#but the format of s5 so far is just not doing it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ectomoog · 4 months

Text

How to Get Your Friends into Doctor Who (2005) - A Guide

Ok I really like Doctor Who, and of course I like introducing people to it, but oh my god do you forget how randomly terrible and/or cringy and/or uncomfortably Moffat-esque some of the episodes are, *especially* when you're watching it with someone who has no idea what to expect.

SO I made a list of ten episodes that I think would be the best loose sequence of episodes for a causal introduction to the show...

But first, some requirements:

It has to be a one-off (NO TWO-PARTERS), low commitment, etc

It can't require watching previous OR following episodes to be enjoyable

It needs to actually be good

It needs to represent Doctor Who well

In a social setting where you're showing a group of people an episode, most of these would be fine. Watching consistently with one person however, loosely follow this order, and if your person decides at any point that they want to commit to actually watching the show, skip straight back to The End of The World and watch Series 1. Ok list time...

1. Rose (S1, E01)

I think Rose is the perfect episode of Doctor Who to start on. It's campy, it's fun and weird and it sets up almost everything you need to know for the Revival Era. You get the companion, the Doctor, regular Doctor Who tropes and themes, etc. Plus, if they can't get past the Mickey bin scene, this show probably isn't for them anyway.

2. Dalek (S1, E06)

Skipping a few episodes into Series 1, Dalek is a great way to get a feel for the format of the show, and also a great and intentional introduction to the Daleks. The Doctor and the companion turn up in a mysterious place and have to battle an alien force and really unlikeable one-off side characters, the works basically. It's a fun monster-movie of an episode.

3. Vincent and The Doctor (S5,E10)

Jumping a whole five series forward, Vincent and The Doctor is a notoriously heart-wrenching historical that I think is a classic (if a little indulgent) example of Doctor-meets-famous-historical-figure. It's nice to jump to a different Doctor and a different era of the show, to get a feel for its' diversity. Although there's a few moments relevant to the greater series plot, it's contained, very pretty, very sweet, and easy to understand.

4. Midnight (S4, E10)

Midnight just feels like an essential episode to be honest. A fantastic one-off sci-fi horror/thriller, with one of David Tennant's best performances, a great introduction to the 10th Doctor. It's a shame you don't get more Donna, but I think this one would be my go-to if someone asked for the best episode to watch stand-alone, just based on how genuinely great it is.

5. Heaven Sent (S9, E11)

Jumping to Series 9 with another critically-acclaimed episode, but also one that I think is an amazing introduction to the 12th Doctor. Heaven Sent is a little unconventional, and I'm not 100% sure it should be here, but it does give Capaldi a whole episode to just act his ass off, and he completely delivers. It's artsy, mysterious and dramatic, very much the high concept sci-fi style of Moffat's later scripts, so I think an appropriate watch.

6. The Voyage of The Damned (2007 Special)

If you're not in a festive mood, try The Lodger or Demons of the Punjab instead

The Christmas episodes are too iconic not to show, and as far as Christmassy vibes, celebrity cameos and whimsical concepts go, this one is a fun one. This is David Tennant in his prime, with Kylie Minogue, a massive budget and a romp of a script.

6. Blink (S3, E10)

I mean, duh, but genuinely I think Blink is just *too good* not to include. A tense, creepy, tightly-written piece of horror TV with twists and turns and drama, it's considered the best episode of Doctor Who for a reason, and along with Midnight is an amazing stand-alone episode. It's not super conventional, but all the timey-wimey stuff is very Doctor Who.

6. The Mummy on The Orient Express (S8, E08)

If you're a Tennant stan you could swap this out for The Planet of the Dead

This one is just a fun one really. The Mummy on The Orient Express is stylish and fun, with a cool concept and a little peek into a more complex Doctor-companion relationship. With a short explanation you can get the context pretty easily, and it's a good example of your typical episode anyway.

HOWEVER if you have time, there's a bunch of two-parters you should watch instead, like The Family of Blood, The Empty Child, Silence in the Library, even Extremis.

9. The Haunting of Villa Diodati (S12, E10)

Finally some 13th Doctor rep! This one has some of the strongest writing in the Chibnall era, and is a fun horror mystery that serves as a fun introduction to Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor. It has a little bit of series-wide arc, but that's okay.

10. The Church on Ruby Road (2023 Special 4)

If your person liked all those episodes but still doesn't want to watch 13 seasons of TV, just abandon ship and watch the 2023 Christmas special in preparation for Series 14 (or Season 1) in Spring 2024. The Church on Ruby Road is the beginning of the latest soft reboot of the show and has been explicitly created as a jumping on point for new fans. Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson absolutely shine in this special, it's fun and silly and in my opinion bodes very well for the next season of Doctor Who...

"in 900 years of time and space, I've never met anyone who wasn't important" - Bannakaffalatta

I hope that was a success! After all those episodes hopefully you either had a good time with whoever you were watching it with, or you've already moved onto Series 1! I'll be trying this out the best I can with my girlfriend this year, so look out, because I may be back with adjustments later...

110 notes · View notes

iintervallum · 6 days

Text

some tma and tmagp meta and thoughts, disclaimer that this does contain some more negative critique

i think i realized why i still think about tma despite not actually fully loving the podcast. i like a lot of the lore and the workings of the avatars and the meta narrative around power structures,and many of the themes it discusses and disects through the subtext are intriguing, it has a very interesting tapestry of the inner workings of it's universe

but the actual way the podcast tells it was, at some points, repetitive and a little bit boring, i would have to relisten sometimes to episodes just to remember what was happening even though i was listening to a lot of it in the same time span and should have remembered, i havent felt as much of a need to revist the story as i have with other audio dramas ive listened to. I do want to say that i genuinely enjoy tma its just not something that ive latched onto as i have with other shows.

side tangent -> and seeing how volatile the fandom was in its peak i don't want to be involved further lol. I'm someone who has a bad habit of looking at discourse and critical tags because i like fandom history and I'm nosy, and seeing posts about jmart being "too fluffy" and the ending of tma having "no impact" and how they were "pandering" right next to posts about how "traumatically tragic" the ending was and how jmart was "extremely toxic" and they made them "do terrible things how dare they" was really funny. there were legitimate critiques of things there as well but the divisive nature of s5 is amusing to me as an outsider that came in late additionally some stuff with how fandom centers whiteness and white narratives, as nice as it that there is a widely adopted fanon of Jon as a person of colour, specially a brown asian man, i think the fandom still didn't really decenter whiteness at all, like sure you're solving the sexy man problem by making them non white but have you done...any thinking into the deeper implications of it? i have, being south asian myself makes it impossible not to. tangent over

I guess some aspects did not feel as tight as they could have been, with some themes the show deals with being hits and misses. i think the structure and the statement format as iconic as it is, restricted the way the story could be told, if i'm making sense? (and the decision to go with more realisitc and more grounded horror that intersected with real world issues are a part of said hits and misses from my perspective, some things i feel didnt fully work from a narrative standpoint but thats a subjective thing that i wont get into)

thats why i'm enjoying tmagp a little more, i think they took what worked well with tma and expanded on it with a fuller cast from the offset,the inclusion of the non statement parts that tma had (the interpersonal relationships and conflicts) and intergrated it without fully losing what makes tma intriguing to listen to. tmagp so far seems to balance the cases and the character interactions well. it doesnt feel like we're just going with the same format and its not too unfamilar either.

like one thing i'm looking forward to is the guest writers, specifically a few of them since ive listened to their work and loved them, and it will be really interesting to see how their writing would work within the tma universe.

and an aspect which makes tmagp intresting as well is if you have proior knowledge of the tma universe, we know much more than the characters, and have our own perceptions of what is going to happen to them based on our previous understanding of the series and the events that transpired. we're just waiting for the characters to catch onto what we know, and all the foreboding tragedy and devastation that will come with it.

some part of me wonders, if this season will be about how tragedies like the universe ending in the way it did in s5 are unavoidable, how even in an alternate universe where the circumstances are different the same things are bound to happen again. no matter what its inevitable, the mark of what transpired cannot ever be reversed,

like there are parallels to be had with how jon was ultimately pulled into everything against his will and had not that much agency in what happened to him, even if he did make the decision to use the power he had(for both good and bad reasons), it was forced onto him in the first place. meanwhile we have sam who is desperate for a connection to something greater, as a part of his self worth is tied to being chosen, even if we know that being chosen is not what it seems, hes willing to endanger himself if it means finding out more with his curiousity overpowering the risk factor. i wonder if the outcome of it all will be the same because that would be very very interesting.

either way the tighter nature of tmagp seems to work well for it and i hope that the momentum continues till it's conclusion, and even if not I had a decent time with it so it still would have been worth it

#aster.txt #the magnus archives #tma #the magnus protocol #tma spoilers #tmagp spoilers #meta #fandom meta #critical #tmagp theory

23 notes · View notes

bifauxnenbitch · 2 months

Text

I've seen a few people disappointed that TMAGP doesn't quite have the same feel to it that TMA does, and while I suppose that's fair (if more than a little impatient considering how slowly TMA's metaplot kicked in, to be perfectly honest) and that opinions about what makes good horror are of course entirely subjective and up to personal preference - TMAGP has so far proven to be exactly what I would want a TMA sequel to be. I greatly enjoy the much more freeform format. Perhaps this is just my introduction to horror being the sort of creepypasta we rightfully poke fun at now, but the statement format of TMA was always a little inherently limited by requiring a complete and cohesive account of a supernatural encounter from start to finish. S5 gave that format more of a lease on life by shifting it to Jon's description of the victim's current POV, but it would be stale to hear that again. The wide variety of mediums with different emotions associated with them is a breath of fresh air IMO, even if it makes it easier for an individual story to not hit very hard - I would consider episode 5 a total dud, which I'd never say of a TMA episode - because the ones that do hit have already hit much harder than many TMA ones for me.

I enjoy that we're immediately introduced to several unique characters and get a good picture of how they relate to one another before The Horrors (TM) strain those dynamics beyond recognition - we honestly didn't get to see much of the archival staff acting that way before the S1 finale completely torpedoed it, so I think the emotional stakes will already be much higher this time now that we get a good look at the calm before the storm.

It's true that both of these mean that TMAGP doesn't feel much like TMA (and perhaps it never will!), but that's a good thing. I really hope that Protocol can stand on its own two feet, and while it's far too soon to pass that verdict, these divergences have me optimistic that when things begin to really kick into motion, the resulting story will be truly unique - even if that risks Protocol potentially falling flat, as an interesting failure is far more valuable than a dull retread. I have complete confidence in Jonny, Alex, and co. to make this story great in its own right, and I hope people keep sight of that instead of yearning for a TMA 2 that will never come.

#tmagp #magnus protocol #tma #yukaposting

30 notes · View notes

litgwritersroom · 1 year

Note

So usually in UK LI, there's a challenge along the lines of the mean tweets one, but with news headlines (they do both in most seasons). Any season, any point in time, doesn't have to be focused on a particular character or MC, just generalised based on the events of the season + the drama afterwards.

