#and then in season 3 they just started adding plots and characters and literally nothing for s3 and 4 mattered

[utilitycaster]

you got me. i binged all of midst in two days and it was great, but now i dont have a lot of other podcasts to listen to. do you have other good fiction podcasts you like?

DO I. I am not the Most Podcast Person I know but I definitely follow a lot because I drive a lot and walk a lot and put them on in the background while I do chores. Also, I'm sticking to scripted/plotted fiction here and not actual play but I can provide some actual play podcast recs too, though none are terribly obscure.

Wolf 359 is a completed podcast but a great binge. It also is science fiction and deals with capitalism and corruption and complicated characters and weird space stuff; it regularly makes the "great fiction podcasts" to check out and I think is closest to Midst in that it's also a tightly plotted work that goes to a natural end point.

I frequently talk about and recommend the Silt Verses and the thematic nature is remarkably close to Midst, but the vibe is very different. It has a lot of folk and body horror elements (audio-only, but they are absolutely present). Also covers the "man what if capitalism and religion were working explicitly in tandem" element of Midst with the added dimension of "what if there were many many gods and and they all demanded literal, physical sacrifices". Sister Carpenter is cut from a similar cloth as Lark and I love her dearly. To draw other comparisons would be to spoil it. It's on season 3, which will be its last. It is extremely intense in that when I fell behind I found it tough to binge without taking breaks, but it's really fucking good. (I also recommend this to people who like Candela Obscura, though that's more for eldritch horror vibes).

The Penumbra Podcast is great because it has two separate storylines (it was originally intended to be an anthology, but people fell in love with Juno Steel specifically). I like both, but Juno Steel is the more popular one - it's set in the future, in our solar system but in space, and follows Juno Steel, a private eye. It's extremely weird neo-noir. There is a homme fatale and a fantastic cast of characters, and it's also an interesting ongoing plot. The Second Citadel is more fantasy rather than sf though it's also kind of in that general New Weird bucket and is even harder to describe but I think it's underrated. It's also on its final season but it's been going on a while so it will take a bit for you to catch up.

Within the Wires is also a podcast I've recommended in the past. It's by the people who do Welcome to Nightvale which isn't listed here both because I assume you are aware of it, and because that's an ongoing slice of life sort of thing; there are plots but there's sort of that sitcom-esque "nothing really changes the status quo" element though the earlier era had some more structured stuff. Anyway, Within the Wires is found audio, so each season is different - the first is relaxation cassette tapes, the second museum audio guides, the third voice memos, etc. There are callbacks/connections between seasons at times, and I would recommend listening to at least the first two seasons in full (which are very strong) to get a sense of the world before hopping around later. The reason I recommend it here is because the worldbuilding is spectacularly done in a way that reminds me of the elegance of the worldbuilding in Midst, and because it's found audio, while it's one narrator per season you will get those weird asides and interesting tonal choices.

Tentative rec for Camlann, a roughly modern day post-apocalyptic take on Arthurian legends and the folklore of the British Isles only because it just started and has 3 episodes. I like it, but I don't know what plot it's building to (nor how long it will be; they have funding for one season but aren't sure about future ones.)

#answered #Anonymous

[chvoswxtch]

👋 hi, i'm back again already :)

i'm so glad i'm not alone in being completely feral for those set pictures. like it's insane what just seeing them has done to my brain chemistry. i saw them like an hour or so before i had therapy on wednesday and i felt like i was going insane for the rest of the day. the frank brainrot is real and i will be binge-reading ur fics again (bc i love ur portrayal of frank and i need that man in my life) and just UGH, i can't even explain how this man makes me feel without sounding fucking nuts.

and okay after finishing season two, i just, i have no words. i know that the fandom doesn't always love amy but genuinely, she has such a special place in my heart. and the lengths that frank went to protect her actually just made me want to sob. he absolutely melts my heart and i remember when i watched the start of season 2 all the way back in like september last year, i literally sobbed at the end of the first episode after he had that conversation about maria with the woman he met at the bar. like i am such a simp for this man, it's insane how emotional i get over it sometimes.

also i know you've watched criminal minds (the two fics u wrote were absolutely delicious btw) so i feel like you will understand this but pilgrim's actor being the same as will's just made it slightly hard for me to take him seriously. like the actor did a phenomenal job but i just couldn't help but see him as will. it was so jarring and also just a little bit funny. either way, i didn't hate the storyline as much as i thought but the connection between him and the schultz family did seem a little jarring? or like out of the blue? but i'm not sure if that's because of the writing or because of how long it took me to actually finish the show. but i think it was such an interesting way to connect the two plots even if it confused me?

then okay, like billy this season, he was a complete fucking psycho and usually ben barnes can make psychos be so hot but after he and dumont tried to like break frank by making him think he killed innocents, bro i was not on this man's side anymore. like i honestly was so mad at him. i haven't like been that mad at a character in so long, i was concerned for myself. honestly, i could have strangled billy in that moment. also dumont was just such a kind of dull character? i think the scene in like episode 12 when dumont and madani are having that conversation about like the trauma she (and billy and frank) went through was so good but that was like the most interesting i found her. i'd love to know your thoughts on her!

and like madani? i can't talk about madani without going too feral. like her and frank are my definition of bisexual panic. any time they are on the screen together, i go insane. the thought of the two of them actually is just- it's too much. i feel like madani doesn't get a lot of love in the fandom which always makes me sad because she is (to me) a literal goddess. but anyway.

i have so many more thoughts (mainly about how much i love frank and how fucking good a job jon does at portraying him) but this is already such a long message. i am SO sorry, i can do nothing but apologise

(the only reason it's so long is because none of my friends have actually watched the punisher so i have no one to talk to. sorry court <3)

i'm gonna ramble below the cut with you, please step into my office <3

those set pictures are ruining my life. like it still feels surreal that it's happening?? but i'm so happy they listened to the fans and seem to be taking the reboot seriously. also I know how protective charlie and jon are over matt and frank, so I trust they're making sure it's done right. akjdfhdfh you're too nice to me pls

I loved season 2, personally. it felt a little rushed, but I think that has to due with the fact that they planned more storylines and got cancelled because of the disney plus thing. I liked that we got to see a more fatherly side of frank with amy because it added so many more layers to his personality. we got to see it with the micro's kids, but we got to see it so much more with amy and I loved that

OMG WHEN WILL SHOWED UP I WAS LIKE SIR WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?? WHERE IS JJ??? it's so funny you say that bc the first thing I saw that actor in was a horror movie and then criminal minds but I always think of those two when I see him lmao. the pilgrim/schultz storyline was a little strange but again I think it's one of those things where they planned for more and weren't able to do it with the cancellation

I did not care for dumont's character at all to be candid. I don't really feel like she added much to the storyline. my main complaint about billy in season 2 is he still looked too pretty LMAO. like I get it, it's ben barnes, they can only do so much, but frank rocked his shit too hard for him to have a few scratches. I would've preferred to see him be more evil and psycho and bloodthisty for revenge but that's just me

DINAH MADANI THE WOMAN THAT YOU ARE. she and frank are the definition of bisexual panic. she's just...like that scene of her and karen in the conference room when she's asking her if she knows anything about frank being alive?? karen is a stronger woman than me bc I would've let her bend me over that table. dinah doesn't get enough love in this fandom and that doesn't sit right with me and I feel it is my civic duty to keep the thirst for her alive

pls don't apologize! I am happy to chat about frankie anytime :)

#court answers #court rambles #frank castle #the punisher

[thestobingirlie]

I think Steve, Dustin, Lucas, and Max’s plotlines in S4 would’ve been a lot better if there was a focus on the relationships between the four of them.

For one, Lucas taking up basketball is an excellent opportunity for Steve-bonding and then Dustin getting jealous and latching onto not only the only other older dude in his life, but one interested in the same hobbies as him and therefore in no danger of ‘abandoning’ him. And if Dustin was just some kid in his club to Eddie before things went to shit? The drama. If Eddie was supposed to just be another version of Steve to Dustin they could’ve at least not been lazy about it.

For two, Dustin and Lucas were Max’s first friends in Hawkins and the love and support they give her should’ve been shown and explored just as much as her romantic one with Lucas.

As a side note, I think having Erica be noticeably upset when she learns about Max would’ve added a lot to both of their characters. Partially because the duffers don’t give Erica much of anything (as interesting as she is, she’s one of the worst written characters in my opinion) and partially because Max has been in Lucas’s life for almost two years by this point, which means Erica would have been somewhat close to her as well. Everyone got a reaction to Max being cursed except her. That’s her brother’s girlfriend on the chopping block! She’s going to care!

And finally, Billy was specifically written to be Steve’s foil so having Steve there successfully older brothering Max while she grapples with the grief of her actual brother’s death, what their relationship should have been vs what it actually was, would’ve and could’ve been an absolute sucker punch of emotional turmoil. Just the idea of Max feeling guilty over viewing Steve as more of a brother than Billy and wishing Billy could’ve been more like Steve when Billy did nothing to earn her care before dying in front of her is the kind of lost potential that keeps me up at night.

i will always fight for more time for my junkyard four, regardless of their arcs. but also, i totally agree, i think a lot of their plot lines were actually involved with each other, but for some reason we just didn’t get to actually see the relationships.

yeah, the whole jealousy thing is really underused and kinda weird, it would’ve been really cool if it went two ways! dustin jealous of lucas and steve’s bond, and then steve jealous of dustin and eddie, as both boys think the other two have more in common. and then the resolution. eddie telling steve that dustin worships him, and lucas telling dustin that steve talks about him all the time. and then we can get a conversation between dustin and steve where they hug and tell each other that they’re brothers and they love each other <3

dustin and max have really been forgotten about and it’s pretty sad. i get that dustin had a little crush on her, but he’s not the type to hold it against her. they’ve had so few scenes since s2, it’s tragic. just another example of the duffers prioritising romance over friendship.

i wish we’d gotten erica and max this season instead of nancy and robin. like, imagine that girl power team. it would’ve been fun to get any erica and max interaction, even maybe erica being a bit standoffish to max, because of all the lumax drama.

steve literally is max’s big brother, and the duffers don’t give him enough credit. like, max confiding in steve and opening up about her guilt, and steve reassuring her. ugh, that would’ve killed me.

it’s interesting because even though max has such a big role this season, i still feel like she got kinda tossed aside. i guess because we have such a huge cast now, it’s hard to focus on anyone. that’s why they need to start killing off characters. but not any of my favourites

but yeah, the junkyard four and erica, i would kill for them.

#steve harrington #dustin henderson #max mayfield #lucas sinclair #erica sinclair #eddie munson #stranger things #asks #somuchfuckingsalt

[thranduel]

"it's not queerbaiting since will is confirmed gay and they haven't shown any hints to mike liking him back, so if he’s straight, that’s your fault for making assumptions" actually, it is queerbaiting now and they could’ve easily put a stop to byler before it reached that point but they didn’t.

yes, we know that will is gay, it's confirmed, there is no doubt about that. but they have been teasing and promoting byler specifically and leaving mike's feelings ambiguous in season 4 as well. it's not just will's feelings they've teased. they are literally using their ship name as hashtags and when they talk during conventions. it’s reached the point where it IS queerbaiting if they don’t go through with it (and i’m not saying they necessarily have to be canon in volume 2 but they need to at least have mike and el break up and then heavily imply that mike has feelings for will). they have said that this has been planned from the start and they’re they’re building up byler. not just will’s “unrequited crush”, but byler specifically. you don’t say things like that if a young gay character is going to get his heart broken, because that’s not building up the ship. it’s doing the opposite. it’s setting up pain and heartbreak for a kid who has suffered enough from the very first episode of the show and it’s cruel and unnecessary. there is absolutely no reason to make will have a crush on his best friend for it to be unrequited. none. and using a gay character as a way to “advance the plot” or to “add a bit of drama” is gross. there’s no way they would do that.

now, let’s talk about the actual show itself, not just what the cast has said. they have purposefully left mike’s feelings ambiguous this season. we literally have no idea what’s going on inside his head because they’re not telling us. and it’s not just “oh he has trouble saying he loves her because of his parents” because that’s the most bullshit excuse ever. and even if it were true, they would clarify to that to the AUDIENCE so we are aware, and they would shut down byler immediately instead of leaving us hanging and baiting us for a month, but they didn’t. they purposefully left mike’s feelings ambiguous and showed us that he’s behaving weirdly around both will and eleven. he was awkward with his best friend even though they left on good terms and he can’t say he loves el and doesn’t give any sort of explanation even in a scene where she isn’t around just so the audience at least has some idea of what's going on and why he can't say it. everyone already assumes mike loves her since they’re in a relationship and he’s said it before, so why couldn't they at least have a scene where he says something like "yeah, i love her, i just don't know how to express myself"??????? why are they leaving it so mysterious? even when he's talking to will and she's not around, he can't even say the words because he knows it's not true! why would they include all this drama just to make him say “i love you” a few episodes later in the most forced, boring and predictable way? what was the point in adding this “love triangle” and making will have a crush on mike just for everything to stay the same? that would actually be pathetic and so cruel to will. it’s not okay at all. also, mike and will literally had a heart-to-heart about feelings and how it’s hard to open up because what if the other person doesn’t like the truth, and mike was nodding and agreeing. why would he be agreeing if he knows what el wants to hear and he just needs to say 3 words? why would they making this such a big deal and include will for nothing?

if they were planning to force mike and el to stay together, they should’ve NEVER gotten will involved. will should’ve never been confirmed to like mike if it was just going to be unrequited. he’s suffered enough and his personal storyline and love for mike shouldn’t be used for drama just so mike can reject him and run back to a relationship that isn’t even fair or healthy to anyone. the cast, writers, producers and netflix accounts should’ve never mentioned byler and they should've shut down all the theories immediately and put a stop to the shipping instead of teasing and baiting us. the show shouldn’t have included any drama and awkwardness between all 3 characters and left mike’s feelings ambiguous. there was no reason for any of this if they weren’t going to make byler canon. they could’ve easily avoided it, but they chose to do it. it’s not the fans’ fault. byler shippers aren’t just “delusional fans that make things up out of nowhere”. THE SUBTEXT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THERE FROM THE START. even a lot of casual viewers and people who don’t care about ships thought that mike and will had feelings for each other after volume 1 which says a lot. they knew what they were doing and shawn said that nothing was an accident. if byler wasn’t going to be canon, they should’ve made that clear, but they didn’t.

