#( s1 side plot in a nutshell )

[quinnmorgendorffer]

okay but on the topic of glee fandom, since we seemed to be in different parts of that fandom (I was more on the femslash side) what was the craziest glee fandom drama that you personally witnessed

Part of me just wanted to say "Canniblaine" as a one word answer. But like the real answer is that it was never NOT crazy, honestly. But if I had to answer......well, let's talk about s2 in a nutshell.

(Don't worry, Canniblaine will be explained).

So, in summer of 2010, Puckurt (my beloved) was the most popular Kurt ship on ff.net, the fics then were all sweet and fun and normally had a lot of just pure Glee bonding. And Kurt fans were excited since Ryan Murphy promised repeatedly that Kurt would get a jock boyfriend and the two of them would be crowned Prom King and King. Eventually, Jane Lynch said in some interview that they casted a blond boy to play a kid named Sam who would be Kurt's love interest. I can't remember for sure if she was also the one who confirmed that there would be a love triangle with him, Kurt, and Quinn.

But RIB—Ryan, Ian, and Brad, the original and only screenwriters until s3—were NOT fans of their cast leaking spoilers. And eventually they say, no, that's not happening, Chord and Dianna have too much chemistry!!! We're not doing that plot anymore.

But they had been known to lie about certain plots happening when people guessed things correctly. When Idina Menzel was cast in s1, everyone was like "oh she's playing Rachel's mom". They denied it and, wouldn't you know it, she was cast to play Rachel's mom. So, keep that in mind.

Anyway, s2 premieres, we meet Sam. He seems fun, he's cute, there's even a gay joke in his very first scene where he gets actual lines. In the third episode, he gets injured at the football game, whatever.

Then the glorious episode 2x04 "Duets" happens. Truly a magnificent piece of television with some of the best performances. Santana and Mercedes doing "River Deep/Mountain High"? THE MOST FUCKING ICONIC THING. Kurt doing "Le Jazz Hot"? PERFECTION. Tina and Mike doing "Sing!" from A Chorus Line? THE BEST FIRST SONG MIKE COULD'VE BEEN GIVEN AND SO CUTE! Ending with Rachel and Kurt doing "Happy Days Are Here Again/Get Happy"? BEAUTIFUL. And, yeah, the Finchel verison of "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart" is cute and I guess Sam and Quinn doing "Lucky", while not making sense in terms of their relationship, was sweet.

But, despite what RIB said, it was clear that "Duets" was meant to introduce this love triangle with Kurt, Sam, and Quinn. You canNOT tell me that this was NOT both of them flirting with each other. They have amazing chemistry, I'm sorry, you can't deny that. So, that means either RIB were lying about changing the plot, or they waited to change the plot after 2x04.

Then 2x05 happens and that's "The Rocky Horror Glee Show" and we don't talk about that mess.

Anyway, I joined tumblr for Glee fandom literally the day before episode 2x06 came out. And season 2, episode 6 was..... "Never Been Kissed".

And that's when all hell broke loose.

Because NBK, as fans called it, introduced us to Blaine fucking Anderson played by, of course, Darren Criss.

The. Heaviest. Of Sighs.

I remember I was so excited for that, though. I was a Klainer before the ep even aired because I lOVED him. It was only a 3 episode guest arc, but I was sure they'd keep him, and I believed RIB was telling the truth and they were really done with the Kurt/Sam plot. And, evne looking back at it, while I say "Duets" is the last GOOD episode of Glee…NBK is honestly a good episode. And in 2011 especially, it was kind of a big fucking deal.

But the thing about NBK was that, not only did it propel Klaine into existence, it also created Kurtofsky with one kiss in the locker room.

So, now there were THREE ship possibilities arguing all over the place. Klaine shippers who rejoiced as Darren got offered more episodes as a guest actor (his original version of "Teenage Dream" was and I think still IS their best selling single on iTunes, so of COURSE they wanted him around); Kurtofsky shippers who wanted to see this scared, tortured jock redeemed (some of these shippers I know for sure were Puckurt fans, since, yeah, some dynamics were similar enough); and Kurt/Sam shippers who believed RIB was lying as they had in the past (the whole Idina thing).

