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chipthekeeper · 10 months

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Ranking Velcinta moments by how insane they make me feel, a(n overly) comprehensive list

As promised, here's my way too detailed ranking of all 18-ish of their moments. This (predictably) got obnoxiously long toward the end, so venture under the cut if you actually care and/or don't mind a lot of scrolling.

18. Valley One (Ep. 6)

I'm relatively sane about this. Except when I think about how they probably slept in that little hut the night before. Also when I think about how this is one of the very few shots in which they're both visible and (relatively) in focus.

17. "No farewells tonight." (Ep. 5)

Mostly was insane about this when the episode first came out and I was SO. FUCKING. WORRIED. that they were gonna die in the next one.

16. "What are they doing?" (Ep. 5)

Girlfriends who scowl together stay together (please Tony Gilroy I'm begging you).

15. Feeding the dray (Ep. 5)

The fact that Cinta is smiling here is what makes me most crazy. Also I just adore this flash of simple domesticity with them. Ahh, what could have been....

14. "Have you heard from Cinta?" (Ep. 7)

Vel not being able to look Kleya in the eye when she asks about Cinta makes me crazy mostly for the whole "Vel/Kleya exes" plot but of course this whole part had me jumping out of my seat on first watch.

13. "The rebellion comes first. We take what's left." (Ep. 9)

VEL FINDING STRENGTH IN CINTA'S WORDS AND USING THEM TO HELP MON WITH HER DOUBTS TOO I'M !!!!!

(went all-caps way before I thought I would, maybe this one should be higher....)

12. Into the smoke (Ep. 12)

She looks so worried when Cinta isn't where she's supposed to be and then she sprints INTO the melee while everyone else is running AWAY. I'M NOT FINE!!!!

11. At the campfire (Ep. 4)

I swear to y'all that the first time I watched this episode and saw them sitting so close I was like "oh. hey" fully intending to ship them even if that was literally all we got. And then holy fucking shit we got everything I was too afraid to ask for. So this moment always has a special place in my heart.

10. "What's she doing?" (Ep. 4)

It. Makes. Me. CRAZY. That the first time they share a scene together, they're literally always in the same frame.

CRAZY.

Like....they've been connected from the VERY beginning, even if the show revealed them being together rather slowly. Also it's everything to me that the first time we see Cinta it's Taramyn asking her what Vel is up to bringing a new guy in. Because if anyone would know, it would be her.

9. "Stay focused, Clem." (Ep. 5)

All of the territorial Vel stuff is great to me but I especially love this moment. First of all Cinta's little smirk. And also it's just so....idk it's a quiet moment of contemplation and probably anxiety but we can't not take a second to tell Clem to back off.

I'm combining this with the "you can dress yourself" bit too because that moment just makes me laugh with how Vel's always in the background watching and then immediately jumps up to give Clem the business and use his scuffle with Skeen as an excuse to mark her territory.

8. "Closet?" "Empty." (Ep. 12)

That bit of dialogue made my gay little self so happy and then they went and did the whole "that's blood" "it's not mine" thing and I'll never recover. Vel being so concerned that she won't even let Cinta keep packing, but then at the very end she's a little impressed/turned on??? 10/10 no notes. (okay I have one note and that's "you're really just going to leave me hanging like that for two years?????" but that's a different post)

7. "Get down!" (Ep. 6)

Truly one of my favorite scenes in the whole show is when Vel almost loses her shit at the top of the dam. The tension is insane, her fear is PALPABLE, and I absolutely love that it's Cinta just calling her out for stalling and then yelling at her that breaks her out of it.

But the thing that makes me feel most crazy about this scene is this:

Someone please explain to me WHY Cinta makes the jump while looking directly at Vel. EXPLAIN IT TO ME. Or else I will just continue to believe it's because part of her is scared up there too and looking at Vel is what helps her take the leap. That is a crazy thought -- I'm pretty sure she's fine -- but if it's not that then I don't get why she's even facing that way??

6. This (Ep. 8)

THE MUSIC. THE FADE. THE SORROW. I like literally can't even talk about this one. But it does make me feel a lot how obvious it is that Vel's thoughts are soooooooooo far from the fight here:

While at the same time there's not a thought in Cinta's head about her:

Breaks my fucking heart.

5. "No. She didn't tell me." (Ep. 5)

Whew. This moment. For a while I was mostly happy about this moment because it was just one more piece of evidence that they were together before that was fully confirmed.

But then my headcanon brain took over while I was writing my multichapter fic and it has been fucking me up ever since. Because I'm always going to wonder if all their drama was always going to happen the way it did or if Vel betraying Cinta's trust as a partner was some kind of breaking point.

Is that probably just me? Yes. Does it matter? Not to this ranking.

4. "She's already sharin' a blanket if that's what you're wonderin'." (Ep. 5)

I was!!! I was wonderin'!!!!! And I will forever use this phrase as a euphemism for being a lesbian.

What I would not give........to experience this line and this shot for the first time again. Or at least know what I sounded like giving a joyous shout.

3. "Tell me you'll be alright." (Ep. 6)

This is the one that I would probably sound the most insane trying to talk about out loud. It would be a lot of me like verbally keysmashing and somehow going "!!!!!!" out loud.

The hand-hold that saved my life? The EMOTION in their eyes when they look at each other??? Vel starting to go in for the goodbye kiss right in front of the hostages' salad but then just not????????

Fuck.

FUCK!!!!!!!

2. "Come away from the window." (Ep. 12)

I have to start by talking about Vel's cute little sad grin in this scene when she's like "nice to see you too" and Cinta like glares back at her. That made me feel crazy enough but then this whole scene that I want to say I can't even put into words even though I have in fact already done it.

The desperation on Vel's part is what kills me. Not that she's desperate for attention or love or whatever people always try to pin on her here (and of course it is that to some degree) but that she's desperate to keep Cinta from losing herself. She's so desperate but all she can do is ask. All she can do is hope Cinta will turn around and take a break. And she does.

BUT WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENS AFTER THAT TONY GILROY?!

I have never screamed so loud about a scene just ending.

Whatever, it gave me something to write and I enjoyed doing that.

1. "You love me because I show you what you need to see." (Ep. 8)

And here we are. The scene that has taken up space in my brain more than any other single thing since I saw it. I've been over it so many times. Watching and taking notes, staring at the gifs, studying the screencaps, trying to wrap my head around every little line and gesture and movement and emotion. I've spent hours on it, and I still find myself coming back to think about it and wondering if I've truly understood it all.

Just getting them reunited after Aldhani was such a relief (even though it was jarring at first to just see Cinta and be like "how the fuck did you get here?"). But then the conversation just knocked me on my ass.

"Haven't we been apart long enough?" YES YOU HAVE!!

"We take what's left." NOOOO TAKE IT ALL

"That's cold...even for you." Stabbing me in the face would be less painful.

And then...hearing the words "you love me" from one woman to another woman in a Star Wars show....not a book, not a comic...a show. Truly meant everything to me. I was so fucking happy to hear those words that I couldn't even process how goddamn sad the rest of it was until later. Once I did I had a stomachache for an entire week. I have one again right now.

And then it ends with the most fucking beautiful hand-hold and yet another tiny look that makes me feel crazy in and of itself (which I've done a whole post on by itself), and despite my broken heart I have hope.

If I am ever able to watch this scene and not feel seventeen emotions at once, it's over for me.

Easy number one.

#yeah this is a truly ridiculous post #i'm sorry #and it will rightfully get a total of 3 notes #but honestly i'm satisfied with it even just as a collection of all their moments #ps fuck you tumblr for having a 30 image limit lmao #jk but really if you're responsible and use a read more you should be allowed more than that #anyway don't block me pls #velcinta #vel sartha #cinta kaz #andor #after this i may have to amend my favorite episode ranking #and put 5 above 6 #which i've been thinking about doing anyway so this is probably the sign i needed #my posts #bookmarks

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twig-tea · 3 months

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My Universe Round-Up

This was a series of 2-part short stories, essentially each the length of a movie but they're more episodic which makes it an interesting format to get a wide variety of actors, directors, stories, and tones. And all of these vary widely. Most of the actors are very green, which means the performance quality falls all along the spectrum, but overall emotions often fall flat. There are a handful of different directors too (each directs a few of the stories), so these really feel different. The only two things that don't vary are the production quality (middling; sometimes some decent camera shots, but few sets and extras, sound is sometimes shirt-muffled or otherwise messed, the usual hilarity of royalty-free music choices) and awkward subtitles.

The subtitles deserve their own paragraph because I think they're potentially the worst kind, in that they look fine but then every once in awhile the translation is the opposite of what it should be. Having a bit of Thai knowledge and experience with Thai pulps really helps navigate these.

The other thing to say about the structure of this series is that there is a neat thing where each story sets up the next with either a character appearing in the next one or having been mentioned in the previous one. So they're all in the same universe but are otherwise unrelated. Sometimes you can guess whose story you'll get next (like a side character), sometimes it's a real stretch (like the waiter at the noodle place the characters ate at once).

As a really brief summary of what these are actually like in terms of narrative, they took as many tropes as they could think of and then treated them seriously. It could have been interesting, if they had something to say, but I'm really not sure they did. There are a lot of difficult circumstances covered, sometimes with hope, sometimes with nihilism, and it often feels like the story is about the characters around those who are dealing with difficult circumstances rather than those who are experiencing it themselves. Honestly this felt like a film school project about trying out difficult tropes, rather than folks with something to say about a specific topic.

Tropes [note, almost all of these are a dark/sad version of these tropes and end sadly or open]: bodyswap, mistaken identity, in-love-with-your-sibling's-friend, destined lovers, enemies-to-lovers, love triangle, coach/athlete, fake-date-turns-real, twincest, age gap, paid companionship, terminal illness.

Warnings for this series overall: murder, attempted sexual assault (in multiple miniseries), incest (only very lightly speculated about), ambiguous relationship with a minor, cheating, intimate personal violence, death of parents, death of a partner

If you're going to try any of them, I'd recommend episodes 5-6, which were the story Right Time, Right You as a starting point--it has some of the better acting, an open ending, but still some of the dark themes (treated not as dark as some of the other segments) so it's a good litmus for if you should try any of the other parts out.

The one I most enjoyed watching was episodes 7-8 You Are My So(ul) Mate which unsurprisingly had actors who have acted before, and was one of the rare happy endings. The last one, I Wish You Love episodes 23-24 was maybe the best done overall (least annoying flashbacks for sure, decent pacing in the romance, comparatively decent acting) but warnings for the ending.

Details of each 2-part miniseries with rating and specific warnings beneath the cut for anyone still curious about any of these stories! My goal here is to give you enough info to watch whichever ones might interest you so I do spoil twists below when I think it's important to help people decide whether to watch. Feel free to ask questions if you're still not sure or have specific things you want to avoid.

Ep 1-2: Casanova Begins

4/10: Not recommended unless you like bodyswap

This plot was doomed to never fly with me; a dead lover tries to seduce the man he left behind in the body of the man he thought his lover was going to cheat on him with. I love supernatural stuff but bodyswap is a hard hill to climb and 2 episodes just isn't enough time to do it well. That being said, the actors did surprisingly well in the scene where all is revealed and they're saying goodbye. There's a stinger, and it did NOT work for me--people are not interchangeable.

Ep 3-4: Marry Go Round

6/10: Decent pulp with a good underlying message, but you have to not mind slapstick

I like the way one side character from the previous series brings us into the next, it's a neat way to tie these otherwise unrelated stories together. For a slapstick comedy of errors, this worked surprisingly well. The misunderstandings are well set up and make sense, characters have motivation for continuing the shenanigans and the continual additional complications build to absurdity but it all holds together in a very slapstick comedy way. Mei being willing to marry her friend's boyfriend to help keep their secret is top tier allyship. I wish the fujoshi had been chewed out more; she was invested in exposing them as a couple for her own curiosity/excitement and that's gross, and I don't like that she got any credit for their happiness. The mom being a secret fujoshi herself [and, it's implied, very ok with their relationship as a result] was a little on the nose lol The performances in this one were a little weak on the comedy; slapstick like this isn't easy to do well and the comedy suffers from this not being these actors' strengths. All that being said, the underlying message that marriage equality is the right thing and having to stay in the closet causes so much strife for everyone is one I can get behind.

Ep 5-6: Right Time, Right You

7/10: Decent plot, acting, themes. A bit rushed, but good pulp. Warnings for references to intimate partner violence. Ambiguous ending.

I enjoyed this one; I love the in-love-with-your-sibling's-friend trope, I love smiling-to-hide-pain, and I love pining. I love the complicated feelings around not being ready to let go of the love you have for someone even if they hurt you. I love wanting to do something for your friend because you see them hurting, and not knowing what will help. I love your sibling and best friend always being able to read you and ferret out your secrets. The framing in this one was interesting, there were a lot of on the nose imagery with the fence, the rope, the cigarettes. I really liked the dynamic between these characters, Mhok really felt like a younger sibling; a little willful, pouting when he is ignored, or not taken seriously, stealing his sister's breakfast, tagging along. And the ending was sweet. It's clear that Phat feels something, though he's been explicit that he's not ready to open up to anyone. And we basically end with very tenuous possibility. Not for anyone who is not ok with ambiguous endings.

Ep 7-8: You Are My So(ul) Mate

6/10: Fun trope-y pulp. Again you have to be ok with slapstick comedy, and I docked this one for internal inconsistencies but the chemistry was on point.

Ahhh one of my favourite romance tropes, dreaming of your destined person before you meet, and then experiencing the dream in reality! I appreciated that Butr's mom really did have a gift, and that he didn't believe and wrestled with the ethics of that. I also really liked that they tried to engineer a coincidence and had one anyway; I'm a sucker for magic/fate is what you make it. The actor playing Butr looks like a Footloose-era Kevin Bacon when he smiles while ducking his head, and the other lead is from My Cuisine, so I was pre-disposed to find them extremely cute. I do love shy4shy. That being said, a lot of the melodrama was around coincidence, and it was clear the overeager senior was just scouring campus for the guy, so there was a double-standard with the "coincidence" that would work (at least in the eyes of the protagonist) so a lot of it doesn't really hold together if you think about it very hard.

Episode 9-10: Lucky Love

5/10: rough especially with the language gap, but the leads have an interesting dynamic

Content warning for an attempted asault in this one. Annoyed-strangers-to-lovers where one guy has just broken up and is drunk and belligerent about it, and the other is not taking his shit. I really like Jeng as this taciturn dude who shows caring through food. The ex is still around, Meen is still clearly not over him, and goes through the stages of learning to prioritize his own feelings and truly let Noll go. Jeng talks mostly in innuendo, which paired with the bad subs (bad enough that sometimes they say the opposite of what's meant) means that a lot of this one is lost in translation. Because of the short runtime and the amount of time Meen spends getting over his ex, they can't get far, but the show gives the sense that they'll just keep on as they've been going. All that being said, Meen wears dangly earrings and has a femme best friend who is fantastic, and I am a simple person who enjoys her simple pleasures, so I actually didn't mind watching this one.

11-12: The Camp Fire

4/10: really disliked the twists in this; the horror was ok. Warnings for blood, ghosts, references to drowning, on-screen death.

Content warning for blood, ghosts, death (more details follow). Horror BL starring Kaonah and Turbo. Two guys who have been chatting online agree to meet in person but it turns out they already know and dislike one another; now they're stuck toughing it out at the campsite rather than let the other chase them home. Turns out this is a classic BL love triangle wherein one of the boys thought they were competing for the same girl, but his "rival" loved him the whole time (this is not the twist, it's fairly obvious). And that was my first frustration; Talay was unwilling to admit any kind of feelings for Camp even though Camp tries to reach out, even though he's clearly been in love the whole time and now has the excuse of their anonymous conversation and meeting. But then we get into the real spoilers, with the double-twist that honestly ruined this for me. First, it's revealed that June the girl who Camp loved is dead, and she died after being rejected by Talay (implying she killed herself) after Talay pretended to be into June so that she would not take up Camp's offer to be together. This made me really not want to root for this couple at all, Talay's character is awful at this point. Then Camp hears this story and decides to admit he likes Talay anyway, which felt extremely rushed if not absurd, and then June haunts them in earnest and snaps Camp's neck on screen. And then in a second twist, we find out we've been watching a film within a film the whole time, and Talay and Camp just met for the first time for filming this and have just started dating in real life. But we spend so little time with the "real" Talay and Camp that I wasn't invested in them at all as a pair.