*by the way, do NOT send hate to anyone, especially the actors!! i shouldn’t even have to say that but please don’t. obviously people have every right to feel upset and angry and devastated after all the teasing and build up and they’re allowed to express that on their accounts or under public posts where feedback is expected, but just don’t directly start hating or attacking anyone especially if it wasn’t their fault

#byler

[raayllum]

Cube Hostage Exchange Theory :: End of Days

Because I like nothing more than to organize things accordingly and my brain needs something to focus on for the final few days before the season drops and we get answers to a lot of questions (or at least, a lot of the questions this theory has attempted to answer over the past two years) I thought, “Hey Dragons, why not do your best to compile and breakdown literally every single piece of evidence there is for Cube Hostage Exchange Theory, just in case you’re right and want something to fondly look back on?” 

(And also because I know I won’t have the same motivation to make this post if I’m wrong, but making this post sounds like fun for one last hurrah for myself and the little CHET posse this theory has, somehow, fondly amassed). 

So here it is. 

My end of days, final presentation of Cube Hostage Exchange Theory (otherwise nicknamed as CHET), all that it encompasses, and all that it could inspire, what’s been added to it over time, and why I think it has a decent shot at being what happens in the S4 finale. As well as a little indulgent walk down history / memory lane for me because I started posting about it two years ago, and I do what I want.

What is CHET?

A theory that proposes the S4 finale / current climax with Claudia, Aaravos and co. will threaten Rayla’s life in order for Callum to hand over the Key of Aaravos, thus allowing him to fully break free of his prison and putting the world at risk as a result, specifically in holding her hostage.

I first posted about it on September 21st, 2020 (a couple weeks after Through The Moon graphic novel got released) as just an idea and then made a proper theory post about a month later on October 26th, 2020. 

It is my little bonbon and I think it is very neat. As you can see, it was an exceeding simple plot structure modelled to be a finale or final 3 episode prediction (4x07-4x09) for the end of the season, with very little speculation of what would happen in the build up to it besides 1) Callum having to learn about Aaravos in order to know what he was risking and 2) Callum and Rayla getting a chance to hash out some of their emotional baggage even if they hadn’t wholly resolved it. 

The original theory post itself touched on some concepts that will be repeated down below, such as the idea that the hostage exchange would ideally 1) not be Rayla and Callum’s first reunion, 2) the series’ intrinsic concept of Exchange, 3) why failure is necessary for Rayla but not a punishment, 4) how her lack of self worth manifests, and perhaps most importantly, 5) how Callum is always instrumental in breaking her cycles.

The theory has since grown to encompass many others as well as a plethora of evidence I stumbled upon, first accidentally and then with a more purposefully keen eye, in terms of foreshadowing, set up, and parallel / cyclical episode structures that TDP loves to utilize and has utilized before. Again, more on that at the bottom.

What made me first think of it?

Simply put, it just seemed the most straight forward route that would also yield the biggest dramatic consequences for character and for story. Post-TTM Rayla was racing right towards Aaravos without even knowing, Callum has something called a Key, Aaravos wants to escape his prison. Thus, it would give Callum a clear hand in how the plot would move forward and fit with some of the more dubious choices he’d made before. I also liked the way it could conceivably offer up a pathway for Rayla and Callum’s emotional arcs; for Rayla, it’d be an unexpected hammer to her own perception of her self and her self worth, for Callum to throw it all on the line even after she’d hurt him so terribly much; for Callum, it would give him space to be angry with Rayla but also room for a good old “Fuck everything else, I just want you to be okay” when it comes to like, offering us a strong reconciliation within the limited emotional time frame of a TV show.

Why Should Rayla Get Saved?

Rayla left in TTM because she thought Callum could handle losing her in ways she couldn’t handle losing him. This fundamentally comes down to Rayla’s self sacrificial tendencies veering into self-destructive behaviour (leaving at all) and her justifications for it being that she isn’t “good enough” to be worth fighting for / loving the way she loves others, as well as deeper issues of survivor’s guilt and possibly not feeling like she quite deserves to live and be loved.

Although I don’t subscribe to the “Rayla left out of pride” lens at all, even under it, Rayla needing to be saved seems like the most logical conclusion, otherwise how is she supposed to learn that she can’t do everything herself? 

Rayla can’t succeed in her quest to stop Viren or to fully protect Callum, lest she think what she did in TTM is “ultimately fine” just because it worked in protecting him successfully. She also can’t single handedly stop the villains only halfway through the show. Therefore, Rayla has to fail, and likely has to fail at protecting Callum by the finale specifically, as that was her worst fear. Since she went to all this effort to protect him, the biggest form of failure would be if he ends up in danger at one point because of her. However, that’s precisely why it has to happen - and why it would also hammer that point in further if he’s also saving her while he does it.

Why Can’t Rayla Just Save Callum? 

More recently there’s been an upswing in theories regarding Rayla being Callum’s guiding light out of his “path of darkness” (Callum’s promo quote) given the way the moon halos her head upon entry, her name meaning, her associations with Truth and the Moon arcanum over Aaravos’ starry deception. It is also more in line with what I thought S4 might be like pre-TTM’s release, with Callum getting in way over his head with something magical and Rayla having to help (alongside Ezran possibly) pull him back from the brink.

The light and dark motif now running more prominently throughout both their arcs is also, funnily enough, something I noticed and wrote a meta about close to five months ago back in June, which you can read the full thing here. It was something I had always appreciated about Callum and Rayla’s framing with one another throughout S1 and particularly S2 with Rayla representing the light. It was something I only started to think more on when I began to compile parallels between Aaravos and Rayla, including their names (“between light and dark” and “ray of light” respectively). 

Thus, I do think Rayla will save Callum emotionally/mentally from Aaravos in some manner at some point in the season, as that’s in line with how she keeps Callum out of his head in S1-S3. However, the other half of that pattern is Callum saving her physically, and that’s why I think the light and darkness motif feeds nicely into what I’ve also penned as the Mutual Salvation Theory originally in August 7th, 2022, before we even knew Rayla would be returning at all.

The question then becomes: well, what is he going to save her from? To a certain degree it’s herself, as laid out in this interview with Devon Giehl (TDP’s head writer) and Michal Schick (a staff writer) regarding Rayla’s letter:

She wants to stay because she’s in love with Callum, she wants to leave because she’s in love with Callum. And I think that’s just kinda like - Rayla’s version of love is, at this point in her life, always gonna hurt someone, including herself. Badly. 

The clearest way for this to manifest is for each of them to get a chance to reaffirm their love for one another and choose each other. Due to the symbolism baked into the trailer and the season promo, it seems pretty clear that at the very least, Rayla will be guiding Callum away from darkness at one point in the season. Thus, what’s left is for him to save her in an equally thematically and plot-driven way - thus proving her previous beliefs wrong, reaffirming his love for her, and pushing the plot along. 

This dual “I save you, you save me” plot line is an add-on to broader CHET, as that would provide Callum’s turn of things. Additionally, I think Rayla saving Callum in “guiding light” way may happen before the finale, with the finale then focusing on him saving her, for one main reason:

The Moon Arcanum

Given that the season will inevitably talk about Callum reconnecting with Rayla and the foreshadowing in previous seasons that the Moon arcanum will be the next one he connects to, it seems like S4 is the most natural place for it. This is only reaffirmed by Callum likely being tempted by Aaravos, a great deceiver, as well as the way he’s obsessed with secrets and denying parts of himself / his feelings already in 4x01, and Rayla representing the Truth, the way she always has been.

If we go along that route, then there’s the question of what would compel Callum to connect to the Moon arcanum, especially if he’s off chasing dark magic somewhat this season. Again, given the thematic and symbolic set up already in store, it will likely be him admitting out loud to himself that he loves Rayla, and always will, thus allowing him to fully see past Aaravos’ deceptions (as far as temptation goes).

However, I do not think, though, that such a triumphant note can be where the season ends. After all, we know this era of the Dragon Prince’s world is known as the Return of Aaravos, and that the Startouch elf must be broken free of his prison by the end of the season. Thus, our heroes have to fail, and I think it needs to go one step further than just failing to stop Aaravos from getting out, but of actively helping him - even if it’s against their will. 

So what would that look like, and why do I think it has to be the transfer of the Cube for Rayla?

The Cube

Paraphrasing posts I’ve made before but:

1) Without the cube being called the Key of Aaravos, it being the key to Aaravos’ prison would feel like it came out of nowhere. However, because of such a specific name, it is many people’s default assumptions and that feels purposeful. After all, if they wanted one or the other kind of associations, they could have said Hand or Eye of Aaravos, or Key of mystical sounding name here, but they specifically chose to put those associations together. The show loves to be cryptic and straightforward all at once, with warnings like “Draw your last breath” (3x07) being instructions to literally draw a breathing rune

2) One of the reasons I think the cube is related to Aaravos’ prison is precisely because it was entrusted to Callum by Harrow, the two characters most concerned thematically with the theme of Freedom through both their speeches, actions (Callum shattering the primal stone to free Zym, Callum ending Rayla’s cycles) and most notably his arcanum of the Sky. So you have Callum, who is tethered to the theme of Freedom, with a Key in his possession, Aaravos having some idea of how to get himself out of his prison if his machinations / guidance of Claudia and Viren are any clue, and Aaravos, who wants to be free of his mirror prison more than anything. 

Larger meta post here as well as some very cool similarities the Key could have to the Egyptian myth of Thoth, god of knowledge, presenting a Key of Life to Osiris, god of the underworld. 

3) The Key has been associated specifically with Rayla and her relationship to Callum above anyone else since the beginning of the series. Their first real bonding moment is her agreeing to go get it from the Banther Lodge, she risks her life to do so, and is routinely the other character (sometimes swapped in or sharing that role with Bait) that Callum discusses the cube with. Then there’s also the fact that ties into one of Callum’s consistent aspects of seeing worth in things Rayla doesn’t: appreciating Xadia’s magical nature with fresh eyes (1x05), seeing worth in the Cube (1x04, 1x05), and indeed, Rayla herself (1x05, 3x04). Rayla’s language surrounding the key is also very interesting, but we’ll talk about more of that in the next point, which is:

4) Back in early December 2021, I made a post documenting what I’d noticed of the consistent way the Cube was referred to as a game piece or Aaravos playing a game. (Just for frame of reference, this was almost precisely 6-7 months prior to Aaravos holding Viren like a game piece in the SDCC intro trailer). 

Also keep in mind that Viren asks Aaravos once, and only once, if he’s playing a game. The rest of this coding is done through Rayla alone as a character: “It’s a toy. It’s piece from a children’s game,” “It’s a glow toy” and then “Are you practicing magic or are you losing a game?” which now seems like very overt S4 foreshadowing. 

This also played into what I had noticed in terms of the likelihood of games and tests being intertwined, as they often are in mythic stories or folktales, and this statement from Aaravos felt like something that had to come back in some way (and already has for Claudia as a character, circa end of 3x09). 

