#still waiting on season 2 and acting like s1 finale never happened | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

elonaackerman · 3 years

Text

Why the Ackertalk must happen: An analysis of Mikasa and Levi relationship.

1) Their meeting

So we all know Mikasa hated Levi in the first place, since he beat Eren violently during the trial. If Armin didn’t stop her, she probably would have attacked him. Instead, because of our favorite blondie holding her back, she just gave to her future captain a death glare. And what is so amazing is that he actually noticed it, and you can see how intrigued he was by Mikasa at that moment.

Since he is praised as humanity strongest, it surprises him that a cadet shows no fear looking at him like if she wanted to kill him and was sure to be capable to do it. And if it wasn’t already very obvious that Mikasa catched Levi’s mind, the name of the chapter finishes the job: « still can’t see » in English, and « made me o mirenai » in japanese. I think the English translation is not on point, because if you look at the french translation, it could be translated as: « an unbearable stare ». The meaning is completely different and gives a lot of weight to Mikasa’s look and how Levi felt about it. It places their interaction and meeting at the center of the chapter. It’s not something you do for characters who do not have a particular storyline together, especially when the main character’s fate is also part of the chapter.

2) The Female Titan

Here comes what is usually refereed as the key moment which started the rivamika ship: the rescue of Mikasa by Levi in the forest. First of all, Levi grabbed Mikasa’s waist, and we won’t lie, it was cute.

BUT what comes after this is even more interesting, because I think Levi recognized Mikasa since the start, even if he couldn’t remember where he saw her in the first place. If you look at his eyes, you can see how shocked he is to see Mikasa in such a situation: I think that’s the moment where Levi started to see himself in her, because she behaved exactly like him years ago when a titan took the lives of Isabel and Farlan: recklessly and with rage. Then, Mikasa acts very agressively towards Levi, and doesn’t show him the respect a cadet normally has for a superior.

That’s how Levi definitely recognizes her: the girl who seems to hate him and who is disrespectful towards the hierarchy is also the one who wanted to slap him at the trial despite him being the strongest human soldier. Levi redeems her, and looks at Mikasa very strangely, silently, his gaze lost in the vague: Mikasa seems to ask herself what he is doing and is shocked by his behavior, because he doesn’t stop staring at her but doesn’t say a word. I still ask myself what he was thinking in that moment. It’s a very mysterious scene. I mean, YES Levi always looks at Mikasa silently in a lot of panels (that’s also cool for the fandom, of course), but this time, Isayama focused several big panels on this single silent interaction, as if Levi was analysing Mikasa on such a deep way that it made her uncomfortable. And the way that he then stop the eye contact with a sort of frustration in the eyes is also very questionable. It intrigues me very much.

After that very tense moment, Levi explains his plan to Mikasa, and reminds her that she must obey to his orders. For the first time, Levi and Mikasa cooperate and show how deadly their Ackerman duo is. Also, Mikasa recognizes Levi strenght, saying the titan’s blood doesn’t even touch his skin since he is incredibly fast. She looked at him with a great attention, observed his technique and acknowledged him. When she fights Annie later in Sina, she will copy his famous « spinning » technique.

From that moment, Mikasa’s perception of Levi totally changed.

After slicing Annie, Levi also saved Mikasa again and broke his ankle. What a great episode to be a rivamika shipper.

3) Season 2: BLANK

I will go quickly on season 2: because of his injury, Levi can’t fight. Mikasa felt guilty for that. When Eren is kidnapped, she tells Armin she is not confident to take him back because this time, Levi isn’t with her. It shows how she values him but also how she likes to fight with him, since she feels stronger by his side. And that’s a great thing knowing that Mikasa said she was stronger than everyone else in the first episodes (and she was right). She finally found an equal.

4) Season 3: THE RIVAMIKA HOLY GRAAL

A] An incredible relationship evolution

So here comes my favorite season, not just for the rivamika, of course, but it’s still the one which provided us more and more moments between our two favorite Ackermans. This season shows Mikasa becoming Levi’s right arm, and not just on a fighting level. Especially in the manga, we can see how much Mikasa’s opinion is important for Levi, it doesn’t seem like she is one of his soldiers but his partner. Of course, Levi has always treated Mikasa in a special way, but it’s more obvious in season 3:

(Here is Levi adressing violently to Historia to make her understand something, and then Levi adressing himself to Eren also to make him realize something, but justifying his words to Mikasa: her opinion and her feelings matter for him. Nobody can denie he acts in an unique way towards this girl)

In a panel, Mikasa looks at Levi with a disappointed look because he said something about a plan implying Eren that didn’t please her. It seems like she is waiting for him to say something in answer to her reaction. Almost as if she felt sort of betrayed after them cooperating for so long. Does she think she has some power over him ?

Now, on Levi’s side: he knows that Mikasa will listen to him, because as she said it herself, she wants to follow her captain’s decisions. It’s very obvious in the anime when he stops her from running after Eren TWO TIMES !!

This season also shows Mikasa caring and sort of apologizing for Levi’s leg wound, which proves that she clearly doesn’t hate him anymore.

B] The Ackerman link

Now comes the very important part of the whole Ackerman plot. With Kenny being introduced, we learn that Ackermans are a bloodline that couldn’t be controlled by the Fritz king because of their ability to resist to memory manipulation: that’s why their clan was persecuted.

Levi soon finds out that he is an Ackerman, just like Mikasa, the gloomy girl he knows so well. And it’s a big deal, not just for the story, but for Levi himself. I am sure, as I already said, that he sees himself in Mikasa since the start: it seems like he doesn’t want her to make the same mistakes as he did. Like I showed it, he is very gentle with her, always checks if she is okay, calms her down everytime. Levi always felt a deep connection to her. Since he now knows that he is an Ackerman, he probably feels even more close and identical to her. However, he doesn’t tell Mikasa that they are part of the same bloodline.

However, he talks about their awakening with her, and everybody is surprised to hear their discussion. Mikasa is sharing her trauma, and she doesn’t seem to hesitate to do it: at this point of the story, she feels comfortable with Levi and she trusts him.

While they speak, it’s almost as if they forgot the others: they are looking at each other eye to eye, and their little talk is very mysterious and sort of intimate. At that moment, Levi established a link that cannot be cut. Mikasa and him are the last survivors of their clan, and they are mirrors, even if he is the only one to know it. (Well, Armin sort of noticed it too, immediately associating Mikasa and Levi in S1, and mistaking Levi and Mikasa the first time the group met the captain-chibi, but it was only about their fighting abilities, not abour their other similarities)

Guess what comes now: THE EPIC ACKERBOWL

So, if a lot of people think the ackerbowl wasted the relationship building of Levi and Mikasa, I think it just showed us how closer they grew during this season.

First of all, Mikasa doesn’t attack Levi because she wants to (as she did in season 1) but because she NEEDS to in order to save Armin. She isn’t happy to do that, and even says « please » to Levi when she could have just insult him or blame him like she used to do: they are not real ennemies, just two people in a great emotional distress wanting to save their closer friends.

It’s also impressive to see how dangerous Ackermans are: together, they are unstoppable, but as opponents, they are so equal that it is scary.

Another important thing: Levi isn’t mad as a normal person with a blade on his throat would be against Mikasa, he still tries to talk to her LIKE WOW that girl just attacked you but you still don’t hate her ? That’s because Levi cares for her, and that’s canon. The fact that she is an Ackerman probably leads him to be more attached to her. And of course, that’s an obvious parallel of his confrontation with Erwin in No regrets. Can we also say how sad and shocked Levi was when he saw Mikasa in tears ? He was really shaken by this sight.

5)Now, what about the Ackertalk ?

Like I said, Levi kept his Ackerman status and his link to Mikasa to himself. I think that, knowing how Mikasa is attached to her loved ones, to the ones she calls « family », he didn’t want to make her suffer by growing closer if he must die later, especially when he was only focused on killing Zeke.

But as the last two survivors of the Ackerman clan, Levi and Mikasa MUST talk about their legacy, their relationship and also their similarities. This post is nearly anime only but what I can tell you is that the Ackertalk still didn’t happen in the manga and probably won’t: that’s the biggest waste ever.

Mikasa and Levi are now both in difficult situations towards their Ackerbond with Eren and Erwin. Mikasa clearly needs Levi’s advices and support (I made another post about Levi’s character development, he is freeing himself alone from the ackerbond, and his ackerbond to Erwin was never toxic like Mikasa’s one to Eren was, in my opinion at least, so Mikasa needs him more than he needs her on the emotional/spirit level. On the fighting level however, Mikasa is now the one carrying him). Anyway, she needs to realize how powerful she actually is regarding how Eren treated her, because she lost her confidence in herself and in her autonomy (I don’t think Eren meant what he said, but still, Mikasa is now thinking she is some kind of slave and doesn’t go through any development). And Levi is the only one who can make her understand that. Because he is like her, and he knows it.

And should I talk about how the distance between Levi and Mikasa in the manga is unnatural ? They barely talk, and when they do it’s blank on Mikasa’s side. After 80 chapters she said, suprise guys: « captain »: THANKS ISAYAMA ! I am about to haunt your future onsen you damn yokai-_- Either he completely forgot about the Ackerman plot line, either something happened between Mikasa and Levi that we are not aware of, and which would be shown in the next chapters, what would explain the tension there is between them.

I hope this article pleased you, english is not my mother tongue so please pardon me if I made mistakes in my writing. It was very complex to sum up all the rivamika logic in one post, because there is always more to say about them. I hope that, even if they do not become a couple, they will grow closer and support each other as the amazing duo they should be. Shingeki is nearly finished, and I must say I am really happy that I’ve been part of the rivamika fandom since the start, even if haters were hard to take sometimes, this ship and this fandom are incredible and made me grow on many levels. Rivamika will always be great, canon or not, as long as we fuel it with our passion ❤️

#rivamika #ackerman clan #ackermans #snk #ackerman #levi x mikasa #mikasa #levi #aot #shingeki no kyojin #ackertalk

301 notes · View notes

shipping-receiving · 4 years

Text

“Is there a chance you won’t be okay?”

An Analysis of Hwang Si-mok and Han Yeo-jin’s Final Scene in Stranger/Secret Forest Season 2

Alright, it’s been almost a week, I’m still crying every time I re-watch this scene, and somehow I’ve written 3,500 words about five minutes of this damn show, so here we go:

As with Stranger/Secret Forest Season 1, Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s final scene in Season 2 ended with a farewell meal, complete with soju. On a very basic level, this meal felt significant in a season where Si-mok was subject, more than ever, to interrupted meals or meals he didn’t particularly want to be present for – at least until he was able to have a drink with Yeo-jin in 2x12, and then lunch with her in 2x13.

More importantly, though, this scene is the most loaded scene we’ve ever witnessed between these two characters. That’s saying something for such a nuanced, detail-oriented show, in which two people placing their phones in a storage locker at a detention centre can possess such emotional weight, particularly when played by two actors who make very subtle and sophisticated acting choices.

I’m struck particularly by the way this scene bursts with subtext – things unsaid and unresolved – when Lee Soo-yeon could just as easily have written a neater, more light-hearted exchange that reaffirmed their connection, more along the lines of their final scene in 1x16. There are a thousand other ways their farewell could have been presented to us that would have given a greater or at least a more comfortable sense of finality, even taking into account their character development over this season. This lack of resolution is evident not just from what happened during the scene, but also when the scene happened within the episode itself. The meal occurred after Yeo-jin had been bullied by her colleagues, but before she met her new boss – at this point, it seemed to the viewer that her promotion would likely bring not the pride she experienced in S1, but more challenges and isolation.

More so than the Seo Dong-jae cliffhanger, this scene makes me think that this was written with a future Season 3 arc in mind, one in which Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s relationship will continue to evolve and deepen substantially (whether that will be ‘romantic’ remains to be seen). Considering they’re the core partnership of this series, there was a deliberate withholding of stability in their farewell, rather than an affirmation of it. I won’t go so far as to say destabilisation – because despite their separation, I think their bond is more profound than ever – but at the bare minimum an absence of certainty, when it could have been written otherwise.

Anyway, on to the breakdown:

The scene opens with Si-mok carefully folding a napkin and placing cutlery on it for Yeo-jin, a simple gesture of care that Cho Seung-woo plays with a startlingly gentle attentiveness. Immediately, it signals that there’s been a shift in Si-mok – how he’s able, at least with Yeo-jin, to do something that isn’t just polite, but also thoughtful. The director even snuck in a little clue that Si-mok is thinking of Yeo-jin as he’s doing this – Yeo-jin actually appears at the left side of the frame from the start, as the camera pans over to Si-mok:

In this shot, Si-mok is visually separated from Yeo-jin by a pillar. This could be read on the one hand as a kind of sectioning out of his mental space – a visualisation of his thoughts of her as he prepares her cutlery – and on the other hand, as a foreshadowing of their impending separation. (I do, however, enjoy the first interpretation more. It reminds me a little bit of her sketch of the inside of his head from 1x06.)

Back to the napkin: if you look closer, Si-mok didn’t fold a napkin for himself – his spoon and chopsticks are on the table next to his bowl – so this isn’t just a matter of neatly setting the table for their meal. In a very small way, he’s anticipating her needs, just as she has done with him in much more demonstrative ways in both seasons (helping him with his headaches being the most obvious one). This isn’t something he’s necessarily actively worked on in the past two years; he’s still the person who doesn’t instinctively say ‘hello’ over the phone, or ask after someone’s kids without being reminded. Yet, it’s a capacity for care that has expanded significantly, at least where Yeo-jin is concerned.

Compare his behaviour with the equivalent scene in 1x16 – back then, he only ordered a bowl of noodles for himself and not for her. Interestingly, Yeo-jin’s comment to Si-mok during that part of the S1 scene was, “Gosh, you haven’t changed one bit,” suggesting that he was, by nature, somehow unable to be considerate to someone else. Just from the opening to the S2 scene, we see that that comment is not or no longer true, at least when it comes to the way he acts around her. In both the S1 and S2 scenes, he was the first person to arrive for their meal; in S1, the first thing he said was, “Why are you late?” and had already ordered his soju and noodles. This time, however, Yeo-jin asks him, “Why didn’t you order something first?” – implying that although she was late again, he was patiently waiting for her to arrive.

