#this season recontextualised the whole show for me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pinkandpurple360 · 4 months

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I think it's also worth mentioning that you can still like a ship but realize the problems with it. I know a lot of Stoltiz fans who shipped it during season one because how 'messy' it was (I wouldn't call forced sex and one dehumanizing the other messy but ya know) jumped ship once season two aired being how it took away the things that they found interesting about it and attempted to make it 'wholesome' when it never was or meant to be so.

I'm complete Fizzomdous trash but even I realize the problems within season two and hate how both were defanged and feeling as if Fizz's personality and treatment from the writers made him less of the gremlin we loved while also taking away his agency (I'm the one who sent the disability ask a while ago). Yes they still have cute moments but I kinda wish their relationship they were treated like...well ya know, like they're both adults. Plus them tag team roasting your sex life. That was fun.

Hell, I could have gotten behind Stoltiz if there wasn't the full moon deal plus while still privileged Stolas at least attempted to get to know Blitzo as a person supposed to only use him for sex. Yes, Stolas still cheated and could be a bit out of touch with reality without realizing how much this is affecting Octavia, but at least there's a chance of character development and a real messy kind of relationship.

Helluva Boss is supposed to be a show for adults yet treats its audience like children more than shows aimed for that demographic. It feels as if it wants to write messy or dark dynamics but then backpedals and tries to 'savage' what's already an unhealthy relationship into something that we should be rooting for. Honestly it wouldn't surprise at this point if Viv chooses to recon the whole of season one being it makes Stolas look bad when he was suppose to be the bad guy to begin with.

Sorry for rambling...

Anon, if every message was like you. I’d never be getting irritated with people. Please know I don’t have a problem with anything said here.

And that’s fine, because we don’t all have to debate things. You don’t have to feel guilty for liking or not liking something. Even if people test me sometimes that’s at least what I try to stick to. I’m tired of shipping wars. You are in no way a bad person if you don’t feel like looking deep into things that happened because everyone will enjoy things differently. I run a blog that’s partially random ‘turn your brain off and enjoy it’ content; and critical content where I really don’t hold back.

So I think this has all taught me to improve my tagging systems so people can filter it and only have to engage with it if they want to.

I completely understand and agree with you, and people should enjoy the fanon in any way they choose. Because those are the fans stories, their content, their original material. They also aren’t above critique when things go to nasty territory (you probably know the kind I mean) but are usually harming nobody.

Its different when we get to ignoring and recontextualising canon events that all of us saw. “That didn’t happen the way you remember” “you’re delusional if you think the scene happened like that” (this oneeee 👹🔥🔥) or when it gets really bad, reaching levels of “actually sex consent is a flexible thing, like paying rent” 😶😶because then it leaves the realm of fiction, and right to reality.

Personally, the romantic relationships other than moxxie and Millie weren’t why I ever watched the show. I don’t really find relationship melodrama fun but if I’m suppose to take it seriously, I will.

I think I’d like Stolitz as exes that are now on ok terms. Almost like an anti verosika. The first relationship Blitzø ended in a more healthy way. Them both realising the spark has gone, the feelings weren’t really “love” but loneliness, and that they learned a lot from each other, but don’t really like each other anymore that way, too much bad blood had happened, and have very different priorities and values in life. A scene where Blitz sees Stolas at Ozzies with someone new, with them both smiling and chatting and stolas blushing at his new crush, and the other guy blushing back and crushing just as hard, then we see blitz genuinely smiling and happy for him without any hint of jealousy, then heading back to pride with his friends, that’s a beautiful ending. To me anyway.

Hell if Via feels this strongly like Stolas’ lustful obsession is ruining his relationship with her. That is grounds for ending it. My dude, he’s just not the one for you. LooLoo land and Seeing Stars, where it ends with Stolas holding Via, only her, while IMP are in their own corner, separate, but happy, those are the happy endings. Not tacking stolas onto IMP and having Via tell us that stolas loves blitz over her even though he honestly…doesn’t. Like cmon there’s no way in any universe blitz is competing with Octavia.

Man can you imagine if Via helped Stolas make a lustinder, do a profile pic, find new dating tactics and choose an outfit? And be very supportive and excited for him? Hi?? yes?? that’s super cute and that’s stolas fixed for me. Stella shouldn’t be his only romantic history and frame of reference, that’s bonkers.

#helluva boss critical #stolitz critical #fizzarozzie critical

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inthetowncalledyesterday · 11 months

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i watched poker face, and I say this about everything i watch and then write about here, but it was really good!

the premise was fun, and each episode was interesting, and i loved how they show you the scenes then recontextualise it all with how charlie was there too. i came to really enjoy that familiar guitar track that when it plays, you're just like ah, we're about to see charlie again.

and charlie cale! she's played by natasha lyonne who did a great job and is why i started watching poker face in the first place (i really enjoyed russian doll, another great show i recommend).

but charlie cale! fantastic protagonist which made the whole show for me. i loved her kindness, her heart, but also just the way she could invite herself into people's lives, and how she could easily strike up conversation with anyone. that's one thing i really loved about this series, is how people just came together (the truckers in the diner are a big example), and all the unexpected allies she forms. but also that to me, anyways, those interactions didn't feel unnatural at all - like they could happen irl, if there was someone like charlie.

can't wait for season 2 :)

#i guess what i'm saying is #i wanna be more like charlie cale #and i Am scared of people aslkdjfd #but maybe i'll work up to it bit by bit #role model fr #i mean aside from all the 'running away' and 'life on the highway' stuff #poker face #i watched

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theultracharmingladynoire · 1 year

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This has been a rant building up for a while now and I just need to put it in here but it's that. I remember the joy and excitement I felt when I watched y/o/i ep 1 - 10 because I literally. Knew nothing about the show except for the fact it was gay?? dvsjgshd but it just was so GOOD but then I. Came across a couple of interpretations of ep 11-12 (which I hadn't watched by then so I had no idea what went down) which was just people being disappointed, people thinking the ending was changed for a season 2, people thinking it was out of nowhere (especially V/ictor's comeback?? I guess??) And that really. messed up my perception of the show?? Like upto then I was forming my own interpretations of the characters and after this I. Was lowkey scared to watch the last two episodes because I was afraid of it being bad™ (if that even makes sense) and then one day even when I did watch them I didn't watch them properly?? Like I even missed a lot of scene and dialogue because I was too nervous about what I had read about it before.

And like. I don't even think those interpretations are entirely wrong for record. I understand that especially when there was a whole week between episodes and when the fandom was so huge and active people might have a very different viewing experience which directly plays into how they interpreted the character arcs! And those interpretation are extremely valid even though I disagree with them. The show definitely leaves a lot upto intrepretation of the viewers so there isn't any interpretation that is necessarily wrong™ (Idk how to phrase this sorry)

But it's just that I wasn't able to form MY own interpretation properly because I was influenced by others' ?? (In lack of a better way to word it) and I just. I've been mulling over this for a whole MONTH and going back and forth and back about the ending. And it just feels very draining when I go out to look for meta and people who had opinions similar to mine and find...like what ten people?? it kind of makes me feel like I am looking at things wrong, and that probably the finale WAS just bad or whatever (which seems to be a more common idea in what I've seen)

I do think there were pacing issues, and I do think the character arcs CAN be interpreted differently than what they are in the finale but I also am a bit sad that not many people tried to recontextualise the show in light of the finale (again, it isn't a MUST But I really wish people tried to if I am making sense?)

And it's sad because I know this can be fun if I just created my own bubble without all the meta and opinions I disagree with but it's hard when that is somehow always what I come across? And I KNOW I should stop reading a post when I see that it may suggest something towards the opinions that I disagree with (because that'll just waste my energy), but then what if I AM wrong? What if those posts are right and I am willingly closing my eye towards what the characters originally are or something?? Is what perplexes me out and really makes me sort of nervous and uneasy(?)

And now it is getting worse and I feel like I am slowly losing all the love I had for this show and it absolutely SUCKS because I just want to enjoy this silly little show and now this is all....just a mess

#N rambles #I feel like I am just repeating things at this point #I've been trying to hold back a lot from venting about this on the main because it just plainly seems like a very trivial thing to be this #upset about #But after weeks of ranting in tags I just feel I really HAVE to say this because it is actually really making me sad #Like. I thought maybe after exams I wouldn't be upset? And I was so excited to do a lot more things for the show #I was so excited and looking forward to this #Especially since I have TOO much of free time now so I also am prone to overthinking in such a situation #And I did and this just sucks and I am fed up with just overthinking and keeping all of this to myself and getting too upset #so. yeah. I still feel very bad but I also think it's probably due to a lot. Of other factors #and this one is not helping #And for one thing: I am actually really nervous about posting this because this seems to be such a dividing topic #And by no means am I saying people shouldn't have been upset - but...yeah #I just. Don't know. I really do wish I could find more people who are active and who liked the finale?? I really want to talk about #The character arcs and themes and ramble about them but there's no one to. talk about it to positively???#I also want to rewatch the show. It would actually just solve this problem but #I am low-key scared??? I don't think this would be a right time to do it because I am just really confused about this whole issue and it #Will definitely reflect in forming my own opinions and I don't want that #like at this point I just want to discuss about the finale with people who also didn't feel it was too off or ooc or something #And just tried to intrepret it in good faith #Again I don't really care about people disliking it obviously #It's just that*I* wish I could find more people who liked it #(sorry for the weird phrasing in this whole post I am trying to express what I feel but idk how to do it exactly)#Also I used the slashes because I don't want this to turn up on search sorry

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cina-full-moon-xanadium · 1 year

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Well, that’s it then! That’s me finished B-Fighter Kabuto -- and I imagine I’m one of the first people in the west to do so?

That alone made for a pretty fun and unique experience -- by the time I got into Toku all the 2000s stuff I was interested in had been subbed, and then by the time I decided to look into a broader range of 20th century Toku all of Sentai and Rider and Ultra and most of the other notable ones had been subbed, too! Which is a really really cool thing to say, it’s great we live in such an age; but it also means I kinda missed out on this “watch along with an old show as it’s being subbed” thing, so I’m glad I got to catch the train on one of the last Metal Heroes shows out there to be subbed. Like, man, I started watching this in September!

Anyway uh yeah the actual, the actual show. ... I had fun! It’s alright! Some of what I was saying about Decker last night applies -- it’s just a decent solid season where there’s not much wrong with it, but it’s also because it doesn’t take a lot of risks. It does a lot of cool shit for sure but it’s... pretty standard? I think I said a lot of the same stuff about B-Fighter, actually... it’s a bit like a Sentai without the specific limits of a Sentai, though that comparison is a bit of a shame when I feel the Sentai from around this time really outclasses it.