Btw, there were already arguments over the fucking name for Kurt/Sam because fuckyeahgleesecrets wouldn't let people submit secrets that said "Kum" because it was "obscene"—but having "fuck" in their blog url was fine. I can't find it but once someone sent in a weirdly worded secret that supported Klaine, but then you looked at the first letter of every sentence and it said like "Kum At Me" or something, which was hilarious and got deleted.

Anyway, there was a SHIT TON of fighting. Klainers would say it was the "Klaine Train" but Kummers, as they called themselves, would call it the Klaintanic, like Titanic, saying the ship would fail, and they'd be safe on the Kum canoe. I'll admit I was on that canoe eventually because I hated Klaine by the time it became canon lmao. And I also believed, like other Kummers, that it would still be canon. After all, Dianna and Chord having "too much chemistry" was obviously a lie and they even broke up Sam and Quinn a few episodes into the second half of the season! Oh, and Kurtofsky became pirates based off the sea/ocean thing. I accidentally created the Puckurt centaur, it's a long story.

Anyway, so s2 was wild, with those three mentioned ships constantly fighting. Klainers saying they'd be canon (we all been knew, honestly), Kurtofsky shippers excited over the "Prom Queen" episode being spoiled by an extra, and Kummers holding onto the hope that it would still happen. They'd say something I can't remember like.... "Kum quick on our tittsana faithfully" or something, basically the idea that the endgames were Kum, Quick (Quinn/Puck), Brittana, Finchel, and they'd also often mention Tartie.

Also, did I mention that b3achd3ath aka peyton, who wrote that terrible YA novel everyone was roasting recently, was one of the loudest Kum canoe members?

Did I mention that gr@ceebooks was, like, the Kummers' leader? As in the person who eventually created The JohnLock Conspiracy???? Also led people into believing that another slash ship would become canon????!!!! THOSE WHO DON'T LEARN HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO FUCKING REPEAT IT!

The funny part was that Grace admitted it wasn't going to happen before the s2 finale that was like everyone's final hope that Kum could possibly happen.

The not so funny part is that it's clear, imo, that Chord WAS hired to be Kurt's love interest and they cut it off since Darren made them a shit ton of money with "Teenage Dream" and the whole Warblers thing (I will NOT get into that, this post is long enough), and they clearly didn't know what to do with him after that. Hence why they got rid of him after s2 only to bring him back after enough backlash I guess idk why, and that's also why there's a gifset of Chord kissing every single original Glee girl because they LITERALLY did nOT know what to do with him once they took away the Kurt love interest thing. And it's a shame because the idea of Quinn and Kurt both going after the same guy sounds like SUCH a good plot. Dianna and Chris were two of the strongest actors, and Chord is actually really underrated as an actor, too—good on him for being the leading male against Lindsay Lohan in her comeback movie, I want him to have success after all the shit he went through on Glee. I want all of them to have good things, really (well, not L3a but lmao ya know, and obviously not fucking Bl@ke Jenner, I'm so mad he's still in that Merrily We Roll Along movie adaptation), since they all went through so much.

Oh, and many Klainers started to ship "Criss Colfer" (Darren and Chris, obvi), and claimed PR was keeping them from being openly a couple. As if they WOULDN'T WANT that PR????? Of their same sex couple falling in love on set like wtf PR would want that more than anything??? And, in classic fashion, that led to people sending death threats and harrassing Darren's then gf, now wife, on social media and them stalking any guy who got close to Chris. Chris has been dating the same guy since like at least 2012 I think, and, as said, Darren got married, and some people are still convinced they aren't real relationships, like they're more insane than the fake baby 1ders.

Oh, and of course, Canniblaine.