There’s also a difference in the way he responds to her appearance. Now, I personally don’t think we can frame Si-mok’s connection with and care for Yeo-jin in conventional understandings of romantic attraction (which is not to say romance isn’t possible for them canonically, I just think it will manifest differently). Nevertheless, I’d say that he responds to her haircut in a way that is probably as close to the mechanics of attraction as we could possibly expect from Si-mok – not just the shock of “oh, you cut your hair,” but lingering looks and nostalgia for when they first met; nothing at all like noticing that she’s wearing lipstick and saying, not so kindly, that it looks weird. In fact, in a direct parallel to this moment in 1x16, Yeo-jin asks him if her haircut is “weird”, and he says, “I just meant it’s different.”

(I think the way he stares at her is not wholly due to being ‘transfixed’, but also because he’s trying to figure out what such a drastic change means, and why now, and whether he has to worry. Basically, his brain is trying to compute; part of his stare is him trying to analyse her behaviour, just as part of it is him revisiting his memories of her from two years ago, and part of it might well be an attraction he doesn’t quite understand or know how to reel in. He does stare at her for an inordinately long time.)

Switching over to Yeo-jin, I really enjoy this little routine of hers when they have meals together – how she narrows down options for him to a series of questions, and even helps him decide on occasion. It never feels like she’s trying to speak for him, but rather that she knows his likes and dislikes. Her question in this scene – makgeolli or soju – is phrased like her question in 2x02, when she asks him to choose between stir-fried octopus and hot pot; when she specifically requests a lot of cabbages, she must be thinking of how he ate lots of them in 2x12. This kind of care comes naturally to Yeo-jin – we’re talking about the person who took in a murder victim’s mother in S1 – but it’s still a form of intimacy, and one that Si-mok is clearly used to as well.

Soon, though, we have our first indication that things might not be so comfortable – not in the sense that their bond has weakened, but that there are fundamental shifts occurring in both of their lives that affect this bond. Si-mok, after a lot more staring, points out that her short hair reminds him of when they first met. (He wouldn’t have needed to take that much time to come up with that simple observation, which makes me think he was trying to choose his words carefully.) With enthusiasm, Yeo-jin responds with, “I haven’t changed a bit, right?” – echoing her comment about Si-mok in 1x16.

Perhaps Yeo-jin had meant this comment sincerely in the moment, but given context, her cheerfulness feels performative. We’ve just witnessed her crying after being bullied by her colleagues, in contrast to the warmth that she enjoys with her old Yongsan team; we’ve observed her changes – a result of maturity, disillusionment, a loss of innocence – throughout the whole season. In fact, she seems to have cut her hair precisely because she feels weighed down by all that has unfolded, just as one might after a break-up or some kind of painful life event. It’s a decision that seems to say: I acknowledge that everything has changed around me, but maybe doing this will make me feel like myself again, or the ‘myself’ of two years ago.

Si-mok, of course, isn’t quite so able to agree that she hasn’t changed. Multiple times this season, he’s observed the changes in her – “You don’t draw these days?” in 2x06, “Didn’t you want to work in police administration?” in 2x08, “You weren’t the kind of person to postpone things.” in 2x12. Now, he doesn’t respond to her question, and instead looks at her in silence, smiling only ever so slightly when she shakes her head playfully (and we know that she can make him smile wider than that). Perhaps he’s even choosing to withhold any judgment of her. But this is a moment, I think, that factors into his decision to ask her that question at the end of this scene.

Next, we have confirmation that Si-mok was the one who asked Yeo-jin out for dinner, just as he had in 2x02 once he’d settled into his new posting. It isn’t clear in 1x16 if it was Yeo-jin who’d asked to meet Si-mok when she found out he was being posted to Namhae, but it’s been affirmed twice this season that he prioritises this time with her (even more so than meeting his own mother). Then, he breaks the news to her that he is leaving for Gangwon Province this weekend.

In 1x16, Yeo-jin finds out that Si-mok is leaving from the special investigation team, without Si-mok being present. At the time, they still think he’ll be sent to the US for training, and Yeo-jin is visibly disappointed. She has the same crestfallen look on her face in this scene, in front of Si-mok. She doesn’t want to be separated from him, and when she asks about his cases, it seems she’d expected him to stay for quite a while longer to see them through. Mind you, Wonju is only about 1.5 hours drive from Seoul (yes, I mapped it), but Yeo-jin still looks like she’s had the rug pulled from under her. Perhaps, in an uncertain time, she’d hoped that Si-mok would be in her life more than the few weeks he’d spent in Seoul.

Yeo-jin’s responses in both 1x16 and 2x16 are a pretty big indicator that she has feelings for Si-mok (whether she’s aware or willing to acknowledge those feelings is another matter). I suppose one could argue that her reaction is simply out of sadness at the thought of being separated from a friend, but based on certain events in S2 – for example, Choi Bit questioning Yeo-jin about her relationship with Si-mok, and Yeo-jin deflecting – I think the viewer is at the very least meant to question whether their bond is truly ‘platonic’. This isn’t the type of show to include superfluous details just to tease their viewers, and in any case, Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s connection has only deepened through the course of this season despite being on opposing sides of the council. It feels like the emotional stakes are much higher this time than back in S1.

As Yeo-jin is absorbing this news from Si-mok, there are a couple of little details here that feel significant to me, but could be nothing: first, the way Si-mok half-holds out his hand as Yeo-jin is pouring her soju, just as he’d held out his hand when she was pouring makgeolli in 2x13. Second, how she pours out a cup of soju for herself first, but not for Si-mok. In any other situation, it might seem impolite – after all, Si-mok is the one who’d chosen the drink – but here it seems that she’s pouring a drink to steady or busy herself more than anything, and she doesn’t drink from it till after their toast.

Following this, Yeo-jin confides in Si-mok that “I never thought the council would end like this. [...] Will the higher-ups be replaced with more honest people while I’m catching bad men out there?” When he replies with, “Why are you talking as if those two are the same?”, it’s yet another of his probing questions, questions she never seems to have an answer to. The Yeo-jin of old would never have assumed that all the higher-ups are dishonest – she has always seen the good in people – but she feels betrayed by Choi Bit, the one person she sincerely respected. Here, she changes the topic rather than opening up, reverting to her most comfortable mode of showing care for someone else by asking Si-mok why he looks so tired. It’s a guardedness that we’re not used to seeing from Yeo-jin; when Si-mok met with Choi Bit at the start of the episode, he describes Yeo-jin as someone who “opens up easily”, even if she doesn’t “blindly trust or respect just about anybody”.

While Yeo-jin is evasive, Si-mok is more willing to be vulnerable in comparison. His openness isn’t surprising, given that Si-mok has shared more about his life and thoughts with her than with anyone else, but it is still heartwarming to see. Instead of brushing off Yeo-jin’s comment, he tells her about his dream of the prosecutors from the Western Office. For anyone else, this might not seem like a significant conversation topic, but for someone who hardly ever dreams (which Si-mok mentioned in S1), it feels like he’s sharing something special with her. This dream, and his factual recounting of it, seems to be a means for his brain to process the traumatic events of two years ago.

Before Si-mok tells Yeo-jin about his dream, there’s a quick insertion here – a lament about seeing your boss in your dreams – that suggests that she is still troubled about Choi Bit, more than she’s letting on. Again, Si-mok doesn’t push her to elaborate, though I think he’s been absorbing all the things that seem off with Yeo-jin since she arrived. Yeo-jin proceeds to analyse his dream in her head, but doesn’t verbalise her interpretation (that Yoon Se-won might be considering suicide, since he went off in the same direction as two characters who have both passed). As she’s deep in thought, Si-mok tilts his head questioningly at her; she says that he probably won’t have time to go anywhere else this weekend, implying that she was thinking of bringing him with her to visit Yoon.

Knowing that Si-mok won’t be able to come with her, however, leaves Yeo-jin resigned. As she announces, “All right, then,” I wonder if this is the moment that she’s choosing to steel herself. The two people she treasures and respects most in her life (Si-mok and Choi Bit) are disappearing from it, and she will have to learn to move forward without them.

Now, we come to their toast. In the corresponding scene in S1, their toast is bittersweet, but has a sense of resolution; upbeat piano music plays in the background as Yeo-jin says, “Goodbye, I won’t be able to see you off,” while Si-mok echoes that with, “Good luck in your new position. Sorry I can’t attend the ceremony.” In S2, the music is quieter, and much more sombre – I’ve been describing it in my head as ‘breathy sad wooooo music’ – even as Yeo-jin laughs and says, a little helplessly: “It feels like we keep repeating this.”

Si-mok, on his part, doesn’t even echo her laugh with anything more than the barest smile. Instead, he says, with a deep sincerity: “Take care, Senior Inspector Han.” As I mentioned earlier, there are many ways that they could have written or played this scene to convey even a little more resolution – choosing different music, or having Si-mok smile along with Yeo-jin, or even giving Yeo-jin a bit more notice of his departure so that she can prepare a gift (as if to say, she doesn’t draw as much these days, but she would for his sake). But the viewer is made to feel all of their reluctance, even sadness at this separation, even if those feelings are hidden beneath pleasantries. “Well, I guess I’ll be okay,” Yeo-jin says, as if there’s a possibility that she won’t be – that this is something she has to recover from in the future.

Si-mok considers her words, her phrasing, her demeanour, tilts his head at her again and says: “Is there a chance you won’t be okay?”

This, above all other lines, shows how much Si-mok has grown in the past couple of years because of Yeo-jin’s influence. Whereas he started S1 cold, guarded, and isolated from the rest of his colleagues, he has arrived at a point where he has cultivated enough of an emotional sensitivity to ask her this question – to show her care, just as she has shown care to him and other people around her. I’d even venture to say that Si-mok feels, himself, that there’s a chance he won’t be as okay with their separation as he might have been two years ago. In 2x05, during the conversation with Seo Dong-jae outside the prison, Dong-jae asks Si-mok: “You don’t feel a tad bit sad even if you’re sent far away, do you?” Si-mok answers, “No.” That doesn’t feel so definitive anymore. There isn’t anything either Si-mok or Yeo-jin can do, given that they both prioritise their careers and understand that these careers follow a certain trajectory, but parting feels a little bit harder this time.

Yeo-jin answers Si-mok’s question as reassuringly as she can, with an adorable smile and shake of the head; she lets out an “ah” after she downs her soju, as if to reorient herself. Yet, her cheerfulness in the rest of the scene – her excitement at the food, her over-enthusiastic chewing – rings empty as the sombre music continues to play in the background. For perhaps the first time in the entire series, there is something about Yeo-jin that seems feigned. Strangely, it is Si-mok’s blank expression that represents the more authentic emotion in this scene – communicating the very resignation that Yeo-jin must be feeling inside, beneath a facade that might read as comical in any other context.

“Is there a chance you won’t be okay?” is, in fact, the last thing that Si-mok says in this whole scene, despite quite a few more lines of dialogue from Yeo-jin. The way he looks at her for the rest of the scene, though, is charged with meaning. It seems to say: ‘I don’t really believe that you’re okay, but I’m going to give you space because I can tell you don’t really want to talk right now.’ It’s not as if Yeo-jin hasn’t confided in him before – their phone call in 1x15 was especially intimate – so it’s not that Si-mok is incapable of listening to her. Still, he respects her choice to deflect, and continues to observe her closely while ignoring the pajeon, even leaning forward right at the end of the scene. This very overt concentration on her is something we’ve never really seen from Si-mok before; even in the rooftop scene in 2x06, which is probably the most loaded scene they share after this one, they’re standing beside each other and rarely make eye contact. Here, his focus on Yeo-jin is palpable.

As much as this scene felt heartbreaking to me (thanks breathy sad wooooo music), it actually left me with a lot of optimism for the development of their relationship in the future. Lee Soo-yeon has said that she has enough material for five seasons of the show, and while I’m not so sure we’ll get as many seasons as that, it feels like she’s pushed Si-mok and Yeo-jin out of their comfortable friendship – planting the question, “is there a chance we won’t be okay?” I wonder if we’ll see something quite different in the third season (which is apparently in discussion!), which surely won’t see them on opposing sides again.

I’ve been burned by enough ships that can potentially be read as ‘platonic’ to know that I shouldn’t hope for any overt romance, but Si-mok is such a unique character and has such a unique connection with Yeo-jin that I’m hopeful that their relationship could be deepened with nuance, even if it doesn’t become romantic in ‘recognisable’ ways. (I have other thoughts on his asexuality/aromanticism that I won’t get into here.) It’s precisely because their connection is built on mutual trust, respect, and understanding that it remains so compelling, and I think this scene promises growth, and some resolution, whenever we see them next.

#tvn stranger #secret forest 2 #stranger 2 #stranger #hwanghan

362 notes · View notes

jade-marie · 3 years

Note

I didn't watch episode 4 but I saw gifs of Beth yelling at Jane and it got me thinking, what's your view on the Boland kids not being parented?

Lmao you love getting me in trouble🤣

Sorry. It got long but I could rant about this for weeks.

Pre canon and S1

Obviously, we don’t see anything pre canon when it comes to the Boland kids, but you can put together an idea of what their situation was like from the first few episodes. Beth was a SAHM - she made them fancy packed lunches for school, had them enrolled in extra curricular activities, dropped them off/picked them up from school, put them to bed, got them ready etc. She was the main caregiver and Dean was at work. When he came home, he got to be the fun dad.

It seems like they had a decent amount of structure, as far as schedules go, but they’ve never been given any responsibility and didn’t appear to be well disciplined. We had Kenny telling Beth she sucked at math in s1 - something I certainly wouldn’t have gotten away with. Anyway, they had a decent amount of structure and stability, they were used to things being a certain way and that was all disrupted when Dean was kicked out of the house. Then suddenly, Dean was back, but he was sharing a bedroom with Kenny. It doesn’t seem like any of this was really explained to the kids properly or that they were helped through the process, which can have some knock-on effects.

Throughout Season 2

First episode of S2, Dean was shot. The kids were told that he was mugged and were, understandably, shaken up by the whole thing. Once again, nobody truly comforted or helped them through this process and we started to see the fallout of that. Kenny essentially developed an eating disorder and started bingeing, Jane “ran away from home”. But again, nothing is done about it. Beth says they need to be more present, no phones at dinner, they look into a child therapist, but we don’t ever hear about the kids actually getting therapy even though they desperately need it.

