#again the parallels in that scene were super significant | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eddiezpaghetti · 3 months

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Your perspective on Byler is super interesting, thank you for these posts! I agree that Byler isn't queerbaiting, but what if it's still an accident in the sense that they intended to tell a story of unrequited love from Will's pov (like Steve/Nancy, or Dustin/Max in season 2), and this is what those shots of Will between Mike and El are for, and didn't realize that Mike could be seen by a part of the audience as queer and possibly loving Will back?

Okay, for the most part, I'd just be reiterating the post I already made. So let's narrow this down to something more specific. Why is it not like Steve and Nancy or Max and Dustin?

Let's look at Max and Dustin first. I'll make a post about Steve and Nancy later because this wound up being longer than I meant for it to be.

What first comes to mind with Max and Dustin is the moment it really ended. When Dustin saw Lucas and Max together in the junkyard. If Dustin and Max were similar to Mike and Will, parallel to them, then the moment Dustin saw Lucas and Max together in the junkyard would be the same beat in their stories to the moment Mike and El reunited in the desert.

However, take a look at how they're shot.

This, versus

This.

And, just as important...

This scene.

AND this scene.

As I said in my first post, the reunion scene is shot that way--with Will making direct fucking contact with the camera--because he's supposed to be the one you're paying attention to in that scene. Not El and Mike.

Likewise, you're supposed to be paying attention to Dustin's feelings in the shot where he's watching Lucas and Max, but you'll notice some key differences.

One, Lucas and Max arriving together is shot as significant, as the focus, before it shifts to Dustin's reaction, instead of Dustin's reaction being shoved INTO their arrival. There's an over-the-shoulder shot to show that he (and Steve) have noticed Lucas and Max arriving, but the focus is still on Lucas and Max, reiterating what the audience already knew, that they're blatantly going to be The Couple, as was made pretty clear by their previous scenes, which brings me to the next point.

Their previous scenes. Their previous scenes. Lucas and Max had previous scenes leading up to that moment in the junkyard. THOSE--Lucas filling Max in, showing up at her house, convincing her to sneak out so that he can prove that everything he's been telling her is true and winning her trust, and Max giving him at least that much benefit of the doubt--were the real equivalent to El and Mike reuniting in the desert (isolated from Will). You want the audience to care about a couple? This is what you do. You give them private moments. And I was truly remiss in my first post not to point out that...Jonathan and Argyle were also there. So was fucking Brenner. Why didn't we see them? Why was the scene shot in such a way that you briefly forgot their existence but Will Byers was staring into your soul? You know why.

Getting back on topic, the final piece of the puzzle here is the scene that followed Dustin accepting that Max liked Lucas and not him. Once more, Lucas and Max have a private, tender scene. Emphasis on private. Once more, we get them alone. They talk, get everything they have to say out in the open, and only once the conversation comes to a lull does the story move on.

You know what the equivalent scene would be for Mike and El? Well, you've got one of two options, and neither is great for them.

First, you have Mike in that scene where he makes the glasses and he starts to say something to El but immediately gets interrupted by Argyle throwing pizza on the table, ker-splat.

And second, you have the infamous "I love you" scene. Which they are emphatically not alone in. Famously, Will starts that conversation in the first place, and his face is hovering over Mike's shoulder the whole damn time. (Again, this could have been shot in ways that made us forget he existed for a little while, and the show decided not to do that.) But, I really must impress the importance of this...

EL. AND MIKE. WERE NOT. EVEN. IN. THE SAME SCENE. AT ALL.

They weren't even in the same place! Not consciously, at least! Sometimes the camera would show El on the counter and it'd be, like, the tip of her nose and a little bit of her brow, but that does not count. That's like showing the phone in a phone call. Her body is basically an inanimate object that only allows verbal communication at this point. Then who was phone? EL WAS PHONE.

Okay, outdated memes aside, my point is that this is not how romantic scenes work. There are things missing, things wrong, and things very present in places where they should be absent. And the creators clearly know this because those are the rules they've laid out before and the path they've followed since. Mike and El never had any private, intimate, romantic scenes in season 4, despite having them earlier in the show. This is carving out the trajectory of their relationship moving forward. It is a vector, it has direction and force, and it is going straight toward the bitter end.

So I guess this is mostly about why El and Mike aren't happening than why Will and Mike are. Which is only part of the equation, true enough. To play devil's advocate here, maybe it's possible that the result is that El goes on to be happily single because there's so much more to life than stupid boys, Mike lets go, and Will pines for the rest of his days. Sure, whatever. Possibility, I guess.

One thing, though.

You wanna know who did have private, intimate scenes before and after the desert reunion?

Ya bois Michael Wheeler and William Byers, that's who.

Edit: I meant to say one more thing that I'm just realizing I forgot to mention. Dustin's face while he was watching Max and Lucas was clearly visible while Will's is not. We can see HIM, but not his FACE. This is like placing a wrapped box in the middle of the kitchen table and saying "Do Not Open Until Xmas". We're gonna unwrap that later.

#byler #meta #anon #As I said I'll do Nancy and Steve later.#Not getting to them isn't an 'I'll have to think about it'.#I've had my argument for them in my head from the second I saw this ask over breakfast.#This is more of an 'I need to practice guitar and get some sleep at some point and I don't think I can do that AND go into Part 2 tonight'#Does anyone else have any questions though?

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sadquickchristmassnowman · 4 months

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do you know significant dates for community episodes like for example december 10th for comparative religion (idk does make sense)

yes I think I get what you mean.

so, actually, for seasons 1-3, I’m pretty sure the dates the episodes aired, for the most part, line up with when the episode is meant to take place within the community universe. it's convenient that american networks have a similar schedule to the american school year, so it makes the timeline of shows set at schools line up pretty well with dates in the real world. this is no longer true for seasons 4-6, as they were likely pushed to midseason (making the season start airing in january/february and still end around may, making it half as long). so, for example, the season 4 halloween episode aired on february 14th, 2013. the halloween episodes for seasons 1-3 all, obviously, aired very close to halloween.

I do have some specific examples that support this, if the simple fact of the school year and network schedule lining up isn’t enough. as you said, in 1x12 comparative religion, they mention multiple times that it is december 10th. that episode did, in fact, air on december 10th, 2009. same with 2x11 abed's uncontrollable christmas; they mention that it is december 9th, and the episode aired on december 9th, 2010.

all this yapping to say: for seasons 1-3, a lot of the episode air dates are likely compliant with the in-universe set date. although, I do doubt that they had specific dates in mind for every single episode. it's just not super relevant. but, if you really wanted an estimate, I would consult this list of community episodes, which includes the date each episode was aired.

but, to more directly answer your question, I'm going to try to compile a list of episode dates I'm 100% sure about.

1x12 comparative religion: december 10th, 2009

2x10 mixology certification: december 4th, 2010

2x11 abed's uncontrollable christmas: december 9th, 2010

4x05 cooperative escapism in familial relations: november 22nd, 2012

not as long as I would have hoped, but ofc it's entirely possible there's things I missed.

to dive deeper, here's a list of episode dates I’ve speculated:

1x05 advanced criminal law: october 15th, 2009 (in contemporary impressionists, abed says that he and troy made a deal: "october 15th, friends don't lie to each other." this parallels their story in 1x05, and the 5th episode of season 1 being in october makes sense logistically in the canon. this episode also aired on october 15th, so it lines up in that way too. this episode does span across multiple days, though, so october 15th would just be one of the days included in the ep)

2x04 basic rocket science: october 16th, 2010 (this episode aired on october 14th, 2010, which is a thursday. they mention in the episode that it's a saturday, and the 16th is the saturday closest to the air date)

2x19 critical film studies: march 24th, 2011 (this is the date this episode aired, and is the generally accepted date for abed's birthday)

3x07 studies in modern movement: november 12th, 2011 (the episode aired on november 10th, 2011, which is a thursday. again, the mention in the episode that it is a saturday, and the 12th is the saturday closest to the air date)

3x10 regional holiday music: december 8th, 2011 (following the trend of the two previous christmas episodes, which took place on the last day of classes. again, this episode spans multiple days, so december 8th is theoretically the date of the episode's final scene)

5x11 g.i. jeff: november 20th, 2013 (this one is a little rougher. jeff's actual date of birth is a whole other can of worms, but it was originally listed as the same as joel mchale's, which is november 20th. a lot of people accept this as jeff's birthday. although, it is a little hard to justify for me, for one specific reason. if season 5 is supposed to span across an entire school year, and there's only 13 episodes, episode 11 should logically be sometime in the spring, not in november. so, either there is a months-long gap between episode 11 and episodes 12 & 13 (in order to make the finale line up with the end of the school year), or season 5 is only supposed to cover the first semester of the 2013-2014 school year. but, again, that is kind of weird, giving that all the other seasons cover the entire school year. the air date, however, is april 3rd, 2014. so. I could go on and on about theories on backtracking in the writers' room and whatever else, and I will if you want me too, but for now I think I've written enough. believe what you want about this one)

holiday episodes are kind of a whole other issue. you have to take the date of the actual holiday, the air date of the episode, and logically how the celebration would interfere with an actual school day, and try to extrapolate a canonical episode date. (ik I put the season 3 christmas episode in the list above, but I'm more sure about that one than any of the episodes I’m about to list) idk if you even want me to do this, so I’ll try to make it quick.

1x07 introduction to statistics: aired on thursday 10/29/2009, halloween was saturday 10/31/09. ep is centered around an after-school party, so I’d guess it's actually set on friday 10/30/09.

1x16 communication studies: aired on thursday 2/11/2010, valentine's day was sunday 2/14/2010. I’m pretty sure the dance is on a school day, so I’d guess it's actually set on friday 2/12/2010.

2x06 epidemiology: aired on thursday 10/28/2010, halloween was sunday 10/31/2010. I'd guess this dance was on either friday or saturday, although I have no clue which one. so, I'd guess either 10/29/2010 or 10/30/2010.

2x15 early 21st century romanticism: aired on thursday 2/10/2011, valentine's day was monday 2/14/2011. the episode description says it's set actually on valentine's day. I tried looking at liverpool v. man u soccer games, but the only one in the spring of 2011 is on march 6th, which is the opposite of helpful. all I know is it's set on a school day. maybe they actually did have a dance on a monday, or maybe it was the friday before (2/11/2011). who knows.

3x05 horror fiction in seven spooky steps: aired on thursday 10/27/2011, halloween was on monday 10/31/2011. based on vibes alone I think this one is set on a saturday, but idk. so, I’m guessing saturday 10/29/2011.

I'm not going to list the halloween and christmas episodes from season 4, because the season 4 timeline is so irrevocably fucked up. (it's the first time the show was pushed to mid-season, so the air dates don't match up with the canonical ones whatsoever, jeff "graduates a semester early," but they celebrate christmas and go into the spring semester while he's still attending school, etc etc etc). in conclusion, I wouldn't recommend trying to make any sense out of any season 4 canonical dates. whatever.

seasons 5 and 6 don't ever really mention specific dates (as far as I remember), and, like I mentioned earlier, they are half-length seasons, so the air dates don't really match up with the school years anymore, so it's all kind of up in the air. you could potentially try to go in and analyze things further, but I'm not going to do that right now. I could do it in the future if someone really wants me to, or if you guys think it's worth doing? but in this moment I don't think it's worth it. I’ve already written WAY too much to answer a simple question LMAO. anyway.

I do want to reiterate that there Probably aren't specific canonical dates in mind for most of these episodes. but yk. it's fun to speculate I suppose. I hope this was somewhat helpful, and I am once again opening the floor to anyone who has anything I missed 💯💯💯

#sorry it took so long to get back to you #I don’t really have an excuse #I really hope this is at all coherent #community #nbc community #community nbc #media analysis #community encyclopedia

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chenfordspiral · 1 year

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Am I jumping on the train of offering thoughts no one asked for for the first time even though I promised myself I never would? Apparently so. Do I hate myself for it? Little bit. But here we go anyway.

Maybe they never had Angela tease Tim about dating Lucy (yet) because some time after 5x02, she realized that it was much more serious than she initially thought? Like, maybe she teased him thinking he had a little crush, not actual soul-crushing feelings that caught him so off guard he didn’t quite know how to handle himself at first. Would I have loved to see her reaction? Sure. But I get that we won’t see every moment. We never got Angela or Nyla telling everyone that they were engaged, or that they were pregnant with Jack and Leah. Will it happen this time around? Probably not. Why? Who knows. Maybe because we, the audience, already know, anyway. And that’s fine. Gives us all different head-canons about what might’ve happened, in all these cases. And I kinda love that.