13-14 Friends Forever

4/10 friendship in this is great but upsetting on the romance front, and the actual execution was rough and full of unnecessary flashbacks; content warning for coach/athlete, unnegotiated kink (slapping during intimacy), dubious consent (for the slap not the intimacy), murder (not shown on screen), and ghosts

So spoiler based on the content warning, this is a story about a coach who seduces one of his athletes and then murders him so that the athlete won't expose their relationship and get him fired. The sexy scene is consensual but the coach introduces pain without any context or consent, and it's just kind of shrugged off. The coach is creepy from jump so I enjoyed none of the couple's scenes. Beyond that, my issues with this were the massive use of flashbacks in a 2-episode short. They basically re-showed ep1 in ep2. The acting is ok, and the friendship (which is the actual story) between the guy who is murdered and his team is extremely cute, it was heartening how much this team supported their teammate dating the coach and how much they missed him and cherished his memory after his death. But this could have been one episode, or they needed something more to do.

15-16 Fake Love

4/10 flat acting and more flashbacks than actual new shots (half of ep 15 is a flashback of the other half of ep 15, and then we get it AGAIN in ep 16).

In this story a university student is trying to show up his pushy ex by blackmailing a campus 'prince' to pretend to date him. He finds out that his fake boyfriend used to have sex with his ex, and gets upset. They make out and then avoid one another. Fake boyfriend gets beat up and they reunite and admit they both lie to protect their reputations. There's an implication that Pol was being judged for being slutty and Peem was being judged for being poor, which I would have liked as a theme if they then hadn't undermined this by framing Pol as being "good now" at the end. Open but tentatively happy ending.

17-18 Pisces of You

3/10 WHY IS THIS SO DARK DANG. TW attempted sexual assault, blackmail, speculation about incest (really mild),

Ok so this is about twins being jealous and confused about their feelings; Mild is here and he sexually assaulted one of them (idk how young these actors are but this was hard to watch though he doesn't get far). I don't mind what they're doing around twins pulling apart, falling for other people and putting them first, being confused about their feelings, throwing away their future for an unrequited love (this is actually super realistic), regretting their decisions. But goddamn that was painful AF and these baby actors really struggled to actually deliver on these difficult and complex emotions.

19-20 1626

6/10 decent short story but barely a romance. Warnings for age gap.

Follows one of the twins' love interests from Pisces of You; we find out why he wasn't interested in the twin, it's because he has his own love interest in his former tutor 8 years older than him (16 and 24). For what could have been a really cringe story, this was handled relatively well. They were careful that these two characters barely touched, and made the feelings between them very ambiguous and confused. The ties between them were very confused too; they both had family trauma and had helped one another to the point where desire and debt seemed to be inextricably mixed up. I appreciated the choices made in this one. Again, not what I would consider a "romance" story per se. And again, the ending is ambiguous.

21-22 Refund Love

2/10 incomprehensible, terrible acting, terrible plot, zero chemistry, infidelity, manipulation, and weird unclear moralizing around a thinly veiled allusion to sex work

This one, I don't even know what to say. It's trying to be clever with the way it parcels out information, but it ends up being just frustrating and, in the end, nonsensical. I won't even try to avoid spoilers or fake impartiality here, because I really think nobody should watch this one. This is all about jealousy of your significant other taking a job as a "companion" for other people. There's lying, manipulation, and attempted fake relationships for jealousy purposes. I'm sad because this also has a side GL couple, but they made no sense. This couple claimed to have orchestrated their boyfriends deciding to spy on them together (how?) in order to....see if they cared enough to fight for them, after one had already broken up with her man and the other was going to? What in the world was the endgame?! MAKE IT MAKE SENSE. Anyway they really shoehorned in a relationship in this one with two guys--one of whom just broke up, the other who is thinking about whether or not to break up, and who spent only one day together, most of which under false pretenses--and I didn't buy a second of it.

23-24 I Wish You Love

5/10 big themes, decently handled to a point, but the story was about how helping the terminally ill character helped the abled character find purpose, and that sat wrong with me. Warnings for discussions of terminal illness and character death (not shown onscreen), as well as loss of parents.

This episode was set up as a ghost in the mirror story, but the supernatural element disappears pretty quickly and is actually just an excuse to bring together the two main characters (who knew each other before but one thought the other was dead) back together. This story is trying to deal with the very serious issue of chronic illness and what it's like being young and unable to do the things other people do, and the suicidal ideation that can come from being isolated and having a limited time left anyway, as well as the regrets about missed opportunities. It was also dealing with the sometimes awkward feeling of sorting out the love of friendship and the love of romance, and transitioning from P'-Nong to Faen, especially with the additional fear of loving someone when one of you has limited time. The supernatural element comes back at the end to grant one wish, and to give the character who is sick a chance to undo one regret. It's implied Marwin died, but we don't really see him process having completed their bucket list, instead we get Pond reflecting on what he'll do next and how this experience has given him meaning. This episode had fewer egregious flashbacks than the other episodes, and better acting (one of the main characters is actually one of the series directors, and the other is Winner aka Wai from My Dear Gangsta Oppa, as well as War of Y and Nitiman), but did also use an instrumental auld lang syne in the background of a dramatic scene that was distracting, and some awkward we-don't-have-budget-for-an-actual-ambulance-or-emergency-personnel moments. Overall it was one of the better offerings from this series but I wasn't thrilled with how it made the terminally ill character's death a teachable moment for the one left behind, even though that was honestly flagged as the point throughout the two episodes, so is maybe my hang-up and a little unfair. At least this series framed that it was about Pond the whole time (we start and end with him).

#my universe the series #casanova begins #marry go round #right time right you #you are my so(ul) mate #lucky love #the camp fire #friends forever #fake love #pisces of me #1626 #refund love #i wish you love #bl meta #typed so that i can stop thinking it

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moongazeonastarfillednight · 16 days

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The Terror: When, How, Where... (PART 2)

See Part 1 here (ep 1 thru 5) See Part 3 here (Ep 10)

For Context I am trying to make a timeline with locations from The Terror. You will find here:

1. Probable location and coordinates

2. Probable date

3. Travel distance and speed

4. Death count

List of Locations identified so far:

Location 1 - David Young's grave (71.22, -96.60) - Sept 5 1846

Location 2 - Ships Position September 1846 (70.25, -98.00) - Sept 12 1846

Location 3 - Ships Position June 1847 (70.15, -98.30) - May 24 to Jun 11 1847

Location 4 & 5 - The Cairn and the Ice Camp (69.66, -98.27) - May 28 1847

Location 6- The Ships in January 1848 (70.055, -98.59) - January 10th- 17th 1848

Location 7- The Ships in April 1848 (69.88, -98.57) - April 22nd 1848

Location 8 - Fairholmes' Last Resting Place (69.72, -98.35) - April 23rd 1848

Location 9 - Terror Camp (69.644, -98.24) - April 24th-26th 1848

Location 10 - Netsilik Massacre (69.62, -98.05) - April 25th 1848

Location 11- Hodgson is found - Mutineers: (69.56, -98.06) - April 27th 1848

Location 12 - Hodgson is found – Crozier (69.54, -98.14) - April 27th 1848

Location 13 - Fitzjames Collapses (68.94, -98.79) - June 10th 1848

Location 14 - Gibson's death (68.860, -98.73) - June 27th 1848

Location 15 - Fitzjames' Death (68.78, -98.21) - July 28th 1848

Location 16 - The NorWest Passage (68.7, -98.06) - July 28th 1848

Location 17 - Hospital Camp (68.68, -97.74) - August 3rd

Location 18 – Bridgens' death (68.70, -97.95) - August 10th

Loocation 19 - It's Rat Meal Time (68.73, -97.99) - August 3rd

Location 20 - Crozier Ambushed (68.67, -97.84) - Augsut 10th

Known and historical locations are in blue

Proposed locations by Franklin Researchers in orange

Proposed locations by yours truly in pink

Historical locations but for which the show took liberties... in red

Analysis below the line

1927 Admiralty Map

Use this link ^ to see the Famous 1927 Admiralty Map

Matching the Show

Episode 6- A Mercy

This is it, folks! The LAST of the bottle episodes. Next one is going to make me go absolutely insane...

Location 6- The Ships in January 1848 (70.055, -98.4)

Date: January 10th 1848

Nighttime - 13h 01 min

Daylight - None

Twilight - 9h 59 min

Sunset: N/A- Sunrise: N/A

So! This episode is the beginning of trying to understand when and what the fuck is going on. :')

Timestamp declares it is January 1848

Following timestamp announces this is 2 weeks after Episode 5, which we put between December 14 and December 20 in Part 1 (will need to edit.. :') ). First proposed date: Between December 28 and January 3

Fitzjames tells us it's 1 week from Sunrise (17th Jan for that latitude) which brings our Second proposed date: January 10

Lady Jane's Christmas Pudding (Hear, Hear) was offered to the men the week before. So, either it was not served on December 25th or the Third proposed date is: January 1st.

Considering that 1. and 3. are undeniable, I must conclude that my assessment of the timeline for episode 5 in Part 1 was Incorrect It would, therefore, put the death of Blanky's leg closer to December 27th

I must also conclude that January 10th is our date for the beginning of the episode and that the pudding was served on Jan 6th for Epiphany rather than Christmas. (This seemed so important to me for some reason...)

Now! For Location!

In part 1, I used the proposed location from the 1927 admiralty map for the position of the ships in Sept 1846 and their position in May/Jun 1847 to calculate the travel speed of the ships drifting with the Pack. Which was about... 0.04 miles per day.

Considering that there is 232 days between May 24 1847 and Jan 10 1848, the ships would have drifted approx 9.3 miles SW from their summer position (Location 3 - 70.15, -98.30). and, now, I wanted to make an additional extrapolation from the known position in April 22nd but... well, you'll see that was more difficult than expected when we move on to episode 7 so... instead, we'll use that 9.3 Miles SW from May 24 1847, so, about near (70.055, -98.4).

To be noted that I tried to pinpoint Location 6 for my own litle fun because it is not that relevant. They're in the pack, that's it. Their position in April is much more interesting. Also to note, you'll see when I get to Location 7 that my proposition puts Location 6 closer to Location 3, which is counterintuitive considering that it would mean that the pack drifted much faster between Jan and April (3 months) than between June and Jan (6 months). I propose to revise Location 6 for a future edit of this fun rabbit hole. The 0.04miles a day for the pack drift may have been accelerated during the summer months (June to September), even without a full thaw. For future consideration...

Thankfully, we remain in the vicinity of Location 6 for the next event so we don't have to go through all of THAT again... :')

Date: January 16th to January 17th 1848

Nighttime - 12h 34 min

Daylight - 34 min

Twilight - 9h 52 min

Sunset: 12:01 pm- Sunrise: 11:27 am

Jacko dies of lead poisoning

Carnivale goes up in flame and we're all sad.

For the Death Count, now...

Lt. Irving gives us a count of 116 men onboard the ships

This sounds inexact... At the end of December, by my count, we had 121 men still "alive" on the expedition (22 Officers and 99 men). 8 of those are on a vacation in the Fairholme party (Not counted as dead yet). This would mean we have 113 men on Terror and Erebus.

DEATH COUNT: 7 (Total: 13)

19 Officers and 95 Men remaining

To be Noted: The 3 dead officers I counted are the doctors and since no other officers names are mentioned, I assumed that was it... We will adjust when we get to VPN.

Episode 6- Horrible from Supper

There we go, folks! This is where I began to go absolutely INSANE trying to figure out all of this... Thank God this one is easy for the dates... and wow, I'm sure there is actually a paper for all that stuff somewhere out there but... I was either too lazy to find it and this is what I will die doing instead OR it's VERY obscure and I might as well do it myself...

ONWARD TO

Location 7- The Ships in April 1848 (69.88, -98.57)

Date: April 22nd 1848

Nighttime - None

Daylight - 17h 25 min

Twilight - 6h 35 min

Sunrise: 3:52 am Sunset: 9:16 pm

Departure from Ships

And now I'm going to go absolutely rabid about the location...

I have a problem and it might have to do with my lack of understanding of how coordinates work, which renders this whole post frustrating... The thing is... the thing is. The position given by Fitzjames on his amendment of the VPN is... I don't understand it... he says they landed at 69°37'42.0"N 98°41'00.0"W (69.63, -98.68) but then proceed in saying that they left the ships 5 Leagues NNW of the Cairn (Location 4 - 69.66, -98.27).

(See the summary map for episode 6)

Oh, Jimmy FitzJimmy... That... that's not a NNW-SSE line... :') It's also not 15 miles... Did they have different Latitudes in 1845? I would need to research...

So, anyway, I will, instead try to figure out what would be the location based on the 5 league (I expect this was an approximated distance) and here is my proposition for a rough Location 7 (69.88, -98.57 or 69°52'N, 98°34'W)

For comparison purposes, the position from the VPN will be identified in yellow in the summary map.

Next Location: That would Location 8! Poor Lt Fairholmes party.

Location 8 - Fairholmes' Last Resting Place (69.72, -98.35)

Date: April 23th 1848

Nighttime - None

Daylight - 17h 30 min

Twilight - 6h 30 min

Sunrise: 3:48 am Sunset: 9:18 pm

For the date: They have not yet reached Terror Camp and it looked to be either very early in the morning or late at night. I will suppose late at night, which would make the landing at Terror Camp to be made the next day. If Fitzjames and Crozier went to deposit the VPN the same day they arrived at TC, then this would make it April 24th.

For the Location: They mention that Fairholmes made 18 miles from the position the ships were at in June 1847 (Location 3 - 70.15, -98.30) and they had to find themselves in the path of Crozier and Co, close to the coast. Now, 18 miles... they certainly did not make the calculation on top of their head. From Part 1, we know that Gore had to travel 33.5 miles to get from the Ships in Location 3 to the Cairn in Location 4. 18 miles would have been a little bit over half-way there. In next image, I traced the path from Location 3 to Location 4 and Location 7 to Location 4 and you'll see why this is confusing:

Half-way from Location 3 to Location 4 would have been nowhere near to where Crozier and Co could have found Fairholmes. Maybe it wasn't as much as a straight line as I made it to be here or maybe Mr. Fitzjames is still confused about distances and Lat. Long position... Maybe I've been wrong this WHOLE TIME and they're counting in Nautical Miles and I'm about to throw my whole being out of the window.

Anyway, in order to preserve my Sanity, I will mark Location 8 at a very subjective position based on the flow of the episode rather than the information they gave... Now you understand why I became feral about this. Location 8 (69.72, -98.35) and that would be 30 miles from where the Ships were in June 1847...

Location 9 - Terror Camp (69.644, -98.24)

Date: April 24th 1848

Nighttime - None

Daylight - 17h 40 min

Twilight - 6h 20 min

Sunrise: 3:42 am Sunset: 9:23 pm

Date is given by the VPN - They arrive the day before going to Victory Point. Morfin dies.

For the Location, I would like to go back to our dear friend the 1927 Admiralty Map which identify where McClintock found the grave of Lt. J. Irving, a Camp and Many Relics. It is just slightly South East of Victory Point. Now, in the show, when Crozier and Fitzjames held hand, the first thing they saw was the Camp, vs when Gore climbed the ridge, he saw the Cairn.

Either the show moved the camp a little bit closer to the shore or they "landed" at a southerner position than Gore did. Either way, I feel that for a couple miles between the two points, we can go with the historical marker. Also, for my sanity. I will therefore arbitrarily put Location 9 at 69.644, -98.24, about 2 miles from the Cairn and I feel that this is a good location for it.

Last Location for Horrible from Supper (dear Lord)

Location 10 - Netsilik Massacre (69.62, -98.05)

Date: April 25th 1848

Nighttime - None

Daylight - 17h 50 min

Twilight - 6h 10 min

Sunrise: 3:37 am Sunset: 9:28 pm

Date: Same as the VPN (from Episode 8)

Location: Irving was assigned to go East by Lt. Little. Therefore, we'll sorta assume that it was a due East.

Now, when they split from Hodgson, Irving mentions that they are an hour before they are due before they are to return to Terror. Assuming that they would be on a hunting trip of 6 hours (this seems long but probably necessary considering they are starting to grow desperate for fresh supplies), this would make their split at the 2h mark and Irving went South. Assuming they may have walked another 15 minutes (they were due to turn back to where they split in 30 min), then we're up to 2h 15min away from camp.