There’s a lot of stuff that just kinda gets dropped or changed around the middle of the show for the worse, too? The initial conflict is a pretty good one of invaders from beneath the Earth rather than last season’s outer space, cast against the current citizens of the planet for ownership of who gets to live here. But then mid-season they do this whole big continuity backstory thing with the original B-Fighter which is WILD to watch but it recontextualises everything as this “battle between the will of light and the will of darkness” and it’s about as bland and meaningless as it sounds; just kinda robs the gravity from the characters at times when they’re saying they’re soldiers of light and fighting in its name or whatever rather than the much more natural initial conflict.

Still! It’s got some really fun stuff for the time. 11 whole guys, four of which are antagonists; some really great mecha stuff including one of the hypest robo introductions and build-up I’ve ever seen, an awesome soundtrack, a fun rotating door of a recurring cast to keep episodes feeling fresh... again, it’s a good, fun watch, just not one you should go into expecting to get a lot out of as a whole. It’s a decent time, but not much more than that.

#Invincible Kabuto

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am-artist · 2 years

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the wilds recap review s2 e6

making me look at gretchen playing candy crush is a war crime i do not care about her loss of control plot everyone involved in her operation is a moron & the inevitable splintering is not interesting

yay ivan content. glad he has someone back home. i hope he has a storyline beyond this tho. esp w the social media addiction thing.

leah & rachel always fun. glad they’re having real talks even briefly.

ivan is a great talker bc he always sounds like hes delivering theatre lines. ‘smite’. love that.

i feel for him bc he always has to decide whether to shut his mouth at the expense of his principles or speak up and be labeled the woke buzzkill, but his integrity even in the dire situation they’re all in is admirable.

smh kirin your nun joke was not good enough to justify cutting henry’s climate change tirade off fuck you

ivan and kirin have ironically similar flaws in assuming they know whats best for people / that their big picture is more impt than other people’s discomfort. thinking abt this re josh’s situation. but also apparently re ivans boyfriend & the social media stuff. altho naturally ivans big picture is one of fighting intolerance on many exhausting fronts and kirins is more thoughtless big man masculinity.

kirin is doing carly rae jepsen covers im sorry ik this is meant to be a homoerotic vaguely homophobic mess this man is clearly on gay twitter somewhere.

the guys just blindly hunting seth down… in character. kirin and ivan both being intensely stubborn about this… also in character. the way they handle it… bad

oh josh… fucking great role model kirin thanks for that. not that i dont support kicking the shit out of the guy who assaulted you but i would have really liked for josh not to take the lesson of masculine dominance bullshit from this bc it is just going to eat him up further in the long run.

rachel is so fucking cute!!

fatin and leah have such inherent friction. fun.

i like the divisions in the boy group ig. for all the posturing most of them are very uncomfortable w the violence kirin is selling as the one answer. and ivan knowing very clearly that things are unravelling but not sure in what direction to move is very understandable.

kirins obv going to have some deep backstory w the blackface coach which is an annoying way for things to go.

i somehow forgot/missed it had been ten days since the exile! def recontextualises the whole thing.

seth’s reaction makes this whole thing so much worse. if he could just be wracked with guilt instead of faking innocence or idk it wouldnt be so gratingly unpleasant to deal with. but hes so caught up in his perception of himself as nice guy that hes in denial and wants to reaffirm this false reality rather than own up to it.

toni and martha <3 glad toni gets her non-shelby gf plotlines too.

the guy camp splitting it up is such a mess. josh is entitled to feel whatever he wants but kirin domineering over the group w his black and white posturing mindset means they cant even have a proper convo about the implications of the constant exiling. does any of them actually want to condemn seth to die? even if they do, what about raf? if they just managed to talk about it they would be able to find some compromise but instead the group will keep fissuring forever.

ivan and kirin’s pre island storyline is interesting but (similar qualms as in season 1) i dont love the optics of the gay black kid being framed as the ‘bullying’ force in this situation etc etc idk just the way it’s done feels weird to me. i know they have luc as the contrast guy but i just think they could have set things up with some more grace... i wonder what the writer’s room looked like.

henry </33. i love that he talks to ivan about it tho.

i do enjoy kirin and ivan talking always. i just wish they could put their little heads together and make things work bc theyd run a pretty decent ship if they did.

martha <///3. i do love that they show her finally having some breakthrough conflict with the constant hunting. & i love that toni just holds her when they find her, despite the brutal rabbit murdering.

sidenote: leah’s turmoils are so hard to watch bc she is in fact right in her suspicions but she feels insane.

#the wilds #the wilds s2 #the wilds spoilers #i hope we get more henry next ep #and bo and scotty’s feelings abt the whole sitch

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etuwubrutus · 3 years

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parallels between benji/derek (s1) and victor/benji (s2)

okay SO I just rewatched s2ep5 of 'Love, Victor,' and I finally saw what people were saying ahout s2 benji's parallel's with s1 derek.

in season 1, when benji plans the whole 'one year anniversary dinner' for derek, we see him met with dismissiveness, the line, 'what are we, straight?' It's something typically romantic and cheesy, and derek uses the excuse of 'gay culture' to trivialise the gesture. benji's obviously upset about this, because he wanted to do this gesture with his boyfriend, who says it's too much of a 'straight' thing to do. derek's attitude of 'don't take this stuff seriously, I don't mean to hurt you by it, it's just that I think you're being silly,' is showcased clearly, and it hurts benji because, in this situation, he's on the receiving end.

reminder - in s1, benji's group of friends consist of derek's band. he's sort of there as Derek's boyfriend, the high-schooler, kind of inexperienced, etc.

the derek/benji s1 relationship goes downhill because derek continues to trivialise benji's interests and opinions - benji accepts this for the most part because he wants the relationship to work out, but eventually, derek's lack of change and adaptability toward benji's identity is what causes them to break up.

it's AMAZING how this behaviour is recontextualised in season 2! here, the relationship between victor/benji puts benji in the position of being more experienced in 'gay culture,' (having dated a guy before and having his own group of LGBT friends.) especially in episode 5, once victor's left his own group of friends (the basketball team) and put in a situation where he's the inexperienced one, hanging out with benji's band as the 'boyfriend.'

benji's trivialisation of victor's identity is in the way he talks about basketball. early on in ep5, benji tries explaining away why victor misses being on the team ('you only played basketball because your dad wanted you to, because you thought it was a straight-guy thing to do') and later, when talking to his band, makes 'ex-jock' jokes, and shows relief at how victor is less of a 'straight-guy.'

the line, 'thank god, now I don't have to sit with the basketball girlfriends and do the whole 'go grizzlies' dance,' is ESPECIALLY well done, since it shows how benji's learnt to trivialise conventional couple activities, which he wouldn't have done in s1, and ALSO, subtly hints at how he doesn't want to be in a situation where he doesn't fit in as a 'boyfriend' (as he previously was with Derek's friends.) he says these things jokingly among his own friends, subconsciously mirroring what Derek had done in s1.

and GUYS. I love benji's character, and ESPECIALLY in this episode, because??? later on, after the concert, he confronts victor about why he's upset, and while initially reacting to victor's, 'you make me seem like some dumb jock (i.e, I act too straight for your friends,)' by dismissing it all as a joke, he PICKS UP ON HIS OWN BEHAVIOUR! we see this in his expression, as he tries to figure out what he's been doing! We SEE benji realise that he's hurting victor the same way derek did to him in s1, and benji BAMF campbell goes the extra mile to SHOW that he understands what he's done wrong.

the 'go grizzles' dance sequence was aesthetically appealing, yes, but canon-wise, benji's a musician, not a dancer - he takes the extra step, puts in the extra effort to show that he SUPPORTS victor, and doesn't want to trivialise his identity.

this is just. amazing. truly great writing. i LOVE this parallel because it introduces a familiar character dynamic to the audience, while playing the actions of said characters completely differently both times: derek doesn't change, and the audience understands that he doesn't value his partner (benji) enough to make him feel secure in the relationship. Benji TAKES THE EXTRA TEN MILES to check his own behaviour and show his partner (victor) that he values his identity, and supports his endeavours.

It's a beautiful example of stopping cycles of damage in relationships - benji COULD have acted like Derek did with him, but instead chose to actively be different. idk guys, it's great, and TL;DR, benji campbell is one of my favourite characters of all time, the writing of the show is too good for victor to not be at his door in s3.

#love victor #analysis #benji campbell #victor salazar #love victor hulu #essay #I just love the show #not even american #thank god it's too much LGBT drama for me BUT I love watching it written well and inclusive of different experiences

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anxiouspotatorants · 3 years

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Whoopsy daisy I made a Shadow and Bone random thoughts post:

The costumes in this show are impeccable. I was drooling over all the keftas and the ball gowns in 1.05 and the crow outfits. Hell, even the winter-camo outfits that Mal, Mikhael and Dubrov wore in 1.04 were amazing.

Am I the only one who isn’t surprised by the kruge pronounciation? Because I thought it would sound like how English people say Scandinavian words and I wasn’t wrong.

Coming in to this show as someone who had only read the Six of Crows duology, I expected to at least tolerate Malina based on the trailer clips. I kid you not: less than five minutes into the very first episode they owned my ass. That might be a new record for me.

Seriously the friendship? The pining? The finding home in each other and being able to acknowledge their faults and apologize to each other? Both of them having massive “fight me” energy and protecting each other? Hugs?? Why am I surprised that I ship this?

Some of those scene transitions/flashback edits were so good! Like I know they repeated that meadow scene a lot throughout the season, but the cuts from kid-Mal looking at the rabbit to grown up Mal psyching himself up for the fist fight? Poetic cinema.

The Darkling was horrible and I love it. He wasn’t a carbon copy villain, nor did his complexity redeem him. He was a perfectly complex and understandable monster and I am living for it. I have not been so happy to despise a character in ages and I genuinely bow in gratitude to both the writers and Ben Barnes, because I finally got to enjoy watching a character I did not for one second root for ( #writevillainswellagain)

Look I already loved Jesper in the book but his on-screen translation elevated him from a fave to the fave. I was worried that they would push him into a comedic relief-role, but he got to keep both his heart, his depth, and his humour. Kit Young did an amazing job bringing what was already a great character on page to an even greater character on screen and I once again applaud.