We all build up SO much in our heads and expect so much, especially about Chenford and their relationship, so that when we get something different or less than that, we’re immediately disappointed. Which is fine, we all have our hopes and wishes. But the show’s not only about Chenford. We didn’t get to see a lot of Angela and Wesley’s moments early on, either. They were suddenly living together in 2x01 and then we got more. Yes, I realize Chenford is different, because it’s been built over five seasons. But super romantic and cute (read cheesy, if you want) has never been the show’s MO, so why go there now? We might’ve seen more for Nolan and Bailey, but he’s the main character.

Tim and Lucy have known each other for years at this point and built a solid foundation, they don’t have to get to know each other like the other couples, so falling into an easy rhythm in their romantic relationship after some initial awkwardness is super in character. We don’t need to see all those early moments. There’s still seven episodes left to watch. Plenty of time to throw in some Chenford goodies. We can still get a morning after/cuddling in bed scene, we just didn’t get one for after their first time. Giving us too much too soon would be too fast. And not every meaningful moment happens in the first two months of a new relationship.

Please don’t immediately jump to ‘this is bad writing’ if it doesn’t exactly match what you expected or wanted. They’re all putting in their best work and just because some moments we wished for didn’t happen doesn’t make it bad. We’re not gonna get a parallel to every significant moment from earlier seasons. Take the DOD tattoo, for example. That was talked about in one episode, the one immediately following DOD itself. It’s never been talked about again. I’m not surprised we didn’t get a moment of Tim finding out if Lucy kept it or not. Is it okay to be disappointed about that? Of course. But that doesn’t mean the writers are dropping the ball on Chenford. It just means they pick what they want to show and when they wanna show it and we gotta accept it. We’d all be pissed as hell if they never got together at all or it was dragged out until it was too late. They’re together, we’ve already gotten more than we could’ve wished for this season. A Chenford-light episode or two does not equal dropping the ball or forgetting that they’re a couple. They need to be their own person still with storylines separate from one another. They don’t need to be attached at the hip 24/7. 5x14 for example wasn’t about them as a couple. It was about Tim getting started with a new job and Lucy being a good roomie/sister/bestie/mom to Tamara, with a bit of Chenford sprinkled on top.

Not liking an episode is perfectly fine. Give me all the constructive criticism. But not liking it solely because it was very light on or void of Tim&Lucy and Chenford moments? That I don’t totally understand. Yes, a lot of us watch primarily because of them. But then we need to be prepared for and accept those kind of episodes.

Am I saying ‘don’t be disappointed’? No, of course not. I’m simply saying that we need to remember that there was never a world in which everyone got exactly what they wanted to see. Not because it’s an ensemble show with nine main cast members, but because it would be way too much to show everything for two characters that are arguably the most loved but not the official leading characters in a 42-minute episode of a cop show. We don’t know what the rest of the season brings, but everyone on that show knows how beloved Chenford are. They will always have their moments, just not in every episode. Because it’s not a show about just them. If we want more seasons, we need to accept all of that.

Clearly I’ve been feeling it lately. Guess I’m just saddened that so much negativity’s been going around about something that brings me so much joy and I love so dearly. Something that so many seem to love so much, yet some are quick to kind of hate on the moment we don’t see Tim&Lucy in a scene together for an episode. Let them take a breather. Hell, let US take a breather once in a while. 5x16 is already looking to be a good one for the two of them. We’ll be fine.

And one last note. Trust in Eric. If he says there’s good stuff coming, there’s good stuff coming. Not just in general but for Chenford. We all know he’s the biggest shipper of us all. And he has never let us down.

#chenford #the rookie #this turned out longer than i expected #oops #feel free to come at me if you disagree #am I dreading posting this? yap. but I will hate myself if I don't because it's been bothering me for weeks at this point

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imminent-danger-came · 11 months

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https://youtu.be/7zl1LtEnqW8 here is the clip🐉

Thank you so much anon! Twas a short clip, but I'm no chump and there are actually things to talk about!

So.

Here we have Mei in the armor we saw on the new lego sets, and she looks great! She also looks like she's being antagonized (by possibly Azure? I'll get to that in a sec), and this pushes her to a breaking point, which is the exact opposite thing Subodhi told her in 4x09

"You are capable of so much more if only you would slow down and think!".

This screenshot also reminds me of this scene in 4x05 (except she's even angrier in the teaser):

Which in itself is a parallel to 3x02!

Next we have this

With Tang's magic all around the screen-

-that transitions to these shots, with a very distinct red in the background—as in it's very similar to the red that appears when Azure faces the Jade Emperor at the end of 4x10:

So, presumably, Mei is fighting Azure or someone Azure has given power, if he can do that. Mei's also surrounded in the same glowing green she was at the end of 4x07, so I wonder if Tang's powers have something to do with that.

What's especially intriguing to me, is that if we assume the first shot with Mei tensing in anger and the later shots with Azure exerting his Jade Emperor power are the same scene, Azure is going to taunt Mei in a very personal way. That's exactly what the Jade Emepror does initially:

"How is it you come to stand before me today Azure? Is there a point where you questioned it, or were you to caught up in your own delusion to see that you were a mere piece in somebody else's game? You may try Azure, the throne will be yours...but if you think I'll gift it freely, you are mistaken."

I think in particular Azure will taunt Mei about her initial trust, or at the very least some mistake she's made. Trust for Mei is something that has been significant before and will be significant again, so that's what I'd bet on.

Overall I'm super excited! It seems like we're going to get a Mei V Azure showdown, which would be great. She's gone up against Azure twice and failed, so she's more than due for a win! However in order to successfully do that, she's going to need to go through some character development first, so we'll see. But this is all just me theorizing, who knows what actually happens!

#doing my best writing this on the fly on my phone #Screenshots are both shitty and is the Subohi quote 100% right? idk #y'all get the point #*muah*#yes this was a 5 second clip. yes I am going to break it down #lmk #lmk analysis #lego monkie kid #lmk mei #lmk azure lion #monkie kid #lmk theory #wait it now occurs to me Mei is green. As in jade. Like that green glow. I'm going to try not to think too hard about that #asks

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amarriageoftrueminds · 1 year

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i don't get how some ppl have such short memories for the creative decisions marvel makes

people saying that james gunn(??) should write Bucky bc of rocket's arc in gotg3... did they forget that we already know what gunn's thoughts on Bucky and his autonomy are? none of them were remotely good, and it also involved rocket and his ableist running joke of wanting to dismember amputees replacement limbs off. marvel would rather humanize a raccoon than a human who was tortured and enslaved by nazis.

or how people will rightfully criticize all the available info feige puts out re: Thunderbolts for calling Bucky a villain... but then turn around and preeptively praise that he might have "long" hair (the WS cut) so out wondering why marvel keeps putting Bucky in winter soldier style designs whenever they villainize him again. it happens in both comics and mcu consistently. obviously those in charge want to keep him as the WS villain role and not progress his character and don't care why people liked the WS story (the development it set up)

or how some complain that Sam was unkind and victimblamey towards Bucky in tfatws, I feel like those got too into fanon!Sam that made him a therapist bc of his veteran work, but Sam re: Bucky started out wanting him to be put down like a dog, and consistently complained about Steve treating Bucky with kindness and empathy. fatws Sam wasn't OOC, he was always a military man whose empathy never extended towards the POW captured by Nazis and always regarded him as a potential threat that he has to tolerate, that was in character. the actual fault is the mcu not exploring the dynamic a super patriotic US military man not extending empathy towards a a ww2 vet for fought nazis only for said nazis to be hired by the US a lá Project Paperclip, but LBR the disney-owned and USDoD-funded marvel studios is not financially incentivized to delve into those topics in any way that doesn't ultimately end with "woo, Captain Amurrica, red white and blue stars and stripes, stand for the flag wooo! ignore anything close to critical in this project and embrace patriotic centrism!"

I already hate how long the last one got but another thing:

the way that Steve's mother and his Irish heritage (during the early 1900s which makes it more significant in that point in history) are given to shine, we don't even know her maiden name, even the story of Steve's father and how it's supposed to parallel Steve going to fight European fascism in both world wars, none of that gets any attention bc marvel as a franchise cares more abt the generic patriotism to dive into the characters

There's never enough talk about how post-CATWS mcu demoted Bucky from titular character and arguable secondary protagonist as a foil and parallel for Steve, be his alternate supersoldier/superhero journey based on who the world chose to lionized and who to exploit in the seedy underbelly and shady deals w nazis, but post-CATWS mcu (specifically CACW) robbed Steve of the chance to have Steve's (not Cap's, Steve's) character be explored.

Becayse why tf does that terrorizing billionaire have more screentime on what is (nominally) a sequel to Steve and Bucky's movie? We learn more about tony's annoying ass billionaire parents in a desperate attempt for pity than we do about either Bucky or Steve's families… the most we get is a name drop of Steve and Bucky reunion scenes that were clearly cut short if you compare them to the trailers of the movie.

the russos are branded as hacks (and maybe this is me still being bitter as an OG cacw-hater) but after they revealed in interviews that they kept re-editing and re-shooting civil war until half of test audiences sided with tony, that should've been where they were forever banned from filmmaking. that's not making a movie, that's making a product to sell action figures (unfortunately true for most of marvel if we're honest)

"Captain America: the Winter Soldier" nay have listed them by their titles, but that movie is pretty much the only time we see Bucky and Steve as characters most of the time, it's literally the only own with flashbacks to their relationship before the war, before "Captain America" even existed, to where it was just Bucky and Steve.

the vast majority of the marvel franchise treats them as only "Cap" and "Winter Soldier" their actual characters get lost by "creatives" who only have a superficial understanding of them as just two types of action figures to collect, they don't know Steve or Bucky, so we get sequels constantly about "Bucky's a killer robot who must be browbeat at every turn" and "Steve's most important thing in his life is the cap shield and legacy" as if their stories weren't centered around how Bucky was NOT the killer robot and in fact Steve's damn-near guardian angel character before the war and even during (literally killing nazis before they could touch Steve) and as if Steve didn't throw away the shield and Captain America title in each of his movies in favor of what's actually important to him: his oldest protector and the one he wants to protect in return, Bucky.

marvel doesn't even understand Bucky and Steve, they treat them as WS & CA, even though their core canon never showed them caring about the "legacy" and patriotism, it was always incidental at best or an obstacle that gets in the way. the most patriotism was in catfa, but it was always a mantle forced into Steve and his hero team (Howling Commandos) were purposefully diverse and non-American majority recommended by Bucky when Steve joined Bucky in the war to fight nazis. But now marvel wants to retcon in this stuff with lines like Bucky calling Hydra "my people" instead of his oppressors and torturers like they actually were, and storylines about how the patriotic legacy and shield are Steve's whole identity instead of Bucky speaking up and pointing out that none of the other characters actually knew Steve, they only knew "Cap" and "Mr. America" and that Steve literally abandoned the shield as his last public choice with it, so none of it even is his legacy at all.

the sheer gall of (in defense of infinitywar/endgame's BS) people claimed that Bucky would finally get focus again in tfatws, but in the end, only catws gave us flashback scenes of Bucky (and Steve!) before the war before the superhero stuff, meanwhile the d+ show didn't even acknowledge that Bucky's direct family's kids are 1000% alive (he had a big family!) and heard of the real uncle Bucky, and instead the show claimed that Bucky is closest to HYDRA… the ones who tortured him into a mindslave… and he said it to a government mandated therapist (institutionalization by the state) who works for the same government who had the hydra-nazis on payroll and funded Bucky's torture…

no one at marvel even gave a thought about Bucky's family or the direct fault the gov has in his abuse.. no one on screen points out that the state that's institutionalizing him as a felon literally owes him reparations. they could've done a storyline relating to other IRL groups and family descendants who are owed reparations for the USA's domestic and international crimes and how Bucky is a similar case, but instead it's about how Bucky has no family that he was violently imprisoned from and how he's the one at fault and how the government mandated oversight says Bucky should be apologizing for what they funded

Bucky has so many blatant similarities with victims and descendants of IRL state human rights abuses that those states refuse to recognize, but marvel isn't willing to frame in a way that makes the US look bad because they're too busy being patriotic and "respecting the shield" and flag symbols and "legacy" and pretending like the shield is so so so important to Bucky or Steve and retcon out the parts where the shield and the captain america stuff was discarded easily at the emotional climax of each of the first 3 movies in favor of protecting what actually mattered more: each other….

but patriotism tho, the new Cap & WS who replaced Bucky & Steve are too patriotic to point out that the government literally owes their (cuz both ssr/shield & hydra were agencies by them) their two most famous supersoldier experimental test subjects a lot of money and apologies for a long laundry list of reasons

#long post #anti tfatws #antisambucky #tfatws critical #bucky barnes #bucky meta #mcu meta #toAyourQ #dat's me #hey nonny #👌👍☝👏#good for you getting all that off ur chest 😅#nonny I want to answer you but I've had death threats for noticing things wrong w/ tfatws in the past #*totally hinged behaviour*#so I'm just gunna leave this as-is #if you wanna read my take come off anon 👀

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twdmusicboxmystery · 2 years

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TWD 11x20: What’s Been Lost

Okay, how did everyone like episode 11x20, What’s Been Lost? I liked it a lot. I’ll just talk about some broad themes today and will get more into details over the next couple of days. I will say this felt a little bit like a transitional episode, so I’ll have less to say about overall than I did last week's episode. That doesn't mean there aren't some super interesting things in it.

