#was this entire episode fan service and cheesy as fuck? YES

[thirstyvampyr]

"thick and thin, good times, bad, sickness, health, all that shit." Mickey, 5x12

#shameless #spoilers #10x12 #william h macy #noel fisher #cameron monaghan #jeremy allen white #ethan cutkosky #steve howey #shanola hampton #kate miner #frank gallagher #mickey milkovich #ian gallagher #lip gallagher #carl gallagher #kevin ball #veronica fisher #tami tamietti #gallavich #was this entire episode fan service and cheesy as fuck? YES #did i ate it all up? YES #im not a fan of slow burns but for them ill endure anything #my connection is so shit this took hours to upload im tired #my gifs

[the-desolated-quill]

WandaVision: ‘Subverting’ Good Television - Quill’s Scribbles

(Spoilers for the first five episodes)

Hey everyone! Well... it’s been a while, hasn’t it? The last time I wrote a proper review or Scribble, people still thought the COVID crisis would be over within a month. The poor saps. But I thought that as a special way to mark this year’s Valentines Day, we could take a closer look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s shittiest power couple in their new Disney+ show WandaVision.

The first of many MCU spin-off shows that nobody asked for, broadcast exclusively on Disney’s totally unnecessary streaming platform, WandaVision is about everybody’s favourite whitewashed Nazi experiment and her red sexbot boyfriend as they try to fit into a suburban sitcom neighbourhood without arousing suspicion.

Yes, you read that correctly. The MCU has a sitcom now. My life is now complete.

Sarcasm aside, I was legitimately curious about WandaVision because of its unusual setting. And considering one of my most common criticisms of the MCU is its total lack of creativity, anything that’s even a little bit subversive is bound to attract my attention. Of course ‘subversive’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘good.’ I could hand you a canvas smeared with my own shit and call it subversive. That doesn’t necessarily make it good art. And that’s exactly what WandaVision is. A canvas smeared with shit.

So lets split this critical analysis/review/angry bitter rant into two distinct chapters. The first focusing on the plot and setting, and the second focusing on the characters. Okay? Okay.

Chapter 1: Bewitched

Critics seem to be utterly enamoured with the whole sitcom gimmick, and it is a gimmick. As far as I can tell from the episodes I’ve seen, the sitcom setting serves no real purpose whatsoever other than to make the show ‘quirky.’ Which I wouldn’t mind, believe it or not, if the show was actually funny. There’s just one problem. It’s not.

Now in some ways describing why a sitcom doesn’t work is often futile because comedy is largely subjective. What I find funny, you won’t necessarily find funny and vice versa. With WandaVision, however, I won’t have that problem. I can demonstrate to you precisely why WandaVision, objectively, isn’t funny. And it all comes down to one simple thing. The stakes. Or rather the complete and total absence of stakes.

The show makes it very clear from the beginning that none of what we’re seeing is real. The cheesy theme song, the era appropriate special effects (mostly. It’s actually very inconsistent), the joke commercials, and, in the case of the first two episodes, which are in black and white, the appearance of red lights and objects in Scarlet Witch’s general vicinity. (Gee, what a mystery this is).

Basically Wanda has brought Vision back from the dead and created this sitcom world for them to inhabit. I’ll explain the stupidity of this in Chapter 2. The point is none of this is real, and that has a negative effect on the comedy because the very nature of comedy is suffering. Take the plot of the first episode. Wanda and Vision have to prepare a dinner to impress Vision’s boss. If they fail, Vision could lose his job and the couple could be exposed as superheroes. If this were a normal sitcom, it would work. The stakes are clear and it would be satisfying to see the two struggle and overcome the odds. But here, we know it’s not real. If it’s not real, it means there’s no stakes. If there’s no stakes, it means there’s no suffering. If there’s no suffering, there’s no comedy.

It would be one thing if the unfunny sitcom stuff lasted for like the first ten minutes or so before making way for the actual plot, but it doesn’t. Oh no. It doesn’t even last for the first episode. Out of the five episodes I’ve watched, four of them are almost entirely about these unfunny, objectively flawed sitcom homages, each set in a different time period. The fifties, the sixties, and so on. And what’s worse is that nothing that happens in them is plot-relevant. That gets relegated to the last five minutes of an episode. So you’re forced to sit through twenty five minutes of boring slapstick and puns in order to catch even a whiff of actual story. Which begs the question... who is this for exactly? It can’t be entertaining to Marvel fans, who have to slog through all this pointless shit so they can figure out what the fuck is going on. Comedy fans may get a kick out of the sitcom pastiche at first, but after four episodes, surely the joke would wear thin. So why is it in here? Clearly someone in the writer’s room absolutely fell in love with the idea of doing a Marvel sitcom, but nobody put in any time or effort to figure out how it would work in context.