The Glee Kink Meme—gkm—is a place I wish I never went to, honestly. Like, I was 18 when I first found it, and it fucked me UP. I have said it before and I'll say it again, I'm so concerned for anyone hwo found it under 18. Not in a clutching pearls way, because, yeah, read smut, idc, but this stuff was FUCKED UP. People MADE UP TWINS just to write tw*ncest. Like, literally, there was a trend of Kurt having a twin named Cameron, and eventually people would use like, Chris' character in Struck By Lightning (the movie he wrote and starred in), as one. I remember finding another kink meme for another fandom and like braced myself only to find like…normal fucking smut prompts. No beastality, no gore, no mpreg, no boypussies—and, no, it wasn't that Kurt was a transman, it was that he just had a vagina for some reason, sometimes he WOULD have a cock, too, though, so…Idk.

And I definitely didn't see vore prompts.

And definitely not FILLED vore prompts.

But before Klaine had even sung "Baby It's Cold Outside", someone filled a vore prompt. Wherein Blaine ate Kurt alive.

…This was supposed to be a show the whole family could watch…

There were various memes of the 2010 variety, the best being, of course, the one of him saying, directly from their first duet, "Gosh, you lips ARE delicious". People were daring others to read it.

I made it about a sentence in, realized I was eating a pizza hot pocket (say you were a freshman in college without saying you're a freshman in college, am i right?), and put it down, closed that tab, and I have yet to eat a hot pocket since.

I have to admit this gif still cracks me up though:

So.....long answer, but I hope an enjoyable read on some fandom drama on the Kurt/slash side of fandom.

#long post #thanks for asking this was so long i'm sorry a;slkdfj #glee fandom #kurt fandom #lol klaine #canniblaine #bite me in the ask #cardassiangoodreads

[shiny-procrastinates]

(re)Watching Magia Record S1 - part 13

part 12 here

Hello and welcome everyone to the last post in this series. Most people probably would watch this ep right after the other one and there's much to be written, so let's skip the recap and get right to it.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record S1 episode 13

This show in a nutshell.

Really though, poor Iroha. She only came to this town to look for her sister and now she's learnt a cruel secret and is being urged to join a cult. Talk about someone who must have no idea what's going on anymore.

Back in reality, Yachiyo has finally caught up. She tries to stop Mifuyu from showing them the truth, but I'd say it's too late now. Also, Mifuyu's sure being a jerk today. You don't get to blame Yachiyo for letting them come when you're the one who made sure this would happen!

Yachiyo gets upset, and Mifuyu disappears. Iroha wakes up with Yachiyo cleaning her Soul Gem and Yachiyo says this but, nah Yachiyo, they'd have to learn this sooner or later and you don't seem like you'd ever tell them.

Iroha and Yachiyo start making their way out of Memory Museum. Tsuruno and the others were with Iroha when they went down but now they're nowhere to be found. Wait, does that mean we don't get to see their reactions to learning the truth? What a let down.

On this topic, Iroha's also pretty calm despite everything, which is probably part because realization hasn't settled in yet, part because she's occupied worrying about her team... but maybe also in part because Iroha has a wish she can’t regret, so she just doesn't care about the price as much as others. Doesn't she look like this kind of character? "I don't care what price I have to pay if that means I'll save them"-like.

Oh.

Hey Yachiyo 1: that was really outta nowhere; 2: that's not very nice of you, jumping ship just as things have hit rock-bottom. What the hell

Iroha, of course, is as shocked as we are (we are?). Sure Yachiyo had been acting strange since yesterday but this is a bit much. You can't just decide this on your own when 3/5 of the team is MiA

Iroha follows after Yachiyo, pressing her for an explanation, but Yachiyo refuses to give one.

Iroha's understandably upset at Yachiyo's attitude and asserts she refuses to leave Yachiyo's side if she won't give her a convincing reason to. And really, she has all the reasons to lose her cool here: one of her best friends is leading a cult, she's destined to a fate worse than death, half her team is missing and now the last one wants out for absolutely no discernible reason besides because she wants to. Even a saint has their limits.