Throughout the season, the structure that they still had in S1 rapidly disappears. It goes from Beth being the main caregiver to her handing the reigns over to Dean in 2.05 and he doesn’t do a good job of it. The house becomes a mess, the kids run wild. This would be a perfect opportunity to start giving the older children some chores, helping to re-introduce structure, but it doesn’t happen. From the kids perspectives, they would notice their mother becoming more and more absent from their lives, missing dance recitals, coming home late, missing dinner, missing bedtime and so Dean is becoming the consistent parent (important for later).

Dean decides to weaponise the children, taking them away from Beth and going to stay with his mother for a while, before going back home. Beth and Dean tell the kids that they’re going to be getting a divorce, obviously that doesn’t happen, again creating quite an unstable environment for them. Effectively, they have a roof over their heads and they’re being fed/clothed, but nobody is actually parenting them.

Throughout Season 3

At the beginning of S3, with the dealership gone and Beth no longer working for Rio, they have significantly less money. It’s not clear how much of a knock-on effect this had on their extra curricular activities because Jane still has her piano lessons and Kenny has hockey. Beth’s taking them to the park a lot, it’s also not clear whether this is simply because she’s stalking Rhea and Marcus or genuinely because the park is a free activity for them. Regardless, they’ve been going to the park enough that it’s no longer fun. The kids really don’t seem to have any structure anymore and, once again, it doesn’t seem like they’ve been receiving any emotional support during what would be a challenging time for any child.

Dean has gone back to work, Beth is now also working, so Judith steps in to help take care of the kids. She takes things a little bit far, which pisses off Beth, so Judith is quickly removed from the equation. Again - instability. Then we have the fallout between Rhea and Beth, which means Jane can no longer play with her best friend Marcus for (at least from her perspective) absolutely no reason. Again – instability. Fast forward a few weeks, the entire house is emptied so the kids have to go and stay with Judith for an unspecified amount of time. Again – instability. We can play the blame game to decide who is the cause of this instability, but it’s pretty irrelevant. The fact is, the kids lives are being shaken up and nobody is helping them through it.

Beth buys new furniture, the kids come home, it all seems great, and then Dean gets arrested. So now their dad ,who has been the more consistent parent in their lives for the last year, is out of the picture. Once again, nobody is really offering them support during this time. We see Jane asking for her dad, we see the kids talking about how Dean lets them eat by the TV, because they’re missing things which have been consistent for them, and then we finally get to Janes little stand-off with Beth over the remote control.

That is quite clearly the result of her emotional needs going unmet for God knows how long, so she’s acting like a brat. Instead of taking care of and supporting her child, Beth lashes out. I find the editing choice to mute the yelling and playing music over the scene annoying, because it lightens it quite a bit. It’s pretty obvious that Beth was wildly over reacting to the situation, because she was lashing out at a child over things that had nothing to do with Jane. She was stressed about Dean, she was stressed about Fitzpatrick‘s upcoming murder and taking that out on a kid. Yeah, she felt bad and gave her a hug after, but you’ve still got 3/4 kids (is Kenny coming back??) who’ve been emotionally neglected for at least a year.

Beth’s kids compared to Annie/Ben

We don’t really see a lot of Ben‘s relationship with Greg, it doesn’t seem like he’s a particularly bad parent in any way, Nancy is probably a bit neurotic, but nothing major. Annie, is pretty emotionally stunted and immature, she puts way too much responsibility on Ben, so it’s the complete opposite of Beth. Ben is effectively the grown-up in their relationship, he leaves reminders for his mother to make sure shit gets dealt with and any structure Ben has is structure he’s created for himself.

But at the same time, he trusts his mother and when something is bothering him he actually talks to her. We saw him come out to Annie before Greg and Nancy, he told Annie when he was being bullied. As he gets older, you can see him growing tired of parenting his mother, but I think she’s learning from her mistakes by recognising the way they’ve impacted her son. I think it’s also important to remember that Ben has been largely unaffected by Annies criminal activities, this is predominantly because she has a shitload of baggage to deal with.

Beth’s kids compared to Ruby and her kids

As a whole, Ruby‘s kids have been relatively unaffected by her criminal activities. It doesn’t look like they ever had a rigourous schedule of extracurricular activities, but they’ve always had a stable home life. Not financially well off, but happy. We’ve always seen them be respectful, they have boundaries with their parents, they don’t particularly misbehave etc. They just appear to be good kids with good parents. They witnessed Stan being arrested and Sara especially took that quite hard, but she was supported through it. It’s also quite clear that she’s had a good emotional support system throughout her illness and kidney transplant. When she found out that Ruby was up to something shady in S3 and their relationship became strained as a result, she spoke to her mother in a way which was disrespectful, eventually that behaviour was checked. Because Ruby and Stan parent their children.

Beth’s kids compared to Rio/Marcus

From the very first time we were introduced to Marcus, we’ve seen that he’s very polite, very well-balanced and has a good relationship with his dad. We’ve seen Rio patiently instil important lessons in his son, such as cleaning up his messes, being patient and waiting his turn - things which Beth’s kids still don’t understand.

For the most part, Marcus seems to be pretty well shielded from Rio’s criminal activities, which is why I think Marcus was so heavily affected by his dads absence in S3. But, unlike the Boland children, he was emotionally supported through the process by his mother. He went to her for comfort and he received it. When Rio isn’t around, Rhea appears to pick up the slack and ensure Marcus still has some stability.

I think they’ve deliberately contrasted Beth’s kids with the other children on the show. Her children are the only ones who seem to be truly feeling the effects of choices she’s made during the course of the series. She claims to be doing all of this for her kids, but is completely ignorant to the fact that her choices are hurting them. This isn’t me bashing her character or saying she’s a shitty mom because I don’t like her, this is just stating what’s happening on the screen and right now, whether or not it’s deliberate, she’s being a shitty parent. Dean has always been a shitty parent. So now those kids don’t have anyone😕

#tl;dr #boland kids have shitty parents and it’s showing #good girls nbc #rio good girls #beth boland #ruby hill #annie marks

39 notes · View notes

shiningjoy · 3 years

Text

so i’ve finally watched s3 of free! and i wanted to put my thoughts in about it and hopefully also get some ppl to reply (respectfully) with their own input? also sorry if my knowledge of free seems spotty or incomplete since i don’t obviously have all free lore burned into my head so pls inform or correct me on anything i’m missing!

anyways before even watching s3, i noticed it was pretty widespread that s3 was rather disappointing or at least fell short to s1&2. and not only that, but i could see that s3 was likely going to be a bit disappointing just bc of how many less ppl were interested in it or even knew about it (ofc popularity=/=good but i doubted that the loss in numbers was just bc time had passed) sadly, the season actually exceeded my expectations of the worst.

first of all, i think way too many characters were introduced without any need of them being there. ofc not all of them seemed worthless to being there, but i think at least half of them didn’t have a need of being there (or at least didn’t need to appear as much as they did) or they could’ve at least waited to introduce them. don’t get me wrong, i loved characters like isuzu and albert, but with how little they appeared or added to the plot, i don’t think they were necessary at all. they introduced so many characters and kind of tried to forcefully endear them to us but it just seemed really shallow and random. i was really uninterested in the new iwatobi hs sc tbh (i love rei and nagisa, but i just don’t feel anything for the new members tho it was funny how the new manager is interested in fat instead of muscles) i don’t think isuzu was worth introducing, but i do get why they introduced albert at least. he was supposed to serve as their first rival introduced strictly from the professional world, and to emphasize there are many people above them not just in japan but the “world stage” but i definitely think they could’ve waited on that until the free 2021 movie tbh. plus i felt that any conflict he brought to haru was resolved within 1 maybe 2 episodes so yea they definitely didn’t really need him bc he hasn’t had much impact (yet) if anything, they could’ve just had him briefly appear at that training camp haru was at to race him and beat him to remind him that he still has a long way to go to get to the top. but all other appearances of albert were so extra and unnecessarily emphasized how inhumanely talented he was (the arcade scene, the thing with the chopsticks,etc) it just felt like really weak foreshadowing

also, the main conflict in s3 was just way too prolonged and solved unsatisfactorily. first of all, i don’t know why the blame seemed to be shifted by ikuya and hiyori almost solely to haru, like yes he was the one who quit first but it wasn’t an attack specifically to ikuya and the rest of them left too, so they should’ve held more grudges on haru makoto and asahi rather than just haru (or if anything at least have more blame on asahi bc makoto at least talked to ikuya beforehand) like did he just forget asahi also made a promise to not move away? honestly from the content they gave us, i’d argue that asahi and ikuya were actually closer than how ikuya and haru were, since i feel like most of the latter relationship was based on ikuya admiring harus swimming.

second of all, hiyori was another character i found so unnecessary and just weirdly protective over ikuya. he repeatedly gets in the way between them and ikuya when ikuya never said he didn’t want to talk to them (and it’s not like talking to them is gonna give him a health relapse) and so he just seemed to be there to prolong the conflict between them which was irritating. not even natsuya, ikuya’s actual brother, was that obsessive over him so i really don’t get hiyori. even sousuke, who was actually friends with rin before haru and the others were was not that possessive over rin, and there was actually pretty good reasoning why he had a grudge against haru (he didn’t see haru taking swimming as seriously as rin and thought that would cause him to hold back rin who looked up to haru, and was jealous that haru who had the talent to swim the world stage with rin wasn’t taking advantage of it when sousuke wanted to but couldnt bc of his injury) and like what right did he have to say to haru that his swimming hurts others when it didn’t even affect ikuya negatively (instead it inspired him and led to him wanting to swim like haru) like how haru originally thought it did to rin and how it did to asahi in high speed 2?

third of all, like i said before the way they solved the conflict between ikuya and the rest made little sense. like yes harus swimming is magical but i don’t get how swimming IM with him could instantly solve all the problems between them. (ik that it was based on the promise they made to race each other but i’ll get into that part and how shallow it felt later) if anything, i think what would’ve been more impactful was something happening to ikuya that made him realize that he can/should rely on/trust others, (maybe a more serious accident?) and enjoy swimming with a team and not just alone since his personal conflict was that he thought swimming alone was better than swimming with others when actually he was lonely (at least it was in starting days). and that wouldn’t even have to be with haru and the others that he learns that lesson. it could be with his own university team and hiyori, which would give hiyori a much better purpose of being there. (or they could’ve just not had him exist) if they were so inclined to have closure between ikuya and the other boys by having them resolve ikuyas personal conflict, i feel like it should’ve been at least haru AND asahi (maybe even makoto too but idk how thatd work when he’s no longer competing) racing him in the same race (if not them doing a relay but i guess they didn’t want to make it too obvious than they already were that they were just recycling the plot of s1 (lol)) if anything i think they could’ve even waited for them to reconcile while they were on the olympic team, but ig kyoani didn’t want to wait that long to reintroduce ikuya and wanted to use s3 to warm ppl up to the idea of ikuya being on the olympic team which they didn’t do very well considering how bad the development was

also what was with ikuya saying he swims his own way while obviously taking sm inspiration fron the way haru swam? it was so contradictory and even as kids haru told ikuya to swim his own way when ikuya told him that he wanted to be like haru and he understood that obviously but didn’t apply that to his actions at all? and i’m surprised haru was ok with ikuya blatantly copying him when i vaguely rmb that he’s been shown to get annoyed with even makoto when he seemed to be doing that?

another fault in having all these characters was that haru’s actual personality seemed to be taken away for the sake of these characters.

they wanted to establish a deeper relationship between ikuya and haru, but it just seemed so off the way they went about it in free! haru promising ikuya to race him just felt so ooc to me and had little emotional impact tbh bc of the lack of reasoning i felt haru had to agree to such a thing besides him promising ikuya that just bc he asked rather than bc he actually wanted to race ikuya. (while it took rin weeks to get haru to warm up to him and then agree to the relay, and seeing the process of haru getting used to the idea then openly enjoying swimming with the others was really touching) i think they just added that to make harus quitting have more impact on ikuya but i don’t think it was necessary at all when they already made plans with the rest to swim the relay again and win. if they wanted to make it seem like ikuya and haru had more of a one on one relationship with each other they should’ve gone into more about how haru saw the same darkness in ikuya that he did in himself like in high speed 2. make them bond over their similarities since i’m pretty sure ikuyas purpose as a character is to give haru a rival that is like how sousuke is to rin is; which is being rivals while being two of the same person. (in contrast to haru and rin who are very different and are rivals that inspire each other) but the way they try to establish the relationship between ikuya and haru pales sm in comparison to sousuke and rin that it’s a bit laughable, even more so in those occasional moments where they try to act like ikuya can measure up to rin’s impact on haru

another much more obvious event where haru’s character is forced to act ooc for the sake of the establishment of another character is with albert. yes, haru has grown a lot from the beginning of the series and has gotten a lot more open, expressive, and friendly, but that’s mostly just to the friends around him, but that’s not even to all of them (he still seems to find kisumi irritating and in TYM tries to leave at the sight of him lol) so him noticing, randomly approaching a stranger he doesn’t know a single thing about to help them order food and then even going far as to have lunch with him was the most blatantly ooc thing in the season. i think he may be polite enough to help him order his food but i don’t get why he even noticed albert in the first place. they should’ve just left him noticing albert to be at the practice race. like i said that scene was just there to emphasize albert’s skill with the chopstick thing but i think saying he was the world record holder and also being way ahead of haru in the race was already enough

besides haru’s character, another character i felt they did wrong was makoto. besides the plot of s1 being recycled, s3 makoto seemed to just repeat the development he went through in s2. by the end of s2, he already establishes that he wants to coach swimmers. and at the end of s3 he comes to that same realization but acts like it’s something completely new to him introduced by nao that he never thought of before?? the only difference was that he said in s2 he wanted to help kids realize how great swimming is, which was sweet and suited his personality, but in s3 he says he wants to do it for athletes on the world stage. tbh i like either way, and the latter one would help him be able to stand with rin and haru who in s2 he was afraid of being left behind by (hence why he swam the free against haru in s2) but saying that being an olympic trainer can also help him inspire kids and show them swimming is fun makes no sense. choose a path you want for the character already and make it consistent does he want to help athletes in the world stage or does he want to help kids fall in love with swimming? bc i doubt any kids pay attention to the coach or trainers in the olympics rather than the actual athletes so that reasoning like i said didn’t make sense.

and after haru lost what i think was the 200m (?) free at the All Japan Invitational, i found it weird that they had makoto there after to talk with haru and rin about the race? idk to me it just feels like it’s tradition for it to end up just being rin and haru talking when they’re struggling with swimming (in s1 was their fight in front of the tree that looked like the one by their elementary, in s2 it was the australia trip) his presence didn’t even feel necessary either, he just randomly interrupted the moment by saying his future plans after haru had that angst yell lol. it felt like just an appeal to mh shippers which is not a good enough reason at all

the last point i can remember at the moment is that the ending was so underwhelming. i don’t understand why they couldn’t have shown the ending to rin and harus 100m free race when the movie trailer already confirms that they’re going to the olympics. why cut to albert watching them on the tv?? all this build up to not even show the results of it? I think this ending really just confirmed that s3 was so unnecessary and just there to warm ppl up to the olympic movie but not actually give us anything good or plot moving

anyways sorry for this dump. besides all these criticisms, i want to say there were parts of it that i enjoyed, i just didn’t go into it bc this post is already so long, and me bagging on ikuya was not hate; i actually like him and the only time i teared up in s3 was in his race with natsuya lol. i’m afraid that at some parts i may have not expressed my thoughts exactly so please don’t be too harsh if you engage, but i’d love to hear other ppl’s analysis of s3 and the characters as well !!