Playing a game (particularly chess) against Death or the devil for your soul is common and fit neatly together. The marketing for S4 has only reaffirmed this with lines like “They’re not games. They’re tests” from Soren’s short story. 

Aaravos has offered a test of love to one pawn, in Claudia, first tasking her with reviving her father, and now stretching it further to see what she’s willing to do to keep Viren alive. Viren, who was already dead, just as Rayla comes from a culture in which she is already dead and seen as a Ghost. It doesn’t feel like a stretch to presume Aaravos will give Callum his own Test of Love to either pass or fail, and given that Claudia’s have all related to Aaravos’ main priority of getting out of his mirror, Callum’s likely will too. Especially since it seems like Claudia’s motivations for helping Aaravos may change drastically in S4... but more on that later.

What Does CHET Provide Narratively?

Arc 1 of TDP was largely concerned with “How can we fix our parents’ mistakes?” However, as the world grows more complicated and characters more complex as a result, it is likely Arc 2 will ask, “How can we fix our own mistakes?” This requires mistakes to be made, of course: for Rayla, the continual fallout of her leaving, and for Callum, inadvertently helping Aaravos successfully escape his mirror - and then more so by choice (or under coercion, depending on definition). 

This ties into the way Callum often breaks Rayla’s cycles that she’s trapped in whether through her choices, circumstances, or both. By shattering the primal stone, he frees Rayla from her literal and metaphorical chain of her binding. He inspires Rayla to break the cycle in 2x07 and then does his one dark magic spell to break the chains that Rayla’s swords cannot. He breaks the literally circular pendant from Rayla (and Ethari), weighed now with grief and remembrance, in order to see her free to make her own choices.

Which is to say that Rayla is repeating all four of her parents’ most damaging behaviours and cycles, has likely come back with the intention of protecting Callum (with little to no regard to her own well being) and still believing in the idea that she has a price to pay in order to be happy, and all these damaging beliefs need to be broken. If Rayla is going to save Callum from making the full mistakes of his predecessor, in some ways, isn’t it only right that he saves her right back and does the same?

After all, let’s talk about

Paying the Price

This line from 4x01 immediately stood out to me in a major way for a few reasons: 1) this is the first time Callum has ever directly referenced paying the price in such a manner; Ezran (1 time), Rayla (multiple times), Viren (1 time), Harrow (multiple times), and Claudia (1 time) are previously the only characters to do so and Claudia’s is the one comedic exception to how the phrase is usually delivered. 2) It is also the phrase used in the season synopsis, directly asking the question of, “But where did this enigmatic Startouch elf come from? What does he want? And what price will our heroes have to pay to stop him?”

We know, of course, that they won’t stop him. We know then, that ultimately, there is a price they are not willing to pay to stop him. We know, thanks to the series extreme dedication to emphasizing agency, that they rarely let characters off the hook when it comes to making hard choices, for ex: it would’ve been so comparatively easy for Harrow to not know what Viren planned to do ahead of time to the egg and for him to find out after the fact, but instead we see that Harrow knew and approved of Viren ultimately murdering a child. 

If Callum has the cube (or whatever Aaravos needs from him) just tricked/ conned out of him, it removes what would ultimately be the hardest choice he’d have to make. If it’s taken from him forcefully, he’s failed yes and made a bad choice, but again, removes the actual hand over from the equation. When has TDP ever not forced a character to make a hard decision, after all? To choose the harder path and be aware of it, or to pick a different path and convince themselves it’s the right one? Why would Callum and everyone else suddenly be let off the hook now?

And while it’s supplementary material, so we can take it with a grain of salt, but this also ties into how Callum’s Devotional and Liberty (highest) attributes are described in his Tales of Xadia bio:

“I value those close to me more than anyone or anything” and “I’m beholden to my inner circle, not some silly kingdom” respectively

This also ties back to the perpetual trolley problem, if you will, that TDP returns to time and time again, with situations only getting worse and escalating when the dignity of an innocent or one life is disrespected and tossed over for “the greater good,” particularly without their consent. 

Even after her growing bonds with Ezran and 2.5 seasons of character development, we see Rayla consider her choice to spare Marcos to be a mistake (circa 3x03 with Ethari):

R: I failed them. It was my fault we were discovered.

This is particularly true given that Rayla’s original failure was when she was on a mission to a kill a prince and king of Katolis, and she takes on a similar literal and metaphorical mission in TTM as well: killing / leaving one prince of Katolis (symbolically) by taking a piece of his heart (“My heart for Xadia”) just like the Magma Titan while setting out to actually kill a king of Katolis (Viren) that we know she will ultimately fail in.

Which is to say that the “You saved her life and risked us all” is an interesting concept the series has returned to, most particularly in Callum’s foil relationship with Viren. Their primary difference is contrasted starkly back-to-back in 1x02, when Viren offers up guards’ lives in exchange for Harrow’s but hesitates to offer up his own, whereas Callum offers up his own for Ezran’s without hesitation. Ergo, Viren offering up other people’s lives is decidedly shadier because he takes time to come around to offering up his own. But we already know Callum would die and bend his morals for Rayla.

Could he really bring himself to go through with his plan? What if he didn’t succeed? What if he compromised his beliefs and it all ended up being for nothing? […] But her blade bounced off with a clang, sparks flying. She reeled back and tried again. Nothing happened. She was in trouble. He inched towards Claudia’s [spellbook]. (S2 novelization of 2x07)

So him exchanging the cube would not be risking anything of anyone he’s not prepared to risk of himself, creating a messy but understandable justification, and it’d validate the hell out of Rayla’s own ‘original sin’ in sparing Marcos. Life and living is about more than just numbers and survival - and saving her, weighing her life against the world’s and picking her anyway, is not only a classic hero dilemma, but something that would carry a particular amount of weight in the series as is. 

This also ties back into the series’ intrinsic concept of exchange, including but not limited to:

Killing Harrow and wanting to kill Ezran in exchange for Avizandum and Zym’s believed murders

Viren’s plan to exchange one soul for another’s with Harrow in 1x02 that was originally Claudia’s idea

Callum trying to take Ezran’s place to save his little brother in 1x02

Dark magic as an entire principle, exchanging the life of magical creatures for power or agency

Soren killing one king to protect another (3x09)

The entire goal of taking Zym back to his mother in the first place, in hopes that they can deliver a baby dragon in exchange for peace

So why not have that thematically continue through Rayla’s life being exchanged for the cube and exchanged for war?

But this is all more abstract narrative and thematic stuff with some cyclical analysis and nods towards characterization and arcs. Now it’s time to get to the real meat of the theory, which is:

Parallel Episode Structures 

So TDP likes to do this thing, with Callum and Rayla’s arcs in particular, but also with the show as a whole, where they will repeat episode / character conflicts while steadily changing the circumstances and raising the stakes in order to reveal character and spur character / plot development. And they do this especially with plot structure.

Examples of what I mean: In 1x03, Callum chooses staying with Ezran over saving his father, and Rayla chooses the egg and princes and fights Runaan as a result. Both of them, unknowingly at the time, lose their adoptive fathers that night. Then, 2x03 and 3x03 each deal with the fallout of those respective choices they made, processing grief and regret over their losses. 

Or, to get even more specific, I’ll offer up what I call the “Rayla saves a dragon quartet” in which Rayla wants to do something brave but dangerous / self-sacrificing in order to protect a dragon, Callum has reservations, and their dynamic steadily evolves to the point that he goes from worrying but not being able to do anything to jumping right after her. AKA 1x03 on the rooftops, 2x07 in the rain, 3x08 with the Dragon Queen, and 3x09 with Zym. 

Or to get even more specific, I’ll offer up the “Rayla is trying to hide her own pain, Callum tries to get her to open up three times with her nastily rebuffing him each time, then she has a breakdown in the face of his unconditional love, and something bad happens to Zym as a result of them being distracted.” Am I talking about 1x06, or 3x04?

Which is to say, if CHET goes along with the “Callum goes too far and does something reckless / dangerous in relation to Aaravos, Rayla pays the consequence and gets taken hostage, Callum / the boys come to save her, he gets her out in a way she has understandable issues with, and ends with a note of ‘I hope it was worth it to you, putting everyone’s lives in danger,’” it will be a perfect inverse of 1x04. And we know 1x04 was written with an endgame in mind, given the mention of the cube being in the game room, as well as Callum saying things like, “You wait here, one minute, two minutes - however long it takes, I’ll go find a key.” 

After all, much like they could have had Callum resolve to do dark magic in 2x07 without harkening back to his crush on Claudia to foreshadow his growing feelings for Rayla, there were infinite ways to write 1x04 that did not have Rayla being the one to find and risk her life for the cube. They could have easily had Callum or even Ezran stumble upon it, grab it, and have Rayla get caught looking for it or just not moving stealthily enough around the room when Amaya catches her. They could’ve had the boys go into the Lodge together with Rayla hanging back (as they’re human and wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows), but she can’t exactly leave without them, but no. The show chose this very specific plot structure, and we’ve yet to see it entirely repeat in full. And with 4x01 paralleling 1x01 very closely (Soren letting slip the king is in trouble, Callum wanting to help, king and high mage discussing Moonshadow assassins on balconies), and with 4x02 possibly paralleling Rayla’s return with callbacks to 1x02, I think this future repetition of 1x04 is only getting more and more likely.

Then you also have the ways that, if Callum transfers the cube - something magical and powerful, something he’s fixated on - and ‘sacrifices’ it for Rayla, it’s another perfect inversion to how he shattered the primal stone to save Zym in 1x09, thus unleashing a storm onto the world but for good reasons, and for a peaceful purpose. Again, if we look at Zym as one piece of the exchange for peace, then unleashing Aaravos in another terrible sort of metaphorical ‘storm’ is the perfect inversion that an even greater era of war and conflict is on the way. 

The show has had smaller 1x09 parallels - Callum trusting Ezran rather than doubting him (3x07); Rayla almost going off the cliff to save Zym before she actually does so in 3x09; and in terms of Callum sacrificing the primal stone is a good example of how he’s let go of some of his 1x04 fuelled fixation for the time being. But they’ve also shown Callum repeat his old mistakes when he goes out into the storm in 2x04, in which he says, “I put us both in danger. I could’ve gotten Zym killed” yet “Worst of all, when we were right there in the centre of the storm - I thought I wanted this badly enough but in the end, I didn’t have the guts.” He still considers the worst part of the experience to be his lack of a magical connection.

Then there’s the way that post-TTM has lined up well with 2x07, episode wise. Again from a structural standpoint: Rayla feels compelled to do something, Callum wants to help her, she goes off alone, he hangs back with Ezran feeling helpless and frustrated before he ultimately goes after her, bending/breaking his morals and engaging with Dark Magic to do so. The big differences is that Rayla has gone from saying it’s okay if he can’t come with her to telling him not to, and that rather than resolve to find her on his own, Rayla has returned to him first. But up until her return, the structure was intact, so I’ll be curious to see if the second part of the episode comes true too. Possibly - in an alternative way - with Callum doing dark magic in general, or with him specifically handing over the cube. 

If you are interested more in how TTM parallels 2x07 itself specifically, setting up a reconciliation plot structure for Rayllum in S4 reminiscent of 2x08-2x09, check out this larger meta here.

Orpheus and Eurydice Motif

So we know that Rayla and Callum are going to get separated thanks to this screencap from the trailer with two main options: 

1) it’s a fakeout and they’re reunited shortly afterwards, finally reconciling, or 2) it’s not a fakeout, and part of the finale, 4x09, “Escape from Umber Tor” following the fallout of 4x08 “Rex Igneous” is about getting her back. Given that Aaravos has been compared to Lucifer and that “Umber Tor” means Shadow Tower, if Rayla was taken to a shadowy place high on a mountain or deep below the ground... It’s a pretty good Underworld allegory, and the show has given this to Rayllum before in which Rayla travels to their version of the Underworld, her Orpheus - a magically inclined artist per the mythos - goes after her, and unlike in the myth, he manages to successfully save her. Sort of. Since, as we know, the end of TTM still results in a tragic separation for our two lovers. 

This is also similar structure wise to Rayla facing certain death in 3x09 by tackling Viren off the Pinnacle, Callum jumping after her, and his love for her unlocking new magical power so he can save her. Again, this meta of Callum and Rayla as Orpheus and Eurydice goes into greater detail, but I think it’s interesting it’s a pretty specific pattern we’ve seen happen two times, and now the question is if we’ll see it happen as a third. Especially since as the musical Hadestown paints it so eloquently 

TTM has just been the mythic structure fulfilled both happily and tragically, with Rayla choosing — in many ways — both metaphorically and literally, in risk taking to go back to the Underworld. Callum is then reaching a double crossroads. Does he follow her down into hell, again? And in other ways, this is arguably the first time he’s being tested. For so much of s1-s3, and even in TTM, saving Rayla was a no brainer. Whatever chance he had, Callum had zero hesitation, zero misgivings. In his heart and in his mind, he had no reason not to.