I cannot stress enough how bad the plotting of this series is. As I said, the vast majority of a thirty minute episode is about shitty sitcom plots that aren’t funny and don’t have any impact on the story, only to then tease you with a crumb of actual plot in order to keep you coming back for the next instalment. Admittedly it’s an effective strategy. I was more than ready to quit after Episode 2 until that beekeeper showed up out of the sewer (don’t ask. It’s not important). WandaVision essentially follows the Steven Moffat school of bad writing. String your audience along with the promise that things might get more interesting later on and that all the bullshit that came before will retroactively make sense by the end. Except, as demonstrated with BBC’s Sherlock, that doesn’t work. And even if it did, it wouldn’t justify wasting the audience’s fucking time. And that’s what the majority of WandaVision is. A waste of time.

The only episode that doesn’t follow the sitcom format is the fourth episode. Instead it basically exists to explain all the shit that happened before. The shit that the audience, frankly, are smart enough to figure out for themselves. Wanda created the sitcom world as a way of coping with the loss of Vision, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, we got it. Thanks. It doesn’t advance the plot or anything. It’s just a massive info-dump. But by far the lowest point was when Darcy (by far the most annoying character in the first Thor film and is just as obnoxious here) was sat in front of the TV, watching the sitcom and asking the same questions we were. Not even attempting to look for answers. Just reiterating what the audience is thinking. Like this is an episode of fucking Gogglebox.

In the end it becomes apparent why the series is structured the way that it is. It’s to hoodwink people into subscribing to Disney’s stupid streaming service. If you think about it, there was no reason for WandaVision to be a TV series other than to lure gullible fans in with a piece-meal story buried in a mountain of crap. This isn’t a TV show. It’s what is cynically known in the world of big business executives as ‘content.’ They’re not interested in entertaining the audience. Instead they crave ‘engagement’, which isn’t the same thing. Watching WandaVision is like staring into the void, waiting for something to happen, while Disney charge you for the privilege.

Chapter 2: I Love Lucy

So the plot sucks balls. What about the characters? Surely if Wanda and Vision are likeable at least, it’ll give us something to cling onto.

Well as I was watching the first episode, it suddenly hit me that I couldn’t remember anything that happened to them in previous films. I knew Vision died, but other than that, I couldn’t tell you significant plot details or their personalities or anything. Not a great start.

See, up until now, Vision and Scarlet Witch have been little more than background characters. So already there’s an uphill struggle to get us invested in their relationship, especially considering we haven’t actually seen that relationship develop. In Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Scarlet Witch is killing people because she’s pissed off about Tony Stark killing people (you work that one out) until all of a sudden she stops and joins the good guys because the script said so. Vision meanwhile is introduced as a convenient deus ex machina to beat Ultron and gets no real personality other than he’s a robot. Captain America: Civil War comes the closest to giving Wanda a story and personality of her own as it’s her actions that cause the Sokovia Accords to come into effect, but she never gets any real growth or payoff as the film is heavily focused on Cap and Iron Man’s penis measuring contest. And as for Vision, all he does in the film is accidentally cripple War Machine. No real character or arc there as such. And then we have Avengers: Infinity War, where Wanda and Vision are now sporadically in love and on the run until that pesky Josh Brolin, looking like a CGI cross between Joss Whedon and a grumpy grape, comes along and rips out Vision’s Infinity Stone to power up his golden glove of doom, and the film treats this like a tragic moment, except... it isn’t. Because we haven’t really had the time to properly get to know these characters and see their romance blossom. So instead it just comes off as hollow and forced.

WandaVision has the exact same problem. Apparently Wanda was so distraught about Vision’s death that she broke into a SWORD base, stole his corpse, brought it back from the dead... somehow, and then enslaved an entire town of people to create an idyllic lifestyle for her and her hubby while broadcasting it as a sitcom to the outside world... for some reason. Putting aside the dubious morality of it all, it’s impossible to really sympathise with Wanda or her supposed grief because we’ve barely spent any time with her. Had the Marvel movies taken the time to properly explore the characters and show us their relationship grow and develop, this might have had more emotional resonance. But no, it just happens. In one film they barely speak to each other and in the next they’re a couple. No effort to explore how they feel about each other or any of the problems that may arise trying to date a robot. It just happens and we’re just supposed to care. Well I’m sorry, but I don’t care. You’re going to have to try a little bit harder than that I’m afraid. What’s worse is that, thanks to the whole fake sitcom thing, it’s impossible to really become invested in Wanda and her plight because the show has to constantly keep us at arms length at all times in order to keep up the pretence that this bullshit is somehow mysterious.