***As always, spoilers abound below for this episode. Don’t read until you’ve watched!***

One thing that has become abundantly clear, both in this episode and next week’s, is that we are seeing a retelling of 4B. In fact, it's probably been going on since 11c started, but I just didn't entirely register until now.

You could say the Daryl killing Leah was a bit like the governor being killed om 4x08. While there aren’t a lot of terribly obvious parallels between Leah and the Governor, I did think of one. Actually, it wasn't Rick that killed the Governor. He didn't finish him off. It was Lily who did. And Lily was in a romantic, albeit somewhat toxic, relationship with the Governor. Similarly, Daryl killed Leah after having been in a romantic but toxic relationship with her.

But I digress.

Everything seemed okay when Carol made a deal with Pamela, but that got shot all to hell when Sebastian died. As soon as that happened, our characters all got split up, just like in 4B. We have Daryl and Carol in one place, the kids and the rest of the group in other places. We'll see more of that in next week's episode.

I saw a lot of callbacks to both alone and 4x15, Us in this episode. @galadrieljones pointed out a lot of callbacks to Coda as well. I'll save her notes for tomorrow. But the point is, there's a lot of callbacks to various episodes in 4B, and we can relate most of them directly to Beth.

Early on, Carol walks in to find Daryl fighting with one of the CW troopers. I felt like the scene was significant in some way. It was too purposely done not to mean something, but I couldn't put my finger on what. @galadrieljones finally nailed it down for me. She said it was a callback to Slabtown, specifically where Gorman dies. And I think she's right about that. Especially if you look at the way the guy dies. After Daryl gets out from under him, and other dead person in the room reanimated and bit him. That's exactly what happened in Slabtown. Joan reanimated and bit Gorman. It also made me think of the scene in 5x07 where Daryl fights with Licari, one of the Grady cops, out in the city. He almost doesn't win. In that case, it's Rick that comes back and helps him. So just saying, lots of Beth callbacks.

Daryl then says, "they took the kids." To which Carol replies, "they took everyone." I just have to point out that we've been saying for months that we think the kids are going to get taken. This may be more of a precursor than anything else. They were taken in kind of a short-term way, but still. I felt like this was a lot of validation. Daryl even says they, "took Dog." And Dog has always been a proxy for Beth. So, there's that as well.

I will skip over some of the details, such as in the Yumiko storyline. The gist of that is simply that Pamela wants her to prosecute Eugene, but she ends up defending him instead. She talks to Connie, and then we learned later that Connie was found by Pamela's people and taken away.

Daryl and Carol go to get Lance out of prison. One random detail here is that he has a radio frequency monitor on his ankle. When Daryl tries to cut it off, he says that Daryl would have to cut off his foot to get it off. Now, I'm not sure if Lance is being truthful about that, but Daryl evidently believes him because he doesn't try to cut it off again.

I watched a couple of times trying to figure out how necessary this detail was. It really wasn't at all. It's true that when they left the cell, and alarm went off, which brought troopers down on them. In that sense, it was part of the plot. But even so, if the writers had wanted to do it differently, they could have just had some guards passing by who happened to see them trying to get away. And given that Lance didn't lose his leg and they all got away from the troopers in the end, the ankle monitor really was an unnecessary detail. I think the writers were just throwing in a missing foot/leg reference. And we definitely had one of those and 4B, in Inmates, when Beth and Daryl see the children's shoes at the—ahem—train tracks. More on that in a minute.

Then we have the one that jumped out most to me as being a Beth callback. When they were under fire from the troopers, Daryl tells her Carol to go without him. She immediately responds, "not without you." Daryl says, "I'll figure it out. Go."

(P.S. Sorry some of these are kinda blurry. There’s a lot of action in this epiosde and it makes it hard to get decent screenshots.)

So obviously I'm connecting that to Beth, saying, "I’m not gonna leave you." But even Daryl's line, "I'll figure it out," is something Maggie said to Sasha and Bob at the prison, just before they all left together. So again, lots of callbacks to 4B.

The other thing that jumps out about the scene to me is that after Carol leaves, just for a moment, Daryl hangs his head. It’s an odd thing to do in the middle of the gunfight. The camera focuses on him doing this. I'm not entirely sure what they're going for here. Is he sad that she left him? Probably not. Is he afraid that either he or Carol is going to die? Again, it's Daryl, so probably not. The only thing I can think of here is that, in this moment, he was reminded so heavily of Beth, and it took his breath away for a second.

The next thing we have is Carol and Lance going through a dark tunnel together. It’s very similar to what we saw in 4B with the tunnel that Maggie and Glenn reunited in. We didn't actually see what happened there. Glenn and Tara came in after all the action. They said something about walkers showing up and they fired their guns into the ceiling which created cave-in.

Here, things are slightly re-mixed. We didn't actually see cave-in, but Lance mentions cave-ins just before they go in, saying that it was too unstable and therefore it was abandoned as an infrastructure project. When they go in, walkers inevitably show up and Carol has to take out her gun and shoot them all.

While we didn't get a reunion inside the tunnel like we did with Maggie and Glenn, Daryl did show up once they got to the other side. Obviously, it's not the reunion of a romantic relationship, but it is a reunion.

The other thing this reminded us of is when Beth and Noah tried to escape from Grady through the basement. It was very dark there and they had to shoot walkers in the dark then as well. So again, lots of Beth related callbacks.

And now back to Daryl showing up on the other side of the tunnel. This is something that I've noticed a lot in these episodes. Again, I'm not sure I entirely put together until today, but were seeing a lot of callbacks to previous things, both Beth related things and other things, and a suggestion that TF made some mistakes in the past or the last time this happened, but they're doing better and now, putting things right, and not making the same mistakes again.

I'm sure that I've seen this in previous episodes, but would have to go back and watch to find specific examples. But they do it in a big obvious way in the next episode, 21. Here, we just see a representation of it.

Because Daryl found a way to get back to Carol. They really did meet up down the road a ways. It was good that he got there when he did, because if he hadn't, the troopers were just going to kill Carol and Lance. So, I'm seeing this as a contrast to what happened in Alone with Beth. Beth said “I'm not gonna leave you.” Then she went out the window. By the time Daryl got to where she’d been up the road, she’d met with some bad people, and they'd already taken her away.

In this episode, Carol said, “not without you.” Then she left, and Daryl met her up the roadways. She'd met with some bad people (the troopers who wanted to kill her) but Daryl got there in time and gunned them down so she wasn't harmed. So, strong parallels, but the outcome was different than what happened with Beth. And we’re seeing that a lot. Them going through things they've gone through before, but they've learned from their mistakes, figured things out, and it's better this time around.

This will fit right in with Beth and Daryl getting a second chance, and things going differently and better this time around.

There was also something strange when Lance and Carol were going through the tunnel, where they saw some skin. Apparently, it smelled pretty bad. I wasn't entirely sure what to make of that. Did someone take the skin off intentionally? I actually don't think so. When Carol is fighting one of the walkers, just because she's fighting it, pulling on it, etc., all the skin slides right off into her hands. So, it seems to me that skin they saw before might have been there because a walker just got caught on something and it got pulled off.

What does it mean? No idea yet. But this is way too specific a detail not to mean anything. I was thinking maybe there's some strange disease going on with the walkers here. I don't know, leprosy or something? And it’s making their skins fall off. But I'm sure this will come back around in some way. As I said, much too specific detail to not mean anything.

And then there's the train. This is really the clincher for me in terms of this being a retelling of 4B. Lance shows Daryl and Carol a train platform and they learn the Commonwealth has a working train. So much like in 4B, there are train tracks involved, and they will have to follow those tracks find their family. I'm assuming that the end of those tracks, TF will all be reunited, much like they were terminus. See what I mean? Definitely retelling a 4B.

When they learned about the train, Lance says that it is to connect communities all the way to the sea. Boy, is that a loaded line. Carol asked him if he means connect or conquer (title of 5x16 = Conquer), but I especially like that. It talks about connecting things all the way to the sea. Oceans/water reference, and callbacks the things that we've seen and pointed out in conjunction with Oceanside.

Of course they kill Lance, which wasn't exactly shocking.

In the final scene, we see Ezekiel and others on a bus being driven somewhere in the night. They're being injected with something that clearly causes them to pass out. So, more of the bus symbol as well. We don't know where they’re being taken, but it's all super interesting.

At the end, when Angela Kang talked about the episode, it jumped out at me that she said the kids were with Daryl when those two guys jumped him at the beginning. It's just interesting that we didn't see the kids disappear. They were just suddenly gone.

I will stop there for today. I'll have more details and some of the conversation from my fellow theorists over the next couple of days. What did everyone think of the episode?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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thewrongmoon · 2 years

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S5 team predictions

I swear I have actual analyses I'm working on, but since s5 predictions are at the forefront of my brain rn, let's do some more speculation!!

- POSSIBLE TEAM UPS IN S5 - PART 1: THE KIDS -

El:

El has a looot of people she could be potentially paired with going into this season. I'm gonna rank them from least likely to most likely.

Least Likely:

Characters with little to no connection with El, have never had a single interaction with her really.

Not Likely:

Characters that could/have interacted with El, but still don't have much to do with her

Likely:

Characters El does have a connection with personally, but still aren't really super connected narratively to her.

Most Likely:

Characters that El has a strong personal and narrative connection to.

El and Hopper (and potentially Joyce) - Hopper is obviously her father figure, and we end S4 with them hugging. The last time we saw then really share a storyline was S2, in the very beginning and end of that season. Hopper has done a significant research on Hawkins Lab which would help them find more info on One. Overall, this pairing seems plausible.

El and Will - El and Will will be the main characters of S4. They both also have the strongest connection to One, which means they are going to be integral to the plot. I believe it will take of them to bring him down. For this reason it seems likely that they will have to work together at one point or another.

El and Mike - We've never really seen these two have a storyline all to themselves. There's a considerable amount of tension between them atm, and I don't think they've really seen eye to eye since season 1. Because the Duffers have said S5 will circle back to S1, it's possible that we can see that version of Elmike coming back, but even in S1 they were not alone (they had Lucas and Dustin with them.) El and Mike being alone in a plot line seems unlikely to me for this reason.

El, Will and Mike - This one seems extremely likely. We've had plenty of love triangle symbolism already, and it all will come to a head in some manner. All three of these characters are telling some type of lie to each other and putting them together, possibly in a dangerous situation where close proximity is needed, could be the solution to getting them all to be truthful for once.

El, Lucas, and Max - Another pretty likely scenario. Lucas is Max's boyfriend (basically) and El is Max's best friend, and they were the most effected by her near-death. El and Lucas teaming up to save her would make perfect sense, and it would also loop back to the tension these two characters had between each other in S1 and resolve it. Lucas trusting the girl he had labeled as a "traitor" and El proving that she's not a monster, but rather a hero to the character who was designed to be her adversary in S1 really ties this story into a neat little bow.

El and the OG party (Mike, Lucas, Dustin and Will) - The Duffers said it all goes back to S1, and this assortment of characters working together really would make it go all the way back. Putting all of them together also means it could contain the four previous storylines.