Now, thanks to TTM, there is a seed of doubt. And just like with Orpheus cutting a deal with Hades out of love to get his wife back, Aaravos may cut a similar deal with Callum as his own Test of Love.

[ORPHEUS, spoken] Mr. Hermes? [HERMES, spoken] Yes? [ORPHEUS] It's not a trick? [HERMES, spoken] No, it's a test

Speaking of which, let’s finally talk about Aaravos’ hand in all this - as well as foil relationships and contrasts with Viren and Claudia.

Pawns and Kings 

Once S3 wrapped up, I figured that Rayla and Claudia’s foil relationship would be amped up further, now that they had nearly matching white hair, and I always thought that Rayla’s paranoid and restless behaviour would return in a significant way prior to TTM. Now they’ve both destroyed their lives for Viren - Claudia to save him, Rayla to kill him - in the two year timeskip and are dealing with the fallout of those decisions. 

While the Viren-Callum parallels going into S4 are massive, and are undeniably the biggest foil relationship this season, I think ultimately the conclusions on their arcs will be regarding their differences, given lines that Viren has said of, “We must be ready to sacrifice, even the things we love,” while if Callum picks Rayla over the world, he will be steadfastly and repeatedly rejecting that in his arc, while Viren may catch up too late that he has unintentionally sacrificed Claudia for his goals. 

I went into more detail on it here a few weeks ago, but now that we have confirmation from a few reviews of the first four episodes of season four, it seems I was right to think that Viren is getting an atonement arc, regretting what he’s done and specifically what Claudia has done for him as a result of it. This would perfectly parallel the sort of Rayla arc also needs to have, of realizing the full weight and why of her previous mistakes and realizing she was wrong. After all, she and Viren are both “already dead” - metaphorically and literally, respectively. 

Meanwhile, Callum and Claudia have been set up to have mirrored arcs as well, as they get pulled deeper and deeper into Aaravos’ machinations as his two latest pawns. We will presumably see him manipulate both of them this season in order for them to help get the pieces in place to release him from his mirror. Claudia and Callum have, in their relationships with Viren and Rayla, already had parallel Tests of Love in 3x09 - saving their loved one from the brink of death in a powerful display of magic - and are set up to have parallel Tests of Love regarding lies and forgiveness in S4.

However, where I think this season will end up seeing Claudia and Viren split from one another - her angry that he “doesn’t understand or appreciate” all she’s done for him thanks to his re-evaluation that maybe he should stay dead, his life not worth the toll it’s taken on the world and her (and that he’s right this time) - that leads the way for the finale’s Test of Love to be Callum and Rayla in so many ways, as Callum saves Rayla from being “already dead” - and he’s right to do so, even if it’s still a hard choice. 

This would allow Viren and Rayla to be strangely ideologically aligned, Viren in a positive way for his arc, Rayla in a negative way in her arc, in believing that when Callum shows up that

More meta on Rayla and Viren’s parallels here, as well as Rayla as Aaravos’ inverse to Callum’s Viren. 

Furthermore, this scenario gives all the characters place to work from in future seasons: Claudia can fall deeper into villainy now truly unhinged thanks to being “abandoned” by her father and as Aaravos’ next future pawn to discard (almost a la Ozai and Azula in ATLA, as Claudia has been compared to Azula by co-creator Aaron Ehasz in the past), Viren must work with the heroes who have no reason to trust him but to who he can provide infinitely valuable information, Aaravos keeps him alive in a “reap what you sow” esque punishment, Rayla can possibly start looking for her parents properly and will have a new kind of self worth, and Callum has a goal to reclaim the cube, help Rayla, develop his Moon arcanum magic, and defeat Aaravos once and for all. 

Since, after all, Callum is the King that Aaravos needs to get out; the final pawn in this stage of manipulations. 

Checkmate

More than a game of strategy, Chess is a game of sacrifice. I’ve played for most of my life and typically, games come down to making sure you sacrifice the right pieces (pawns) in order to protect your more important pieces, particularly your Queen and of course, your King. Aaravos’ relations to chess have been repeated over and over again, as well as Checkmate referring to him winning the game and getting out of his mirror by the end of the season which again, we know is happening this season. 

If you are interested in reading more about TDP’s chess symbolism, check out this meta in which I break it down for the main cast of characters. Terry is not included as we didn’t know he’d be in the season before I wrote it, and as we still know very little about him, I’m not sure where I’d place him (although maybe as a Rook or Bishop or something). 

Moreover, one of the most important rules in a chess game is that if a pawn reaches the other end of the board, you can swap it in for one of your more important taken pieces (which will almost always be your Queen if you’ve lost her). 

And again, the chess metaphor works particularly well because in a game of strategy and sacrifice, Aaravos has to find the thing the heroes aren’t willing to sacrifice; the price they’re not willing to pay. Per the chess metaphor and characteristics of the pieces, although I considered other options as I went along, Rayla fits the characteristics / placement of the Queen piece the best and Callum as the King piece.

It is for all these narrative reasons and more that I think it is very likely that, if not taken hostage directly, Rayla will at the very least be what’s used to coerce Callum into having an almost equal hand in freeing Aaravos as Claudia (also giving her some wiggle room to potentially come back from, if she does it out of spite or if she thinks if she ignores Viren’s wishes and ‘fixes’ the problem he’ll change his mind, like she thought she could with Soren in 2x08/9 in some ways). 

After all, if the emotional payoff of TTM isn’t going to be Callum looking for her, there still has to be a counter-balance / reason behind her absence. What better reason could there be than “I lost her once. I’m not going to lose her again” with his grief in the two year absence providing his emotional, plot driven justification as Callum does everything he possibly can to get her back?

Now, onto my favourite part: the foreshadowing. 

The section is what I call the “this feels like direct setup” with some repeats of what we’ve seen before as well. The next section will be about generational stuff including parents, character designs, cycles, etc. The third section is stuff I think is possibly less likely foreshadowing, but I like it, so I hope it is, called “Be foreshadowing, do it for me.” Hope you enjoy!

Misc. Foreshadowing #1: Heavily Likely

Who the hell is Aaravos saying his “My return to this world is inevitable” and why Rayla is a real candidate to be who it is being delivered to.

Callum rejecting the cube in 2x08 when Harrow reminds him that he’s free VS Callum handing over the cube in 4x09 because Rayla isn’t

They said that, sometimes, we make sacrifices so that the ones we love don’t have to. It’s part of protecting them—part of protecting you. Taking on hard choices and going to dark places is an act of love.

Generational Parallels 

If Callum is rageful against Viren, that cements the other half of the Viren-Avizandum intro parallel, as that is a moment in which Avizandum is not only separated from his child, but hunted due to taking away the love of King Harrow’s life, Queen Sarai. Just as Rayla is repeating Runaan’s cycles (down to her one silver shoulder pad design that is a smaller version of his), it would not surprise me if Callum began to repeat Harrow’s. If you want the in depth version of this theory, check out this tag here, but I think the screencaps speak decently well enough for themselves, don’t you?

Rayla and Runaan’s parallels are also particularly important as due to his stubbornness and duty, Runaan was taken captive by Claudia to be used by Viren specifically in regards to the mirror, and Sarai ultimately died saving Viren’s life.

There are also Callum’s parallels to Runaan to consider (down to the hostage situation in Bloodmoon Huntress) as well as Rayla’s parallels to Harrow.

Misc. Foreshadowing #2: Please be foreshadowing, do it for me

Rebuttals 

Don’t have a lot of interest in discussing negatives, however as the theory gained a lot of traction in the past 3 or so months, there were some issues people had with it, namely: doesn’t it reduce Rayla to a damsel in distress, isn’t it predictable, and why would Rayla forgive Callum for this in the end, all of which I’ve laid out ‘rebuttals’ to over time. If you have for some reason made it all the way down here in this post while still having reservations, one of these metas may remedy them for you - or maybe not! Either way, I think they’re an interesting read.

Rayla is not a damsel in distress

Predictable

Why would Rayla be okay with this in the end?

Other Misc Thoughts

Romeo and Juliet comparisons (thanks, Viren’s VA)

The Way Rayla Has Always Been Set Up as Both Callum’s Salvation and Destruction

Rayllum’s parallels to Aaravos’ “Patience” story (which relates to their overall dynamic I think)

Callum and Rayla always liking/loving each other “too much” than is good for them / Callum as an Icarus figure (boy with wings who flies too close to the literal or proverbial sun)

Why the cube can’t just be positive / Why Rayla’s absence can’t just be positive

TTM / S4′s ATLA Comparisons and Parallels

TDP and Tarot: Rayllum as the Lovers and Aaravos as the Devil

Adam and Eve Comparisons

Alternatives

So let’s just say I’m wrong and all of this foreshadowing, meta, etc. has been for nothing? Cool! I had a good time writing it, theorizing with other people, writing my own fics, and immensely enjoyed reading other people’s fics regarding the theory as well. I have donned my clown wig before with far less reason to and with far less fun as a result, so I’ll have no regrets if that ends up being the case here.

However, and this is what I’ve always come back to in terms of wracking my brain and narrative for this theory is that even with less than one day to release, I have never seen an alternative theory that actually answers all the questions this one has set out to, namely:

What is the Cube?

How do Callum and Rayla ultimately reconcile?

How does Aaravos get out of his mirror?

At least, not all at once, and not in a way that offers up tangible arcs for characters past-S4 either, or in arcs that feel feel a little bit less effective. Now, if Callum loses the Key just out of his own foolishness, that means the finale arc is just a mad dash to try to get it back, which the team will ultimately fail at, but that almost feels like too big of a punishment for something he was so heavily manipulated into (I think he’d have more guilt over that than if he’d made an actual Choice under coercion, y’know?). If the key isn’t crucial to getting out, then why highlight it so much this season? If Callum’s finale arc is just about resisting temptation, than how does that lead to Aaravos getting out — isn’t that too positive a note to end on, and a bit too repetitious of 2x08 if it’s that simple, arguably? And again, it feels like this season has to start addressing the dark side of Rayla’s self sacrificial tendencies and start edging towards fixing them (ergo her realizing she has worth) since it was all those issues compounded that made her leave in the first place?

So perhaps our closing note is to say that, although it’s not as though there are no real alternatives to CHET, there are none out there that currently find answers for what to do with all the pieces on the board and how to achieve the outcome we know S4 is spiralling out to, and that is why for all these reasons, I am very hopeful and excited that I may be right going into S4, for each and every reason provided above.

Happy last day of hiatus, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!

#rayllum #tdp #the dragon prince #devil and the lovers #tdp rayla #tdp callum #parallels #cube hostage exchange theory #mutual salvation theory #moon arcanum theory #s4 spoilers #tdp spoilers #predictions #masterpost #analysis series #analysis #warning: very very long and if it doesn't show in the tags i'll cry #s4 #arc 1 #arc 2 #orpheus and eurydice motif #light and darkness motif #s4 speculation

[im-no-jedi]

the (true) problem with the TBB season 2 finale

the more I’ve been thinking on it and pondering wtf happened and why the fandom is reacting the way that it is, I’ve come to a conclusion about the season finale that I think explains it all.

over the years, I’ve been able to train myself to separate my personal opinions from things and look at them from an artistic perspective, despite the subject matter. things like blood and gore - although they still gross me out - aren’t as bothersome to me since taking theater classes in college and learning the science of how things like that are done in media. I’m able to look at things and critique them artistically as opposed to with pure emotion.

while I do still react on pure emotion (as some of y’all witnessed last Wednesday 😝), I also try to look back on things with that artistic perspective in mind. which is what I’ve been doing with The Summit and Plan 99. and while I can appreciate everything that happened artistically and dub each individual thing that happened as nothing short of a masterpiece, there’s one major issue that I realized right from the start that has been solidified now for me more than ever.

it was way too much content.