#was this shitshow really just bc of the new director?#utsumi pls come back to direct free!#free!#free! dive to the future #haruka nanase #makoto tachinaba #ikuya kirishima #free! anime #rin matsuoka #hiyori toono #rinharu

41 notes · View notes

namjhyun · 3 years

Text

REVIEW | Love Alarm season 2

*WARNING SPOILERS*

I find myself underwhelmed by the ending of Love Alarm. I thought the first season had done a really good job building the world and set the juxtaposition between digital and analog to perfection. I was hoping, with Jo-jo finally wanting to pursue a relationship properly, we would see our characters grow into realizing they don't need an app to tell them who they love. Instead, we get 2/3 of the drama with our leading lady trying to find the developer of Love Alarm in order to get validation from an app. Jo-jo and everyone else get to a healthier place eventually, but I just... I just don't know what I was expecting about this particular storyline but this wasn't it. More about this on the section about Hye-young and Jo-jo's relationship.

First, Jo-jo's development -despite the things I already mentioned that I didn't like- was done really well. She's a survivor of a murder/suicide attempt by her parents and then went on to live with an emotional, verbal and psychological abusive family members that constantly shattered her trust on other people and even herself. Jo-jo carries scars that we can only empathize with but never truly understand. This is probably Love Alarm's strongest point: Jo-jo's development was done really well. She comes through the others side, finally letting go of her grief, ready to no longer wear a cheerful mask and actually be happy. Her journey was engaging and compelling. I always, no matter what, found myself rooting for her.

Second, Jo-jo and Sun-oh are no longer in love in season 2. This is painful for me to admit because I was hoping for them to find a way back to each other. But, no, their love burned passionately, beautifully, loud, big and, perhaps most importantly, fast. It was young love but it's was also true. Sadly, they met at a moment of their lives where neither was mature or brave enough to see it through. Jo-jo runaway scared of her own feelings and Sun-oh let her go, both allowing an app to dictate every single step of their rise and fall.

Do Jo-jo and Sun-oh still care for each other? Yes, of course. They will always care and be important to one another, because they met at a time when they were lonely, neglected and in need to love. They gave each other what their respective families couldn't and wouldn't give them: a home.

I was disappointed by how their story developed. With Jo-jo on a mission to face her own feelings, I was expecting the first stop to be Sun-oh. You know, to have that one long awaited truth time conversation? The one where she tells her what actually went down four years ago? Instead, what actually happens, is that she gets caught by him talking about the shield with another person, sending him spiraling into a mix of anger, disappointment and heartbreak. I really wish this would have gone down differently. I think both characters deserved better at this point of the story.

Theirs was a story about heartbreak and learning from past mistakes, learning how to trust yourself and others. Their ending is probably the most bittersweet part of the drama because they (and by extension us) know what could have been and sadly will never be.

Third, when you see Love Alarm on its entirety, you realize how organic Jo-jo and Hye-young's relationship developed. His quiet and mature nature was a good match for Jo-jo because it gave her a sense of stability, something she had yearned for her entire life. Learning from her experience with Sun-oh, Jo-jo has a new maturity and self confidence that allows her to finally want to stop running away and start running towards something. Or, in this case, someone. And it was beautiful to see her running in Jeju Island, finally free of the past, to find Hye-young waiting or her at the finish line. Literally and metaphorically.

But before all that, I don't appreciate the way the drama dragged on the whole "can't ring his alarm" storyline, with both pretending to not care when they actually do. Jo-jo spends most the the drama anxious wanting to prove her love for Hye-young, trapped in the world's mentality of validation through an app. Furthermore, when Hye-young says he doesn't care (because he represents the analogue and old fashioned kind of romance in this world), he is still relieved when she finally does. Where is the logic?

The whole argument the drama sets up, about ALL the characters learning to trust themselves, becomes mute when they still depend on the App.

Finally, and I can't believe I am going to say this, I fully agree with Gul-mi when she called out Duk-goo for playing puppet master with people's lives. Particularly, Jo-jo's. Who the hell does he think he is? Acting like he has all the answers when he doesn't. I can't even.

Rating (LoveAlarm S1 + S2): 7/10

#love alarm #kdrama #kim so hyun #song kang #jung ga ram

31 notes · View notes

lesbianrobin · 3 years

Note

have u done an analysis on endgame st ships? a penny for ur thoughts

i have not!! i would like two pennies please. my thoughts are not actually worth that much but i think i deserve them anyway. i’m gonna talk about some stuff that may seem unrelated or only loosely related to the question but i prommy it’s relevant <3 warning this ended up being like a thousand words somehow idk how that happened but i’m putting it under a cut bc i’m nice like that.

so! something that’s kinda unique/interesting to me about stranger things is how all of their ships are so clearly telegraphed and quickly developed. there’s a sense of... impatience, for lack of a better word. on the surface, it appears to be largely an effect of the cinematic style of the show; there’s very little room for questioning who someone’s gonna end up with or for slowly developing a relationship over time when you only get eight episodes every like. twoish years. AND you have about a dozen main characters AND evil government forces AND monsters from another dimension. it’s a lot to juggle!

stranger things has a lot to accomplish in a pretty short amount of time. the timeline of a single season usually spans no more than a week (excluding flashbacks/end-of-season timeskips), and well... nobody wants the important stuff to happen offscreen! i’ll use the stoncy love triangle as an example: jancy was originally intended to get together at the end of s1 after steve’s death, but since they decided to let steve redeem himself and survive, there was just no time to separate stancy and get jancy together without it seeming wayyy too abrupt. since jancy was always their plan, they didn’t want to leave nancy with steve, but they knew they couldn’t just have that boyfriend swap occur offscreen... which is why s2 Had to have a stancy breakup plot in order for the writers to accomplish their goal of getting jancy together.

the main characters in stranger things tend to maintain homeostasis between seasons, their circumstances and relationships rarely changing any more than the audience might have just assumed they would anyway (like lucas and max dancing together + sharing a kiss at the end of s2 and officially dating by the start of s3). steve and nancy are dating at the end of s1, so they must still be dating at the start of s2, and thus we must break them up DURING s2. joyce and hopper are friends with some deeply buried feelings in s2, so they’re friends with Less Buried feelings that must become apparent during s3. excluding the stancy situation (for reasons which i think are obvious but i will talk more about later), momentum is always forwards. mileven, lumax, and jancy argue, but they come back together, presumably more mature and stronger than before.

all of this is to say that stranger things has thus far been rather dedicated to their starting ships. there isn’t much misdirection; mike’s crush on el is obvious from the start, nancy and jonathan share charged moments even while she is with steve in the beginning, lucas shows interest in max immediately and shares more significant interactions with her than the other boys from early on in s2, and the deep loyalty and care between joyce and hop is always apparent. steve and robin (initially intended to be together romantically) hold hands quite early in s3 and dustin asks steve about whether he likes her.

the point? stranger things doesn’t dick around when it comes to love! they handle their ships with remarkable efficiency. in each season, it tends to be pretty obvious from the start who’s going to end up with who, and heading into the show’s fourth season, almost everybody is paired off: mike and el, max and lucas, joyce and hop, nancy and jonathan. which leaves us asking... are all of them going to last until the end?

we’ve only had one true breakup on the show so far, and as i’ve said before, the stancy breakup is an anomaly as it was essentially “righting a wrong,” allowing jonathan and nancy to get together as they were intended to do from the start. the only other romantic relationship to end on the show was between joyce and bob, and well... we all know why that ended, and it started/ended within the confines of a single season.

stranger things tends to treat each season as an extended film, right? they draw inspiration from classic 80′s films, and each subsequent season after s1 is treated as a sequel (they are Literally referred to as stranger things 2 and stranger things 3). when they introduce tension in a season, they’re inclined to resolve that tension by the season’s end so that people leave satisfied, while also providing a plot hook for the next “sequel” for audiences to theorize about. this hook is always part of the grander plot, not a will-they-won’t-they tease or something else of the sort. remember, they could have broken up steve and nancy in s2 and waited to get jancy together in s3, but they didn’t! they wanted to go ahead and resolve the tension!

while there are narrative and practical incentives that i’ve covered for this impatience/efficiency/[insert better word i can’t think of here], i also think it kinda reveals something about the writers of the show. to some degree, they genuinely care about and want their ships to be together! we’ve watched them introduce new characters just to kill them off a couple of times now, and i think it’s fair to say that the writers might be a bit too attached to the mains to consider killing any of them off (at least prior to the series finale). maybe... this reluctance to kill their darlings extends to ships.

romance isn’t the primary draw of the show, but an indulgence, something that there may not always be time for but that the writers continue to prioritize as much as they can because they enjoy it, or feel that it is important to the overall product. if we accept this idea, that the inclusion of and focus on so many romantic relationships in stranger things is (to some degree) indicative of the writers’ own desires, then it might inform our speculation regarding endgame ships.

i’m not here to like... really actually assert that i know what’ll be endgame, because i don’t really know jack shit. however, i do think that the writers are pretty invested in all of the current canon st ships (and yes, i am including jopper in that, as their romantic development was explicit in s3). i also think that the writers like catering to fans, leaning into popular jokes (steve “the hair” harrington) and devoting more and more time to the ships fans obsess over (particularly mileven).

with this all in mind... i really think that most if not all of the current canon ships will be endgame.

i think that barring any extreme circumstances (i.e. a character Actually dying instead of just fake dying) jopper will be endgame. they’re the only ones that the writers have had the restraint to actually do a slow burn with, and i really can’t see them devoting so much to developing their dynamic just to say it was all for nothing in the end.

i’m less confident on the others. there are some signs in canon that the remaining couples have some serious problems and may not last, but these issues are often dismissed, played for comedy or brushed over within the text itself, and many of the details within the text contradicting this dismissal are often so small that it’s unclear whether they’re intentional or not. while breaking up mileven might make perfect sense for a fan who reads into subtext and pays attention to unusual acting choices and subtle parallels, it would be a pretty risky move on the surface level. allowing these ships to remain canon for awhile and garner large fanbases only to break them up later would require both a willingness to actively contradict the desires of their audience as well as a certain degree of restraint in their romantic storytelling, which runs counter to the impression i personally have of the st writers (this is, of course, my own personal opinion).

there’s a good chance that at least one of the current canon ships will break up by the end, if only because i think that it would be a little boring if every relationship stayed the same for almost the entirety of the show’s run, and the stranger writers like to keep things new and exciting. perhaps long distance will kill jancy or mileven, or lucas and max will go off again and never come back on, but either way i wouldn’t be surprised if we got a breakup in s4. even with that, though, i think it’s somewhat likely that a current couple may break up in s4 and get back together for the series finale, just for the sake of a little suspense. overall, though, i feel like our current canon ships are going to be more or less the same at the end of the show.

that’s about it. i suppose i didn’t really... answer the question you asked skdndsdkjc i feel like you probably just wanted to know like if i’m a byler endgame truther (which i am not but i could happily be proven wrong). thank you for asking, though! i hope this made at least a little bit of sense.

#me answering an ask: yeah this is long as fuck and makes no sense drop it #asks #em talks #lesbianrobin.canon #stranger things

26 notes · View notes

weirdthoughtsandideas · 3 years

Text

My big conclusion post of my rewatch of season 3

I have previously described this season as a big fanfiction, and also the "love" season. I was completely right about the love thing - this season IS just 80 episodes of lovers quarrel. Is it like a fanfiction? Yeah, in some regards, but maybe not as much as I originally thought.

I sincerely hope Ludmila seeks therapy. Poor girl.

Parents like Priscila exists in real life and it's a bit interesting to see how she acts all nice and sweet and in a second switches to her real personality. It's also interesting to see how different people react to her. Ludmila, who grew up with her, has a hard time telling anyone something is wrong and gets quiet and does what her mother ones to not get in trouble. Violetta, who grew up with adults around her that treated her with love and care, immediately feels off when Priscila shows her true sides. She doesn't fall for her tricks. I also like that we don't know what happened to Priscila, all we know is that she is getting help.

I have said it before and I will say it again: EVERYONE LOST A BRAINCELL THIS SEASON EXCEPT JADE, WHO GAINED ONE

I really can't understand why Diecesca is the ultimate OTP, i'm sorry. Are they cute? Yes! But OTP worthy? No... I think my problem is that Francesca felt really bad at times for being a relationship with him. After their first kiss, she immediately said it felt wrong. She never wanted hide their love, she wanted to tell Violetta as soon as possible, because she hates lying. Diego told her time after time again that, no, they can't tell, and then sometimes he acted like it was her who didn't want to tell when it was he who had told her not to tell- this is confusing rdfhdxrju

Also Diego was like "we can break up if you don't want to lie" fdzhjk what

Also after their secret was out, they barely had any scenes except like. Casually hanging out.