Looking through the WandaVision tag, it amuses me how many people say that she’s acting out of character. And yeah, her actions are a bit of a head scratcher. Why would an Eastern European’s ideal life be an American sitcom? Why a sitcom? Why kidnap an entire town? Why keep changing the decade? None of it makes sense, but you’re wrong for thinking that Wanda is behaving out of character for the simple reason that Wanda has never actually had a character. In fact, ironically, Wanda mind controlling an entire town and forcing them to do her bidding is probably the one consistent thing about her as she did this in Age Of Ultron. In interviews, Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany described how they used actors like Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick Van Dyke as influences, which is really funny because they’re straight up admitting they don’t have characters and even now they’re still not playing the characters, instead emulating the work of far better actors.

As I was watching the show, it became abundantly clear that not only do Marvel not have the faintest idea what they wanted to do with these characters, but they also straight up don’t give a shit about these characters. Wanda in particular has had a rough time under the tyrannical regime of the House of Mouse. First they cast Elizabeth Olsen, a white woman, to play a Romani character, then systematically erasing her Jewish roots, even going so far as to put a cross in her bedroom in Civil War, and now the character is being butchered even more by forcing her into an American sitcom housewife role that she apparently willingly chose for herself, which is laughable. I mean say what you like about Magneto in the X-Men films, at least they actually depicted his Jewish culture. At least they recognised his Jewish background was important (though not important enough to cast a Jewish actor apparently). Wanda’s steady cultural erasure over the years is incredibly insidious and judging by Olsen’s comments in interviews, where she called Wanda’s comic book outfit a quote ‘gypsy thing’ unquote, it seems nobody has an ounce of fucking respect for the character or the culture she’s supposed to be representing. (and to all those kissing her arse saying it was a slip of the tongue, she has been repeatedly called out for using the slur in the past, so at this point I’d describe her behaviour as wilful ignorance)

If you want further proof of how much Marvel doesn’t seem to care about Wanda, look no further than her brother Pietro, aka Quicksilver. At the end of Episode 5, Wanda brings Pietro back from the dead, except it’s not Pietro. It’s Peter Maximoff, the Quicksilver from the X-Men films played by Peter Evans, who coincidentally is not Jewish or Romani either. So Quicksilver has the dubious honour of not only being whitewashed three times, but also twice within the same franchise. But should we really be surprised at this point? It’s Marvel after all. The same company that whitewashed the Ancient One in Doctor Yellowface and claimed it wasn’t racist because Tilda Swinton is ‘Celtic’. But now I’m going off topic. My point is that this isn’t a simple case of recasting an actor like Mark Ruffalo replacing Edward Norton as the Hulk. WandaVision actually acknowledges the recast in-universe, which makes no sense. Why would Wanda bring back her brother, only to make him look like a different person? We the audience may be familiar with this version of Quicksilver, but she isn’t. That would be like me bringing my Grandad back to life and making him look like Ian McKellen. He’d be perfectly charming, I’m sure, but he wouldn’t be my Grandad. 

If Marvel really cared about the characters or narrative consistency, they would have brought Aaron Taylor Johnson back. Instead, now they have absorbed 20th Century Fox into the hellish Disney abyss, they use X-Men’s Quicksilver as a means to keep viewers from switching off and so that people will write stupid articles and think pieces about whether the rest of the X-Men will show up in the MCU. It’s like dangling your keys in front of a toddler’s face to distract them from the rotting corpse of a raccoon lying face down in the corner of the room.

And it’s here where I decided to stop watching the show because fuck Disney.

Epilogue: One Foot In The Grave

You know, I am sick and tired of the so called ‘professional’ critics bending over backwards to praise these god awful films and shows when it’s so clear to anyone with a functioning brain cell how bad they truly are. WandaVision is without a doubt one of the most cynically produced and poorly structured TV shows I’ve ever seen. Its riffs on classic sitcoms are pointless and self-indulgent, the writing is terrible, the characters are unlikable and unsympathetic, and it’s entirely emblematic of what the entire MCU has become of late. And it’s only going to get worse as Disney drowns us with more ‘content’ to keep the plebs ‘engaged’. In short; pathetic.

#anti wandavision #anti marvel #anti mcu #anti disney #quill's scribbles

[themattress]

Regina & Rumple

I still think these two were once-excellent characters and villains whom A&E proceeded to mutilate by turning them into some of the most whitewashed, morally offensive, overexposed yet poorly written, wish-fulfillment characters that I have ever seen. But with that said (and this may be part of old biases showing), I think Rumple ended on a better note than Regina.