Read It & Tweet

S5 | 3900+ words | @i-boop-you

A mash up of Mean Tweets and the Headlines challenge. Season Five is in full swing, and it's about to be in sull swill, too. As the Islanders play their newest challenge, drinks go flying, and after everything she's been though, Saira isn't going to let this opportunity go without some justice.

Thank you to Kellee, Iris, Audrey, Natalie, and Suzi for letting me use their usernames in this fic! And to Chrys for giving it a look over for me🥰

How much more did Saira have to endure? Already everything was a shit show. Literally, a show of shit. At every turn, everything went wrong. From the moment her ex was revealed to be a fellow contestant, to her first pick partner being chosen, to the backstabbing and bitches, and above all, after the weeks Saira had spent in the Villa, she didn’t feel like there was a single person she could truly call her friend.

At every fucking turn, it was like they were all looking to screw her over. Her fellow Islanders were always so hot and cold, though that ratio was growing considerably more arctic as time went on. Week after week she had to endure steaming piles of shit heaped at her feet only to be told that she should be thankful she was getting anything at all. Madness didn’t begin to cover it.

But endure it she did. There had to be a light at the end of this tunnel. There just had to be. So far, the only miniscule, microscopic pleasure she’d had was seeing Eddie get dumped after Casa. Fuckity bye, bitch.

A text came through a few days later about a challenge.

“Islanders,” Suresh read out, lounging like the gift from God he really thought he was, “get ready for today’s challenge ‘Read It & Tweet’. Time to find out who’s breaking news and who’s just a snooze. Hashtag, hitting the headlines, hashtag, fake news.”

Whoops of excitement for something new to do gave way to nervous, mumbling laughter. Saira couldn’t help but get her hopes up that karma was gonna rain truth down on the others like a hail of rock.

When the news came through, Saira had been sunbathing with the original duo, Shady Comments and Back-Handed Compliments, otherwise known as Dana and Kat, and her fire-fuelled gaze lit up on them like they were made of coal.

“I already know half of these are gonna be about me,” Kat said with prideful confidence, raising to her feet, her fingers at her collar bone regally.

“You’re not worried they’re gonna say something bad?” Dana asked.

“No press is bad press,” she went on as the trio filed into formation with the other Islanders. “All I’ve done is be one hundred percent me. It’s not my fault if people don’t have taste.”

“I like that attitude,” Saira said, “and I’ve got a feeling more than one person will fair better for thinking like that.”

“Babe,” Dana said, “imagine all the secrets that are gonna come out from this?”

With a shrug, Saira kept her lips zipped. Surprises were in store, and karma was checking them out.

As is the way, everyone had to find their partner to film the run out of the Villa, so Saira had Nicolas’ hand as they exited. She held it the entire way to the challenge area, pretending her hands weren’t clammy and sweaty. Nicolas held onto her, but already all those sweet moments in Casa Amor seemed so far away, a distance between them growing that she couldn’t explain.

Lights, Camera, Action. It was challenge time.

For this one, they were split up into two groups, with one of each couple in each team. Saira was in the red team with Alfie, Suresh, Arlo, and Gabi. A particularly cruel combo of teammates that only served to further the narrative of victimhood. Whoever was pulling the strings sure wanted to keep her in discomfort at every turn.

Hosting duties fell to Kat and Finn; the Island's answer to Phil and Holly.

“All right, Islanders, are we ready?” Kat hollered out, putting on her hostess voice, clearly taking this duty seriously. “The aim of the game today is to score as many points as you can for your team. How the game works is, Finn and I will read out a headline or a tweet. Who the caption is about has been blanked out, and you have to guess which Islander you think is missing.”

“Now, before you all start chucking out names,” Finn said, grinning broader than the Cheshire Cat, “first, you’re gonna chuck some drinks. That’s right! When it’s your turn to guess, you come over to the bar and collect one of these brightly coloured cocktails, and you throw it in the face of whoever you think the caption is about! This is sure to make things far more Finn-teresting.”

This perked Saira up after the blow of her teammates reveal. She’d savour each and every throw of the drinks, even if she wasn’t the one chucking it in someone’s face.

“First up, Alfie, mate,” Finn went on, throwing one arm out to welcome Alfie up to the stage.

Alfie jogged up with a grin on his face, standing between the large podium Kat and Finn were behind and the bar with the vast array of different cocktail glasses, each glass as broad in shape as they were in colour.

“You ready?” Kat asked.

Alfie stood, swinging his arms back and forth, clapping when they landed in front of him. He cracked his neck from side to side. “Ready, geezer. Let's do this.”

Kat held up a speech bubble shaped piece of plastic twice the size of her head. It looked heavy, and was bulky enough to be a bit difficult to manoeuvre holding it up so everyone could see, and actually managing to read it at the same time.

Ever the soldier, Kat overcame her struggle, reading, “From user ChronicComicObsession ‘Blank gonna be pied the minute her back is turned now they’re back from Casa Amor’.”

The low ‘ooft’ from the Islanders was mirrored in Alfie’s face. He screwed his lips into a tight ‘oh’ as he scanned the other’s, his brows furrowed. They lingered heavily on Suresh for longer than anyone else, flickering back up at Saira sat next to him like he was connecting the dots.

Biting his lip, Alfie grabbed one of the martini glasses and headed to the other team. On his way over, Lulu frowned, whipping her fingers to latch onto her nose as those around her dived out the way. “Sorry, Love,” Alfie said with a small, apologetic tilt of his head. He waited until her eyes were sealed shut before chucking the liquid in her face.

Ripples of shocked laughter rang through everyone besides Lulu, who wiped the blue water from her eyes with particular vigour, and Suresh, whose jaw was set tight. The way he refused to look around at Saira made her think he was avoiding her gaze on purpose.

Alfie jogged back to his spot for the reveal. A gleeful Kat held the board up like she was showing off the Queen Jewels while Finn revealed how spot on Alfie’s guess was.

“So, let’s see.” He wiped back the bright pink tape, reading out, “Dana gonna be pied the minute her back is turned now that they’re back from Casa Amor.”

If the ‘oohs’ had been anything when Alfie picked Lulu, they were double that now, as Dana sat there on the opposite bench left to pick up her jaw off the now sticky floor.

Gabi shook her head. She shouted over at Dana. “Guess we’ll just have to prove them wrong, babe.”

“Meera, babe, you’re up next,” Kat said, still sniggering away.

Meera waltzed her beautiful self up in place of Alfie, who came back to his team's bench with his hands still covering his mouth like he couldn’t believe he’d thrown a drink in an innocent girl's face, only to be wrong. He muttered out a quiet, “Savage.”

“It’s a Headline this time,” Finn said, holding up one of the plastic planks now. This one was a horizontally slanted rectangle. “Love Island’s Eddie reveals the shocking truth about Blank’s secret game plan.”

Less elated, the ‘ohh’s this time around were filled with suspicion and ire, shifty eyes on more than one person snaking the others. Meera wasted little time. Throwing her hair over her shoulder, she picked a pretty decently filled glass and marched over to the opposite team’s bench.

Saira sunk into her shoulders as the padding of Meera’s feet on the decking got closer. She got a flash of shocked looks off the other islanders before Meera stopped before her. Already Arlo was diving out of the splash zone, but on Saira’s other side, Suresh didn’t flinch.

“You’ve got to be joking, right?” He scoffed.

Sounding pretty hard done by, Meera said, “I have to pick someone.”

“Literally pick anyone else, then.”

“Fine,” she replied, and without any further warning, she swilled the glass in Suresh’s face.

Arlo screeched with mirth, kicking her feet repeatedly against the decking, a reaction not that far off of everyone else. Suresh hitched his jaw as he wiped his eyes of any excess liquid, his neck a darker shade than before. Saira could feel the steam rising off of him.

Again, he was refusing to look her way, so she wasn’t sure how to go about moving on. He was clearly pissed, but he had just defended her. Tentatively, she placed her hand on his arm, and she said, “Thank you.”

He whipped his head to her.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she added.

In an instant, she felt him soften; the tension dissipated, replacing within Saira a new nervousness. She quickly focused on the stage, where Kat was about to reveal the culmination of Eddie’s scheming.

“Love Island’s Eddie reveals the shocking truth of Nicolas’ secret game plan.”

Heads swivelled over to see his reaction. He was shaking his head profusely, and Saira half expected to hear him spluttering as he launched out a, “That’s bullshit!”

“Hey, if Eddie said it, it's got to be true,” Kat commented, rolling her eyes. Already she had the next tweet in her hands. She cleared her throat. “Anyway, I’m bored of that drama. I want the next! Here is a tweet from bubblelaureno: ‘Never seen anyone as bored with their partner as Blank.’”

“Yikes,” Finn said. “Cardinal sin, being boring. Speaking of boring bastards, Suresh, get up here. This one’s for you.” Finn finished with a wink and a finger gun at Suresh.

Thunder was crackling over Suresh again as he stormed on up to the stage, glaring at Finn like he hoped he’d be struck down by lightning there and then. Without stopping, the cheers and encouragement from the red team at his heels, Suresh strode right up to the bar, effortlessly picked up a fish bowl, and had it upturned over Finn’s head in a flash.

Finn hadn’t flinched, and was grinning broadly as he pulled back the curtain of his sopping wet hair. He threw his hands up in celebration. “That wasn’t so bad,” he said cheerfully, lapping up the applause of the others for being a good sport about it.

The sole person among them who took issue with this was Kat, who stood back with a face like thunder. The look she was firing at Finn was like she was trying to burn a hole into the back of his head.

“Wonder if you’d be as cocky if this was about me being bored with you,” she shot at him.

He turned with a start, like he was just realising who his partner was, and exactly the sort of attitude they’d have over this drama. “Ah, come on, Kat, it’s the opinion of one person. You can’t let it get you down. Besides, I've got to be the least boring person to come onto this show.”

This did nothing to quell Kat. She huffed heavily before ripping the pink tape off, not giving Finn a chance. Her eyes doubled as Finn’s name was revealed, before drawing into thin slits.

If Saira was Finn, she’d be a little bit terrified, but Finn just barked out a laugh, and played it off like a joke. Saira sat with her fingers over her mouth, her legs crossed tight, as she swayed nervously on the spot. How long would it take for this game to reveal what Finn had confessed to her the other night?

He had feelings for Saira, not Kat. This whole thing was just ramping up to get messier and messier.

“First point of the game goes to the red team!” Finn announced, “Lulu, get your lovely self up here. This next one's for you. Another headline, this one reads: ‘Love Lie-land: Viewers claim Blank is faking relationship.’”

Lulu bit her lip, looking genuinely torn over this. For the first time in the game, it took shouts and encouragement from her team before a decision was made, and it had more than a few eyebrows raised as Meera, Nicolas, Pete, and Dana all offered up the other Islander’s name into the ring.