Will:

most of the same points for El, so i'm gonna go through this quicker.

Least Likely:

Not Likely:

Likely:

Most Likely:

Will and El- see above

Will and Mike - Yeah there's a lot of foreshadowing for this one. Like the cabin scene being a direct parallel to S2 (a season where Mike is glued to Will's side for most of it), and the final scene showing them standing next to each other. And again, there is a lot of things these two aren't telling one another so it's reasonable to believe the writers would have to force them to be together so they can finally open up (like they did in S4.)

Will, Mike and El - see above

The OG party and El - see above

Will and Jonathan - The Byers family is the heart of this show IMO, and I think we haven't seen the end of it. Jonathan mentions that he wants Will to be more open with him, they promise to be there for each other. Personally I would love a Will, Jonathan, Nancy and Mike plot line but I don't think that's happening.

Mike:

Least Likely:

Not Likely:

Likely:

Most Likely:

Mike and Will - see above

Mike and El - see above

Mike, El and Will - see above

Mike and Lucas - Lucas's efforts to save Max will likely serve to parallel Mike's efforts to save Will in seasons 1 and 2. It's also mentioned in S1 that Lucas is Mike's best friend. Tbh we don't really get to see much of this, except maybe in S3? S5 might be a good time to actually show that Mike and Lucas are close, especially because there seems to be some tension between them in the very beginning of S4.

The OG party and El - see above

Mike and Nancy - Close to the end of S1, we see Mike and Nancy promise to not keep any more secrets between each other. and obviously that didn't fucking happen, so maybe they could finally make good on that promise in this season? They're going through similar struggles so it would make sense for them to actually talk about it.

Lucas:

Least Likely:

Not Likely:

Likely:

Most Likely:

Lucas, El and Max - see above

Lucas and Mike - see above

Lucas and Max - Lucas's story in the season will no doubt involve his efforts in trying to revive Max, however due to Max's condition I think it's more likely to have a supporting character in his storyline (Likely El but possibly Dustin.)

The OG party and El - see above

Lucas and Erica - Erica is definitely more of a minor character in ST, but we see more of Lucas and Erica having genuinely heartfelt moments in this last season, so it's likely that relationship between the two of them will be continued going into the next one.

Dustin:

Least Likely:

Likely:

Most Likely:

Dustin and Steve - The Duffers know that these two on screen together is absolute gold so I don't see them being separated, at least not separated completely.

Dustin and Robin - Because they both have chemistry with Steve, them being placed together is likely.

The OG party and El - see above

Soooo with all that being said, I think the most likely set up for the kid's storylines are as follows:

El and the OG party

Will and Mike

Lucas, El and Max

Dustin, Steve and Robin

Will, El, and Mike

Lucas, Dustin, Steve and Robin

#stranger things #stranger things s5 #analysis #byler

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i-dreamed-i-had-a-son · 2 years

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Hey there

Favourite each avengers movies scenes??

This took me forever to get to, sorry!!

In all honesty it's been a long while since I've watched the Avengers movies...with how Marvel is going these days I might just have to rewatch them to remind myself of happier times 😭 but from what I can remember, here we go:

Avengers 1: Ok I am a Tony stan to the day I die, but I also really loved Loki (before they messed with him later...) so this is a hard decision. I love the scene where Loki and Thor clash on Avengers Tower and Loki, tears in his eyes, seems to break through the influence of the scepter and express his hopelessness to Thor. Absolutely baller character moment. But I think I have to go with Tony flying the missile into the wormhole, because holy heck the call to Pepper, the trauma that causes him and how that motivates everything that comes after, aughhhh...yeah that gets me

In the same vein, in AoU when Wanda gives Tony the (fricking prophetic) nightmare it just breaks me. He's so terrified and it is such a significant moment for him as a character (you might be able to tell I have a bias lol)

Now technically this isn't an Avengers film, but it basically is, so I'm gonna write about it: CACW is fricking difficult. There are so many really good scenes, I deeply enjoyed this movie. I love the reveal scene that it's Bucky who killed Tony's parents, because all three characters in that scene are filled with such raw and palpable emotion, and it really humanizes Bucky because he looks so ashamed and comparing that to who he had been before he became the Winter Soldier and how that Bucky would despise the cringing and guilty machine-man in front of him--and also it shows Tony showing such restraint (he holds himself back for the entire fight, and if that doesn't speak to how deeply he believes that he and the others need to be held in check I don't know what does) which is huge for a character who portrays himself as super impulsive. But also I love the scene at the end where Zemo tries to shoot himself and T'Challa stops him. It again really humanizes them both. Zemo listening to the message from his family and deleting it, which means that he was going to shoot himself not knowing that T'Challa was there, like it wasn't performative or just to get the last word, this was just a deeply damaged man who had no hope. He tells T'Challa how his family died, and then he says that he is sorry about T'Challa's father: "He seemed a good man. With a dutiful son." He's drawing parallels between them--expecting T'Challa to avenge his father as Zemo was his family. And T'Challa, whose father was murdered by the man in front of him, says no. There is a better way. A higher way, a more just way, another way. And he sheaths his claws, saying, "Justice will come soon enough." Perhaps even you will have peace, he says without saying it. Zemo replies, "Tell that to the dead." In a flash, he puts the gun beneath his chin and fires--there will be no peace for him. But T'Challa saves his life. And he holds Zemo on the ground, a man begging for death, and says, "The living are not done with you yet." What a powerful way to live out what is right, to stand for both mercy and justice at once, to step into the mantle of King. He is not cruel, he is not vindictive, and he is not weak. He believes that even men like Zemo can perhaps be redeemed--and he acts upon on that belief even when it calls for him to deny himself. At the end of the movie, he gives Bucky a place to heal and become himself again. Just one more example of what kind of man T'Challa is. It's only a few small moments, but it says so much about him. He is a truly good man. And I love that scene in particular for demonstrating that.

Infinity War I honestly think my favorite scene is when Tony gets stabbed by Thanos, solely because when I saw the movie premiere night, my stomach dropped to the floor. I completely thought they were killing him and I was utterly unprepared. Obviously he didn't actually die there, and there were other heartwrenching scenes (Peter's death, augh!) but that scene exemplified what the movie absolutely excelled at doing: subverting audience expectations in a devastating way. It didn't feel like a plot twist just for the sake of a twist, but I also would never have expected it--and that is also an accurate description of how the movie ended. Incredible film.

And I mean come on Endgame is too much to pick just one so I'll just say all of Tony's best moments. Particularly when he at long last finally stares down Steve and goes at him for everything that happened. How Tony had known, and Steve had disbelieved him, and how Tony had suffered without anyone there, without Steve there despite what he had promised. "No trust. Liar." Geez that was cathartic and also wrecked me because Tony has been through so much and he is just raw and hurting and it is so necessary to see that on screen. And it's even better because Robert was ad-libbing that. That wasn't scripted. That was Tony, finally saying what he had been carrying with him for years. He had known, and he had been traumatized by Thanos long before the others had. Vindication. And then of course I love the reunion with Peter (the fatherly kiss in an alternate take!!! Canon!!!) and the "I am Iron Man" scene and the CUT KNEELING SCENE THAT IS SO VALID AND IT IS CANON I DON'T CARE WHAT THEY SAY and his final message...bro his final message...literally he's always been a prophetic character and this is no exception he knew he was going to die...and like"Part of the journey is the end" is one of my life quotes unironically. It's just so powerful and so Tony and I love him so much. And I love that Tony in this movie finally finds peace and happiness and his sacrifice isn't a suicide, it's him protecting what he loves and what he's fought for and the family he's built. He's not an Avenger--he is Earth's best defender.

So there you go! That is a massive response but I have a lot of feelings on this haha 😂 the first three phases of Marvel will always always always be dear to my heart and I really appreciate the chance to gush about them again! Thanks!!

#marvel #literally tumblr meta in 2018-2019 was superior bc we had legends like jess-b-thot creating absolutely amazing takes and analyses #and i feel so many things about them still #tony stark #it has been three years and six months and i am still not over him #my meta posts #meta #quality meta seal of approval #not to hype my own post up i just put that on all meta posts so that i can find them #kay can i just catch my breath for a second #responses aka the ramblings of my brain #bucky barnes #t'challa

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caelestis-composition · 3 years

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killshot anon! YEAH i totally agree w/ your view on kaeya. it's so weird to me that people will blame him for his role in a situation he was forced into as a child through no choice of his own. that itself had to be traumatic, not to mention everything that happened later. i hate when people say he's untrustworthy - like yeah, he's lied, so has everyone? it's clear he does it mostly to protect himself. not to mention that (& sadism) can be symptoms of trauma. kaeya deserves nothing but happiness

take a seat folks it’s time for a “brynn should’ve been an english major” lesson! today we’re gonna learn some literary theory; specifically, we’re gonna apply psychoanalytical trauma theory to kaeya’s backstory and current character. killshot anon i bet you never thought this would result in a whole ass essay.

disclaimer one! you are allowed to dislike kaeya! i am not saying you need to like him or his character, you’re entitled to your opinion and i’m not here to change your mind.

disclaimer two! i am in no way an expert and this is all for fun! this is just my silly little analysis of one of my favorite characters as someone who’s studied literary theory and rhetoric and can also apply personal experience. seriously analysis is like a hobby to me and this is just an excuse for me to ramble about kaeya.

disclaimer three! this contains lots of spoilers! basically for everything we know in-game, general knowledge as well as stuff from his voicelines and character story. don’t read this if you don’t want spoilers.

since this is going to be filled with spoilers and is about to get really long, everything will be under a cut. for those who wanna read my dumb super informal essay: enjoy!

final note: yeah this is over 2000 words long can you tell i like analysis

⭒

let’s start by getting a quick rundown of trauma theory out of the way. to begin, what is “trauma?” in this case, trauma is going to refer to an experience that greatly affects and changes one’s life; attitudes, memories, behaviors, mental state, etc. while not all changes may be bad, per se, the overall effect of trauma is generally a negative one, which is why it’s so significant. literary trauma theory, then, explores these changes and the impact of trauma in literature. it analyzes the psychological and social effects of trauma, explaining what those effects are and why they happen. in the context of a specific character, trauma theory breaks down said character’s behaviors, feelings, and general mentality in relation to their past experiences; trauma theory hopes to explain to others the reasons for why a character may act or feel the way they do, all based upon the character’s experiences, particularly traumatic ones. our character today is the lovely kaeya alberich, with the “literature” being genshin impact. i’ll be referencing kaeya’s wiki page to ensure i get all details correct for his character story and voicelines.

it would be good to review kaeya’s backstory before delving into the actual analysis. though we don’t know much about his life before living in mondstadt, we’re told he was sent as an agent of khaenri’ah. and by “sent,” i mean his biological father abandoned him in a completely unfamiliar land to serve khaenri’ah’s interests and fullfil his mission—what this entirely entails hasn’t been revealed. mondstadt, however, welcomed kaeya “with open arms when they found him.” crepus ragnvindr took him in as his adopted son, with diluc as his adopted brother. kaeya and diluc were “almost like twins,” so close they “[knew] each other’s thoughts and intentions without a word.” he’d began a new life in mondstadt, one surrounded by friends and family that loved him; one that was completely shattered by crepus’s death. kaeya arrived at the scene of the disaster, and was led to believe diluc was the one who killed their father to “set his father free” from the effects of his delusion. there’d always been one big question in kaeya’s life: if it came down to it, who would he support? the nation that abandoned him, but he still felt loyal to, or the nation and family that took him in and really loved him? overrun with guilt, kaeya confessed his purpose to diluc, sparking a fight between the two brothers. in this fight, kaeya receives his cryo vision. though both brothers stepped away alive, they’ve never been able to make peace with one another. now, kaeya is the eccentric and charming cavalry captain of the knights of favonius; a man who gets his way by using any means necessary, regardless of whether or not it seems right.