They did not seem to be walking in any kind of fast pace, that they might have stopped on the way and that they are on an uneven ground and tired from hauling their sledge to TC, I will assume a steady pace of 2.5 miles per hour. This would put them a generous 5.6 miles away from TC. (To be checked with Hickey story next episode) and therefore, Location 9 is (69.62, -98.05)

And with this, we are DONE for episode 7!

DISTANCES AND TRAVEL:

Loc 7 to Loc 8

Travel time - 2 complete days (arrival eod)

Travel Distance: 10.6 NM / 12 miles / 20 km

Average Travel Speed - 6 miles a day

Travel Condition - Hauling Sledges and following a track - Pack is now littered with Seracs. This must have been gruesome - Comparable speed to Gore's Party.

Loc 8 to Loc 9

Travel time - 1 day

Travel Distance: 5.1 NM / 6 miles / 9.5 km

Average Travel Speed - 6 miles a day

Travel Condition - Hauling Sledges and following a track - High Ridge - Half distance on shale

Loc 9 to Loc 10

Travel Time - 2hours 15min

Travel Distance: 5.6 miles

Average Travel Speed - 2.5mph

Travel Condition: On foot, no heavy load, hunting - Not a straight line.

DEATH COUNT: 1 (Morfin) + 8 (Fairholmes) + 2 (Irving/Farr) (Total: 26)

14 Officers and 89 Men remaining

7 Men remaining on Ships

14 Officers and 82 men in Terror Camp

Episode 8 - Terror Camp Clear

Buckle up Buttercups, the horrors are coming...

So, first, let's do with the date. The next few movements are all the same date:

Date: April 25th 1848

Nighttime - None

Daylight - 17h 50 min

Twilight - 6h 10 min

Sunrise: 3:37 am Sunset: 9:28 pm

What I want to figure out is the hour by hour of that day ahah

Location 4 -The Cairn (69.66, -98.27)

Crozier and Fitzjames deposit the famous VPN.

Now, I could go on an on about how confusing the VPN was for me but I'll leave it at that... I would like to make the exercise of counting the dead men tho :)

Officers - 9

Franklin, Gore, Dr. Stanley, Dr. McDonald, Dr. Peddie, Fairholme, Hornby, 1 unnamed (Fairholme party or Carnivale)

Men - 15

Braine, Hartnell, Darlington, Morfin, Orren, Young, Torrington, Strong, Evans, Heather, Bryant, + 4 (Fairholme party or Carnivale)

So, as a note, that would not work because we have 7 deaths from the Carnival (4 named) and 8 from Fairholme (1 named) and I have only 5 unnamed left to make the VPN 24. *sigh*

MOVING ON

Location 9 - Terror Camp (69.644, -98.24)

And then back to

Location 10 - Netsilik Massacre (69.62, -98.05)

And THEN Back to

Location 9 - Terror Camp (69.644, -98.24)

So let's see how much walking Crozier has made today from the beginning of the episodes: 11 miles!

1.3 miles from Cairn to TC

4.9 miles from TC to Location 10 (Bird's reach)

Now we know that the average man walks 3mph

Crozier would have spent maybe 45 minutes to walk back from the cairn with Fitzjames (making brotherhood and stuff)

And then he would have to pace himself for Blanky to follow to Location 10, so, perhaps 2mph. - 2h 30 min to make it to Location 10.

In total, Crozier would have walked at least 6h that day and 12.5 miles

If the hunting parties were sent out from 6 am, that would mean that Irving and Farr would have been murdered around 8h30. He needed time to do his business, maybe 10 minutes (what are the Netsilik doing in the meantime?) By the time that Hickey runs back and forth to get Hodgson, who had gone in another direction, we can assume another 30 min, it is now 9:10 am when the Netsilik are massacred. To go back to camp, I assume they would have walked at fast pace, dragging Irving and Farr on their sledge, they could have made it back in 1h 30min. It is now 10h40.

It looks like Fitzjames and Crozier went back as Hodgson was entering the camp again, or just about. so they would have left the Cairn at 10 am and they would have left the Camp for the Cairn maybe around 8 am.

SO!

Let's say there's a bit of shouting, going around, getting Irving on Goodsir's table... they leave to go BACK to Location 10 around 11 am and they reach it around 2:30 pm, make their 10 min investigation and then make their way back starting at 2:40 pm.

They are back just in time for supper around 5:20 pm.

Yep, they could have done all of that in one day. Which is EXACTLY what I wanted to check. What a trek...

Anyway, I think Hickey was scheduled to be hanged around 8pm. Good time to die.

DEATH COUNT: 32 + Pocock + 9 (unknown) (Total: 68)

61 Total remaining

7 Men remaining on Ships

40 with Crozier

11 Mutineers and 3 Reluctant (Hodgson, Goodsir, Diggle) (counted on the screen... and Golding who is going back and forth)

And now, before we go on to Episode 9, let's do an Interlude for how we're going to proceed moving forward:

How We Move Forward

Ok, here is what this section about:

So far, I've been using clues from the show and known historical facts to know where the Cold Boys were, how they got there and who was still around.

Now we enter absolute speculation.

on the subject of LOCATION

Yes, we have a fine map (thank you 1927 Admiralty Map) that let us know where all of the Franklin Artefacts had been found over the course of 75 years but y'all will soon understand when I say that this is where the show accuracy ends.

For one, the most recognizable spot for me is McClintock's Boat Place. And Welp! Maybe one could argue that it is where Hickey attempted his little fake ritual in Episode 10. To which I will answer: ah... probably not? But that is the ONLY scene that could make sense for McC's BP...

Then we have the two famous graves: Le VesconteOrHarry Goodsir and the Peglar Skeleton/Bridgens and we have to ask ourselves, how accurate did the showrunner /author wanted to be about the specific placement of these deaths... After all, a wasteland of shale is a wasteland of shale.

In anyway, I will go over each of the Locations from the 1927 map to try and match a potential scene.

On the subject of TIME:

Now, we no longer have the luxury of dates so we will need to rely on everything else to let us know of the passage of time.

Sunrise/Sunsets - Which will help us identify the overall months

Grooming - These men get beardy.

Health - Declination and recoveries

Travel speed - If locations are known, we can match the date if we suppose a travel speed.

On the subject of SURVIVORS:

I will not keep up with the count. We know they all died and the show did not actually keep track of them. There seem to be as many that left Terror Camp as there are when Peglar collapses. I was mostly interested in doing for episode 8 because I wanted to keep tab on how many left with Hickey, etc but it was just hell to manage for this part.

On the subject of GROUPS:

Now we have 2 groups, the Mutineers and the Frankliners (Crozier and Co). I assumed that Hickey was mostly following the Frankliners at a distance of 4-6 miles behind.

Now, we enter Hell.

Episode 9- The C, The C, The Open C

The episode opens on a known Location and date (thank God), Location

Location 9 - Terror Camp (69.644, -98.24)

Date: April 26th 1848

Nighttime - None

Daylight - 18h 01 min

Twilight - 5h 59 min

Sunrise: 3:32 am Sunset: 9:33 pm

They burn their dead.

I assumed this would be the next day because they're still gathering their deads. - Kinda brutal to ask them to walk the day after the attack.

40 Frankliners

14 Mutineers

Location 11/12 - Hodgson is Found

Mutineers Location (11): (69.56, -98.06)

Frankliners Location (12): (69.54, -98.14)

Date: April 27th 1848

Nighttime - None

Daylight - 18h 01 min

Twilight - 5h 59 min

Sunrise: 3:32 am Sunset: 9:33 pm

This one is the first difficulty because we need to match a time, an intention and a speed.

First, I would like to propose that this is either the 26th again or the 27th and I will argue for the 27th.

We find Hodgson as he is so famished that he eats his own boot. We can suspect that he would, indeed, be very hungry after having ran through the night from the Tuunbaq. But he would have had supper the night before AND having been on three quarter rations since January. I, of course, have never been hungry enough to resort to eating my shoes but I imagine that if I was in Hodgson situation, I would keep the edible boots for as long as I can. Would he be hungry enough to start eating leather on the morrow of the attack, or more likely 2 days later?

Also, the frost bite on his cheeks suggest he's been outside for at least night.

Hickey and Co have been pulling their sledge, probably for the first couple of hours after Tuunbaq's attack. The difficulty here is to determine how long they would have gone without stopping and how far they would have walked. We've established previously that a sledge party would make, at good pace, 5 miles per day, assuming 4-6 hours of pulling with relays of the men, therefore, we could convene that 1.3 mph could be an acceptable speed for them who are fleeing from Tuunbaq with at least 1 reluctant puller (Goodsir) and 1 confused (Diggle)

We've also established that men on foot without sledges can go from twice to three times that speed. And I suspect that when Fitzjames declared 23 unknown, they actually scouted around the camp to find those men. If scouts were sent in the morning while they were gathering the dead, then they could have made a 2-3 miles search radius. If I was Hickey, I would have pushed for at least 3 hours that night to avoid detection (if we say that Hickey was scheduled to be hanged around 8pm, then they stopped at 11pm). So! in the night of the 25th, they are, at least 3 miles out of the camp.

Now that they are out of camp, they need to do 2 things: 1) Rest. They would not have been able to pick up the pace right back first thing in the morning. 2) Put more distance between themselves and the Frankliners. I suspect that they would have made only 4hours of pulling on the 26th, bringing us just about a whooping 7.8 miles out of Terror Camp.

Finally, it is impossible to detect what time of the day it is when they find Hodgson but looking at the tired look of the crew, maybe an hour in? That would be another 1 miles. So let's average that they found Hodgson after running 9 miles out of Terror Camp

Now that we have a radius, let's talk about direction...

I think it is fair to say that Hickey would have followed the same route as Crozier, seeing that he specifically asked Gibson to take a map. But Crozier was going to follow the coast in case they saw leads. Would Hickey do the same?

3 more things to consider:

1. They left in the fog, without much visual clues to orient themselves. 2. They took the map but Hickey was hoping to get Hodgson on board for his navigational skills (or maybe that was BS, who knows).

3. Mid Episode 9, Tozer reports that the Frankliners are 6 miles AHEAD of them, even though Hickey left first. We'll revisit that later...

Now, on the subject of the third point, it is very possible that Hickey would have rested more often... I just think it's funnier to suggest that he spent the night going in the wrong direction and then just circled back to follow the Frankliners... They realised it when they sent Golding back to Crozier for spying.

So here's the 25th to 27th route I propose for Mr. Hickey:

Mr. Hodgson would have had wandered approx 5 miles SE of Terror Camp. (69.56, -98.06)

As for Crozier, well, I suggest they took this route starting on the 26th, making 5 miles per day and this is where they would be when Hodgson was found (69.54, -98.14), putting them 3 miles away from each group:

Now!

The next scene is where it starts getting hazy and we need to get imaginative in how we account for time past.

In the next scene, we se ethe frankliners are struggling to pull their sledges. Blanky is limping badly and, then, Mr. Fitzjames collapses, complaining about the Heat.

Location 13 - Fitzjames Collapses (68.94, -98.79)

Date: June 10th 1848

Nighttime - None

Daylight - 24h

Twilight - None

Sunrise: N/A Sunset: N/A

About the DATE:

Time indicator to consider:

The health of the crewman JFJ is sharing his boat with:

When we left Terror Camp, the sick tent was empty, except for Pocock. While the men where most likely not at the top of the health when they departed, no one was on the verge of dying. Looking at the crewman, he is not only sick, he is emaciated. A quick google search tells us that sickness can make one lose up to 5 pounds a week. Perhaps in, their condition, one could thinkthat the rate could be a bit higher, say... 6 lb? From the crew for which we have the information, we deduce that they were, on average, 5' 6'' so we can use that as a reference to suppose the weight of that sailor. If we assume a BMI borderline to underweight when leaving Terror Camp, we would have weight, maybe... 120 pounds?

Now, severely underweight would put him at 95 pounds, which would be a drop of 20 pounds. Assuming 6 lb, that would be a guesstimate of 3 weeks and a half for him to deteriorate... let's give them a chance and say a month and a half since Terror Camp.

I think that's reasonable... JFJ didn't look great after the Tuunbaq attack but that shirtless scene proved that he was still quite fit.

About the Travel Speed:

See after Location 19

About the Location:

See after Location 19

Location 14 - Gibson's death (68.860, -98.73)

Date: June 27th 1848

Nighttime - None

Daylight - 24h

Twilight - None

Sunrise: N/A Sunset: N/A

About the DATE:

Time indicator: Facial hair. Courtesy of not having much shaving available, the Mutineers are looking quite rugged. Let's discuss the hairiest: Mr. Goodsir and Lt. Hodgson.

Hodgson starts his time with the Mutineers with a 2 day shadows between his muttonchops. Same for Mr. Goodsir.

See Below the Before/After

And now, huh... wow... that changes a man... I'd say this is looks to be about.. errr... medium beard? According to menhairstylestoday.com, this would take 1 to 2 months to grow at a rate of half an inch a month. Yeah, I can believe these are 2 month old beards. So, there!

Location? Speed travel? Well, I'll stop you right there.. I don't know yet.

Location 15 - Fitzjames' Death (68.78, -98.21)

Date: July 28th 1848

Nighttime - None

Daylight - 20h 50 min

Twilight - 3h 10 min

Sunrise: 2:11 am Sunset: 11:01 am

Time Indicator: More Hair. For this one, I will trust the hair because I somehow think the Frankliners would have kept themselves more groomed than the Mutineers.

Taking the angle into account, this is, what... 1.5inch? 2 inch?

Hair can grow at about 0.5 in a month. So, 3 months since Terror Camp.

Time Indicator: Crews' health: It is very evident that they're all getting thinner, sicker but Fitzjames and (most surprisingly) his boat mate are still alive! Considering the risk of infection and the progression of scurvy... it can't have been more than a couple of weeks since Fitzjame's collapse but, not, like, the next day? Can a doctor please stand up for this?

Time Indicator: The amount of food left.

No. I will NOT go there. There's enough math being done wtf...

Location 16 - The NorWest Passage (68.7, -98.06)

Date: July 28th 1848

Nighttime - None

Daylight - 20h 46 min

Twilight - 3h 14 min

Sunrise: 2:13 am Sunset: 10:58 am

Finally, finally! We have it! A Date, AND a location! :D Thank you Mr. Blanky!

So, this is the day after JFJ's death, June 28th.

On Blanky's map, we can read known locations: McGillivray Bay, Pt. W. Smith... Congratulations Mr. Blanky :') You are a true hero.

Supposing he can see McGillivray Bay from where he sits, he would find the Passage at Location 16 (68.7, -98.06)

And wow... does that make me feel like finding my own NW Passage, being able to reconnect all those lost locations from before :')

Back to location 15! Blanky would probably not have walked all that much, given he was in pain and only wanted to draw Tuunbaq to him and toward the Ice. I'd be generous and give him a good 5 miles before he had to sat down. From what Lt. Little reported before they had to stop for Fitzjames, the ice was to the west so we'll assume Mr Blanky walked south west while the party proceeded south east. This would put Location 15 at (68.78, -98.21)

Location 17 - Hospital Camp (68.68, -97.74)

Date: August 3rd

Nighttime - None

Daylight - 19h 33 min

Twilight - 4h 27 min

Sunrise: 2:48 am Sunset: 10:21 pm

Peglar collapses

See Location 17 reasoning for date of the camp

As for Position, well, we're just going to be a little off out of

Location 17 - Bridgens (68.70, -97.95)

Date: August 10th

Nighttime - None

Daylight - 18h21

Twilight - 5h 39 min

Sunrise: 3:23 am Sunset: 9:45 pm

Basically, we all agree that Bridgens is the Peglar Skeleton. Thank god I know where that is! Now, it is interesting that there was a paper published in 2022 about the real location of the Peglar Skeleton (assuming McClintock took his lat and long wrong) but since we are dealing with a 2018 show, we'll go with McClintock's account.(68.70, -97.95)

Sweet, now, about the TIMING

Considering where Location 15 put us, we were quite near the point of collapse for Peglar. I think we could give them a two more days of pulling before it's poor Henry Peglar's turn. No other reason than having previously established that there is a MUCH slower pace now (News is courtesy of Lt. Little) and they left Fitzjames' grave roughly 10 miles from Bridgens' last sighting . I propose the timeline to be thus: Peglar collapse on August 3rd and dies on August 10th. He didn't look like he had wasted away very long. Bridgens immediately leave the party, travel a couple of miles and lay down to die. Has he is seen going in the direction Golding came from (the Mutineer's camp, North), I assume that the Hospital camp is now further south than where the Peglar Skeleton was found.