In the end, Lulu chose a margarita glass and ended up before her own partner. “I’m sorry, babe. I’m not doing this with any hard feelings.”

Suresh gave an incredibly forced smile. It pulled thin over his features, more a grimace than a good time. “I’ve told you how I feel,” he said pointedly.

“And I’m still standing here.”

Not for long. She waited until he closed his eyes, and was already marching guiltily back to the stage as Suresh wiped his face with a hefty sigh. The sniggering from the others only stopped once the tape was pulled back, revealing Meera.

Her jaw dropped, and Saira had to admit that it felt good to see the haughtiness she’d returned with taken down a peg. Vindication and all that.

“Alfie, mate, how are you feeling?” Finn called out across the challenge area.

Saira watched him carefully, taking in the shake of his head as he assured them all, “It’s all good, mate. I know what we’ve got, and I know Meera better than any fools watching.”

Hope that feeling lasts, Saira thought, her gaze still laying into him. His smile dropped the moment the heat of the spotlight did, affirming Saira’s suspicions that he didn’t believe what he said. Game face, on.

Like that, it was Saira’s turn. She begged and pleaded and would have fallen on her knees for a juicy tweet. She needed it.

“‘Saira,” Kat read out, eyes twinkling her way, “needs to get her act together and stop giving Blank the time of day because it’s always bitch o’clock for him’. God, I could have written this one, but it’s from user Nqueso-emergency.”

This brought a lot of grinning, some tittering, and all eyes on Saira. She bit her lip, realising there was more than one person who’d qualify here. Her team was a point ahead. Not a great lead, but at the end of the day, what did she care for more? What would the win for the team get them compared to her own self-satisfaction in throwing a drink in the face of someone who really deserved it?

And who was it that deserved it the most? Alfie had left her out to dry, always playing hot and cold, acting like it was much harder having Suresh in the Villa for him as opposed to it being harder for Saira, but how did that compare to Suresh? He’d cheated. He’d lied. He’d schemed his way back into her life. He made sure he was present so she couldn’t move on even if she wanted to. He’d hurt and betrayed her and left her out to dry more times than she could count.

But it was Suresh. There was a reason he was still there, and a reason Saira was, too. A reason neither of them had left. Maybe Alfie had been more right than Saira had realised.

With a hearty sigh, Saira headed to the bar. She pulled a little cocktail umbrella from a blue lagoon and tucked it over her ear before selecting a fishbowl.

Finn clapped eagerly as Kat and the other girls cackled, all eyes on her as she headed to the end of her own team’s bench where Suresh and Alfie were lumped together, eyes on her warily, trying to size up who she was going to pick. Some things never change.

Saira had to be careful about this. She had to angle it just right.

She launched, covering not one guy, but two. She managed to drench the both of them, leaving them both spluttering out the cold water. Oh yeah, that felt good.

Saira stepped back, her tongue sitting just against her top lip, like all she wanted was to lick up this delicious moment, but was trying her best to hold back.

Amongst all the laughter and the hooting, Nicolas managed to ask, “Yeah, but who did you pick?”

“Oh, I picked Suresh,” Saira said, doing her best to keep her shit-eating grin at bay. “Was that not clear?”

“It’s been clear since the start,” Alfie said bitterly, but when she spun to throw him a look, his eyes were on the ground, a hard look on his face, like he was trying to hide his real feelings as well. She saw right through it, seeing that it was the truth in his eyes, and it was a truth that was hurting him.

Well, he hurt her first, and they were far from even.

“Come on, lads, be a good sport, there you go,” Finn grinned. He ripped back the tape over the tweet, and it was Suresh’s named, and Suresh who shook his head ashamed.

“I’m doing my best,” he said once Saira sat back down next to him. Nicolas made his way up to the stage in her wake. “This isn’t an easy situation for me to navigate either.”

“But you signed up for it,” she fired back. “I never did.”

“Headlines time again, so, Nick Nickety Nicolas,” Finn went on with his usual boisterous presence, “‘Love Island viewers in a furor over two-face Blank talking Alfie into recoupling, only to graft Saira the minute he got back into the Villa.”

Eyes: wide. Jaws: on the floor.

The game was up immediately, as a stunned Alfie shot Finn a look like he had no idea who his friend was anymore. Kat cottoned on to that look, her own stunned and seething glare digging into a rapidly deteriorating Finn. He was getting a sweat on, his usually white self glowing as red as his hair.

“Oh, whoa,” Nicolas said, and after flickering between Alfie and Finn and the obvious tension there, he stared straight at Saira. “Were you ever planning on telling me?”

Sorry, what? Saira couldn’t believe it. Someone else was unfaithful, but she was the one in the hot seat. No, no, of course! She should have expected this! How else was this going to play out? Finn the notorious skirt chaser grafts after growing bored with someone he claims is clingy, and naturally it’s Saira’s fault.

“I’d like to think that telling me would be higher on the priority list than telling some guy you just met, Sai,” Kat dug, looking pretty hurt, something Saira could admit was marginally more justifiable.

“Before we start pointing fingers, how about we wait until the judge has ruled?” Suresh said coolly. “Go throw your drink at the actual person you should be pissed at, Nicolas.”

Something was swelling within Saira and she didn’t like it. She had to concentrate to pull her eyes off the back of Suresh’s head as Nicolas launched his drink in Finn’s face. This time around, Finn was much more resigned to his fate, taking it less like a champ, and more like someone who wanted to clear their conscience.

“I think Alfie should have been allowed to chuck that one,” Arlo said.

“Really?” Kat snipped. “I think that’s an honour that should be mine.”

Finn kept his head low, turned away as Kat ripped the tape off so hard he almost dropped the plastic board. As his name was revealed, Kat growled. Saira thought she might hit him, but she stomped around him, storming off the set.

Finn’s wide eyes followed her as Dana, Meera, and the other girls called after her. Kat didn’t get far. She grabbed a cocktail. The first one within reach. She fired it at Finn from where she stood, barely spilling a drop as fury screwed up her expression.

“Thanks for telling me, Saira!” She shot out as she blazed back behind the podium, keeping a wide berth between herself and Finn.

“Ah, Kat, darling, don’t blame Saira,” he said. “She was waiting for me to tell you herself.”

“And what were you gonna tell her, mate?” Alfie called out.

Finn’s shoulders sagged the moment he looked at Alfie. “Alfie, mate, it wasn’t anything personal. I didn’t give you the advice to split you up and swoop in. It just happened. Do you really think I’ve got a conniving bone in my body?”

“If you’d have asked me that when I woke up…”

Up next, Arlo got a tweet from user thesepromises that kept the temperature in the red zone for Kat and Finn (‘How clingy is Blank? The more she’s on Blank the more I’m screaming at him to abort! ABORT ABORT!). After guessing right and chucking a drink at Kat and a bonus at Finn, Pete walked up to take his turn.

Much to his chagrin, the headline was about him and Arlo, reading out fully: ‘Love Island viewers claim Pete is settling for Arlo to get into the Villa’. His guesses being Dana and Gabi earned the blue’s no points and some crusty looks from the girls for his efforts.

Last for the red team, Gabi was up. Finn read out, “From user PearlBracelet: ‘At this point Blank should just couple up with the narrator and keep the 50k to herself at the end’.”

To Saira’s surprise, when the swilling came, this pretty positive one ended up in her face. Gabi winked at her as she went back to the stage, something that left Saira as fuming as she was smug.

Not as smug as she was when Gabi was revealed to be right. Saira had never considered her options outwith the Islanders, but she found herself thinking that maybe she should give the illusive narrator a go. Only if he was over his crush on Youcef first, though. She didn’t want to compete with a French model after everything else she’d been through.

Last, and a case could be made for least, Dana came up for the last tweet of the game.

“‘Blank you’re too good for that whole villa’.” Kat read out, throwing her hair over her shoulder. “From BakerBoi95 - holy shit, that’s Bobby McKenzie!”

If the tweet itself wasn’t juicy enough, that it came from the most popular Islader ever to be on the show certainly sweetened the deal.

The last Islander to get anything thrown in their face was Saira, once again. Though out of every single swill she could have got, this was the one she didn’t mind in the least. The madness she was enduring wasn’t normal, and she had everyone who was sitting at home watching this going on in her corner.

When her name was revealed one last and final time, the vindication that swept through her felt like rain on her skin after a heatwave; justice like she had never known. The others could swing whatever shit they had at her all day long, but this quiet and small reassurance that she wasn’t doing anything wrong was everything she needed.

The red team won, but it was Saira who came out truly victorious.

Note: there is a sequel in works, but no word on when it will be out.

#litg #love island the game #litg writers room #writers room #litg suresh #litg alfie #litg fanfic #litg season 5 #litg ex #prompt #asks #litg ex in the villa #litg eitv

188 notes · View notes

utaite-mun · 1 year

Text

melting steel, a meta about shouto todoroki v tetsutetsu tetsutetsu

[ Spoilers for My Hero Academia through s5 and the Joint Training Arc. I will be discussing both the manga and the anime in this post as evidence of my claims and as points of comparison. ]

tl;dr I think that Shouto as of the Joint Training arc is still feeling many of the ramifications of his hate of his father still, which leaked into his fight against Tetsutetsu, which lead to him attempting to go through with behaviors that should have had more punishment for him, either by the fans or within the narrative. I do not believe that he is a bad or worse character or person for it.

I do believe that the anime’s adaptation of this scene shifts the emotional focus to something else rather than the already presented one, intentionally makes a character more antagonistic, and removes an interesting anger from the other.

---

The Joint Training arc in BnHA is clearly a top pick for many fans of side characters simply due to the format permitting for more screen time for much of the underutilized cast. Issues of writing and very little of substance to add to the characters has been a scene that rubbed me quite the wrong way for a time after first reading it, aiding no more by community reception.

We’re going to be talking about the third battle, specifically the fight between Shouto Todoroki and Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu and talk about the circumstances in the battle and my opinions of them, as well as fandom perception and reception as well as applying a filter of real world logic to see what would’ve really happened.

In this meta, we’re going to be using a lot of direct screenshots from the officially English translated manga and a few screenshots with the Crunchyroll translations as evidence to back up these claims. As a result this post will be quite long under the cut!

Let’s start simple! Character motivations!

The easy one is, well, it's a class training. Mandatory participation for grade all that of course, but every character carries with them a little more than that.

We’ll start with Tetsutetsu because his motivations are a lot simpler, both due to being a far simpler person, and also without very much characterization. But what we see is telling.

He believes everyone thinks he’s stupid so he’s gonna counter Class A’s team!

This is entirely for the immediate comedy of showing that he is indeed quite stupid because he is causing quite the amount of collateral damage by flattening the arena. Outside of that, Tetsutetsu really doesn’t have any other motivations to want to win the or even to fight outside of typical school tournament battle shounen competetiveness!