kaeya’s not evil; he’s morally ambiguous, and that stems from what appears to be a general distrust of others. his life is one shrouded in secrecy. from the moment he stepped foot into mondstadt, he was surrounded by secrets. even now, he doesn’t talk about a lot of things, namely his past, vision, and feelings. though he’s always willing to get information out of others, kaeya never reveals anything about himself. he repeatedly tells the player they can confide in him, but whenever you try and pry into his life, he deflects your questions with some sort of witty comment or flirty remark. anything he does reveal is vague, or spoken in some sort of “code.” for example, his “interesting things” voiceline. he tells us about the owl of dragonspine, how it “seems to look right through you, while letting go of none of its own secrets,” and then tacks on a “quite fascinating, don’t you think?” it seems like an awfully accurate parallel to himself; kaeya does all he can to get information from others, but never gives anything about himself. now, this whole thing—his relationship with diluc falling apart and his need for secrecy—could have probably been avoided if he had just come clean about his mission years ago. so why didn’t he? to start, kaeya was a literal child. not only are children unable to properly tell the difference between right and wrong, but they’ll also typically follow their parents’ orders blindly. kaeya had just been abandoned, and he wouldn’t want to risk being cast out by mondstadt as well if he came clean right away. you see, there’s this thing about trauma, something that trauma theory states. traumatized people feel a sort of shame or guilt regarding their traumatic experience; they’ll keep quiet because they don’t want to cause problems or bother others with their issues. of course kaeya wouldn’t tell the truth about his past, he doesn’t want to destroy the genuinely loving relationships he’d built in mondstadt. his fight with diluc only proves what he was afraid of: if he’s honest, he’ll be abandoned again. and if kaeya’s used to all the lies, why should he bother changing?

another thing, if he’s not going to tell the truth, then why would he have initially gone along with his father’s plans? again, he was a child. he really had no choice, and was forced into a very wrong and cruel situation. there’s a good explanation for this, too, which is also stated in trauma theory; traumatized people will still do their best to please their abusers. especially if said abuser is a parent, that will drive traumatized people to work even harder to please them. although his father hurt him by ruthlessly abandoning him, kaeya still sought to make him and his homeland proud. he was willing to be used as a tool for their gain; that is, until he found people who actually cared about him. he was an impressionable child, of course he’s going to obey orders. but as he gets older, he feels torn. does he serve those who abandoned him, or those that took him in? his father—and arguably, khaenri’ah as a whole—hurt him, sure, but he still feels some loyalty and connection to his former home. instead of revealing anything, he lets the situation play out. that way, he can’t be blamed when things fall apart.

the thing about claiming he’s untrustworthy is that hardly anyone in-game believes that. he’s adored by the older folks in mondstadt, and foes and allies alike find him easy to talk to. despite seeming lazy and uninterested in work, kaeya takes his job very seriously. in fact, his story states that crepus’s death was the “first and only time kaeya failed in his duty.” the “only time” is especially important, because it signifies kaeya still fulfills his duties successfully. he’s had a total of one slip-up, and hasn’t failed since. no, kaeya is not untrustworthy. rather, kaeya finds everyone else untrustworthy. it’s not unlikely that this is a direct consequence of being abandoned as a child. although it’s been established that kaeya and diluc were very close as children, when crepus dies, kaeya assumes diluc is the one that killed him. in order to jump to such an extreme conclusion against someone he was so close to, there had to be some underlying sense of distrust. furthermore, kaeya expresses feeling as though he doesn’t belong anywhere. he was abandoned by khaenri’ah, and then worried he wouldn’t be accepted by mondstadt. he is, but there’s still that worry. if you place him in your teapot as a companion, he tells you that your home feels like someplace he belongs, following it up with a “heh, who’d have thought…” kaeya still feels as though he doesn’t belong in mondstadt; despite the fact that he’s a high-ranking knight of favonius and rather popular, he still feels like an outsider. he doesn’t trust that anyone actually wants him around, and he finds joy in testing peoples’ trustworthiness. it’s noted in his story and through his voicelines that the beloved cavalry captain has a rather sadistic nature. he likes putting people into difficult situations, to see what decisions they will make. he does this to both opponents and allies, testing to see who’s going to back out and who’ll keep fighting; in the sake of allies, who can he trust? or who will turn tail and abandon their teammates at the slightest hint of danger? i mentioned it previously, but kaeya doesn’t care what measures he has to take so long as his job gets done and he gets the answers he wants. it’s a sort of self-preserving mindset, putting himself above the safety of others. kaeya’s trying to protect himself, which makes sense with all he’s been through. he doesn’t want to be hurt, and instead finds pleasure in threatening harm upon others. it’s twisted, sure, but it’s because he can only trust himself in a world that he believes is out to get him. he’s got as many enemies—if not more—as he does allies; of course kaeya focuses on protecting himself first, whether physically or through keeping his secrets, well, secret.

his most obvious traumatic effect is definitely his alcoholism. but he uses it as a distraction, not just to wallow in self-pity. this is seen again in his story, particularly in story 3. it’s found that when his favorite drink, death after noon, is out of season, mondstadt’s crime rate is decreased drastically. at face value, this just means kaeya spends more time working when death after noon is low in supply. but kaeya doesn’t skip work to go to taverns; it’s already been established he takes his job very seriously, so this means he actually patrols and tracks down threats while off work when he can’t indulge in his favorite alcoholic drink. he doesn’t get drunk simply because he’s depressed. if he did, there wouldn’t be a drop in incidents when death after noon is out of season. no, kaeya uses both the alcohol and fighting to distract himself. after all, it’s a little hard to think about feeling sad when you’re either drunk out of your mind or fighting for your life.

despite being so secretive, kaeya gives us glimpses of his true emotions from time to time. as previously mentioned, his flirty attitude is nothing more than a mask to hide how he really feels; and kaeya is terribly, terribly lonely. that may be why he seems so extroverted. constantly being around people should, logically, drive away that feeling, but it doesn’t work like that. when he talks with the player, he frequently expresses disappointment when you have to leave. each time, though, he dampens the weight of his words with playful or flirty language. he’s lonely, but doesn’t want you to know that, like he’s afraid of asking you to stay. he takes the seriousness of his feelings, and basically bends it into some sort of lighthearted joke. kaeya hides his true feelings—negative feelings, to be exact—so that he doesn’t bother anyone. which is, again, something that happens with traumatized people. he displays that hesitance to reveal his true feelings, because there’s a shame or guilt that comes with his past. he doesn’t want to bother others or hold them back, so he puts on a smile and amps up the charisma. one other very important thing—but very small detail—i would like to note is his feelings toward family. his fell apart not even once, but twice, and kaeya still holds familial relationships in high regard. we know he doesn’t exactly care how he goes about getting his work done. he doesn’t pay attention to what’s “right” or “wrong,” so long as he gets what he needs. but one of his informants, vile, notes that the cavalry captain has one exception: he won’t work with those who threaten others’ families. in fact, kaeya claims those who do should be hunted down and destroyed. even though his own families have caused him so much pain—and he ended up estranged from both—he still understands the importance of having people who love you in your life. because he didn’t get that.

kaeya’s not evil. ultimately, as a knight of favonius, his goal is to protect others, because no one was there to protect him. and because no one was there to protect him, because he’s been hurt time and time again by people who were supposed to love him, kaeya has taken to protecting himself. he hides any and all negative feelings with a charismatic, friendly façade, because he thinks it’ll drive away his persistent loneliness. any “bad” actions of his were hardly his fault; he was forced into a life of secrecy and lies, and then abandoned by the first people who truly loved him. kaeya’s a multi-faceted, tragic character, one that toes the line between good and evil, and that’s what makes him so interesting.

#brynn yells #brynn answers #killshot anon #brynn's writing #genshin #genshin impact #kaeya #kaeya alberich #genshin kaeya

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paladinsbrainrot · 3 years

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Analyzing The M!leven 'Kiss' in S3

Today I will be analyzing the M!leven 'kiss' at the end of season three, and explaining how incredibly awkward it is and how it is incredibly significant to the plot of the show- not in a positive way.

The """"kiss"""" (mega quotation marks, it's not even a kiss since Mike doesn't kiss back lol) is portrayed as something as in interaction from El's side only. Actually, most of the M!leven interactions are one-sided, but I'll get into that in another analysis.

So, let's begin. I'll be analyzing the scene line-by-line.

The scene begins as El packs some clothes, then comes across a teddy bear on the top shelf. Now, there's something familiar about this teddy bear. The thing is, this is actually Will's teddy bear! We first see the teddy bear in season one, episode two.

˰ Season One Chapter Two : The Weirdo on Maple Street x Season Two Chapter Eight : The Battle of Starcourt

The bear is the exact same! This is highly important for later, which I'll get into in a second.

Moving back to the supposed M!leven scene, El tries to reach the teddy bear and pull it off the shelf. She's unsuccessful, but tries to use her powers to move it down instead, which she is also unsuccessful at.

Finally, Mike appears near the doorway and says "They'll come back. I know they will."

He then proceeds to take the teddy bear out of the open closet for El.

Now, what I think is interesting is that the phrase Mike said can be interpreted many ways. For example, he can refer about his feelings for Eleven, which are not currently there. He's trying to force himself to be straight, when in reality he can't. He's just trying to make himself think he's straight. Thinking that his feelings for El will 'come back'.

El responds with "Thanks."

"You packed your walkie right?"

"Yes."

"Because you know I'm going to steal Cerebro from Dustin and call you so much you'll have to turn it off right?"

El smiles, then changes the subject. "Did you talk to your mom? About Thanksgiving?"

"Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah, I got the okay. I'll be there. And I was thinking maybe you can come up here for Christmas. And Will too!"

Mike is SUPER quick to add Will to the conversation. If you rewatch the scene, it's almost as like he doesn't want to forget about Will again and ignore him, just like he did in the summer.

"You can come before or after Christmas or whatever Mrs.Byers wants, but I was thinking Christmas day would be super fun because we'd all have cool new presents to play with and uh- sorry uh that made me sound like a seven year old."

Okay, here's where I put on my detective fedora. Mike had been so distant from Will during the summer, and said that 'they weren't kids anymore'. Why is he just now 'becoming a kid again' and talking about presents and stuff? I thought they 'grew up'.

Maybe, he's trying to change. For Will. Maybe he realized that they were still kids, keep in mind that they're only 14. Maybe Mike is trying to make up for everything in the summer and relive his childhood.

'Seven' has also been a recurring number in the Stranger Things community. But there's one parallel in particular that caught my eye.

˰ Season Three Chapter Eight : The Battle of Starcourt x Season One Chapter One : The Vanishing of Will Byers

Interesting...

Anyways, moving on Eleven says "I like presents too."

"Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I like present too."

"Cool."

You can tell that their relationship is mega awkward. It's probably been like this from the three month time span of Starcourt to now.

El and Mike walk away, El with a look of regret on her face. Mike just confused.

"Mike?"

"Yeah?"

"Remember that day, at the cabin. You were talking to Max."

"Um, I don't think I follow."

Mike is completely confused. El is referring to the time when Mike mentioned that he loved her to Max. If that moment was significant to him (that he loved her) he would have remembered and it would have been stuck in his memory. But he doesn't love her, so it isn't important.

"You talked about your feelings. Your heart."

"Oh. Oh yeah. That. Man that was so long ago. Um, I don't know it was heat of the moment stuff and we were arguing."

Mike is looking at the floor the entire time. He finally remembered what he had said, and is trying to back track. He might not feel the same way anymore, and is trying to take back what he said.

If he said it's 'heat of the moment stuff' then maybe he never even meant what he said.

Mike continues. "And I don't really remember. What did I say exactly?"

Oh. So Mike doesn't actually remember LOL. The 'I love you' was clearly insignificant to him to the point that it's clearly cleared from his memory.

Then El steps forward, saying "Mike. I love you too."

PREPARE FOR THE MOST AWKWARD KISS OF THE SEASON.

I swear to god I was so uncomfortable in this scene. El kisses Mike while his eyes are completely open, and he doesn't kiss back.

Now, keep in mind WILL'S TEDDY BEAR IS RIGHT BETWEEN THEM and Mike is standing in front of an OPEN CLOSET.

Closets are significant to LGBTQ+ culture, as they are a reference to being secretive about your sexuality and hiding it from everyone.

Will's teddy bear is between them, which as I discussed earlier is highly important. The thing that is stuffed between M!leven, is Will. Meaning that Mike can't get through to El because he secretly loves Will instead.

Also, this is Mike's reaction to when El says she loves him compared to when Will says he wouldn't join another party.

If El was so important to him, wouldn't he be more happy that El confessed that she loved him more than Will saying he wouldn't join another party?

Also, literally look at Mike's face at the end. Definitely not the face of realization that he's in love with his best friend.