Loocation 18 - It's Rat Meal Time (68.73, -97.99)

Date: August 3rd

Nighttime - None

Daylight - 19h 33 min

Twilight - 4h 27 min

Sunrise: 2:48 am Sunset: 10:21 pm

About the TIMING:

I suspect Hickey made Goodsir cut Billy the same day they pitched their tent, just to assure his dominance while so close to the Frankliners (6 miles out).

Cripse.... that would have been a 1 month old dead body to eat...

This gives us a location: (68.73, -97.99)

Now, the problem I am having is this... Night falls when Hodgson come to tell his little church story... There will be no dark sky until Mid to late August... so I am mostly going to believe that was only twilight.

Location 19 - Crozier Ambushed (68.67, -97.84)

Date: August 10th

Nighttime - None

Daylight - 18h21

Twilight - 5h 39 min

Sunrise: 3:23 am Sunset: 9:45 pm

About the TIMING:

Bridgens lays down to die the day Crozier is taken. I don't think he moved from there.

About the Location: Close to Hospital camp, by the shore.

NOW HERE'S A THING TO MAKE YOU CONFUSED:

Sophia Cracroft found snow in London in August 1848?

Blanky was still waiting for the Tuunbaq after they pitched tents for Hospital camp?

I think these two scenes are just out of order and for dramatic effect: Basically pitching the fate of Crozier failing to save anyone.

SO! Now that we know where 99 days of walking (April 27th (Location 12) to August 3rd (Location 16 - Hospital camp)), we can average the pace of the walk.

First, let's establish some distances:

About 100 miles, then! I would like to propose the following pace, to take account for the time passed and how tired the men would become. So this would be a decreasing pace and accounting for camping time due to weather (there should still be monstrous hail and blizzard until June), etc.

15 miles first miles at 3mph = 5 days

2 day of rest - 3 days of bad weather

20 miles at 2mph = 10 days

2 day of rest + 2 days of bad weather

25 miles at 1.5 mph = 20 days

3 days of rest + 3 days of bad weather

40 miles at 1mph = 40 days

3 days of bad weather + 6 days of rest

This would put Location 13 - Fitzjames Collapses 60 miles out of Location 12 (45 days travel time) around (68.94, -98.79), right next to Terror Bay :')

I'm also very happy that this would actually match the position of a camp and 2 graves from Halls and Schwatka's expedition! Sometimes I feel like I'm a genius but right now, I swear I'm just holding on for dear life...

and, if we assume that Hickey kept the pace with the Frankliners, this would put

Location 14 - Gibson's death 70 miles out of Location 11 (60 days travel time) around (68.860, -98.73)

Here's the summary Map for Ep 9:

Conclusion: Episode 9 was a mess and this is 12 hours of work...

Part 3 will be for Episode 10.

#the terror #the terror AMC #Reference #Cold Boys adjacent #Analysis #LONG POST #What am I doing #Hope it may help someone else...#how else should I tag this?#Not gonna lie. I mostly lost it when I was halfway through this post and had placed Fitzjames death in mid july only to realise that...#omg the tent is dark... the tent is dark because the sun has set... the sun doesn't set until AUGUST #and so I had to review my whole thing...#It's a lot of #rambling

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minalblood · 4 months

Text

I'm back and I'm so sorry! I won't make any promises for the last 2 ep of the Winchesters, but I will be reviewing/rewatching them anyways just ... who knows when, I dont!

But let's get started on You've got a Friend 1x11.

I hopefully will be a bit less rambly since O have a draft of my thoughts already written for this and its less... as Im watching (i can post that too if yall wanna but dunno if ull understand my handwriting)

We begin where we left off and I love that we have this scene of them needing to clean up, adds realism, adds dimension to the world. Love also that we begin with Lata being the Lata we all love - dejected in this case about her chimera paw was ruined. Queue Carlos with the teasing. The 2 of em banter a bit before Mary redirects us all to the matter at hand.

And Mary has come a long way in these episodes, because she may not join the banter (still closed off somewhat as opposed to Carlos and Lata's easy repartee) but she is going off of it and adding them into her area of interest.

But all stops when John come in blood soaked and in shock - Mary instantly worried he might be hurt, but nope, not this time.

I am so happy to see them portray the actual shock and numbness John is feeling, then the guilt and sadness, just all the reaction to Kyle's death really. And considering the survivor's guilt John is lugging around, it makes it even more heartbreaking. I also love seeing that Mary is the level headed one here - she,.imo, is clearly pushing down the grief to focus on John's issues here, hell we see very little of her grieving in this episode and everytime we do, she's quick to redirect that feeling into action - sometimes into violence point blank. She does it here, asking what the Akrida could want, she does it even moreso with Millie, where she does open up a bit since Millie is offering comfort, but then it turns into Millie coming with a plan which directly leads to Mary wanting to storm the police station guns blazing and the ep ends with Mary and John discussing Kyle (also god Mary looks absolutely exhausted here, fuck) but Mary derails it by saying they need to find Dean instead. She's def not allowing herself the moment to deal with Kyle's death which may prove relevant when discussing next episode.

I'd forgotten this ep was the Lata episode. Like ep 8 was Carlos', this one is Lata's. And god does it hurt.

1st, move the feather boa, Carlos!

2nd, I do genuinely believe Lata and Maggie were together. Everything in this episode points that way to me (but especialy the sweetpea nickname) We'll round back to this though.

The other thing we note in the sequence in Maggie's room is how close Carlos and Lata are to each other. Which we knew, but I always love seeing it again in action.

Before we continue with the emotional core of this ep, we have to get back to plot with Betty! I love Betty..I also can't blame her for being ....hesitant to say the least. Like imagine what she's seen so far: the guy who, before leaving to the marines illegally, proposed to her, is suddently interacting with, apparently, imfamous Mary Campbell, who is seen at several murder/investigation scenes suddenly appears ro have killed someone? And she already knows John had anger issues before hand. Like i get her here. And still shes trying to be nice while doing her job.

Which leads me to the next part, her job. So the detective... he's wording (even with him being really Akrida) echoes a lot of corrupt cop rethoric which only gets further emphasized when he later threatens to have John... killed 'accidently'. And, on top of them, speaking pf policw corruption even a 'good cop' like Betty becomes complicit simply because of the power the Akrida gained via the detective role cuz she was unwittingly helping them throughout.

But god, was John a bit too cocky here. (My notes have this marked as "this is why you let villains monologue, John!"). Especially since he actually doesn't have any info on Dean. (Love that we see the pic of Dean, missed him) l.

Meanwhile Lata and Carlos have found the bracelet and it's fucked them over. Also, I fucking hate the shadows thing, very creepy. Also also it reminds me of the daeva that Meg uses in s1 of SPN. I'm also reminded of SPN with the story the detective tells John about how they'll get rid of him - SPN's own crooked cop ep featured exactly this sorta plan too, but in killing Dean.

Really though, the main thing I found interesting upon rewatch is just how much Lata is our Dean mirror in this one. Specifically, in getting targeted by the bracelet she's forced to relive a trauma (Sania's death) via Carlos acting as substitute, only this time she succeeds where prior she thought she failed (which lemme make clear, no, Lata was at no point and in no way at fault, but she did internalize that guilt - much like Dean tends to internalize guilt) . Which Dean, much like Lata ends up doing when getting involved with this universe, ends up reliving a trauma (his parents death - Mary especially) of something he failed, in his mind, to prevent/save via rescuing this universe's Mary. And much like Lata, who can't undo what happened to Sania, but can "begin to make it better" (the Hey Jude line just hit me so I had to use it), so too can Dean. It won't change what happened in his life, wont save his mom, but it will help him heal nonetheless.

Adding to this Maggie? Who opperates as a Cas parallel here - she was Lata's person, who shared everything with Lata but Lata couldn't in turn for fear of judgement/shame, who notably is dead and thus Lata can't ever reveal her secret to. Well, it hurts is what it does.

But watching this I noticed another interesting thing though, for all that the bracelet seems to work like Osiris (pulling on the guilt the person feels is most agregious), the bracelet actually seems to want the wearer to get out. Carlos is taken just as Lata begins wondering which secret it's trying to make her face and is sent to Sania's room - direct answer. Then later,.even more blatant, using Maggie's face, tries to get Lata to disclose the secret, but Lata talks around it instead til the creature takes her too.

It seems like Erebus had a test for his warriors, one he wanted them to win.

Throughout all of Lata's story, I was seething. I truly hate her family and Carlos was 100% saying exactly what I was thinking.

Another thing I appreciated though, about Carlos, is the emotional maturity. Yes they were dying and yes it was urgent that Lata disclose her secret but Carlos made certain to reassure her throughout. Tried to give her as much space as possible.

In other thoughts, Lata's mom making that "vs family" distinction, uuuh it rattled sth in me only to them have Lata say "my parents would never look at m the same way"? In the Dean Winchester show? God, the echoes of John's shitty parenting were deafening. Bur yes to eveything Carlos said. It truly wasnt Lata's fault.

And I adore also the ending conversation between Lata and Carlos (both wearing blue and god I want Carlos' coat) because yes, this kind of stuff shouldn't be forced out on anither persons whim. Lata doesn't have to tell John and Mary anything, it is her story to tell, but also yes, Carlos is right to reassure her that if she wants to share it with them, they'll likely react well like he did. And yes the reason this particular scene hit so hard is partially personal, but because of that it drove me insane in SPN where there was a tendency for people to push other to open up at their own whim (and yes, Sam did it often to mutiple people, hounding them until they cracked and spilled whatever trauma they were trying to deal with but then have nothing to give in return, no comfort or even really reaction, and yes he most of all did it to Dean a lot and it did puss me off) So yea, love this episode for the Lata and Carlos of it all!

Also I have a few questions, when Millie was trying to convince Betty about the supernatural, at one point she said "it's not like-" and cut off. She was trying to defend against the accusation of 'playing make believe). Also, Betty says sth like "Mary, I expected.this from" with relation once more to her not believing in monsters soooo.... has Mary ever been taken in under suspicion of being delusional? Was Millie? Or John?! I've questions ok i need y'alls opinions on this one.

Also, I would've soo cracked if the Akrida asked about Dean, cuz I def miss him a lot and id fucking gush about him at that point.

Anyways, that's it for this one. See you guys next time where we'll be clowning (have I mentioned I hate clowns?)

@noybusiness thanks for push earlier this month, i needed that a lot and thanks for the support for this rewatch ❤

@shallowseeker thanks the new posts, been inspiring me to get back to writing this ❤

#spnwin #spnwin rewatch #spnwin 1x11 #also yea it wasnt much shorter than my usual #which is a problem since it fucking 3.30am here and ive work tomorrow #oh well #it was fun tho

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ghost-tripitaka-au · 4 months

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Hiiii

Welcome to the Blog!

When Mysterious circumstances arise, Tripitaka is somehow a ghost haunting Tang for reasons unknown.

Now Tang has to continue the journey with a ghost nagging at the side of his shoulder.

“Tang don’t write that.”

“What? It’s true!”

———————————————————————————

Rules:

No Toxicity

No NSFW

No Homophobia (Unless it’s story-wise)

No Bashing on Tripitaka please, I know some of ya’ll hate him but please don’t go too far.

Be nice!

Have fun!

Do not blame me if he’s inaccurate.

———————————————————————————-

Characters to ask in Arc 1

Tang

Tripitaka

———————————————————————————

This is inspired by @countinglegoclowns AU as well.

It just has its own plot-

Arc 1: The journey begins long before the pilots! Drama, adventure and excitement awaits in these new cast of characters.

Arc 2: The pilots start to form! But what’s this? a change in the timeline? Oh who knew?

Arc 3: DBK strikes again, this time his plan to overtake Megapolis is a success, without a Monkie Kid or his team of heroes, who shall tip the scales of balance now?

Arc 4: It’s the election for Megapolis’ mayor and the Monkie Kids have decided to strike! Will they succeed, will they fail? I dunno, something’s gonna happen.

Arc 5: While finding Rin, DBK heads for Flower Fruit Mountain to consult Wukong unaware of the horrors beyond.

Arc 6: You want a summary? Basically Season 3 Ep 1-2 but with SHIT ton of more lore.

Arc 7: The gang try to find a way to get the Samadhi Fire while Mathias is experiencing some HECTIC side effects from the mask.

Arc 8: The Amnesia episode to the Lantern,to the ritual, basically nearly half of Season 3, were close to Season 4 and nearing my favorite arc that I’ve been planning for a while. So buckle up people.

Arc 9: Looks like Season 3 has ended, what awaits us next folks? Also remember that the next arc is supposed to start with Tang, can’t call it ‘Ghost Tripitaka AU’ when Tang and Tripitaka ain’t there.

Arc 10: The gang get a side quest to save Mathias. Meanwhile Tang gets stuck somewhere…Deja Vu to the max.

Arc 11 part 1: Tang gets trapped in the multiverse…what’s this, *Gasp* a @mentality-of-wukong-au reference?!

Arc 11 part 2: Still trapped, but something happens that changes the course of history.

Arc 11 part 3: You know what this is getting old. (Be nice Tang)

Arc 11 part 4: At this point I might as well be Tripitaka waiting for my rescue. (At least I was quiet about it) Oh HAHAHAH, shut up.

Arc 11 part 5: The end of this universe. Wonder what awaits us in the next…what you thought it was like Mow and we’d only go through one universe? Yeah no fuck that.

Arc 12 part 1: In a new universe where the Traffic Light Trio have become the new dictators of society.

Arc 12 part 2: The past is shown about the circumstances of the Bull Family.

Arc 12 part 3: Wukong’s finally here and oop-! Looks like some drama going on here

Arc 12 part 4:Err looks like Director and Assistant got bored…welp! Unto the next world! Jesus, it’s hard to be the Head of Entertainment! Look at me Shiny! Inferior to the Clone known as Mow! Yet I’m over here making movies for the Old married Couple that could otherwise be our mothers…well technically they adopted the Blue one…I think…? Er, anyways, next arc I suppose.

Arc 13 part 1: Into the Fnafverse we go in a colorful cast of horror and fun!

Arc 13 part 2: Hey! More fnaf! And more fun!

Arc 13 part 3: <̷̼̫̝̙̯̈́̈́̀̑̔͆͑̅̌̈́̚͝͝͝͝��̟̲͈̬̜Ă̵͙͚̎̓̐́̋̓n̷̪̈́͒͝ ̸̙̱͔̗̟̯͇̹̖̭̭̺̫͒ͅȄ̴̦̗͔̰̠̱͚̝͍̲̙͔̽̄̉̃̈́̉̅̂̐̊̕͝͠ͅr̸͇̙̔͂̃r̴̡̛̗̘͉͕̜̫͈͔̀̌͑̑̋̓͒̾̈́̉̊̾̚͝ͅo̵̜̱̳̦̮͚̥̳͉͚̠̬̎r̸̙͓̞̠̂͗̇̅͋̈́̄͐̂́̌̕͘͝ ̷̧͎̬̖̭͔̇̑̾̀̆̆ͅh̸̨̦̘̦͔͓̬̳̥̿̃̑̈́̔͂̌̕ͅa̶̮̠̎͜͝s̷̨̼̮͖̗̞͓̦̟̳̆̐̿̀̿͘̚ ̵̛̗̣̳̘͔͎̐̏̀̑́̍͐͊͝ͅȎ̴̡̮̱̗̺̣͉̏̽̽̄ĉ̷̨͓͍̘̤͓̪͚͚̦͎̟̒̑̀̃̿͊̄͛͜͜͠c̴̡̧̛͎̪͇̻͓̣͇̼͔̼͑͝ų̷̤̪̹̖̑̔r̸̡̡̩̲̺̺̪̼͉͈̺͐ͅŗ̴͉̼͈́̚ę̶̳̭̙͈̱͍̃̈́̏͆͊̀͗͑̈́͋̍̒͛̄͘d̶̛͖͕͗̍͊̎͂͊̃̽̾̾͒͗>̶̦̫͕̾̏͆͋̀͛͆̊̋̈̊̔̾͝

Arc 14: [Error: Program Overriden]

#lego monkie kid #lmk tang #lmk tripitaka #pinned post

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velvetshirtnumber3 · 7 months

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I want to discuss the beginning of ep 8 teaser, where Ray and Sand are having a conversation. Ray says words to the effect of, "I still want to be friends" and Sand says words to the effect, "We were never friends; you are going to do to Mew what you did to me."