Am I a bit bitter that the casting had some interesting choices for certain roles (aka hiring light skin and mid-size actors for explicitly darker skin and plus-size roles)? Kind of. Do I think there are important discussions worth having about this? Yup. Do I also think that every actor hired for Shadow and Bone did an amazing job and deserve zero hate and massive amounts of love? Also yes.

I had Alexei for one episode and one episode only, and I still miss that poor sucker. This show did a surprisingly good job with making me care about a massive amount of characters considering the screen time they had and the amount of episodes this season had. Good job.

For some reason I expected Inej to be a lot more brooding based on how I perceived her in the books but I love what Amita Suman did with her. Her translation completely recontextualised everything I remember from the books and just brought this truly fresh character to life. Assassin with a conscience indeed.

Also I did love the Kaz we got in this season but I can barely contain myself as I wait for season 2 to be made and for a certain flashback to take place because that moment in the book was visceral and it stayed with me for a long time and I knew before the show announcement that this flashback could become a television moment.

Speaking of Kaz the crows were so chaotic and messy and I’m here for it. Their interactions with each other and their improvised back-up plans were everything. I somehow didn’t expect the crows to become the comedic relief of the season but it honestly makes so much sense.

A couple episodes in I still didn’t get the Zoya hype (remember I haven’t read the books) but was a massive Genya fan. By the end of the season I was like “oh both of these girls are getting redemption arcs and I am here for it”.

Speaking of redemption I still don’t like Matthias. I’m sorry but I just don’t. I get that he is important to many and that they like his relationship with Nina, but I just don’t have the patience for him and feel like Nina can do better. I still want him to get a redemption... but maybe not through a romance with the grisha woman he repeatedly slutshames, is bigoted towards and chokes at least once (twice if that SoC scene from book 1 happens). That being said this is just how I see him, so feel what ever you feel about him and ship to your heart’s content!

Alina’s journey through this season made complete sense to me. It hurt to see certain things, but they were necessary in my eyes. Seeing her go from this essentially insecure but brave girl to a manipulated pawn to an even stronger and more self reliant girl in spite of everything was amazing. It did feel like a well-written hero’s journey and I’m looking forward to seeing where she goes next.

Apparently a lot of book-readers don’t like Mal (and I am not here to change anyone’s mind about that) but the Mal I saw on the show was amazing. I actually kind of wish we had seen more of who he was outside of his relationship to Alina (f.ex. other flashbacks than the meadow, maybe something about any of his missions while separated from Alina pre-show), but I also loved what we got of him with Alina. We still got to see a guy who was brave, stubborn, flirtatious, a bit judgemental but with a strong sense of humour, and a lot of loyalty (to Alina but also to his friends). I can hardly wait to see what’s next for him.

Milo the goat. Where do I even begin. Not only did we get that Jesper-scene, but their farewell actually became a Chekhov’s gun for Mal in 1.07? Milo is the true hero of the season.

Speaking of 1.07 I loved the tent scene between Alina and the Darkling. She both got to be realistic about her feelings for the Darkling and stand up for herself and for others and call him out. The way I interpret the Darkling, he is the kind of villain who creates a saviour narrative around himself but cares more about power than anything else. He’ll say he’s doing everything to protect his people but is the first to kill the very people he claims to love. And Alina’s tent-speech really hammered that in for me.

I adore Baghra. Is she morally dubious? Yes. Was she incredibly mean to Alina during training to the point where it might have been excessive? Yes. Did she not take any of the Darkling’s bullshit and act as the proper mentor for Alina when the Darkling had said that he was going to train her? Yes. Am I kind of a Baghra stan now? I mean maybe.

The antler-collar was so evil and gross but from a visually narrative stand point it was perfect.

Also I still have no idea who David is but I want redemption for him too. Honestly I feel like half the supporting cast is gearing up for redemption arcs next season and I am excited for most of them.

Nina’s reaction when she hears Kaz on the boat? Priceless. Actually the whole boat scene from when she goes up on deck again to the cut back to the fold was priceless.

That being said the final scene had me even more ready for season 2.

Jesper kind of gave me messy period-fantasy James Bond? Does that make sense?

And Mal kind of gave me Lois Lane energy? As in he’s the mortal love interest that many assume is the hero/heroine’s weakness but actually functions as their emotional strength and inspiration? Am I reaching here or am I getting somewhere?

Mikhael and Dubrov. What a duo. Absolute madlads.

Also I’d like to see more Nadia if that is possible? Because the few scenes we had of her had me intrigued but then she sort of disappeared? Is she going to be important or was she just more of a temporary supporting character?

I entered this show a casual Six of Crows fan with mild interest in Kanej and I finished this season a mess. A mess who ships Kanej and Malina and Genya with that David guy even though they had about 30 seconds of screentime together and Zoya with redemption and Jesper with main-character status (hey we’re not getting Wylan until season 2 at least) and kind of those two Ravkan army guys and Nina with anyone else and Matthias with a better redemption storyline and the Darkling with karma! Also, a mess with a whole new set of comfort characters!

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why-this-kolaveri-machi · 3 years

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just because you’re afraid it doesn’t mean you’re broken.

Titans 3.05

once more into the cold dark void of the internet with my stream-of-consciousness take on a superhero tv show...

spoilers ahead.

1. i cannot believe that among the first things i get to hear in this episode with my own two ears is the line 'eluded our overdudes'. why must you give me such pain along with so much joy, show?

1.5. scarecrow stringing jason along on this path to red-hood-dom is not something i would’ve ever expected, but does kind of make sense.

1.55. i don’t know all the details of the original resurrection arc in the comics but i like that jason, weirdly, has a greater role to play in his own demise and rebirth? i think it makes it easier to draw a line between his past trauma, the demonstrably shitty and terrifying responsibility of being robin, the ways bruce and the titans wronged him, his responses to that, the reasons he turns to scarecrow, and his final evolution to red hood. it makes for a smoother character arc rather than a one that was interrupted for two decades before somebody went oh hey let’s resurrect that kid that the audience once voted to kill and make him an anti-hero!

1.75. what’s crane giving him? anti fear toxin? anyway, crane is a fucking creep and i’m not sure i want to see a whole lot of him on my screen.

2. oh, um, heads up: there’s a long sequence of unsteady cam + flickering lights right after the title card upto the 3:16 mark. it’s a bit headache-inducing so if you want to skip, you can go ahead and do that.

2.45. that’s... weird... why would he dream about... donna...

ok, who am i kidding. i’m going to jump right into my theory about Why Titans Makes Sense Actually because the show itself is apparently not interested in explaining itself:

a) it makes no sense for jason to be conjuring up donna--who famously did not care much for him!--in his dreams. (he wasn’t even there when she died.) or for her to be telling him don’t go or there’s still time.

b) this leads me to think that that’s actually donna, in some sort of limbo between life and death, the kind of place where jericho used to be

c) rachel has demonstrated that she has the power to link the minds of the titans across great distances--she called jason and hank/dawn for help in 2.01, she linked up everybody later in the season, projected dick’s hallucination of his father into their brains without even realising she was doing it, and in the finale, she managed to get dick into conner’s brain. she’s in themyscira now. is this how she gets donna back to life? but reaching out to her in that non-space between life and death?

d) the next obvious question is: why isn’t donna appearing in the dreams of the other titans? she probably is, but they have better reason to be dreaming about her since they were actually close to her, unlike jason.

e) but why would she warn jason in particular? does she foresee jason entering the afterlife--however briefly? does she have an idea of what jason plans to do and what he will become?

f) anyway, more trippy mindscapes and weird psychic powers, yay!

2.5. my heart clenched when bruce comforted jason post-nightmare: clearly i’ve been reading way too much batfam fic. this is a side of bruce we haven’t really been told to expect by all the characters on the show calling him a ‘psychopath’ (*cough*unreliablenarrators*cough*) and him getting jason to speak to a professional speaks volumes about the kind of self-reflection he’s done post dick’s departure, and maybe some of the regrets he has with regards to how he dealt with dick’s traumas.

i mean, just look at him when jason dismisses his concerns! BRUCE IS TRYING JASON

anyway, i have a whole lot more i want to say about this, but i’ll save it for later.

also: LESLIE THOMPKINS!!!!

3. i really like molly--and i love that she’s a friend from before jason got taken in by bruce, the implication that they meet up regularly and that she’s a grounding influence on him (tho clearly not grounding enough to not go along with his dumbass idea about confronting a child trafficker alone).

3.5. aw, jason. robin was his armour against everything in the world that would throw him down and chew him to bits, but san francisco proved that even robin wasn’t enough to protect him. it’s really interesting how ‘disillusionment with the idea of robin’ is so integral to the traumas of both dick and jason but in such different ways.

4. LESLIE!!!!!!! i even forgive her office being so goddamn blue because leslie!

4.5. it makes so much sense for titans!verse leslie to be a therapist, because this show is so inward looking anyway, and therapist sessions are a useful tool to showcase this character work in a story. besides, at least in fanfic, leslie often seems to double up as a counsellor anyway.

4.6. oh man. i’m not terribly convinced by walters’ red hood (tho i think that may be the point--argh. i’ll come back to this thought later. have to stop getting distracted!) but he plays the asshole kid that’s trying not to let any real emotion seep through really well.

“you’d like me to punch you, wouldn’t you”

5. not sure what to think of batman’s little trophy case other than the show winking unsubtly at us and going look look - catwoman! the riddler! two face! you excited yet?! it’s like the scene from the end of amazing spiderman 2 when they were trying to drum up excitement for a sinister six spinoff by having harry osborne walk by a bunch of display cases with stuff from iconic villains in them.

... but then again, bruce does like to display a lot of shit in his batcave, including his dead robin’s bloodstained costume, so.

5.5. bruce is so soft with jason it’s killing me. beyond just trying to learn from his mistakes with dick, it speaks to his own genuine desire to balance his dedication to gotham with doing the best by his sons, although he’s often not successful with that.

i love that titans is really playing the long game with bruce wayne, with each season and character-perspective sliding in fresh pieces of a bigger puzzle. titans’ bruce has always been a phantom of other peoples’ making, but now we’re getting the idea that he’s a whole lot more complicated than other people make it seem.

5.75. it really recontextualises some of his actions from previous seasons: the fact that he locked dick out of his security systems in 1.06 is likely his way of respecting dick’s independence and his desire not to be associated with batman/gotham anymore. jason knowing about bruce’s tracker while dick doesn’t is probably bruce trying to be more honest and upfront with his charges. bruce sending jason packing off to sanfran to spend time with the titans is probably not him passing on a big responsibility to dick (as i first uncharitably thought) but him trying to get jason out of the toxic influence of gotham for a while and a sign of his trust in dick as a leader and a mentor,

5.8. i mean, bruce is a prick, but he’s also human.

