#honestly this is more an analysis of my own reaction to the episode than it is of the actual episode

[inksandpensblog]

For a series where the slavery started off as kind of a joke, and moreover a series that's been largely aimed at children since its revival, I sincerely believed that actually whipping a character on-screen would be too grim for AvA. I never thought they'd go there.

Like I pondered the possibility that it'd happen, conceptually, to the character. But I never thought the show would actually depict it.

There are only so many contexts a whip can be relevant in; they have connotations. When the whip is turned against a person in distress, the atmosphere becomes blatantly cruel. There's no way to sugarcoat it, there's no blurry lines. Whips bring suffering. Their mere presence agitates, let alone the actual pain they inflict.

It's a level of dehumanization that's so much more easily and instantly identifiable as terrible than some other stuff that has been done in the series, or even to this character.

And it's especially deplorable that it was done to this character, given Chosen's history.

We don't actually know if he's been whipped in the past, he might not have been, but. Whether he was or not, the implications regarding power dynamic that are inherent in the presence of a whip are unmistakable. He understands, on some level, what is happening and what it means, even if his understanding doesn't approach from the same direction that Victim's does, or that the viewer's does. The scene pauses for him to react, after the whip is cracked. He sees significance in its presence.

There really aren't many ways to interpret a fearful person being mercilessly attacked with a whip. Especially if he's got a halter around his neck allowing his attacker to control his ability to distance himself from the harassment, which carries its own implications.

I see merit in the idea that Victim was trying to tame Chosen like a wild beast, and I'm willing to believe that that's the understanding which Chosen or Victim or both have of the situation. But as a viewer I cannot completely separate what's happening on-screen from the banal idea of a slave being punished. Horrific, contemptible, violating, disparaging, unjust, inhumane abuse.

And it's happening to Chosen, who already threw off the shackles of his own slavery years ago. And it's happening under the hands of Victim, emulating the actions of his own abuser...who happens to have been Chosen's abuser as well.

We only saw the beginning and the end of Chosen's enslavement; we don't know what all he suffered while oppressed by the animator. We don't know what Victim knows, of what Chosen has suffered.

Tools have never been used to restrain a character by the neck before, in this series. Strangulation is always done by hand, to win a fight, never to prevent them from leaving it.

Whips haven't appeared at all before now, in this series, much less been used against the characters. And then, of all the characters they could've picked, they pick the one with a history of slavery, a concept that shares a heavy correlation with whips.

It's messed up. It's so much more messed up than I thought the series would be willing to go.

#animator vs animation #ava 6 spoilers #ava the box #ava6 spoilers #my thoughts #analysis #kinda #honestly this is more an analysis of my own reaction to the episode than it is of the actual episode #didn't get the word ''curtail'' in here. it's a good word #sorry this is disorganized I don't know how I feel about this I just know it wasn't enjoyable to witness

[chubphoe-linkclick]

People like to point to a lot of random scenes in Link Click to justify why ShiGuang being romantic is canon. Now, I'm not the creator of Link Click, I have no authority on the subject. So most the time, it's a "lets agree to disagree" situation.

However, there is one scene from Episode 1 that I find down-right offensive for people to point to as evidence of Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang being an item:

There is no doubt that this scene is incredibly beautiful and loving, but romance isn't what makes this scene beautiful, nor is it what makes the bond they share so touching and engaging to watch. The fact that they honest-to-God love and care about each other is.

What makes this particular scene really lovely is information we're given later in the show. Its full tenderness only clicks in hindsight once we know more about the characters and Cheng Xiaoshi's past. Specifically, when we understand more about how their powers work and the tragic fact that Xiaoshi is (effectively) an orphan.

So we need to back up a few steps.

The scene begins with us seeing Emma dreaming about her parents, and we eventually see a visual representation of how Cheng Xiaoshi is also experiencing this dream as her, taking on her feelings.

Then there's her parents leaving, metaphorical for how out of her life they are now and how much Emma misses her parents (duh).

The fun part comes from the fact that it's not Emma we see as a child at this point, but Xiaoshi. He is being left behind by his parents.

Look at this face. IT'S THE FACE OF PAIN, and for me it honestly didn't make sense why this dream was as emotionally impactful for him as it was (on my first watchthrough).

Afterwards Cheng Xiaoshi wakes up, and Lu Guang notices this. At times like this, I really appreciate the dub for localising what's being said better than the more literal subtitles (even though the dub definitely says some shit that just ain't true). The dub's word choices are:

LG: "You're up?" CXS: "I dreamt that I had spring rolls with my parents." LG: "Folks on your mind?" CXS: "Yeah, and they're on hers as well."

LG: "When you became her, you took on some of her feelings and her memories. It must be tough." CXS: "... I wonder if they'll come back."

and then Cheng Xiaoshi rolls over and starts hugging himself tightly because of the unbearable pain

It takes a hot second for Lu Guang to realise what Cheng Xiaoshi actually means by his statement, that the 'they' in question is his own parents rather than anyone in Emma's life. Naturally, Lu Guang understands that Cheng Xiaoshi is suffering immensely right now because Xiaoshi's being forced to feel the agonising hole is his life that came from the worst thing that ever happened to him.

And so, he reaches through time and space (metaphorically?) to comfort him, his all-time best friend and, yes, potential romantic partner, telling him that "It will work out, just rest." Because SWEET JESUS, WHO WOULDN'T TRY COMFORTING THEIR FRIEND IN THAT MOMENT!? WHO??

It's beautiful. It's sweet. It's loving. It shows how in-tune they are to each other and that they care about each other's well being. No macho shit here, only a wholesome connection that we are all jealous of and celebrate.

Bonus analysis: knowing Cheng Xiaoshi's emotional state at this point, his re-suffering of the pain from being separated from his parents, then makes the message from Emma's mother and his reaction to it all the more emotionally touching.

Maybe the reason he sent the reply "I miss you" wasn't even for Emma's sake in that moment, but a result of the line between his own loneliness and hers having become so blurred in that sleepy moment.

I'd just like to clarify again, if you think they're gay together: cool. If you think this scene is the reason why: not cool.

Romance isn't the highest form of love, and it's not gay or weird to love your friends. What Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang have is really beautiful, and I honestly don't think I've ever seen such a great depiction of two men who are so comfortably close to each other.

Whether their relationship is platonic or otherwise doesn't really matter here. What upsets me is the unhealthy elevation of romantic love as the most true and purest form of love over all other kinds -- that you can only care about someone this much and want them in your life ONLY if you want to marry them or something -- an idea that ends up hurting a lot of people.

Romance isn't what makes this scene beautiful, nor is it what makes the bond they share so touching and engaging to watch. The fact that they honest-to-God love and care about each other is.

#link click #shiguang dailiren #link click analysis #cheng xiaoshi #lu guang #whatever they have is lightyears ahead of human comprehension #bros that travel through time together stay together #no homo tho

[bronx-bomber87]

Happy Weekend everyone :) Exciting we got some BTS I can't wait for the first promo for the premiere. When we get our first crumb and we can all lose our collective minds. Ha Till then we are hitting another fav episode of mine. The one where really it’s Tim and Lucy on a date. Chris and Ashley just happen to be there. So many reasons I love this episode from the date to the work stuff it's all very good. Off we go.

4x12 The Knock

Our couple actually gets the cold open. They’re headed to the beach for a call. Lucy mentions how it sucks to be on the beach but not be able to enjoy it. That she can’t dive into the water. Tim is more than happy to stay away from the water and the beach. Forgetting he’s dating a lifeguard….(Sure he would love the ocean more if a wet Lucy Chen was in it) Lucy giving him crap saying how on brand this is for him. To hate one of natures greatest gifts lmao God I'll always love how she speaks her mind around him. Especially in S4. It's glorious.

Tim corrects her and says it’s the ocean not the beach he hates. Lucy can’t help but get into psychology mode. Telling him a fear of the ocean is related to not being in complete control of his environment. I mean that’s pretty damn spot on for Tim. We know what a control freak this man is over everything. (I can relate. heh) Tells him good luck dating a lifeguard LOL So much sass so early in their shift. Tim’s reactions through out this portion above are too funny.

Throwing his hands up and shaking his head at her analysis of him. Not fighting it BTW. Progress ha He used to be so anti-psych before her. Lucy can’t help but psychoanalyze him. Not only for the water but for Ashley let’s be honest. This flirty sass is only the beginning with this episode. Never be over how very vocal Lucy is about Ashley. Literally giving Tim breadcrumbs all over the place she’s not right for him. Also that she is not a fan. None of us are Lucy...

They make their way to Ashley. Saying she wasn’t expecting them to send their best. And hottest. (I mean she's not wrong. They both fine af.) Lucy is not about this flirt fest. So very transparent my friend haha Awkwardly does a *ahem* Trying to get Ashley to direct them to why she called. Asking where is the thing she called about? Tim can’t let it go when they’re walking towards it.

‘Did you hear her say the hottest?’ Wants so badly for Lucy to recognize he’s attractive. Trust me babe she knows. Painfully aware of it really. Something she has to consistently push down in your flirty moments. I bet you that look she gives in 5x12 was everything for him. When she was shamelessly checking him out. The validation he had been chasing forever. Part of him that just needs to know she finds him attractive. Oh Timothy. She does that’s part of the problem for her especially this season haha They’re walked up to a severed hand. Eww.

Tim’s point about the ocean being proven in this moment. Ashley is just standing there while they bicker like a married couple haha Which is basically this entire episode honestly. Really this season but there is a heavy emphasis on it in this one. Tim asking her if she wants to go in now? Such a shit. I love him so much. Lucy being the exasperated one this time lmao. Look at her reaction above. Annoyed wife status. Idk how Ashley could be around them and not wonder if Tim was in love with Lucy? SMH. Third wheel in her own relationship when Lucy is around. Another theme of this episode.

Tim comes up after Lucy is done talking to Chris. They were theorizing what the story behind the hand could be. He takes off and Tim immediately notices ‘the look’ and he comments on it. Asking her what’s that look? Lucy is defensive and says 'Nothing.... What?' It’s here we see jealous Tim emerge. Welcome sir please stay awhile. Noting she wanted to strangle Chris last week. Now she’s sweet on him?

Lucy can’t help but give him grief for his old school verbiage. Haha He’s the old dude from UP time and time again. I mean this scene really is just Tim speak for jealous. He doesn't like Chris. Never has never will. Lucy deflects said jealously into making fun of him. Tim not even trying to hide how he feels about this situation. Liked it better where she wanted to strangle Chris. He knows that look and isn’t exactly excited about it.

Ashley comes up saying she’s all done with her paperwork. Asking if he has any plans tonight? Tim tells her no. She goes on to tell him her friend won 4 raffle tickets to a fancy dinner thing. Tim being skeptical asks what that entails? She tells him it’s called OSIA. Lucy’s interest is now piqued. Ashley continues on to say it’s a beach pop up. 12 fusion meals and wine pairings.

You can see Tim doesn’t look excited. He tells her he’ll have to think about it. Ashley asks him what there to think about? Lucy jumps right in cause well it’s Lucy. Saying the control freak in him doesn’t like to try new things. (Well he does just not with you Ashley...) You're not the one he's going to jump off cliffs for. Cause well. You know. The vapid quality you bring to this whole thing… Seriously how is Ashley not constantly threatened by Lucy? Tim gets defensive and says he’s not a control freak. Ok honey…..Lucy is enjoying this so very much. Look at her above. Challenging him to proof he is not.

Tim changes his tune and says he would be happy to go to her fancy dinner thing. Funny Tim was a hard no till Lucy called him out. If I was Ashley I would be thinking it was weird Tim only said yes to spite Lucy but ok LOL Honestly the control freak in him to control this moment by saying yes haha My god Timothy. To show Lucy he's not one if he goes. Not the reason to go to a fancy place with your GF. To show up your ‘platonic aide.' but you do you Tim.

They return to the station and Tim gets a phone call. It’s Ashley saying her friend bailed on dinner. She starts suggesting another friend and Tim looks at Lucy. Knowing if he has to do this dinner thing he at least wants her there. Not some random other couple if he can help it. Unconsciously reaching for his safe space in this instance. I.e. Lucy. So he casually says Lucy been pining after that place all day. Lucy TOUCHES his forearm during her excitement.

If a gif could sum up their dynamic/personality in one moment it would be this one one. Heh Her excitement and his need for her to chill on said excitement. Sunshine x Grumpy at its finest. Tim then makes the biggest mistake ever. (He just doesn’t realize it yet…) Spots Chris and tells him Lucy needs a date to a fancy dinner. Oh my love you’re going to live to regret this one. Saw a funny post about this moment. 'Congratulations you just played yourself.' HA It's true though... Does his fake Chris smile to get him to come with.