Also, like, Mikazuki Team is like family to her, Yachiyo can't just decide to destroy her home with no explanation like this

Hearing what Iroha said, maybe Yachiyo realized she wouldn't get Iroha off her tail without saying anything, so she reveals her reason for wanting to disband the team. Yachiyo says that her wish was to survive. However, the way it worked was that she sacrificed others for her own survival. So she thinks Iroha and co. will die if they stay with her.

Even hearing this, Iroha's not convinced. Could such a wish really exist?

So yeah, Yachiyo was having a little crisis there and ended up being eaten by the Rumor(?). Thankfully, Iroha could still see her signal on the Soul Gem GPS, so the girl firms her determination to save her.

While Iroha's doing that, Yachiyo's having a lecture by herself to herself inside the Rumor. Quite the novel way to do introspection, if I do say so myself.

Here, we learn that Yachiyo originally wished to survive in the modelling world (we're never directly told that she's a model but there's lots of visual cues to it throughout the series). She did it because she thought she had to be a strong leader to protect her companions. She didn't want to survive at their expanse; so, uhhh...

She isn't then. Wishes in this series come true in the exact way the Magical Girl wants it to, so Yachiyo's wish can't be killing anyone if that's not what she wanted. She's misunderstanding.

...I wish they'd have put Kanae and Mel's last words in the actual scene they belong to rather than just a still, since they're literally one of the main reasons Yachiyo even reached the conclusion that their deaths were caused by her.

Iroha has learned "hold B to charge".

So, yeah, Iroha must've had a training arc off-screen because even though she's only been shown sucking at battles the whole series, she's now suddenly strong enough to defeat a Rumor on her own. Or maybe she just wanted to save her wife Yachiyo that much.

Iroha defeats the Rumor of Memory Museum (the place's an actual building, if a weird one, so that stays), hugs Yachiyo and is about to literally drag her by the hand to go search for the others, but Yachiyo's still reluctant. Iroha then tells her that Yachiyo and the others are the one who made her this strong, so she'll prove to her that her wish isn't what she thinks it is.

Don't jinx yourself, idiot! Thank god you've got protagonist plot armor.

Now, if only years of survivor's guilt could be cured this easily in real life too.

Yachiyo finally calls Iroha by her first name, accepting Iroha's promise.

The museum starts falling apart, probably thanks to the damage it received when Iroha was fighting the Rumor, so Iroha and Yachiyo have no choice but to leave the place now, even though they haven't found the others yet.

Iroha barely dodges some debris, stumbling, so Yachiyo carries her instead. Iroha's Soul Gem has been drained from fighting the Rumor, so she's having a hard time moving already. Doppels may be a thing, but there's no guarantee that they're safe, so Yachiyo's call of going to the Coordinator's to get a Grief Seed is probably correct.

As Iroha's situation worsens, Yachiyo follows Chibi Kyuubei until almost the entrance. Then, she meets with someone we know very well.

Mami says something about a gospel, and Yachiyo asserts that she and Iroha have no intention of joining the cult.

Which makes Mami snap. This girl is clearly not on her right mind. In fact, one could say she lost her head (ba-dum-tss).

Mami and Yachiyo start fighting, and I guess as expected of a veteran of 7 years, we have to commend Yachiyo here on meeting Mami's blows while carrying Iroha on her back. Yachiyo pleads with Mami to hear them out but Touka, the brat who was just watching the battle, tells Mami she doesn't have to, and Mami just keeps on her offensive.

Of course, there's only so much Yachiyo could do handicapped. But today is not the day Yachiyo's getting a bullet to her head, because

A certain someone who really likes impromptu hydrant smoke bombs is here.

Sayaka! Nice save, shining cape hero of justice! You have no idea who exactly you're calling weak tho

Seeing Sayaka, it looked like Mami had went back to normal for a moment, but nope, she's still borked. Like in all timelines where she learns it, seems like Mami didn't take the truth well here either. The difference is that she can't witch out in Kamihama so something happened instead.