First (no pun intended) of all, Sand is doing what he has already done multiple times in this series: attempting to safeguard his feelings. Sand started off this friendship of sorts with him saying in the confessional essentially that Ray and him sleeping together and being friends had potential to go wrong. Unfortunately for him, he is proved right and starts having feelings for Ray. But he does still hold out a sense of hope that maybe Ray will feel the same way. It isn't a large hope (at least initially), since Sand seems like a person who keeps himself grounded in reality. After all, he is one of the characters who seems to face the problems of reality on a daily basis, having multiple jobs, and not having a lot of money (whereas the rest of them seem more financially secure). But I feel like Sand wouldn't view the idea of Ray having feelings for him as realistic.

Then Ray spends that day going everywhere with him, which is essentially an example of what it could be like being in a relationship with him could be like. They eat breakfast together, go shopping, go to a concert, and are having a really good time together. We see ourselves that Sand says to his mother that him and Ray aren't a thing, but maybe they could be. The events of the episode build hope that maybe Ray and him could be together. And then Boston happens.

He reveals that Ray has feelings for Mew and has had them for years. And just like his hope is broken by reality. Ray has feelings for someone else, including during the whole time Ray and Sand have been hanging out, proving to Sand that anything that made him feel like Ray liked him back was a false hint. So he tries to protect his own feelings by distancing himself from Ray, starting with when Ray tells Sand to ask him any questions. Sand should have taken him up on that, but he doesn't. Ray didn't deny his feelings for Mew when Boston brought it up, so it appears that its true. What else could Ray say about it that would make Sand feel any better? The worst has already been said, so there is no point is asking any more questions. Sand says it isn't his business, meaning he isn't important enough in Ray's life for Ray to need to share his feelings OR Ray's feelings for Mew doesn't overlap with Ray and Sand sleeping together, because at the beginning Ray and Sand has said they would be just friends, so feelings aren't supposed to enter the equation. Either way, emotional distance.

Followed by physical distance: Ray says that Sand has been ignoring messages and asks if he is mad about the whole situation with Mew (which Sand once again replies with that it is none of his business). Sand only is there to tell Ray about the sex tape, and he knows what path telling him will lead to. Ray does the whole revelation at the bar, and Sand realizes that it has gone farther than intended. He tries to stop Ray from driving, then follows him when it doesn't work. He takes care of Ray while he recovers from the car accident (and apologizes for telling Ray about the sex tape, to which Ray says he doesn't need to) and I feel like they fall back into their old dynamic again. Ray brings back the pleases, Sand caves to him, they tease each other a little. The next thing Sand sees regarding Ray is Ray and Mew dancing together, very clearly in a romantic way. His expression is disappointed, definitely, but I think to him it is just further proof that Ray doesn't like him romantically and he should give up on hope, now that Ray has the person he's always wanted. So when in the preview Ray asks if they can be friends, Sand says that they never were friends, shutting Ray down because once again, Sand wants to spare his own feelings. Continuing to be friends, when he would continuous see the person he loves with someone else, would hurt a lot and he is unwilling to do that to himself.

Honestly I think Sand's statements in the preview have a little bitterness to them. I think Sand feels a little used because as I said above, with Sand taking care of Ray after the accident, they fell back into their previous dynamic, maybe Sand thought things were going better again, and now he sees him with Mew. Sand doesn't regret taking care of Ray because he cares about Ray, but I think it definitely stings that Ray ran to Mew afterwards, when Mew did nothing for Ray regarding the accident, and didn't even run after him after the events in the bar (while Sand did and tried to stop Ray from driving).

I think Sand saying we were never friends is interesting too. There were other ways he could have worded that but he chose to say not that they aren't friends, but that they never were.

Is this because he wants to deny connection entirely (more distancing) or because he is stating that their relationship has never been that of friends (what with the kissing and such)?

I'm not sure which one I think but both are interesting.

This got too long so I made it two parts.

Part two here

#this is what happens when i am overly invested in tv shows #sand stopping say it isn't your business #only friends the series #ofts #only friends sand #only friends ray #episode 8 preview

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vyvesvi · 2 months

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saw all the ep 3 performances but not the actual ep lol.

voting list (week 3)

all of these girls are criminally low compared to how they performed imo.

first round commentary (copied from my twitter 🫶🏿)

1. team: hard

my winner(s): like 6/7 but emma jaoying & P.AMP stood out, it's a shame geumhee was hidden for her high note

this team is great but who decided the concept/outfits 😭

youtube

2. team: 7 rings

my winner(s): WANG KE (and vita)

the other girlies didn't stand a chance against wang ke this was legit brutal 😭 i do wonder if they were all comfortable with the concept though, this doesn't seem like something liliana wouldve chosen?

also rei is my girl but this performance doesn't play to her strengths at all im devastated 😭

3. team: one more last time

my winner(s): DUNA, rose

duna's experience really shone through, plus she fits this concept super well. very glad she got center. rose also did super well, i only wish she had the second main part 😭 praying this saves her

devi also did great, but i don't think this'll be enough unfortunately:/

youtube

4. team: i like you

my winner(s): zoi, TEGAN, tk

i had to think about this team bc once again, so insanely hard to pretend this is live. zoi was just good onstage, tegan has that voice, and tk surprised me. they clearly want preemy gone tho i hate it hereee

youtube

5. team: kick back

my winner(s): QIAO YIYU

honestly i love love love this team composition but i don't think the stage really showed their strongest points...i think a different wayv song would've made all the difference tbh

6. team: booty bomb

my winner(s): yeham, coco, MAO XIUTING

tbh there are some people here with lots of screentime who i don't understand the hype for, although both of them did better than their auditions. anyways yeham!!! she barely got screentime apart from her lines but i loved her voice with this concept tbh, it added a much needed freshness? brightness? to the performance. i need to see a full stage ver with no cuts though

7. team: love destiny 2

my winner(s): PANGJANG (everyone did well though)

pangjang just has the voice, what is there to say really. i feel soooooo bad for ninnint, she did well but this was really not the song for her. fly high girlie 😔✊️

8. team: play with me

my winner(s): YEAN, elyn, caith

seoyeon has greater ability than a lot of the contestants but her energy really isn't there to the point where i can't help but wonder if it's on purpose...?

9. team: i'll do it how you like it

my winner(s): ?

the chaba krista rjing vocal meal in the beginning was so sick omg

the rest of the performance didn't really click even though no one was bad at all. need maliya to be saved though like that's a Face

picking a winner is tough for this team because you have some singers who can't dance/perform & some dancers who don't sing as well. in truth pream, rjing, xueyao, and maybe maliya are the most balanced, but xueyao in particular didn't really stand out. pream stood out because of her center time, but this is far from her best (her presence is usually a lot stronger). maybe id go with rjing? but id need to see a full stage with no cuts

10. team: pieces of love

my winner(s): KITTIE

you have to suspend your disbelief a bit with these shows but i couldn't even pretend this was live & it's so distracting 😭 yuan ke & jessica are my next picks but i need them to focus more on facial expressions

my top 9?

honestly i've had a really hard time coming up with a group, if only because i genuinely like 47ish of the contestants (others i dont like or simply don't know). also, i do think it'd be nice for most of the group to be thai. i scrolled through the contestants and just picked the first 9 that i saw who made me go "yeah, you" lmfao and this is what i ended up with:

yean feels virtually indispensable at this point. she can dance, she's a great pop vocalist, and she can fit any concept. the show is also very on her side.

wang ke's performance in 7 rings convinced me of her star power (honestly she's been hit or miss to me until this point). wang ke didn't need to be the best singer or dancer to stand out on stage, it's her energy that really sets her apart and that's a hard skill to learn.

tegan...she's just a surprisingly strong contestant. i wasn't really a fan of how she acted during the theme song arc (all 7.5 minutes of it, lol) but i do understand that she was trying to lighten the mood. from the theme song to round one she showed that she really could hold her own on stage if she put her mind to it. other factors: star quality, demographic appeal, growth idolism, unique tone/strong vocals

rose is my underrated pick. she has a great voice and i think she can be styled to fit a number of concepts. she hasn't gotten much screentime, but i really hope she makes round 2, just to force the show to show more of her strengths. in some ways she's a little bit filler here, but i think she's necessary for the group to gel

ruan, our summer dream center...idk i just like her a lot. she suits different concepts and is super super hardworking & serious about this, while also being really kind. i want to see her learning/speaking more thai and english hopefully!

qiao yiyu is a talent & demographic pick (and one of my overall main picks at this point) she's another member who i see as indispensable. she's a main dancer who can fit multiple styles (but she's also for the girlies). in this pic she kinda looks like yuqi? lmfao

p.amp, my other totally biased pick 🥲 she's so gorgeous onstage and has so much presence i don't understand why the masses aren't seeing her 😭. she's a filler visual here but hot take, we don't need a wannabe gangsta rapper who can't dance self proclaimed quote unquote "real rapper" in the lineup when so many gg raps are pre-written and last for max 4 lines. p.amp can do it while dancing, being charming, and looking hot. i rest my case

geumhee is my pick of the csr members, although duna's rank is the best & seoyeon is the one getting a storyline. geumhee would be slightly filler here, but her singing ability would make her a lead vocal, and he experience and preexisting intl audience would make her indispensable. tbh she's the first member i personally noticed in csr, but i think that csr could live for a couple years without her and then benefit from her return.

mingming is good, although im generally on the fence about her. she has great lead vocal potential and is very likable. i kind of think the mindy members will be fine if none of them make it, but i do feel her voice is a little wasted there.

nationalities: 4 thailand, 2 china, 1 usa, 1 japan, 1 south korea

other contestants to consider:

pailiu! i really like her (and she's currently rank 2) but im not seeing a group that she fits into in the top ranks. maybe if maliya, jessica, xueyao, yuanke, p.amp, jaoying, etc were a bit higher. it's too soon to tell though i suppose

elyn's (#1) fanbase is really showing out for her considering the relatively minimal screentime she's had. her vocals aren't as strong as rose's, but she could potentially replace her in the lineup and add more (in terms of fan loyalty & demographic appeal).

emma not making my off the top of my head top 9 was really unexpected! i make the top 9 and then went wait where's emma? i think i would replace mingming with her, although honestly? emma's a star and should probably try to go to a company with some power, like perhaps yuehua china. for a survival show group, it's good that she stands out as an individual but in terms of cohesion...eh. she couldn't be filler, but she also probably couldn't be the star with the rest of this lineup. it's tough

absolutely LOVE krista's voice, but the reason i stopped voting for her is that she is kind of an absolutely miserable dancer. the great part is that she's super young, and can train to work on her dancing & her stage presence + facial expressions. krista (and others) make me wish that chuang was like produce japan, where the funding company (there lapone, here ryce) takes on trainees from the show for future permanent or temporary groups. krista would be a great candidate for that.

kitty, natty, & jaoying i noticed for the first time this round. i don't have much to say but they would be very solid filler members (not a drag, btw). im looking forward to seeing more of them!

yuan ke & wan yan jiayi are growing kind of indispensable if they want to have a foothold in china it seems. my personal pick would be yuan ke, but i think jiayi is moreso on the rise.

TBH i have 21 more contestant photos saved but let me just move onto another potential top 9

all i did was replace rose & mingming with elyn & emma, which brings the nationality count to: 2 thailand, 3 china, 1 japan, 1 usa, 1 malaysia, 1 south korea. see but now i'd say they need at least one more thai member! now sort of i want to put jaoying in over elyn lol. oh well 🤷🏿‍♀️

#chuang asia #chuang #t watches tv #Youtube

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confusedspaceotter · 1 year

Text

Daily avatrice analysis (day 5)

day1 day2 day3 day4 day5 day6 day7 day8 day9

Oh analyzing ep 8 is going to get personal because of the coming out scene

I’ve already decided to split Ep 8 into 2 parts because there is just too much to cover

today i’ll mainly focus on the first half of ep 8

and I’ll talk about the rest tmr

Ep 8

we start with the beginning of the episode where the gang is reading the warrior nun journal

got nothing deep about the scene but I do believe part of ava is this vine:

At least I am(the way kty say Et defunctis requiem IM WEAK)

anyway moving on

I think there are a few reasons why Ava seems so eager to proof herself here

One

As someone who was quadriplegic, she knows what it’s like to be powerless and weak, since she spent most of her life receiving help from others

Makes perfect sense she’s she will jump into action the moment she got a chance to proof to herself that she is useful

Two

She wanted to fulfill her job/destiny as the halo bearer

Leaning from the journal, she realized how serious this is and she is the only one that can stop it

(You know things are serious when Mary said oh shit

Third

She wanted to protect her new found family(mainly Beatrice

“If we get rid of Duretti, we can get the OCS back together.”

Will Ep 1-5 Ava cared about the OCS?

Probably not

This is why ep 6 is so important to Ava’s character

She needed to see the good that OCS is doing

And not just some high trained nuns who’s after the thing on her back

That’s why she came back to the Cat’s Cradle

To help innocent people by accepting that she IS the warrior nun now

And it’s what happening here as well

Before we get into the training scene

Two thing i wanna point out

One

Absolutely love the way this guard go "oh shit she’s here again she better not break my table this time"

Two

Who the fuck give permission to Ava/Alba to look this good in that leather jacket????

Since the jacket is a tad bit oversize I’m guessing that’s Mary’s?

I would like to headcanon this happened:

Ava: *visible shivers from the cold*

Mary: *yeets the jacket to ava*

Or it could go like this as well:

Ava:*visible shivers from the cold*

Beatrice: *notices Ava shivering* Mary? Do you have a spare jacket?

(either way i love this jacket i want it)

Now moving on to the actual training scene

say it with me ava silva is not only a genius but also a comedic genius

(we love traumatized character who use humor as a coping mechanism)

look at how precious Ava is

her little whoo baby girl is so proud of herself

and so is Bea apparently

love this genre of Avatrice where Bea smiling because of Ava’s smile ughhhh

Moving on to the next training scene

we can see supportive gf Beatrice

even when Ava is panicking all she did was to remain her composure and give her clear directions on how to get out

even though she is probably worried sick on the inside as well

If avatrice have a timeline

here is where Bea knows she definitely cares about Ava a tad bit much

but she still trying to convince herself is platonic and she is just doing her job by taking care of Ava

I mean do friends cup each other's faces as gently as Bea did here???

Also the way Ava eyes lingers on Bea is something so personal to me

after she rushed towards Ava the first things she does is to touch her face

physical touch is definitely an Avatrice thing

and is such a vital part of their relationship because is how they communicate with each other

is them subtly asking: "hey you good?" and answering "yeah im good"

which we will see a lot more in season 2

Here we can see bea hesitates to help Ava up/touch her

feels like Bea was so worried about Ava after she cupped her face she panicked a little

I think she is like “oh wait that's a little fruity in it”

and that's why she retracted her hand here

imo once you repressed you emotions it doesn't just go away in an instance

it takes time to open yourself up again

which i think she did in season 2

but for now, Bea probably still views her feelings towards Ava as something she shouldn't have

Still doesn’t stop her from calming Ava down though putting her hand on her back tho

what can I say Avatrice is endgame from the beginning

After Jillian said that she had been able to amp up the halo’s output

notice how Bea was gonna say something?

she look almost hopeful for a second

like she is glad they had found a solution to their problem

truly live up to the name “the strategist of the group”(which i just decided to call her that)

btw side note

I love how Bea talks slower compared to other characters

because she really did think it though about what she is going to say

and we can see that in scenes where the gang is grouped up together to discuss something

you can tell she is always trying to find the best solution and consider all the possible angles

compared to Ava "punch first ask questions later" Silva

Avatrice is such endgame material because they fit so well

today feels like me fangirling over avatrice then an analysis but oh well

tmr we are going to get emotional and talk about possibly my favorite coming out scene in media

stay tuned :)

day6

#daily avatrice analysis #we ramble today #we cry tomorrow #avatrice #ava silva #sister beatrice

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wherelanguage-ends · 1 year

Text

I discovered Kinnporsche by accident. I think around April/May of last year I watched The Untamed and started reading fics/passively following content on tumblr/ watching bts content for the show on ig and YouTube and I guess somehow ended up seeing an edit of KP scenes, if I’m not wrong it was either EP4 or EP7.