So desperate to have her there with him he invites Chris. Someone he can't stand. You're a hot mess Timothy. I love you. The clown agrees to said dinner while Lucy stands there and watches this all unfold. She is stunned into silence mostly lol Tim gets off the phone and says’What? Don't be such a control freak.’ The shade Tim the absolute shade. Who is this man? Also let’s note they’re doing a work flirt inside this ‘double date’ before it even begins. Only these two…

So begins the date where a third and fourth wheel called Chris and Ashley just happen to be there for the ride. Really this entire portion is just one giant display of their bond. I love it so much. We get to see their exquisite connection front and center. That seamless flow of theirs and how they lean on one another naturally. Tim starts out real strong saying how he doesn’t understand why a restaurant would be on a beach? Oh my grumpy old man. Lucy isn't phased by this but Ashley is. Their first course arrives and Tim looks so very confused as their server explains it.

This is their first married moment of the night. Tim asking if any of that was English? Lucy steps in. Says she can translate for him. All he needs to know is it’s made of mushroom. Which she knows isn’t his favorite. She knows his various likes and dislikes. Because of course she does. This is her work husband after all. Lucy knows all the things. It’s the way she naturally leans over and he tells her to take it. He leans back and lets her snatch it up. I have a feeling this isn’t the first time this has happened during a meal. They’ve just never had an audience before. This is touching on our 'you know me so well. too well.' OTP moment.

I love him just letting her eat off his plate. Like it ain’t no thang... Just a normal day. Nothing to see here people. Totally normal platonic partners right here. It’s Ashley’s face while Lucy does this that makes me laugh. She is picking up on a vibe so hard. It’s written all over her face. Then there is clueless Chris to her left. Not noticing the dynamic between them. He is a wet match in a damp cave folks. Ashley however is picking up on it right away. You’d have to be blind not to or be Chris at this point LMAO Ashley feeling every bit the third wheel. Says she didn’t know he didn’t like mushrooms? Tim tells her it’s ok. (it's ok cause his wife knows…)

Chris brings up he’s not much of an adventurous eater. But did have curry goat one time in Jamaica. This prompts Tim to come up with a story about Lucy. Because he’s on a date with her and not Ashley right? Tim starting off with ‘Was his name Gerald?’ It’s the way he’s looking right at her when he says this. It’s so cute. They're like a couple on their honeymoon swapping stories with a couple they just met. Lucy trying to stop her enthusiastic husband from embarrassing them by sharing too much.

Tim could not be more adorable with how excited he is to tell this story. Look how animated he is above. Only Lucy brings this side out of him. Let's also note how how his eyes basically never leave her face. Lucy’s sheepish ‘god shut up don’t....’ Trying to cut Tim off from telling this story. Married moment number two coming right up. It's the way she's reacting that is so precious.

A wife trying to stop her husband from embarrassing her with a story. This scene is just so damn endearing. It's a testament to the seamless flow that is them. That bond no one seems to really understand but them. The inside jokes and how they’re finishing each other sentences. That lovely ebb and flow they have. If you didn’t know the context of this scene you’d think they were the ones in a relationship.

They're behaving in a manner that strongly resembles a married couple. The fact that it's in front of their dates tickles me pink. They’re basically screaming their feelings in this moment through this story. The looks they give each other while the other is talking. *heart clutch* The smiles and looks of love. Chris and Ashley's reactions are what make the situation so amusing. Like two outsiders looking into a world they don’t understand. At all. They don't speak the language and it shows.

They get so lost in each other and in this story. They don’t pick up on the vibes across the table. Ashley being confused and threatened. Chris being well clueless and pretending he knows what’s going on. How either of could watch this chemistry filled display and not walk away from the table is beyond me. Their dates are on a date with each other right now. They just don’t realize it.

What's being depicted here is their profound bond, their history, the looks, the touches and laughter. They barely look at their dates towards the end of the story. If you needed a 'Tell me your ship is married without telling me they are?' This is that in spades. Look at the way they are smiling, laughing and looking at each other toward the end of this story. He is sporting his Lucy smile in the gifs above.

Never smiles for anyone the way he does for her. His heart reaching his eyes and lips just for his girl. Tim is so damn pleased with himself for teasing her. Sheer joy out of telling an embarrassing story involving her. Straight flirting right in front of their dates. Tim is so in love with her in this moment. I mean the man took a small comment from Chris and turned it into as story about Lucy. One from a long time ago no less. Nothing soulmate like at all about this behavior.

Look at these two in these final gifs. All heart eyes, smiles, and giggling. That Tim smile loud and proud. They're like two idiots in love who can’t help but project that love to everyone around them. Haven't torn their eyes from one another. They’ve completely forgotten the others at the table. Faded into their own flirty world. I know some people said they felt second-hand embarrassment. I didn’t I LOVED seeing this. I love her laughter feeding off his amusement asking 'Why?' Him replying 'It's funny.' laughing with her. It was only funny to them LOL I’m dying it’s so good.

Ashley is not pleased. Can’t say I blame her. Lucy is bringing out a side that is foreign to her. What happens when you're blah and bring nothing to a relationship. You get second hand Tim. To me this episode is as just one step closer to showing they’re supposed to be together. Shows the depth of their bond at this point. That magnetic draw they have to one another even with others around. Even when those people are the ones they’re supposedly on a date with. They're oozing cute newlywed vibes here and I was so happy to watch it.

We return to them now having a spirited debate about experimenting on the dead. It's stemming from the case they're working on. A mad man has been taking severed limbs trying to reanimate them. Married moments 3 and 4 are arriving at the station. It’s the fact that their bodies are now pointed at each other. Effectively shutting out the others at the table. Ashley inserts herself back into the convo finally getting them to break of from one another. (Seriously Ashley all the signs were there. Should cut this off after this dinner alone.)

She asks Tim if he hasn’t volunteered to be an organ donor then? Lucy answers for him cause wifey knows the answer. Telling Ashley all about it. How he wants his ashes spread over Dodger field LOL I love her knowing this detail. It’s one thing to know someone’s dislikes in food. It’s another to know info like this. Lucy knows him like the back of her hand. He didn’t even care she answered for him. Tim could not be cuter saying his ashes would mess up the PH of the grass. LMFAO. I love this man sfm everyone I really do. Lucy replying like only a wife would.

Making fun of him for calling in the first place. I love these two so much. Also adore how relaxed and comfortable Tim is. His body still pointed towards Lucy. You know she is the reason he’s so relaxed. Why he is having fun. It's because his person is there. Bringing out the best in him. Making jabs and bantering back and forth with him. Chris awkwardly adds in ‘I like the dodgers…’ I’m rolling. No one cares little dude. Tim going back to being a little reserved with his ‘Yeah..’ reply. Tim makes one last jab at the food. How ridiculous it is. Ashley gets up from the table and Tim tries to apologize but she’s out out there.

The next day they’re sent to the county morgue. The guy who’s been working on dead people has been linked to here. They figured out he was using the morgue for his experiments. Because it’s for people who aren’t identified and get buried by the state. Pretty sad but right up this deranged guy's ally. Once they arrive they see blood on the floor. Follow it to where they find him hold up in a room. Trying to get more body parts.

This next section is a lesson in how not to have any personal space by Tim and Lucy. Also how far they’ve come professionally with this moment. Chester the crazy person has a room of people hostage. Tim takes off his body cam and slides it into the room. Opens his phone and makes his way back to Lucy.

Tim asks her what their options are? I LOVE Tim trusting Lucy’s instincts. Asking for them instead of testing them. This scene is so intimate. From their soft voices to way he guides her into place. Places his hand on her lower back and she trust him to do so. Then takes a glance at his phone. Talking out her options with him. Adore how they're so in sync in this scene. How they move together. Gets me right in the feels.

I saw a post (link inside that) awhile ago about how Eric and Melissa took them standing together to another level. How they took the initiative to be like 'Hmm the fans would love this.' So they made it this intimate moment we all know and love. I adore them doing this kind of stuff. Knowing it’ll drive the fans crazy in the best way. Gah the way he’s intensely looking at her as she processes her thoughts. Like a proud husband waiting for her to make her call. This moment shows they have the same amount of chemistry inside their job as they do outside of it. Nothing changes. This scene was *fans self*

Tim waiting for her to make her decision. Knowing she going to make the right one. His trust in her implicit at this point. The silent communication going on here is out of this world. Also look at this man’s jawline. Could cut glass on that thing. Peppered with stubble too. Yum Tum. Thought we made it through a review without me ogling Tim didn’t you? You're welcome. Lucy comes up with a bad ass plan where no one gets hurt. Tim blinding him with his flashlight. Chester erratically shoots at it. Lucy takes him out with her taser with him distracted. They arrest Chester and save the hostages. BAMF'S

Lucy is leaving the station when the clown catches her. Chris telling her he wasn’t really feeling last night. Yeah cause she was on a date with Tim not you… (You'll never compare but sure go ahead putz.) Lucy apologizing to him. Saying her and Tim spend so much time together. They just have a shorthand. It's so much more than that. If by shorthand you mean deep emotional connection and bond. An intimacy that can be felt just by the way you look at each other and silently communicate.

Where you finish each other sentences, make each other laugh, have inside jokes no one else gets, throw heart eyes at one another and clearly are so very in love. Love each other warts and all. Then sure let’s call all that a 'shorthand' Lucy. Whatever helps you sleep at night LOL She ends up setting up a do-over with Chris. Bleh. But she can’t have Tim right now so he’s it atm. Just a distraction for her nothing more. Like a snack you don't super love but it's there. So you pick at it not expecting much enjoyment out of it other than filling yourself up.

Tim has Ashley meet him at the station to apologize. She points out how he spent the entire time talking to Lucy. Well I mean he did…. Tim telling her his job is unpredictable. His entire career has been that way with his jobs. That at the end of the day likes his creature comforts. I hate that Ashley was always trying to change Tim. There’s compromise and there’s someone who doesn’t fit with you. Like trying to shove square peg into a round hole with them.

Lucy would be so happy to do those things with him. Also she’s just not worth him going out of his comfort zone for. Lucy is the only one to get him to do that. As we see in S5 the things he's willing to do for Lucy vs what HAS to do for Ashley. Lucy loves Tim for everything that is him grumpus and all. Where as Ashley tries to alter Tim and things she doesn't. Get him to fit what she wants out of a man. Just not the right one for him to do any of those things. It's telling af how Tim gets defensive when she calls Lucy his partner.

