah. But we don’t know.

Newt’s wife, whose name is Alice, turns out to be the fucking kaiju brain with which he tried the first drift in PR. That also is his doom, because he drifts regularly with it (it’s sex, it’s really kaiju sex and I can‘t believe how Newt could sink so low. That’s not even a kink anymore). By now, the Precursors have taken control over his mind and because he is the head of development at Shao Industries he smuggles kaijus muscle into the drones and the Jaeger Obsidian Fury. That’s why they can move so smoothly.

(God, I’m still not over the fact that Newt is the bad guy [nice turn, though]. He was so innocent in PR and now he’s just cold and calculating, even a little disgusting. It’s, no, really, wtf.)

Jake and Nate seem to have an interesting relationship. In the beginning, it really looks like they’re enemies, but in the end it’s just big heart-eyes between the two. They tried to put a love triangle with a cool female J-Tech into the movie and I was already why? but they resolved this rather self-mockingly so I’m okay with it.

One pilot dies, which is a pity because it’s Karan Brar’s sweet Suresh, but on the other hand it’s maybe a bit too little considering that they’re fighting against two Kaiju Cat. IV and one Cat. V which later fuse together to a Super Kaiju. But this is Science Fiction, what’s even realistic here?

The fight scene was fantastic, lots of eye-candy and really fun to watch. Much building and landmark destruction - which del Toro tried to avoid - but this is Steven S. DeKnight’s playground. It’s a little harsh on Tokyo, though. It had just been (probably unrecognizably) rebuilt after Onibaba’s attack.

The climax is: the Super Kaiju heads for the Fujijama to set in motion a chain reaction. The goal is to bring to explode all the volcanoes along the pacific rim to flood the earth with toxic fumes and to accomplish the mission of the Precursors. Except that Hermann - sweet, sweet, Hermann - has come to the same conclusion, but he brings Kaiju Blue and rare earth elements together to make the new rocket propulsion that catapults the Jaegers from China to Japan and later G Avenger to the Fujijama.

Apropos, the Jaegers: I didn’t mind their smooth motions at all once I saw them in the entire battle, not just in cut sequences. Still think that Bracer Phoenix is the cooles dude on earth - the three pilots even make a slide as their entrance signature move! I also like Saber Athena, she has a bit the mentality of a cat to her. Guardian Bravo stays a bit drab and G Avenger is nothing like G Danger, except maybe the looks. Which is cool, if they had given her a different name, therewith also avoiding the g-slur once and for all.

And...that’s it. For the moment. I just needed to sort through my thoughts and comprehend what I’ve just seen.

P.S. They have included the OST of PR but modified it a bit and it’s super cool!