Don’t get me wrong. I still think Rumple’s ending should have happened in the S5 / series finale that should have been, with him being the Final Boss and putting the whole multiverse in danger out of selfishness, but has an atoning death when Belle and his unborn son are put in danger too as a result, with him literally standing up to his dark side and overcoming it. 

Otherwise, his ending should have happened in “The Final Battle”, with his atoning death, happening during the face-off with his dark side, being done to save Gideon from having to kill Emma: breaking the Black Fairy’s spell on his heart by merging his own heart with it just as he actually did with Rogers’ heart in the real finale but without a follow-up afterlife scene.

But the ending he got, as it stands? It’s serviceable. He killed himself and his dark side (now embodied in Wish Rumple) in order to save the life of his friend (an alternate reality version of his biggest victim, at that), showing clear anguish at the possibility of said friend dying so that there’s no doubt in his sincerity, and even saying he knows he won’t reunite with Belle afterward, but that truly doing the right thing is “doing it because it’s right, not for a reward”. Even his afterlife scene with Belle, which I still say weakens the power of his sacrifice, wasn’t as bad as it could have been due to there being no solid on-screen confirmation that he and Belle went on to Heaven (which Rumple doesn’t belong in) and instead stayed in limbo or Purgatory or whatever you call it to have a second chance at marriage, without any of the abuse and dysfunction that unfolded throughout all of S4-6. Yeah, remember all of that?

Really, that’s my biggest issue here (besides the bizarre and kind of creepy emotional Regina monologue over his carcass): Rumple’s entire character in S7 is completely reliant on the audience just completely forgetting that S4-6 ever happened, or accepting that the bare minimum, token decency (that really wasn’t even all that good when you think about it) he displayed at the end of “The Final Battle” means that he’s redeemed and that all should be forgiven, which is bullshit especially since it ignores him becoming the Darkest Dark One in the 5A finale. There being no consequences for that move whatsoever (it was ignored as a factor even before Wish Rumple claimed the Darkness completely for himself via the Author’s pen and made it a moot point) is galling and just reinforces what a Nice Guy fantasy Rumple is for A&E. Any competent showrunner would have had that action spell Rumple’s doom. Having an atoning death is fine, but he shouldn’t get a hero’s death after all he did in S4-6.

However, other than that, the way Rumple went out was OK. Regina’s ending, though...

It’s funny - had “The Final Battle” as it is, with Rumple surviving and being totally forgiven by everyone, been the end of OUAT, then I’d say his ending was the worst and most offensive one, with Regina’s (Mayor titled “Queen” with dwarves bowing to her in one realm, actual Queen in another) only coming in at a distant second.  But as it turns out, his ending in the actual finale was decent while Regina’s...WOW. Where do I even begin? The conclusion to her battle with Wish Henry would’ve been bad enough as it is, but then came the last act of the episode. Regina gets the idea to make a “good version” of the Dark Curse completely out of nowhere - it’s not necessary to happen, but she just decides that it should and all the idiots around her decide so as well because of course they do. Flash forward to the realms being merged, and Regina is crowned Queen of the whole thing (with it being said that it was decided by a vote that overwhelmingly went in her favor), with it being done by two of her biggest victims, while a crowd mostly made up of her other victims smile, applaud and even fucking bow to her. She makes another cheesy speech and the entire show ends on that (oh, and scenes from the past play during this monologue of her’s, and when she addresses that everyone has suffered loss, Graham’s death is even shown. I wish I was making that up.) 

And she’s now called “The Good Queen”. Gag me.

I’ve seen Regina fans gush over this ending because Regina began the show so unloved and now she’s surrounded by people who love her.  To which I pose this question: what the Hell did she do to EARN that love? To DESERVE it? She ruled oppressively over them, killed their loved ones, manipulated them, tortured them, constantly belittled and abused them (yes, even after she’d reformed), whined about how unfair her life was while ignoring the pain in their lives (much of which she’d caused), and generally accepted all of their love and help and support while giving little back in return. They did all the heavy lifting to support her, whereas a proper redemption should have had her do the heavy lifting to support them, the people she’d wronged. Almost all of her heroics that they benefited from were for her own self-benefit, and her goal never stopped being her own personal happiness, just as it was when she was a villain. RUMPLE actually learned that “you do the right thing because it’s right, not for a reward”, and yet Regina never truly did learn this. The only person she ever was shown to personally sacrifice for was Henry - but he was the exception, not the rule.