Now, lets talk about the music. The music in the background of the scene where El tells Mike she loved him, the soundtrack that plays is called 'The First I love You'. The only other time this song is played is when Robin comes out to Steve in the bathroom. If this isn't Mike's realization he's gay than I don't know what is.

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lioncunt · 3 years

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any way the wind blows review!!!

gonna put it under a cut but tl;dr i really really loved it and even the things that i was on the fence about i’ve decided i love as well lmfao

so i kind of knew going into both this and wayward son that the plot wouldn’t really EVER be as narratively satisfying as carry on’s. it would definitely be interesting and have a lot of cool thematic elements, but in terms of being a grand deconstruction of the “chosen one” genre, it couldn’t ever get better than carry on. and i’m so happy rainbow didn’t try to MAKE it that. she didn’t pull a supernatural and up the stakes to impossible, outlandish degrees. both wayward son and awtwb had realistic, fascinating plots that served as a metaphor for the internal struggles of the characters.

the reason i’m beginning this review by talking about the plot is because it’s what i’ve seen the most criticism directed towards. and like i DO get it, i also was taken aback at first at how the actual plot is kind of background noise for the first couple hundred pages. but like...i think it WORKS. again, this whole trilogy is a deconstruction. that’s its PURPOSE. obviously it’s doing other things as well, but it started by taking this well-worn and well-loved trope and completely turning it on its head, giving us permission to acknowledge all the damage it causes and how our love of this type of story is honestly kind of harmful. we turn off that part of our brains when we read harry potter or something else with traumatized child protagonists, in order for us to actually enjoy it, but the simon snow trilogy has always said, “hey, this is kind of fucked up, huh? you’re allowed to think that.”

anyway, the way that translates to the plot here is that there’s not always some huge mystical big bad, or obviously evil antagonist. the horror can be going on in the world around you, in the background of your day-to-day life dealing with your own shit, creeping up on you until suddenly your loved ones are spouting off nonsense that is an absolutely CHILLING allegory for eugenics, by the way, which i’ve seen NOBODY talk about. the clear political parallels were so well done, but not heavy-handed, and they worked wonderfully as an ending to this story. simon at the end being a target for an angry mob, who are victims of intense ableism themselves (the metaphor of being a weak mage = having a disability), how these religious extremists will point at what they deem abnormal and use them as a scapegoat, the disgusting “survival of the fittest” mentality leading to “i can make this society great again” - it was all just incredibly well written, in my opinion. and the fact that it happened so slowly, in the background, made it all the better. you don’t really notice how bad it’s getting until it’s BAD.

it also, again, works so well as a manifestation of the characters’ inner strife. others have put it better than me already, so i won’t talk about it too much, but the fact that the book is saying you don’t need to be like everyone else in order to accomplish great things and have a good life, you don't need to have magic, you don’t need to be human, you don’t need to be neurotypical or able-bodied or straight or white or ANYTHING these people will have you believe in order to make you obedient to them and hateful to others -- it’s fantastic.

this kind of segues into the other big criticism i’m seeing, which is simon and baz’s one-day breakup. again, this has already been analyzed well, so i won't ramble about it, but wayward son was their breakup. metaphorically speaking. and i’m glad that it didn’t take some big, grand moment for them to get back together, even though it would have been narratively cathartic. that’s not how life works - it was so much better and realistic to have simon face the harsh difficulties of TRYING than dragging out a separation plot line that would have added NOTHING to his character. or baz’s. the only thing about their entire relationship that i would have done a bit differently is shorten the timeline, because a year and a half is a very long and honestly unrealistic time to go in a relationship without talking about sexual history or going on dates, even if there’s a lot of baggage. but that’s not that big a deal and i’m easily able to look past it.

(as a side note I'm getting annoyed at seeing all these takes that there’s too much sexual content. like i get it because the first two books are solidly YA and this is being marketed as YA even though it’s definitely NA, but like....sex is important. sex scenes and sexual content are an extremely important part of depicting the human experience. and lack of sex as well!! every single intimate scene between them was NOT super graphic and had such incredibly important significance narratively and character-wise - and yeah that includes any kinks that were brought up, like jesus they’re in their 20s and have been in a non-sexual relationship for a year and a half i think it’s pretty fucking relevant that there are intimate scenes!!! anyway moving on.)

i really loved penny and shepard’s plot - their relationship was so wonderful and charming and excellent for their characters, and i only wish we could have gotten their demon plot threaded into the larger picture, because after shepard was cured it felt like they were just standing there. that’s one of my very few complaints about the book. but they’re such good characters and i love them SO MUCH.

AND THANK GOD FOR AGATHA AND NIAMH. like i cannot put into words how fucking happy i was when i realized where that was headed. the cinematic nature of agatha and niamh helping the goat give birth while simon’s flying in the chapel and being targeted by a mob was just. so cool like i can’t even describe it it was so coooooool and then agatha and niamh KISSING and agatha found her PLACE and I'm so happy for her.

just in general the characters and relationships were fucking exquisite. i can’t help but love the way RR writes, especially her dialogue. it’s so real and three dimensional and her characters truly come alive and i care about them and love them so much. i’m so happy they’re happy, i wouldn’t have been able to stand it if they weren’t.

and everything got wrapped up so well in my opinion!! i don’t know what the hell people are talking about when they say they still have questions, like girl what about??? simon found his family, simon got a sword that isn’t tied to trauma, baz found out that he’ll get to grow old with simon, all their families are okay, penny and shepard are in love, agatha’s herding goats and a lesbian, there will probably be new threats and antagonists but they'll be able to handle them, life will continue to be difficult but they’ll get through it like WHAT do you not understand what’s not clicking i genuinely want to know.

ok actually i have ONE single question and that’s. did baz pick up the sword at the end. because the way it’s written it sounds like he did and i like do not understand that at all. someone answer please.

anyway that’s my review 10/10 would recommend

#any way the wind blows #awtwb spoilers #simon snow #snowbaz #carry on

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elrondsscribe · 3 years

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What is a plot that you think went effectively nowhere in Turn, or wasn't realized properly? For example, I that Robert Rogers starts feel auxiliary in the third season onward.

Oh honey, how long do you have?? There were legitimately so many plot threads left dangling that could've really had the potential for something really good!

For one, Nathan fucking Hale! He gets what I consider a passing mention, almost entirely in service of creating a parallel for the death of John Andre in S3 and giving Ben some anti-Brit angst. That's it. The real Nathan Hale's death was a huge deal in the Revolutionary War and impacted the way that both sides went forward with spy work -- if you're gonna make a show about Washington's most famous spy ring, and Benjamin Tallmadge is (debatably) going to be one of your leads, you can spare more than a passing mention for his close friend Nathan Hale.

For another thing, the sewing circle that Mary and Anna attend all of twice in S1! They introduce it as a way for Mary to accidentally spill the news about the gravestones, and then poof! Never a mention of it again! Is this a spy show or what?? Let the sewing circle become its own potential information exchange circle -- heck, you can even do the 'jealous two-faced bitches all around' thing if you wanna!

Or how about this: the entirety of Abigail's story?? Like, to this day we don't know who Agent 355 was. You make the choice to envision her as an educated enslaved woman. Okay, great -- post of story potential there. But if you're going to do that, you have to commit. If you want her to be a dedicated Patriot spy, you gotta give her good reasons for wanting to do that when her obligations run out. And if you don't think you can do that, then don't make her Agent 355. Just don't. Write her as a white woman, and let Abigail be doing a bunch of dangerous shit because her actual enslaver is forcing her to. Oh, but that would make the worst parts of slavery really prominent, and we don't want to do that, do we??

But I think the abandoned or snipped threads that tend to piss me off the most have to do with Ben's character development. For example, do you remember the scene in S4 where Washington tells Ben the truth about Nathan Hale's Fake Last Words? Did you know there was a deleted scene filmed for the first episode of S3 that has all the same character beats, down to some of the same dialogue? Ben could have learned this lesson about spycraft and honor a good season and a half earlier!

Or how about the time in S3 in 'Many Mickles Make a Muckle' when Billy drops a line that the cinematic language treats as Super Fucking Significant? Ben's expression changes while the camera zooms in and the music gets all Ominous -- like, 'ooh, is Ben maybe realizing something is up with the Arnolds?' And the first time I saw that, I was like, 'ooh! Ben's gonna Detect Something with his Spycraft!' But nothing came of it! Nothing!!

But the Ben plot thread that had the most potential, the handling of which pissed me off the most? The Sarah Livingston arc.

Now, I wanna say up front that I'm not crazy about the way that I've seen a lot of people in the Turn fandom react to Sarah and the Sarah/Ben association. Like, I get being queer and projecting onto him, or just straight up thirsting for him, but the level of vitriol I've directed toward a female character for having sex with a man they felt entitled to really rubs me the wrong way.

Having said that, the way the show itself treats Sarah is shameful. They throw her at Ben for all of two episodes, and then fridge her in the worst way (a r*pe-murder scene? Fucking really?!) just to have Ben Angst! Like, y'all had this golden opportunity to have Benjamin Tallmadge, this preacher's boy, really question his own morality, and the relative morality of his cause -- this opportunity to give some real characterization to a Loyalist who has real cause to hate the Patriots, a woman no less -- and y'all squander BOTH of these things??

#turn amc #turn: washington's spies #turn venting #ask answered #thanks for the ask!#I think I like asks #y'all keep sending em!#turn ask #answered asks

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kinogane · 3 years

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Meditations on Playing as Earthlings in Dragon Ball Xenoverse, Part 2

(previously)

The Dragon Ball Xenoverse games allow you to play as five races: Earthling (the default selection), Saiyan, Majin, Namekian, and the elegantly named "Frieza Race", with the first three races having an additional choice of gender. Compared to the Dragon Ball games mentioned in the previous post, Xenoverse probably differentiates the most between race/gender combinations. Each has a drastically different basic moveset that will be extremely relevant in combat, especially for strike-oriented playstyles, each have different stat spreads (and sometimes mechanics) that incentivize different playstyles, and arguably most importantly, each have their own unique techniques, the centerpiece of which is the race-specific Awoken Skill.

For context, in the first Dragon Ball Xenoverse, there were two problems with transformation skills like Super Saiyan and Unlock Potential. First was that they counted as Super Attacks, so you would have to give up a skill slot to make use of them, and second was that the transformations available to your character consisted of Kaioken, Unlock Potential, and variants of Super Saiyan. So like past Dragon Ball games, you weren't especially rewarded for playing a non-Saiyan character, since it meant you had to run Unlock Potential (or run a gimmicky Kaioken build), while Saiyans could at least nominally choose between that, and multiple variants of Super Saiyan that suited their playstyle.

This was remedied in the second Xenoverse game with the addition of Awoken Skills, which were transformations that occupied a separate slot. More importantly, Xenoverse 2 also added race-specific Awoken Skills, which meant that there was actually a compelling reason to pick races besides Saiyans.

In theory, at least. In practice?

Frieza Race characters probably gained the most in the sequel. Their Awoken Skill, Turn Golden, is relatively straightforward, both from a gameplay standpoint and an aesthetic standpoint. Your ki blasts are stronger and you do the Golden Frieza thing. Much like the form in the series proper, it's a bit dull and uninspired as a body recolor, but it is identifiable as a powerful transformation.

Namekians gained the ability to Become Giant, hearkening back to King Piccolo in the original Dragon Ball (and I guess Lord Slug in the movies), which as I understand was a fun transformation to use before it got nerfed in subsequent patches. Currently, it's a neat gimmick that's fun to mess around with and can be effective in bursts, but the stamina drain means it can't see the extended use that just about every other Awoken Skill can.

Majin gained the wildly unpopular ability to undergo Purification, which translates into becoming a Kid Buu with a special moveset. A Kid Buu that, mind you, only changes its skin and eye color as appropriate; regardless of how you customized your character before the transformation, your Purified Majin is going to look basically the same as any other Purified Majin, which is kind of a problem in a game where a significant portion of the userbase's interest in the game is at least partially in coordinating outfits for their player characters.

Earthlings got to ride on a Flying Nimbus and use the Power Pole.

The race-specific Awoken Skill for Earthlings is riding around on a cloud that kinda already loses a lot of its luster when, by construction, all characters can fly, and wielding a weapon/tool that hasn't been relevant since the original Dragon Ball. It's a nostalgia play that basically no Earthling character is going to use extensively, since you can't use your own skills and are limited to a moveset that loses its visual and gameplay novelty in minutes, at most.