The denial is so real Timothy. She sees his freakout and he reels back saying that’s not the point… it kinda is though haha I swear only reason Tim was with her was to show how right Lucy was for him. How Lucy adds to him and Ashley only subtracts. He was so ready to just settle for he since he wasn’t going to get what he really wanted. More we learn about Ashley more we see him settling. Giving up parts of himself for her because he doesn’t think he’ll get those things anyway. (Marriage, kids, stupid in love happiness) Not till Lucy...Thus ends our marriage moments episode. I truly love this one.

~~~~

Side notes-non Chenford

Nyla being pathologically happy cause of the pregnancy hormones is hilarious. I love it so very much.

Thank you thank you to everyone who supports these reviews. Your likes, comments and reblogs give me life haha see you all in 4x13 :)

#Caitlin Rewatches The Rookie #chenford #chenford hiatus #waiting on s6 #winter rewatch #s4 #4x12 The Knock #the rookie 4x12 #otp: doing my job #otp: you know me so well. too well #otp: some things matter more. #otp: you did good. #otp: you're nothing like him. #tim x lucy #tim bradford #lucy chen #lucy x tim #eric winter #melissa o'neil #the rookie #tim bradford x lucy chen

[animanga-bonanza]

i have so many feelings and thoughts about this latest episode of x men 97 -- spoilers under the cut

first, my favorite highlights/takeaways:

As usual, the dialogue is S-tier and this show is really good about putting the characters through dilemmas that have real stakes, and having the characters navigate those dilemmas in ways that both make sense for them and require them to move forward

Xavier is a confirmed bottom 😂 my man was ready to be a PET for this glamorous space lady

Loved that moment where Xavier literally takes the Shi’ar to class and starts SCHOOLING them 😂 he said “hold up I’m a teacher. lemme teach y’all something right now” 👨‍🏫

When talking about what he wanted to remember from Earth, he only mentioned Magneto, his “old friend” (YOU MEAN YOUR EX. YOUR SOULMATE. THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE. C’MON CHARLES)

Speaking of Xavier x Magneto, when he finds out what happened to Magnus…😭 it was already heartbreaking seeing his reaction to Gambit's death

I’m certain the Shi’ar stuff is going to be the main conflict in Season Two or Three; Season One is gonna be focused on X-Men vs Sinister. Having this warmongering galactic empire on the brink of a coup that believes Earth is a “ghetto”, it’s not gonna turn out well for Earth.

I’m glad this episode confirmed that Sinister is behind the Genosha attack (though idk he might be working for someone else); writers sometimes keep their cards too close to their chest because they’re afraid that if they reveal their hand too soon, the audience will lose interest. But in my experience, it’s often more fun when the writers show you their hand and then use their cards to build a magnificent tower. Knowing who all the players are, their goals and motivations, and watching them duke it out is the stuff that drama is made of. It’s kind of like the Hitchcock principle of showing your audience the bomb under the table in order to raise suspense.

I’m REALLY happy that Storm is back, I missed her so much these past couple episodes! Aaah I’m a sucker for characters with weather powers, and hearing about the stuff Storm can do in the comics, I’m looking forward to seeing her use her abilities in a range of creative ways

Now for some analysis/ramblings!!

Storm and Xavier’s struggles mirror each other. Both characters are having to choose between comfort/happiness and duty/hardship.

Storm believes she’d be happier as a normal human. She could leave all her past troubles behind, build a new life with Forge. But that would be a betrayal of herself, her values, and her community. The Adversary’s line about Storm being afraid of living more than dying cuts deep. Storm was never afraid to put her life on the line to protect others. She literally took a bullet for Magneto. Her biggest fear is living her full truth, perhaps because her power is so great that it might alienate her from other people, even from her fellow mutants. As Magneto said (and I paraphrase), she is the closest thing to a goddess their world has ever seen.

And IIRC, part of Storm’s backstory involved her being worshiped/revered as a goddess or holy priestess. I think this past experience made Storm wary of embracing her full power because that kind of existence is lonely.

Honestly, as a black woman, Storm’s journey resonates so much. In real life, black women are often expected to be superhuman, the “strong black woman” who can shoulder her own burdens and everyone else’s. Storm suppressing her own powers for fear of being put on a pedestal as this flawless “queen” or “goddess” who can reliably solve everyone else’s problems? Yeah. That’s some real stuff. Storm, like everyone else, deserves to be vulnerable. To be protected and cared for instead of having to always protect and care for others.

But the expectation to be "strong" is something that Storm seems to have internalized; she didn't have to leave the X-Men when she lost her powers, but she left in part because she felt like she had to deal with her grief alone. And I hope that, even though she’s coming back to the X-Men with her powers fully realized, she’s able to rely on her friends for comfort. I also love that this series emphasizes her friendship with Jean, and I hope to see more of their dynamic going forward.

As for Xavier, he’s having to choose between life on his home planet, where he’s surrounded by family but having to deal with their “drama” plus the persecution of his community, and life among the stars, away from the troubles of Earth but still not accepted as a full person. Either way, he has to play the role of the teacher, the wise mentor who must guide others to the path of enlightened coexistence. It’s a tough burden to bear.

I’m not disabled, but it seems to me that the way Xavier is burdened with the responsibility of having to be a “role model” for others mirrors the way that society treats disabled people in real life. Again, I’m definitely out of my depth here and would love to hear disabled people’s thoughts on the matter, but it’s my understanding that society tends to dehumanize disabled people as either pitiable/contemptible burdens or admirable/brave warriors who can “rise above” their condition. Some of that seems to be baked into certain aspects of how Xavier was conceived as a character and the way he’s often framed by the narrative, but it looks like X Men 97 is aware of this and attempting to interrogate it a little.

Anyway, this episode was really great, a nice breather after the devastation of last week’s episode while still thematically rich and moving the story forward.

#x men 97 spoilers #x men storm #charles xavier #x men 97 meta

[alexandraisyes]

A small ramble about Eclipse's therapy

Okay, so this is all copy-pasted from Discord where I was going through it minute by agonizing minute and just rambling my little heart out

This episode. Specifically this one. Ramble under cut.

Reminders before I talk about this! Eclipse is confirmed to have ASPD in canon. I also have ASPD. I do know things on that topic because of this unfortunate fact. For some in-depth things on Eclipse's sociopathy, I suggest popping over to these two analyses! Eclipse Is a Sociopath - Traits of ASPD

Eclipse obviously doesn't even want to be here, we know this from the very start when Moon is literally shoving him to get him into the room

Eclipse attempts (and fails) to intimidate both Moon and Solar. First with the comment about Lunar, which was meant to get under Moon's skin but when he didn't get a reaction he brushed it off with a 'whatever'. Next with the stand-off with Solar "Name is Solar" Technically correct, as we know from earlier episodes that his name is "Solar Eclipse" and Lunar is "Lunar Eclipse" The 'eclipse brothers' (Which is only further supported by the fact that a blood moon is a type of eclipse) Of course, we all know this was not the answer Solar was wanting. (Solar gets his own petty revenge by dragging the process out. Moon also gets petty revenge by mocking Eclipse. This is honestly a good reminder that they all came from the same base personality.)

Eclipse was flabbergasted. Absolutely gobsmacked. Shook When Moon told him upfront that he does need therapy. I think this stems partly from the fact that this is Moon and Moon has never tried to do something that would benefit Eclipse And then just being told what he already knows by someone else probably caught him off guard. He doesn't want to go to therapy because he thinks that therapy means he is weak. We already know how Eclipse feels about being weak and needing to rely on others for literally anything. We see this on a lesser extent with Solar who doesn't ask for anything because he doesn't want to be seen as a burden.

I do think it's important that he calls Solar the 'inferior version' right after calling him the 'better version' of himself. He called Solar better than him and then immediately change his words. Possibly because he can't stand the fact that Solar actually is better than him. Not necessarily in what one thinks of when we do comparisons like that, but more of Solar's more stable than Eclipse. He has a family to lean back on. . . unlike Eclipse. The one person that Eclipse cared about (at one point but now claims to hate) now hates Eclipse but loves Solar, which is just. . . another version of Eclipse. And that knowledge has to be painful, even for Eclipse.

It's also possible that Eclipse actually does think that Solar is inferior due to the common mindset that socio/psychopaths tend to have about 'normal people' around them. We pity people on a superficial level for being held back by fickle things like emotions and guilt, while also blatantly ignoring our own issues that make our own lives 582390458234098x harder due to the packaged deal that is ASPD

(To briefly summarize the "package deal" - along with socio/psychopathy toss in Anxiety Disorders, Paranoia, Dissociation/Derealization Issues, PTSD, ADHD/ADHD-symptoms, and Depression)

Back to the analysis

Eclipse immediately starts to mock Earth's office. He tends to mock Earth a lot in the past, because she's a very reactive character. It also used to be a lot easier to make her insecure. Someone who is insecure isn't going to press a hostile party for conversation/information.

Earth, like the girl-boss she is, calls him out. Kudos to Earth

Okay let's step back from Eclipse a second because MOON This is probably the worst possible timing for him to bring Eclipse in for a therapy appointment and he knows it and even though Earth says it's fine he's still apologizing and genuinely sorry and I think that's a huge step from how he was falling apart a little bit ago and slipping back into what Old Moon was Moon's also always had a soft spot for Earth (Big brother syndrome except Moon is technically the youngest sibling)

Okay back to Eclipse. After a failed attempt to get under Earth's skin he goes for Moon again. The man really do be flabbergasted that the two most reactive people he knows aren't giving him the reaction he wants.

And then back to Earth. He honestly spends the first bit just trying to get a reaction out of everyone because that's what he's good at. He's exasperated when Earth starts asking him questions, and gives her his normal sarcastic a-hole response. He's purposefully unnerving and trying to make both Earth and Moon uncomfortable because he doesn't want to be there.

He skirts around the abandonment question, which just lets everyone in the room know that he does indeed feel abandoned. He deflects the question honestly horribly in my opinion. "Abandoned, why would I feel abandoned?" Proceeds to list off reasons that he would feel abandoned but phrases them as questions. Sir? Try harder.

Moon plays a common tactic when dealing with unwilling peoples. "The sooner you play along the sooner you can leave." Common courtroom/interrogation tactic. Gives a goal to work toward while also implying that they're willing to stick around for as long as the person in the room is willing to bullcrap them. This may be a familiar tactic to the audience because parents love using this when teens are lying to them. So do teachers. "Just tell us what we want to hear and then we can be done. But if you sit here in silence then I'll sit here in silence with you."

Reminds me of parole. A lot of people who've gotten in trouble with the powers that be are required to participate in active therapy if they want to get out of a heavier charge. It's a common requirement of plea deals

Watch me ramble Back on track

Plsplspls and then Eclipse says the same thing I FORGOT HE SAID IT CUT ME SOME SLACK IM TYPING AS I WATCH THIS FOR THE SECOND TIME ITS BEEN A WHOLE DAY I've got the adhd my memory is not that good sir

I'm only 6 minutes in are you bored yet

Earth does irritate him by making assumptions about him that are wrong. It's a small blow to the pride. He's not acting like he doesn't care, he just doesn't care. And then he just starts bullcrapping so I'm gonna call him out on his bullcrap

He didn't just care about the star

Someone who doesn't care isn't going to be hurt by rejection so lets go over the list

Getting back to Moon. Remerging their code which is where he felt like he was supposed to be. Moon shoved him away, rejected him, and that made him upset

Lunar. Lunar wasn't just a means to an end because Lunar had just the right traits, the right level of whatever to make Eclipse care about him. Think of it like this. Eclipse was barely offended by Bloodmoon attacking him and ditching him. But he went out of his way to blow Lunar up because Lunar, in his eyes, betrayed him

The star to an extent. He cared less about the star itself and more about being able to make a world perfect for him and those around him. He was a Lawful Evil type back then (Dances in DnD language)

Eh that's honestly all I can think of off the top of my head. I'd argue he also cared about Sun to an extent because he used to be Moon, but probably not as much these days lol But yeah CUT THE CRAP ECLIPSE GRRR WHOO LOW SELF ESTEEM "You'd all just immediately try to find a way to kill me" He really do think that everyone would just go out of their way to kill him even if he was existing peacefully. He's half right

Sun didn't really want anything to do with it. Solar was just going along with it because Moon's his best friend (and Solar himself is insecure whoo). Earth isn't confrontational. Ruin (who probably brought eclipse back, btw where did he disappear to we haven't seen that cockroach for a while) didn't hop on the kill Eclipse train until after he was 'kidnapped', and we all know how sus that was. Lunar, yeah, but that's Lunar. Moon also was immediately like "omg kill this guy" but also, that's just Moon. Like I have talked about how self-centered those two are before, haven't I? Monty also wanted to kill Eclipse on sight but he's literally worse than Moon so he don't really count. Monty is literally an awful person who is only semi-decent because of Earth

Eclipse describes his death to Earth as if she wasn't literally there. Again. Reactions. As well as the weird complinsult which she has no idea how to process. Is it an insult? Is it a compliment? It's both honey. It's both. Take it or leave it. Once again frustration and insecurity at the lack of control Eclipse has ove everything. From being monitored, to being brought back, to literally being in a brand new body that he had no say in. The physical lack of control bleeds into the mentality that he has no control over anything, including his own thoughts and emotions. And what's sad is it's kind of true. . . he can't even control his own actions some of the time because of the directives. That just makes him feel paranoid and hopeless, and while he doesn't say it explicitly, it shows. He doesn't think he can change in his mentality because he can't change anything else around him either. That's part of why he thinks therapy is pointless.

10:30 This is where I argue he takes off his metaphorical mask. Not because he trusts Earth, but he's trying to see where her breaking point is. She's been patient and kind and making an attempt to be understanding and it's curious because no one has ever just sat there and asked him questions and let him ramble. He's trying to make her uncomfortable still, but he's also curious. This is a button that has never been presented to him before, how many times can he press it before it's taken away from him. At first he's thinking about his answers, calculating his responses, but it feels honest.