6. i think leslie is doing some good work with jason here, though she may have overstepped the line with her line about robin as a construct being projected by a man with BPD. her speculations about bruce’s diagnosis have no place in her session with jason, and if bruce confides in her, an egregious violation of patient-therapist confidentiality.

(about the diagnosis itself... i don’t know. i can’t really confirm or refute this without a whole lot more information, and i’m not sure if the writer of this episode means BPD in the same way an actual professional might.)

6.5. i think a huge thing that gets missed out in a lot of recent comics as well as movies/shows is that bruce didn’t create the robin persona out of whole cloth. dick did. he’s the starting point of that legacy and to call it entirely bruce’s creation is blatant erasure of that. in fact, i’m surprised that dick doesn’t feature more in the conversations they’re having about the pressures of being robin. after all, the guy had been robin--bruce’s partner--for such a long time before jason.

6.8. (and here’s the primal part of me that resonates the deepest with dick grayson--the Eldest Daughter part--that’s sort of resentful: that jason gets the therapy and softness and the learning from mistakes when it took years and years for bruce to reach out in any meaningful way to dick.)

7. oooh that was a great scene!

it’s fun to do these stream-of-consciousness live reactions, because the moment you step down from your soapbox, the episode goes right into tackling what you were just complaining about. bruce means well, he’s learning, but he goes about exactly the wrong way to help jason: taking away robin now can’t be read by jason as anything but a devastating judgment call from bruce. and iain glen really sells the moment that bruce realises this--too late--and his helplessness in trying to get jason to see that it isn’t jason’s fault that he’s trying to do this. he loves jason enough that jason is enough.

7.5. aaaah so jason brings up the elephant in the room at last. dick got everything makes sense from his perspective, where getting to put on a costume and fight crime means approval, means being something stronger and better than you are. dick got to be robin, then nightwing, and a leader of a whole team of other costume-clad heroes.

8. ... how did jason just walk into arkham????? this is ridiculous.

8.3. i mean, clearly jason’s not thinking straight, but betraying batman like this puts his possibilities of being robin again even further away.

8.5. watching that chemistry experiment montage was strangely funny. this guy is looking for an antidote to fear? well, constantly mixing up and inhaling gases concocted by a mad-scientist supervillain is something only the very fearless--reckless to the point of foolishness!--would do. what’s to say crane’s not given you a formula for a drug that will keep you tethered to his every will and whim? hmmmm?

8.7. so he sought out the joker to... test the formula???

9. wow the “loud and clear... boss” hits different after a whole episode of them referring to each other as father and son.

9.3. waitwaitwait HOLD UP. wait a DANG MINUTE. you’re telling me that scarecrow had enough resources that he could not only have folks on the outside steal jason away and dunk him in a lazarus pit (i TOLD you that this show would bring up and dismiss ra’s al ghul in a ten second aside! I TOLD YOU) but also have his own little chemistry lab in the basement, AND have enough resources for jason to build his red hood persona???????? all of this in barely twenty four hours?

well there goes my ‘jason orchestrated his death’ theory. it was nice while it lasted. *cups hands to the sky* fly away, my baby.

9.6. a part of me is gleeful at the rushed nature of such an iconic transformation though, especially when compared to all the character work that went before it. we’re so used to getting the opposite that it’s fucking delightful to have a show that’s more interested in exploring its characters’ minds rather than battle scenes or recreating transformations from the comics. that’s taken such bold and exciting steps to fully convey all the nuances of its most recognisable character, bruce wayne, from casting an older actor to play him to unflinchingly showing just how damaging the vigilante lifestyle has been to him and the people he loves. BRILLIANT

*sporfle*

10. again, heads up: a whole lot of flashing lights between 40:28 and 42:00.

10.3. i guess it’s the super-compressed timeline that’s really throwing me off. where did he have the time to get/develop the mind control thing from? or is it something that he got from the cabal of villains that he intimidated at the beginning of 3.02? very messy.

10.5. i love molly, i hope she shows up again this season.

11. aaaand that’s it! that was a solid episode as flashback episodes go, but now i can’t wait to return to the present.

#titans #titans spoilers #meta #jason todd #bruce wayne #leslie thompkins #a tragic jalebi #robin #red hood

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algernoninwonderland · 3 years

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So, Sole Crusher! Not bad, not bad!

Not perfect, not by a long mile, but it was an interesting episode nevertheless!

The good:

Zoé, of course. Her first encounter with Mari was the most cliché thing but also it was cute, so it’s fine. Her character arc throughout the episode works really well, her character model is nice, and although she’s a foil to Chloé, it doesn’t feel like you’re being bashed on the head with the “see how much better she is” stick. I look forward to seeing more of her!

Can you believe that they made a character behave in a believable way after being brought to an entirely different country to see the mother she dreads? They did. And it works. Why didn’t they do it with Kagami or Alya? Beats me. But hey, they did it here, so I’ll take it!

Chloé sucks, yes, but she sucks in an interesting way, that is, her attempts at niceness and getting along with Zoé are extremely warped, she’s really trying to be Audrey Junior. The character hasn’t been reset to her “former self,” rather, her actions have been recontextualised. It works well-enough.

The character animation is really good for once, instead of serviceable!

Some great boarding, the rooftop scene in particularly flows very nicely.

Speaking of which… The Bourgeois/Agreste Cinema Backstory. Tomoe and Emilie did know each other!

Sole Crusher is interesting, her design makes sense considering what she represents!

André Bourgeois is no less of a crappy dad to Chloé but his moments with Zoé were touching. Didn’t we all want to make films when we were young?

For an episode that isn’t about Marinette, it works quite well!

The bad:

You’d think that Chloé having a half-sister would be an important plot point foreshadowed in earlier seasons. It is not. It truly is the “Somehow, Palpatine Returned” moment of this show so far.

Paris is empty. Paris, the most populated city in France, is empty.

The lucky charm in this episode isn’t very clever, the whole akuma stuff stops being exciting as soon as Ladybug and Chat Noir appear.

The Sabrina jokes, all the Sabrina jokes. They’re getting stale. Yes it’s for the sake of showing the difference between actual friendship and what Chloé and Sabrina have but this is the one thing I feel is regression from Chloé’s part.

Where is Mayor André, the guy who bribed his voters? Is this guy even really the mayor? He wears the scarf but other than that…?

It’s a little harder to feel sorry for the guy when he’s in such a high position of power. I didn’t forget about Malediktator.

I can’t help but feel like Zoé’s character arc is over. I hope I’m wrong but if that’s the case, they did too much in a single episode.

How many kids with a bad family life and important parents are there in this show now? It’s starting to be a bit much.

How is it possible that Chloé and Zoé are half-sisters even though they seem to be the same age? How does having children work in Miraculous?

Chloé trying to be like her mother could easily be framed as her being bad, not as her being a kid. The directing could have been clearer about that than it was.

The Ugly:

I got some pretty strong misogynistic vibes from this episode. One of the reasons Zoé is nice is that she doesn’t look like Chloé, doesn’t wear make-up, doesn’t care about shoes or boys, she’s not like that other girl. And that sucks?

Any cleverer and truly feminist show would frame Chloé’s (and Audrey’s) obsession with appearances and stuff as something worth questioning, not something to point out and laugh at. The episode said, “bad women be shopping and caring too much about stoopid girly shoes” and it didn’t have to be that way.

I’m pretty sure Sole Crusher is somebody’s weird kink.

All in all, a decent episode, Zoé was definitely the highlight! Its qualities outnumber its flaws, in the end.

#ml #miraculous #sole crusher spoilers #sole crusher #ml season 4 spoilers #chloe bourgeois #zoe lee #marinette dupain-cheng #ml criticism

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onewomancitadel · 2 years

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Cinder and the Winter Maiden

In a recent ask Fox (@habitual-shrimp) referenced Cinder's relation to Penny and it made me think about Cinder's relationship to other Maidens in the series and more specifically, the times I've referenced the Maiden meat puppet machine being very bad news.

Anyway, I've always thought it was very thematically interesting that Cinder stops Winter from becoming the Winter Maiden through the use of Maiden meat puppet machine (and it was going to be that, or simply from the way Ironwood had groomed Winter as the next recipient and isolated Fria). Instead, Penny becomes the next Winter Maiden. Penny shows compassion to Fria and ultimately in affirming Fria's humanity affirms her own.

Obviously, Cinder wants the Maiden power, but as a narrative agent Cinder's goal here leads to a positive outcome: Winter was never going to, at that point, be a good Winter Maiden candidate. In loving and being loved she does become one, but it was never meant to be in that process.

I already saw posts remarking that Cinder is an 'accidentally good Fall Maiden protecting Choice', but I think embedded in here is a theme I've remarked upon before, which is the necessity of regenerative destruction. In this sense, Fria has to die (Cinder comes for her), "Your time in the sun is up," - the passing of the seasons - and in the process the 'true' Winter Maiden at that point is realised.

Cinder is essentially an inadvertent Maidenmaker, and as a narrative agent decides Penny is the good Maiden.

Oddly enough she helps reaffirm Penny as her own person - which she later in V8 comes to acknowledge as a worthy opponent and calls her by name (see Penny, Ruby and May's back and forth), not a toy.

Of course, Cinder's pressure on taking the power also forces Penny to make a decision which Jaune helps her with (so to speak) which turns Winter into the endgame Winter Maiden. It's a very interesting chain of events, suffice it to say - Cinder is kind of like the hand of fate here in moving the pieces around to where they need to be.

So, it made me think about the themes of reforming the Maiden powers, from being just about powerlevelling - Pyrrha, Cinder, Ironwood chiefly make this mistake, and to a degree Raven did too, maternally and helicopter-parenting-like taking the power away from the previous Spring Maiden - to actually being about themes of legacy, inheritance, responsibility, life and death, and representing a spiritual path the Maidens must walk. Penny, after all, is a good Maiden because she cares, and it's an affirmation of the path she wants to follow on her own.

It's interesting that Cinder began the story hunting the Maiden power (from a Maiden who had not yet come into her own power) and took it for herself (the first and only Maiden in the series who wants it), and stopped Pyrrha from becoming the next Fall Maiden as had been decided by the responsible brotherhood (bad!). She obviously had the V5 confrontation and fight with Raven which explored the way the Maidens are not free as long as they're tied to a Relic, and the powers come with responsibility (also, that whole monster back and forth preceding Yang's confrontation with Raven is very meaningful). She stopped Ironwood from once again controlling the Winter Maiden transfer. There's kind of a pattern here of Cinder being involved in the recontextualising of the Maiden powers, which in my eyes is reflected in the redemption arcs of the endgame Maidens.