ALSO I actually felt bad for Francesca, she so BADLY wanted to tell and SOMEONE always interrupted her

It's OOC for Violetta to dress up to spy on Leon - she would not do that. Spy on him? Yes. Create a secret identity? No. BUT I like the concept of her dressing up, Roxy is so different from her. It would have been much more fun if she and Fran just created secret identities for another reason - maybe they don't want to be themselves for once or smth and just... dress up. AND THEN THIS HAPPENS

DID FRANCESCA EVER FIND THE DIARY VILU GAVE HER THIS IS IMPORTANT I HAVE TO KNOW

Gery didn't start out annoying at first - she was kind of the whiny younger sister of Lara or smth. She was fine. And then she HAD to fuck shit up and be a bitch

Since Federico still lives in Vilu's house (even though he's not always home), I have liked the idea of him, Violetta and Ludmila just being chaotic siblings (because I, tbh, don't really ship Fedemila and there's a reason for that, that I will list further down. However, just like Fede and Vilu are a sibling duo, and Vilu and Ludmi also are a sibling duo, I kind of see how Fede and Ludmi also act like siblings)

There was a lot of... sexual undertones sometimes. It could be because i'm older and have a much more dirty mind than I did before, but also... Germán was afraid of Leon and Violetta being alone together in her room, Priscila straight up accused Angie of sleeping with Germán because she saw her in a morning gown, Diego was "so in love" with Francesca that it scared him, Olga tried to get Ramallo all season... hm

The songs are bops, but they are always bops

I lacked a lot of friendship moments, especially between Franletta >:c Season 2 made me ship them and then they give me very little content in season 3

They only had... 1 sleepover this season excuse the sleepover eps are the best ones

Diego and Leon had the most heated rivarly in season 2 and then they ?? barely interacted??? this season?? DION RIVARLY >> DION FRIENDSHIP

This was, as I said, the season of love, and yet my favorite love story was between Naty, Camila and Ludmila and it wasn't even "canon".

Naty legit tried to kiss Ludmila in a scene and Camila canonly wanted to practise kissing with her-

They were in Barcelona on 3 different occassions in under 20 episodes hrxfxjdk

Priscila is homophobic and I don't think I need to give y'all context

Ok but I honestly think Ludmila is a closeted lesbian and a big reason why she hasn't come to terms with it is because of her mother. This is likely also why Priscila dislikes Naty - because Naty is in some ways more "open" with who she is

Pablo and Angie should have been endgame and I feel like they just added Brenda so Pablo wouldn't be alone

The amount of evidence of Naty being gay I have after rewatching... I HAVE to make a video. I have to. It's coming, you'll see.

I can't get over how Leon just... knows Austin from Austin and Ally? He just appeared in his garage?? nedrmgsjkkewdhsue

Germán is a GOOD DAD. I got emotional every time he interacted with Ludmila

Also when Ludmila went inside Violetta's room and asked if she could sleep there ;v; THIS IS THE FAMILY SHE DESERVES

Priscila legit tried to kill several people I-

I... don't get emotional over the last episode. Last ep of season 1, when Violetta was gonna move away and said goodbye to her friends and family and then got to come back and Germán got to see her on stage? Emotional. Season 2, where everyone is having writer's block and Violetta is on the edge of literally being depressed and then her dad plays the piano on stage? Emotional. Season 3, where everyone is happy and get together again and they have a wedding and there are only good vibes all around? Cute. It's cute.

Now, I don't dislike season 3. On the contrary! I love it! It's just that... I like the previous seasons more. Especially season 2, the vibes in that season is so amazing.

I should've done a liveblog on my rewatch of s1 and s2 before hskdjdedhu maybe i'll do that one day, i'm sure I will rewatch them again in a near future.

Before you ask, I WILL NOT LIVEBLOG ON THE MOVIE. THE MOVIE IS A WATTPAD FANFICTION. The only things I like is the visuals and the soundtrack, and the fact that Leonetta probably had offscreen sex on the beach while waiting for rescue.

Anyway you know my post about how I would rewrite Violetta? Kinda want to do that now... though, I would change some things, like making Naty a lesbian and so on.

rkjlrusaudse I don't know what else to write I have so much and yet so little to say

But conclusion this liveblog of my rewatch of the season I remember the least about and FINALLY could watch again because swedish disney plus finally released it

Also I want to... make videos about it. I want to draw fanart. I want to write more fics. I want to... create an incorrect quotes blog or something of this show dshjfdrjue

If y'all want to get the full experience on me rewatching s3, click on the "sara rewatches season 3" tag and get access to all my random comments.

#sara rewatches season 3 #violetta #violetta 3 #rewatch #liveblog #liveblogging

11 notes · View notes

dreamerandcrazy · 3 years

Text

Ok, so I haven't been able to comment much on my Riverdale rewatch mostly bc i'm watching it with my boyfriend and we have an agreement of no cell phones when we're watching, otherwise we can't pay proper attention to it. But I wrote down some notes about the episodes I did watch (I watched up until ep 6, which is very ironic bc apparently today is its anniversary, so yay for my perfect timing). I actually remember most of the stuff that happened in s1, so here's mostly a few things I paid more attention to or noticed about the characters and the ships, or things i'm able to look at through a different view now that i've watched all the seasons. Strap in if you want to see my notes, if not just scroll please, no ship or character hate here please. Also, feel free to ignore, this is really just a personal look in some stuff I didn't notice in my first watch.

- Betty's character used to be much happier and lighter in season 1. I know we're introduced to "Dark Betty" right in episode 3, but still, I feel like the way Lili played Betty in season 1 did not hold the same "darkness" as it does in the following seasons. The scene where she is dancing happily in her bedroom because she's going to homecoming with the boy she likes? The scene where she introduces Jughead to the Blue & Gold and gets him to work with her? Her genuine innocent happiness at seeing her sister again after so much time? The way she interacted with Kevin and Veronica? Those were all chef's kiss because she actually feels like a teenager in them. In all her girly glory, she radiates youth energy and it's a thing that was sadly lacking after s1. Btw this is not a critique at Lili's acting at all, I blame it entirely on Ras and his obsession with dark Betty.

- There's actually so many indications of Cheryl being a lgbt character in the first episodes that I have no idea how I missed it the first time. But then again, there were many indications with Veronica as well, and sadly that's not the path Ras chose for her.

- Jughead in s1 is truly so superior in so many ways that it's not hard to see why he quickly became such a fan favorite. I think even if he wasn't played by Cole Sprouse, he still would have conquered many fans' hearts. Sadly, the things that made Jughead such a loving and interesting character for me also fizzled out in s2 when the writing team decided to make him a woke serpent leader instead of allowing him to sticking to his true personality as a passionate mystery lover, a dedicated friend and very nerdy, which was very cute. I feel that we got some of that back for him in s4, which was good, but sadly s1 is where my love for him really stayed to stay. But I still care for him, and s5 has a promising storyline for him which i'm excited about, so let's see if s5 Jughead can become better than s1 Jughead.

- Going back again to Cheryl for a sec, I just noticed that the red lipstick actually wasn't that common for her in s1? At least not in the first five. I wonder when did it start becoming her trademark? Anyways, it's actually a really good look her and allows you to appreciate Madelaine's natural beauty even more.

- Also, did anybody notice how Alice lowkey figured out who killed Jason in ep 2 lmao, like... in episode two she legit says she wouldn't be surprised if the Blossoms themselves had killed Jason, which... is what happened LMAO, considering we know it was his father. And even more hilarious and tragically ironic note, in ep 6 she's laughing at Betty suggesting that Hal killed Jason because "do you think your father has the stomach for it?!"... Ma'am... i'm-.... 😂😂😂😂.

- This rewatch has reminded me of how much I adored and how I much I miss Josie and the Pussycats. The girls were such a nice addition to the cast, and their songs were so beautiful. I truly wish we get to see them again someday, but at the same time I also think the actresses deserve to be at a work place where they're given the treatment they deserve and not completely ignored and treated like extras.

- Archie/Valerie was super cute and is very underrated in the fandom, but i'm glad Valerie stood up for herself and didn't take any of Archie's or Cheryl's sh*t. Still sucks because they were really good together, though.

- Why was Jason not allowed to talk, lmao? Like, i'm sure it's become a running joke in the show at this point, but back when season one was airing what was the excuse for it? He appeared in so many flashbacks and scenes and we still never heard a single word ☠️☠️☠️☠️. I just want to know what was the reason lol.

- I liked s1 Reggie, but I feel like Charles Melton's Reggie is better because he actually feels like a douche with good intentions lol, and he has more of a personality. Most of the time I even forgot about Reggie in s1, but after s2 he definitely made me more aware of him. So for that, I like Charles Melton's Reggie more. But the actor from s1 still did a good job with what he was given.

From now on I will be talking about the ships, so bear with me, and know that I am a multishipper. Yes, I have my preferences. No, my word is not law, it's just an opinion, so please respect it.

- Bughead is still super cute in s1. I feel like from s1 they will always be my otp, even if I no longer feel as strongly about them now and have a different insight as to where I would like their story to go, and now I definitely see the problem others had mentioned before of how they kind of took over the show, which is something I kind of closed my eyes to before... But I really loved them in s1. It felt like a very juvenile teenage relationship, they didn't give much thought on why and if they should be together, they just went for it like teenagers usually do, and they were very very cute together.

- I feel like if you don't count Beronica (because they really were the best no matter what you say or ship), if there's a ship that deserves "best chemistry" award for s1 is probably Varchie. I lost my interest in them years ago, but this rewatch reminded me of why I actually loved them once. They never really became an otp for me, but Kj and Camila's chemistry in s1 was VERY GOOD, and I really liked them. Their kiss in the pilot was electric and the s&xual tension was OOF, and that chemistry carries on through the season. You can easily tell something will happen between them eventually. It makes me sad bc I don't know what happened after s1, but their chemistry from s2 onwards was just... not there for me. Which is ironic bc it's the season they truly started dating and they got a lot of smexy scenes, but I just... didn't feel it. But I'll leave that comment to my s2 rewatch. For now just let me enjoy Varchie's chemistry in s1 while it lasts because it was really good.

- Now we get to Barchie, who I made clear was the reason for my rewatch, so let's get to it. I LOVED the way Barchie was written in s1. I remember when I first watched Riverdale, I was curious about their dynamic but didn't put much thought into it because I loved Bughead too much and wanted them to be together, and I thought Barchie would be the traditional "first og ship" thing and wouldn't have a big follow up, but boy was I WRONG and am I GLAD for it. I'll talk more about their development in the next seasons when I get there, so for now let's focus a bit on s1. Just in like the first two episodes, there is so much Barchie foreshadowing, like, it's legit insane how it was right there in my face and I missed it the first time! "I have never felt what i'm supposed to feel with betty", "it's not my fault he doesn't like you", "I can't give you the answer you want"... Omg, those are obvious eyebrow raising "this will come back to bite you in the a$$" moments and it's incredible how they actually DO! I would call it clever writing, but like... it's Riverdale lol. So I really am just glad that the ship was done this way, i'm glad Barchie has the back story that they do, they've really come a LONG way and i'm happy I get to experience their whole growing storyline. It's also especially good because s1 actually provides you with scenes that show you their friendship and how they're so close, you see them hanging out, talking, their pictures together, everything was just really done well with them. Still have a bit of critique with the way Archie contradicted himself sometimes regardinf his feelings for Betty, but let's be honest, we've watched enough Riverdale to know that's just a problem with the writing.

- Kevin/Joaquin is still my favorite Kevin ship, i'm sad it's completely impossible to go back to them someday so for now i'll just be really glad it existed and that I got to see them even if it was short-lived. They had great chemistry and their kiss scenes always outsold.

- Beronica... sigh. Beronica. The most wasted chemistry i've ever seen on CW and I've watched a LOT of CW shows. There was so much potential there, s1 was practically overflowing with them and it's one of the reasons it became some popular. I remember when the Beronica fandom was the biggest one, ah, good times. Veronica and Betty were easily the best part of season 1, their friendship, their lowkey romantic moments, they were just superior in every way. This ship deserved better, not even just as a ship, but as a friendship.

- Veronica's s1 hair >>> Veronica's hair in seasons 2-4. I loved the side part and I am glad it's back in season 5, it looks so much better like that.

- Cheryl, as always, deserves better. Can't wait for her to meet Toni so I can watch again Cheryl finally get to love someone and be loved back, which is exactly what she deserves.

For now, that is all! I will probably make another post soon when i'm done with season one and from season two on I will be live-blogging the episodes since I will be watching it alone. Once again, pls, no hate, my thoughts are my thoughts. Peace.

#bri rewatches riverdale #riverdale #barchie #choni

10 notes · View notes

bourbon-ontherocks · 4 years

Text

(previously, on GG rewatch...)

S E A S O N 2 H A S A R R I V E D ! With one of my favourite episodes, no less!! So let’s dive in, shall we?

The moment when Beth readjusts her blood-stained "I'd rather be crafting" mug back on a coaster might be one of my absolute favourite of the show??? It has all in it, her perfect-housewife obsession for putting things in their spot, the crafting mug, THE BLOOD, the offset of this whole situation (putting a mug back on a coaster doesn't seem such a priority while you're cleaning the carpet from your husband's blood)... This shot is Beth Boland summed up with one mug and I'm absolutely in love with it (and have been since the first time I watched that episode). And I think that the choice of this frame for the ep title is not innocent either, it totally sets the tone for the rest of the season, and it's brilliant, and I could talk about it for hours haha!

Ooooh, I'm so NOT READY for the finale follow-up... More forearms!!! Blood!! Evil Laugh!! SHUT UP DEAN, GROWNUPS ARE TALKING!!!

The little squint in Rio's eyes when he's all like "See that's your problem here" is such perfect acting from Manny, he looks like he's her manager at her annual evaluation and I'm here for it

More Shut up Dean!!!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING ELIZABETH??? HAIR TOUCHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DEAN SHOOTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY STILL YET TO HAVE SEX

(BRB gonna lie down a minute)

Also I never noticed before but Dean lets out a gasping sob when Rio touches Beth's face, and it's like... the most satisfying thing ever?????

"Wait, he's not dead?" is that a hint of disappointment I hear, Bethie?

Is that a thing, to come knocking at federal agents doors, like, you'd think this kind of information wouldn't be available to the first weirdo on the street, right?

Jane/Emma: "What if it's the bad guy?" Beth: "Bad guys don't ring doorbells" Oh you bet they don't!

HEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Uuuuh, why is Annie suddenly super chill with sleeping with Greg? What happened to Nancy's IVF and everything?? Only to repeat the exact same pattern as in S1 with the reveal that Nancy is pregnant?