Moreover, while you could argue that the status she gets at the end here was a result of her doing good, let’s actually look at all she gained from being evil that she still has? Her status as a Queen and/or Mayor (both of which coming about from evil-doing), her money, her magic, custody over her son - hell, she even kind of got to get revenge on Snow and Charming by killing the Wish Realm versions of them and suffering no repercussions, even getting a second loving son out of it! And what did she truly sacrifice by the end? She got closure with her dead loved ones in the Underworld (including the one she killed), got to keep a motherly relationship with Henry so her sacrifice in 3x11 didn’t stick, she never sacrificed her magic like Zelena did even if that didn’t stick, she never sacrificed her life like Rumple and Hook both did twice even if it only ever stuck with Rumple the second time....she basically got everything she could have ever wanted. The real kicker is that the start of Regina’s story had it so that being Queen is something Cora was forcing on her since birth and she herself didn’t want it - and yet her Happy Ending is being Queen of EVERYTHING?

But the ultimate thing that gets me down about this ending is the simple fact that OUAT started out as Emma’s story. Emma’s fairy tale. That was how the series was portrayed in the beginning: with Emma as a lonely lost princess who felt like an unloved, unlovable orphan. An ending where Emma, the rightful princess of the realm, is crowned Queen by her parents and surrounded by people who love her, including her son and husband, would have been a perfectly natural ending to that story. But instead, it becomes the story of the character who was portrayed as the villain and Emma’s arch-nemesis, the one responsible for Emma growing up so miserable, and SHE is the one who gets that kind of ending as the last scene of the show? Are you fucking KIDDING ME!? If it wasn’t clear already, this solidifies it: Regina Mills is one of the biggest, most blatant Mary Sue Creator’s Pets in all of fiction. 

Rumple may embody OUAT warts and all, but Regina is the embodiment of its sad decline.

#Once Upon a Time #ABC #Regina Mills #The Evil Queen #Rumpelstiltskin #Mr. Gold #Weaver #Finale #Opinion #Analysis #Bad Writing #Character Derailment #Mary Sue #Creator's Pet #They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot #They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character #Jumping the Shark #This Show Got Screwed Up #Anti-Regina #Anti-Regina Mills #Anti-Evil Queen #Anti-Rumple #Anti-Rumpelstiltskin #Anti-OUAT #Anti-A&E #Those ABOMINATIONS!

[teamflby]

RWBY Volume 6 Episode 3 Rundown

Spoilers below the cut as usual

So let me start out by saying one thing, and this is going to come off as extremely arrogant but I’m going to do it anyways:

I fucking called that Ozpin did nothing wrong, and his actions were dictated by years of experience and knowledge literally no one else had. The people that overreacted and wanted him burned at the stake for telling a few lies can go suck it, because he literally did nothing wrong.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get onto the main point of today, and that is simply this: 6-3 was probably the best episode in the series next to 3-12

Yes, you heard me of all people say this. 6-3 is by far the best episode of the series next to 3-12, and has been the episode fans like me have been waiting for since 3-12. Now I’m going to explain myself and talk about the good first, because I do want to talk about some things that I felt weren’t up to par. But just know that like 90% of this episode is either good-extremely well done and the other 10% is mediocre-subpar, but never actually delves into full on bad or anything.

The episode focuses on Ozpin’s and Salem’s backstory, something I knew was coming sooner rather than later and something I was a bit fearful of when I saw it was happening this week. My biggest fear was that it was going to be generic and bland and the focus was going to be all over the place, rather than grounded in Ozpin as a whole. And... I was right about some of it. The backstory is relatively generic, BUT generic is not always a bad thing. There was genuine spice in this episode and story that made me happy, and a lot of Hoenheim vibes with it too for my Fullmetal fans. I’m going to give you guys an abridged version of it, and then talk about what I liked and what I didn’t.

So basically, Salem was Rapunzel’ed in a castle and Ozpin (who’s Ozma at this point) goes up to that castle and saves her because he believes in truth, justice and the American way. The two of them fall in love and have their magic together (since all humans have magic at the moment) and they live happily ever after until Ozpin dies from an illness. Salem doesn’t like that and goes to the god of light to get him to revive her, and he says no and Salem throws a hissy fit. She then goes to the god of destruction and asks him to do it, which he does until the GoL shows up and is like “she asked me first and I said no because reviving people from the dead is no bueno” and the GoD is like yeah you right and kills Ozma. The two make Salem immortal as punishment for being a bitch so she can never be with Ozma. Salem gets mad and pits the humans against the gods, until the gods Thanos snap everyone except Salem away and then leave the world and destroy the mood in the process. Salem hops into the GoD pit since she thinks it’ll kill her, but since she’s immortal it just makes her all Grimmy (pun 100% intended). The GoL revives Ozma and tells him to gather the relics and let the judge the humans once more, but Ozma goes back and finds Salem and they get it on and try and play God themselves. Then Ozma realizes this is a mistake and they can’t do this, so he gets killed and the cycle of reincarnation repeats itself over and over again. He gathers the relic of knowledge and asks his three questions, and he immediately finds out that he can’t defeat Salem at all and that it’s impossible, so ergo:

Ozpin is fighting a losing battle

So that’s kind of a lot to unpack, but not too much that I can’t talk about it all. For starters, let me just say that the fact that Salem was the one who was the obsessed, pseudo evil one here and not Ozpin. Let’s be real here, Ozpin was never the evil one, especially when you pit him up against literal evil incarnate. I expressed this last rundown, and I’m glad they doubled down on the fact that Ozpin himself is not evil. He’s quite literally a man that was forced into his own destiny, and while he did have the choice given to him by the GoL he’s just trying to do what he can to bring humanity together so that way he can show the Gods that humans are good and won’t get Thanos snapped again.

Also, speaking on the Gods I think they were handled relatively well. I thought that they reminded me of the Forest God from Princess Mononoke a little too much, but they weren’t harmful at all. I think they looked a little dumb, but they sounded nice and did their job well. Granted, I think that the way they destroyed the moon was stupid. Like, they just up and left the planet and destroyed the moon in the process. Some could argue that it’s symbolic now and whatever, but really? It’s not. It was just “look we answered that question you all wanted to know since the Red Trailer!” Not that there’s anything wrong with some fan service now and again, but like... this was one of the more poorly executed versions of it.

The real highlight of the episode for me was the cinematography and actual structure of the episode. The episode never takes focus off of the story and you’re constantly engaged with Ozpin and Salem the whole time, and that works extremely to its benefit. After 6-2, I was worried that this episode would cut back and forth between things, but it focuses entirely on Ozpin and Salem, and I think Ruby is the only other person in this episode outside of them and the Gods that even has a legit speaking role? It just works out extremely well at the end of the day, and I love that. Also the shot selection was just... mmmmmmm. There were a few standouts to me, like when Ozma gets told about his actual goal and why he’s being brought back, he falls onto his knees and behind him you see Oscar staring down at him in absolute fear and worry about this job being too big for him. There’s also the scene were you see in shadowy detail Salem trying to kill herself after first becoming immortal, and Ruby watches on is horror as it happens. There’s a few more that are also really good, but those two stood out the most to me. Another small part of me I really liked was how we only focused on the kids and not really Qrow when we saw them in the story, which gives me an indication that next time he’s going to play some big role because now he won’t be mad about trusting Ozpin, but how they’re fighting a losing battle. Which brings me to another thing I loved...

The fact that they can’t beat Salem. It’s made abundantly clear that Salem is immortal and cannot die, and it’s starting seem like there’s no way to do so. Personally, I think the silver eyes thing will be the bridge to that defeat of Salem (how I’m not sure), but at the moment there’s no way, and that’s a good thing. For the entire time of the show, we have this confidence that there’s a way, that Team RWBY can pull it together to do so, but then the episode ends with that resounding “No. You literally cannot.” and it just sets a tone that I love. All the girls look dejected as the camera pans out, and you’re left feeling that same dread Ozpin has felt for hundreds if not thousands of years. That’s what we felt at the end of 3-12, and that’s what we’ve needed to feel since then. This was the first time in my opinion that any type of real weight can be felt on the cast since then, and man does it feel good to finally feel it.

Now onto the smaller things I didn’t like: I think the score was kinda lame. RWBY music has always been an issue for me, and I think their scores are horrendous. The instrumentals that play in the back never entertain me, and I think they were somewhat of a mood killer here, but not enough to drag me away from what was happening on screen. I think the story as a whole was a little cheesy and campy, but honestly cheesy is good, especially for RWBY which kinda revels in it from time to time. This was a good kind of cheese, and while I think it could’ve been presented better, I still like.

Now, my final thing is a small worry that I won’t touch up upon too much: We are three episodes in, and we’ve gotten plot and lore and exposition that is Volume finale level. So that raises the question: Now what? Where do we go from here? I’m a bit worried that M&K metaphorically blew their load early and don’t have enough to keep up for the rest of the Volume since this is the trend, but for now I’m going to bite my tongue on it since it’s not too much concern. All in all, this was a great episode and did a masterful job at finally answering our questions about Ozpin and Salem (who might I add can certainly get it).