After that it was one mad dash to catching up on 8 episodes because I distinctly remember watching reaching EP 9 and being wtf its ongoing shit I have to wait a WHOLE week for the next episode? I still remember how amazing it felt to watch Mile Apo and their sizzling hot chemistry and holy shit Porsche as a character I don’t think months later I can even begin to explain what drew me to him.

But even then I was still mostly just lurking/reblogging.

And then EP 10 hit and everything else that followed after was THE BOMB. I just couldn’t stop by myself from making VP posts just thoughts ideas reactions to them. I was doing tag novels, commenting on fics. Just for a while I was present here, engaged, talking excited about something after a really really long time.

And before I knew it there were mutuals I found whole would leave a prev tag or a response to my tag or a you-should-write-the-fic and it just made really fucking happy.

I don’t know where I’m going with this but just that for a really short time Kinnporsche made me really fucking happy and it was the thing that made me want to pick up writing again to want to be part of something to not just passively watch and move on.

#kinnporsche #still haven’t got the courage to share my writing but probably soon I will #but regardless I did not expect to find myself crying tonight over this #but I’m just you know really fucking glad I stumbled on this show

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chemicalkind · 1 year

Note

as my dashboard's foremost naddpod stan, do you have any episodes that stand out as your favorites/ones that affected you the most?

ok yes absolutely. so for bahumia the one that stands out to me the most is episode 70 i think it's like one of the best naddpod episodes. hardwon's reincarnation, bev telling erlin about terran, moonshine meeting lucanis. it's so good there's so many iconic scenes. also can't be bothered to figure out which episode this was but the fight with ezra the unkind is one of my fav bahumia moments i love when murph incorporates story stuff into battles. also i love the hell arc but specifically the personal battles in ep 81 like bev fighting bev sr and almost going with him and "a child has a duty to his father. a hero has a duty to the world" like ahhh and the flashback with bev and egwene as his dad performs that execution. bev is my favorite bahumia pc i think that impacts a lot of this lmao. ok but we all know eldermourne has my whole heart and i have a lot more favorite eldermourne episodes. episodes 4 and 8 are incredible i am always baffled by how good the beginning of eldermourne was like they went into that season straight away with so much emotion and story and good acting. all the flashbacks from the broken heart banshee episode are so good and also sadie's story makes me really sad i love her. and when they're telling each other about their backstories on the boat as they leave thornkirk <33. god i love the third mates. next i love love love the whole arc in sirenloch it is my favorite part of eldermourne hands down. i have relistened to all the zirk and stella moments from those like at least 5 times they make me go crazy, but the hank and hank jr stuff is also really good and all of that happening while the plot really starts to kick in. incredible. that's all like episodes 25-29, i really like 26 for the hank and his son scene and 29 for the scene where zirk leaves stella again. then i'm predictable and i fucking love the eldermourne finale. it's such a good finale like some people say eldermourne ended too soon or it should have been more developed but i feel like i was too invested in everything in eldermourne to be critical of it lmao. all of the fia/irina stuff is so good and painful, zirk's death and revival is such a good execution of his character arc and his themes like how he has this guilt around hurting people when he was younger and not helping them like he wanted to, and in the end he sacrifices himself to be able to help the world. and his work to find an all cure elixir and make up for his past mistakes is what lets him come back to life. god. sorry this post is really long but i have a lot to say about naddpod oops.

#naddpod #bahumia #eldermourne #sorry this post is so long #thanks for the ask leigh ily

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spynorth · 2 years

Note

I know you and I have discussed this a lot, but for the sake of posterity and for the understanding of your followers, will you talk about what it is you disagree with when it comes to Lucas/John in popular "fanon" and why you disagree?

I've been so lazy that I haven't wanted to do this but I can't think of anything else so here we go. There was a .. movement? what would you call it??.. when series 9 of spooks aired (along with quite a few years after) that was prevalent here on tumblr with the personals where people would have things like i believe in lucas north and lucas north lives and even back then when I had no thoughts whatsoever as to character complexity and how much fun it is to dive into things... it just felt so wrong to me. So basically a hugely popular fanon idea is that the writers intended for Lucas to have a split identity .. and tbh I think that is nothing more than fan attempts to reconcile the idea that this pretty white boy fave of a character is suddenly found out to be a lying, manipulative, terrorist. And I get that emotion behind the discovery and also find it really ironic because I don't know if fans of the show are putting two and two together that the characters that are his colleagues are probably feeling the exact same way? In fact, there's ample evidence that that's the case. But anyways, i guess my unpopular anti-fanon belief (so essentially the essence of what i disagree with when it comes to their ideas) is that Lucas is not excusable. He does not have remorse. He did not forget that he did what he did and sudden have some jekyll and hyde reawakening. He is very much aware. I'm gonna go through each ep in series 9 to bring up the aspects that make me think that, and I'll be sure to include the counter arguments for certain parts too. I'm gonna include links to the episode and timestamps for each point made but I don't think it works in countries outside the us so I apologize for that.

A little disclaimer that I hit the limit so I will have to make a separate post in regards to my evidence from episode 8. i apologize.

Episode 1

This one starts off pretty much like any other. You kind of get the vibe that the whole trauma of harry + ruth is gonna be the main focus but during the last 1:49 vaughn enters the chat and it get so fucking interesting. So if you watch the episode (linked above in the heading) and get to 56:17, the following interactions begins:

Vaughn: It's not really you, is it?

Lucas seems very confused here at first. There's a little indulgent smile and a shake of his head that does give off that vibe of 'who the fuck are you?' so I get why people tend to argue that he doesn't recognize him. But it's important to remember that in the next camera angle we see vaughn step out of the shadows and towards him.

Vaughn: 15 years and you look just the same. Seems terribly unfair. Lucas: Get away from me.

Alright, pause. I mean. could he just be freaked out by a dude who is talking like he knows him and invading his space given his past trauma being incarcerated during an operation? of course. But the way he steps back, that body language, that expression...I don't always believe that RA is the best actor (esp when it comes to voice inflection etc) but he really does sell series 9 of lucas for me with the slight gestures etc and this is where that really begins. During this conversation, Lucas circles around Vaughn, shoulders straight and square. He's ready for a fight. They talk a bit and at mark 56:46, there's the following:

lucas: whatever it is you want, vaughn, you're not getting it from me.

A few things I love about this line as far as what I use to justify my opinion about this arc (is it opinion when its glaringly obvious? idk idk) are that 1) it shows he does in fact know him and 2) the way lucas' voice cracks in a moment of what i can only assume is apprehension and a bit of fear blended with the phrasing ("you're not getting it from me.") really feels like lucas knows exactly whats up. he has one fear in regards to this situation and he's really fucking hoping he's wrong. but. alas. When vaughn claims to be giving up, says he's going to leave him alone, lucas swallows three times. I'm a swallower. in a non dirty way. But when I'm trying to release tension, especially tension in regards to anxiety in relation to a situation that could really bite me in the ass .. I also swallow it down. That's where the phrase swallow your fear came from actually. the physical tendency that people have to do that in situations such as this. But anyways, Lucas is trying to relax, to take control of his discomfiture, but Vaughn delivers some great parting lines and I think Lucas' reactions to those alone negate the whole he didn't know thing, but I'm still gonna go episode by episode because I love research papers.

Vaughn: just tell me one thing. I'm too curious. what's it been like? Lucas: what's what been like? Vaughn: Being lucas north, of course.

THAT IS THE MOST PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE COMMENT. (57:15 if you need specifics) And Lucas looks at him with an expression that I will admit is a bit unreadable. But I think it can be inferred to be like oh please god don't let this go where I think it's going because of his reaction to Vaughn's final parting comment of "Good to see you, john." Lucas isn't confused by that comment. He swallows and closes his eyes and clenches his fist because the one person that can make his carefully constructed lie tighten around his neck has just played his cards and showed that he has no trouble doing so. It's not confusion that crosses Lucas's face. It's sheer fucking panic. You don't have to look wild eyed and sweaty to be in a state of terror. In fact, deer in the headlights is a very real thing and I think we get a great glimpse of that here.

Episode 2.

There is a lot I could say about this episode in regards to his development and the fleshing out of his backstory as far as his canon background with maya goes but I'm keeping this strictly about the things that make me believe he is a fucking manipulative mastermind and not rehashing his whole story. So yeah, if you know the show, I'm leaving things about. but his attempt at rekindling a romantic relationship with her has nothing to do (right now in the series at least) with evidence that is knowingly lying and 100% aware of the bombing of dakar and the part he played etc etc. In short, the only thing I can really say about this episode in regards to proof of what he was doing, is that he uses the idea that he's arguing for beth's reinstatement as a way to tack on asking harry for the level a clearance he needs in order to look into what vaughn might possibly be after. He does have the following conversation with maya (56:49).

lucas: maya, when i was in africa, something happened. i couldn't risk bringing it home to you. i couldn't.

I have a lot i could say about lucas and the unhealthy relationship with maya (in regards to the way he treats her etc) but I don't know if i'll ever waste my time considering she isn't featured on this blog... but if i did..it would be in another post. My main reason for including the above quote is because, though ambiguous, it does give another hint that he is well aware something happened when he was in africa before joining mi5 (pre lucas north, if you will). I said ambiguous because I know there's a vibe of well he didn't know what part he played in it due to forgotten memories via trauma and like .. ok. I'll bite. for now, we'll say it's ambiguous. But I'm including it seeing as how I will refer to it in the future of this post.

Episode 3.

This is a fun episode for me because it really paints a pic of how dedicated Lucas is too painting whatever picture he needs to achieve his goals, and it does it through a scene with him and Maya. Twelve minutes in to the beginning, he gives her a call. Tells her he's ready to come clean. Direct quote is "I want to tell you everything. Tonight." A lot of shit goes down in the episode (i mean, it's a spy show. it cant all be double life rogue agent soap opera stuff, right?) and eventually at the 55:30 mark, we get a scene where maya visits his flat. Soooo Important and I really want to break the whole thing down but I think I'm gonna do the whole transcription first and then attack it point by point.

maya: you lie to me and i swear you will never see me again. lucas: okay. come in. maya: why did you let me believe you were dead? lucas: alright. i went to prison for eight years. Is that good enough? maya: prison? Why, did you kill someone? lucas: no. maya: did you hurt someone, then? lucas: no. maya: I suppose you're innocent? lucas: no. maya: Why did you decide to turn up now? lucas: a photograph of you. all those years I'd spent trying to forget, they just fell away. I had to see you. maya: is that true? lucas: every word.

Alright. *rubs my hands together*. This is so fantastic. And I am coming at this not just as someone who has tried to do research on the whim of his own vibe, but also as someone who knows the strategies for lying, knows the dedication to the tiniest of details that you have to remember. One of the most important strategies in crafting a believable story and wanting to win the other person over, is telling just enough truth to make the lie not a lie. What do I mean? Take the above conversation for example. From the very beginning, maya is straight forward and up front with what she wants of him and Lucas seemingly agrees - but straight out of the gate he is lying by definition of omitting the truth. He did not let her believe he was dead because he was in prison. Lucas was incarcerated while on a mission in Russia for mi5. He had already abandoned maya and essentially played dead but by referencing both the incarceration and the time length with no other details, he allows her to fill in the gaps. We can assume based on her reactions and further questions, that she associates this answer with the one I cited above in episode 2. It would be a logical jump on her part to tie him saying he was in prison for eight years as being related to the thing he told her that he hadn't wanted to bring home to her. Which .. it wasn't. It wasn't at all. so. That's lie 1. He continues to lie by omission as the conversation continues. She asks if he hurt someone or killed them. He answers no. Technically not a lie since being found out during a covert operation wasn't directly related to him killing or harming anyone, but he is allowing his answers to be tied into his prison answer which, as discussed, was not actually why he was gone at all. So, Lies 2 and 3. The fourth and final lie (in this scene anyways) is his declaration that every word is true. Is it? in a way, yes. but only because he knows how to spin it. he knows how to lie without lying. a perfect unraveling of the truth. Oof. Lucas..my boy ... oof.

Episode 4

We start off with a shot of lucas and maya in his bedroom (aw. romance in falsehoods. i love it) and as he begins to get ready for work after mi5 calls him, the following happens:

maya: i don't even know what you do, john. lucas: private security consultant.

MAN. Man oh man. I love that we are staying true to that whole tell me the truth and nothing but the truth thing. Granted, granted, I am not a polarizing asshole and I do understand that hes in mi5 and that whole secrecy and lying thing comes with the territory but damn is he good at it. that fucker didn't even hesitate. but anyways, this is a great point to show that he is still a lying liar who lies. Anyways, the show goes on - ooh spy stuff. I forgot this show actually dealt with spy stuff. I've been caught up in the liar liar pants on fire plotine of it all - and at 20:47 (in the middle of an operation. pesky career. getting in the way of everything) vaughn calls lucas on his mobile. he tells him he wants him to retrieve a file (albany) and ends the call with:

vaughn: please. they won't leave me alone. do this for me and i'm gone. forever. you can carry on with whatever life you want.

Lucas understandably has a meltdown after he hangs up (no music, distorted camera, he's grabbing his hair. it's all very bbc one drama of them) but again, we have that declaration of vaughn that i think is so important. with whatever life you want. lucas doesnt question this. he's not like 'yo jorah, what the fuck are you on about? go back to dany." (granted asoiaf was in the future but i mean. let me have this joke). like he doesn't act liek its cryptic at all. he is straight up like ahhhhhh and pulls at his hair until he resembles albert einstein. boy knows.

So then more spy show (whyyyy. i'm trying to watch this character deconstruct at the most base of levels. why must you show me actual spy right now) until we get to a scene at 22:01. Lucas is in the grid's data vault. it's literally big white letters that flash across the screen. Thames House Data Vault. they do not want you to miss it. bbc really went: insert giant gif of waving red flag here. So anyways, king of the boy scouts is in the data vault. it's very data vaulty. lots of flashing lights and giant monitors. just what i've always imagined a data vault to me. he has a moment where hes like .. no .. no .. i cant (i think they missed a chance for a dramatic instrumental here personally) and the show goes on until he returns to the vault at 34:56 and he basically uses the system to rewrite it, bypass some firewalls and grabs albany while using another employee's credentials to make it look like he accessed it instead of lucas. that throne of lies is just getting more ornate. His colleague ruth catches him out as he leaves. That's important later. but the conversation they have at the time is pertaining to their current operation and she doesnt mention the data vault. anyways, he meets vaughn to deliver albany at 42:01 and the following occurs:

vaughn: hope you covered your tracks. did you use a fall guy? course you did. didn't have to do that, of course. you could have taken a risk. talked your way out of it. harry pearce would have believed you. still, better to be safe than sorry. best to set someone up. whose life did you ruin today, john? lucas: look, i did what you asked. I helped you. Now you and I are done. vaughn: you didn't do this for me. you did this for you.

I mean, vaughn is so accurate. In all of this. Lucas could have probably talked to harry. in fact, I think that's what the 'lucas north' people believed he was would have done if he was staying true to the role he had been playing. but he didn't. know why? because taking the gamble of talking your way out of something like this would mean he was taking the gamble of a lot of his secrets coming to light. to a liar who has so carefully constructed a web like his, you don't want to risk a single strand. and the whose life did you ruin today, john? just fucking kills me every time. And that comes back to roost later in the episode when the operation of the day has been wrapped up and an interaction with the team back at home base in the grid happens. ruth asks everyone if they know of a stephen owen from section g who is being accused of stealing files and corrupting the data system. She looks right at Lucas and is like "he's only 22. he'll serve time for that". She knew something was up. Which is proved later, but we'll get to that. anyways, boy george still didn't come clean.

Episode 5

this episode literally has nothing to do with proving lucas is an asshole but the ending of this episode at 57:37 when he goes to visit maya and she mentions that her boyfriend is there AND IT TURNS OUT TO BE VAUGHN MAKES ME LAUGH EVERY FUCKING TIME LIKE WELL PLAYED MY LITTLE CREATURE BLACKMAILER MAN. fuck what a douchebag i love it.