Ruby slowing down the entire line at Starbucks is objectively hilarious

Aaaand, here starts the weird subplot of Beth feeding Turner with cookies and milk like a 5 year-old... Those two really have a weird kink! And it's fascinating to see them talking, like they both know they're full bullshitting the other and yet they keep going until they switch to the most brutal honesty "yeah I robbed a grocery store FOR YOU!" I mean, had Turner worn a wire and the show could just stop there...

It's so weird, like I generally have a lot of empathy for other people's emotions, but right now, I feel nothing when I see Boomer sobbing (for literally no reason)

I can't decide whether Beth baking Dean roast chicken at 9am comes from good intentions or revengeful irony tbh

Boomer blackmailing Mary Pat into marrying him is just... why is he still alive, again???

I must say I had forgotten this running joke about everybody saying that Boomer was Annie's boy/homie. Ew

MARCUUUUUUUS!!!!! Also the girls' facial journeys the first time they see him are priceless!!

Bonus, because I love it so much:

#gg rewatch #nbc good girls #i'd rather be crafting #also I could have gone on and on about the conversation between Turner and Beth #especially the moment he basically tells her she's more interesting than that #what's with Beth and men that are not her husband telling her she's more than she looks??#(jk I know the answer)#(but the show makes it sooooo unsubtle)#(very puzzled with this cookies and milk thingy though)#(I mean would you offer kids treats to a federal agent who's trying to put you to jail?)#(does this kind of bribing work for people older than ten?)#(does beth think everyone is her children? understandable she has so many)#I have so many questions

30 notes · View notes

ssaalexblake · 3 years

Note

20-30

Talk about a ship you feel alone in shipping.: Lilith x Adam in Sabrina? It was always Bananas to me ppl were pissed he was a dude when the story would have been straight up bury the gays otherwise. She’s over 6000 years old! He’s the first person to ever be just Nice to her just for the sake of it. Ever!!! Ofc she’d fall for him. Also thematically it was Very obvious why they made the choices they did. Too bad satan happened. However, it was satisfying to see an alexis denisof character be murdered to forward the story of his love interest. Very satisfying.

Is there a ship you just don’t get, but have nothing against? I never got jj x hotch. I mean w/e but i never got it. But jj/hotch fans were annoying exactly Never so we always got on fine. idk, a lot of things i go ‘yeah that’s a fine ship i get why u like that’ and just don’t actively ship it? I’m rarely baffled by anything and when i am i usually openly dislike it. ... Baffled by wanda and the vision currently. If ppl get rlly obnoxious about it with that new weird show it will probably move over to the ‘i have something against this’ column. But for now we’re at baffled.

Which of your ships have the best chemistry? The ship that has the best chemistry is whatever i’m shipping the most at any given time. Currently the doctor and master’s bitter divorcee phase. It’s more fun when they fight.

Which of your ships deserve better writing? Most all of them???? eh... Jack and Ianto? By which i mean Ianto’s death scene was Shit and ruined what should have been a very painful scene by Not Following In Universe Canon to pull at peoples heart strings when they did Not need to. It would have actually hurt then l o l. I was more upset watching a character i actively disliked die than one i loved because of the nonsense.

Stamets and Culber in Discovery deserve better writing... A Clusterfuck. Their cute lil fam is cute now but. But last season was So messed up and shouldn’t have been! Because s1 was messed up and shouldn’t have been. And in s3 it’s like nothing happened. Not super impressed. Poor follow through. For Trek’s Iconique first gay couple they’ve done poorly imo.

This one is kind of cheating b/c i don’t actively ship it probably Because of the shit writing but oh my god, anakin and padme? christensen gets so much shit for his acting but the scripts were so bad they made portman look like a rank amateur so i really don’t blame him in any way. It was kind of an important relationship! It turned out like it was written by an alien who had never met humans before but read a self help book one time. Not good. Bad. No.

This is on the same theme as above because i was Meant to ship it but the writing was so painful i didn’t, but in Angel? Wesley and Fred? Fucking Awful writing that turned Fred into a prize. Kind of. More like a 2 dimensional Thing Wesley Should want instead of you know... the evil woman he was actually in love with. That kind of objectified Fred. It turned into some kind of disturbing morality parade when Wesley wasn’t good enough for Fred when he’s all dark and broody so had to wait till he was all nice and not morally grey anymore and whittle away the time with an evil lady. The writing for wesley x lilah Knew how fucked up it was and therefore wasn’t as bad, the writing for wesley x fred didn’t realise how fucked up it was and was therefore bad. Lilah’s death was dumb but at least she didn’t die actively at the alter of Wes’ tears. It was really just a whedon show being a whedon show for not brining Lilah back for the final season.

Do you mostly ship canon pairings? I’m always most swayed by the ships that have the most content which means i’m usually doomed to ship the will they/won’t they ship. So yes. Not because i think they’re better, i just like having more depth to work with.

Have you ever shipped a pairing before you even started watching the show/movie simply because of gifs and graphics or similar? U made me ship polo girl and the dude from narnia who can’t act. or was it his brother? That fox show rn with michael sheen as a serial killer??? ppl on here have kinda made me ship bellamy young and lou diamond phillips’ characters. There are gifs of soft face touches where she’s shocked somebody is reaching for her kindly but then Melts into it. I am a sucker. What of it? I’ve not watched any of these things, and i don’t plan to, but fan content Did make me ship it.

Have you noticed a pattern in your shipping? Is there a romantic dynamic you’re more drawn to? Asshole emotionally constipated lady and emotionally intelligent partner. Two enemies who fall deeply in love, it will never work, they know it, it goes to hell. They love each other still. It’s about the Tragedy!!!!! Honestly, i like my ships two ways; Healthy adult communication and love Or a burning trash fire of unhealthy habits, violence and bad behavior. I will like the in between casually but if u want me to go nuts on a ship i want the extremes. But there has to be love there. Enemies to enemies with benefits to enemies who are in love but still enemies.

Oh. Also a sucker for requited love that can never be because of The Rules.

Is there a ship you’ve shipped for most of your life? Helga and Arnold. Sam x Jack... Can i say the nanny? Can i say Miss Fine and Mr Sheffield here? I’ve shipped it way longer than i haven’t by this point.

Does shipping come easily to you? yes and no? i am chill abt it and can easily deal with p much any ship a show throws at me and work with it, but to get me properly emotionally invested in a ship is Hard.

Do you need to ship something to really enjoy a movie/book/tv show/comic? Name a couple of fandoms in which you have no ships. i already answered this one but no i don’t need ships tbh i just need good characters in general.

#ladysophiebeckett #ask #meme thingy #the royals thing is Ur Fault

6 notes · View notes

aspiestvmusings · 3 years

Text

ZEP: S1 - TEAM MAX

This is part of my ZEP: S1 Thoughts Master Post

Here’s the new & updated long analysis post for ZEP S1. This one features the whole season, all 12 episodes.

Just me...dissecting & analyzing the storyline...with focus on Zoey & Team Max. But since the stories are so intertwined, there’s Zoey/dad & Zoey/Simon talk, too. Among other things...relevant to it all...

ZEP: MAX & ZOEY - THOUGHTS 1 [LINK HERE]

TEAM MAX

Translating Max’s behaviour:

If we pay attention to what Max says, then they have informed us via his lines what it is that he’s not okay with. And it’s not what some seem to think - that Zoey dosn’t love him back/return his feelings & won’t want to start dating now. It’s not that he chose to take the 6th Floor job as a “punishment” cause she didn’t plead him to stay and tell him he loves him. It’s not that he was mad at her & in his anger sang “Bye Bye Bye”. It’s not that he was unnecessarily cold & rude towards her…after 1x08..when he moved to 6th Floor… only because what some fans think …that he’s an example of “good guy trope”

What Max has an issue with is Zoey changing & changing their friendship. It’s that she’s dishonest with him, her best friend. It’s that he doesn’t like that she can read his mind…both because he prefers to keep his private thoughts & feelings private, and because he doesn’t want to “push” her with a sudden heart song…which he now knows he could do unintentionally. Before she got her power, he could just keep his feelings towards her a secret & not push her, but now he has to watch himself…and avoid feeling feels around her. Because he knows she can hear his deep feelings.

He’s not comfortable with her knowing how he feels about her (1x07/1x08). He’s not comcortable with everyone knowing how he feels about her (1x11).

After 1x08 he knows the details of her secret power. And…interestingly… he does not sing any love songs to her anymore…for a while. The tone of the songs changes. We only ever hear him since twice after he learns her secret. First a “duet” of the song “Here I go again” in 1x10 as he moves to the 6th floor, and second is “Bye Bye Bye” in 1x11. He doesn’t really mind her hearing the song in 1x10…as it’s just what decribing what he’s doing. And then there’s the karaoke bar, where his inner song & outer song don’t really match. He might sing “Bye Bye Bye” as a response to Zoey asking her to stop Leif singing that sad song, but you can see that he’s not really feeling it.

This is supported by his comment to Leif that he’s not (sure he’s) over Zoey. And by his “mood” and the way he “secretly” glances over at leaving Zoey. Which means that in her presence he’s trying to disguise his real feelings…. so that she would not be able to read his real thoughts. He migth sing a song to her that makes her think he’s mad at her & moved on, but we, the viewers, are let in on the truth, cause his real feelings shine through during the scene. Yes he’s heartbroken and a bit “mad at her”, but he really let’s those feels shine on this moment..to “fool her”. And this is confirmed at the end of the episode, when all it takes for him to stop pretending to be upset with her is for her to take the first step. And re-confirmed in the Finale, when we see that he can make himself think & feel…what he wants her to hear…

Yes, of course he was ALSO heartbroken & a bit disappointed, because he had hoped she would return his feeling…now, but that’s what he hoped, not expected/demanded to be the only option. He even said it several times - he needed some sort of response, some sort of answer from her. And though a part of his decision to keep his distance was cause he felt hurt and heartbroken (she did brake his heart a bit…cause from his POV he chose the other man… cause it was not as she said - she can’t choose cause she’s got so much on her plate cause of her dad & her superpower…so it’s understandable he was a bit sad) most of his post-superpower-reveal behaviour was fueled by her unclarity & her dishonesty. She’d promised him honesty & truth, and she revealed the truth…via her heart song, but then she tried to claim the truth is not the truth (not say that perhaps there are more possibilities than his interpretation of the song, but claiming it’s not at all what the song meant, when they both know what the song meant.) That’s what upset him.

And that’s why he needed to put some distance between them. And again, they’ve explained his motivation & reasons via dialogue in other scenes. And… interestingly enough…what started as him trying to experience things outside their tiny two-person-bubble-world ended up becoming so much more. When he started the season with no desire to climb the career ladder or get out of the “best friend zone” then by the end of the season things had changed… and he actually liked the opportunity he got via his promotion, and he even learned he’s good at it (even Leif complimented his leadership skills). And the distance did both them good…as we all predicted… cause they really needed to grow individually & figure things out…separately… before there could ever be a possibility of them as a duo.

I’ve touched this in my past posts. And will again in future posts.

A closer look at 1x09:

Though there was not much Max or Z/M in this episode, there were a few scenes. The elevator scene & the “what do you think I should do?” scene. And we could see Max is practicing social distancing from Zoey. Because no matter how much he cares about her, and proved he’s a good friend by checking up on her & giving her great advice regarding her dad in last weeks episode, he really was hurt by her.

Also…one way he can minimize Zoey “reading his mind” is by removing himself from the same room. And since he doesn’t consider her knowing his secret thoughts fair if he can’t hear/know hers, then one effective way to prevent that from happening is not being around her. Maybe he doesn’t want her to hear that despite acting “hurt” he can’t “hate” her. Maybe he doesn’t want her to hear him sing about being hearbroken. Maybe…. In short: minimizing their contact might be related to something as simple as just trying to avoid her knowing his secret feelings… (the outer expressions & inner thoughts not matching)

As to Max saying that she didn’t give him the right answer might’ve been about something else. And though we saw his facial expression change as she was saying that “The Zoey who sang a love song to him will miss sitting across him at the office, but would never stop him going after what he wants”, I think his answer might’ve been about her asking “Was this the right answer?” Cause that seemed to be the thing that made him make his choice.

Because that implies she was not being 100% honest with him, and instead giving him the answer she thought he wanted to hear. (we saw her do the same with Simon. First asking for his thoughts on the kiss, before revealing her thoughts…so she could base her choise on the other persons choice) It kinda does imply that she still doesnt know how she feels, and isn’t doing what she herself wants. Instead trying to guess what he think she wants her to say. Which is not what Max wants her to do. He wants her to be sure of her choice. Make her own choices. (and unlike many viewers seem to think… I don’t think he’s actually pressuring her, or demanding a love confession as a response to his own. I see it as him listing the “facts” (options), and asking her for her take on it all.

I kinda think he made his decision because she asked “was this the answer you wanted?” more than anything else. Because this tells him that she doesn’t know what she wants. Though her answer “as the Zoey who sang that she is his…romantically” being so “not personal” might’ve also played a part. And there’s another plot in this episode that actually gives us a hint what the whole “Max promoted to 6th floor” thing is about.

< Edited for clarity: As said, I think her adding “was that the answer you wanted to hear” sealed the deal. But… if we look at what Ava told him on the 6th floor on that Saturday, then he was also looking for a different answer in general. An honest answer, and that she’s had some clarity about her feelings (and them) and all that. And also… some indication of a possible future possibility of them.

But… she gave him no such answer (or hope), she included her answers as her boss, and friend, but left out the answer as “a romantic possibility”. (cause based on those 1x08 songs all Max knows is that she has feelings for 2 men & he’s one of the possibilities…yet she’s not showing any indication that she’s leaning towards the possibility of them M/Z.) And I think the order of her answer matters, too. She first replies as his boss, then his friend (and completely leaving out the third pole…which they both know based on the heart song is a role she has, because the songs reveal the persons secret inner feelings). And they’ve been friends for so long, but she’s been his boss for just a short time. So to prioritize that role over friends…gotta hurt, too. And in general her reply was centered around work and work hours - she’ll miss sitting across from him in the office, not that she’ll miss their friends movie nights…

So he’s gotta make a move… instead of just waiting for something that’s never gonna happen. Cause we might know/see more, but all he knows is the little she’s shared with him. So to his knowledge the heart song is the ONLY indication she’s even considering “them”. He is a romantic at heart, and he “put himself out there”, yet she’s not given him any real answers (all the things she said in 1x07 that he then understood as “she just needs time because of her dad thing, and everything else” and accepted as we saw based on the 1x07 end elevator scene, and was willing to wait and give her space, became “untruths” in his eyes in next episode. So even if she spoke the truth then, he doesn’t believe those words anymore, so for him she has no clarity on the whole thing, and she’s not given him any “hope” or “answers”.) Edited for clarity />

Unless my other hunch is correct… That Ava is on a spy mission, and the whole recruiting thing is a plan related to the competition for a piece of code between 4th Floor & 6th Floor that is happening in the next episode. Cause there are just to many coincidences: she approaches him on a day when the 4th Floor boss is gone (on a tech conference…which she might know because of the glitch in the watch software that shared everyones calendar events with everyone else…). And it was just luck that this followed an even where Max showed that he’s good at thinking on his feet (he actually did save the pitch by joining Zoey) And we learned his past good work has also been noticed: the escape room. This job offer also happens just before the company is about to get an important “job”. Too many coincidences.