That is to say, if Cinder's the Fall Maiden, I think she's ultimately going to reform the power herself and discover how to use it for good, which is especially related to her Byronic passions.

I think there's probably more to parse about Cinder's relationship to the other Maidens (e.g., Raven as an authoritative figure, Winter as a representation of her suffering under Atlas) but that's enough for now.

#cindemption #the four maidens #not my best post ever lol

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johannesviii · 4 years

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So I guess I have thoughts on The Timeless Children

If you’re expecting some well-organised meta this isn’t a good post for that, you should probably leave now

I probably forgot half the things I wanted to say because I waited 2 days to write this

Ok so first I have to say I’m disappointed that the horrible bullshit from the WW2 sequence of Spyfall part 2 wasn’t addressed at all. It means it was not part of some big plan and that Thirteen doing some horrible shit wasn’t foreshadowing, but just insensitive writing. Fine. Ok. I don’t like it at all but it, unfortunately, happens. Every single New Who showrunner so far has made a big mistake at some point or another so that doesn’t mean Chibnall is worse than Moffat or RTD, who also had their own qualities and flaws and some occasional horrible writing. It sucks, and it’s gonna taint Thirteen’s character for me. But I’ll live.

HOWEVER

THIS FINALE

Oh my god ok so uh first, Cybermen? again? But like? It was still interesting?? The designs were varied, and the Lone Cyberman had this whole Hellraiser-lite aesthetic going on, and that abandoned warship was straight out of Sword of Orion and I really enjoyed all of that. It’s a shame the Lone Cyberman was defeated so quickly, because he was a much more interesting “final boss” than the one from the previous season in my opinion.

The regenerating Cybermen were 100% ridiculous but it was the good kind of ridiculous and I loved it

I have to say something about the fam now but I don’t have a lot of thoughts about them specifically. I liked it when Ryan threw that explosive thingie and actually managed to hit the cybermen and was super hyped about that, though

OK SO

Look. I loved Missy. I adored her semi-redemption arc, and her self-doubt, and her ultimate decision to be good, just to be killed by her past self as a result, even though the Doctor wasn’t there to witness it. That was brilliant.

But.

This new Master. I already thought he was pretty great, but the way he’s been recontextualised in this finale? I?? Holy s h i t

I’ve said it already but the actor is doing a fantastic job

I wasn’t even planning to put pictures in this post but this shot is so incredibly good

So in my Spyfall post I pointed out that he was very aggressive and very performative in his evil actions, to the point where he looked like he wasn’t enjoying himself. He was, like, doing it to prove a point.

Turns out it was because the best way to make a new evil version of the Master after Missy’s semi-redemption arc was to base this new Master on INTENSE, DEVASTATING, SUICIDAL SELF-LOATHING

AND IT WORKS SO WELL??

AND I LOVE IT??

IT’S ALSO VERY UNCOMFORTABLE BUT LIKE? IN A GOOD, INTERESTING WAY??

The part where he gives Thirteen the key to stop him. And he doesn’t dare her to press that button. He’s begging her to press that button. He knows she will do it because she did it once before and he’s like go on. Kill me now. God

If you’ve ever been suicidal or even just self-destructive yourself, even if you’re, like, a nice person and not... well.... an intergalactic criminal like the Master is, seeing him being like “go on. Press that button. End me. Do it. NOW” is... extremely relatable not gonna lie

Thinking “oh mood” about the Master during one of his scenes is... not something I was expecting but here we are

Also I absolutely adore how all of his world-destroying rage against the Time Lords was basically fueled by “they hurt my best friend and only I have the right to hurt my best friend” that’s so in-character

SPEAKING OF WHICH

You already know I’m very in favor of fluidity in the DW canon. One of my absolute favorite DW stories I’ve read so far was Unnatural History, which basically said “the Doctor is an idea that exists across the entire multiverse and every origin story is true and every version is true and nothing is canon because everything is canon”

But I wasn’t very fond of one specific version of the Doctor’s origin story which is super popular in the Extended Universe crowd of fans, and that’s the Cartmel Masterplan. I won’t bore you with my full thoughts on it but I’m not fond of the idea of the Doctor being some sort of rebirthed god now on the other hand the idea that all Time Lords are eldritch beings and that the Doctor or the Master is Nyarlathotep-

But this isn’t what this finale is doing

So far the Doctor’s origin story in the tv series was basically saying “look. This character that grew up in a privileged and pretentious part of their planet’s society just had enough of that one day (for a reason or another or even several reasons) and decided to leave, and by traveling and making friends, they realised being kind was important, and they decided to help people instead of watching bad stuff from afar without doing anything.” And now this finale basically added: “That society of pretentious assholes? Yeah they actually adopted that character as a kid and exploited them like a convenient source of power, and at the root of their power there’s literal child abuse, and they had to erase that child’s memories so that the kid could be assimilated in the society built on their own pain“.

It didn’t change that many things about the Doctor as a character ; it DEFINITELY changed stuff about the Time Lords, but they have always been this kind of background menace, with evil founders and shady shit, so I think it’s very appropriate.

So yeah. If you ask me to pick one between “plot twist the Doctor is a god” and “plot twist the Doctor is a lost child with the ability to regenerate”, I pick the second one, definitely

The best part is, it doesn’t contradict anything really important. The Doctor didn’t remember any of this. At all. Their desire to run away, their eventual hatred of Time Lord society, their choice to be kind and to try to help where they can? This didn’t come from that completely forgotten past. They still grew up in a life of privilege after their memories were erased, and they still decided to run away. It’s still their choice.

It doesn’t even diminish later things, like Ten being afraid of dying, or River giving away her regenerations to Eleven. Because, again, the Doctor didn’t know any of that origin story. Just like Gallifrey being hidden in a pocket universe doesn’t erase or diminish Nine being completely destroyed by what he thought he had done. It’s still as good as before.

It does put that scene from Time of the Doctor in a different light, though! This wasn’t a new regenerative cycle being given to Eleven in the end, just unlocking a dormant potential.

I saw someone saying this episode was bad because it was saying nature was more important than nurture? But... the episode literally states the opposite very explicitly, with Ruth saying ”have you ever been limited by who you were before?”.

I also saw someone on twitter saying that the diversity in the past incarnations we briefly saw “felt forced” and. like. It’s 2020. Can we not do this again please

I have such a thing for identity crisis tropes and stories and adding a bunch of lives in the Doctor’s past is certainly that and it’s like opening a giant sandbox. Imagine all the things that are actually possible now. The stories you can tell in that nebulous past! And I’m so glad the Morbius Doctors were briefly seen too!

Hell, there’s even an open door right there if you didn’t like this origin story, built in the scenario, and I’m certain it’s on purpose: the Matrix projection didn’t tell us the child was the Doctor. The Master told us the child was the Doctor. You’re free to believe him or not. It’s not set in stone. And that’s even better in my opinion.

So yeah it was all very very Unnatural History and the only thing I disliked was how it was a bit too much “telling” instead of “showing”, but that’s a minor complaint.

If you disliked this story, you aren’t a “fake fan”

If you liked this story, you aren’t a “fake fan” either

If you like some parts of the show you’re a fan, and you’re free to dislike some other parts ; god knows I don’t like some other things in Doctor Who

The only fake fans are the people bullying other fans about what they should like or dislike

I can’t wait to see what the fandom is going to make with this new sandbox and I’m so glad to be enthusiastic about the tv series again

Have a nice day

#doctor who #long post #spoilers #the timeless children #thirteenth doctor #The Master #suicide ideation tw

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pass-the-bechdel · 4 years

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The Good Place season one full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

100% (thirteen of thirteen).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

49.58%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Twelve of the thirteen; seven of those are 50%+, and two of those are over 60%

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-four. Eight who appeared in more than one episode, four who appeared in at least half the episodes, and three who appeared in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-two. Eleven who appeared in more than one episode, three who appeared in at least half the episodes, and two who appeared in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Solid; the nature of the show is such that they really need to be making a concerted effort to reflect positive, progressive morality, and as such faults in the content would also almost certainly be considered faults in the show itself (average rating of 3).

General Season Quality:

Magnificent! It’s a wonderful ride, whether it’s your first time through or not. Just delightful.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

So, let’s talk about plot twists. In the current entertainment landscape, it seems like everyone is intent upon ‘subverting expectations’, and the good old-fashioned plot twist is very much swept up in that, since a subversion is almost always going to play as a ‘twist’ by definition. The unfortunate thing about this current landscape is that it’s rife with ‘subversive twists’ which are really just bad storytelling; they’re only there because of some pathological fear of predictability, or worse, because the creative minds just want to feel cleverer than their audiences by delivering content that no-one saw coming, serving their own egos at the expense of coherent narratives. If your ‘twist’ is about your own (supposed) intelligence, if you’re baiting the audience by playing into a common trope and then laughing at them for thinking you meant it, if you’re changing the story out of nowhere just for shock value without bothering to build toward the twist because you’re too afraid that someone might figure it out before the reveal...that’s not a real twist. It’s not even a real subversion, it’s just a bad-faith gimmick. It’s not there for the story at all, it’s there to make the writer feel special, because apparently feeling special for delivering quality storytelling isn’t good enough anymore. A proper, genuine plot twist should:

1. make sense in the context of the narrative (it should not be tonally dissonant or jump the tracks into a different genre)

2. make sense with the content of the narrative (it may recontextualise previous events or character choices, but it does not contradict or ignore them in order to function)

3. be foreshadowed (if it comes out of nowhere, that’s not a twist, it’s a random event. It’s a deus ex machina. There’s no story in it if it isn’t built into the fabric of the narrative)

4. ultimately further the storytelling (if it has no consequences for plot or character, it’s a shock-value gimmick, not a real twist).