I’ve said already that I thought The Summit was done really, really well. the pacing was good, and it felt like the high-stakes TBB episodes we’re used to. but then Plan 99 hit. and golly gee, did it hit hard.

pardon the comparison, but everything that happened in Plan 99 was a literal train-wreck. Tech’s sacrifice. everyone getting injured. Cid’s betrayal. the Empire invading Ord Mantell. Hemlock capturing Omega. Crosshair and other Clones being experimented on. Emerie’s reveal of her true identity. and to top it all off, it ended on a cliffhanger.

that.... is WAY too much to absorb in one episode. like... waaaaaaaaay too much.

let’s just look at the fandom itself as an example. what’s everybody focused on right now more than anything else? Tech’s sacrifice. that in of itself is the hardest hitter here, by far. that alone was enough to carry the finale in terms of emotional intensity. but no, it didn’t stop there.

the team came out of the whole thing battered and bruised, with Omega seemingly taking the hardest hit. not too terrible, it’s happened before, like when Omega got taken by Cad Bane right after the whole Bracca endeavor. but here’s the thing. they barely had time to even grieve the loss of Tech before the Empire showed up on Ord Mantell. adding that plot point in so soon after losing Tech was literal lemon juice on our open wounds.

and then they had the gall to slap us in the face with everything on Mount Tantiss. do you know I’ve seen literally NOBODY talking about Emerie? we literally got confirmation of another female Clone, and NOBODY is talking about it???

this is what I mean. individually, on their own, these plot points are good and were done well imo. but geez louise, I felt like I went through a Super Saiyan fight having all of that thrown at me in one single episode. I feel like even if something like Tech’s sacrifice had been put at the end of The Summit as opposed to Plan 99, it might’ve alleviated things just a tad. still would’ve been too much though.

I’ve been absolutely blown away by every story choice made this season. I feel that way about the entire show, honestly. but I also think the finale was a misstep, solely in terms of the amount of content shown. I feel like this should’ve been the opener for season 3 as opposed to the end of season 2. at least have Omega getting captured be put off until then. cause right now, despite Omega being one of my favorite characters, I’m also still more focused on what happened to Tech more than anything else! and don’t even get me started on the Emerie thing, good GRIEF 🙄

again, individually, these plot points are GOOD. very good imo (except maybe the Emerie thing but I digress 😝). but man... why did we have to get them all at once. I remember, I literally stopped breathing at one point while watching Plan 99; that’s how bad it was. I was so overwhelmed and overstimulated and emotional that it was hard to even function. @jam-n-ham and I just sat in silence for like a full minute once the episode was over, unable to process what had even just happened. and well... I don’t necessarily count that as a good thing 😬

so yeah. all this to say, despite how good the individual plot points were in Plan 99, it was just far too much content for one episode. I think the whole thing with Ord Mantell and Mount Tantiss should’ve been held off for the beginning of season 3. because putting all of that immediately after the loss of Tech made it nearly impossible to even absorb properly as an audience. and the fandom’s reaction is proof of that.

#the bad batch #star wars the bad batch #tbb season 2 #hope this clarifies some things for some of y'all #if you're still struggling with what happened #this is probably why #it's hard going through multiple terrible things at once #and it's unfair that we as the audience had to endure that #this is honestly why I plan on changing some things in MLWTBB #because it's just too much man #give us some time to breathe for goodness sakes #I also hope some people are able to take my perspective on it #and look at everything from an artistic perspective #because it really does help #might even change your mind about certain things #personally it's helped me cope with what happened to Tech #cause now I actually believe more than ever that he'll come back #simply because of how things were presented throughout the season #Tech is a survivor just like Crosshair #and it'll be a much more satisfying story to continue that route than anything else #\o/ #star warz #tbb spoilers

[walker-extended-universe]

Walkerverse Hiatus Creations

Week 3- Favorite Episode

Walker Submission- 1x18 "Drive"

While there is a lot to love about 1x18 “Drive”, I have to say my favorite element is the wild twist we got that revealed Stan Morrison, long-time Walker family friend, was the man who killed Emily Walker. This twist reveal, and how well it was done, is part of why I was so disappointed with the shoddy twists and turns we were given in season 2. I want to talk a little about why this twist worked so well.

Set up and Pay off

If you’re going to have a good, shocking twist that leaves the audience satisfied instead of scratching their heads, you need to lay the groundwork for it. Leaving behind little clues and foreshadowing details that leave the audience wondering and create an “A-ha!” moment when the reveal comes is a hallmark of good writing

The buildup to this reveal was subtle but satisfying on two fronts: Stan’s character and Emily’s Murder investigation.

Stan’s character reveal was slow. Initially, he was just a family friend. Then, he was Liam’s competition for the District Attorney race and one that we’re led to believe wouldn’t be the best choice. Towards the end of the series, we got to see more of Stan’s politician side, the smooth-talking guy who’s there to protect the old guard and keep the status quo. It’s not hard to believe that this was the kind of guy who would cover up the murder of someone he professed to care about just to save his own skin.

The way Emily’s murder case was handled also lays the groundwork for this. From what we learn in exposition conversations and flashbacks, Carlos Mendoza’s paid confession was accepted very quickly and he was sent to jail. But then we learn that Carlos had a medical condition that meant he literally couldn’t have committed the murder. Isn’t that something that should’ve been caught in the initial investigation? And what about the fact that he was bed bound in the hospital until hours after Emily’s death? And did no one even bother to check into the poker chip???

All these questions about how the investigation was handled- or rather, mishandled- leads the audience to the conclusion that there must have been someone on the inside covering things up. Finding out that Stan Morrison, a person with a lot of influence in the DPS and the Rangers, had a hand in this fills in those plot holes nicely.

Closure and intimacy

The initial answer to the question “Who killed Emily Walker?” was Carlos Mendoza, a man that had no face for 5 episodes and confessed out of nowhere prior to the start of the series. 

After it was revealed that he was actually paid off to confess and had nothing to do with the murder, we were led on a hunt for a new killer, who turned out to be an NSN member named Cali. Cali was found very quickly and the reveal was a bit lacking as a result. Emily was killed for no reason by a woman who felt no remorse, and Cordell didn’t even get to make the killing shot that took her out of the picture. For me, this made Cali an unsatisfying antagonist.

Stan Morrison’s reveal felt so much more real. Not only was there proper set up for his involvement in the murder, thus giving us better closure than “random lady #5”, but there’s an added layer of betrayal and heartbreak that someone so close to this family would do something like this.

The scene where Stan confesses his crime to the entire Walker family at the scene of Emily’s murder is one of the most heart wrenching things of the series. Watching the Walker family realize that this man, who they trusted for as long as they knew him, would do something so horrible and cover it up with a smile on his face is nearly as heartbreaking for us as it must have been for them.

Resolution and Peace

Quite possibly the best part of this storyline is that Cordell has some level of agency. For both Carlos and Cali, Cordell’s agency was taken away from him. With Carlos, everyone around him refused to listen to his (in hindsight) reasonable concerns about how the case was handled and treated him like he was looking for answers where there were none. With Cali, James and Geri did a lot of the legwork for the investigation and ultimately it was Geri that made the killing shot.

For Stan, Cordell got to be actively involved with the case and make the final call on how justice would be served. It was his decision to apologize to Carlos Mendoza and, thus, learn about Stan’s involvement. It was his decision to aim for a confession out of Stan instead of just killing him. It was his decision to gather everyone at the site of Emily’s death. He was in control every step of the way.

This level of agency, I think, gave Cordell a measure of closure. He finally got the answers he deserved, he got the satisfaction of knowing he was right all along, and he got the pleasure of making sure Stan got what he deserved. The parting shot of Emily smiling as she watches over her family is a fitting conclusion to this story.

This is just one of the reasons why I love this episode so much but it's one that I think deserves special attention. Truly a great example of what the Walker writers are capable of. I can only hope they can continue to meet that standard.

#walkerversehiatuscreations #week 3 #favorite episode #s01e18 #drive

[miracleandplagueau]

Let's talk about why Miracle and Plague will be a short series and additionally why I chose to write out characters such as Kagami, Zoe, Felix (I'm sorry baby </3)

Miracle and Plague won't be very long. In fact, It will be twice as short as the canon, purely because I feel like the series lost that sparkle, that thing that really made it special somewhere in the season 3. All of it started feeling worn out, boring or just annoying. It's also when the decision to re-estate Chloe as a villain really took place, so I'm obviously very displeased with how the seasons went on, but It's not the only reason! Adrien's character got completely assasinated, replaced by 10 and more heroes. I really like the doubt arc they had going for him, but It was never actually memorable or so impactful. All the focus seemed to be on Marinette and her issues, but the character who's the closest to the main villain, the one with a ton of their own insecurities to be explored was pushed aside. To add to that, the newer heroes were becoming boring or just straight up made me sigh when Ladybug needed to go get someone to help. Don't even get me started on the mass-hero episodes like Partycrusher or Penalteam. It was a lot squished together into 2 seasons where If not for the miraculous reveal, It would've been nothing short of a filler episode.

I feel like not adding too many plotlines, characters is simply a better idea. It'll ensure that all the existing ones will be explored to their best potential. Adrien's family story, Chloe's character, Chloe and Sabrina's relationship, Jiayi and Lila's relationship/rivalry, Alya's hero potential, Lila's urge for chaos, Monarch/Gabriel's motivation, Master Fu's backstory, possible expansion of Wonders - these are very good plotlines! Not even mentioning the side/less important plots like Luka and Jiayi's past, Unicorn band, Juleka wanting to be a model, Juleka and Rose's plot, Alix's hidden Wonder, Natalie's crush on Gabriel, Adrien's self-discovery. There's a LOT of them already and to add like 10 more just because I want a new character would extend and complicate the plot further. Not that I wouldn't take the challenge, but I just want to see this series conclude in a way that in my opinion is more satisfying than whatever we're getting.

As for the characters I wrote out.. I think most of them already have a sort of pattern to them where you can tell why I removed them.

Zoe. Oh Zoe, the worst character I've had the displeasure of seeing on screen. I already reblogged plenty of content in regards to her, so I'll just refrain from writing a rant on that excuse of a character.

As much as I would've loved to keep Kagami (I still might), I really feel she wouldn't fit the narrtive so nicely. Of course, she appears in Riposte, but upon reviewing the timeline of MnP, that's literally the only episode she is taking an active part in as of today. I don't really see a reason to keep her in the lore If she'll appear once and never again, It feels a bit counterproductive, but like I said, I am still thinking about this one, because her and Adrien have so much potential in development; both coming from strict, cold households, both fencing... They do have quite a bit in common. Maybe If I just move Riposte to season 1....

Moving on to Felix, I believe I already mentioned that my first opinion of him was bitter. I didn't really like him being there and the fact that he look eerily like Adrien as If they'd reused his model was just weird (ig now we know WHY season 5 spoilers). Then, the opinion shifted to much better after mostly Emotion really and since then I really did like him, but... Looking at his journey from the end of season 3 to here and his role in the overarching plot I feel like he just wouldn't fit to MnP, not with the format I'm going for.

Besides, can I just mention how random it was that Emilie and Felix's mom look literally identical AND their sons look identical as well? It made me so confused when I first watched the episode lmao

#au #miraculous au #miraculous lb #miraculous fanworks #miraculous ladybug #miracle and plague #miraculous #miraculous ladybug au #ml salt #ml writers salt #miraculous salt

[sainteda]

Hiya! I saw this gifset of Kit speaking about the Wesper slow burn romance in the book vs the fast-paced relationship in the show, and I just thought I'd share it with you 😅

[Link]

hello! <3

thank you for sharing!! i don't keep up with panels or cast stuff at all anymore so i prob would have never seen this otherwise.

i've seen a few people make the same point kit makes, and i think what frustrates me is that the problem with show!wesper isn't necessarily a lack of realism or age-appropriateness (i don't actually know who is arguing that) but the error in the heart of the adaptation. because yes, sure, with older characters certain behaviour will change, so the new dynamics makes Sense (although i would like to say adding more sex is quite literally just the least challenging way of portraying an aged-up character, it is absolutely not a requisite for maturity or realism lol) — but why should it have to?? why adapt a series with the crows as half-fledged, aged-up backdrop characters (who later overshadow the supposed central plot in repeated bouts of cheap fan service) instead of one where they keep their original ages? in the duology, the crows being teenagers is literally crucial to the theme of the story. everything is 10x more impactful and devastating because of how young they are. those ages have purpose. changing them has more consequences than just changing wesper, but i'll never shut up if i start talking about them and i briefly mentioned a few qualms in The Essay, so...

obviously i don't expect kit to say/believe that the show is splintered at its core and tear apart the whole thing but yk 😭

yes, based on the changes, there's nothing illogical about a fast-paced wesper, but also — "if we're a slow burn, everyone's a slow burn" — GOOD?!!!! i have never ever met anyone who doesn't like a slow burn. it's not like slow burns pigeonhole their ships into repetitive tropes; they're universal and can be done a thousand different ways. show!wesper, however 'logical' their development may be as adults (and i'd argue the rush, the forgotten one night stand, the appalling lack of wylan as an individual and the half-hazard attempt at jesper's arc leaves Much to be desired) lacks the deliberately paced mutual longing, (mis)understanding, acceptance, trust, and love that makes book!wesper so great.

i've already talked about my discomfort with show!wesper as the only built and established lgbtq+ rep considering fivan vanished this season and if you blinked you could have missed tamadia entirely, but i will reiterate again that i think that's where A LOT of people's discomfort stems from as well. i think some people arguing in favour of show!wesper might be missing that aspect because it's a very individual, personal gripe. i won't pretend six of crows didn't lean into the bi promiscuity stereotype occasionally, but i've always loved nina and jesper and honestly never felt misrepresented or offended reading either of them. they were both capable, full characters with plenty of other attributes, virtues and vices like all the other characters. on the other hand, a fast paced lazily aged wesper, the liberal handling of jesper as comedic relief with an established pattern for sleeping around (including during important missions), the lack of mention for nina's sexuality OR explicit recognition of jesper's for that matter, all rubbed me the wrong way. personally. and that's not to mention wylan's disability being used as a prop for wesper angst, making me get angry all over again about the way kaz's disability was handled and inej's trauma and and and...

listen, i could complain forever and still find more to complain about. it'll just go on and on. sorry, once i get started i don't know how to be normal or rational about this show, i hope you don't regret your message and ty again 😭

#anti shadow and bone #wesper #ask #skylessnights

[hopeshoodie]

If you were writing s3, what drama would you have added?