And maybe Zoey/we are all wrong, and Joan & Leif both taking that same day off doesn’t mean they’re together, but that Leif is working on another side-project. We’ve seen his sketchy moves with Joan. We know he wanted the job Zoey got. So how do you “hurt” your competitor? You tear her team apart. It could be that Leif is behind this transfer. Cause last episode also told us that everyone in the office are actually very aware of what’s going on between Max & Zoey (interrupting them, hearing their talks & noticing that they’re not hanging out as much lately…which even Simon noticed. So he might’ve overheard them OR he saw S/Z kiss.). So the timing was also good cause IF there would be truth in this then Leif would know the best frends are going through a rough patch, so it was worth to take the gamble (he maybe couldn’t be 100% sure Max wold take the offer, but he might’ve been quite certain)

So much for wild theories…. (This one is topped only by Simon being behind the transfer…to eliminate his competition… when it comes to Zoey. Which I don’t think is true, but oh….what drama it would allow to be written…where he’s not aware that she can hear his secret thoughts & hence will find out. I would want this to be true ONLY for that scene) And though it’s 95% certain that both J & L “missing from the office” at the same day/time is no coincidence (read: they were together…which only makes me want to know more…is Leif playing her because he knows she wrote the peer review or …not), and everything implies that Joan could not just “end it”, I sometimes enjoy coming up with wild/fun theories…

One thing that maybe supports this theory of mine is the actors (Skyler Astin, who playes Max) comment that he started to call the 6th floor DRK POINT… which if we follow the SPRQ POINT logic gives us “DARK POINT” instead of “SPARK POINT”…meaning there is something sketchy going on.

And obviously he’s not gonna stay on the 6th floor, so something has to happen for him to return/be returned. Either it’s a scham, or someone (Joan, The Team, Zoey) “fight for him” & get him to return to the 4th Floor.

Also..the whole Max/Aca convo in the dark 6th floor parallels his “romantic storyline with Zoey”:

Max: I hadn’t really planned on making a move. Things are pretty fine for me on the 4th Floor.

Ava: Are they? Or are you stuck treading water? Waiting for something to happen that maybe never will?

Again…if we apply these words to the M/Z situation, then it fits, too. He’s “fine” with how things are going with them. And then the scary boss lady makes him question if he really is OK with it. Or is he stuck…waiting for something to happen between them… (for Z. to admit her feelings..etc) …that may never happen… and as a romantic at heart… he needs to know if there’s a future possibility…

The whole 1x09 Z & S plot was a shortened version of what’s been happening between Z & M in several past episodes. Zoey was reacting to Simon not giving her a clear answer. It actually tells us a lot about Z&M, and parallels that story.

Z: We have a chemistry & a bond that is undeniable. I guess I was hoping that after the kiss you’d have some clarity about all of it. Clarity you still don’t have, and maybe never will. So… I have to make a change instead of just sitting around and waiting & hoping for something to happen. So this is me saying to you..officially… I can’t, and I won’t do this anymore.

If we apply this to the other duo, then the parallrels are obvious. What Zoey was feeling (about Simon’s answers) is exactly what/how Max has been feeling about her answers to him. And the whole quote/dialogue by Zoey summarizes the other pairings story perfectly: Instead of clear answers Max has gotten vague half-truths from Zoey. If we change a few words/details (”after the kiss” = “after the flash-mob”, then this fits them, too).

And just like Zoey claims she can’t just wait for Simon to have clarity (which he can’t cause he’s not letting himself go through the stages of grief propely..etc) about his feelings, while hoping something to happen, same applies to Max decision in this episode. His talk with the 6th floor boss tells us that this could’ve been a speech given from Max to Zoey. Cause this is exactly what he’s done by taking the job offer. He can’t just sit around waiting for her to catch up/for something to happen. This is him saying “no mo’”

Both for his & her’s sake. Cause he really needs her to be true to her words, and be 100% honest with him. Tell him how she feels. And he really does “deserve” an answer, not sort-of-answers (avoiding giving him a clear answer…no matter what it is). And she needs to make up her mind on her own, and do what she wants, not what she thinks she should do in his opinion. He wants her to choose on her own…without telling her what she has to do. He has shown her his cards (love confession via flash mob, saying that he’d choose love over lust…but she needs to make her own choice), and now it’s her turn.

This show is known for doing parallel stories. The work related story paralllels the personal storyline of the episode. In 1x08 there was a “glitch” in the watch program & a “glitch” in Zoey’s powers. And trying to fix them led to new issues arising. In 1x08 we heard about Tobin & Leifs SPELLaversary tradition..and in the end Leif sang “I put a SPELL on you” to Joan. And so on…

This all leads me to a theory I’ve had about a coming song/dance number, and this weeks episode told me what the song has to be…IMO. To “solve” all this Zoey has to do a surprise flash-mob performance for Max. To Christina Aguilera’s “What a girl wants”, because if I look at the story so far, then those lyrics summarize the situation (whole s1 arc) almost perfectly. And since there have been kind-of spoilery rumours about another “heart song with a twist” happening later in S1, it matches. Just like the 1x06 flash-mob was real., so will be this one. And this time its not Zoey thinking that Max is just singing her his heart-song (it’s not real), now Max will think that Zoey’s “glitching” again… until he realizes that its real. ETA: DID NOT HAPPEN

A closer look at 1x11:

In 1x11 Max tells Leif that he's (not sure he's) over Zoey. That his crush/live for her is still there, and to get over her he must pretend/show her that he's doing fine. Then a few moments later we see Zoey signaling him to stop Leif's karaoke singing, and then we see/hear him sing "Bye Bye Bye" to Zoey. And we know he's not really feeling it. He's trying to make her see as if he's over her.

But even the lines he sings tell us that it's an act. He sings "I loved you endlessly, but you weren't there for me". Even when he is singing "bye bye bye" to her, he is singing a heart song to her, singing about loving her. It is made cldear to the adudience, but not Zoey, that the feelings she hears are not his real feelings, but ones he makes himself feel...because he knows she can rwad his mind, and he has no intention of letting her knwo that he is heartbroken (like Leif), hence he makes himself feel "mad"...and it works... she hears the song he wants her to hear. But he betrayes himself already when he secretly looks at her leaving.

Then in the end of the episode he "forgives" her...so fast, so easily...and we can see his demeanour change in seconds. He goes from looking unhappy/mad at her...to all smiles. ALl it takes is for her to take the first step..in repairing their "argument". It's made clear that he was hiding his real feelings, and "pretended" to be mad at her. (we know hes uncomfortable with her reading his inner thoughts, and about singing herat songs to her)

Then all our doubts are gone in the finale, when it is confirmed to everyone that Max can make her hear what he wants her to hear. He can change his thoughts by her request. This is shown when he changes a love song to a sexy song by her request. And then stops singing, and clears his mind of all thoughts...by request. This confirms it to anyone still in doubt. (it's also an interesting piece of info we got. We now have confirmation that he'll do anything she request. And that he can change his heart song, and since he knows she can read his feelings at any moment, he can make himself feel the feels he wants her to "hear" at the moment. He slips at times, when he forgets to check his thoughts, but when he concentrates he's able to choose the tunes his heart sings...)

MY PERSONAL TAKE/THOUGHTS:

As human as her feelings for Simon are (you can’t control who you find attractive…), and as much as this can happen IRL then Zoey/Simon is a no-no… simply because of his relationship status. Cheating storylines are not cool. Hence I cannot stand behind that “ship” or the possibility of accepting them as a viable possibility. IF he didnt have a fiancee, he’d be a candidate, but that’s not the case…he has a SO. Hence Team Simon cannot even be an option. No matter how much they try to promote it all as a love triangle & no matter how much they make Simon make bad decisions and wrong moves (going to her place & talking to her about his feelings, kissing her) seem “nothing serious”…. it’s wrong. It’s just as her best friend decribed it in 1x08. If things were different, yeah, but we’re not talking hypotheticals.

So IMO there’s one clearly wrong choice netween these two. I mean… I would not care if they would have her stay single, or develop new interest (Tobin)…as long as it’s not “morally questionable”. Z/S would be like Joan/Leif started… sketchy, and wrong. And hopefully having seen those two helps Zoey understand that…. see the parallels (she has a hint that one is playing the other)

As for “Max is being too pushy”… here’s how that goes: he’s been in love with his best friend…for some time…and not said a thing. She accidentally finds out after she gets her superpower. And all the while his feelings seem to grow deeper. And now that she’s aware of his feelings, it seems she’s become more aware of her own (similar) feelings and/or she’s developed them. And sure…after his peer reviews (that “he doesn’t show initiative”) & seeing that his best friend is interested in someone else…who would be just another “not good option” similar to her past bad relationship decisions, …and after getting mixed signals from her, he made more direct steps.

He sang her his heart songs, but he didnt push her (no, “Hand picked” is not like a date, just “are you free to go and eat”). She only felt pushed because she could “read his mind”. Also… he didn’t sing to her while being in a relationship with someone else…he kept his distance. And at the same time she seems to have become more and more aware about her feelings for him, and she was giving him “wrong signals”. His response - the flash mob was a response to that. And he was just upset that she ran…without any real response (not interested, can’t right now…cause I’m too occupied with dad thing). All he wanted was some sort of respose, and he told her so. She avoided telling him how she really feels (as Mo put it… he’ll understand if you say you don’t know, but you owe your friend an answer)...delaying it…as long as she could.

Also… any rational person would be confused about hearing that someone has superpowers. Again…she avoided giving him an explanation, instead telling him “fairytales of superpowers”. And in the end he was okay with her answer - that she can’t give him an answer at the moment. Even though he was upset, we saw he was still gonna be her friend (even if keeping some distrance, and not doing the movie nights), and that he was sure that one day she’ll be ready (the 1x07 elevator end scene, where both men think she’ll choose them…in the end..when she’s ready)

And in the latest episode we saw that no matter how hurt his feelings were, he did not stop being her friend. As he said “he’ll be there…always…and be the shoulder to lean on”. And you could tell that a huge weight was lifted off his shoulder when he knew her real feelings. When she did what she promised in last episode…be 100% honest with him. Sure… it only happened because of the glitch, when she sang him the heart song, but nonetheless it made things more equal. As he said - it’s unfair that she knows how he feels & can see into his heart but he cannot see into hers. The glitch changed that. Gave him the opportunity to get the answers she “owed him”

So… it’s undertandable that he felt hurt and confused when he saw her sing a heart song to someone else… right after finally giving him some answers. But…during he same conversation he processed it all, and also explained it to her - one song about love, the other about attraction. And he didn’t say “choose me”, he just explained the meanings to her (cause it was obvious she didn’t understand it herself), and told what his choice would be, while saying that he knows she’ll make her decision on her own….cause that ’s what she’s like.

As a friend he doesn’t want her to make the same mistakes she has in the past..hence him being “upset” with her. Cause to him it looks like she wasn’t completely honest (something she promised to be) with him - singing her heart feelings to him, and then to someone else. Claiming that she can’t lose him as a friend and that’s why she’s not ready to try being more than friends, when to an outsider it looks like the real reason is, as he put it - cause she’s confused about her feelings… for two people. All she’d have to tell him…from start… would just be honest and simply just say (more clearly) that she has to focus on her family & dad at this time, and ask for time. She kinda did at the end of 1x07, but because she’s not good with emotions and feelings…and she delayed her answer, she didn’t really let him in…and be the friend she needs at the time, it wasnt as clear as it could’ve been.

So far all his “pushy” behaviour can be seen as being a good friend - he’s trying to help her not start another overly complicated relationship…which she told him (in Pilot) is not what she wants anymore. He points out to her why Simon is not a good option - he’s taken. Yes, part of his “pushiness” seems to come from trying to be less what his peer reviews decribed him like & competitiveness (knowing Simon is kinda his competition). But from his POV… (before she told him about her superpowers& sang him her heart song)… she’d been shown more interest in him (checking him out, giving mixed signals) & at the same time he’s in a bit of hurry because if he doesn’t act soon she may make a move on the new guy/the new guy may make a move on her. So it makes sense that with all of that happening at the same time he seems…to some… to "push” her towards being more than friends… Cause unconciously he may realize that if he doesn’t make a move …now… he may be too late.

And though it all… he’s still there for her. He might be “mad at her… just a bit”, but he still goes to check on her, still gives her advice, and space… after he knows what’s really going on. (he “pushes” her to confont her feelings about her dad, and deal with it instead of running). He’s not looking for something in return. We saw that over and over in several episodes. He verbalized it in 1x06, and his face/look told it in the end of 1x07 elevator scene.

Also… “Mr Nice Guy” is better than “Mr. Cheater”…any day… in my book. And it surprises me that there are those who think that “nice guy who goes after his best friend” is worse option & worse clichee than the “hot new guy, who is willing to cheat”. For me one is clearly wrong behaviour the other just depends on your preferences.

To quote Mo : Max is funny, and funny always wins. Hence… being Team Max.

So… while up until things got overly complicated, both men could’ve been options, by now the show (writing etc) has made it pretty clear that they’re going for Z/M endgame.

Though the showrunner/writers at times love to focus on the “love triangle” (I still don’t see it in the writing…I only hear it being described so by the showrunner etc), and how they want to continue with that…for a while… which makes it seem a bit like they’re seriously pro “cheating plots” and “human feelings are messy…hence we let the main character continue making bad choices” because “we love the love- triangle drama”, there’s still more evidence in them not really taking it further than the kiss. But yeah… at times the showrunners comments make it sound like he thinks more like the HIMYM creator did and less like Dawson’s Creek creator did. Too fixed in loving the “triangle drama” & not going for character growth… But… I truly hope that all that has just been misleading…and the storytelling is what tells us how it goes.