The above points do not guarantee that a twist will be good storytelling and not just a subversive contrivance for the fuck of it, but they should at least ensure some logical cohesion and protect the integrity of the plot instead of sacrificing it in the name of empty surprise. That covered, it’s easy to see how – even (or perhaps, especially) in this twist-saturated tv landscape we currently inhabit – the big twist for season one of The Good Place still manages to be – in technical parlance – dope. The writing protects the twist not by being ‘too clever’; it simply offers a decoy issue to drive the plot. Eleanor is a Good Place fraud; that’s the first twist in the plot, and it compels the entire season forward. Other twists - Jason’s reveal, Eleanor’s confession, the introduction of the ‘real’ Eleanor - set the stage for this being A Show That Has Twists, but in a way that makes so much contextual sense that it doesn’t set us up to be looking for the next one (a common problem for those shows that rely on ‘cleverer than the audience’ twists - they’ve set themselves up as mysteries for the audience to unravel, and then they kill their own storytelling as they twist in knots trying to keep ahead of millions of intelligent viewers). The Good Place actually tells us outright that something is wrong with this supposed ‘happy afterlife’, it just fools us into thinking that we already know what’s wrong, so that we don’t see the signs of the truth for what they are. Crucially, however, it doesn’t matter if you figure it out before Eleanor does. You can have your suspicions (or have had the show spoiled for you in advance), and you can still appreciate and enjoy it as it unfolds, you can pick up the clues and have a good time with them, and that’s something that all of those gimmicky-subversion plots out there are missing. Their ‘twists’ are not proper functioning pieces of the narrative, and so the story doesn’t work if you already know the reveal; there’s no juicy build-up to enjoy, or worse, you expose your own illogical contrivances or outright plot holes that were created in the course of writing a crappy twist just to feel relevant. The Good Place works because - like any good story - it isn’t about the twist. It’s about the journey.

An important part of what makes the twist work also is that it interweaves the sins of Tahani and Chidi with the discissions of morality without drawing too much attention to them; if all four humans had simply been frauds, it would have been narratively empty, especially if the reveals were coming late in the piece. Jason’s works because it comes out early, and because the Jianyu cover is interesting and distinctly different both to Eleanor’s ploy and to the behaviour of the rest of the neighbourhood, but if the others had turned in the same way it would have been too contrived, too easy, and it would toss out the personalities we had gotten used to (which would violate Good Twist point #2). Since the show DOES pull that trick with Michael (which works because he’s the architect of the whole situation, not a pawn within it), it’s essential that they’re more subtle with Tahani and Chidi’s reasons for being where they are, and in playing it as they do they also reinforce the show’s central deliberations on morality. It’s an inspired framework for approaching what are traditionally considered ‘heady’ themes (and y’all know I’m into it), and every decision about how to approach and balance character behaviour is coming from a position of ethical consideration, weighing not only the acts themselves, but how they compare to the moral theory of various different and conflicting philosophies. It just goes to show that you don’t have to make something ponderous and inaccessible in order to have a cerebral conversation through television - you can do it just fine with afterlife comedy.

As I noted above the cut, the nature of the show automatically lends itself to careful consideration of any feminist and/or progressive content, and as such it should keep a pretty clean bill throughout, or risk cracking its own concept. I do wish they would come out stronger on the queer side of things (as I said in the episode posts, they really aren’t vague about the idea that Eleanor is attracted to women, but her saying words about hot women is still not delivering a lot on the representation front, especially when she is known to do more than say words when it comes to dudes, and the only other queer content we get is the fact that Gunnar and Antonio are soulmates, and that doesn’t technically mean they’re romantically or sexually involved (especially since they’re fakes anyway, but that’s a whole ‘nother thing)). In the mean time though, we have a female lead, 100% on the Bechdel and an essentially balanced number of male and female characters abounding, plus some really nice variety in racial backgrounds (and great names to go along with those - it’s a bit of a peeve of mine usually when show’s include multicultural characters but land everyone with Anglicised or ‘white-friendly’ names. Let the Bambadjans of the world keep their names). We’ve taken a clear stance on even ‘benign’ sexism (i.e. the stuff that’s just men saying inappropriate things - ‘just a suggestion! just a joke! just trying to get a reaction out of you, why are you so sensitive?’ - it’s all literal demon behaviour here), and I won’t pretend that I’m expecting them to get into the real nitty-gritty, but that’s ok. I’m happy to have something which is making a point of not being problematic, because such refuges have real value. So, maybe there won’t be a lot for me to tease apart as the show progresses, but that’s not a bad thing. At the moment, we have green lights across the board, and that’s a hard thing to find. I’m going with it, and we’ll see where we end up.

#full season review #The Good Place #The Good Place season one #Bechdel Test #female representation

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machinequeen4 · 4 years

Text

Fic rec bingo list!

I thought I’d fill out this fic rec bingo card, posted by @lightveils on Twitter!

It sort of turned into the History of MachineQueen in Fanfiction. All you unsung heroes who write and publish fanfic, I love you and remember your names.

Recs for Fire Emblem Fates, Fire Emblem Three Houses, Yu-gi-oh, Doctor Who, RWBY, Ace Attorney, Tales of Graces follow!

1. A fic you love without knowing the source material

Undone - codenamecynic, Dragon Age II, E rated, Fenris/Female Hawke, multichap 135k words

https://archiveofourown.org/works/482156/chapters/838851

I know nothing about Dragon Age and can’t remember why I decided to read it. TV Tropes maybe? From what I can tell it’s the events of the game with additional sex scenes. Hawke is witty, Fenris is a tragic broken bird, I was sold.

2. A fic with a premise that shouldn’t work but it does

Trial and Error - undieshogun, Fire Emblem Fates, T rated, Subaki/Takumi, multichap 15k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/6890677/chapters/15719992

Not so much a premise but a ship I wasn’t convinced on. But it had Subaki in it so I gave it a try. It’s really cute - Subaki tries to teach Takumi social skills, much to his annoyance.

This line alone is gold star characterisation:

"I couldn't tell you why Tsubaki has taken such a liking to you, but I do know that any time he wants to befriend someone, it's because he sees in them something he lacks."

3. A fic you’ve reread several times

Gratitude - GoldenThreads, Fire Emblem Three Houses, T rated, Hubert/Ferdinand, multichap 8k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20344273/chapters/48239686

The writing style is so beautifully layered that I find new meaning every time I read it. The scene where Ferdinand offers a hairpin for each story Hubert tells is gorgeous, one of my favourites to reread.

4. A fic you still remember many years later

A Song I Think I Heard Before - Scribbler, Yu-gi-oh, T rated, Mai/Jounouchi (Joey), multichap 40k

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5924028/1/A_Song_I_Think_I_Heard_Before

My favourite Mai fic. This gives her a backstory with Dartz based villainy and recontextualises her relationship with Jou (Joey in the dub, most YGO authors used the JP names to distance themselves from 4Kids’ added cheese). I was on tenterhooks waiting for each new chapter. It’s got real emotional depth, capturing Mai’s cynical nature perfectly. Also I still think about/use the phrase bumblefuck in the morning.

5. A comfort fic

just a little stuck on you (you’ll be on me too) - flowermoons, Fire Emblem Three Houses, T rated, Hubert/Ferdinand, one chap 33k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21875707

This brings the cast of FE3H to the modern world and drops them into reality TV show The X Factor. There’s no war or death angst, just a singing contest. I grew up with The X Factor on TV on a Saturday night so this was a delight. Like me, the author is cynical about reality TV which makes the fic even more engaging. Ferdinand mourning his long hair after he cuts it and Hubert running round London looking for him really made my day.

6. A catharthic fic

Long and Lost - Windian, Tales of Graces, M rated, Richard/Asbel, multichap 36k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/5357546/chapters/12372899

Listen game, you can’t spend 40 hours having the protagonist’s motivation as ‘save Richard’ and then pull a no homo on me! In this fic Asbel dutifully marries Cheria only for the whole thing to collapse in on itself when he realises he’s in love with Richard after all. The snow storm scene is something I’ll always remember.

7. A fic you’d like to print and put on your bookshelf

Revival series - MyAibou, Yu-gi-oh, T rated, multiship, many k

http://fanfiction.net/s/2681684/1/Revival-Prologue-Paradox

This is split into multiple parts and has another multipart followup. A continuation of Yu-gi-oh Duel Monsters with shipping and very decent original characters including villains. My polarshipping heart is in love with this scene on the clifftop in part 2 chapter 11 - a slow dance to the sound of the waves to help Mai remember she isn’t alone *melts into a puddle*

8. A fic you associate with a song

Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been - darkrunner, Yu-gi-oh, rated K+, Mai/Jou, multichap 9k

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4445992/1/Who-I-Am-Hates-Who-I-ve-Been

It’s titled after a song. This was one of the first fics I ever found, read and loved. I was way too shy to review but I loved this author dearly. Good old angst & hurt/comfort with a happy ending. A happy ending for Mai was all I wanted haha!

9. A fic that inspires you

Patience, Ponies and Pastries - GoldenThreads, Fire Emblem Three Houses, T rated, Hubert/Ferdinand, multichap, 27k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20722859/chapters/49231019

A shipping fic where the two characters being shipped spend most of the fic apart! This author is so good at characterising the pair, there are treasures hidden throughout. I never thought reading about horses of all things could make me so emotional...

And this passage from Ferdinand’s point of view:

As long as Hubert did not truly reject such affection, did not throw him in the stocks for his bleeding heart, then he did not require reciprocation. He required that Hubert be cherished, and that was that.

10. A fic that brought you on board a new ship

Marik and Bakura Go To Censored Town - Little Kuriboh, Yu-gi-oh, M rated, multichap, 24k

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6954805/1/Marik-Bakura-Go-To-Censored-Town

I spent most of my Yu-gi-oh fandom life wishing there were more fics about Mai and tended to avoid the big slash ships. However, Yu-gi-oh Abridged’s strongest pair were always Marik and Bakura. When I read this fic I realised yes, Marik being an idiot and Bakura being the straight man (not literally) makes this ship sing.

11. A fic you wish could be a movie

Denial & Deception - Bohemienne, Fire Emblem Three Houses, M rated, multichap, 74k (incomplete)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20895731/chapters/49671050

The setting of Derdriu is so lushly described that it would make a wonderful movie setting. Additional points for the masked ball chapters!

Hubert and Ferdinand infiltrate the Leicester Alliance using a fake relationship. It goes as well as you might expect. There is comedy, there is romance and the whole thing makes you want to smack Hubert round the face with a fish.

12. A fic that led to you making friends with the author

Past Future Continuous - HermitsUnited, Doctor Who, T rated, multichap 20k

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4917490/1/Past-Future-Continuous

We are not in contact anymore but we shared a love of Donna Noble. This shines through in all her alternate season 5 fics!