Mami keeps monologuing, with Sayaka of course not understanding a single thing she's saying. Then, Mami starts to doppel out. The girl has seriously lost her mind and is now obsessed with salvation. (and man 10/10 on the VA’s voice acting here)

And here comes the bullet hell! This is so overkill Mami

Sayaka and Yachiyo do their best to deflect the rain of bullets, with Yachiyo turning back and trying to compete in number of spears. Jesus, just how big exactly is the amount of magic a veteran magical girl has? This is insane!

Yachiyo tries to send a stream of spears, who are deflected with one Tiro Finale, with another one headed their way right after

Sayaka blocks the Tiro Finale with her sword. The shot is so powerful one of her arms is torn off AND SHE ATTACHES IT BACK MID-AIR

holy-moly!

Hope this museum has insurance.

Sayaka just barely manages to reflect that bomb, which saves them from being blown to smithereens. Touka was having a nice tea time watching the spectacle, but then realizes she had something else to attend to so she exits, leaving the stage to Mami, who resumes her bullet hell.

Sayaka uses Yachiyo's spears as a platform to get closer and attempts to grab Mami, to no avail. She falls down and tries to take cover, but Mami's bullets are now homing bullets apparently, because they just change direction and start raining in her direction again.

Down below where Yachiyo's hiding, Iroha manages to wake back up, but she looks, like, on the verge of dying or something. Iroha tells Yachiyo they have to help Sayaka and Yachiyo rebukes there's no way they could win, to which Iroha subtly implies she wants to use her doppel, assuring Yachiyo it'll be okay and raising yet another flag.

Mami finally corners Sayaka, but before Sayaka can become blue Swiss cheese, Iroha comes in with her doppel to cover her. Very convenient that she suddenly knows how to control it.

Aaand Yachiyo can do that too, because of course she does, why wouldn't she. (/sarcasm)

But, uhhh, hers is considerably more creepy, what with the extra arms and stuff. Yikes.

Yachiyo says that doppels are dangerous, but one has to wonder when and how did she even learn about them. After all, she did seem surprised when Iroha did not turn into a witch in Seance Shrine.

While that's going on Touka's just out here deciding by herself that Mami would want to die for the sake of salvation. Just, uh, I don't think you can judge that when she's gone nuts, and you're a jerk if you put her in that scenario expecting her to die. Not that anyone had any doubts you're a jerk, mind you.

Also, what does she mean with Mami helping with developing Rumors?

"hey Kyuubei, I don't want to be meguka anymore, can I retire?"

Even using their doppels, Iroha and Yachiyo are not managing to make even a dent in Holy Mami. Iroha ends up getting bashed into a wall, the doppel taking over for real and her becoming a sitting duck for Mami, but Yachiyo yeets Mami before she can shoot. I'm sure this wasn't supposed to be funny but there's just something hilarious to me about Yachiyo just yeeting Holy Mami and her bouncing away.

Yachiyo transforms and shakes Iroha back to reality.

Again, why the heck do you know this, Yachiyo.

Iroha raises yet another flag for herself. What next? Are you going to say you want to marry her when you two go back?

Somewhere else, Touka arrives on her appointment: a speech for the cult. And oh my hell just look at how many magical girls there is! The amount of Black Feathers always blows me away, since the impression I got from og and even the spin offs is that, sure, there are some groups of magical girls around like the Holy Quintet and the Pleiades, but I still though it was more of a rare thing. It's shocking to see THIS many in the same place. (...I suppose the game needed the cannon fodder :x)

HEY what are these two doing here?!

Touka continues her speech over Iroha and Yachiyo's battle.

This cult leader here continues her discourse, preaching about how the power to wish for something is what advanced civilization, so magical girls, who have the power to make a wish reality, are better than normal humans, and so are deserving of being released from their fate.

OH NO, TSURUNO HAS GONE WEIRD TOO

*bonk*

There goes Holy Mami down the collapsing museum.

It's not like Touka's completely wrong (except for saying that magical girls are superior), but if it wasn't clear enough already, their actual actions makes her speech be full of hypocrisy.

Back at the crumbling Memory Museum, Iroha has managed to jinx herself so hard throughout this episode she pierced her own protagonist plot armor. Great job!