12:20 And then he realized that he was getting ahead of himself and that he was just rambling because he's never had someone to talk to and he stops. Whether it's because it's something he doesn't want her to know, or Moon to know, or it's just something he isn't ready to say out loud yet, he changes topics.

And then he's back to deflecting and getting the focus off of him and poking at Earth again

(Side note: Earth calls him an idiot in a roundabout way and it made me giggle both times watching it)

"You would take more pride in-" Pauses video Gestures frantically PRIDE UGH THE FALLING POINT OF A SOCIOPATH IS OUR PRIDE Yes he would take more pride in it being about information gathering. He'd probably be more complicit if it were for that purpose instead of 'inner healing' because going to therapy is a BLOW TO HIS PRIDE IM Ignore me as I go insane Presses play

Eclipse breaking the fourth wall like-

He's very cynical about the idea of trust and it's because the few times he put his trust in someone/thing it's failed him. AND THEN MORE DEFLECTION ECLIPSE PLEASE- Just stay on topic I'm begging you I know it's hard but LET ME HARVEST YOUR BRAIN MAN STOP DEFLECTING

He's so gobsmacked when Earth claims that we aren't defined by who makes us. Which must be hard to hear for Eclipse because for a while there his entire identity was defined by the fact that he was made by Moon and left behind.

He presses Earth for further detail about this and it makes me wonder if this was the first time he's ever heard or conceptualized this

It's fun to hear Eclipse (I think for the first time) finally verbally disown Sun and Moon. "I don't care to make it right anymore. They've cast their stone and now I'm stuck in my own ship." AKA They had their chance to give him a chance time and time again and each time they shunned him. Why would you go back to someone who has only caused you pain? Eclipse is in a similar situation with Sun/Moon that Lunar is in with him. Part of him wants to be back with them because he was made from them, they will always be part of him just how Eclipse will always be part of Lunar. Violence begets more violence.

I do think it's interesting how Eclipse doesn't acknowledge that he blew up Lunar and it's probably because he didn't blow up Lunar. The Eclipse before him did. Just like how Moon didn't reject him, the Moon before did. (I'll come back to that later)

Earth has to point out that Lunar got ka-boomed and then Eclipse laughs "Oh yes, I did, right." Because, again, he didn't. The Eclipse before him did. It feels like he's trying to avoid taking accountability for that (and good on him because he's technically innocent it's not his fault he has the corrupted memories of a dead man)

HOWEVER ON THAT NOTE

It does feel like with every day that passes by those memories become more of who he is now, and he's slowly accepting them as part of his own identity because he's kind of stuck with them. If you woke up in a random place and someone handed you a broom and said 'you're bob the janitor' and that's all you knew you'd probably believe it (/ref)

(If someone gets that reference I will love you forever)

"Do you really. . . not care about him?" - Earth Eclipse: Doesn't answer the question, answers a question with a question which is DEFLECTING

Sir? You do too still care don't you?

"It's kind of hard to empathize with you" - Earth Me: Runs up chat to grab something

"a normal person cannot relate to a sociopath because our life experiences are so vastly different. You (general you) will never be able to understand what it’s like to be physically unable to care about someone to the point that it hurts because you want to care. And a socio/psychopath will never be able to understand on a visceral level what it’s like to be able to connect with another person or be able to feel things all the time or to do the right thing simply because something compels you to and not because you had to ask yourself “is this morally good or bad behavior” because you just know" - Me four days ago

Do find it interesting how Eclipse has no comment when Earth says he doesn't like her He probably likes her just fine, if I'm being honest. Probably likes her more than most other characters. He's just kinda a jerk and likes to press her buttons because it's funny

When she does manage to hit something right on the nail "It must be scary, right?" And "You just never have a sense of control" He makes a kinda-joke "Are we just going to keep talking about how sad we are" to change the topic AND SHE LAUGHED SHE LAUGHED AT HIS JOKE 👑 Ma'am you dropped this

I do personally Eclipse's sense of humor because it's pretty on point with my own, but I also really enjoy people being uncomfortable with it as well because that's half the fun. So I'm getting a small amount of dark enjoyment of Earth being uncomfortable at the boom joke

((Earth did awesome considering the circumstances. I can respect the fact that she is communicating her own emotional and mental needs even while dealing with someone who's not exactly pleasant for the general populace. She's gotten a lot better at setting boundaries))

Eclipse walks out because he's irritated with Moon. It's a power play. "I may have been forced to be here, but you can't make me sit and listen to you." He honestly had no idea what Moon would have said at the moment, and I also don't think that it would have been the best timing for Moon to drop that on him. They need a calm environment where neither of them is worked up to start touching that topic. Also MOON He's apologizing for something that isn't even his fault and while I can respect that, I almost wish he wasn't taking the blame for something a past self did. Just like how Eclipse is trying not to take accountability for what dead-man Eclipse did. They're two people who have been hurt by the actions of their predecessors and are playing out a game that was set into motion long long before their time. Now the only question that remains is who is Romeo and who is Juliet

Anyway that was the episode

Am taking inquiries and demands as well as bounties for my head

#sun and moon show #earth and lunar show #tsams moon #tsams fnaf #eclipse tsams #tsams earth #tsams solar #tsams #eclipse analysis #tsams analysis #alex talks #video analysis

[digitaldavis]

Gonna preface this by saying it's for the @digimon02countdown but it doesn't necessarily need to be reblogged or anything 'cause it's not super in-depth or insightful or anything like that and, technically, this isn’t my favorite scene or line or even theme in the show (I'm not sure what that would even be); it’s a throw-away line in the dub that happens at the very end of the episode Storm of Friendship where Davis gets his second Digi-Egg:

It’s a short dialogue exchange that goes like this:

Davis: ”Hey, did you see that? I got a noogie! That means I'm one of the guys now!"

DemiVeemon: ”I have a question: if you're one of the guys now, does that mean you used to be one of the girls and how come you never told me about it? I wish you humans would just make up your minds!”

Davis: “Oh yeah, then how’s this for friendship?” *shakes DemiVeemon*

Basically, if you couldn't guess, this was the beginning of my trans!Davis headcanons and it’s really very personal to me - my fixation on it having stemmed from my own desire to have been born male as I was a tiny AFAB child of maybe ten at the time the episode aired, at a point in my life when it had recently been made very clear to me by the authority figures in my life that behaving like a boy was completely unacceptable to them.

I know the line is just meant to be silly but, honestly, I latched onto it like a life-line and for years and years while I was living as a girl, every time I thought about Digimon Adventure 02 I’d think back to that line and the possibility that my favorite character was AFAB at some point and it was always very comforting to me.

It’s just a projection of my own feelings, really, because it’s obviously not canon-canon, but I received such a strong negative reaction in my own life to the idea of being a boy that I definitely took DemiVeemon’s very innocent question far too seriously as a child and have been on the trans!boy Davis train ever since.

In the episode Davis’ shakes DemiVeemon a bunch in response to what DemiVeemon says while everyone laughs it off and you’re supposed to be like “oh haha silly little Digimon” but all I thought watching it for the first time as a little kid was a jumbled mess of:

Davis didn’t deny that he was born a girl and what if he was like me and had had secret thoughts about being a boy for years before becoming one?

DemiVeemon just seemed more hurt that Davis didn’t trust him enough to tell him about it than upset at the idea itself because they were friends and friends accepted each other and,

None of the other kids in the room - even the older kids - were angry or upset by the idea. It was like they thought that becoming a boy was a thing that could happen and was normal and-

-it just kind of spiraled out of control from that moment on, really.

I wish I had some bigger deeper analysis of the show to back up my love of trans!Davis headcanons but I don't. That's all there is to it, really, but it’s part of what made Digimon Adventure 02 really important to me initially when I was growing up and I think about it constantly as it lives rent free in my head.

It's also the basis for this blog and why I chose Davis as my first name when I came out as trans (also it just sounds nice with my last name), so, yeah, thanks wacky Digimon 02 dub on behalf of tiny impressionable me and my fellow trans!Davis enjoyers everywhere~

Oh, and speaking of enjoying things:

I hope everyone has a really great time watching the new Digimon 02 film~

#Davis Motomiya #Digimon Adventure 02 #the origin of trans!boy Davis or something #I should really come up with a clever trans!davis tag #my headcanons #Motomiya Daisuke

[theywontletmebeprincipal]

okay I've watched Fionna and Cake and WOW I enjoyed it a LOT more than I originally thought I would.

I had to sit with the last episode for a while. Trying to decide my feelings on it, you know? My first reaction to how they painted Simon and Betty's relationship was that they did that so the audience could better cope with Simon's choice to move on. Thought about it more and yeah, I was wrong. It just removed the rose-colored glasses. I think the one thing I didn't like was Beth spelling the whole thing out, like yeah I got it. The chose your own adventure allegory worked! I got it. I like the last episode! The part when GolBetty was still protecting Simon when Scarab kept trying to fuck with him got me emotional

Winter King was the biggest tumblrsexyman bait I have EVER seen- selfcest bait and all! Pretty funny, I respect it.

Loved both what Gary and Marshall Lee were doing and what was happening with the main characters. I wasn't sure if I would be too interested in them, but fucking. I got invested in the baking!

BRO THE THEME SONG!?!?! I had only seen the one for the first episode beforehand, so the real intro was a surprise to me! I love it!

Trying to organize my thoughts is hard uuhh just I liked it and will probably rewatch it :]

1. ok the thing about the choose your own adventure allegory isn’t that it’s just that. I thought it was the one weak aspect at first too but in the ending sequence there’s a reveal that totally recontextualizes it

remember the little girl who wanted to be a writer because of ice king’s fionna and cake books? she sketches casper and nova during that sequence. casper and nova isn’t just some random allegory they pulled in — it’s HER BOOK. those are her ocs based off of the stories simon told her about him and betty, and ultimately it was that girl’s portrayal of them, not beth’s explanation, that made him realize what was going on

re: beth, I think it was at least a very interesting dynamic. simon is usually paired with characters either much younger than him or just less worldly than him, and he’s very book/world smart, so I think people tend to forget how immature he can be. ice king was just simon to the extreme after all, not to mention the way simon acts in the earlier episodes (him refusing to run from scarab because he just doesn’t feel like it is a great example). he’s a very smart guy but sometimes he gets so caught up in that that he doesn’t step back to consider anything except surface level logic. pair that with him going slightly mad with worry and I fully understand why beth thought he was shermy doing a bit

simon isn’t childish per se, but there’s a lot of things he doesn’t know because he doesn’t ever really look outside his own perspective, and I like how casper and nova illustrated that. simon has always been this sort of fatherly figure that everyone else admires but nobody else sees the worth in, he’s always trying to shoulder so much for no reason. there’s been this imagery the whole season of simon caring for people younger than him (baby finn, normal finn, fionna, astrid, etc) but he never actually lets himself be cared for. so it makes sense that him being given the grace that a kid would be given and ultimately realizing his wrongdoing after seeing himself through the eyes of a child would be a thing that happens

2. you’re so right about gumlee me too man. the scene where they kissed while pb n marcy were hurtling to their toxic codependent yuri deaths was crazy. holy shit

3. I honestly think there’s a LOT to winter king I have a couple posts worth of analysis on it. I think the idea of simon doing something so wildly unethical is very fascinating I loved watching him spiral into madness. slay

4. the biggest surprise for me I think was cake’s arc? like looking back I totally should’ve seen it coming but it was I think my favorite ongoing plotline from the show. her wishes being at odds with fionna’s presented this really interesting dynamic that finn and jake never had and the way she was a narrative foil to simon was like. ohhhh that was fucking evil of the writers . simon desperately wanting to destroy his mind and cake desperately wanting to keep hers. the way that translates into their dynamic with each other. the terrifying dawning realization that fionna might prefer her non sentient. of course it isn’t true, but it would’ve felt that way, no?

also just fucking. “everybody dies. they should get to die as themselves.” “fionna, I am myself. like this.” what if I spontaneously combusted killing everyone in a 3 mile radius. what then

#sanswers #sorry this is a LOT of text but I have Thoughts #you can tell it’s serious too bc I’ve actually taken the time to write out ‘and’ #adventure time #fionna and cake

[thatiranianphantom]

I don't usually slide into the ask box of people that I strongly disagree with. It's usually utterly pointless and I usually adhere to a strict "live and let live" policy...but your RD takes are just so deeply unsettling that I am making an exception.

Claiming that RD is softcore porn now is just...not true.

This is not even remotely softcore porn. This is barely erotic. And I think your assertion that the show feels like a masturbatory fantasy from the writers has a lot more to do with the fact that you're personally unhappy with the show's direction than the show itself. It's a bad faith reading on the show, steeped in pearl clutching, Hayes Code romancing, nonsense.

Takes like yours, whether they mean to or not, are begging for the Hayes Code to come back. Begging. "Oh, TV shows should only show good morals and whenever they show something morally ambiguous, it should be clear where the moral failings are".

That's a big part of the Hayes Code. And I, for one, reject that ideology with every fiber of my being. TV shows do not need to be parables. They are under no obligation to preach good morals to their audiences. Their purpose is to express ideas!

And Riverdale is doing a bang up job, if I do say so myself (even if I personally feel it could have gone further with a lot of its plots). It's meta-commentary on Americana, film, and television is unmatched. Its refusal to be any one thing is both brave and fascinating. The show has remained true to its vision despite pissing off much of its audience, which is rare in a landscape of shameless pandering for views. God bless Riverdale for that.