Shouto on the other hand is a little more of an interesting case. While not a direct motivation, before the battle Tokoyami brings up the legacy and upholding the reputation of the heroes they intern under, being Endeavor and Hawks. Shouto is then prompted to think back on his past and the abuse that he’s faced from his father, with a particular focus on moves that Enji claimed only he could learn due to, well, not being like Touya (who couldn’t due to burning far too easily).

“You will learn these moves.” “Only you can do this technique!”

There’s a heavy focus on these move, this technique, that only Shouto can do, so claims Enji. This technique and these powers are the why behind all of Shouto’s abuse which is why the abuse is also so heavily focused on here.

But Shouto never takes a particular stance on these feelings when the fight starts, he’s just thinking about it because its part of the reputation he’s upholding, part of the legacy heaved onto him.

Now before we get into the nitty gritty of breaking down the fight with even more panels of evidence, we also need to talk about the two’s fighting styles. It might feel a little pointless but it’s very important to a point we’re going to bring up later and also to gather how the fight goes.

Tetsutetsu is a physical brawler above all else, he doesn’t have any range to speak of unless he starts throwing things, but outside of that he punches. It’s all punching and bludgeoning things, because that’s what his quirk is best for, getting up close and beating things up.

Shouto then is more of mid to long range attacker. His fire and ice are best used in wide areas where he can entrap opponents in obstacles of his own making. But we know him to not be the best at fighting hand to hand with people mostly because he’s never had to do that. His quirk always let him finish engagements before he ever needed to use his fists, or to think of how to counter them.

With that bit squared away, let’s look at the fight and the characters mental states during the fight. Admittedly, this is significantly more for Shouto, because Tetsutetsu does not have any real baggage during this fight outside of “I want to beat this team in a fight because we’re battling to see how many teams from each class wins” and more training. Very simple shounen battle competition mindset. But let’s look at a few examples before the particulars that I want to get into.

Tetsutetsu is brash and crude, but this is really just par for the course in all shounen series, and in fact, these behaviors are akin to Bakugou, if not slightly nicer, though not that much nicer.

And before we start going into Shouto’s emotions, were gonna talk about this, and talk a little about how this has been taken by the anime and a lot of other people. Yes, Tetsutetsu is indeed saying he’s going to clock Shouto so hard he passes out. Could Tetsu drag him back to the jail cell? Yes and no, yes because its more nice than beating him up, but no because that goes right in front of the other people.

Is this violent? Yes! Is this more violent than series typical violence that has been previously enacted on other characters? No! Bakugou has done exactly this to Shouto (to the point of actually making him pass out) in the Sports Festival on a public stage. This is series and world typical violence, whether we endorse it or not.

So let’s get into the meat!

Shouto Todoroki and Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu are fighting basically in the middle of a pipe jungle, Tetsutetsu has the upperhand due to early on getting Todoroki into a hold and then proceeding to punch his way to a victory by knocking out Shouto to then be taken to the faux jail cell.

Shouto’s ice proves to not be of very much effect when Tetsutetsu punches and shatters it, while his fire also proves to be of very little effect due to Tetsutetsu’s steel which resists fire and heat up to quite a high temperature (Shouto’s fire is likely only about 1200°C at it’s hottest, while steel doesn’t start to melt till around 1400°C).

In an attempt to fight Tetsutetsu, Shouto raises the temperatures of his flame, and says this.

And this is the very much part of the meta where I bring up my grievance.

Unlike the intentional comedic relief of Bakugou and his violence, Shouto in this instance is threatening violence unto another student that is unlike series typical violence established in the school setting (its important to note in the school setting because series typical violence outside also includes Kirishima losing the outer hardened layer of his quirk to Rappa, however that was a villain encounter who was TRYING to kill him).

Neither the audience, nor the character of Shouto, knows what melting Tetsutetsu will do to him. From a logical idea of how his quirk works, it would either melt his body entirely leaving just a puddle of melted metal, or the metal is just a layer atop the body, which looking at what has happened to Kirishima as reference... well, that layer would probably be the equivalent of Tetsutetsu’s skin.

It’s also very important to note that the heat Shouto creates in this moment is so hot it forces the cameras in the area that the teachers are using to monitor the situation for feedback to be destroyed.

Tetsutetsu responds, not by backing off, but by recognizing what the situation is with empathy for the other (yes empathy, he is burning, shouto is also probably burning, they’re feeling the same heat). And his recognition is a doubling down on his previous tactics. Knock out Shouto Todoroki in an endurance battle and quell the heat because Shouto will no longer be able to create it.

Shouto, too, doubles down. He doubles down that he’s going to wound Tetsutetsu is a severe manner. To which the reply is that Tetsu is ready to die in this training because if he can, then it means he’ll be able to do it when it really matters too.

The response is annoyance. And we receive a panel showing us just how massive the wall of flames he created really is. It’s massive.

The last of the panels of the immediate fight we need to look at is this one. Yes, Tetsutetsu eggs on Shouto, but that too is simply part of a fight. Shouto is choosing to escalate just for this short moment, with a concentration of fire to a punch, the only fist he’s hes thrown this entire fight by the way to double down on him not normally doing hand to hand combat, to hit Tetsutetsu, who is already warping under the heat.

So I’ve dug into the fight, broke it down, mentioned my major gripe, but lets dig deeper into this.

Shouto could not beat Tetsutetsu with his normal tactics, and was on a trajectory to being knocked out and losing. You may have noticed I left out some key panels here, and especially if you’ve only seen the anime, some key scenes.

All while losing, Shouto focuses on the reason for his abuse, this power only he holds. Which comes right back around to the flashback he was thinking on before the fight started, and what leads him to using such massive and hot fire against Tetsutetsu and threatening him. It is a technique only he can use that surpasses anything he had done prior to.

And when Tetsutetsu fights back still, he’s pissed! He’s annoyed that this guy can think that he can still possibly win this battle, he just wants Tetsutetsu to shut up and get away or else he’s going to hurt him with far worse than just some burns. He’s cruel and angry, and he’s willing to do a lot of things he probably shouldn’t. And I’m honestly a little pressed to believe that he was doing this out of anger in the moment.

When he wakes up in Recovery Girl’s hes just kind of dazed and confused. But he’s not fuming, and that probably in part of the heat exhaustion and likely lack of oxygen.

We’re going to go on a tangent about the anime now! Yaaayyyy....

For those who have only seen the manga, or have made it this far, the anime fundamentally changes a lot of the emotional context for reading Shouto (and Tetsu!) in this scene. And I really don’t like these changes.

First we need to focus here. There are no clips I can find of this scene but this is 8:30 into episode 96, Battle 3 Conclusion. The anime completely removes the second half of this statement from Shouto.

youtube

First, at the timestamp, there’s a heavier emphasis on Shouto getting physically punched. A focus on the impact and the reaction of him heaving over, and whether intentional or not drawing a heavier emphasis and direct imagery to the next scene which is of a child Shouto on the ground after being similarly hit. Even if the words spoken carry the same meaning as the manga’s the scenes tone and imagery does not.

There’s also this!

This does not exist in the manga, nor is there any real reason for Tetsutetsu to act in this manner.

If the above scene with Tetsutetsu was supposed to be in the manga, it would be where this red circle is. And sure, you can assume that it pulls on the previous panel with him saying he’s going to punch Shouto until he’s knocked out, but that’s a very different energy from the above.

Finally we need to focus here. There are no clips I can find of this scene but this is 8:30 into episode 96, Battle 3 Conclusion. The anime completely removes the second half of this statement from Shouto, being “Unless you wanna melt!”.

What the anime did with this scene with just a few changes ultimately changed a lot of the emotional context of this entire scene in a way that painted Tetsutetsu in far more of an antagonistic light than he really was. Between imagery that all but asks you to picture Shouto having a PTSD response (in the vein of a paralyzing panic attack), and adding a line which makes Tetsutetsu sounds far more sadistic or cruel than he is muddies some of the focus this scene had.

The manga didn’t have a focus on the abuse specifically nor did it make parallels to it the same way the anime did. It used the abuse but more specifically it was calling into recollection the reasons for the abuse, not necessarily the abuse directly (though it is all connected yes). And due to not having a line about Tetsutetsu telling Shouto to just get punched and take it (which is already terrible to say to anyone), Tetsutetsu was also completely more empathetic without it, because he still recognizes this as a classmate who he’s just gonna knock out and he’s gonna do it faster because they’re both BURNING.

So the scene happens, Tetsutetsu makes it out alive, we all know how this ends, you probably do since you’re still reading. Let’s talk aftermath.

I’m gonna sum up a lot of science and say, Tetsutetsu should not be alive. Working under the assumption his quirk is one that functions as a layer of steel over his body, his insides should have been so heated they literally explode. Like when you microwave food and it pops so loudly in your microwave it sounds like a gunshot. Imagine that, but your body. (Also there should be no oxygen due to that fire).

But I like Tetsutetsu, and I think everyone would like if Shouto didn’t commit a murder in the end, so we ignore that.

Next, we address Honenuki and Tetsutetsu dropping the tower on Iida and Shouto. No, Honenuki dropping part of the pipe on Shouto’s neck therefore knocking him out is not any more extreme than previous violence done by other characters (see Bakugou knocking out Shouto in the Sports Festival).

And no, dropping the tower is also not any more atypical than anything that Shouto himself has done in the past. It is not any more heinous than something we haven’t even batted an eye at. It is akin to Shouto dropping the zero pointer robots on the obstacle course in the Sports Festival, which he did not care if he had smashed anybody under (very clearly because Kirishima and Tetsu were under there).

We’re also going to talk about here, that Shouto faced no ramifications for threatening to either kill or seriously maim Tetsutetsu in this fight, which is not behavior he typically engages in without reprocussions. There is no reprimanding by Recovery Girl or any of the teachers regarding his actions that could be potentially dangerous.

Here, in Chapter 241, we see that none of the students have any particularly bad things to say. They all think it was cool, and that it’s worth showing off as one of his super moves. Shouto doesn’t face consequences.

In this vein there have been a lot of fights where consequences happened. Shouto and Izuku at the Sports Festival had to be stepped in on by Cementoss and Midnight because of the threat that one of them would be too badly injured, or Izuku and Bakugou fighting against All Might and All Might being reprimanded for how he fought Izuku and possibly snapping the kid’s spine (even if it was played up as a joke). But that just never happened here.

And with that, we’re going to talk about real people reactions now. People like you and me, and I don’t have evidence of these but I want to talk about it. I at least want to touch on it here.

The fandom reaction to Class 1-A’s misconduct and dangerous behavior is vastly different from the reactions to the dangerous behavior of the same caliber from 1-B. There’s also heavy favoritism towards 1-A with no exception.

Back in 2018, when these chapters were first released, I never once saw any person talking about, “Hey,,, that’s actually a little messed up that Shouto’s threatening to melt someone”, but I definitely saw people getting mad that Honenuki let a pipe drop onto him or even the tower. But not a thing about how it’s similar to Shouto dropping those robots.