13. A fic you’ve gushed about IRL

Festering Under Your Skin - Bohemienne, Fire Emblem Three Houses, M rated, multichap 52k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20465312/chapters/48559553

My poor gf had to put up with me going on about this one. Lady Edelgard is dead and Ferdinand is a Blue Lion who spares Hubert. All of this is played for maximum dramatic potential. Special marks for the scene where Ferdinand accidentally poisons himself with Hubert’s coffee. So brilliantly in character for both of them. And excellently foreshadowed earlier in the fic where an imprisoned Hubert keeps asking for his coffee...

14. A fic you associate with a place

Heart of Defiance - battlemage15, RWBY, M rated, multichap 150k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7896874/chapters/18038116

I downloaded this to my phone and read it on the top deck of the number 6 bus as it bumped along the country roads of deepest Devon. I was on my way to job interviews in the city and the trip was 2 hours long. The fic itself is a Yang centric shonen power fantasy that goes to pretty dark places.

15. A fic that made you gasp out loud

Blood and Ink - ShowMeYourFury, RWBY, M rated, Cinder/Ruby, multichap 45k

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11754595/1/Blood-and-Ink

This fic is ruthless with Cinder’s villainy. Every time you think she can’t go any further, she does. I love it.

16. A fic you found at the right time

Forward - Lyricanna, Fire Emblem Fates, not rated, multichap, 34k (incomplete)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12747516/chapters/29075913

I love the concept of this fic so much. Subaki is selected to be a Hoshidan ambassador in Nohr and gets lumped with Niles as a guide. Neither is having a good time. There is a plot going on involving kidnapping and asassination that forces them to work together.

17. A fic that you would read fic of

The Obligatory Hot Spring Scene - Scribbler, Yu-gi-oh, T rated, oneshot, sub 1k

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6368612/1/The-Obligatory-Hot-Spring-Scene

Written as though the characters are actors and canon is a TV show. I love this concept and would read more in a similar vein

18. A fic that made you laugh out loud

Surrender To Your Peace - spiralpegasus, Fire Emblem Three Houses, M rated, Sylvain/Felix, one chap, 11k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20757260

“This is very unfortunate,” Dimitri says with a frown. “As the leader of this mission, I will take full responsibility and use the Swamp Bedroll.”

One does not simply sacrifice themselves to He Who Saw The Bottom Of The Earth And Lived with such a cavalier attitude. “You know your guilt complex doesn’t actually have to extend to sleeping in a gross swamp bag,” Sylvain tells him disbelievingly.

“I agree, Your Highness,” Dedue says, setting He Whose Stench Haunts The Dreams Of Man down on the ground with a delicate sort of distaste. “None of us need use this… bedroll.” He says bedroll the same way he says food when it’s Flayn’s turn to cook.

19. A fic with a line or two you’ve memorised by heart

one sentiment enlightens to another - newamsterdam, Fire Emblem Three Houses, G rated, Hubert/Ferdinand, oneshot 6k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21074840

Ferdinand rolls his eyes. “Of course I do, Hubert. I remember very well. I just— well. Perhaps I’ve overestimated you.”

Hubert, who has spent the better part of the past few weeks believing he constantly underestimates Ferdinand, bristles.

Not the exact lines but I always keep this in mind when writing the ship. I think these hit on the fundamental misunderstanding between the two characters. Hubert is only human, not some all powerful hero/villain. And Ferdinand isn’t stupid just because he’s honest and emotional. I think the two of them have trouble getting their heads round these concepts!

20. A fic that gave you butterflies

Ataraxia - Windian, Tales of Graces, T rated, Cheria/Pascal, 13k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7828981/chapters/17871247

"I want you," Cheria tells her, and the night catches like a rubber band. Her hands are in Pascal's hair, Pascal's arms around hers, her mouth on hers. Their kisses are sloppy and messy, noses knocking against one another, but it's everything and it's nothing at all like kissing Asbel.

When they break for air, Pascal tells her, "You don't know how long I've wanted to do this, Cheria."

Cheria asks, "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I dunno Cheria, because you were gonna marry Asbel, maybe?"

It stops her in her tracks. Voice low, she asks, "What am I going to tell him?"

Pascal cups either side of her face. Kisses her, so hot and hard that Cheria's left seeing stars, clinging at the strings of Pascal's swimsuit like a shipwrecked sailor to a spar.

"Screw it. Think about it in the morning. For once in your life, do something you want."

21. A fic that embodies something you value in life

The Truth About Love - MistressAkira, Fire Emblem Fates, T rated, Niles/Subaki, 2k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036081

This fic is experimental in style - the author descrbes it as a soliloquy. The sentiment I take from it is that love is compromising, inconvenient, illogical. Yet it’s still something beautiful and something worth fighting for.

22. A favourite AU

Mobius - SirTeateiMoonlight, Xenoblade Chronicles, T rated, multichap, 17k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17845748/chapters/42111473

Melia finds a copy of Xenoblade, plays it and knows exactly what’s going on in the story. She uses this knowledge to her advantage. It’s a slippery slope. By the end of the story she’s mercilessly torturing Lorothia against her brother’s wishes.

23. A fic you’ve stayed up late to finish reading

Dirty Sympathy - ideny, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, M rated, Klavier/Apollo, 130k on AO3 not sure on kink meme

https://bludhavens.livejournal.com/88397.html?thread=41790541#t41790541

https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075868/chapters/2160789

I stayed up reading this until 4am and for some reason (probably tiredness) confessed this to my not-yet-gf. She cites this as one of the moments she fell for me!

It’s a dark fic in which Klavier and Apollo are both in abusive relationships with villains. They concoct a plot to implicate the two of them in criminal activities to escape and fall for each other along the way.

24. A fic that made you feel seen

i knew you were trouble - Magepaw, Fire Emblem Fates, M rated, Niles/Subaki, 8k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19314568

First of all the title is one of my favourite songs. Second of all the dialogue is everything I want from the Niles/Subaki ship. Third Subaki’s pegasus makes her presence known. Fourth there is a gory battle scene and hurt/comfort gone wrong. And fifth, a happy ending.

Niles had to turn away, hand pressed to his mouth, before his own blush betrayed him. This was too good to last. This had to be the most embarrassingly vulnerable moment of his entire life, and of course the entirety of the Nohrian and Hoshidan military combined had to be there to see Niles go soft.

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woolishlygrim · 4 years

Text

Winter Weebwatch #2

Alright, Week 2, second episodes, which we are getting to a lot quicker than we got the Week 1 episodes, hence why this post is going out, like, three days after the last one. Hey, maybe by the time we hit Week 3, we’ll be current! That’d be nice.

Several third episodes have already aired, and In/Spectre always seems to be subbed a little late, so we might skip over it for Week 3 and come back for it in Week 4.

Same seven shows as last week, those being Darwin’s Game, Plunderer, ID: Invaded, Pet, In/Spectre, Sorcerous Stabber Orphen and Infinite Dendrogram. Nothing has been dropped or picked up yet, but the season’s still young.

Darwin’s Game

★☆☆☆☆

Haha, this time I’m reviewing the episode immediately after watching! My memory won’t pull the rug out from under me this time!

So, Darwin’s Game episode two sees … um … sees the guy … whose name begins with a K I think … doing something. Um. Oh! There’s a treasure hunt game with murdery elements on, but … but wait, that happens at the end of the episode? So what happens before that? I think there’s a guy who’s like a boxer with superspeed, and he steals the protagonist’s phone, maybe? But I don’t remember why. I …

God, this show is difficult to review. I swear I just finished watching it, but literally none of it has stuck. It just doesn’t take up any space in my memory, it’s like when you wake up from a dream and you remember it for like six seconds before it starts getting jumbled and confused.

One star again, I guess, because I can’t properly review something that I don’t even have a clear recollection of.

Plunderer

★☆☆☆☆

Fresh off what might well be the worst first episode of the season, Plunderer proceeds to demonstrate that it could have won me over easily if it hadn’t decided to devote the first twenty minutes of the series to making me hate it.

So, episode two kicks off with a fight scene between the protagonist, Licht, and Skeezy Military Guy, and it’s honestly pretty fun, as is the sequence just afterwards where Licht pretends to be an amoral thief as part of a convoluted gambit to keep the deuteragonist, Hina, from being arrested for possession of an illegal Ballot. There’s even a kind of emotional arc in this episode, of sorts. If I hadn’t seen the first episode, I probably would’ve given this one three stars.

Except I did see the first episode, and the consequences of that still apply. I can’t really ever sympathise with Licht or even enjoy seeing him on screen because the very first thing we ever saw of his character was him committing sexual harassment. Despite what my reviews of Darwin’s Game might suggest, I have a memory longer than that of a goldfish, so no matter what kind of emotional moments or ‘Aw, see, he really is a good person!’ moments the show throws out, it’s not going to matter, because his introduction already soured me to him and, to be honest, to the show entirely.

Anyway, the episode ends with some random background extra revealing that he’s actually a major villain, and I guess Hina is going to track down Licht to warn him or something, and I’ve just emotionally checked out at this point.

Pet.

★★★☆☆

Pet wins the coveted Most Improved prize this week, as its second episode retells the events of the first episode, but from the perspective of the psychic criminals. This is kind of a great move, as it shows us how these powers work, sets up rules and limitations, clues us into the character dynamic between psychic crime boyfriends Hiroki and Tsukasa, and their boss, the tyrannical and short-tempered but noticeably less powerful Katsuragi.

With this new perspective, events from the first episode are recontextualised, as we see how Hiroki and Tsukasa alter their victim’s memory, and also see how Hiroki is toying with Katsuragi (most noticeably, by making him believe he’s smoking when his cigarette is unlit), and the tension that arises from Katsuragi’s ostensible superior position juxtaposed against Hiroki’s vastly more powerful psychic abilities, setting us up for a future conflict down the line.

We also get to see Hiroki and Tsukasa’s co-dependent relationship, with Tsukasa relying on Hiroki in their work, while Hiroki is emotionally too tangled up in Tsukasa to function without him. That’s actually genuinely interested, and it’s compared and contrasted with the victim’s relationship with his best friend/possible boyfriend -- a relationship that Hiroki and Tsukasa are, by changing his memories, destroying.

The animation is still pretty bad, but it makes up for that somewhat with some stylistic flair and some interesting aesthetic choices.

Infinite Dendrogram.

★★☆☆☆

Infinite Dendrogram picks up this week with Ray and his new person-weapon Nemesis attempting to level up. After learning about a war between the NPC nations of Altar and Dryfe that ended with Altar’s defeat, Ray’s first attempt to level up sees him making both a new friend in the form of another player named Rook, and a new enemy, in the form of a mystery gunman who shoots him down for no readily apparent reason.