(Speaking only of the show itself here, not its marketing.)

But back to the main point. You claim no one will want to hire the Riverdale writers after this and that you think they should go to prison. That's...honestly a deeply conservative mindset and you're not alone in thinking that, but you are highly visible. So, I bring my thoughts to your ask box.

I implore you to look beyond the surface of the media you consume and to recognize that our reactions to stories have a lot more to do with our own feelings than the stories themselves unless we specifically step away from ourselves for analysis. And hey, there's nothing wrong with having opinions on your own blog, so feel free to dismiss me as a little hater. <3

I apologize that this has gotten so long and if I sounded nasty. I am just so deeply disturbed by the prevalence of purity culture in fandom these days. It starts with "think of the children!" and "No kink at pride!" and ends with the eradication of anyone who doesn't fit into the conservative ideal for culture. I'm not saying that you want that, per se, but be careful because those that do want that think similarly.

Thanks.

Okay.....first of all, and I mean this genuinely, kudos to putting your name behind this. This doesn't happen often, so a true fist bump to you.

How generous of you to come here and offer unsolicited and incredibly condescending pseudo-intellectual commentary on what I am allowed to post on my blog. Very generous. But hey, I'm high profile! Lil' ol' me! Look Ma, I made it!

Now we gotta get in the weeds here. Yeah, I am not going to take back or apologize for how softcore-y this show has been this season. I stand behind the statements I made about how creepy it is to watch a grown man's masturbatory fantasy play out on screen. In the last episode alone, they have sexualized pedophilia and grooming (with a teacher student fantasy) and children playing a board game.

See the thing is, it would be purity culture to suggest a woman CAN'T have sex or be sexually attracted to someone. We spent 6 years with Betty as someone who liked sex, and that was fine! We even spent s5 with Betty who used sex as a bandaid. That wasn't healthy, but she was an adult woman having sex. It was fine. Fifties Betty has sex as her ENTIRE character. There is nothing else to 50s Betty. She's horny. She wants to have sex. She wants to have sex so much that she's actively predatory. That's it. And having one and only one character motivation kinda flies in the face of the whole "feminism" thing the show is trying to project, don't it?

Hey, I'll give you that the show THINKS it is making a feminist statement. I'll give you that the show's writers probably THINK they are fixing racism, sexism and homophobia in one fell swoop. But they aren't. Quite the contrary, they are actively furthering those issues while thinking they're doing an amazing job. They degrade women while touting themselves as feminists. They made their only Latina family mob members while touting themselves champions of POC stories. They view themselves as LGBT representation while one character decides another's sexuality and their agency in coming out is stripped from them.

Adding to that, it's fine if you disagree with me. I speak only for myself, and the block button is easy to find. It's all good. I'm not offended that you disagree with me, but to suggest Riverdale is scathing, witty meta-commentary? RIVERDALE????? I don't think I'm the one who doesn't know what this show is, anon. This show is a vehicle to leer on the hot cast members, and more recently, to act out some personal ~aesthetic* writer fantasies. It has never and will never be what you proclaimed it to be:

"meta-commentary on Americana, film, and television is unmatched. Its refusal to be any one thing is both brave and fascinating. The show has remained true to its vision despite pissing off much of its audience, which is rare in a landscape of shameless pandering for views. God bless Riverdale for that."

I'm...a little stunned that you think it is. But nonetheless, I stand behind the statement that writers whose misogyny comes out LOUDLY in their writing, who have stripped this show of anything interesting, recognizable or interesting, and whose relationship with the fans on social media is disturbing at best, will not be prime targets for new shows.

Again, I do genuinely commend you for putting your name behind your thoughts. I have no issue with you disagreeing with me, or the majority of the fandom in general. I have no ill will to you. But yes, I believe this season of the show is disturbing, misogynistic and creepily sexual. It's a statement I stand by, and while you're under no obligation to agree, I hope you're able to find the block button next time.

#answered #watergatescandelous #Riverdale #RD negativity #There's more I didn't put in here I'm just #???

[awhimproned]

I've just read your analysis and I almost wholeheartedly agree with it (I wish we'd had a little more time, a couple more scenes with a fully vampire!Guillermo in order to explore that regret and his reasoning), but apart from that I need to say that you're so right and correct. This season was so good, one of my favorites for sure.

Thank you for writing all that, for putting it into words and organizing it.

I wanted to ask what you want to see with Guillermo on season 6, you briefly touched on it in your post but it had me intrigued.

(Also I can't wait for that Nandermo analysis, get writing bestie!)

HELLO!!! Thank you for shooting me an ask and liking the analysis, i’ve JUST opened this blog and it took me by surprise I’m very humbled!

You didn’t ask for this but I want to speculate as to why it all happened in the last episode and we didn’t have more time to explore Guillermo regret his decision and I guess it could be said that A Choice Was Made to show that how at the drop of a hat decision it was for Guillermo to realize this was NOT it for him, and that he doesn’t even need time to realize he dislikes it. Just the thought of killing someone by himself is enough for him to know he’s fucked up. This is not the “I called in a bomb scare” or gravedigger or victim finder Guillermo or vampire killer Guillermo who can justify everything he does is for the sake of others and to protect others and be very well comfortable in his hypocritical comfort zone. When it comes to killing himself and doing it for himself, he chickens out.

That immediate reaction is what’s meant to make him soft and not cut out to be a vampire, and it just goes to show he was only in it for the power trip of being a vampire. It honestly was so clear for me, but I do understand why it looks like they rushed everything :( Or it’s that I love this show too much and it was a bit to my taste that I cant see the problem 😭

I could myself enjoy Guillermo comically flailing around to try making it look like he was drinking blood but finding alternatives and hiding it from everyone and suffering in private in a “i made my own bed and i now lie in it” themed “THIS FUCKING SUCKS” episode and Nandor finding out at the very end — but I think the point was to leave it open-ended and not traumatize Guillermo too much that he would never consider vampirism again. He isn’t ready — yet, in his own words.

So like, to answer your question, I kinda know what to expect from the next season from Yana’s interviews, I think it’s in two different ones she says “now what? What comes next for guillermo what will he do now? Will he still be with the vampires?” is the engine of season 6, so I believe we’ll either be seeing Guillermo have an existential crisis and parallel with Nandor in s3 (EVEN WELLNESS CENTER HAIR AND HIS LONGER HAIR MATCH WEIRDLY) and slowly coming into his own because he cant be a familiar anymore, or, frustratingly he’ll stay a familiar but they’ll subvert it by having him being more of a roommate like colin than a familiar, so things on paper didn’t change but they did change tremendously. I never want to theorize with this show because it goes very wrong every time, but I believe some kind of realization as to why he still wants to stay with the vampires despite losing his primary excuse is coming for Guillermo. Perhaps try to return to normal but find out that he doesnt have a normal life, but “taking things to places you dont expect” line makes me stop considering things tbh 😭 like YES I would love for guillermo to go off on his own for self-discovery (maybe we get to meet new van helsings) and the dynamic to shift AGAIN a bit, but obviously im wrong and i will be wrong because this show is just. Outrageous like that

But I am dumb, so I am expecting Guillermo to become a roommate and an A Vampire Slayer Roommate That Lives With Them and Protects Them and Doesnt Work For Them At All since the familiar title is dropped. It honestly could be going in the direction of wwdits movie, like viago carries the weight of the household the most and they’re bickering about the workload, it could really be interesting to see him TRY to make the others work... Or, Nandor could take in a new familiar, which could shake things up a bit and Guillermo would be even more unsure of his position or think that he has no place here anymore when it’s something stupid and simple as Nandor going “Yeah you’re not a familiar anymore what did you expect” — and again he’s a roommate that they dump most of the workload on.

But for sure I’m expecting “I just want to stay with you because I love you guys” to be the resolution of the guaranteed “what do I do now” conflict of s6, and maybe the vampires to be like “you are not going anywhere” to him underneath the “we would be very inconvenienced if you’d leave now so we will graciously allow you to stay here” guise.

Or, perhaps a love realization towards nandor on guillermo’s side as to why he wants to stay if he’s not actively aiming to be a vampire as a main goal. But that’d be asking for too much I think, HAHA

#guillermo de la cruz #wwdits #what we do in the shadows #wwdits s5 #wwdits spoilers #ask

[askathewierdo]

Flamio and welcome to my character analysis of Azula!

I have been reading since I haven't tried The Last Airbender fanFiction on Ao3 recently and an observation caught my eye and I was talking to over with my friend I'm kind of verbally came across some stuff about Azula that I felt like sharing.

So the main thing is that some fanfiction feel the need to give Azul a redemption Arc and others find a way to make it where she doesn't really need a redemption Arc. The main difference is that a redemption Arc means the character regrets their decisions and wants to atone for them or do better.

On the other hand what I've seen more and more of is where after the war she's mentally ill and is just so broken that she has no reason to be against the protagonists anymore.

This led me to kind of just think about well wait a minute why was she broken again? And so from that I kind of went back and it backtracked and backtracked until I went all the way back to basically her birth. Yeah you're in for a little bit of a talk. ;) Stick around for a deeper understanding of this ✨ traumatized✨ 14yr antagonist.

First you have a fact that she is a princess. She is the highest form of a celebrity being the princess of the leader of the nation who is winning a World War. She was raised with politics all around her. The world of politics is a ruthless one and she was raised from the cradle to be able to handle it. Any child born to nobility is. This led to her more sadistic and crueler tendencies however my belief is that they were nurtured by a simple thing that has great impact especially on children, a lack of someone to trust.

Unreliable adult figure in her life #1! Her mother, Ursa. Ursa put herself at a distance from Azula, one of the most memorable lines in which she speaks to her daughter in front of her daughter is,

"What is wrong with that child?"

Her reaction to jokes that Azula tells no matter how mean spirited they might be give off a cold and almost fearful relationship. Ursa did not act as a mother to Azula in any way. Azula saw this and acknowledged it. Azula's view on her relationship with her mother is easily summed up in Azula's comments in the episode The Beach.

"My own mother thought I was a monster. She was right, of course, but it still hurt."

Unreliable adult figure in her life #2! Her uncle, Iroh. While there are very few people who don't like Iroh in the show he is still human and does have a few faults. One of these failings of his is how he treated Azula. (Or at least this is my opinion on the matter.) Similar to Ursa, Iroh kept Azula at a distance. In the flashback to when Iroh is leading the siege at Ba Sing Se he sends a knife to Zuko and a doll to Azula. If anyone new Azula for more than a few days they would know that a doll is not the right gift for this person. Iroh giving Azula a doll and then a knife to Zuko is kind of a cold move.

We know that gender roles aren't really a thing in the Fire Nation, definitely not to the extent that the Northern Water Tribe has. We see a female soldier at the Boiling Rock and it's implied that there are other female soldiers among the army. Mai and Ty Lee are both trained in combat and Mai's proficiency with knives did not seem out of the ordinary. This makes Iroh's gift to Azula even more distant feeling. He could have sent a second knife or if he wanted to discourage her from violence try to find a better suited gift but a doll was not the right gift. And honestly, she already had flamethrowers at her hands whenever she wanted.

There's also after the episode The Chase when Iroh is injured after Azula shot him with fire trying to escape and Iroh is trying to teach Zuko how to redirect lightning, Iroh says something that even though Azula is on the enemy side feels like it's a little bit much to be aimed at a 14 year old girl even if she is dangerous.

"She's crazy, and she needs to go down."

Unreliable adult figure in her life #3! Her Father, Fire Lord Ozai the manipulative man himself. This man is so cold and manipulative that he knew exactly what to do to achieve what he wanted. He favored Azula because she was strong and his wife feared her and so he had the full ability to influence her without his wife's interference. He gave her just enough affection for her loyalty but purposely left her starving for verification and affection from him. He made sure to leave her scared of him leaving her.

At the very end of the show in the scene where he crowns himself Phoenix King she comes up and mentions that they will be leaving soon or something along those lines and he corrects her and says that he will be leaving that she'll be staying and she gets mad. She tells him that he can't throw her away like Zuko and that it was her idea in the first place. While she seems mad it's more fear in her eyes. Ozai turns to her and simply says

"Azula"

Any traces of anger are replaced with total and utter fear. If you look at the placement of their positions it's similar to Zuko in the Agni Kai when he got his scar. One could draw the conclusion that she was afraid of him treating her like Zuko and abandoning her. Ozai knew exactly what he was doing in this scene. He knew exactly what he was doing in every scene in relation to Azula.

In conclusion? She had literally no one she could trust. Those were the adults in her lives and she was the royal princess, nobles were going to want to use her and servants were beneath her and would not try to form that kind of relationship with her. There is an exception to this, she did have two friends after all who she did trust— to a point. Mai and Ty Lee. Well look where that ended up. At the Boiling Rock they betrayed her, this is exactly her breaking point. After that episode was when she descended into madness. Their betrayal was the cause or breaking point. She literally had no one she could trust.

Under Ba Sing Se she offered a way out for Zuko— that he took. She risked her own skin to make a place for her brother back at home. She wanted someone to trust even if it was subconsciously that she was trying to seek someone out. She knew her brother like the back of her hand, she knew he was too weak (kind) to try to manipulate or use her. She tried to help him how she could in her own way. (Keep in mind that he threw this away on The Day Of Black Sun and Ozai probably confronted Azula in some way about his confession and her lies.)

Also in the episode the beach she laughs when someone calls Ty Lee a circus freak but then looks regretful when Ty Lee lashes out. Azula does have compassion she just doesn't show it, generally in regard for her own safety.