There was also a string of people just joking and being outraged about Kinoko, nevermind that especially what Shouto was doing was on just as bad of a scale (I’m looking at all those broken Geneva Convention jokes, yeah you know it, Shouto breaks it too, hes a walking flamethrower).

In the end it’s just a funny story about weird superpower teens, but for how much this series community used to revel in adding some complexity, it always just felt a little weird and bland when it was just this hype for unlocking a super move, that’d possibly even come at the expense of another character’s life.

---

I’ve been building this case since then and wanted to wait until the anime adaptation to really say something about it, little did I know how I’d have to discredit the anime to fast by doing the characters a disservice in my view.

Ultimately, I do like this scene. There’s a lot of interesting ideas here, especially about Shouto and his annoyance being driving factors (and something I want to write about in another post, talking about Shouto through some of his major plot points). I also think there’s a lot of things you can make here that I think are interesting, like in my “Lets Have a Talk, I’m Sorry” comic where it’s possible to say that Shouto was so blinded by this legacy that he threw away the safety of others.

I just think it’s a shame that the anime warped it in such a way that it only let’s you read a trauma ridden (oh no shouto is having a panic attack poor boy) version of it, and that no one really took the time to think about it like this back when it first released. In the end, I kind of just hope that I can offer a different look at a scene people love for so many reasons (and that I dreaded for a year), and some of my opinions on fandom perception of characters (which i do want to go more in-depth about later as well).

More of my BnHA meta’s can be found in this master list!

#bnha #mha #bnha meta #mha meta #tetsutetsu tetsutetsu #shouto todoroki #kiyakis hot takes #edited on jun 25 2023 for better clarity since some wording wasnt exactly what i needed it to convey #edits will happen over and over

32 notes · View notes

perexcri · 11 months

Note

what's on your s5 wishlist? the silly, goofy things!!!

oh hello!! i saw several other people on my dash get this question, so thanks for including me :D

(also, i wanted to say congrats for finishing come back to me and forgive everything!! my apologies as i have not read it yet, but i know how challenging it can be to finish a longer work like that, so congrats on accomplishing what you did and for making something you're proud of :] 💜💜💜)

so my expectations for s5 are on the floor because sherlock hurt me too much back in the early-2010s so now i live life with no expectations for tv. but!! as far as silly goofy things i would love to see:

Argyle being a chekhov's gun of plot relevance like he was in vol2 getting them into the pizza shop. idk how, but i want him to have vital info that helps them avert the apocalypse. i'm thinking maybe since he's an outsider and isn't is as mired in all the UD stuff as everyone else that maybe he has some clarity about the situation that comes with distance. like have him point out something super obvious and everybody be like "well why didn't WE think of that"

i also think some pedantic bickering among the main group is warranted. just have them argue over something so minute and so unnecessary and get lost in the details of it because it's the damn apocalypse and of course they're looking for a distraction

i have one post-s4 fic where they go to a grocery store for a supply run and Mike slips on a rotten banana,,,not to reveal my love of slapstick humor on main but like. i do think something like that happening to any of the main characters would be funny, full offense to them (fic can be found here!)

and finally, there is an alternate universe that lives in my head where stranger things is a monster-of-the-week, 22-episodes-per-season styled show that has gimmick episodes, and if i were able to manifest at least one gimmick episode for s5 (that will never happen bc of the show's format but pls let me dream), i would want them to have a bottle episode/memory loss episode like Tabula Rasa from Buffy the Vampire Slayer!! just something where all the older and younger teens are stuck in Mike's basement, something happens, and all of them wake up with no recollection of who they are and have to piece together what they can based on the information they have contained on their persons and in the environment around them. i wanna write this fic so so bad and have for MONTHS now but just haven't gotten around to it,,,but tbh i don't care if it would be a total tonal disconnect from the rest of the season. i would 100% watch an hour long break from the main plot just to watch all the main characters suffer temporary amnesia and have to figure out who they are. plus it'd be funny just to see what people come up with, like...do Steve and Nancy wake up next to each other and assume they're a couple?? with Will's drawings up in the basement, do people assume it's Will's house? what happens when they find a family photo and realize Nancy and Mike are siblings and this is their house? things like that would be so so fun!!

anyway sorry for the long rambles but thanks for including me and for stopping by!! i hope you're doing well :] 💜

#ask

20 notes · View notes

destinyisall-tlk · 1 year

Text

seven kings must die (personal thoughts/opinions)

i finally watched the movie and here are some of the thoughts i had about it. this will not be spoiler free. so if you haven't watched the movie and plan to, then read this after if you wish:

first and foremost, it wasn't a bad movie. i would give it an average rating of C+. there were a few things that could have been done better, and some of the pacing throughout the movie felt a bit off. i did find the first half of the movie a bit slow, but during the last part it did pick up and find its footing. that said, there are still a few questions i have, and a few things i wish weren't either rushed or explained more.

firstly, i am confused about the timeline and what the gap is between S5 and seven kings because i don't recall them mentioning how many years had passed. quite a few must have because osbert looked older. and i remember aethelstan saying he was sorry for his behaviour the past year, but surely it hadn't only been a year since the end of S5 to the start of the movie?

now onto aethelstan. obviously, he was being emotionally manipulated by ingilmundr and that was made clear. there are a few questions i had, like how long was the manipulation going on for? when did aethelstan leave bebbanbuurg and how did ingilmundr end up in his service (it could have been mentioned and i missed it). i feel like the most simple questions help paint a clearer picture, and those questions may not matter to other people, but i would of liked to have known more. and because some things weren't explained, it made the movie feel rushed. but i did like in the end how aethelstan realized he was wrong (although he could of done so earlier and not had aldhelm killed...), and went to correct his mistakes, and showed guilt for his actions.

onto the dane villain/leader - anlaf - he felt very lackluster to me. but then again, being another dane from iralnd coming to conquer is a hard path to follow after sigtryggr (just saying). i just didn't find him as a convincing threat. and felt he could have been stronger in terms of portrayal and character depth. which is why it probably would have been better as a season format than a movie.

moving to the character deaths. the saddest one by far was aldhelm. he truly did not deserve a death like that. and i felt it was more for shock value then to further the story, because afterwards nothing really happened. uhtred, finan and sihtric were shocked, but that's it. i'm not even sure if father pyrlig knew of his death, there was no mention of it. i just hated how he died and the reason why he did, but at least his with aethelflaed. ingirth's death, again, felt meh. i wasn't sad that she died, i had no emotional connection towards her character, so it wasn't upsetting for me. but i was sad for finan that he lost his wife, the part where he screamed out was heartbreaking. overall, her death felt like they needed to fill the movie death quota so they just picked ingirth.

the decision to have finan narrate was interesting, i enjoyed it. whether you think uhtred went to valhalla or he stayed and died years later at bebbanburg is something for the fans to decide, and adding the small touch of finan narrating aligns well with how the movie ended. speaking of the ending, it was bittersweet. i wasn't expecting them to show valhalla. what would have made it even better is if we saw more of the characters that had died throughout the show, that would have been such a special moment. to see young ragnar, sigtryggr, bloodhair, etc. the emotional impact could have been bigger if there were more characters. but i understand if scheduling was an issue and they couldn't get them. speaking of scheduling, i assume that is the reason why they changed the character who played edgaiu in season 5? it took me half of the movie to realize it was her and edward didn't re-marry...it's a shame because i did like the actress who played her in S5, but what can you do.

out of all the new characters, osbert was my favourite one. his screen time was here and there, but i loved him. clearly, him and uhtred get along well. but the inner part of me that loves to know more details wonders if they ever talked about how uhtred basically abandoned him in S3. and i was waiting for someone to mention hild, i would have thought either uhtred or osbert would have, purely because hild was the one who looked after osbert when he was young, or at least checked in on him from time to time. but no mention of hild which is incredibly disappointing.

which leads me to talk about the absence of some other characters - eadith, stiorra and aelswith (i know with eliza it was scheduling issues). regardless, if you think they would have contributed much to the movie in terms of story, it still would have been nice to get a mention. especially, stiorra. clearly she isn't bebbanburg, so where did she go? is she with another dane clan? is she with her brother? did she go to irland?. same with eadith and aelswith, where did they go?. eadith could have gone back to frankia. aelswith at the end of S5 said she wanted to stay at bebbanburg. but because there isn't any confirmation it leaves a bad taste for me. because you want to know (or at least, i do) where these characters are. it didn't even have to be a whole speech, just a sentence or two about where they are. it leaves blanks, and i don't like blanks that could have been easily explained.

overall, it is sad that we aren't getting any more new last kingdom content (unless there are spin-offs). it was a good movie to end an amazing show. do i think a season 6 would have been better, yes. but at the end of the day, i am just super glad they didn't ruin the show with this movie (looking at you teen wolf).

all i can say is goodbye to the last kingdom. i am so glad i found this little gem of a show on netflix. it has become one of my favourites. so thank you for delivering iconic characters, beautiful storylines/scenery and epic battle scenes.

destiny is all. ⚔️

#the last kingdom #seven kings must die #personal thoughts #skmdspoliers

19 notes · View notes

tea-earl-grey · 1 month

Text

just finished Disco s4 and thought i'd do a little review thing:

overall i really enjoyed it, especially the concept/running plot which felt genuinely new and exciting. normally i resent when an entire season of a franchise show like Star Trek is about Saving the Galaxy or whatever because it's horribly overdone at this point but i really didn't mind this season because the plot was so rooted in communication and character rather than pew pew space battles (which i'm resigned to the fact that modern scifi is always going to have far too many space battles for my liking. sigh.)

i loved the general theme of connection and communication (and solving problems through talking/therapy!!) but there were definitely a few moments that were a bit heavyhanded for my tastes.

i do really love the general Burn era worldbuilding. i have some things i would probably do differently if i was the writer but rebuilding a broken Federation is just such a good setting for a show like Discovery. i like it

minor and maybe controversial opinion but i vastly prefer the s4 uniforms to the s1-3 uniforms. i get that the blue jumpsuits are more similar to what actual astronauts/military wear but alas i love colorcoding characters by department and the bright colors add a pop to a lot of the shots that was missing before.

seeing Michael as Captain gave me so much joy and she! has! earned! it! i love seeing her emotional growth from s1 to here and her being able to lead and express herself and..... gah i love her!