They already let Simon make a bad move - the kiss. That should be the line over the line that they won’t cross again. He may continue pursuing her by singing songs to her, because he read her heartsong in the wrong way (because he doesn’t know why she did it, and what’s behind it), but if they follow the character growth path, and their current direction… they won’t let him/her go into the “cheating plot” territory again.

Why I’m Team Max

I’m Team Max. Have been since ep 1x01, confirmed in 1x02 (he bought her dad soft food) & I had no doubt by ep 1x06.

I love Z/M friendship (BFF for life), but I also see the romantic potential. I do think they should’ve focused more on their friendship bond during the season, and less on the “triangle”, but I guess I’m also a SUCKER for “best friends to romance” trope? (Mondler, Peraltiago…). He is her support system (now that her dad’s almost gone) & she needs to lean on him & be his support system [she can’t, reeally, right now, cause she’s a mess because of her dad’s health]

Why I’m not Team Simon: see Zoey’s reaction when she goes to buy more Cheesequake & runs into S & J. One simple, single & clear reason: He has/had a SO/fiancee. That disqualifies him immediately for me. IF he wasn’t, I might consider it as an option, but since he is/was… it’s not an option for me. He might not be any more after 1x09, but all that had happened/he did…happened while he still was. And he/they can’t take it back. But what Simon need right now (after ep 1x09 end) is time alone & processing his grief & everything.

Also… for me personally, S & Z bond is over grief experience. His songs (mostly) have been about needing her help with grief and what it has done to him & his relationships, so what she needs to help him with is that… dealing with the grief. But being a mess & grieving does not excuse any of his behaviour (kissing other women while being engaged…etc). So I support Mo’s speech to him during the brunch & I support Max’s take - S’s totally engaged, morally questionable guy…

The whole S. thing is exactly what the show said Z’s not looking for in relationships in the future: unnecessarily complicated (messy), exhausting for everyone, not good.

I’m Team “good guy BFF wanting more than friendship” over Team “cheating on his fiancee because he’s a mess” any day.

I don’t think she should’ve been actively pursuing anyone during S1 (the time she’s losing her dad), but since the writers decided her focus would be on two men…a lot… then out of those two options only one would work - Max. But not before she’s done some soul searching, and grieving, and character growth. (Hopefully his advice to her at the end of 1x08 finally got through, and she’ll be dealing with her grief actively & hopefully this time with her 1x09 speech she means it that she’s no longer continuing the emotional affair with the engaged-til-now-man (she played a big part in breaking them up…even if the roots of S&J’s problems were from long ago…) and focuses her time & energy on the #1 man in her life..her dad.

...even though “right now” (up to ep 1x09) , being the messes they are & having no clarity, and not leaning on their suppor system, and instead trying to “cheat” on their best friend/fiancee… S. & Z. “deserve” each other. They both are avoiding dealing with their grief, and both are not taking advice from loved ones, instead doing what they say they won’t do anymore… the next moment.

One step forward two steps back - it has made me kinda dislike both characters (and its never a good sign, when I start disliking the main character because of the writing…which tries so hard to create drama where there is none), cause as “human” as it is for them to be like this because of their grief, they are both “voluntarily” making the wrong choices… even if they keep getting good advice on how to deal with things…they ignore it & say it’s cause of “grief”… yet neither was actually dealing with the emotions regarding their dads.

And both “blame” it on their grief. When it all could be easily “fixed” if they just talked to their loved ones (she to family & best friends M&M) & he to his fiancee and therapist (if he doesn’t have any other family)… then they would’t be constantly doing the opposite of character growth.

But sadly… IF the show would go there with S&Z then since there is nothing besides the grief bond [and physical attraction] there, then after they satisfy that… it’s over after that one night [I still cant believe that the cheating kiss did not give them both clarity…without question…but TV writers love their love triangle + “cheating” drama…even if it feels completely unorganic & non appealing] because all of it was built on a big “lie” - she didn’t “get” him, she used her superpower to connect with him, and you can’t build a lasting relationship on such foundation.

So I have no idea why the show is focusing so much time on trying to claim these two are an option…instead of showing them both grow as characters, and actually deal with their grief… with the help of people, who actually can help. (So yes, I am dealing with it all by ignoring the “love triangle” claims and the two characters acting stupid & only focusing on the “one step forward” grief support bits…not the “2 steps back…emotional chating” bits..during my re-watch of the eps aired so far.)

#ZEP #ZOEY'S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST #CLARKEMAN #TEXT POST #ONG POST #LIST POST #ZOEYS EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST #Zoey's EP #Zoey Clarke #Max Richman #Zomax #Zax #ZEP S1 #ZEP SEASON 1 #SEASON 1

8 notes · View notes

sometimesrosy · 4 years

Note

i know what kind of the show the 100 is, but i really expect at least a good ending for bellarke and i hope your spec is right and we get some kind of that with them, in the past years shows did end in dissapointment, so i hope jason is in the group of 12 monkeys, bones, castle, shadowhunters, OUAT....

okay. but are you SURE you know what kind of show The 100 is?

What kind is it?

Yes, it’s the post apocalyptic sci fi action tragedy, but there are actually two kinds of post apocalyptic stories, the kind where there’s no hope and humanity is doomed and the kind where there IS hope and humanity can be saved.

This one is DEFINITELY the later. Hope is important in this show. THIS kind of pos apocalyptic story CAN have a happy ending, or at least a happy ending that costs a price, a bittersweet happy ending. JR has told us that there would be a “The 100 style” happy ending, and the last time he said that would happen was with one couple in s5, which we now know was Marper, who got to live their lives on their own terms, alone and without people, but in love and happiness and peace while guiding their people towards a new future. I suspect the ending of the series will *match* that description of a happy ending, but with Bellarke, who was HIGHLY mirrored with Marper in the finale of s5.

And seeing as our heroes have had a happy ending with a cost every single season, what we’re watching is a story where there is hope. And *probably* hope for Bellarke.

But. I see that you aren’t really concerned with the story, you’re concerned with if Clarke and Bellamy get together, and this, to you is what’s in doubt, because you’re looking for a romance novel, or bellarke fic or something.

For you, the story ending in disappointment is the story not ending with Bellarke romantically together with a kiss/confession/sex. Or at least that’s what is seems to me, because as I’m watching, I have not felt denied bellarke since season 2. S1 I didn’t ship them yet, not really. S2 gutted me when she left because of bellarke. S3 they were together and closer than ever, S4 okay i was gutted when she was left behind, but had hope for bellarke with the 2199 radio calls. S5 I was not disappointed with bellarke because of that last part of the finale. S6 was so freaking romantic and ended, for all intents and purposes, with that romantic, intimate bellarke hug in the sunrise, so to me, it was clearly romantic bellarke, even without an official kiss(apparently kiss of life doesn’t count)/confess (apparently all the conversation of love and care and pledges not to leave or let each other die, or the confession that he needs her don’t count)/sex.

This is why I ask if you do know what kind of story this is. Because you are acting like my spec about bellarke is based in my personal feelings and not the development of the narrative that I’ve been following, but I don’t know if you have, or you’d see that bellarke is already a romantic story, and has been since AT LEAST season 5, when bellarke shippers abandoned the show because b/e existed, instead of recognizing a canon love triangle when they see one. (I will admit that this has been what has made me most frustrated with the Bellarke fandom. They’re giving us what we want and we’re acting like it’s not happening in canon on screen.)

Like my “spec” is pretending there’s a love triangle, or the love triangle is just an interpretation rather than written in the script, the direction, the cinematography and the acting.

I cannot tell you if JR will back out of the bellarke love story or not, because I am not in control of what another person creates, but I can tell you that the story of The 100 has been an epic love story, truly from season 1, because it has been about GROWTH, but as a main plot line from season 5, or the end of s4 when he left her behind.

If you say you know what kind of story The 100 is and you don’t recognize the actual romantic story of Bellarke, then you don’t know what the story is.

This is not fanon. This is canon. It’s not my speculation. It’s the narrative. JR has called it an epic love story. He has told us it would happen eventually. He has said they were soul mates. He has said they love each other. And the story he is telling has them revolving around each other closer and closer until they connect.

When I speculate that the story might be following the structure of The Divine Comedy, with the Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise, giving us the darkest moments in the beginning and ending up NOT a tragedy, that’s a speculation that is based on a remarkable similarity to the narrative and also literal allusions to the text and a painting we stared at in TWO seasons to point out the connection and character names like Dante and Blake to make the connections. So yeah. I’m speculating on the theme of the story that won’t, perhaps, be clear until the end, but it’s less a speculation and more a theory-- a theory has evidence to support it while a speculation doesn’t necessarily.

There IS a point to the story, though. He’s told us there is. And it will be clear at the end. What I’m saying is that in order to tell a good story, he needs to incorporate that point into the whole story so we can follow along and it will all add up at the end. So I’ve been looking for those breadcrumbs that tell us where it’s going. This is what I do, and I’m pretty good at it. Finding those clues. I know not everyone knows how to do that, and I know a lot of people have been gaslighted by those who have been telling us Bellarke is not romantic or not the central relationship, or not the heroes, or are actually the bad guys, or are unimportant etc.

Back in season 3 after Hakeldama, I wrote a meta theorizing that this whole story was about Clarke and Bellamy coming together. That in order to succeed, they must be together. It was based on some significant evidence from the first 2.5 seasons, but it has been proven correct in the following 3.5 seasons. This show is DEFINITELY about bellarke, the head and the heart, being TOGETHER and saving the world. There were points where it could have been a sun/moon story, never getting together. There were points where it could have remained platonic with no romantic connection. Those points have all been passed now, and they MUST be together and it is ALREADY romantic, so the eventual COMPLETE union of Bellarke is going to be romantic. They are already married, imo, committed, pledged, intimate, loving, devoted, respecting, trusting, and the ONLY thing separating them from what fandom wants is the physical. Because it has already moved into the romantic (EVERY love triangle is a romantic story, even for the losing couple, it’s still a romantic story, therefore, in the IMPOSSIBLE event that bellamy choses Echo over Clarke, it’s still romantic, just a broken hearted romance without the necessary genre happy ending,) it is no longer a platonic relationship.

What I CAN’T do is tell you how it’s going to end. If Bellarke will live or die. They might die and that’s always been a possibility that I’ve said for the end of the series. Here are the possibilities i can see for a Bellarke ending. In all but one (very unlikely possibility) Bellarke are kiss/confess/sex canon romantic, even if they don’t get a happy ever after.

Bellarke alive, together, romantically, married, raise a family and a peaceful society with their friends. (Happy Ever After ending common in the romance genre.)

Bellarke alive, together, romantically, married, have a family and life with their friends but there are more struggles coming, like maybe another apocalypse or political upheaval or violence. (Happy For Now ending also common in the more ‘realistic’ romance genre or romantic stories.)

Bellarke alive, together, romantically, married, have a family.... but not with their friends who are left behind to create the peaceful society. (Marper ending, The 100 Style Happy Ending, as described by JR. Bittersweet. This is the one I think is most likely in some ways.)

Bellarke dead, together romantically before they die, their family and friends go on without them to create a peaceful society. (Happy Ever After for humanity, but not for Bellarke. Bittersweet. A Romeo and Juliet ending, and though Bellarke has never been framed as R&J it’s possible. This could happen. The sooner they get together romantically in season 7 the more likely they won’t get a happy ending.)

Bellarke together romantically, but Clarke dies saving them, and Bellamy carries on in her absence, broken, perhaps eventually settling for Echo, or perhaps not. He creates a peaceful society for their friends in her name. (this is Happy Ever After for humanity, but a tragedy for Bellarke. I believe this was the ending of s4, and I think it’s developed past that so I don’t think it will happen.)

Bellarke together romantically, but Bellamy dies saving them, and Clarke carries on in his absence. The only way I think this could happen is if she has his baby, so carries him with her. She creates a peaceful society for their friends and her children in his name. (Happy Ever After for humanity, but a tragedy for Bellarke. This was the ending of s4 for Clarke with Madi as the substitute child. I believe we’ve developed past that so I don’t think it will happen.)

Bellarke together platonically... i do not think this can happen, it would have to RETURN to platonic partnership, because we’ve left platonic, but let me explore it. Clarke would need to give up Bellamy to Echo because it was “the right thing to do” and Bellamy would need to stay with Echo because it was “the right thing to do,” and neither of them would make the claim on the other. But I believe part of the journey of s6 was about Bellamy CHOOSING Clarke because he loves her. It’s part of the narrative. So he’s already chosen her, so something would have to happen to reverse that decision and I don’t know what it could be. Clarke looks like she’s ready to wait for him. I don’t think this story would have them together platonically with Bellamy sacrificing his happiness being with Echo, who is Ash and doesn’t want to be king/spy anymore, and leaving Clarke pining for her soulmate. That’s a bad story because there’s no reason for them to not admit they love each other. Staying with Echo because he promised is a bad reason and disrespectful to all involved. But okay. Bellamy chooses Echo and Clarke eventually finds someone else and they lead a peaceful society without fully engaging the heart. Oh that doesn’t make sense. They’re the head and the heart. That would not be living up to what Monty asked of them. No it doesn’t work. This ending is already off the table, sorry. Unless JR really is the asshole that you all think he is. If it happens, I’ll admit that you were right and he’s a dick as bad as D&D. But if it doesn’t happen, then y’all need to go apologize to JR for doubting him and hating him and calling him evil and a bad writer.

Where I am now, I think the most likely is a mix of the above. I think the bittersweet ending will include a happy ever after for Bellarke, like Marper, as they are separated from their friends and family and assumed dead. So Bellarke will die together saving their people, but they won’t die, rather they will be separated from them so they can have their happy ending although it is alone and they’ve lost everyone they love, except each other. It fits the narrative, the circular storytelling, the bellarke mythos, the breaking of the cycle, clarke and bellamy’s characters, the sacrifice theme, the head and the heart, the marper foreshadowing, “together,” wanheda, the survival plot twists where we think they’re dead but they’re not, soulmates, the bittersweet endings, the victory but with a price, etc.

#the 100 #the 100 style happy ending #bittersweet #series finale spec #bellarke #together

69 notes · View notes