In conclusion Azula really just needs someone she can legitimately trust who won't try to use her or manipulate her or hurt her. Also, she's 14.

This is also how people can make fanfiction where in post war Zuko and Azula end up in a shaky relationship because Azula realizes that overall he is her safest bet as far as someone she can trust.

If you're still here then thank you for reading my mind dump.

#avatarthelastairbender #avatar the last airbender #Atla #Avatar #Azula #Azula redemption #Azula character analysis #issue the antagonist yes #does she need someone to trust? #also yes #is she literally 14 years old #Y E S #throw ozai to kyoshi

[join-the-club-weve-got-jackets]

Some Thoughts on Cobra Kai and Writing

Just something I've been thinking about since watching the new season yesterday. This would probably be more coherent if I wasn't writing on my phone, but here we go.

Even though my own stories stay in my head rather than put on paper, I really love writing and the art of (good) storytelling. I will take a character-driven story over some flashy, hollow, plot-driven story any day of the week. You obviously need a plot and setting to tell the story, and a good one certainly can elevate a story to a new level, but characters are what people connect to. So many shows today have gotten so plot-driven and have so many characters, that it's just one thing after another happening with no down time to give the characters any chance to meaningfully react to these events. Or there are just too many characters to balance in the first place, so some of them get the shaft. And so many people will complain about filler episodes where they say nothing happens. But honestly I would love it for so many of my shows to just have that down time and those quiet moments where the characters get to react, to talk, to spend time together, and just to be.

Cobra Kai seems to be going down that same route as so many of the other shows I've loved. It's all about amping everything up

and bringing in new people and having the plot drive the characters rather than the characters driving the plot. They leave out so many important character/transitional/reactionary moments in the story. There'll either be some throwaway line about something important or it's just never mentioned because we're just supposed to assume some details. And like I get that not everything needs to be shown, or can be shown due to the constrictions of the medium. But it just makes things feel so much more shallow and unearned and takes some of my interest out of the story.

This season, for example, had a lot of ups and downs. I'm still processing everything so I'm not here to give my full analysis or judgment on the season. But one thing I really liked was the moments where we got to see the kids just hanging out and talking again outside of any training or karate wars. They just got to do teen stuff again. It took me back to the better, simpler days of seasons 1 and 2 where karate was an integral aspect of the show, but it wasn't the whole show. It was a story about the two guys from TKK as adults and how they connect to a new generation of kids, with karate being the thing that brought them together. The show back then cared so much more about the story they were telling and the characters they were bringing/returning to life. And you could see that in the simple moments of the characters just hanging out and talking and having time and space to react to things.

Most of my examples here are gonna be about Robby since he's my favorite. So many details of his story are just left out or treated as unimportant in these last few seasons. We're just supposed to assume and be told things rather than actually see them. Back in season 4, they show nothing about his living situation beyond showing he was still sleeping at the dojo in ep 1. Then in ep 8 we get Shannon coming out of nowhere talking about Robby living with her now. Like we saw nothing about Shannon getting out of rehab, her going to get Robby, her reaction to his living situation, or even Robby moving back in with her. They didn't even get a scene together. Seasons 1 and 2 did a good job showing us how shitty Robby's home life was, because they actually cared about those details back then. But now we get next to nothing. That goes for his schooling too.

Now in season 5, we still didn't get any sort of interaction between Robby and Shannon, or a scene between them and Johnny, which has never happened on the show. We didn't get to see anything about how Johnny asked Robby and Shannon about the Mexico trip. On a side note, we also get some lame cop-out reason for why Carmen didn't go find Miguel herself. Or why she should trust her dumbass bf who doesn't even speak the language to go get her son. But her characterization is a whole other problem I don't have time to go into. We got like a very brief, superficial moment of Johnny apologizing to Robby. But that's it. They don't have any deep, meaningful conversations about mending their relationship beyond that...at least not on screen. We're just supposed to assume everything's okay now and Robby's all good and just gonna accept everything now. As if he was the problem in their relationship. It's just erasing the whole story they've told and giving Johnny a free pass on all the BS he's put Robby through.

After Mexico, we never get to see the obviously tense and awkward ride home with Johnny, Robby, and now Miguel. We're just told it was a quiet ride home. We don't get to see Robby's reaction to staying with Johnny for the summer rather than going to his (previously unmentioned) grandparents' cabin with Shannon. There's nothing showing us how Robby reacted when he came into Johnny's apartment and saw how much he'd cleaned it up and wondering why. And even though I'm pretending this storyline isn't happening, we get such an OOC reaction from Robby (and everyone but Johnny) about the baby. You're telling me this kid who felt thrown away by his dad his whole life, who has wanted nothing more than his dad's love and attention, and who is just finally at the start of mending their relationship, isn't going to have some conflicting feelings about this? He's just automatically happy? And just the way Johnny went about telling the boys too. If they were gonna go that route, the right thing for Johnny to do as a parent would be to sit Robby down and have a real conversation between the two of them about how he's feeling. But that would involve Johnny caring about Robby as a person and for Robby to be allowed to have actual, realistic feelings that aren't just rage or easy acceptance, which the writers aren't doing anymore.

Then just one of the last things that bothered me writing/character-wise was toward the last scene with everyone outside of the CK dojo. Now I am not a parent, and don't ever intend to be one, but like my first reaction to that scene would be rushing to find my kid. You know they were just in this huge, dangerous fight. There are cops and ambulances on site. My first priority would be finding my kid to check on them and see if they're okay. I get that some of the adults also needed urgent medical attention. But besides that, I don't think we see a single interaction between any of the parents and their kids. It's all just adult interactions and then kid interactions. When what I wanna see is an obviously beat-up Johnny, pushing away the other adults trying to get him to an ambulance, because he needs to see Robby first and make sure he's okay.

I know that may be nitpicky, but it's realistic and it's the small kind of details that I like to see in the characters and relationships I care about. There are actors who will give us these little moments on their own even when the script doesn't, and I appreciate that to no end. But when we don't get these realistic reactions or interactions in the actual writing, it just takes me right out of the story. I want to see those looks between/toward other characters, the signs of affection (physical or otherwise) that people in those relationships would have. It just goes so much more towards creating characters we love and can root for. So like stop trying to up the ante and just go back to making the story about the characters please.

#personal #cobra kai #ck spoilers #wow this turned into an essay #i was not intending this #but i guess i had more feelings than i initially thought #ck meta #*mine

[film-in-my-soul]

Review: En of Love: Love Mechanics (2020)

Region: Thailand

Aprox. Length: 02:25:18

Viewing Source: YouTube, Viki

Summary: A love story that starts one night in a club — between an engineering major, Mark, who is absolutely drunk and carrying the painful burden of his one-sided love, and the boy whom he bumps into and mistakes as the object of his affection, Bar Sarawut. This is an imperfect love story between two imperfect human beings.

Overall Opinion: I won’t sugarcoat it, En of Love: Love Mechanics is my least favorite of the 2020 trilogy. Outside of not enjoying the drama of the story, I really just do not like Vee. To the show's credit, I understand that I’m not supposed to. As the summary says, our main characters are imperfect and so is their love, but I just couldn’t get behind the relationship and the drama never felt like it had enough time to really build the anticipation for the inevitable fallout and more than that I took issue with how the ultimate conflict appeared to be smoothed over so quickly. I think, personal bias aside, this part of the En of Love trilogy is watchable as well as the best acted and I can even understand why it’s some people's preferred section because it’s messy. For me it just didn’t hit the mark, I didn’t like the couple as much as the other two parts, and the choices that Vee keeps making had me fuming. I’m interested to see what the 2022 version will be able to accomplish and if the added run time of having Mark and Vee be the focus couple of a full series might improve my opinion of their relationship, but reading the synopsis of what is to come does not fill me with much hope.

Technical Rating:  ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

Personal Rating: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

(See under the cut for a deeper analysis/opinions of character/plot/technical aspects. Beware of possible spoilers.)

Main Characters:

Vee (right):

As previously stated, Vee is not a character I enjoyed. He is flakey and makes some of the most toxic, terrible choices I’ve ever seen from a Thai BL character, and honestly, at no point was I convinced he deserved Mark or that Mark should want to be with him. Now, is Vee completely to blame? No. I will get into Mark’s choices in his own section, but I do not believe that Vee didn’t understand the possible consequences of his actions! Again, this show was meant to explore a messy relationship, I know I’m not meant to root for Vee as the active cheater, but I just can’t get behind a character like him, especially when, for all intends and purposes, he gets a redemption arch I don’t think he earned. Yin Anan Wong, however, played him exceptionally well and I cannot fault his acting in this role, my opinion on the character aside.

Mark (left):

Some might have the opinion that Mark is a bit of a doormat in the first couple of episodes but honestly, it’s a reaction I think a character like him should be having. Not only is Vee older than him, but he’s also the person who took care of Mark at his weakest. He also, at the very least, attempts not to act on his growing feelings for Vee. Neither character is perfect, Mark knows that Vee has a girlfriend and that he is helping Vee facilitate his cheating, but I have more sympathy for him as a character since he’s still dealing with the fallout of Bar’s rejection of him and the fact is that at least Vee wants him. While I personally don’t mind Mark’s choice of actively making Vee feel like shit by kissing other people after he catches Vee kissing his ex in the later episodes, I do think it feeds into the “no communication ever” trope that BLs exploit to amp up the drama. I also think that Vee’s reasoning and excuse as to why he did shouldn’t have prompted Mark’s forgiveness at all, but that’s his choice I suppose… Regardless, Mark reads as a more interesting character than Vee because he’s someone easier to connect with you and understand, even if you don’t agree, with the not-so-great choices he makes through the show. War Wanarat Ratsameerat is also an actor I really enjoyed in this role.

Rating: ★★★��☆

Side Characters:

Because of the length of En of Love: Love Mechanics and the focus of the show on Mark and Vee, I really didn’t find much to say about the side characters who rotate as main characters in the other two installments of the 2020 En of Love series. They don’t feel consequential to the story and ultimately serve as plot fodder and devices for Vee and Mark to move around as opposed to characters who actively impact the story on their own accord. Such, this section will remain blank but will still receive a rating.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Story/Plot:

I’ll get my complaints out of the way first so I can end this portion on a more positive note. I do not like cheaters in any sense. Outside of what could be considered a drunken accident, Vee actively chooses to cheat on his girlfriend before he finds out she’s cheating on him. In fact, he’s relieved after because he no longer feels like he has to be guilty for being with Mark because of this and I hate that. I also hate that Mark chooses, after getting his own revenge for Vee kissing his ex (for the stupidest fucking inexcusable reason really) to take Vee back. My last biggest issue, from which all the other smaller issues come, is that neither Mark nor Vee have active, productive communication with one another, it’s all reactive to the situation and assumptions in order for the drama to drive forward and I do not think that is good or effective writing. Now, it’s possible the effect of the split and then reconciliation between Mark and Vee could have been handled better with more run time and I understand that, still, I never felt like Mark, outside of just liking Vee, had a good enough reason to take him back.

Moving on to things I did like. Regardless of my personal distaste for elements of Mark and Vee’s relationship, En of Love: Love Mechanics was designed to explore a messy, imperfect, toxic relationship and it did that and I know it did because I don’t think my dislike would be so obvious if that weren’t the case. I had no real problem with how it was written or implemented, I was never rolling my eyes because of dialogue or tropes. I was mad because of how effective the acting was and how the tropes implemented worked within the setting. It still doesn’t make me enjoy the viewing but I can and will commend the drama or choosing to make complicated, not obviously good, or "right" characters, and giving that to us. For that, because I have to look past my bias against the material, it earns a higher rating in the story than I’d want to give it.

If you’re looking to complete the series of En of Love then watching this one can be recommended. Tonealy it’s different than the other two and it’s arguably the best acted amongst the trilogy, but if you’re easily effected by toxic relationship bullshit I would say viewer beware.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Technical/Visual Execution:

I have a general problem with the pacing of the entire trilogy and that comes down to the stories being forced into four episodes each which can be hard to translate effectively. I also think the opening scene of drunk Mark is hard to understand what’s happening, even after finishing En of Love: TOSSARA, and it takes a minute to get your bearings. Outside those factors, it’s a standard Thai BL visually and technically, so it’s not winning any awards for cinematography from me.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

INBOX - Any feedback is more than welcome or suggestions for further reviews.

Masterlist Navigation - Check out my other content if you'd like!

Thank you so much for reading!

#en of love #love mechanics #veemark #markvee #en of love: love mechanics #thai drama review #thai bl #film-in-my-soul review

[nikibogwater]

A Needlessly Intense Analysis of Claire Nuñez