Episode 6

THIS EPISODE IS MY FAVORITE IN REGARDS TO THE LUCAS IS NOT INNOCENT DISPLAYS OF TERMINAL DOUCHEBAGGERY. I'm gonna try to not use capslock during this whole thing. There's so much I want to say about the entire mindfuck that is the last scene I mentioned above but .. deep breath...that's not important. I will admit that I do have a bit of an emotional tug for lucas because god I can feel that terror. I've been there. That feeling of everything falling down, it's becoming too much. Which comes up later in this ep. So anyways, a lot of shit happens (this episode is actually one of my favorites) and it all involves lucas trying to be a douche canoe for vaughn while also doing his job .. which ... mult tasking is clearly not his good point. At one point he stops by the house of a retired colleague to pick up the supposed actual albany file (the location was found using the file that lucas got for vaughn originally). he has an asset with him while it happens named danielle. he leaves her in the car. she knows something shady is up. she snoops. shit once again goes all spy drama on us and we're suddenly at the ending scene with danielle shot in the neck and lucas claiming to get help. This is actually a really emotional scene for me. I don't know why. you know when you get that heavy feeling in your chest because a scene is just so weighted? yeah. i feel that tug every time. But at 47:09, we get this:

lucas: let me see. danielle: it's bad, right? lucas:danielle: hey, look at you. you didn't lie. lucas: yeah, keep the pressure on. really tight. danielle: oh, please don't let me die. please. I won't say anything. I won't tell no one what happened. Just don't let me die. lucas: I'm not gonna let you die. I'm gonna call you an ambulance.

So he gets up and he actually does dial emergency services. But as he is digging for the dead gunman's phone and dialing said emergency services, danielle keeps speaking.

danielle: I.. I promise I won't tell them about the house. About albany....

Lucas looks at her, pretty fucking stricken in his expression and as the mobile phone is on speaker, we hear the whole emergency services, which service do you require? hello? and about 30 seconds go by where lucas is watching danielle bleed until he presses the button on the phone (hanging it up) and pretends to give their location. I've seen people argue that he just took it off speaker but at 48:20 he puts the phone right next to her, zoomed in on by the camera, without pressing any other buttons.. and it is entirely too obvious that the fucking thing is not on the line with anyone. And then my fucking heart gets ripped out because someone at bbc got wise in the use of soundtracks and the most emotional music plays while lucas gathers danielle up in his arms and offers to put pressure on her wound for her. The camera zooms in and shows him moving his fingers away, allowing her to bleed out. Besides just destroying my soul emotionally, this scene really cements to me that bubba ain't got no qualms about lying to protect his own ass. just saying.

it ends with ruth admitting to harry that she has put a keystroke intercept on lucas' computer because she doesn't trust him due to him suddenly acting erratically. It cuts back to lucas who is getting a phone call from vaughn saying the albany file he just delivered in this episode is a fake. Now, at 57:38 he goes into the colleague he visited earlier's (now) empty flat and starts rubbing at his neck because he isn't sure where to go or what to do next. he's uncomfortable, clearly. The show also does its first distorted and blurred image of him before showing him lose it and people sort of cite this as some beginning of a jekyll and hyde breakdown? and this seems to be where the beginning of the whole theory comes into play? which. no. false. shut up janice. it's a camera angle meant to show he is LOSING IT in the sense his entire fucking world is threatened. The house of cards is beginning to tumble. the desperation is coming out.

**NOW. THE IMPORTANT EPISODES. THE FINAL COUNTDOWN** A few notes if i can. There is a lot of things I'm going to go over in these two episodes. A lot of misconceptions I will point out and disagree with. Forensic psychology research combined with a good ol' healthy dose of lessons in not taking everything at face value is really helpful here. If you read nothing out of this entire thing, please read these two sections.

episode 7

I'm cutting to scenes because we don't have time for explanations so if you want more context, definitely watch because this and 8 are so good. anyways. There's a scene where beth (another agent) follows lucas to a park where he meets and attempts to kill vaughn. Beth stops him and he points his weapon at herThe following conversation happens (26:55):

beth: you won't kill me. I know you won't. lucas: you don't know anything about me. beth: maybe not. but I've seen you risk your life to save others. And I believe in you. We all do.

this is a fantastic exchange because it brings up a really good point i want to make about pathological liars. the ability allows you to fit into any role. his ability to fully embrace the falsehood that is him being lucas north has created doubt in his colleagues when it comes to believing him capable of horrible things. they are ready to accept his innocence, his explanations... which is shown in the conversation where lucas 'comes clean' (i use the term so loosely here) to harry pearce in a later scene.

It begins at 30:18.

harry: one lucas north in dakar i can accept. two is stretching credibility. who is he, lucas? lucas: listen, harry. I know this looks suspicious. harry: somewhat.

There's a pause while lucas sighs and shakes his head, takes a few deep breaths. Overwhelmed by admitting his guilt? Or is he using that act in the means of buying precious seconds to figure out a plan? your opinion.

harry: let me be clear. the dakar bombing happened on my watch. seventeen people were killed on that day. And for 15 years they've gone without justice. So, you do not leave this room until you explain the full extent of your involvement in that atrocity. Do you understand?

I'm gonna cut in super quick just to say that at this point, Lucas flips over the picture that harry has given him of the real lucas north so that it is no longer face up. guilt? maybe. I also think it can be a way of not having anything that represents the truth staring at him in order to help him pull off his story (which my reasoning for this will be cited a bit further down)

lucas: My name isn't Lucas North. My name's John Bateman. harry: damn you. damn you! God knows I've had my share of betrayals. But not you. lucas: i'm sorry. harry: why were you in dakar? lucas: At university I fell in with a guy that fancied himself as a big time drugs dealer. He was shipping cannabis from dakar to hamburg. he asked me to go with him. harry: which you did. lucas: which i did. of course, idiots that we were, we got caught. luckily, the military police were open to persuasion. they took the drugs, they took everything. I was stranded in Dakar with no ticket home, no passport. I needed to pay my way back and I'd done some croupier work back in the uk, so i got a job in a casino. and thats where i met vaughn edwards. he was a regular. he said he worked in the exports business. he was always lucky. he seemed to have everything, I admit I was impressed.

I'm going to cut in here and add a little note that the quote about being impressed by vaughn ties in nicely to the post i made about john's background (a lot of it is just me fleshing out the faint lines canon gives us) and his desire to feel special which can be found here. Continuing the scene with harry ...

lucas: we met by chance a few times. or at least i thought it was by chance. he took an interest in me. eventually, he told me what he really did. small deniable errands for the british government. he asked me if i wanted in. i said yes. harry: what sort of errands did you run for vaughn? lucas: courier work, mostly. taking briefcases to people, places. I never asked what was in them. it was exciting, at first, and very well paid. harry: and you had no qualms about what you might be doing? lucas: vaughn told me that we were working indirectly for the uk government. i believed him. harry: it suited you to believe him. lucas: yeah, maybe. In those days, my morality was fluid.

I'm gonna stop right here and say - IN THOSE DAYS?? boy you just let a woman die in the previous episode. get the fuck out. So obviously right then and there, we get the vibe (the knowledge? its more than a vibe) that lucas is lying. this whole conversation so far has been a manipulation tactic. he is CLEARLY laying the blame on vaughn and setting himself up as the easily manipulated younger man who thought he was doing the right thing. but anyways. we continue.

lucas: .. but then there was lucas north. he worked in the casino bar. he was the only other Brit on the staff. I think he'd had a tough life, but he was clever, funny. And we became friends. I thought he was just another drifter, but he was in Dakar for a reason. harry: which was? lucas: spies. harry: why? what was the interest? lucas: vaughn. he knew all about vaughn. he knew he was a mercenary, he told me to walk away from him. I didn't want to hear that. harry: you're evading the question. why was he so interested in the intelligence community? lucas: because he was going to join MI5. harry: oh, please tell me this isn't going where I think it's going. lucas: he'd already got through the first round. and all the background checks were cleared. the only thing left was the face-to-face. he really loved his country, you know. I used to laugh at him for that. But he already knew something that it took me 15 years to find out. I'd made more than enough money. I was all ready to come back to the uk. but vaughn asked me to do one more job. it was more money than all the others combined. harry: what was the job? lucas: harry .. harry: what. was. the job. lucas: to take a package. to deliver a package. to the british embassy in dakar.

Alright first off, if you watch the question and answer scene and get to this part, he is fake crying. RA can do a good pretend job of crying in his roles. this is very obvious fake crying. He is making his voice quaver and he is covering his mouth which is a gesture used by people in the midst of lying or trying to convey emotion they might otherwise not be feeling. On top of that, I believe the quiet saying of harry's name when harry questions him on the nature of job is also a move well done on lucas' part. He goes on and talks about the aftermath of the bomb, in very emotional detail. The flashback scene as he tells it shows him leaving a suitcase in the embassy and leaving, quickly cutting to a few minutes later where he appears to be looking on in horror at the aftermath. It leaves it ambiguous and open. Much like harry, we are left to believe that he was manipulated, that he had no idea .. and I think this is one of the biggest instances that fanon latches onto.

He goes on and describes a panicked horror caused by the trauma of being involved in such a thing, which is believable, yes. He explains that when the real lucas confronted him about the bombing, vaughn shot him dead and urged lucas to hurry and grab the other man's passport. that they needed to leave the country asap.

Again, I'm reiterating that I believe this to be a ploy by a liar out to save his own skin. I will explain a bit further in a few minutes. He ends the conversation with harry in a fit of ethos and pathos style arguments. He appeals to the older man as the false colleague and friend that he thought he knew. relies on that camarderie that's been built up over the years to pull him through. I will give the specific quotes I am talking about without worrying about harry's comments between.

lucas: come on, what do you want me to say harry? i'm trying to be honest with you. yes, i'd like to tell you that i felt something as normal as anger. That some sudden surge of nobility meant that i didn't take that passport, I didn't go to the docks and I didn't run for my miserable life. I'd like to say anything that would take that look of utter contempt out of your eyes. so, please, don't tempt me.

lucas: all you have to do is trust that I want to get out of this mess. and this is my only chance. By finding Vaughn. now, this may not mean much, but you know that i've put my life on the line for this country, you know that. i tried to do all the good that lucas would have done if he'd lived. That's never been a lie. that's the deal that i make with him every single day.

that irritates me so much because it is such obvious BS but anyways. harry does allow lucas to leave and he ends up finding vaughn. They have the following conversation before Vaughn's death. (50:10)

lucas: i told them. vaughn: you told them? lucas: everything. vaughn: oh, i doubt that. I doubt that very much. what did you tell them, john?

So it once more shows flashbacks as similar to the conversation with harry, but this time we are shown that lucas knew the suitcase he took to the embassy was a bomb. He was shown how it worked along with how to detonate it.

vaughn: did you tell them that you didn't know? oh, no. no, i know what you did. you told them it was me. didn't you?

Again, we build the throne of lies ever higher because the memory sequence now shows lucas strangling the real lucas north. it wasn't vaughn at all. And I'd like to reiterate for a moment the fact that strangling takes so much effort and dedication. lucas struggled against john, he fought. John had to hold on while his friend fought for his life. he could have stopped at any time, could have let the struggles appeal to some humanity inside him - but no. he didn't. he was determined to save himself.

vaughn: I wonder if you can even remember the truth of what you were? you're a killer john. who fell asleep, dreamed he was a hero. but, now its time to wake up and remember the truth. the dream is over now. and the killer .. is awake.

alright, so. This paragraph right here is the one everybody uses to sort of build up this repressed trauma memory theory and argue that theres a fracture in his psyche and this battle between lucas vs john comes into play. I get it, I do. memories repressed because of trauma are a very real thing and so is fractured identity in regards to ptsd but I'm immediately throwing that out because the only way to possibly have a fractured identity that results in two personas is through DID. and lucas does not have that and if he did, the show would have handled it poorly. i'm not even fucking touching that. I want to start with the first line of this quote. I wonder if you can even remember the truth of what you were? I don't personally believe that the metaphor of falling asleep and dreaming is referring to actually repressing anything?? It is my belief that this is referring to a very real thing that happens when you build your existence around a multitude of lies. I've said it in a few posts already, but I've lived the alternate life to hide from things. I've gone that route. Obviously not to the murdered my friend and stole his identity sense, but I have crafted a fake life that totally had people going for 16 years until i finally said fuck it and told my parents the truth. There's a thing about constructing those lives. You have to convince your brain that certain things are real. You know they are lies, you never forget it .. but at some point you begin to doubt yourself. You add details to the lies, little nuances to make them more complex and suddenly you can't remember if thats how it happened or not. It is easy to lie to yourself about the truth and I think that is what vaughn is referring to. not that lucas actually forgot. and I personally believe that the dreaming metaphor has more to do with pretending, with the fact that lucas found sanctuary in this new life but now everything has been found out. And the killer is awake is a nice punctuation mark to the fact that once again lucas north is acting out the events of dakar. he kills vaughn, the only link to the truth, much like he killed the original lucas. he is a liar. this is his true personality, his nature. its not a dr jekyll mr hyde thing.

there is a quote that goes around a lot from richard armitage which bugs the fuck out of me because people use it out of context but the one fans of lucas love to use is the following:

"Suddenly, it’s like an awakening and … it’s like John Bateman starts to kind of wake up and say, “Hang on, what about me?”

I just. this makes me want to pull my fucking hair out. it's not literal. richard has even said that its not literal but i think people like to plug their fingers into their ears and sing their white boy apologist theme songs. But anyways, this quote, in my opinion, is a reference to what happens when that exterior you put on for other people starts to give way to the base instinct that is the core of your own individual personality. I am a friendly person. Most people on this site I'm fairly certain would agree with that. I'm easy to get along with, I'm charismatic, I'm chill...and I've learned how to use those qualities to my advantage over the years off tumblr. I can be a horribly mean person. We all can, i think. but the base character of my personality is an arrogant egoist with extreme narcissistic tendencies. extreme. I work at it. I don't let that be all that i am. I go to therapy. I have a support system that helps me realize when I'm doing wrong. But my base personlity - the john bateman to my lucas north, if you will - is an asshole. and that will always be my instinct. and when something sets me off, my killer wakes up too.

#long post //#murder //#terrorism //#pathological lying //#such a LONG FUCKING POST.#anyways read this or perish :: knife emoji ::#* headcanon. betrayal is a cancer. let it eat your soul. not mine.

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dribs-and-drabbles · 2 years

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Vice Versa ep 2

It's another long one folks!

If we hadn't been joking that Vice Versa was a Bad Buddy AU already then ep 2 has sealed its fate because not only do we have Pran Tun pining after and oblivious Pat Talay and pushing him away but we also get Pa Prae and Ink Som…with Prae even wearing the yellow-sole shoes! (8:50 in pt 4). Oh and somehow it's also Bad Buddy AU The Musical.

Anyway, there's part of my brain that just lights up when a series uses intentional design motivs…and the colours in Vice Versa are causing a whole fireworks show up there. It's still early days to be making interpretations - more 'data' is needed to see any patterns to the colour use…and I only began formulating my theories of Bad Buddy's colours around episode 4/5 - but gosh it is so pleasing to watch.

Having said that, here's an attempt at some kind of interpretation of ep 2…

So the ep's theme is Forest Green and early on it also seems to be paired a bit with purple (you can see it in the opening title credits)…but maybe just because it's an aesthetic pairing. What was interesting is that the inclusion of green seems to start small - with a few items of clothing, props, and pops of lighting - and then increases so by the end of the ep the whole frame is saturated with it (from the plants and maze).

Despite the green theme (and the purple pairing) the four main colours (or two main pairs - red/blue [until any distinction is made clearer I'm including pink with red here] and green/yellow) also pop up regularly - in people's outfits, the drinks in the various bar scenes, the kites and bikes, signs or designs on walls or windows, and combinations of them all with pops of lighting. A few examples:

I've already mentioned this in an ask I answered but I adore the simplicity of this shot in particular:

Not only does it encapsulate the general vibe of the slightly 'off-centre’ feeling of this universe, where it’s the little things like the above and the finger counting that sets it apart from ours, and (as was pointed out by @miscellar) it reflects the circle design of the opening credits…but it once again has the four main colours.

Now, I can't say much about why these pairings are being used yet BUT I do want to talk a little about brown and orange - two colours which Talay interpreted at the beginning of ep 1.