Zora!!!!!!!! i love her. i can't believe it took Star Trek this long to give us sentient spaceships.

i'm glad Tilly was out finding herself and discovering her own path but :( i miss her. the scenes she got with Michael this season were a delight though.

i literally don't care how cliched the queer found family is with Stamets & Culber & Adira & Gray, i love them dearly and specifically mentioning their queerness just. makes me really happy.

the Saru/T'Rina relationship was an absolute highlight. i'm not huge into shipping but all of disco's relationships are so nice and casual and laidback that it feels like such a breath of fresh air and all of the Saru/T'Rina scenes had me uwuing.

and all of the Michael & Saru scenes also had me uwuing... i just adore how their friendship has evolved since s1 and they're such a good team. even if it doesn't really make sense with ranks, i dearly hope Saru keeps being Michael's XO in s5 because they just make so much sense together

on the subject of relationships – i really like how conflict was introduced in Michael and Book's relationship and how that conflict was the driving force of the season without it ever feeling petty or like either one of them are toxic. Book is clearly making Bad Decisions but those decisions are entirely informed by trauma and experience and he never has a moment where he's entirely a villain, he's just trying to protect people in a misguided way after being manipulated by Tarka (who. also

.... i will admit even though i adore Michael and Book together, there a few moments where Michael and Rillak were talking that made me think 'huh what if?'. sorry not sorry. i just have a thing for political enemies becoming temporary allies becoming friends. lol maybe i'm more of a shipper than i thought. either way, i definitely loved the political aspects of Michael's role this season and i thought President Rillak was a good addition to the season.

as for some of the negatives....

i do like all of the main and recurring characters and i also like Discovery's experiments with having the main characters not be the bridge crew but also i'm just not convinced it works and i think for a hyper-serialized show, Discovery just has too many characters. i would love for the recurring characters like Detmer and Owo and Bryce, etc, etc, to get more of a character and the writers are obviously trying but because of the format it just feels like character traits are randomly peppered in rather than organically built into the story which a) led to some weird moments and dialogue and b) resulted in some of the main characters (like Stamets and Adira) being a bit underused this season.

very related to ^ that. because of the amount of characters on the bridge, there ended up being a ton of really awkward reaction shots where something dramatic happens and we slow down to get a close up of like. ten different characters. like i am glad these actors are getting fair coverage and all of that but at some point the way it was shot just felt a little ridiculous and overdramatic.

this is also very much out of the show's control but i feel like you could really feel the ways covid limited the show (so much greenscreen, limited background performers, characters conveniently standing 6 feet apart for whole scenes). i think they recovered decently and it doesn't affect my enjoyment that much but it definitely stands out.

and finally, i won't go on about this too much because people have unfairly criticized Disco to hell and back for this, but there was just a bit too much Therapy Talk for my liking. and to be clear, i don't mean too much Actual Therapy. i really respect the show for portraying therapy and trauma recovery in depth and just having cool main characters go to therapy because it's good and healthy is Very Cool. but i do think there are definitely scenes (particularly in the beginning of the show) that has dialogue fall into Therapy Talk where all the characters go around in a circle and coherently state their thoughts and emotions and then resolve their conflict. it just gave the impression that the scripts were rushed and the writers didn't have time to add nuance into the dialogue (very possibly related to pandemic stresses and the bad writing room practices that are hopefully being faded out after the WGA strike). it would have been fine in a scene or two but nearly every episode had one scene or line that made me want to rewrite it. it wasn't enough that it ruined the season for me at all (it's probably my second favorite Disco season after s3) but imo it made the season just good and not great.

i rated all the episodes (because i love nothing if not spreadsheets to track my fandom thoughts) and overall the season had an average rating of 8.17 out of 10. in comparison – s1 was 8.06, s2 was 7.92, and s3 was an 8.26. my favorite episode was Kobayashi Maru (9.4) and my least favorite was All is Possible (6.9).

anyways, i'm very excited for s5!!!

#the more i watch of discovery the more i do really like it #it'll never be My Trek but everyone's emotional journeys are just very good and satisfying #and the characters are all wonderful despite some of my problems with the plotting and dialogue #discovery #star trek discovery #my posts #speaking of discovery #i just remembered i have a have typed up meta about (mirror)Georgiou and (mirror)Michael from s3 that i really need to finish #i simply love her (Michael Burnham)#long post

5 notes · View notes

that-thing-that-feeling · 1 year

Note

So Shawn really said he related to Steve the most. Interesting.

What I find funny is that there’s still certain subsets of stans that genuinely act like Jonathan is nothing but a self-insert and is therefore just SO privileged as a character… when he’s literally one of the most sidelined and underwritten mains of the show. While Steve gets like so much screentime in comparison and a lion’s share of the marketing and content and recognition.

Like you’re telling me that Jonathan “gets antagonized every season and not listed on the Netflix tudum” Byers is the obvious Creator’s Pet and not Steve “gets his own Wikipedia page and a massive ‘protect Steve’ billboard” Harrington isn’t. I wasnt even a stan of anyone, let alone a Jonathan stan, starting the series five years ago but I still noticed this disparity in treatment. Lol

I have loved and enjoyed Steve as a character where he fits in the show, but the cognitive dissonance from his fans is so annoying. Even if he’s as prone to poor and shallow writing as much as the rest of the mains (and I feel for him just as much as the others in that sense), he still has it easier than half the main characters, maybe more, and he likely always will.

Which is fine and dandy, but makes it all the more obnoxious when I see people who would throw other characters under the bus to always put him in the better light no matter what, or people who act like Steve is just SO hated by the writers—at least the writers remember him as a character. Jonathan is what, hanging on by the skin of his teeth? Considering his most lauded moment of the season was apparently only conjured as a lucky afterthought of the writers in the middle of filming.

If you ask me, Steve seems like he’s one of the most traditionally heroic-protagonist type of characters and treated as such outside the show. He is set up perfectly for escapism, he’s given all these fanservicey and heroic moments, and for that I can understand why people are led to root for Steve (the writers even admitted writing S2 Nancy this way, to boot) and hell, I would go so far as to say they want to be Steve.

But then you have the Byers, who especially in S1, feel rooted in the kinds of realistic and depressing situations people would want to escape from, even if you take away all the supernatural elements. And you’d think they’re just as subject to the same “underdog” treatment that Steve gets, but then you get people—in 2023, mind you—who are antagonizing them (which reeks of classism btw; “Joyce is a bad mom compared to Karen”, “Jonathan is selfish for worrying about his college issues and just wants a sympathy card lying to Nancy”, “Will is too much of a crybaby who hasnt been through as much as X person”) coupled with the way they are sidelined in the show. Just annoying treatment all around. I do hope S5 fares better compared to the past two seasons, but most of my expectations are on the wrapping up of the supernatural plot at this point.

Yeah the whole Jonathan as a self insert thing makes little sense when they’ve totally underwritten and sidelined him; it’s always a way people try to hate on Jonathan as a character for shipping reasons usually.

And agreed there’s a clear disparity in how Steve is treated and given heroic moments and a lot of screentime. But I still think his writing isn’t as good as it should have been bc once they landed on the popular thing with him, they backed away from all other layers (note this interview from between s2 and s3):

Also a lot of their sympathy/empathy in s2 is all around him and they clearly see him as a victim (of Nancy smh, of “circumstance”???) and have tried to erase his privilege:

Here’s the original thing on Shawn being like Steve and the Duffers relating to Mike (from July 2016, and idk why there’s weird formatting):

The irony though that Shawn talks about Jonathan and Steve co-existing and collaborating (like Shawn and the Duffers?) and then Jonathan and Steve basically never spoke again SMH

I also agree with you w the Byers and classicism; you def see that with fans in how they view them and I wonder w the sidelining on the show. Anyhow it’s baffling to have so sidelined the Byers. I think it’s as they moved away from more realism into what was just funny and popular and memeable.

18 notes · View notes

thatonesongyouretryingtoremember · 1 year

Text

✨️intro post✨️

I edit this over time so please check it kinda often for updates esp the last part with some posts I really like/ that I used real life braincells on, and the beginning for if I add more sideblogs. If you have LITERALLY ANY other questions not answered here, shoot me an ask in my inbox and I will probably answer. If I think it's in good faith but poor taste I'll just say that, so if you're being nice I won't be mad or at least I'll like the attention :3

I'm thatonesongyouretryingtoremember. Song for short and OneSong for long. Or Remy??? I use all pronouns or it/it's. My other blogs are @aroasexualboypussy which is a regular sideblog where I keep fandom rbs besides my own fandoms and spam rbs and @jupiter-jayfield-official which is a Mikhailgate blog/El appreciation blog kinda.I also made a blog called @twasagraveyardsmash and that's my "music blog" aka rambling, keysmashing, and reblogging about music I like, someone likes, or my other music- related posts. I have another ST rp blog as Max- @madmaxmayfield71 , and at some point I started a blog called @byler-freeze-book with the intention of it being a byler tag positivity blog but it kinda flopped. You can still send asks there tho <2 @angelbymadonna is my art blog. I also have a Miraculous roleplay blog as Zoe's superhero form, Vesperia @the-real-bee-holder-vesperia

Tumblr-spouse to @exhausted-enby-vibes <2, coparent of Mikhail Max

My blog used to have this glitch where it was hidden, but I didn't do anything to cause that, so if you see smthng lemme know. I also am still confused by tags on here, so lemme know if I tag something wrong. I also reblog most of the art I see, but I don't always know who's in it, so if I end up reblogging a problematic fanart on accident (which I haven't done yet) lemme know as well.

Hashtags I use

#song spouts bullshit, shitposts/non-ST posts

#song says a smart thing, new tag I'm gonna put on longer posts

#songs textpost bullshit, or #song's textpost bullshit, original textpost memes and meme formats

#artist song, my original art [find it on my art blog as well, linked above] [includes ficlets and visual art, the latter with image description]

#song's st rewatch, details and commentary while I watch the show!

#angela is jane, #angela ives, a theory I elaborate on further down in this post

Blog type/ content (I say content, what I mean is it's what my blog contains. It's for me, not you.)

I'll talk about my ST stuff first since that's what I'm primarily posting rn. I'm a fandom blog and will be for the foreseeable future. As far as ST, I have alot of ship content, but in my other fandoms I don't care as much about shipping. You can ask me about fandoms/media I like maybe :)

I ship elmax, byler, Lumax, hopclair, elumax, jargyle, jancy, Boyce, jopper, boycer, duzie, and a few other things. I also reblog some ronance, steddie, byclair etc content as well. My favorite ST character is Kali. Occasionally you'll see my blog possessed by the soul of a Kali disciple or elmax fangirl. I also some fandom posts besides my own if I'm reblogging art from my mutuals' reblogs ofc.

I post a bunch of shitposts about Stranger Things, and longposts related to theories or analysis I'm into at the time.

I am still not over Mikhailgate, btw. Even though I personally think Mikhail ships byler, alot of my mikhailgate content is willhail.

I also read KotLC, riordanverse (I've read 1-14 of chb chronicles and most of 15 and obv not Chalice yet, 1-2 Kane Chronicles, 1-3 mcga, and none of the spinoffs so far. Can't wait for the show!), and I watch The Owl House, Dragon Prince, and She-Ra 2018. I'm not as avidly in fandom for these but I like them. If there's something else you think I might like or don't know if I've seen/read, lemme know! At the time I'm writing this update, I'm sorry into Miraculous Ladybug! but I haven't seen the second half of S5 yet.