As I find myself with nothing to do on a dreary Monday afternoon, my mind has returned, not for the first time, to something that has irked, bewildered, and befuddled me ever since I first watched season 1 of Trollhunters back in early 2017. And that thing is the character of Claire Nuñez. 

Now this probably goes without saying, but the following rant/essay is going to include criticisms of how Claire was written throughout the entirety of Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia. If you’re someone who absolutely loves Claire as a character and are easily upset by people disliking or criticizing the way she was written, then please by all means just scroll on past--I’m writing this simply to air out some of my own long-dormant thoughts, pass some time, and perhaps spark a friendly discussion with those who are interested in such a thing. I’m not doing this with the intent of attacking or shaming anybody who likes Claire, or causing any unnecessary stress. Kapish? 

Good. 

With that out of the way, I’ll put the short version of everything right here for those of you who don’t want to read the mile-long essay under the post: In terms of writing, Claire Nuñez is a bizarre mish-mash of contradicting elements. On the one hand, certain aspects of her character and her arc in Trollhunters are very solid examples of Good Character Writing, and she has the potential to be a great secondary protagonist. And yet half the time, she also comes across as the most very poorly-conceived character in the entire franchise. In all my time in the fandom, I’ve observed these two most common reactions to Claire as a character: fans either adore her (mostly because of her relationship with Jim), or they are thoroughly disinterested in her--even greatly annoyed by her in some cases. In my own experience, I’ve swung from absolutely loathing her, to thinking she’s great, to landing somewhere in the middle. But anyways, that’s the jist of my analysis. The more detailed, slightly ranty version is under the cut.

I think the most telling thing about Claire as a character is that I honestly struggle to list more than one or two personality traits that she displays with any sort of consistency. When she’s introduced to us in Trollhunters, she’s Cute and Sweet, and not much else. A few episodes in, she suddenly swings around into Petty and Self-Centered with no warning. Then suddenly her defining character traits become Angry and Badass. Now there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a character changing/evolving over time--actually, that’s what we call a character arc, and it’s pretty much always something you want to have in a story. And all those traits and the way they change into something else over time are the ingredients of a really good character arc. The problem with Claire’s arc is that it’s less of an arc and more of just several loosely connected dots. And in order for a character to feel grounded in reality, they do need to have at least a few core personality traits that they never fully lose, no matter where they are on their emotional journey. For example, although Jim’s arc involves overcoming his timidity and becoming confident in his new role as a hero, he never loses that sense of compassion and self-sacrifice that he exhibits within the first few minutes of his character introduction. Jim changes and grows, but he remains kind, because kindness is one of his core character traits. Claire only has one core character trait that remains consistent throughout the entire show, and it is the one core character trait that you should absolutely NEVER give to a character if it is to be their only core character trait:

Extreme Competence. 

I’ve heard the phrase Mary-Sue used to describe Claire a lot, and while I don’t think it’s an entirely accurate summation of her character, I understand why it comes to many people’s minds. The one thing about Claire that remains consistent is the fact that she is prodigiously good at pretty much everything she tries. Even things that she logically should not have any prior knowledge or experience with. The audience is constantly being bashed over the head with just how Cool and Capable Claire is, how much Better she is than everyone else. And without any clearly-defined flaws to counteract this, Claire comes across as the one type of character absolutely no one can relate to.

Now, when I say “clearly-defined flaws,” what I mean are moral/logistical failings in her personality/behavior that have very real negative consequences that the audience can clearly see. There was a seemingly half-hearted attempt at giving her a character flaw when she snuck out to the Papa Skull concert, but this ultimately failed for me because she is never called out for her behavior and doesn’t suffer any visible negative consequences. Worse still, Jim and Toby act like what she did was totally fine, and that she’s completely justified in her anger at Jim after the house gets trashed. Even though the normal human response to this would be “Hey wait a second, you’re at least partially to blame for that too!” 

Now, there are two moments in the entire Tales of Arcadia series where it’s briefly insinuated that Claire feels bad about abandoning Enrique like she did, and one of them isn’t even in Trollhunters. There is never any substantial attention drawn to this, and never a moment where we can clearly see her acknowledging her fault and making an effort to be better. Now I’m all for hiding little details and bits of subtext here and there in a story, but when it comes to something as big as one of your major characters going through a character arc, I believe that you need to communicate that stuff clearly. You’re not being clever by glossing over it and hoping astute audiences will be able to sniff it out. You’re being lazy. It is not your audience’s job to make the character for you. Like, imagine if the writers of Avatar: The Last Airbender had skipped all of Zuko’s internal struggles, and then one episode he just shows up going “I’m going to teach the Avatar Firebending because I’m good now!” I don’t think that character would’ve been as beloved as he is had they only insinuated his growth happening off-screen. Just so in Claire’s case, skipping over her process of growth and maturing makes any future changes to her character feel spontaneous and unearned. Add in that problem of her only core character trait being the absolute WORST one they could have picked, and you have a perfect caricature of a nine-year-old’s fanfiction OC--which you probably don’t want to have in your multi-million-dollar tv series helmed by one of the most prolific storytellers in cinema. 

And the most frustrating part about all of this is that Claire’s character could be fixed so easily. As I stated above, the raw elements of her character and her arc are the perfect ingredients for creating a truly good character in a remarkably short amount of time. Claire is brilliant in theory, just not in practice. So then how should these elements have been put into practice? Well, there’s a host of different methods, but here’s the first one I’ve thought of that would require the least amount of change to the show:

Step One: If one of Claire’s core traits is being Good at Everything, then you need to explain why that is. Have Jim mention early on that she’s always busy, always involved in even the most niche of extracurricular activities at school. This will also have the added bonus of making your audience curious about her--why exactly does she feel the need to do all these different things? Because I’ll be honest here, Claire’s canon introduction did absolutely nothing to make me want to learn more about her. 

Step Two: Focus more on her love of acting. Acting is the only interest/hobby that canon Claire has apart from maybe rock music(?), and it’s barely given any time or explanation. We don’t know why she enjoys it, and once the Romeo and Juliet play is finished, this interest of hers is basically never brought up again. So during that Iconic Audition Scene, let her and Jim have a little conversation. Doesn’t need to be long, just enough so we can hear Claire say something to the effect of “Acting is my only real escape.” There. Now we know why she enjoys acting, and now we have even more questions about her: what exactly does she need to escape from? And if acting is the only thing she enjoys, why is she doing all these other activities after school? 

Step Three: EMBRACE. CLAIRE’S. FLAWS. Don’t ignore them, don’t gloss over them because “Well she’s the female love-interest and if she’s anything less than Perfect that’ll be sexist or smth.” Flaws are extremely important in Claire’s case because you’ve already established that she knows a heck ton about a heck ton of different things and has amassed a huge array of crazy skills. So lean into her pettiness, her self-centeredness, her pride--and don’t excuse it. Have the other characters actually be bothered by the way she treats Jim after the babysitting incident. Have her be called out for her behavior. And most importantly, show us how she overcomes these flaws. Again, don’t jump from one point in a character’s arc to another and expect the audience to fill in the blanks. That moment when Claire realizes her brother’s been replaced by a Changeling? That would be the perfect time to show her having that painful realization: that she was so intent on being Perfect all the time, so intent on getting her way, that she lost sight of what was truly important. As it is, her grief over losing Enrique feels very unearned in canon, since there’s no attention drawn to the guilt that she should also be feeling over it. 

Step Four: Reveal how she got here in the first place. Let her have a serious talk with Jim. Again, doesn’t even need to be that long. She could start by apologizing to him for how she treated him, and then explain herself. The reason she feels the need to do everything, and to do it perfectly, is because she is the daughter of a councilwoman. She needs to be exceptional because her behavior directly reflects Councilwoman Nuñez’s parenting. And if she’s anything less, not only will Councilwoman Nuñez look like a failure as a parent, Claire will be a failure as a daughter. That’s why acting was always Claire’s great escape--because she could become someone who didn’t need to live up to that standard, even if it was just for a little while. But sometimes she gets sick of it--she breaks. She wants to do something for herself, and nobody else. That’s why she snuck out to the Papa Skull concert that night. But in the end, none of that mattered. All her studying, all her practice, all her achievements at school, this obsession with being perfect--it cost her the one thing that did truly matter. And with that, she has acquired some new character traits: loyalty and protectiveness. She will do anything to get Enrique back, and is determined to never take her loved ones for granted again. Also get rid of her pestering and guilt-tripping Jim into going into the Darklands because my goodness, was that unnecessary and completely destroyed what little investment I had in their relationship beforehand. If you absolutely HAVE to have it in there, then again, have someone call her out for this. Please don’t teach kids that there are no consequences to treating people like this, the world already has enough self-entitled jerks as it is.

Step Five: I don’t think there even needs to be a step five. My only other suggestion would be to maybe keep bringing up Claire’s interest in acting from time to time, much like how the writers frequently bring up Jim’s interest in cooking. Maybe there could be a plot thread where the Trollhunters actually use her acting skills for infiltration or the like? Or perhaps any time there’s a lull in the action, she can be seen reading a script or a Shakespeare play in the background. 

Now probably the biggest question anybody has after all of this is “Niki, why the heck does any of this even matter? This is a show for children.” To which I will reply with “Children deserve to have good stories too.” And in the case of Trollhunters, I’m of the opinion that it is a good story, in pretty much every aspect, except for Claire. I think that’s why I’m so fascinated with her, and also why I’m so frustrated. It’s actually very similar to my feelings regarding Rise of the Titans. I’m morbidly fascinated with how a series as consistently good as Tales of Arcadia could have suddenly and inexplicably produced such a steaming pile of dumpster fire right at the very end. And likewise, I can’t stop wondering why, in a show with otherwise fantastic and well-written characters, it’s only Claire Nuñez who is so polarizing. 

As for the essay you’ve just suffered through, well, yeah, that didn’t matter very much, it just felt good to write. But I hope at least one or two of you enjoyed hearing me rant. Again if you have any additional thoughts or want to politely counter one of my points, feel free to share. I’d love it if this turned into a bit of a discussion.

#tales of arcadia #toa #claire nunez #character analysis #niki rambles

[tenebraevesper]

Analyzer - Félix & The Risk He Takes (Miraculous Ladybug)

Sometimes you need to let your characters take risks, right? Or, in this case, let them take charge and show us what we could’ve had if they were the main character.

Oh, well, never mind. This little analysis will be shorter than the ones I usually do. It is just my thoughts on Félix and his actions in Miraculous Ladybug Season 4, Risk (Shadow Moth's Final Attack - Part 1. If you want to avoid spoilers for the episode, please leave and return when you’re ready. If you don’t give a damn about spoilers, then I’ll just let you know that I’ll probably start gushing over Félix; basically, business as usual.

If you can deal with that, then let’s start!

Before I dive in, I will give a huge shout-out to Kagami going off on Adrien in this episode. You go girl! (*≧ω≦*)

As for Félix... Dear Lord, Félix was the MVP of the episode! Everyone may have been taking risks, but note that this was solely because of an akuma. Meanwhile, Félix is taking charge because he saw an opportunity and he isn’t going to let it slip through his fingers.

At this point, I believe that (aside from being heavily disliked by his own creator), the only reason Félix isn’t Chat Noir is because he would’ve exposed Gabriel as Hawkmoth back in Season 1, with the show being over before it even started properly. *sigh* It would’ve been amazing seeing him messing with both Ladybug and playing 3D chess with Gabriel/Hawkmoth, acting more as a Wild Card, but alas, we aren’t allowed to have nice things.

This is even sadder when we see what Félix does when put in the shoes of a main character, literally replacing Adrien in Risk.

Him mocking Adrien for being a doormat while also offering to help him was just brilliant and I lived for every second Félix was on screen.

‘‘Freedom is something you make Adrien.’‘

*squeals in delight* 

Félix doesn’t sugarcoat the truth. He doesn’t mollycoddle Adrien, but lays the facts out for the latter to see him. You can call him manipulative if you wish, as he is manipulative, but you can’t deny that is one of the things that makes him so interesting. He is playing 3D chess with everyone as his pawns and he will do whatever it takes to get what he wants.

He knows Adrien well enough to play his role perfectly, but the moment he is alone, he pulls out spy gear and starts looking around for any kind of secrets Gabriel might have. Like, was this kid’s father James Bond? What is going on here? Hell, I guess we now know what he has been doing since Gabriel Agreste.

Unfortunately for Félix, the Miraculous he finds are just decoys, as we see Gabriel using them again at the end of the episode. Not a bad move, Gabriel, I’ll give you that, but by leaving the decoys, you outright confirmed all of Félix’s suspicions. So, point to Félix for this one. 

I did say it back in Gabriel Agreste and I’ll repeat it here: I’d rather take any episode where Félix plays 3D chess with Gabriel and outsmarts him than have to sit through another Love Square episode. This is far more interesting than any of the stuff Marinette and Adrien had been doing this whole season.

However, it doesn’t stop at the Miraculous. Félix also manages to find the entrance to the hidden basement, looking completely stunned when he finds himself inside the elevator.

As he explorers the basement area of the mansion, he comes across the stasis pod, looking genuinely surprised and curious about it. Then, he opens it...