It seems in this ep that brown is still connected to being "serious" - despite the green theme and pops of green in the opening association scene, there is also a lot of brown while Talay is talking seriously about his experience for the group. Brown is also featured a lot in the montage of Talay trying to talk to Tun - in the archery, wedding, café, and bar-with-friends scenes. (It's also interesting that in the café Talay has bright blue trousers which he then wears in the bar where Up-Pree is also in a bright red sweater). Talay's top appears brown-ish (although perhaps black and white or grey?) when finding out from Anna the real reason why Tun has been avoiding him - but I love that the light behind Anna is red whereas the light behind Talay is blue. Pong, the bar owner, is also in brown when Talay is feeling his lowest about this whole situation. Later, Talay has a brown jacket for the taxi ride to the association when 'Tun' is declaring that they're boyfriends - which isn't serious at this point…but will be by the end of the series *nudge nudge wink wink*

On to orange - and although not used much this ep, it still seems to be connected to the pull between being "lively but with something on his mind". In the bar scene with Tun's friends, there is an orange light behind Tun and between Tun and Tess/Talay when Up-Pree and Aou are being lively but Tun is deep in thought about something else.

The next one might be a bit of a stretch (since I've been wrong before about names) but I'm going on the assumption that the name Som means orange (thanks to Secret Crush on You) - Milk's character, Som, is very outspoken and lively whilst both Talay and 'Tun's minds are distracted by each other.

A few other interesting things… I liked the dapple of lights above Jubjang's head in the beginning - very similar to ep 1 with the lights above Talay's head and then later Phuwadol's… I wonder if this will be a recurring thing (Incidentally, in all three scenes there's also blue...) - the same goes for the light in the elevator changing to reflect the episode's theme, for scenes with Talay and Phuwadol talking under archways, and Fuse's anecdotal t-shirts that seem to reflect the mood of the scene.

I also wonder if the phones or the colours of the phones are important/deliberate - Tun's is white, Tess' is blue, Tun's friends' are green and orangy-red…so I wonder if there will be a yellow one…perhaps Kita or Fuse's... And lastly, it's interesting that both Som and Tun are wearing black at the end whilst Talay and Prae have bright colours…I wonder if this will come back as something later…

But also...Puen/Tun/Pakorn have hardly worn any bright colours so far, sticking to mainly black, white, or grey. The most colour Pakorn has worn has been denim/dark blue (end of ep 1) and shades of brown (the wedding photographer in ep 2). Only having worn black or white (and blue jeans), I wonder when Puen will start wearing colours...

[Ep 1] [Ep 2] [Ep 3] [Ep 4] [Ep 5] [Ep 6] [Ep 7] [Ep 8] [Ep 9] [Ep 10] [Ep 11] [Ep 12]

#vice versa #vice versa the series #vice versa ep 2 #I had a lot to say but I don't think there's much content really!#just a lot of wonderings and wafflings #but who knows...maybe some of this will be right/make sense in a few eps time #aka bad buddy au #or bad buddy the musical

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cherrylite17 · 1 year

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Between us ep 10

oops, so yeah, maybe ep 11 is coming out in 3 days... maybe i don’t care though and im posing my ep 10 thoughts now. and boy did i have too many... way too many in fact, that i think i am going to forego some of it for space sake.

teams parents knew win when they were on the phone with him??? they were like?? hold on a minute??? ur that guy right?? so cute :) Also, team's mother (i think it was, i dont remember if it was his father or mother but whatever) knowing that team likes win :3 the way she said.... yall mfs see this?? our son does NOT let people touch his car... this is love

win saying "shouldn't you sleep? don't you have class early tomorrow?" like that hit me because the day after i was watching it i had an 8:30 am class and i definitely went to sleep far too late :/

here is where the too many thoughts come in... I know it is episode 10 and people are frustrated about them not being "official" yet but honestly... Hearing team agree with pharm when he said "you already love him right?" was so cute lolol. but anyways, back to the official part.

I feel like both win and team have such complex trauma surrounding love that this show could end with them never being "official" and i would still be happy with that ending. As someone who also has a complex relationship with love/being loved (albeit i don't have traumas surrounding love) i feel like far too many people are treating this relationship as too black or white. It isn't and shouldn't be. Like, they are working through such complex emotions. It has taken 10 episodes for them to even accept they have feelings for eachother... real feelings. And now, we saw how ep 10 ended, Team will be pushed right back to the beginning. Like, Win loves Team, we know that he does. He knows that he does. But he still has trouble saying it out loud. Now, Team is going to think about how Win probably doesn't love him (though, based on the preview for the next episode, i'm sure this conflict will be resolved quite quick). I really don't know if i see a confession in the next episode. like it just feels like if it does happen next episode, then it will be rushed (within the confines of the context of this episode) and then what? that leaves one episode? Like honestly,,,, HONESTLY i would not be surprised if this series does not end with them being "official". anyways the last little bit probably didnt make sense... thats where most of my thoughts were but i didnt know how to put it all together. :)

#Between Us #between us the series #between us ep 10 #winteam #bounprem #premboun #thai bl

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death2normalcy · 2 years

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Okay, I know my posts aren’t really getting any attention, but I simply do not care. I’m enjoying making this posts, so I’m going to keep doing it, lmao.

Next one on the list of ‘Stray Kids music to listen to’ is ‘Clé: Levanter’. It’s only an EP, so not a ton of songs, but it’s a nice change of pace after listening to 2 full length albums and a re-issue.

*This was has a disclaimer on the bottom about certain events surrounding the release of this EP. You don’t have to read it if you read this, I just wanted to say it.

Also, as always, I talk way too much, so...under the read more.

Personal Favorites (or songs I could listen to on repeat):

Stop - I was very unsure about this one, I’m not going to lie to you. I was about to put it in the middle, but I listened to it again, and it grew on me. I love the beat, they sound great, a good song overall. Kind of unexpected, but good.

Levanter - Look, LOOK. I was so close to putting this in my bottom list because it’s so soft. I just... But then, Changbin started singing, and I was like, okay, middle list. But...but then...they are all singing so beautifully, and HYUNJIN. And it’s a really good song, and I don’t know. It’s a soft song, but I get why it’s so popular among fans. Ugh.

Astronaut - I actually heard this song a while back and I already have it saved on my playlist, so I knew I liked it. Didn’t think I would, they lyrics give a youthful vibe, which make me feel old as hell. But at the same time, it’s so upbeat and fun, how could I not enjoy it?

Sunshine - I’ve talked a lot about Han Jisung and his witchcraft at getting me to like songs like this, so no need to discuss further. I really love the relaxed vibe to this song. I love the soft singing from Seungmin and Lee Know during those one parts. I love any song where all 8 sing at some point. And yea, okay, witch jokes aside, Jisung is very talented at songwriting, and I’m really glad he’s gifted us with some many great songs.

Mixtape #5 (Bonus Track) - LOOK. This song made me laugh. But I have so many thoughts. Are they singing about wearing hoodies? Fall weather? Falling in love in the fall? I could not keep up. Doesn’t matter. BUT HYUNJIN’S PART. I knew it was a line he sang in some song, I didn’t realize it was this one and it’s sending me. I know it’s lyrics written for him but he really did that, and I love him. This is easily one of my favorites, not just because it made me laugh, but also, the music, the beat, the singing, the lyrics, I love this.

Songs I love, but they just aren’t in my top favorites, but they are still amazing!

Double Knot - There are some songs where I am unsure what I think of them in the beginning, and this song was going to be in my bottom list. But then....Hyunjin. I don’t know what it is about his parts in this song, because honestly, they all sound great, it’s still a good song, it just wasn’t my favorite. But Hyunjin’s parts alone brought this song up to the middle list.

Booster - This is a great song, but something about this song doesn’t stick for me. But like all of their songs that I’ve heard so far, it’s still really good. They sound great, and if it popped up on my playlist, I’d probably listen to it.

Songs that probably won’t get a lot of play on my playlist, but are still great, because these boys are very talented!

You Can Stay - I just don’t see myself listening to this one much. It’s a sweet song, it’s sung beautifully, as always. But, for me personally, there wasn’t anything that was like, wow, this is a favorite. Not to say it’s a bad song! It’s not. Just not in my favorites.

***Wanted to add a disclaimer on this one, but I put it at the bottom, so if anyone is reading these, you only have to read this if you want. I am aware, sort of, that this is the EP that Woojin left on. He left shortly before it’s release, right? So, the promotional stuff released before he left includes him. From what I can see, it’s mostly just ‘Double Knot’. I was not a fan back then, I only see all the second hand accounts of what went down. As far as I’m concerned, Stray Kids is OT8 for me, because that’s what I’ve known since I became a fan. I will refrain from mentioning Woojin much, if at all, purely because I know fans are divided on the issue, and I don’t want to cause tension. I know people don’t really seem to see my posts anyways, but just in case anyone does, that’s my thoughts on the matter.

#Stray Kids #Cle: Levanter #I did not expect to love this many songs on this one #i knew going in that i loved sunshine and astronaut #but the rest were a surprise #I have to be honest #hyunjin was a stand out for me on this one #and i can not explain why #not sure what i'll do next #skz #skz thoughts

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offbeatmusicuk · 18 days

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Albums Of 2023: 50-26

Well, this one was a bit late, huh? I was so behind on my listening I couldn't do a list in time, some binge listening to catch up was in order.

My criteria: If it is 9 or more tracks, it is an album. If it is 8 tracks or less and 30 mins or longer, it is an album. Any less than that, it is an EP or a mini-album and not eligible for this list. No compliations, best ofs, re-recordings of older material are included. Nor are live albums where the songs are available on other studio albums.

Honourable mentions to some artists whose albums very nearly made the list but just missed out:

TURQUOISEDEATH, †††, Beartooth, Concrete Castles, Romy, Stitched Up Heart, Subface, Detalji, Hackcore, Ray Keith, Delerium, Franky Wah, Zahna, Public Memory & Siskin .

Let the countdown begin.

50.

The Nearly Deads "We Are The Nearly Deads"

Quality pop-punk, led by the charming vocals of Theresa Jeane.

49.

VOIID "Watering Dead Flowers"

Aussie 4-piece meshing punk, grunge and a smidgen of shoegaze. All very 90s sounding.

48.

As December Falls "Join The Club"

Joyous pop-punk from Nottingham, fronted by the charismatic Bethany Curtis. Their 3rd album smashed them into the UK album charts for the first time, debuting at number 11.

47.

Rews "Meridians"

Shauna Tohill brings us the third REWS album, and while nothing here is as instantly classic as many of the songs from the brilliant debut album, there are plenty of strong, catchy pop-rockers here.

46.

Blink-182 "ONE MORE TIME..."

Tom DeLonge returns, and while I'd argue this album isn't actually as good as the couple from the Matt Skiba era, it certainly sounds a bit more like classic Blink, and there are a handful of new classics within.

45.

The Subways "Uncertain Joys"

It could be down to timing, evolution of taste, or just that it may be better, but this, the fifth album from UK rock band The Subways, connected with me more than any of their albums since their fantastic debut. They've tended towards straight forward rock 'n' roll in the past but this collection is more varied, some more mid-tempo tracks, some poppier tracks, all good stuff.

44.

EarlyRise "Home"

8 years after their second album, comes Orly Lari and co's third. Taking the alt-rock of their earlier work, and mixing it with more acoustics and a heavy dose of Israeli and Middle Eastern influence, to create something quite magical.

43.

nthng "There Is A Place For Me"

A mesmerising collection of soundscapes, utilising ambient, breakbeat, trancey elements, glitchy beats and haunting atmospheres, for a mostly chilled experience.

42.

Woodes "The Great Unknown"

Singer-songwriter & producer, Woodes releases her second album, of what I would label as art-pop. There is a spacial ethereal nature to both her music and her incredible voice. Many different styles are present though. The opening title track is magnificent, almost breakbeat and widescreen, while catchy. Second track "Don't Look Back" has a feel of traditional Viking music, with glitchy electronic beats, and pop hooks. It's not all this experimental, there are some simpler acoustic led tracks, and standard adult pop fare. But it is all beautiful.

41.

Paramore "This Is Why"

They were pop-punk, then a bit more epic alt-rock, contrasting with some jangly pop (on the same album). After further line-up changes they went a bit new wave and 80s synthpop. Now, on their sixth album, they've gone somewhat post-punk. It's a solid album, that has swayed some of the longterm naysayers. Just where will they go next?

40.

Gunship "Unicorn"

Synthwave was a cool genre when it first unleashed, but I got bored of it quite quickly, for the most part it was all very samey. Gunship however try their best to keep it fresh and interesting, no more so than on this, their third album. Yes it is still synthwave at its core, but they have some cracking vocals (many of them featured guests, like Lights, Gavin Rossdale or their Fightstar bandmate Charlie Simpson), the production is deeper, and goes at times into heavier electronic elements. Then there is "Blood For The Blood God" featuring HEALTH, instantly my favourite Gunship song, with its trancey synths, breakbeat-esque drums and electronic energy.

39.

GusGus "DanceOrama"

GusGus' ode to the dancefloor through the decades. Hints of techno, trance, italo-disco, house and pop but all delivered in GusGus' unmistakable sound.

38.

Lastlings "Perfect World"

Spacious, laid back electronic songs, with lush vocals, some breakbeat, some house, some glitchy. Quality second album from the Aussie brother-sister duo.

37.

The Goa Express "The Goa Express"

Frantic, catchy, retro leaning (sometimes 90s, sometimes 60s) indie. I can see many of these tunes filling the dancefloor at indie club nights up and down the country.

36.

Furious Monkey House "Oneiric"

These Spanish young uns have released a couple of albums of catchy, punky rock, but with their third here, the show they are growing and maturing. The pace is a bit slower, the sound way more spacious. Electronic elements and production, meet shoegazey stylings, but still with very catchy hooks and riffs. This band could really be going places.

35.

Phantom Elite "Blue Blood"

Heavy, chugging riffs, blast beat drumming, the occasional synth or breakbeat, the occasional growl, and plenty of soaring choruses (that wouldn't be entirely out of place from a symphonic metal band), and yeah a couple of more acoustic ballad-y ones, but this is a solid and at times thrilling record.

34.

The Chemical Brothers "For That Beautiful Feeling"

Initially, I was very disappointed with this album, as a follow up to the magnificent "No Geography" (Offbeat's Album Of The Year 2019), there are weird, wobbly, out of tune, vertigo-esque sounds in more than one track, and little of it is as instantly catchy. But man, is it a grower. Breakbeats, pounding four to the floor, funk, hip hop, spacey pop, Beck, all in a distorted acid blender, as only the Chems know how.

33.

Cyan Kicks "I Never Said 4Ever"

You know those pop acts that use guitars and tend to be a smidge edgier than the bubblegum fare? Well, take that and beef it up a bit, and you have Cyan Kicks. Catchy hooks in abundance, pop-dance synths, the occasional breakbeat, guitars, and joy.

32.

Wargasm "Venom"

Well, they are called WARGASM, the precursor to this, their debut album, was a 7 tracker called "Explicit: The MiXXXtape" and featured songs called "Fukstar" and "D.R.I.L.D.O", and you can summise what a lot of their lyrics are about. Their genre melting pot of sound (chunky riffs, pounding electronic beats, singing, screaming, rapping etc etc), sounds like they are living a life of debauchery and we are invited.

31.

Holding Absence "The Noble Art Of Self Destruction"

Formerly tagged as post-hardcore, that now seems limiting for the Welsh band who have delivered an album of such soaring, melodic and widescreen rock. A triumph.

30.

In This Moment "Godmode"

After a few disappointing albums in a row, In This Moment hit form again. Heavy, chunky guitars, sleazy, dark atmosphere and with plenty of earworms. Their best album in over a decade.

29.

CLT DRP "Nothing Clever, Just Feelings"

How to describe CLT DRP.... electro-punk? There are guitars and drums and squelchy electronics and dance beats. It's messy and noisy and exciting and enthralling. I catch a few hints of Yeah Yeah Yeahs in there but in many ways CLT DRP are quite unique.

28.

Sextile "Push"

Post punk meets dance? Guitars and electro pulses. Jungle breakbeats, acid squelches, four to the floor pounding beats. And yet no matter how electronic it gets (100% at times), it always sounds like a band.

27.

Simon Doty "Universal Language"

Label Anjunadeep continue to release quality records, and this is absolutely no exception. A blend of classic house sounds with modern deep house, and just so much groove. The bass lines are huge but warm, the vocals atmospheric and the sound timeless.

26.

Crowd+CTRL "Smoke & Mirrors"

Trance producers ReOrder & Jordan Tobias join forces for their debut collaborative album. They take their trance knowledge, apply some deep/progressive house elements, and end up with a sound they call "uplifting techno". Yes, at times it's a bit repetitive, but some of the harmonies / melodies are spine-tinglers, and the overall atmosphere of the album is quite captivating.

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Part 2 (numbers 25-1) including links to Spotify and YouTube playlists for the Top 50 is here:

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