Stuff I want you to know

I have a detailed post about the history of mikhailgate.

My Spotify has tons of character playlists!

I have a theory about Kali's time at the lab which is actually a thinly disguised rant about her halfway finished arc.The theory is ass and I no longer believe it, but the rant still stands and I still believe she has more to offer.

^^pretty obviously not gonna happen but I like to keep it up :) it's an old theory that I no longer believe but I still think she should be in the next szn!!!

I wrote a thing about the Material Girl shopping sequence aka about El my beloved nobody else understands her <2.

Nancy and Steve are aromantic. (Check the respective tags as well, I have more)

Byler Week 2022

I'm right about El, nobody else. Jk but here's my super smart ST5 prediction! Aka thinly disguised El Hopper fangirl rant😅😅

Once again I'm the only correct person (/nsrs) so here's the official list my take of the party's riordanverse godly parents

Check out this post and this one and this one to start learning about the theory that Angela is the real Jane Ives!

There are tags for it too, #angela is jane, and #angela ives, make sure to check them out because there is always new input! This is related to the theories that El is actually not Terry's daughter, that El *is* Edward Creel's daughter (I'm not the guy to ask about those, shoot me an ask and I'll tell you who tho!) And that multiple timelines exist within what we see of Stranger Things!

#intro post #pin post #hopefully I did this right #song spouts bullshit #artist song

37 notes · View notes

kurokoros · 1 year

Note

If they don't put the stage play on Netflix, what's the point, because I'm from a non English speaking country. How am I supposed to know stuff when that play won't be in our theaters? It takes also so much time to translate it in order to be played. It's stupid, honestly why not give us the information in the actual show? Or make a separate mini series. They just should have given us more episodes within the show, even if they are just "filler" ones. God I hate this so much because I just know as an international fan I keep losing yet again, which makes me upset. Every time someone claims the Duffers are geniuses I have to laugh because did we watch the same show? Stranger things had so much potential, it hurts me physically what they have done, especially to the characters, worldbuilding aside but the way they assassinated 70% of the main characters for action plots is insane to me. Def hard to be a Steve stan when we get nothing each season.

I'm not a huge fan of any secondary media for works of fiction that have direct tie-ins to the primary media. Like, a huge part of why I refuse to get into the MCU is because it's basically impossible to enjoy later films without having watched everything else.

With Stranger Things I think it would be fine to do tie-in media that's part of a shared universe, but has absolutely nothing to do with the Hawkins characters. Because why the hell do we need a prequel about Hopper and Joyce? In stage play format? When nothing sci-fi has happened in Hawkins yet?

S4 was an absolutely shitty attempt at trying to tie everything into a nice big bow with Vecna/Henry/One and I absolutely hated it. Like, wow Duffers you introduced three new characters with mystery backgrounds??? Obviously they're all the same fucking person. And now we need a prequel about Hopper, Joyce, and Henry Creel? I'm already mad about the Creel murder retcon because a huge part of S1 was how Hawkins is a small town where nothing bad happens, and then the town is suddenly bombarded with missing person's cases (and a suicide that doesn't make sense), and the Duffers directly took away from that premise when they threw in a mysterious family murder that no one mentioned for three seasons.

I'm not even going to talk about the stage play anymore. I'm not going to watch it purely on principle because I can't think of a worse waste of time than a tie-in stage play. Like... we know what happened with the last stage play tie-in to a major franchise.

I'm just pissed about how far Stranger Things has fallen from S1 and S2. The early seasons actually focused on the characters and their trauma. Now everyone is a caricature with a vague semblance of personality, the worldbuilding is inconsistent, and the plotlines are horrible. I know some people think Stranger Things is slow-paced and somewhat boring, but I really do wish there was more filler to fully flesh out the characters. They could even add more action to the filler. Win-win.

I haven't trusted the Duffers' writing since S3 when they did that to Hopper. I also don't like the way they made Steve into kind of a loser. blah blah blah people will argue that it makes him endearing because the internet loves pathetic wet men, but there's a clear shift between S1-2 Steve and S3 Steve specifically, and the shift is that they made him stupid and took his charisma out back and shot it because they're insecure nerds who hate jocks.

The Duffer Brothers don't have teeth. Regardless of what they say, they aren't willing to make bold choices with their storytelling. They aren't willing to flesh out their characters more, or delve into their trauma. They aren't willing to make the world--the Upside Down--a real threat to the characters, because that means raising the stakes and needing to come up with more clever solutions to the plot than "El screams at the monster until it dies".

Regardless, I'm not watching the stage play. I'm only watching S5 because I still want to see how the story wraps up, but I'm not going to hold my breath about it being good.

#alisha babbles #anonymous #stranger things #strangerthoughts #stranger thoughts

6 notes · View notes

call-jupiter · 1 year

Text

committing myself to attempting a chapter in the form of a true-crime doc for The Sycamore Tree lmfao should be fun but we’ll have to see how it goes. I like challenging myself and trying my hand at a variety of writing styles and this fic being my first rookie fic AND being as long and as… involved… as it is makes it a good sandbox for some experimentation. might scrap it if it pisses me off but the attempt will be made. I already know exactly what ground it’s gonna cover and everything so I’m looking forward to putting those chapters in proper writing (not just an outline) so I can really get to work on this one knowing fully how the relevant chapters before it panned out. it’s planned and all but I need to actually finish the chapters first bc I’m not… always great at following my own outlines. lol.

since I’ve been trying to flesh it out with subplots and side action and new characters and bottle chapters and things my outline has come out feeling structured very much like a season of television. so I thought it’d be cool to try and take one of the show’s unique episode formats and incorporate it in. turning Sycamore into something of like a… what-if for s5 on the whole rather than just a canon divergence that happens to start in s5? like I want it to be Large Scale. if my readers and I are committing to 40 chapters that range from 7-10k words each, I might as well use that space to its full potential.

I’m rambling. but what y’all are gonna learn about me the more and more active I get in the fanfic scene for this show is that there’s nothing I love more than using my socmed platforms to pontificate my little fic ideas instead of making private notes. do it on my twt all the time for bbc merlin bc that’s the place I promo those works. tumblr’s become a bit of a home base for my rookie content (which is just Sycamore rn but hopefully more in the future since I’m enjoying creating this one so much). that means these random little musings about potential fics or directions for those wips are mostly gonna land here. feel free to ignore them. or, hell, if I post some off-hand concept that you like go ahead and lift it for your own works. I think that’s why I like making notes this way tbh bc then if an idea is dead-on-arrival for me it could theoretically find life in the hands of another writer who came across it. like paying it forward or whatever but in fic prompts. inspiring myself and hopefully other writers in the process—since I know coming up w an idea is half the battle. might be a bit presumptuous but it’s like if I do it this way maybe I can make that part a bit easier on my future self or on someone else. idk.

anyway. love y’all a lot. like a lot a lot. the support is still mind-blowing to me. I don’t think I’ll ever quite wrap my head around it. very surreal. so hopefully you can bear w me and my aimless posts like this and my writing experiments that may or may not succeed. I’m so proud of this work so far but it’s such new territory for me and it really feels like it’s asking a lot of the audience to stick w it since it’s… so much. like I want the diversions from the main arc to feel natural and engaging. it’s difficult tho bc I’m not a professional or whatever. I’m not even someone w an english/writing/literature background or something. I’m just a pharmacology student writing some silly little fanfiction in my spare time.

what I mean to say is that I’m trying my damnedest to make it worth your time to read it all. even the parts that aren’t chenford or aren’t connected to the main plot. like they’re there bc I feel like it adds to the experience not bc I’m trying to pad the length. and ik that in my mind but sometimes I see the current word count or my projections for the final word count based on the average of the finished chapters and I question how it comes off. like I worry a bit that adding stuff like that could seem superfluous even tho it’s not my intention. I don’t want Sycamore to be long for the sake of being long. I want it to be long so it can feel like a whole universe. like a highly fictionalized thing still grounded somewhat in reality. not just a one-track story to get characters straight from point A to point B. you know?

idk what I’m saying anymore but. it all makes sense in my head. I just have so many thoughts about this work and I’m also just so excited to write it and publish it and let you see it but it’s very slow-going bc I want it to be as good as possible.

anyway. weird little draft note thing over. there was a point to this somewhere but I definitely lost it midway. lmfao. this is what happens when I forget to take my adhd meds and can’t focus enough to actually write but still want to feel like I’m making progress. whoops.

#the sycamore tree #fanfic #ao3 writer #the rookie

0 notes

unproduciblesmackdown · 3 years

Photo

thinking of winston in strict canon like, everything we see (and don’t) combining to a Net: Kind Of Dismal there.....

#that question of ''how is he just Vibing; how is he not getting Disheartened over time'' like. are we not supposed to think of it. well i am #winston billions #corned beef #like and the series premise for having him be a recurring character centers around ''i didn't take a job in the interim months and oh btw:#i hate myself; great news right'' like Oh Okay #things looking up what with rian here as this immediate foremost winston defender and liker but we'll have to see where that goes....#and it'd be one thing if winston was Seen being not discouraged by ppl's negative reactions but he sure is; unusually so for a billions char #not sure if it was last march or april when i drew that last ''anyone bitter about How Is Winston Okay'' content lol #the one about ''what's winston doing all the times he's Not included in s4'' which; s5 having him in almost each ep so far has Somewhat #placated me on that exact front but i do remember it and also not like winston's been having only an amazing time. it Is billions but #dismal; even worse; okay; [absent]; Very Mixed Bag; mixed bag; mixed bag #anyways i restrained myself from adding a label about the Vibe on the right lol....up for interpretation; i say; as i explain it in the tags #winston having the Zoning Out / Easily Distracted / Mentally Foggy kind of time #winston on the left having the ''didn't outrun my feelings and got tripped up actually feeling Upset about something and then it's time for #the buildup of emotional suppression to Overwhelm for a minute'' like however often an instance of [aaaa ;__;] happens in the midst of #stretches of [just tamping that Emotional Experience down]....anyone and everyone can have that special occasion...[aaaa ;__;]ccasion #the great news is i'm not drawing these Odes To Feeling Smad About Winston while in the midst of that smadness #on account of i can't draw things in less than twenty thousand years; so things are dialed back i suppose lol. wait not sure how that is #great news but i think i meant that just as a figure of speech Transition Format lol #implying he gets to openly weep at home b/c of the lack of layer over that tee but yknow what. anything's possible

55 notes · View notes

tunemyart · 2 years

Note

Please, Amy, please write the Xena-is-actually-Sappho crackfic! I could think of no one better suited 😁

I've been saving this bc I don't think I'll ever be able to provide in prose format but can absolutely write as a bullet point list.