It should be mentioned that Saiyans, as of the time of this writing, have access to five variants of Super Saiyan.

(Caveat that I can't speak for the PvP side of these evaluations, and quite frankly, I couldn't be bothered since Xenoverse PvP seems thoroughly unappealing, but I digress.)

So yet again, even when concessions are explicitly made to make playing non-Saiyan races an appealing alternative from a gameplay standpoint, Saiyans are still the clear winners and Earthlings are still clear losers. Furthermore, there's at least an argument that the non-Earthling Awoken Skills at least invoke an image of power as understood in Dragon Ball. For all the shortcomings of the Namekian and Majin Awoken Skills, you can at least point to King Piccolo and Kid Buu as signifiers of strength. If anything, the image of Goku on the Nimbus with the Power Pole is reminiscent of a time when Dragon Ball was significantly less concerned with displays of power, which is kind of counterintuitive when it's invoked as a method of attaining greater power.

Put reductively, it's kind of a bummer, but then again, isn’t this dynamic, of Saiyans being given the lion's share of power and relevance while Earthlings get virtually none, the most Dragon Ball shit ever?

Hindsight has only made Videl's presence in the early parts of the Buu Saga all the more fascinating. For that run of episodes, all the way up to the World Martial Arts Tournament, the degree to which Videl is an active participant and outright combatant in the action is kind of surreal. It's not entirely without precedent, since Chi-Chi had her moments in the original Dragon Ball and the occasional moment in Z, but unlike Chi-Chi, it really does seem like Videl's perfectly content to be this active for as long as she's around. What's more, the show explicitly makes reference to her being wildly more powerful than her dad, who himself is established as of legitimate world champion caliber, and it even goes out of its way to have Gohan teach her to fly. While that scene is absolutely primarily meant to set up her true purpose in the series writ large, there's a pretty good correlation in Dragon Ball between "people who can fly" and "people who can at least fight a little".

Then, of course, Spopovich happens.

I'm not particularly interested in litigating post-crisis Videl here, since it's been discussed plenty, and yeah, I also think it's more than a little bit of a bummer. But knowing the trajectory of post-Z Dragon Ball, especially Super, it makes Videl's irrelevance on an action level kind of an inevitability? Like, yeah, maybe if she bounced back harder and played a larger role after the Spopovich fight, you maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe could draw a line to her at least being comparable to the likes of Krillin, Tien, and Yamcha, but given the reality of modern Dragon Ball, would that be anything more than a pyrrhic victory?

So really, when you consider that the frankly ridiculous power scaling of Super is really just the logical extension of the scaling in Z that was already well underway by the Buu Saga, it naturally raises the question of why they bothered to even make Videl this much of an active force in the first place. From square one, she's arguably destined to be relegated to Gohan's love interest and future wife, so why go through the effort of showing the audience that she's stronger than every Earthling that's not a Z-Fighter? It does parallel Chi-Chi's strength in Dragon Ball to help further foreshadow her pairing with Gohan like Chi-Chi with Goku, but then why make her be that into fighting when Chi-Chi was always clearly content to be a housewife?

And like, Jesus Christ, all that only to be that definitive with that Spopovich fight?

I bring Videl up because my main created character in Xenoverse 2 is a female Earthling. Ever since I booted the game for the first time, there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to primarily play as a female Earthling, because with it came the knowledge that I was going to control a female Earthling doing and achieving some frankly wild shit, like going toe-to-toe with Final Form Mira, literal deities, Jiren, and Ultra Instinct Goku(?!?), sometimes back-to-back in certain Parallel Quests.

And of course I can, because that is the entire reason for the Xenoverse games' existence. The game has always been an unabashed power fantasy all about defeating some of the most powerful entities in Dragon Ball history with your own created character on your own terms.

And yet, as I do all of this with my female Earthling, the knowledge that in canon, the most powerful analogue to my character is Videl, a character who almost literally gets the relevance beaten out of her in a brutal and unforgettable manner, makes the experience feel almost rebellious. It feels like everything from the godawful Awoken Skill to the subpar race/gender stat distribution for a strike-oriented build to the very nature and history of Dragon Ball itself is working against my character becoming a ludicrously powerful force of nature, and yet I not only can, but literally must push through and go even further beyond.

I cannot emphasize enough that this sense of transgression has no basis at all when it comes to the game. Absolutely nothing about the Xenoverse games explicitly suggests that Earthlings, female or otherwise, are somehow destined to be strictly lesser than Saiyans or any other races. Again, the game is an unabashed power fantasy; it's going to let you achieve that power fantasy regardless of race or gender, because to do so otherwise is completely antithetical to the entire reason people play the game in the first place.

But looking at past Dragon Ball games, at least to me, makes clear that they really didn't have to include the option to play as an Earthling. They clearly feel no obligation to do so, since they've excluded it in previous games. They completely dodge the need to include a human-like race option with the existence of Saiyans, who aren't even differentiated by the presence of a tail. I genuinely don't think any significant number of people would have even batted an eye over the exclusion of Earthlings. ‘Cause, you know, it's Dragon Ball, why would you play as an Earthling?

But they did. They let you choose to play as an Earthling, a race that Dragon Ball has essentially been drilling into your head, for years, is a strictly less powerful and less interesting version of Saiyans with practically no upside. They gave you the option, and I took it, all because it effectively let me play out an extended Videl what-if by proxy and stretch credibility into complete, unrecognizable nonsense.

I recognize that this absolutely reflects more on me and my relationship with Dragon Ball as a whole than it does on Xenoverse, but when it’s the only Dragon Ball game that embraces customizable characters to the extent that it does, it’s necessarily going to be the only game that actually lets me grapple with that tension between the source and the spin-off, and reckon with how that can shape the audience’s experience and perception of the bigger picture.

#dragon ball xenoverse #dragon ball xenoverse 2 #xenoverse #xenoverse 2 #dbxv #dbxv2 #xv2 #dragon ball #dragon ball z #dbz #videl #videl satan

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thetrap · 4 years

Text

why i think deancas just might go canon

i’ve been wanting to write this for a bit, but i haven’t really had the time until now. basically this is just a super unorganized collection of thoughts i have on why i think that dean and castiel actually have a fairly decent shot of becoming canon (and by decent shot i mean like.....a solid 5% chance. and that’s being generous). this is based off of the show itself (obviously), quotes from andrew dabb, and other things.

1. andrew dabb is deancas positive

i made a post a while back that never made it out of the drafts, but it was basically a summation of all the good deancas shit dabb has given us as a writer. here are the bullet points:

- the hug/"i'm not leaving here without you!" moment in purgatory (8x02)

- "don't lose it over one man"

- "he's in love.....with humanity"

- cas/colette parallel ("dean. stop.") in 10x22

- just the fight scene from the prisoner in general like......wow

- sam/jess and dean/cas parallel in 12x23

- "we've lost everything......and now, you're gonna bring him back" + dean's just generally overwhelming grief in 13x01

- "and how is it that you lost dean? i thought the two of you were joined at the.....you know, everything"

and these are just the big moments.

also notable is the fact that an activist sent dabb (and some of the other producers of spn i think) a book about dean and cas and why the fans want it/why it would be a good thing for the show. a few years later, meghan fitzmartin (who wrote the most recent episode!) was hired as dabb’s assistant, went into his office and posted a tweet a with pictures of the book, saying something along the lines of “doing some reading for work!”

the fact that dabb actually kept a fanmade deancas book for years.....the fact that he’s consistently written episodes with really strong subtext for years.....the fact that the dean and castiel romantic tension has only picked up since he took over as showrunner (mixtape, lily sunder, cas’s death, dean’s grief arc, the entirety of season fifteen, etc.)......idk i just think it’s really interesting that there has been such a marked shift since he was put in charge.

2. the mixtape

i know this was a few seasons ago, but it’s still relevant because like. a mixtape is not platonic. this scene was not platonic. full-stop.

and it’s not even the act by itself; it’s also the dialogue!! “it was a gift. you keep those.” this is more than likely a direct callback to aragorn and arwen in lord of the rings (that’s the first thing i thought of, at least).

the fact that dabb let this slide, like......he knows what this looks like. berens and glynn, who wrote this episode, know what it looks like. they knew precisely how this would be perceived, and then wrote and aired the scene anyways.

and that’s not even getting into the camerawork. like what?? was this shot???

yeah so. definitely not platonic.

3. the trap

honestly i thought about just posting this part of this overlong essay thing, because to me, this is the episode where i went okay, so this might actually happen.

there are SO many things in this episode that made me go insane the first time i watched it (”i left, but you didn’t stop me”) but the thing that stuck out to me the most was dean’s reaction to castiel saying, “you don’t have to say it. i heard your prayer,” when dean tries to tell him something.

like?????? he does not look relieved!! nor does he look particularly happy!!

hell, if you go back and watch the video you can literally see him swallow his words down like....jensen ackles is the master of micro expressions and that shit is Not Accidental. this moment 100% gives the vibe that there is something that is not being said. the camera following dean as he gives cas a lingering look is really interesting too.

3. dabb’s comments about dean and cas in season 15

this part is actually sort of related to the point above, since a lot of dabb’s comments are in reference to “the trap.” here are some interesting ones that i want to point out:

But the Leviathan won’t be the focal point of the purgatory story. Rather, it’s about what Dean and Castiel are going through. “They’re not going to resolve the emotional stuff, but it allows them to redefine their friendship a little bit in light of what’s happened especially earlier this season,” Dabb says. (x)

the key thing here is that dabb said that, in 15x09, dean and cas are “not going to resolve the emotional stuff.”

now. i don’t know about you, but dean falling to his knees, praying to cas and weeping feels a lot like emotional resolution to me. like, sure, things will probably be awkward between them for a while, but surely this is the peak moment of their emotional vulnerability with each other, right? surely this is the moment where they’ve resolved the issue between them? like how the fuck does it get more intensely emotional than this??

yet dabb seems to be implying that it will, which leaves us with the million dollar question: what is left about dean and cas’ relationship to resolve?

keep in mind that as of 15x16, there hasn’t been much forward movement on that front; that is, we’ve had some cute moments between them, but in terms of serious conversation about their relationship, there’s been basically nothing. so we can assume that this development, whatever it is, will occur in 15x18, since dean and cas will be separated for most of 15x17, as cas will be off with sam.

aka the episode where cas will likely get yanked away by the empty. aka the episode with the teary (!!!) conversation we saw in the promo between dean and cas.

also notable from the above quote is dabb saying that dean and cas are redefining their friendship. like....redefining how? to what?? that wording is just really interesting to me.

another quote from dabb re “the trap”:

(x)

it forces them to “start that process.” indicating yet again that the prayer scene between dean and cas is not the moment where whatever is between them is resolved. yet, from where we are right now, dean and cas seem mostly fine. which means that whatever they have yet to work out doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with their fight.

lastly:

a really significant chunk of what happens to dean in 15x09 is him confronting his issues with cas. don’t get me wrong - there are other important things that happen in the episode - but the fact that an episode where so much time/emotional energy is given to dean and cas’ dynamic is considered a turning point for dean is very notable and, to me, speaks to the importance of their relationship for the rest of the season.

4. dean/cas and sam/eileen being set up as units

i’m of the opinion that sam and dean will (by choice) go their separate ways at the end of the show. i think this for a variety of reasons that i wrote about here, and to add onto this, i think that dean/cas and sam/eileen are, in a way, being set up as two units.

this theory comes from two points:

1. the fact that eileen got brought back at all

this isn’t to say that eileen isn’t an interesting character all on her own/outside of her romance with sam, but the fact that they brought her back and then proceeded to set her up in this romance feels really significant to me. what’s especially interesting is how, even after she leaves in 15x09, we get a continuation of their romance in 15x14. i don’t necessarily think that she’s sam’s endgame in the sense that the final episode will show sam going to her or whatever, but i do think that part of the reason she was brought back was so that sam would have someone who he loves/someone he could potentially build a life with after he and dean defeat chuck.

2. the way the two couples were portrayed in “the trap”

like....just watch the future scenes in the bunker. there’s very much a sense that these are two couples living together. and “ever since the mark made cas go crazy, ever since i had to bury him in a ma’lak box.” note the use of i, not we. and then dean/cas and sam/eileen are directly paralleled when dean tells sam he needs to give it up after eileen’s death, comparing it to how dean has given it up after having to bury cas in the ma’lak box.