So I’ve tried to rewrite S3 before, but now I feel like I overdid it with the conflict there lol. I’m much prouder of my rewrite attempt for Boat Party, I think it gets at the themes better than the former.

But I would agree that the biggest problem with S3 is the lack of drama (followed closely by the juvenile writing). So here’s just some spitballed ideas that could’ve been implemented in S3 without changing the entire story structure, but would have added way more drama:

I would have a recoupling early in the game where MC has no input because it’s a guy’s choice. I think in general LITG under-uses the player not being in control of the couplings, and those were the most suspenseful parts of S2 (wondering if Rahim would get eliminated, the disaster recoupling). Maybe this could be done by having MC as the bombshell and then immediately having a guy’s choice recoupling, or having MC come in as a bombshell and steal someone, but then two days later having a guy’s choice recoupling. 

I like the idea of MC being the bombshell because I love the concept of her not being the center of the villa. People were really upset how S4 implemented that idea (I can’t really say, I haven’t played it), so I would try to soften it by allowing MC to approach different LIs and get them to secretly confess that they’re interested in her, but also that they’ve got something going on with their current partner and they’re willing to see how things go. That could create drama between MC and their partner or the LI and their partner, which I like. 

I would keep the ‘your LI forgets your name’ bit, but customize it to each LI like I suggested here. I like the premise- a simple insulting thing your LI says without context/explanation so it causes the player to question their relationship and wonder if the LI will switch on them. So your LI still forgets your name, but each LI handles it differently/has different motivation. We also have to have a REASON you can’t talk to your LI about it, so I would make it clear-er in the narrative that MC is being rushed into activities by other islanders and not just that the LI is avoiding her. 

I would bring Rafi in much earlier (because he’s objectively the most successful character in canon) and have three different girls be VERY interested in him and willing to leave their partners for him. I don’t think LITG has used the ‘one person is way better than everyone else and everyone’s into them’ thing in regards to a NPC, just with MC. So I think it’d be super interesting to have three girls acknowledge they’re gunning for Rafi, and basically say ‘may the best win’. Especially if the girls are already friends and trying to be respectful of each other’s feelings. You could play that out for 1-3 days, with Rafi reacting in confusion to being so aggressively shmoozed, the other boys being put off that their partner’s ignoring them, and the girls trying to be civil with each other while obviously being frustrated. 

Instead of what, five challenges? That did nothing for the plot and were just filler? Have a couple of challenges that force people to do uncomfortable things (lie detector, guessing their partners interests, physical game where they get up close and personal with not-their-partner). Those conflicts aren’t good to draw out more than a day, but do add a foreshadowed problem with relationships or add spice to an uneventful episode.

I HATE how Nicky/Elladine left. It felt so performative, because they literally only have a couple days left before the finale and weren’t visibly THAT into their partner anyways. I do like that Rafi/Lily leave if rejected, it shows a lot of integrity, but I think more than one person just walking during a season starts to feel… Cheap… Like the characters want out as much as the readers do… Instead, I would have one (1) islander walk out, but have it be the person that the new islander stole. So for example if Lily takes Nicky from Elladine, have Nicky walk out because he told Lily not to couple with him and he’d rather leave than be coupled with someone who doesn’t listen to him. Then you have more drama instead of people just pretending to be ok with the new coupling, because Lily and Elladine would both be single and would be incredibly irritated with each other. 

The only other way I would have someone walk out on the show is if it’s a couple we’ve genuinely been rooting for, like Seb and Viv, who say they’re leaving because their relationship is more important that the drama happening for the show and leave together.

Finally I need to have an explosive finale. I HATE how none of the characters really react if MC cheats on them or steals the money. I would have customized reactions for each LI to both if it’s revealed through the montage that she cheated with Tai and didn’t tell them, and more intense customized reactions if she steals the money. There’s no way in hell Rafi or Harry would still be friends with MC if she took the money, we need an argument to SHOW that. 

#litg s3

[jeanmoreaux]

why did you dislike ses4? and was there anything you enjoyed recently?

oh boy. i think it would be easier to tell you what i DID like about the season. i can count it on one hand. (1) ruby. she's my queen. (2) adam making it explicitly clear that he identifies with the bi label. (3) gillian anderson. she's just soooooo ugh. i love her. (4) NONE OF THE BAD BITCHES CHOOSING OTIS. maeve and ruby both deserve better fr. (5) aimee reclaiming some agency. cannot even think of a sixth thing. that's how bad this season did not worked for me. i said i was not gonna rant but i guess now i am gonna rant a little (trying to keep it short for both of our sakes).

i think there is definitely some more technical and objective stuff that's wrong and with this season and then there is some stuff i personally didn't like but that may work for other people.

objectively, i think the writing was severely lacking in quality. it was SO LAZY. even uninspired. the plot was meandering and the arcs fell extremely flat as a consequence. they randomly introduced interesting internal and external conflicts, sometimes even towards the end of the season, that could have spanned the entire eight episodes, but then they often just drop those ideas like hot potatoes—sometimes by the next episode, sometimes by THE NEXT SCENE (e.g. otis basically taking over a surrogate parent role or feeling like losing his mom, basically everything ruby-centric that wasn't oatis-related, jackson questioning his sexuality, etc.)!! other storylines that didn't have to last for several epsiodes (like jackson's cancer scare) went on for way too long. and the storylines they kept up for several episodes were mostly half-assed. the vivian & beau thing was surface level at most (and rushed af), the ace thing was soooo buried and shoved aside for stupider plotlines (they did o so dirty istfg), same with their approach to adding to the discourse on disability/accessibility, the exploration of jean's sister dealing with her abuse was just almost non-existent, eric's storyline reconciling his sexual and religious identities relied an cheap gimmicks, maeve finding her voice as a writer, jean's postnatal depression (how half-assed that was truly hurt my psych major brain), etc..... and then they dragged these storylines out without giving them any *substance*. like. i SKIPPED two episodes and missed NOTHING (i even did go back to jump through it just now to verify and, yup, did not miss a piece of information i did not gain or infer from the episodes i watched). you know a story is aimlessly wandering around when people can skip 2h of content and not even miss a shrivel of character development. i'd claim almost all storylines and arcs were handled badly. the only one that was well-structured and well-executed (from a storytelling standpoint) was the groff family arc (mind you, not the individual arcs but their arc as a family). AND I DON'T EVEN AGREE WITH THAT STORYLINE FROM AN IDEOLOGICAL STANDPOINT BUT STILL I LIKED IT THE MOST BECAUSE WRITING WISE IT WAS AT LEAST COMPETENTLY HANDLED!!!! like, that's so unfortunate. for me. and don't even get me started on the tonal dissonance WHITIN scenes and BETWEEN scenes. it was so so jarring at times and made the humour NOT land AT ALL (especially the physical humour because holyyy shit what was that). idk if that's editing's fault or if the writers made these decisions or if the producers and executives are to blame, but the inconsistency of mood and tone just really made me feel disconnected from the emotional moment. felt absolutely nothing about what was happening to these characters.

on a more personal level, i took issues with the way they wrote some characters and the content of some arcs. they really reduced maeve's character to nothing (like. i am sorry but her dialogue is so flat and boring, the most meaningful thing she said all season was probably at her mom's funeral.) otis literally learned jackshit. he's still kind of a self-absorbed dick. o was so underutilised and disrespected (they didn't even try to make the ace thing an important plotline). aimee was turned into a grotesque parody of herself. eric's story focusing on religion was HELL to me personally. like, i grew up catholic (which is different to the christianity eric practices but still...), and ngl the way they handled his 'religious' awakening just sent me up the wall. as a queer person who was very involved in church life from a young age and had to reconcile her faith with her queer identity, i felt like his story made a mockery of that struggle and that inner conflict. the visions were ridiculous. it felt like the writers were making fun of the struggle queer people face when (1) wanting to meaningfully engage with faith and religion *OR* (2) wanting to distance themselves from organised religion. additionally it felt like they were making fun of religion & religious faith as a whole, depicting it as this almost psychotic thing to believe in god. and they completely decoupled eric's personal journey to faith from what religion primarily is about for many, many people: community and connection. like, sure, they briefly brushed it i theory, but neglected to real get into the emotional reality and complexity of it. they very much glossed over the fact that religious communities are a source for moral/ethical and social control and even when you disagree with some aspects of the doctrine you will still be affected by it if you grew up in those circles. and your personal reckoning with religion will probably be more tied to THAT (the fear of losing love/support/part of your social circle, ostracisation (because even when you're okay with who you are right from the start it's something that doesn't feel good even when you prepare for it....), feeling disconnected from your former self, struggling to build your own belief system that you feel lie it truly belongs to you etc.). his entire journey was lacking any nuance and complexity in my opinion. and maybe that's because i personally had a different experience reconciling my faith with my sexual identity. i wasn't a self-hating queer either, but breaking away from religion still was a change in my life that impacted me very real and convoluted ways!!! (also like let's be real him becoming a pastor is gonna solve what exactly??? go through the homophobic system to change the homophobic system??? HUH with what power??? you're better of starting a new church fr.) idk. another thing that bugged me was the lack of chemistry in intimate scenes. like. jo and i watched these scenes and. nothing. the lack of chemistry really made me so uncomfortable. it almost made me question if i really do like sex lol. ALSO WHYYYY did they force the aimee and isaac relationship for no reason???? that really didn't have to have to happen. not that i hate it, it's whatever, but i was just so BORING to me. same with the otis and maeve thing. THEY WERE SO BORING. their drama this season was so repetitive and reminiscent of earlier conflicts between them it made me want to rip my hair out. i think i stopped caring about them as a couple after season 2. they don't fit and they don't work yet still the writers were trying to make them a thing for no reason. i could go on but this is already longer than i wanted it to be (yikes). i just want you to know that this season did so many things so badly i ended up not caring about ANYTHING that happened or ANY of the characters (except ruby). they could have all just disappeared and i wouldn't have cared one bit because they were all giving NOTHING. so basically, the season felt like this meme to me, but with a heavy, all-permeating, very petty & derogatory undertone:

okay so now for the things i did watch and enjoy recently (i assume you mean movies/tv shows because i my monthly wrap ups cover my reading). there are quite a few things, actually! ofc i watched barbie which was fun, and oppenheimer which was Very Good. oh, and i watched and liked set it up, and my brother sat me down and made me watch the two spider verse movies with him which i enjoyed a lot as well! my other brother made me watch the new puss in boots (liked that one, too). i also watched the first couple of episodes of the bear and i am very intrigued (gonna continue for sure)!! also finished glow a couple of month ago which was quite good but sadly prematurely cancelled. other than that i have been mostly rewatching stuff tbh (recently e.g. fleabag, schitt's creek, atla, succession, and the occasional movies like p&p 2005, emma 2020. also been in the mood for a rewatch of god's own country & the ghibli movies.). other than that, the movies/tv shows i reblog stuff from are generally things i enjoyed in the past (or at least partly enjoyed). idk there's a lot on my 'to watch list' but i am only making my way through it super slowly jhghjgjhjgjh

#thanks for the ask <3 #would love to hear what you have watched and loved recently!!! always open for recs. #and if you want to share your thoughts on ses4 or anything else i am all ears!! #anon #answer #schitt's creek #atla #succession

[quarantine-anon]

(I'm making my own post because adding this to someone else's post felt really rude. If they see it, yeah, it's in response to that post.)

Anwyay

Owen Strand. Yes, he's a bad parent. I hate the character. No, he doesn't deserve to be killed off.

Those things can coexist.

Owen is a flawed character. I'm not expecting characters to be perfect because if they were, there would be no story. The problem with Owen Strand is that he doesn't really grow as a character. Not enough, anyway.