In S1, Xena doesn’t accompany Gabrielle to the Academy, though she volunteers to take her “at least as far as Athens.” Why would Xena not volunteer to accompany her all the way to the Academy if she’s gonna go all the way to Athens anyway? Could it be… because everybody knows her there and would be like “oh hey what’s up Sappho?”?????

Xena won’t read Gabrielle’s scrolls until S5! Which is also really sus!!! WHY NOT SAPPHO?? Already too much hero worship? Can’t stand ur girlfriend’s early writing? (She’s working on it!!!) Don’t want to end up turning every cuddling and canoodling session into a writing tips session?? (Okay valid, but - )

Which is another thing!! There’s a certain point at which it’s gone on for so long that there’s no way Xena can possibly reveal she’s Sappho, simply bc Gabrielle would never believe it. Like can you imagine - hey, Gabrielle, I just came back from the dead/we’re about to be crucified together/you just delivered my child and now we’re moms, I have something to tell you.

I mean, consider the fact that when we do see Xena writing, she writes Gabrielle actually beautiful and poetic letters. I mean, can you even believe some of this stuff: [upon the occasion of their being merged into the same body] “In the same way that the world shares day and night, and never sees the same two together” [and all our personal favorite, upon going to the Norselands by herself] “Whatever happens, know that my love for you is endless.”

Does this sound to you like somebody who is not good at writing? Bc it does not to me!

I know, I know, now you’re gonna ask me - but what about all those sold out Sappho concerts? It’s hard to hide from your wife that you’re THE rock star of the ancient world. Au contraire! They split up often enough, sometimes we don’t even get a reason for why they’ve decided to do so.

Salmoneus is absolutely her stage manager, and it’s a running joke how often he’s 1) almost given it away to Gabrielle and 2) how oblivious Gabrielle remains despite that, probably bc she quite logically thinks there’s only room for one famous bard in her and Xena’s relationship.

Which leads me at last to: Many Happy Returns.

We're to believe that Xena went to all the trouble of not only a) buying tickets to a Sappho concert for Gabrielle (for which she, a detail-persnickety long-con-runner, forgot the dates? twice???) but b) getting an audience with her? and c) commissioning a poem from her??? which Xena then d) very unconvincingly playacted not knowing what said poem contained???? The poem was clearly the intended gift all along, sure, but I’m twirling my mustache re: why…

(*cough* it’s bc she was actually in cahoots with Aphrodite during Many Happy Returns to both plant the idea of meeting Sappho as a plausible thing Xena might have done and then distract her from the dangerous idea fact that there’s a suspicious connection between Xena and Sappho *cough*)

Also insert your Xena(Sappho)/Aphrodite headcanon here all “Ode to Aphrodite” style

In conclusion! Xena: Warrior Princess is actually the story of one bard who writes about the woman she loves and one poet who finally wrote a poem for the woman she loves in the triumphant series finale.

#lovewins!!!!!

#xena #xwp #dear fandom please believe me when i say this is just for fun i'm absolutely not taking criticism #likewise... i know all about the sappho ep that wasn't and i'm not sorry we didn't get it #but! if you have more bulleted evidence for why xena is sappho i'm BEGGING you to add this!!!#ask #for-i-am-dying-of-such-love #my meta #my fic #? not sure which to tag here lolololol

94 notes · View notes

nikadoesanart · 3 years

Text

My predictions on BSD getting animated going forward

I’ll be taking a look at the novel page counts (Japanese and English) and comparing them to the screen time they’ve gotten so far and then using this to predict how long the remaining light novel adaptations will be (approximately). At the end will also be my rough prediction/hopes for the order of some of these being adapted. I say some because I have yet to read what there is so far of the gaiden novel translations, the main story manga has essentially still been on the DOA arc almost since where the anime left off, and I personally think that it’s currently too soon for Storm Bringer (aside from money purposes).

Note, most of this was written well before the anime 5th anniversary livestream but the announcements wound up not affecting it. I then of course made adjustments as needed account for the novel content we do have so far, both in Japanese and in English (officially).

Page to Episode Count

Not counting the afterward, ads, etc for the English/US copy, Japanese is including it

Also all eng page counts are using the Yen Press release and jp page counts are taken from the fandom wiki

*148 is purely counting the Untold Origins portion of the novel. If we also count the A Day at the Agency short story that’s included before it (56 pages), then we get the full 203

Also the English page count for BEAST was noted before the English release date but after page counts have been posted by affiliated retailers, so subtract a couple pages from the written count of 176 for the time being to account for the afterward and possible character sheets being included

Now that we have our page to episode counts (as of April 5th, 2021), let’s find the actual content run time of what we do have animated so far.

Seasons 1-3 and the OVA all have the same episode length/duration. Each episode is 23 minutes, and we can subtract 3 minutes on average from that to account for the OP and ED being played. This leaves us with an average of 20 minutes of BSD story content per episode. So on average, each of the first 3 seasons contain 240 minutes, or 4 hours, worth of story content.

Dead Apple’s total run time is 91 minutes, with the OP and ED making up 9 of those minutes. However, we do have a bit of the story content being played while the ED is playing (as sometimes happens in the anime as well). To keep the math simple, I’ll be approximating story content time at 82 minutes.

Apply these numbers to the novels that have been animated so far and this is (approximately) what we get:

Now let’s use these numbers to predict the screen time needed for the other novels

Note that we can’t really use Entrance Exam as a fair measure because of how much got cut out (just compare the run time of it to Dark Era and it speaks for itself). However, the numbers for Dark Era and Dead Apple are the best ones to use, as they both have minimal changes between anime and novel and both have official English translations currently available. Take out the approximate time taken up by OP/ED and and the numbers pretty much match up.

So with that being said, we can estimate Untold Origins (only) at approximately 3 eps/60 min and 55 Minutes at 1h 40-55min/100-115 min or 5-6 eps if it doesn’t get a movie. We can also estimate the A Day at the Detective Agency short story at the beginning of Untold Origins to take up about 1 ep, probably even a bit less.

1+ 3 + 5-6 = 9-10 episodes which isn’t enough for a full single cour season unless they all get put into one big OVA season, but also 10-11 eps (or less) seasons are a thing (ie. Fugou Keiji: Balance Unlimited, Blood Lad, Black Butler: Book of Circus, The Seven Deadly Sins: Signs of a Holy War, FLCL)

My personal predictions/hopes for the anime adaptation timeline going forward

This is considering the manga content, current “pausing/stopping points” what wouldn’t be too awkward, each of the novels relevancy/necessity to the main story manga, and assuming we continue with single cour (12-13 ep) seasons

Hopefully/ideally a 55 Minutes movie

S4: ch 54-70

Early S5 (preferably) or end of S4: Untold Origins or A Day at the Agency

S5: ch 71-88/around where we are now?

A Day at the Agency can, in my opinion at least, be chucked in at any point either as a single episode OVA or as the light novel content for s4 (maybe not even taking a full episode and then starting ch 54 in the last few minutes for example). Keep in mind that the current DOA arc is a long one and has plenty to it, so personally I think it may even be better to not include a novel adaptation in a future S4, as it would likely already be a right squeeze content wise. Remember, we also have a few XX.5 chapters that are continuations of the chapter directly before them.

I still need to read what’s currently available of the gaiden novel fan translations but it can probably be adapted at any point as well. I’m estimating approximately 5-6 eps as an OVA series. I don’t really think it would get a movie, partially because you can make it only so long, especially since it’s an anime movie and unlike Storm Bringer, it doesn’t have Chuuya to practically guarantee the profit.

BEAST also doesn’t directly impact the main story and can be adapted at virtually any point. However, seeing as we do have a live action confirmed for it and it’s page count lines up very closely with Dark Era, it can be either 4 eps or (more likely in my opinion) a movie, as it can be considered almost stand alone content.

Personally, I believe it is currently way too soon to animate Storm Bringer as it came out only a little over a month ago (as of writing this) and has minimal plot necessity as of ch 91, but I do believe it should be either split into 2 movies (a part 1 and part 2) or it would need 8 episodes, likely as an OVA season. If it were to get animated sooner than 55 Minutes or Untold Origins, which I believe to be very unlikely, I feel that it would almost certainly be driven by the financial gains of Chuuya being included, and his popularity alone. Reminder, SB is about Chuuya and not SKK. Dazai’s appearance in SB is proportionally a very small percentage and he’s not even mentioned in the official plot summary.

However, you can argue that SB is starting to have some relevance now, with the recent mention of the Order of the Clock Tower in ch 90 and the increased relevance of sealed ability weapons in ch 91. However, I really do believe that you can’t adapt Storm Bringer before 55 Minutes because of Standard Island and its treaty, it also talks about sealed ability weapons, knowing who Wells is, and 55 Minutes canonically takes place during the “downtime” portion of S3. In fact, here’s Asagiri’s words directly from the Afterward (translation by Yen Press):

“this volume didn’t take place in the past, but rather sometime after the tenth volume of the manga. In other words, it’s a tale about the ‘usual’ detective agency in novel format.” (55 minutes, p 237)

Untold Origins also should be adapted sooner rather than later (at least compared to SB in my opinion) because it’s about Ranpo and Fukuzawa’s shared past, which becomes increasingly relevant ch 70 onwards, as well as the need for the ADA being founded (which ties in with Yosano’s backstory in ch 65-66).

In regards to whether I think each of these would be better suited to a movie adaptation or as multiple regular length anime episodes, it’s mainly due to page count and partly due to the budget difference between the two, as well as how difficult I think it would be to animate each of these based on what needs to be drawn. The anime industry isn’t the fastest to switch to newer technology, hence why we see issues with 3D blending sometimes. I really do think that at the very least, 55 Minutes deserves the movie budget because of how detailed and complex the architecture of Standard Island is described as, as well all the mechanical parts needed for the final battle of the novel. Hate the lizard mouths introduced in Dead Apple all you want, but you can’t deny that the 3D cgi was blended very smoothly. For any of the other novels to be movies, it’s more so because gaiden and BEAST can be considered their own stand alone stories that don’t rely too heavily on the main story in terms of when they take place and get adapted. I feel that SB is more likely to get its own season or an OVA season more so due to its length, but multiple part anime movies have also been done before (ie. the Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel movies), so it’s not entirely impossible. Especially considering that merely having any Chuuya screen time means that you can expect the profit and popularity to really go up, especially with SKK being on screen together (regardless of whether you love or hate how the fandom tends to push a shipping POV on them).

These are all of course just my hopes and predictions and estimates based on information currently available, so take them with some salt. I’d love to hear opinions on how, when, and why each of the currently non animated novels should be adapted going forward. Also please stop begging the relevant BSD official Twitter pages for SB to be animated next and go read the other light novels you Chuuya simp

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd analysis #bsd theories #bsd dead apple #bungo stray dogs #bsd manga #bsd storm bringer #bsd light novel #bsd anime #bsd 55 minutes #bsd beast #bsd gaiden #bsd untold origins

151 notes · View notes