5. dean does not do Well without cas

this is probably an understatement. there have been a couple of notable instances in this season where the viewer is given a glimpse of what happens to dean when cas dies/is in danger of death/is separated from dean (in case the whole ass widower arc in s13 wasn’t enough).

two of these are from “the trap”:

1. dean freaking out/crying/praying when he’s separated from cas in purgatory

2. dean giving up on life/hunting after burying cas in the ma’lak box in the future world

3. dean’s reaction to cas temporarily going to the empty in 15x13

the one i want to spend the most time on is number two, in large part because sam was witness to it and i think that this might get brought up in 15x17.

part of my spec for that episode is that cas will tell sam about his deal/sam will find out somehow, and in reaction sam might tell cas about how dean reacted to his death in s13 - a conversation that was notably absent from the show when cas finally returned in 13x05. i also think that he might mention no. 2 above, basically telling cas that if he dies, dean is done. that he won’t be able to handle it/move past it. the show has been telling us this over and over for a while now, and it’s only been emphasized more in season 15. i think that 15x17 is the episode where this will finally be verbally expressed.

to me, all of this emphasis on dean giving up when cas is gone isn’t for nothing. in my opinion, it’s being done very purposefully to set up an endgame where dean and cas are together in some sense of the word. and a lot of what i’ve said above is what makes me think it’ll be a Romantic together.

5. bobo berens’ three part deancas saga

so we all know that berens is pretty much spn’s foremost deancas warrior, and what i want to point out here is how this season has been utilizing him as a writer.

this season, berens has three solo episodes (he wrote “galaxy brain” with meredith glynn):

1. the rupture

2. the trap

3. despair (formerly known as “the truth”)

so far, these first two episodes have had major deancas moments. you could even label them as:

1. the rupture (the breakup)

2. the trap (the reconciliation)

3. depair (???)

keep in mind also that berens wrote 14x18, where the dean and cas sort of had a preliminary breakup. he’s been in charge of this arc for a while, and the fact that so much of his writing this season has been deancas focused.......i don’t know, i just think it’s significant in part because, while berens has always been deancas positive, he also writes plenty of episodes that aren’t focused on dean and cas. but now, in the final season, the dean and cas emotional arc has been handed to him, and it’s been the primary focus on his writing.

(sidenote: berens was promoted to executive producer for this final season)

to me, this is all leading to a big moment between dean and cas in 15x18 - and the fact that it was at one point called “the truth,” only to be switched back to despair - makes me think that there will be some sort of confession involved. my money is on cas being the one to say it (especially since this would line up with the leak), especially given the glimpse we saw of (what might be) this moment in the promo. which leads me to...

6. cas does not cry

i saved this for last because the promo where we see teary-eyed cas is actually what pulled me back into this shitshow.

cas does not cry. like. ever. he got a little teary in 15x15, when jack told him of his plan to sacrifice himself, but we have never - never - seen him shed actual tears. and in the promo, particularly that shot where cas says “you have fought for this whole world,” it 100% looks like cas is about to cry cry.

cas has seen his son die. he has seen dean die. he died himself, over and over and over. and we have never seen him cry.

yet for some reason, in this moment of vulnerability with dean, he’s crying. i find it highly unlikely that cas would cry because of his impending death, for a number of reasons (for one, he wouldn’t want to upset dean more than he has to). so, assuming he’s not crying because of his own death, then what is making cas so emotional that he is genuinely crying for the first time in the twelve seasons he has been on the show?

my guys.....i can only think of one thing.

#THIS IS SO FUCKING LONG OH MY GOD #i'm so sorry for this i just have SO many thoughts about this and had to get them all down #disclaimer: i still think it's highly unlikely we'll get confirmed romantic deancas #but i do think there's a chance #and this is why #deancas #destiel #s15 spoilers #spec

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waynedunlaptheorgandonor · 3 years

Text

hey so “find me” dropped on premiere and i just watched it, so you know what that means??

it’s review time!

(super rambly as usual) spoilers under the cut

before i say anything, let me say, IT’S FINE, Y’ALL. as predicted. people are gonna be dramatic bc there are daryl/leah scenes, but like...we been knew? and some of them were rly important caryl-wise. (tbh, the episode was kind of boring and just a set-up for other stuff, lmfao)

okay, review:

opening credits, which i think most of us have already seen, were cute. obvi there was some weird tension with daryl that leads to the coming-to-a-head thing at the end, but their banter is still cute af

they went fishing and daryl’s reaction to carol was adorable, and there’s an important parallel later on, so bookmark this

similarly, there’s an important parallel to carol’s “the dead catch up to us eventually”/daryl’s “i ain’t gonna let it”, so bookmark that, too

dog is the instigator for the flashbacks, so if you wanna blame anyone, blame him. he races to the cabin, which for some reason daryl, who spent five years in this forest, seemed surprised to see? didn’t you literally map out that whole area, my dude? whatever

cue flashback!

i might have the scene order mixed up, but i think it starts with daryl being all sad by himself, and then dog as a puppy shows up and he’s like “!!! a dog!!!” which is v cute, and then he runs back off. we don’t meet leah yet

we see carol and daryl having a conversation while standing on opposite sides of a river for no reason except to probably symbolize distance or maybe covid, lol. the conversation basically goes:

carol: things are different

daryl: yeah

carol: how long are you gonna be out here?

daryl: -shrug emoji-

carol: i get why you’re out here, and i’d join you if things weren’t...

daryl: different

carol: yeah

daryl: yeah. anyway, it’s gonna rain, and also i’m having emotions, so ttyl

the end

at some point we see daryl sitting with an extremely unhappy face while it pours rain on him in the dark, and i want that as a reaction gif IMMEDIATELY

also the rain destroys his “where in the world is rick grimes?” map, which makes him v upset and scream-y, and we get the idea that he might be going a bit bonkers being all alone looking for a dead (or, ig, kidnapped by helicopter) man

in present day carol finds the note, and is like “oh dunk, she lived here??” so she knew about leah, and daryl’s like, “i already told you everything,” and carol’s like, “no you didn’t,” so we go back to flashbacks (but i’m still not sure what parts carol didn’t already know?? whatever, it’s not that important)

i’m just gonna hit the highlights of the flashbacks bc they were not that thrilling:

first time daryl meets leah the dog leads him to her cabin, and leah ties him to a chair and holds a gun to his head being like, “what are you doing on my land?” bc apparently you can claim whole forests during the apocalypse, and daryl says very little, and eventually she lets him go

next time dog finds daryl and he brings her back and leah is like, “the dog likes you” and they’re kinda flirty, and then daryl says very little and leaves

next time daryl is surrounded by walkers and leah shows up and helps and they hide in a tree and are awkwardly close to each other and daryl cannot handle the close physical contact so when the walkers pass he says very little except to tell her to never come back again, lmfao

the next flashback is my favorite bc daryl just fucking

goes to leah’s cabin and throws a fish at the door???

i laughed for ten years

he throws a fucking fish and then stands there for a minute like “is she gonna notice that i gave her a fish??” like, no, dumbass, you didn’t even knock, you just threw a fucking fish at her fucking door, what is wrong with you??

no wonder it’s taken him and carol so long if he thinks throwing fish at people is a smooth move. boy has NO fucking game

anyway, leah gets him back by finding him and throwing the fish at his head, being like, “wtf, don’t throw fish on my porch?” which, fair, leah

IMPORTANT CARYL PARALLEL (from here on out known as “caryllels”) #1: so earlier i mentioned the carol fish thing, and apparently the same thing happened with leah, where she speared a fish on her first try and daryl was like “tf?” v blatant “we are supposed to be thinking about carol and daryl’s relationship during this scene” sort of thing

leah’s backstory is bland. had a family, they got eaten or disappeared or something. she, her adopted son, and dog’s mom got away, but the kid was bit, and died the same day dog was born, bc ig when god closes one door, he replaces your dead son with a puppy, or however the idiom goes

ONLY PART THAT GOT ME LEGIT EMOTIONAL:

leah asked daryl who he lost, and he says, “my brother”

asklfdjaslfdjskl

god i miss rick

i hated rick for so long and now i miss him so much

but i digress

IMPORTANT CARYLLEL #2: leah and daryl have the same “the dead get you eventually”/”i ain’t gonna let it” conversation as caryl had earlier, only daryl is playing the role of carol in this scenario, so again we’re supposed to be comparing the two relationships. lemme get through the rest of the summary and then i’ll tell you my opinion on what that means

fuck what even happens next?

i have these out of order bc they were all the fucking same, but the two of them get closer, and there is the vaguest suggestion of sex ever. you literally only see daryl’s hand

then jump-cut to them sitting at the table being emo, ig bc daryl was gonna go back to look for rick for a bit, and leah is like “who do you belong with? your brother you won’t stop looking for? your family that you left? [side note: that seemed rather pointed, like, “hey hoe, you abandoned your family, that was kind of a dick move”] or me?” and he says he doesn’t know, and she’s like “yeah you do, now choose”

jump-cut to caryl scene where carol finds him at the river and says that she won’t be visiting as much, and daryl’s like “k” and they have a brief argument where daryl’s all snippy, like, “what? do you want my permission for you to move on with your life? i’m not still emo about the fact that you’re moving on with your life, and i also don’t think it’s contextually significant that every time you show up in my flashbacks you explicitly mention that you’re married and have a kid,” and carol is like, “bro, you need to Get Your Shit Together and come home”

jump-cut to daryl having what i’m assuming is an epiphany that carol/fam have all moved on while he was out being emo, and so he decides to go be with leah, except, plot twist! she’s gone. the picture of her and her son is gone, but dog is still there. daryl leaves the note, which says, “i belong with you, find me”

for those freaking out about the wording about the note, may i remind you that she specifically asked, “do you belong x, x, or with me?” so he was just answering the question

aaaaaand back to present day

carol is like, “what do you think happened to her?” and daryl is all -shrug emoji-, and then she’s like, “...do you think she might have just...you know...left?” and daryl gets rull offended, which was kind of funny

(she probably just left, bud)

carol tells daryl to stop thinking that when people leave it’s bc of him, and connie’s name gets thrown into the mix, and daryl gets a “oh here we fucking go” look on his face, and it sets him off

he said basically what we were already spoiled for. “you just want to run, you don’t know when to stop, i shouldn’t have taken you off the boat bc you still just want to run” etc

and carol looks fucking HEARTBROKEN, which hurt me, and she goes into the other room and we end the episode with daryl staring forlornly out of the window

the end

okay

so quick analysis

i think the significance of this episode is supposed to be so we have an understanding of why daryl is suddenly so !teamfamily, and !teamfuture, and how badly he wants carol to be there with him. at one point, one of them even says, “this isn’t about leah, or connie,” or anyone but the two of them. the title “find me” feels significant, bc the whole episode is daryl grappling with where he’s supposed to go, and what his purpose is, and by the end, he says to carol, “i know where i belong,” (implying, with her and the fam), pulling us full-circle. in the first flashback onward he is lost, but by the end he is found -cue amazing grace-

daryl and leah were flirty, but to me it felt very much like something that was just being used as daryl character development. we barely got anything that juicy between the two of them (except the fish throwing thing, that was amazing), and i still don’t think that it would make any sense, regardless of the showrunner, to pair daryl up with some rando after having so many other choices that people would have preferred. i don’t think we’re meant to #endgame ship it, so much as we are supposed to be like, “oh, ok, daryl learned the power of family and stability and leveled up, -you know what that is? growth gif-” as a result, i literally have no idea what leah’s role is gonna be in s11, but i don’t think it’ll be a huge plot point

so now we firmly know where daryl stands. he is all about moving forward, not looking back, and doing the best he can, and he’s frustrated bc when he took carol off the boat he wanted her to be in the same place as him so that they could grow together, but she wasn’t and isn’t there yet

so my guess is that what’s next for carol’s storyline is her reaching that same zen-level daryl’s at

once they’re both there, then they get to ride off into the sunset and make passionate love under the moon casting shadows over the vast desert wasteland

whew

anyway

tl;dr: idk, episode was fine, if not kinda boring. lots of caryllels. can i go back to writing my vietnam war au now?

the end

(stay hype, stan kang, and get daryl to call carol sweetheart 2k21),

-diz

#thank god i can move on with my life now #caryl #caryl spoilers #twd s10 spoiler #dunlap tp

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