FINAL VERDICT: 9.5/10, A great story wrapped up in a RWBY-like charm that shows what Miles and Kerry are capable of when they’re on the top of their game.

#rwby volume 6 spoilers #discussion post

[footbaliimagines]

lost in translation (an antoine griezmann imagine)

Summary: Antoine goes to a press conference and things don’t go entirely to plan

She cleared her throat and tapped her foot nervously before sipping from her coffee flask. Press conferences were always boring. Always awkward and uncomfortable with the constant flash of photographers’ cameras, full of repetitive questions and repetitive answers discussing “how exciting the next match was going to be” and the ways in which “international football was developing up in such a brilliant and exciting direction”. Boring, boring, so fucking boring.

When her boss had told her she’d be interpreting for the Antoine Griezmann in a press conference prior to a France v. Portugal international friendly, she’d been ecstatic. Not as an Atletico supporter, or as a football fan in general, but from a purely business-orientated point of view. Interpreting for one of the biggest names in football would do wonders for her (currently minute) clientele, and after getting fired from her last job teaching high school French, after a particularly embarrassing drunken episode at the end of term Christmas party, she was becoming increasingly desperate.

She shuffled the bundle of sheets in front of her and flipped through the pages. Team sheets in case she slipped up on any names, recent results for reference and a list of French and Portuguese idioms she had compiled the night before.

You’d have to be deaf not to notice when he walked in. Photographers and journalists became restless and there was a sudden buzz around the room that hadn’t existed before. “Hi, I’m Antoine. Nice to meet you.” He rattles off, approaching her side, before she gives off a tight-lipped smile, shakes his hand and tells him her name.

“I’m your interpreter for today’s press conference. If you could give me a heads up of the kind of things you might be talking about, so I can plan and make some notes in advance, that’d be great.”

And Antoine proceeds to rattle off a list of things that could and probably will come up, and she eagerly scribbles them down. Boring, logistical stuff mainly. Praise for the Portuguese team, a funny quip about his and Ronaldo’s ever-increasing rivalry, his hopes and aims for the rest of the season, the quashing of certain rumours regarding a move to Manchester…

He was attractive, there was no doubt about it.  But her professionalism would have to take precedence, she reminded herself, unlike that brief stint at her old marketing job which had come to an abrupt end after being caught in the store cupboard in a rather compromising position with the cute young receptionist.

(Jeez, she really did have an issue with keeping a job.)

The press conference began without a hitch. In fact, he was so effortlessly charming and such a freaking media darling that she felt confident enough to say that it was going well. 

Then came the crash. The skid when his chair jerked backwards followed by the thump when he fell to the floor and the grunt he emitted as his forehead smacked the table in front of him

And Jesus Christ, it’s awful and she kind of wants the ground to swallow her whole, because everyone leaps to their feet to assist him and gasps and calls for medical assistance (not overly dramatic at all, she thinks) and she has to turn away to stifle her laughter and cover her face to avoid getting photographed by some nosy journalist.

(Cruel, unsympathetic interpreter LAUGHS at Antoine Griezmann after he falls and injures himself at press conference: Watch the footage of her undignified, inappropriate response HERE.’ She can imagine the tabloid headlines already.)

Maybe it’s a bad habit, maybe it’s a knee jerk reaction or maybe she’s just a horrible, insensitive person, but there is nothing that makes her laugh quite like people falling over, and every time the scene replays in her head she feels like she’s going to suffocate from laughter. The podium where their table is situated suddenly becomes flooded with people and she quickly rushes off to stand on the side lines with her manager.

“Hey, what’s the protocol for this kind of thing?” She asks him.

Antoine is laughing to himself, and shrugging to his agent who’s frantically rubbing his head  and gesturing wildly and insisting to the journalists that he’s okay. “Stop cackling,” Her manager, a big-whizz interpreter who hooked her up with this gig in the first place, shakes his head and fixes her with a glare. “Check if he’s okay! Ask him if he needs a glass of water! Big name clients like him don’t come often and we need you to stay in his good books!” He hisses, edging her back towards Antoine.

“He’s fine! It was just a knock to the head.” She insists, and then picturing the fall in her brain again nearly sets her off all over again. “He’ll brush it off.”

“Go and speak to him.” He says sternly and she rolls her eyes in a stubborn huff.

She glances back up at the podium, where the crowd has dispersed and Antoine’s been taken to the side for a ‘short recess’. He has his back to her and after cursing under her breath, summons up the courage to tap him on the shoulder. “Um, Antoine?”

He turns around and smiles at her, and she can’t tell if she’s imagining the faint pink blush spreading across his cheeks as he stutters out a polite “Hi.”