He's selfish. He makes everything about himself. He inserts himself into places where he doesn't belong. He takes credit for things that have nothing to do with him. He has major anger issues. He prioritizes his job over his son.

Those are all interesting flaws for a character to start with. But they have to grow past those flaws for them to continue being interesting. Owen hasn't grown past those flaws in a meaningful way yet.

Back in season 1, episode 1, Owen immediately made it onto my "I hate this character" list and hasn't made it off yet. He found out that he had cancer and hid it from his adult son. He clearly wasn't planning on ever telling TK that he had cancer. He only came clean about it when TK found out and confronted him about it. I didn't mind him making that moment all about himself, because it was! What I hated was that he didn't feel like it was important to inform his son of this major illness that he had.

I didn't watch season 1 when it originally aired. I watched it almost a year later. Almost a year after my Dad died of cancer. And I remember that the first thing he did when he found out was call my sister and me and tell us his diagnosis because he knew we deserved to know. I'm not going to claim that my dad was perfect. He had anger issues too. I'm still dealing with some minor emotional trauma from that.

But that was Owen is season 1. He's had two full seasons to grow as a character since then, right?

Season 1 is interesting because it seemed like he was really growing as a character. He began prioritizing his son over his job when he had a history of doing the opposite. He stopped making things all about him when they shouldn't be. Sure, he brought Zoe to the hospital while TK was in a coma and he was waiting for him to wake up, but we've all done weird things. It's fine.

And then all the progress he had made in season 1 was lost when season 2 started. I know that his "I'm going tocbe a father" line has been torn to shreds by the fandom already, so I'm not going to discuss it to death here. But he didn't consider being there for TK to be a good enough reason to have one more surgery to remove any remaining traces of cancer from his body. His dog and his unborn child were, though.

At least he apologized for saying that.

Owen wasn't the only one being a bad parent to TK in the first half of season 2. Gwyn doesn't get a free pass either. She barely had any screen time with her son! The few times they had screentime together, it was wonderful, but she was far more interested in her thing with Owen and her unborn baby than in her living, breathing son.

There's no doubt that they love TK, based on what he says. They just did a really terrible job of showing it. And the general rule in visual media is show, don't tell. Let me see how much Owen and Gwyn love TK. I only felt their love for him in episode 8.

Owen had a bit of character growth throughout season 2, like any good character should. Then he regressed again at the start of season 3.

TK is in a coma because Owen didn't want to fight for the 126? What? That speech literally made no sense. And they didn't even feel the need to show Owen in TK's hospital room with him, when we know they shot the scenes because they released stills of it. It wasn't important enough to show Owen caring about his son. It was more important that he go track down Billy with Tommy because that's what the plot needed him to do.

I get feeling the need to go do something. When my dad was dying, I had times when I just needed to get out of the house. Oh, we're out of milk? Let me run to the grocery store and get some. When you're sitting there watching someone you love die, it's really, really hard. I get that Owen didn't feel like he could just sit around and do nothing. But that's what he did the last time TK was in a coma. He stayed in his son's hospital room to wait for him to wake up. Owen was there for an extremely short time before making it all about himself and leaving. We never even saw him interact with his son after he woke up! That's on the writers and the director, because that scene should have been included in the episode.

Owen had some good character growth at the end of season 3, once he was willing to take therapy seriously and face his past. And yes, I cried when I realized that TK was named after Owen's little brother who died.

Season 4 Owen (so far) has shown the most consistent growth of any season premiere Owen. He didn't automatically assume that the beautiful woman who showed up on his doorstep was looking for him. He didn't want to get involved with the investigation. He made sure to answer the phone when TK called him, even when the FBI didn't want him to.

And I get that it's impossible to be available every second of every day. Owen has his own life, and that's a good thing. But the way he handled it with TK made me a bit upset. Tk's desperately trying to get ahold of his dad because he needed him, but his dad never answered. For almost the entire day. His dad wasn't available, so he went to his father-in-law.

Am I giving Gabriel and Andrea too much credit? Possibly. But I see genuine character growth with them. They're trying. Gabriel dropped whatever he had planned for the day to help TK. Owen could have told the FBI that he was done, to find someone else, that his son was his priority, not them, but he didn't. They had already told him multiple times that they were done with him. He could have done the same. But he didn't.

Yes, Gabriel's and Owen's situations that day were different, but Owen could have chosen differently. He could have chosen to be there for TK, but he didn't.

I greatly dislike Owen Strand. I think he's a bad parent and a questionable person. (Based on my minimal knowledge of mental disorders, I'd guess that he has NPD. That's what my best friend's dad has, and I see a lot of the same traits in Owen as I saw in him.) I think we should see Owen continuing in therapy. Therapy that he isn't treating like a joke for the majority of the time.

I do not think that Owen should get killed off of the show. I think that would do more harm than good at this point. He can move back to New York, and I'd be happy. He could have much less screen time, and I'd be happy. But I don't want him to die. TK doesn't deserve that. He's already lost his mom. He doesn't deserve to lose his dad, too.

The only storylines that I actually want to see with Owen are: Owen getting therapy and realizing his flaws and working to become better, and Owen's cancer comes back. Yes, he's been in remission for 2 years now, but cancer can come back at any time. As long as they don't use it to kill him off, I want it to come back.

tl;dr

Owen Strand is not a good parent. He's not the worst parent, but he's not great. He does not, however, deserve to die because of it. He's annoying, and his character development doesn't stick.

There's a lot of potential with his character, but until they start writing him consistently, give him less screen time in favor of more interesting characters, and give him a personal storyline, I can't be bothered to care about him.

You're allowed to like him if you want, but please understand that those of us who don't like him have genuine reasons for disliking him.

#911 lone star #owen strand #anti owen strand #also there's the fact that he's played by Rob Lowe who's great when he's playing comedy #but can't really pull off the drama nearly as well.

[sketching-shark]

I always appreciate people who are willing to criticize LMK. Even if I don't agree with all your points. There's a vocal section of the fandom that do nothing but praise it and get upset when you find fault with it or any of their beloved characters. I like the show too but there are plenty of flaws and room for improvement. But many don't want to have that discussion. So it's just nice to see some watchers not mindlessly soak up everything the writers give us. Because despite what people say ad nauseum, the show isn't perfect.

Monkie Kid spoilers below:

Huh well anon firstly while I am aware that it can be hard to convey sincerity on the internet, genuinely thanks for messaging me with the approach that you can appreciate me complaining about a lego cartoon even while you don't agree with everything I'm saying. Too often I've seen even what started out as little disagreements in fandom circles explode into gigantic messes because of this all or nothing attitude that's engulfing more and more of fandom. I feel like that more than anything is the reason why I've adopted an perspective of "don't like don't read goes both ways" when it comes to fandom stuff; people should be free to praise or criticize a piece of media as much as they please as long as they're not harassing people over it, and one can follow, ignore, or block as one sees fit.

But hmmmm I know every fandom has its absolute admirers, but in terms of JTTW understandings in the west I feel like that's a liiiiiiitle bit worrisome here because of the way Monkie Kid--at least to me (haha yea subjective opinions ahoy)--seems to rapidly be falling victim to the storytelling detriments of "moar epic!," fandom character favoratism, and demand for angst. I mean, this show started out with the premise that it was going to be a fun adventure aimed at children where they'd get to by-proxy do cool things with one of the most beloved characters from Chinese mythology. But seasons 2, 3, and now 4 have been following this pattern of "Sun Wukong is largely absent--something really bad happens partially because of the big villain but also because the Monkey King made a massive miscalcuation that made everything 1000 times worse--Qi Xiaotian gets trauma upon trauma as a result--we all get together to blow something up at the end which magically fixes everything. FOR NOW."

So yea, in accordance with what seems to be general fandom tastes we get an increasingly traumatized Qi Xiaotian. We get a Six-Eared Macaque (the obvious fandom meow-meow) who now apparently used to be the main member of Sun Wukong's Best Friends Forever club and who obviously never did anything wrong evaaaaaar (what with the show forgetting about all the stuff he put Qi Xiaotian through & everything in the plot so far indicating the shadow monkey believed wholeheartedly in the Monkey King right before Sun Wukong the evil betraying bastard bonked him to death), and we get stakes that are literally about the fate of the entire world or even all of reality every season. But the cost of all of that was a plot structure that is increasingly failing to address many of its threads (hey remember how the Demon Bull family were the ones who released Lady Bone Demon? R we ever going to address that?), less and less and less genuine interactions between Sun Wukong and Qi Xiaotian, and, well, an increasing tendency in both fanon and canon to depict Sun Wukong as a careless screw-up at best and a selfish asshole at worst, or as a traumatized & miserable mess who needs to spend at least 100 years in therapy before he could even think about being anyone's mentor.

I mean hell, based on what I understand from the last twitter blow-up about all of this the response to the possibility that Sun Wukong was Qi Xiaotian's bio dad--you know, something that in a different context could have been a source of joy and excitement if it was about a father and son who had been torn apart through outside circumstances and were finally reunited--was first even MORE anger at the Monkey King for being a deadbeat dad on top of all his other screw-ups, and then relief when a lego show writer felt compelled to make it clear Sun Wukong was not the father. Because at this point if he was indeed Qi Xiaotian's bio dad, especially if Sun Wukong knew it the whole time, the implications would be really, really bad. Add all of that to every other character in Monkie Kid yelling at Sun Wukong for being a dumb idiot and/or terrible person, the absolute silence (except for some very brief flashbacks) on Sun Wukong's thoughts about any of this, and the "chaos monkey uwu" framework that Sun Wukong and his journey is already commonly understood through in the west (plus this weird reluctance and even refusal to consider what happened in the og classic that I've seen in some circles), and it feels like a lot of the Monkey King & co.'s nuance, complexity, and more fascinating aspects are being erased from common western perceptions of Journey to the West. And YEA obviously a silly lego show isn't going to get into the theological & moral complexities of a ~1,400 page novel, but given that Monkie Kid seems to have become one of THE primary ways that a western audience is being introduced to this story, I do wish that there was more of an effort to at least acknowledge what happened in the og classic.

IDK, in terms of Monkie Kid maybe future episodes will finally give us some answers for what happened to the og pilgrims that will be satisfying. Maybe they'll finally provide a decent aswer for why the Monkey King betrayed his sworn brotherhood and became a isolated failure who's hated by basically everyone who actually knows him. But as it currently stands I just think that if you've got a plot where the shifu and tudi pair now barely interact & a fan base where a significant portion is THAT quick to think the absolute worst of the Monkey King even though this is literally a silly lego show about having adventures with the Great Sage, then you really need to pause and think about why we're at this point :I

#anon answered #monkie kid

[thestobingirlie]

I wasn't saying there was anything directly inconsistent with Steve. Just that Nancy for example, we always know her motivation every season. I definitely don't think the first thing we see of what she strives for is season 4 and what college she wanted to go to. It's a lot broader than that. We could have guessed what direction she'd be headed in before season 4 dropped. And I'm not saying there's anything that directly contradicts his dreams, but he is dragged along with the plot every season and the way Steve complains about being in charge of the kids pretty much all of season 4 until that point and a bit early season 3, I can see what's throwing them off

Yes there have been jokes, but I think a lot of the joke comes from the perception that these kids fell into his lap and how attached to them he's gotten however begrudgingly. Like a dad who said you couldn't get a dog but then got very attached. So the idea that the perceived dad just always wanted a dog recontextualizes kind of everything

And you'd think that if they wanted to give Steve dreams they would have brought it up in season 3 when he's freshly graduated and topics of where he's going in life could and does come up to an extent, but we get nothing. Again, to juxtapose the way they handle many of their other characters. So while it's not inconsistent I do think it's something the duffers just came up with. And that it's just kind of obvious to some people, so they view the character differently because there was a literal change they just added to him, so they just don't bother changing their perception themselves

Which is kind of dumb, because people in real life can dump surprises like that on you and you don't just get to ignore it, but I think the duffers tendency to make kind of exaggerated character traits to give quick exposition on their whole deal really worked against them here

Also I'm not saying that it's not probably a really easy conclusion to come to for him already, or that I didn't lol. Big empty house and all that. Just that I can see how someone formed a different interpretation of the character

i honestly don’t understand what other interpretation we’re talking about? it’s not like it was a widespread headcanon that steve doesn’t want kids. people weren’t writing fics dependent on the idea that steve hates children.

at most, people just didn’t think about it! which shouldn’t then make steve unrecognisable. if a character’s decision to have children makes them incomprehensible, they were never understood in the first place.

we’re not talking about motivations (though steve’s motives every single season are about helping people “i just… i wanna help”), we’re talking about dreams. of which, steve is really the only character to ever succinctly say what he wants his life to be.

with the jokes, though i disagree about that always being the attitude behind the jokes (i think that’s a much more recent thing *cough* steddies *cough*), steve didn’t necessarily always want kids. he directly ties the party into his future dream. he’s been looking after them for over a year now, and doing so made him want children! that’s exactly the joke you described!!!

i don’t understand why steve, or the duffers, needed to lay out steve’s dreams in an earlier season. we watched steve embark on his character arc, and season three was about him embracing who he wants to be, outside of high school expectations. it makes perfect sense that in the next season, he would have a more solid idea about what he wants out of life.

and i don’t agree it’s a change they added to steve’s character, that implies it contradicts something we knew about him before. it’s just… new information. steve’s always been a rather devoted character, he started planning out his future with nancy in the year they were together. it makes perfect sense for his character that he wants children and a close knit family. it’s not a change, more just confirmation of facts we already knew about him.

and to be honest, by and large the people complaining that steve wanting children is ooc; are steddies that can’t imagine men in the 90s having children, and people that hate steve and stancy so much, they have to revolt against anything that involves the two characters.

that’s it. long-term steve fans aren’t all shocked by the fact he wants children. it doesn’t drastically change their idea of him. because steve was never decided to be a character that didn’t want children!