I really wanted to give this episode three stars, I wavered back and forth on it for quite a while, since this is still a really enjoyable episode, but ultimately I had to scrape off a point for two reasons: The first was the inclusion of some really jarring and irritating fanservice in the form of the antics of Rook’s Embryo, Babylon, which just threw me out of the episode and grated on me. The second is the scene where Ray’s brother Kuma informs him that the war between Altar and Dryfe was lost largely because when Altar’s NPC king (and remember, NPCs are sapient in this game apparently) said he would not be giving out loot rewards to players who assisted in the war, players just outright refused to help.

Which is kind of … wow. Thousands or maybe hundred of thousands of sapient AIs perished because players, who were at no risk of serious injury or permanent in-game death, refused to help out unless they got ultimately meaningless in-game rewards for doing so. It wouldn’t even as if they would be killing other sapient NPCs, since it’s clarified that Dryfe uses non-sapient robot soldiers. To make this a more bizarre turn that frames the entire playerbase of this game as sociopaths, apparently a bunch of players did fight for Dryfe, which offered rewards to them for doing so, and those players actually did murder a bunch of sapient NPCs.

I’ve elected to be fairly forgiving with the absurdity of this show’s premise, but that one worldbuilding detail kind of pushes it into the red for now.

Sorcerous Stabber Orphen.

★★☆☆☆

Not a whole lot happens in episode two.

Actually, nearly nothing happens in episode two. There’s a very brief explanation of the magic system, and a short sequence that sets up the next few episodes, as Orphen is blackmailed by his sorcerous former friends to assist them in hunting down his sister Azalie, and apart from that it’s alllllllllllll flashbacks.

The flashbacks don’t really communicate anything that couldn’t have been communicated in other ways, though. I mean, in general I really don’t like flashbacks, given that they bring a story to a grinding halt, but these flashbacks are just sort of pointless. We see that Orphen was a student at the Tower of Fang, which we knew, and we meet a few of his friends, which we meet again just afterwards so it’s kind of pointless, and we get some explanation of how the Sword of Baldanders, the weapon that turned Azalie into a dragon, got to the town that Orphen is currently in -- only for us to be told the same thing in exposition a second later.

The pacing of this show is just not … great. After two episodes, it feels like there’s been maybe one or one and a half episodes of content, and I know that doesn’t sound like it’d drag too much, but I have the attention span of a horsefly, so.

ID: Invaded.

★★★★☆

Continuing on from last week’s episodes, ID: Invaded -- now on its third episode, since again, it aired two episodes at once in its first week -- picks up with a new case, that of a bomber who mixes fireworks into his explosives, creating brightly coloured displays as he murders people. Diving into his mental world, Sakaido finds himself on a tower surrounded by a waterfall with dozens of people, as a sniper picks them all off. As he attempts to find clues, his progress is hindered by constantly dying, causing him to reset his memory and start over each time.

This is kind of an opposite situation to Infinite Dendrogram, where this would have been a solid three star episode, being entertaining, engaging, occasionally even thought-provoking and atmospheric (such as in the scene where Sakaido is thinking back to the aftermath of his daughter’s death, pointing out as he remembers it that his recollection of it, in which his daughter is able to talk to him before she dies, the body is recognisable, and the mortician praises her bravery, is incorrect), if not for a few small things.

In this case, it’s the final scene that pushes it up to being a four star episode. With the bomber in custody and in the cell opposite Sakaido’s, a solid four or five minutes are devoted to a harrowing sequence where Sakaido uses what he learned in the bomber’s mind to talk him into committing suicide. It’s an atmospheric, tense, and remarkably upsetting scene, made all the moreso by the voice actors’ excellent performances.

In unrelated news, for those keeping count, the surrealist director Ei Aoki references this time around is Koichi Mashimo, director of the impressively surreal and atmospheric .hack and Tsubasa Chronicle animes.

In/Spectre.

★★★☆☆

So, after a first episode that was kind of all over the place, the second episode actually settles into something like a single genre, establishing itself as a light-hearted supernatural mystery with some romance elements. Which is fine, and it does it well, and I’m happy to not constantly be getting genre whiplash anymore.

This week’s episode sees Kotoko summoned up to the mountains by a snake spirit who wishes to know why a murderer tipped the body of her victim into the snake’s swamp. The main bulk of the episode is taken up by Kotoko and the snake’s interactions, with Kotoko acting as prosecutor and presenting plausible theories as to why the killer did what they did, and the snake picking holes in those theories and shooting them down.

It actually kind of works, to be honest. As Kotoko explains her theories, we’re shown them happening on screen, and since the snake points out some pretty reasonable flaws in them, it feels like a nice, even back-and-forth debate, as the two make point and counterpoint. Written well, debates like that can be really compelling viewing, and this episode actually is written really well.

There’s also some nice character development moments early on, with Kuro turning down Kotoko’s offer of accompanying her to visit the snake, only to insist she take a thermos of soup and a jacket with her, and later wandering up to meet up with her anyway. Mamoru Miyano doesn’t have the easiest job here, playing someone who is meant to have extremely flat affect and yet still make them interesting to listen to, but he pulls it off pretty well.

#darwins game #id invaded #infinite dendrogram #plunderer #sorcerous stabber orphen #anime #winter weebwatch

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littlehollyleaf · 4 years

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I'm curious what made you become disinterested in supernatural? I on the contrary became invested again last year after already stopping watching for a while lol

That's a great question and one I am constantly puzzling over myself honestly.

There's been a lot of niggles all show ofc. Side characters being killed off constantly, issues with female character portrayal, Cas' character/plot being (or at least feeling) sidelined etc. All the usual stuff fans have been critical of for years.

But overall I was always pretty good at accepting the faults/flaws in the writing and focusing on the good and the stuff I did like. Consuming the media critically while still enjoying it and all that.

There were two key things that pushed me away though. And to tell the truth, even I was surprised they did. On their own they are really no different to stuff I'd been handling just fine, so I am myself kinda unsure why these two things hit me so hard. But they did and here we are so...

Firstly - Charlie's death. Absolutely knocked me for six. I was... floored by that decision. When it happened I... I was so unprepared and disbelieving it simply threw me right out of the story. I literally threw my laptop away from me in disgust (just a few inches across the sofa, I didn't break it or anything :p). For some, naive, reason I'd just been SO SURE that that wasn't the direction the writers were gonna take. And it wasn't even that I loved Charlie. She wasn't one of my big faves (not then anyway, retrospectively she became one after that). It was more... that it felt like the show/story was taking a step backwards, repeating old plots, using old tropes in old ways, not allowing the story/characters to develop. And I'd been so incredibly positive about S10 up until that point, everything felt like we were... idk GETTING SOMEWHERE. Then suddenly that, imo, grinded everything to a halt and stuck the story in a rut. It was a real slap in the face.

So that was the first Big Thing.

But EVEN SO. I was willing to push through my disappointment and work with S11. And while I was never really taken with the whole Darkness/Amara plot (I always much preferred the reading where the MoC was simply amplifying Dean's own darkness and not that it was an outside force putting darkness inside him that wasn't his), I did start to get into it okay. I am also 100000% behind the 'God is a villain / deadbeat dad' thing, that's always been my personal reading of god in the show anyway.

BUT. Then the second Big Thing happened that finally kicked me out for real. And it's something the rest of fandom has absolutely zero issue with and is just a personal hang up I can't let go of, even though I've tried and tried and TRIED. And that was THE WAY THEY MADE CHUCK GOD.

It's not that I'm opposed to Chuck BEING god. It's just that....... him being a CONSCIOUS god in S04 and S05 just... it just doesn't fit the canon/performance/writing of the character in his episodes those seasons good enough for me. I would have accepted various versions of Chuck as god - eg. god possessing the body of Chuck post S05 (and in the finale) or Chuck being an amnesiac!god for whatever reason. But the 'method acting' explanation they went with just... does not cut it for me! It... it just totally DESTROYS a bunch of stuff in S04 and S05 episodes for me, like when Zachariah confronts Chuck after Chuck has obviously just had a vision of the S05 finale and stops him warning Sam and Dean - Chuck's fear in that moment makes for a powerful sense of dread about the future and emphasises how evil Heaven is being, but that only holds if CHUCK IS CHUCK. Now Chuck was apparently god in that moment it... it just LESSENS IT for me. Cos his fear must therefore be understood as fake. His VISION must be understood as fake? (ergo even seeing him HAVE a vision doesn't make sense... in fact NONE of the times he had visions make sense, because he was obviously NEVER HAVING VISIONS IF HE WASN'T A PROPHET, so all those scenes where we see him have them, including times when he is ALONE and therefore not acting for anyone, DON'T REALLY MAKE SENSE AAAARGH!). So yeah, recontextualised that moment is just 'lol Chuck/god is trolling Zach/Heaven and pretending they can threaten him' which is OBVIOUSLY NOT what the original script/performance/direction/everything was going for and there's a BUNCH of stuff like that and... it just... it REALLY BUGS ME.

It's... imo an UNTIDY/UNSATISFYING retcon. And that feels extra sucky for me when spn has pulled some FANTASTIC retcons in the past eg. The Trickster being Gabriel - SEAMLESS! INSPIRED! Takes away NOTHING from previous episodes/performances, only gives them greater depth.

Uuuugh I'm getting all tense just THINKING about this whole Chuck as God thing again!! The other part that makes it EXTRA ANNOYING being how there were literally SO MANY other explanations they could have used that WEREN'T 'method acting,' so it's like the show went and picked my personal Worst Case Scenario unnecessarily, gah!

So... that's what did it for me.

I think... I think MAYBE if Charlie hadn't happened (or they'd at least actually undone her death for real and not given us a not!charlie replacement and acted like that was good enough) I might have been able to work with how they made Chuck god (esp since everything I've seen/heard of god these last two seasons sounds EXACTLY MY JAM). Or, if they'd made Chuck god a different way I'd probably have been able to handle how they killed Charlie. But... the combination was apparently just too much. Those two things together, combined with all the other ongoing niggles, made the explanation for Chuck as god the Final Straw.

Alas.

(then to add - I did start almost getting back into the show last season, because I liked what was happening with Mary and the idea of Jack's story... except then I hear they went and fridged Mary AGAIN (OFFSCREEN?) as part of a Jack going darkside plot that simultaneously included driving another rift between Dean and Cas and... well that immediately killed a lot of the emotional investment that had been rebuilding, so...)

Sorry for the ramble. Kinda a lame explanation really but, that's the truth of it.

(Bet you now wish you hadn't asked :p)

#about me #a true but boring story

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