“Are you okay? After, you know-“

“After the fall?” He cuts her off humorously. “I’m fine, honestly. Nothing bruised but my ego. And maybe my head. I could have a concussion. And potential amnesia.”

“It looked painful.”

He laughs, “It was.”

There’s something about him that lulls her closer. She had spent last night watching a playlist of his interviews on Youtube, in a desperate last-minute attempt to pick up on the intricacies of his accent and become accustomed to his voice.

(It hadn’t taken long.)

And while any sane woman (or man, let’s be honest) could see that he was friendly, attractive and charming, there’s something about standing opposite next to him, face to face, that hadn’t quite been the same through her laptop screen. He’s confident but not arrogant and just so god damn pretty (Seriously, why do guys always have the nicest eyelashes?) and his eyes are almost as blue as his jersey. “So, uh, a concussion?”

He nods humorously, before remarking drily, “I’m pretty sure I’m seeing double.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?” She holds up her middle finger jokingly and he bursts out laughing.

“In all my years as a footballer, I’ve never been sworn at by an interpreter.”

“There’s a first for everything.”

“True, true.” He chuckles. “Now, would it be incredibly cheesy to say that happened because I was falling for you?”

She splutters and feels her face grow hot. Because not only is he extremely attractive (even more so up close) but he’s smiling at her with a sparkle in his eyes and the smell of his aftershave is almost sending her under.

Professionalism, is the one word that spins around her brain upon the realisation that she kind of (read: really) fancies him. You need this job.

“It would.” She stutters. “Would be massively inappropriate, is what I’m saying.”

“Ah.” He forces a smile, but it’s clear that he’s slightly disheartened. “Well, I should head back-“

“It would be cheesy, yes. But, uh, I think it was a good joke.”

His face lights up again and she kicks herself internally for not stopping whatever this (him just being friendly, him flirting, her overthinking the entire situation?) is while she still had the chance. But he’s virtually beaming at this point and his eyes are crinkling slightly at the corners and she can’t quite bring herself to shut him out entirely.

(It would be like kicking a puppy, she reasons. By responding I’m just being a nice person. It has nothing to do with me being terrible and unprofessional and flirting with my client. Even she can tell that her justification is pretty shitty.)

“I’m glad you liked it. Was the first thing I thought of as I was cracking my skull open.”

She teases, “God, you’re such a romantic.” 

“I am French, after all.”

“You and your baguettes. And snails. And croissants.”

“Oui, ma belle.”

She’s been listening to him speak French for the past twenty minutes and it hasn’t had the slightest effect on her, but now she’s pretty sure she’s turned as red as her press lanyard and her tongue is lodged in her throat. “Could I, uh, possibly get your number, or email or something?” He stutters, and the difference between his confident flirting before and his broken, nervous question now is remarkable. “Not for like, dodgy reasons or anything. Just because I think you’re a really good, um, interpreter? And I’d like to see you again. To do my press conferences. Nothing weird, of course.”

She narrows her eyes at him teasingly and smiles, putting her hand out expectantly which elicits a “huh?” and a quizzical raise of his eyebrows.

“I need to write my number down somewhere, dummy.”

Antoine clumsily leans in and places his hand on top of hers, marvelling at the sight and the fact that it perfectly envelops her much smaller hand. “I’d be happy to offer my services to you again.” She says with a shy smile and small nod, before her face falls and she covers her face with her hands in embarrassment. “Jesus Christ, that makes me sound like a fucking prostitute.” She whines.

He laughs again and his eyes crinkle up and if she could look at any one view for the rest of her life, she’s pretty sure this would be it.

Soon enough the press conference is resumed (littered with many reiterations of something along the lines of “I feel fine, it was just a small fall, it won’t affect my game”) and the remaining 25 minutes fly by- she’s not whether it’s due to the general quality of the conference improving or the fact that every now and then he throws her a small grin or bumps her knee with his under the table.  

(And she can’t help but think that getting fired from all her previous jobs was kind of a blessing in disguise.)

In the end, the journalists don’t publish or even capture her almost pissing herself laughing while Antoine rubs his head in confusion on the floor of the podium.

For that, she’s incredibly relieved.

Until she sees the cover of the Daily Telegraph the following morning: Interpreter at France National Team press conference seen SWEARING at Antoine Griezmann. 

And in the photograph, she’s stood there, smirking at him sarcastically with her middle finger waving proudly in the air.

Shit.

(Guess she’d be job hunting again.)

A.N.: wanted to write something about Griezmann for so long and v happy I’ve finally got something up!!!! hope you like it, please let me know what you think!! as usual, please have a nosy at my masterlist and send in requests you might have!! <3 xxx

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