#steve harrington #stranger things #asks #anon

[7-ratsinatrenchcoat]

WHY I HATE HAWK

why I hate Hawk: an essay/list

I hope this will provide suitable explaination as to why I will never write Hawk into any of my fanfics. (this is /j but also /srs but also /j)

     Hawk the pig is a character many SDS fans love. They claim that he's adorable, he's relatable, he's stupid in a cute way. These people are wrong. Hawk is a stupid character who only causes inconvenience at best and tragic events at worst, and as a fan and author I cannot fucking stand him. 

     Let's start with the minor stuff. Season 1, we're introduced to this pink menace as a pig Meliodas just found in the cellar he woke up in after the Sins were framed. He eats trash within the first minute we see him onscreen, and if that's not bad enough, is fucking allergic to personal space. Good lord, the pig cannot leave Meliodas alone to save his goddamn life. He's lucky Elizabeth thinks he's cute.     

     Which he's not, by the way- his eyes are too small and beady, his ears are just weird, and if his appearance is somewhat aesthetically appealing then his attitude and personality ruins it. 

     He's arrogant and cocky, which aren't bad character traits if there's development later in the arc, but Hawk only exists for plot convenience and has zero character depth other than being a little bitch.

     If anything could have redeemed him, it would have been his sacrifice at the end of s1 to save Elizabeth and Meliodas. It was sad, he had some good last words, I was sad when he died. But now he stays dead and the moral is to appreciate the people in your life who love you unconditionally, right? Wrong. He immediately comes back to life, and the moment is lost. Okay, but he learned a valuable lesson that even he is not indestructible and everyone has their own weaknesses, right? Wrong again! Absolutely nothing has changed about him, and these events are completely blown over for the sake of Hawk continuing to be a convenient plot device, only adding to the list of reasons why he is annoying as hell.

    Another reason related to season 1, tying back to his complete disregard for personal space, is every time we see him tie up Meliodas in his own bed. I don't think I have to say much more than that. It was fucked up. I can hear the comments now- Oh, but Rat, he was just trying to protect Elizabeth! It was a wholesome intention! Yeah, and I don't give a shit! Give Elizabeth some spine and make her put her foot down about the groping situation and set some boundaries. It would honestly be a really good development to her character (going from a crybaby people pleaser to an independent and decisive member of the team). Meliodas is too much of an epic simp not to listen to her, and he pays attention to whether she's not bothered by it- but that's a rant for another day. The point is that Hawk is messing with what is objectively the best couple in the show and stealing Elizabeth's chance for character development. Just because you don't have any doesn't mean you have to steal the chance from everyone else.

     Season 2, according to Netflix, is only 4 episodes long, so that is what I'll be referencing here. The first episode in this season is focused on Hawk causing problems, derailing the Sins' entire plan for the day by freaking out over absolutely nothing. Honestly, it's just pathetic. Of course Meliodas saves the day by turning it into a game, but without his quick thinking that could have made Elizabeth upset. Gods forbid Elizabeth is anxious.

     Season 3. Oh boy. Hawk literally only serves as an introduction to power levels this season, and doesn’t even do a good job of it. He just whines about how he has a power level of 3,000 (he doesn’t) and how everyone else is beneath him. Even when he finds out two/three of the sins have higher power levels than him (they all do. Elizabeth does. He’s not special), he somehow manages to backhandedly compliment them into boosting his own ego. The best thing he does this season is make the teams even during the pre-Vaizel fights, and even then just does absolutely jack shit to help Escanor. If you really squint, I guess you can kind of understand why Hawk might be necessary to hold Merlin’s Aldan so everyone can watch Meliodas vs. the Ten Commandments, until you remember it can literally fucking float. 

All Hawk does in this scene is state the obvious and make Elizabeth sad, which is grounds for immediate execution in my book. In the undetermined amount of time it takes for Meliodas to drag his ass back from Purgatory, Hawk only exists to give Elizabeth some semblance of company, but if I was her I don’t know if I would love to have a naive, self-centered bastard pig next to me who's only capable of talking about himself while I grieved my dead soulmate. I wouldn't be surprised if he was super insensitive about it too, and spouted some shit like 'rip to Meliodas, but I'm different'.

Finally, in season four, we get an answer as to why the viewers have had to put up with this balloon-shaped fucker for so long. Aside from being just incredibly unhelpful while the curse is activated, Hawk is revealed to be an instrument of the Demon King in spying on our protagonists. Talk about helicopter parenting. But other than a brief reaction and getting Ban into purgatory (see what I mean about plot convenience??? Merlin could have done that if she wanted to, she’s the most powerful mage in Brittania. Make Merlin absolutely OP 2k22.) Hawk is just… okay with this. Goes about his day as he usually does, fully aware that our beloved bitch-ass DK is hanging out behind his eyes. Does he just not care that he could be actively compromising the plan to rescue (ie. smack some fucking sense into) Meliodas by giving a 4k view of what’s going on behind enemy lines?

With 100% honesty, I don’t understand why people love Hawk so much. He’s selfish, straight up fucking ugly, and only exists for Nabaka to use as a scape-pig for his plot holes. Have some critical thinking skills dude, you can get more creative than that. Hawk also robs Elizabeth of her much-deserved character development at every given opportunity, and generally is just a burden after the new seasons. 0/10 character, drop this fucker immediately.

#hawk sds #seven deadly sins #nanatsu no taizai #nnt #/srs #/j #but also /srs #who wants pork i'm cooking bacon

[feudalinuyasha]

Anime List (Nov 2022)

Anime List

***yo I started this in Highschool and I just graduated college....And I know dang well  there are anime that I’ve watched that I never added to this list hahahaha***

FINISHED ANIMES:

Inuyasha -my life

Avatar- The Last Airbender -if you count that as anime

The Legend of Kora-if you count this as anime as well

Ouran Highschool Host Club -SO MAD THERE IS NO SEASON 2

B Gata H Kei- WHAT IS UP WITH THESE ANIMES NOT HAVING A SEASON 2, interesting plot btw lmao

Kaichou Wa Maid Sama -sooooooo cute thought it was pretty well executed story

Fruits Basket - very cute and the characters were very well written and developed. although i didn’t really care the lack of plot, i didn’t really care for the main character at all

Aria the Scarlet Ammo- wasn’t my favorite but i loved the main character, he was actually the only character i liked

Amnesia-was pretty good but i was confused like 80% of time

Arcana Famigila- Thought this was a pretty creative plot and I really liked the story line and the characters were rad, I really didn’t know how much i like it until it was over and then I was empty inside)

KamiSama Kiss-LOVED LOVED LOVED, currently waiting on season 3 and I wasn’t sure if I should put this in the finished list or currently watching

Sekai Ichi Hatsukoi -my first yaoi anime and I loved it, it was very cute

The K Project- wasn’t sure if this went in finished animes or not because I finished season 1 but I heard there was going to be a season 3. Tbh I thought I was going to hate this but I turned out LOVING IT

Say I Love You- This anime was damn cute and very satisfying to say the least! I loved it 10/10

Hiiro no Kakera (Tamayori Princess)- This one was one of those animes that  I started off hating and ended up loving. It was a little too cheesy for my taste and some of the animation sucked. I also think that the series was not long for what they’re were trying to accomplish at the end because of the lack of development everything seemed rushed. But overall I did enjoy it.

Full Metal Alchemist-THE WHOLE THING WAS GR8 UNTIL THE END

Beyond The Boundary- Really like it, thought it was very well put together for being of of the shorter series

Special A-Very much liked this anime, very funny and entertaining

Itazura Na Kiss-  Okay this anime I liked it at first but it really just turned me off with the amount of like verbal and then physical abuse the main protagonist received by her significant other. I understand where the writer was trying to go with this idea of like the male lead having a tough exterior but then end up being a softy but I think she just overdid it. I really want to love this anime but I can’t and honestly, I couldn’t focus on the story line much becasue I was always thinking about why the main protagonist received so much abuse from an anime that’s not that serious of a drama. And also I don’t appreciate how fast it went along, but ya know its not my story, so you do you Kaoru Tada.

Dance With Devils- I liked it, didn’t have any complaints, was just a typical anime for me tbh nothing special

Monthly Girls Nnozaki Kun- Omg I was so mad about this anime because it really had so much potential to be a good romance story and it literally just went nowhere. NOWHERE. And becasue of that it was pretty boring to me; I found myself hoping that something would actually happen and create some kind of plot 24/7.

Akagami-no-Shirayuki-hime- Very cute, I loved it. I really like the main character.

Seven Deadly Sins- I wasn’t really into this at first but as I got to know the characters more I found I really loved it. The story itself is okay but the characters really are the selling point for this anime.

Vampire Knights- Okay I am going to try and push my bitterness aside about the couple in this anime, though i heard that in the manga my ship is cannon. I like the concept, but main characters who are treated like they need to be protected and nurtured like a child always upset me and that kinda ruined this one for me.

Takanoichigo- (Orange): MY FUCKING HEART MAN. IM SO SAD AND HAPPY AT THE SAME TIME. IM GLAD I WATCHED THIS IT WAS GREAT. ONE OF THE BEST I’VE EVER WATCHED. I LUUUVVV IT.

Green Green- It was cute. I think it needed to be developed more, like it shouldn’t have been a short series. Lots of potential to be a lot better. Very short and sweet.

Kiss Him, Not Me -I wasn’t feeling it at first but I warmed up to it. I wish the main character would focus on the romance more though, that’s what I was there for lol.

Mayo Chiki- hmm I really like the main character in this one, he was a cute and simple boy next door but other than that there wasn’t anything that stood out about it. It was very average to me. But still it wasn’t bad, nice and short and sweet.

Yuri!!! On Ice- Idk why I waited so long to watch this even know everyone said it was awesome. I absolutely adored it, it was very cute and I like the relationship between Yuri and Victor.

Masume Kun No Revenge- I actually watched this before Mayo Chiki but forgot to add it to the list. I actually was really into this one, Im a fan of the animation. The plot is whatever for me but what really got me was the characters, overall it was pretty good.

Hunter x Hunter - What a great anime first of all, I was a little taken by how gory it was but I really appreciate the time they took in the characters personalities and developing their relationships with one another. Kilua and Got is a really great pair, and I know people have a lot of opinions about the ant arc lol but I love it, something about it was so so weird, and dark and twisted and I couldn't stop watching lol.

Fairytail - Honestly what can I say, its in my Top 5. You need to watch it for yourself.

Naruto Shippuden- Idc what anyone says about Naruto, best plot, best characters, great music, great storylines, everything good, lots of fillers but I can look past that lol. Favorite of all time.

`CURRENTLY WATCHING (longer animes, who knows when I’ll finish):

Bleach-Not my fave anime but i’m already 100 episodes in and theres no stopping me from finishing…Literally haven’t even watched a new episode in like months but I gonna finish it sooner or later. I don’t think I’ll ever get around to finishing bleach tbh lol

-OKAY. So I wanna give bleach another chance (’: I remember just not liking it at all but I’m gonna try again okay, I’m a new person now LOL

My Hero Academia - I don’t have full thoughts yet, but I really like this anime. I’ll update you later

Noragami- Never finished lol 

One Piece- Yeah not that into it but I still wanna watch 

NEXT TO WATCH:

IDK, I’ve been stuck on the K-Drama train. I might start a K-Drama list lol.

#anime baby #anime #Naruto Shippuden #fairy #my hero acedamia #fairytail #hunter x hunter #inuyasha the final act #inuyasha #avatar #my fave anime lol