Honestly, the shock on Félix’s expression hit harder than any of the reactions Adrien had (mostly because, this time, it’s not another fake out). Félix is genuinely freaked out when he sees his aunt lying there like some kind of trophy, not even knowing whether it’s just a well-preserved corpse or whether she’s just in a coma.

You can see just how traumatized he is, running away from what he saw. Hell, he needs a few seconds to compose himself and go back into his role as Adrien, not helped by the fact that Gabriel and Nathalie are searching for him. Fortunately, he manages to hide the spy gear and act as if everything is normal (although no doubt he has several questions for Gabriel about what the hell is his aunt is doing in the basement).

What is even better is that Félix manages to keep his promise to Adrien and refuses to go to the trip (his voice undoubtedly being laced with the resentment he feels towards Gabriel), but then we have Gabriel suddenly reaching for his ring as he tries to command him to do as he was told, looking horrified when he forgot that he didn’t carry it at all. Then it cuts to Nathalie, telling Félix!Adrien that it’s time to leave.

Now, I know what people are thinking - OMG, SENTITWINS CONFIRMED!!!

*sighs* (￢_￢)

I’m not going to comment much on this, but I will say that Félix’s reaction had me intrigued. Given how he acts, he may have realized that Gabriel and Nathalie have some form of control over Adrien and that he needs to play his part. Now, I do feel that it’s still a bit too early to draw any conclusions concerning whether Félix and Adrien are Sentimonsters, even though a lot of moments point into that direction. The issue is, the show is hella vague, never giving us a direct answer. So, I assume that in the second part of the finale, we will get more information about this situation.

However, the one conclusion I can draw from this is that, at this point, Félix should be the main character. He’s active, resourceful and takes charge in a situation. He moves the plot and entertains the audience, and all that without a magical item that gives him superpowers. He is a Wild Card who focuses on his own benefit, but at the same time opposes Gabriel/Shadowmoth, the main villain. Félix has a lot of dramatic moments that actually work (and don’t feel like being lifted from a soap opera, like in Adrien’s case). We are shown rather than having it hammered down our heads why we should care for him. We are shown how important Félix is to the story rather than being told.

Again, Félix is the sole character in this show that I actually like. He is so incredibly intriguing and I want to keep watching it only because of him.

I am will to take a risk with Miraculous Ladybug because of Félix and I seriously hope that things will end well for him.

Up Ladybug (Story)

Story Archives (Chapter List/Story Analyzer)

#Up Ladybug - Story Analyzer #Ten's Thoughts #ml risk #felix graham de vanily #chat noir #adrien agreste #gabriel agreste #Félix is the MPV of Risk! #Just let him be the main character! #miraculous ladybug #felix agreste #Absolutely loved seeing him wearing Adrien's clothes with his usual hairstyle - he looks amazing!

[cc-mr-vip]

Season 3 Initial Thoughts

- ℂ𝔸𝕄ℙ ℂℝ𝔼𝕋𝔸ℂ𝔼𝕆𝕌𝕊 𝕊ℙ𝕆𝕀𝕃𝔼ℝ𝕊 𝔸ℍ𝔼𝔸𝔻-

Holy shit, this Season was a doozy. I absolutely loved this season. It was a lot more intense than both Season 1 and 2, but had the realism from Season 1 that I loved so much.

Also I was fucking wrong, boys. Well not completely. I did make the prediction that they’ve been on the island for at least 2 months, because for some reason that was a reasonable number in my head. A nice believable number for the kids to have survived and did all they did, but six months!? Like half a year!? They would have been 1.5 years away from getting blown up from the volcano in JW2. Bruh...

The Scorpius Rex probably had the most terrifying design I had ever seen for a hybrid dinosaur. It felt way more threatening than both the Indominus and Indoraptor, probably because of it’s very odd hodgepodge of a design. I also love the twist of it being extremely unstable and causing other dinosaurs to lash out after being poisoned. Having this thing chase around the kids was definitely terrifying to say the least. Also wasn’t expecting Sammy to get spiked by the poison too (and turn an odd shade of green, sorta narmy lmao). I knew she wasn’t going to die, but I wasn’t expecting a nice squick shot of the quills in her abdomen that was a fun treat.

Also finally! Kenji, my boy, finally has some character backstory and development! I will probably do a more deeper analysis on Kenji’s drawing of his family, but is already kinda confirmed what kind of person his father is. He didn’t care enough about his son to want to put pictures of him on the wall, only himself. It makes sense why Kenji was so self absorbed as well. I found it pretty heartbreaking that Kenji risked his life to try rescue his father’s “precious” art statue. I’m not sure if he tried to rescue it because he was scared of his father scolding him or if he just wanted to bring it back for his father for a pat on the back. Either way, it’s just brings up sad implications all around. 

Honestly Kenji had some absolutely great development this season, in my opinion, way more so than the others had and way more interesting too. I think the episode that really marked a change in Kenji was Episode 5 (Eye of the Storm), when Kenji took it upon himself to be in charge of packing. For most of the episode, he was acting like typical Kenji, but he began to take his job way more seriously when it came to the safety of his friends. When Darius took after Ben, he properly took charge of the group (nice contrast to Season 1 where he was more nonchalant about it and tried to pass off responsibility). It was around this point that we didn’t see Kenji acting all high and haughty anymore, he was fully devoted to saving his friends.

I definitely wasn’t expecting Kenji to run off with the laptop to make the trade and save Brooklynn. The boy tried to fight a man with a loaded gun to save his friend, how foolish and brave of him to try do so. It was amazing to see Kenji, who spent most of the series cowering behind others, fully devoting himself to protecting Brooklynn in the finale (leading her to safety and shielding her with his own body). I do think that Kenji has some issues regarding losing friends; I think that the Camp Fam really is the first friends he’s ever gotten, which is why losing them hurt him so much (Sammy’s faux death and Brooklynn getting kidnapped). 

The way at the end when Kenji refused to forgive and accept the idea that they were going to risk Brooklynn’s safety over the laptop...it was a very mature way to handle that situation. Pragmatically, Kenji was absolutely right, they shouldn’t be risking their lives over a stinkin’ laptop. It’s not they’re responsibility, they’re just kids. But his friends were good people and Kenji played along, but decided to take matters into his own hands. His friends are important to him and he’s going to do anything to keep them safe. 

From haughty jock who only seemed to care about himself to a team member willing to risk everything to keep everyone safe, Kenji really has grown so much as a character.

All in all, I’m surprised the kids actually made it off the island this time. My friends and I were placing bets on whether or not they would make it off the island this season. Everyone had voted that they wouldn’t, but they did...hopefully? They got a stowaway so I’m wondering how they’re going to deal with that. Go back to the island? Keep going? Clearly it all isn’t over because Kenji’s character arc isn’t quite solved yet. I wonder how many more season CC will have. I do enjoy the series, but there’s only so much they can keep right?

This initial thoughts ended up more of a Kenji reaction post, so I’ll dedicate the end here to some other thoughts I had overall:

Yasmina and Sammy’s friend-(or maybe more)-ship was really cute and wholesome. I found Yasmina’s chumminess afterwards Hello-Zuko-Here levels of second hand embarrassment xD (Are they a maybe-couple? When Brooklynn mentioned crushes that Sammy might’ve had she mentioned Yaz lmao).

Thank god, Bumpy didn’t die. She has her own family now...for at least 1.5 more years until the volcano explodes...

Ben, you stupid child, of course you want to get off the island. I would have knocked you out and dragged you on the boat myself.

It was nice of the pilot and mercenary to board the kids upon finding out they were children. Even though they died / ended up splitting up the kids, the meant well.

I can’t believe Dr. Wu was in this season. He isn’t as much as a bad guy as I thought. He still left the kids, but at least he didn’t...kill them? Set the bar too low maybe?

And that’s all for now. This being a chock-full Kenji season, I’ll probably be doing some analysis or posts on him, but thought I’d make a reaction post with all my initial thoughts for now!

#jurassic world #jurassic park #jurassic world camp cretaceous #camp cretaceous #jwcc #Darius Bowman #kenji kon #Brooklynn #sammy gutierrez #yasmina fadoula #ben pincus #dr wu #season 3 #spoilers #bumpy the ankylosaurus #scorpio rex

[spinaroos-47]

So, time for the review and analysis of my prediction! Oh boy this will be long i havemore than  two pages on google docs of commentary and reaction

“ Any sport a storm: Willow will be a fucking badass, cant wait to see her shine with her new hairstyle. My dear beloved. Also i cant wait to see what sport is it that she joins, but its probably more complicated than grudgby. Im not sure if the shot of her and her team with the abomination is from this episode or not. 

Hunter will be on Hexside. Idk what could be his mission but i cannot wait for the stupid shenanigans. This episode probably will be really funny. Hopefully Flapjack and Hunter will have cute interactions “

I basically got everything right skfdjsfdj it was a little vague but yknow, i still got it

This really was a really fun episode, and such a rollercoaster of emotions, this is the third episode that made me tear up (and this one was more than one time!). So it goes together with AOAW and echoes of the past on that

This is going to be long so im putting it under a readmore and actually splitting this into two posts because of how many thoughts I have, maybe even three (one will be about lumity c plot to not derail the rest)

Also fun-not-so-fun fact, i ended up waking up at 5am on point becausei was so anxious for this episode, so im running on four hours of not so well rested sleep jsdjsdj. It’s been kinda of a problem honestly, I’ve been getting ridiculously anxious every friday and saturday until i watch the episode 

First of all, I never knew how much I needed Hunter and Willow being friends, this has warmed my heart so much i can’t put it into words (im also dreading the influx of huntlow, my poor romance repulsed heart)

(also someone already pointed this out but i think he’s starting to follow Amity’s advice from eclipse lake!)

I do wish there were more interactions between Hunter and Flapjack, but still, the ones we got were so cute and nice :3

God i missed him so much, the start of the episode was both sweet and so sad. He likes arts and crafts! He was fixing his own cloak! (which is curious since both at the end of hunting palismen and start of eclipse lake he had a pristine cloak. Like, what happened? Also felt like what happens on some of the fanfics I read. That and Hunter receiving a letter from him on his room, which is an interesting coincidence) He’s not the greatest yet but he’s trying! (and his >:3 face)

I don’t like how Belos is now doing tests for Kiki and I supposed the other coven heads too, or at least just Hunter. Nasty fucker, he’s so well written, the scaryness of his character kinda got really highlighted here, on an episode he didn’t even appear, just mentioned. He has such a grip on people, the way he gets people back into the place he wants them to be if they seem to be going out of line, it’s really well written. And very nice to see how even with all this, there’s still some things that slip through the cracks, like what’s been slowly happening to Hunter

Him trying to meet with the coven heads was a very interesting brief moment. It was heartbreaking to see how most of them don’t seem to care or even respect him, almost trampling him. ALSO RAINE LOOKING BACK AT HIM AND HUNTER LOOKING SO SAD AFTER THEY DO THAT. I’M MANIFESTING THEM INTERACTING IN THE SHOW ONE DAY. And they actually seem to be almost the same height, Hunter being a little taller than them (but it’sprobably the heels)

Darius was really good on this episode, which I’ll elaborate more later but like, how he changed his behaviour in the end of the episode? It was really sweet! Makes me think he will actually later on together with Eber and possibly Raine do something against the ec/Belos, like some people have been theorizing, which I’m so down for. It’s interesting how he called Hunter “little prince”, I do kinda like that dfsnjfdjndjn. And it doesn’t seem to really be a secret that he’s Belos’ nephew, just maybe not to most of the public. (another reason for distaste also since it’s nepotism)

This golden guard lore we got really got me thinking. So there were other golden guards, at least one or two before Hunter, and their sigil is the symbol of Gravesfield. This is so interesting but I don’t have many concrete thoughts, I just don’t think (or more accurately, I don’t want to be true) that the other GGs were grimwalkers too. Also I’m pretty engaged on this mentorship stuff going on the emperor’ coven for some reason. 

(Also also, I do love how many fandom ideas and theories have been confirmed or debunked recently)

Darius also knows that Hunter is powerless, which is another thing that I’m curious about to how much do the others know about this?

The intro was cut short in an...interesting way, i’ll say that.

WILLOW HAS THE GROM PHOTO TOO I LOVE HOW EVERYONE HAS THE GROM PHOTOS THEY LOVE EACHOTHER SO MUCH

I really really really loved seeing Willow start to be more confident and try to find herself and have fun! (and kinda inspired by her dads by what some pointed out which is SO SWEET) This was a much needed episode for Willow, my dear girl.

I actually lost count of how many times i went “OH MY GOD HUNTER” and “HUNTER NO STOP”, for both second hand embarassement and also just worrying for him. Which is fun sjfksdjkjd. I love him but he can be a big brat/jerk/ass sometimes which is also why I love him. And he was really funny on this episode, he is a really funny character 

(Case in point, a bit of my live commentary: OH MY GOD HUNTER; oh my god hunter; this will not end well; NOOOOOO; i cant watch it; flapjack knock some sense into; him youre such a dweebus)

He actually met all the three of the detention trio! (mostly viney and not much of the other two but still) This was very nice as me and a friend on our put-in-hiatus Hunter Clawthorne au made him become friends with them there. I did really miss Viney, she was great here, together with Skara and Gus, my deario cheerios (Which, let me just say, loved Gus being so protective of Willow, because, yeah it hasn’t been an easy year for her, even with Luz hel

(Can we talk about Bump in the photo the abomination teacher showed?)

AND THAT WAS HIS SOCK! HE HAS FUN SOCKS! This makes me so happy

I was thinking Caleb could be the brother’s name, and it still can be but the Jasper Bloodwilliams addition made me rethink that (and!! one of the names has william on it. So everything goes now I guess)

And I’m glad my drawings of him using his staff more like a skate were proven right! And the animation there was really cool (Also Gus flying his staff in a different way just supports even more my hc that everyone in the main cast is nd. Since, yknow, different way of doing things)

He reexamined his biases also! Which was soooo nice, love me the character growth.

THE HALF A WITCH PARALELS THE TWO HAVE, THIS BOY CAN FIT SO MANY PARALELS ITS INSANE AND I LOVE IT. And I love how it was a slow realization for Hunter that she feels the same and struggles with her confidence and self esteem too

Sidenote, the friends to enemies drama with Viney and Jerbo was so funny nfdjsjdfsjnfdsnj (and also why was there a baby on the professor’s team?)

Yeah i think I’ll split this into three posts because I have so much to say sfdhjdsjjdsf

#toh #the owl house #toh spoilers #any sport in a storm #long post #analysis #alec talks #alec reviews #new tag!