Try as she might, Yachiyo just cannot pull her back up, which also makes no sense when you consider how strong magical girls are, but alas.

And to make things worse, Mami is also pulling a literal "you're going down with me", so Iroha, making a split second decision, pulls her hand away from Yachiyo's grasp, lest both of them fall and get buried... breaking the one promise she made probably not even a hour ago.

I think that last thing she said was "sorry", but don't quote me on that.

What a loyal Mokyu. Never mind that if they can turn into water they probably can't die from this.

Yachiyo's about to follow her fate too, but thankfully Sayaka comes in for the save, only giving a brief glance to where Mami disappeared before getting the heck out of there.

Well, people promise lots of things, Yachiyo.

OH I KNOW YOU, what was your name again? It's been so long I forgot.

Back at the The Wings of the Magius' HQ, Touka's done with her speech. The way the anime cuts from Yachiyo falling to the depths of despair to the cult clapping is just *chef's kiss*

Oh no Felicia and Sana also joined the cult :(

EXCUSE ME, WHAT

oh frick we'll have to deal with that too!? Aren't things already effed up enough as is!?

...being meguka is suffering.

Also the song playing over this last sequence, Nigredo, is a real banger. Momentarily filling in that hole Kalafina left in our hearts.

After the end credits there's the teaser for season 2, with lots of overlapping lines and blink-and-you-miss-it frames hinting at the things that'll happen. I'd have to screenshot basically the whole sequence to get everything and season 2 is coming out like, today, so I'm not even gonna bother.

- x -

Aaand that's it folks! Puella Magia Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record Season 1! (still a mouthful)

I cannot express just how hyped I was by the end of this episode back when it aired. Did you get fired up watching it too? I was so into it back then I just couldn't stop theorizing for like, over a month, so eventually the curiosity was just too much and I caved in and watched the game.

On that matter, ironically, despite me loving the game story to bits, this is the ONE episode that makes me wish I didn't go and watch the game. Why? Because I liked this episode well enough before, but now I just can't get over how stupidly better the resolution to Yachiyo's arc was done in the game. I get runtime constraints and all, but it's almost an offense to her character having her believe in Iroha right away just because Iroha said she wouldn't die. Aaaaghh what the heck, I don't know how they could have done this better with the time on the episode but this wasn't it. I'll be eternally salty we got robbed of the full extent of alpha Iroha, too.

So yeah, I do apologize if this post sounded more salty and sarcastic than usual.

One thing I realized re-watching this though is that the reason this episode is so awkward with that character part is exactly because they halfheartedly tried to stick to the game. Yachiyo bringing back her "it's none of your account" and Iroha defeating the Rumor on her own were part of the game, but because they hadn't kept those character traits throughout the anime it falls flat here, because anime Yachiyo didn't use that almost as a catchphrase, and anime Iroha is never shown to be competent enough to take on a Rumor on her own (the opposite, in fact), so those come out of nowhere. Even last episode, Yachiyo 180ing because of what Mifuyu said comes out of the blue in the anime, because we're missing the context that she actually went back to behaving like she used to when she first disbanded her team, and anime Yachiyo didn't have the hold-up with the word "friends", at least not as clearly. On the other hand, Yachiyo being willing to accept Iroha's words right away does fit in with anime Yachiyo, who was always more soft than game version, but here it becomes awkward because they had had her acting like her game counterpart since last episode and then suddenly she snaps back to the anime self again.

What I'm trying to say here is that they should've changed this scene even more to fit the actual characters anime Iroha and Yachiyo are, rather than halfheartedly trying to force it to go the same way as in the game. That's what I think.

Besides that, Tsuruno and co.'s reaction to the truth was cut out, but I'm sure we'll get around to seeing that next season. Holy Mami's fight is cool but... I dunno. Except Sayaka reflecting that Tiro Finale, it felt really uninspired. It could've been shorter if that meant giving more time to the story, imo

Now for things I REALLY like in this episode, there's the whole sequence with Touka's speech. You might've even guessed this considering I said the dream sequence way back in episode 1 is my favorite ever. IT'S JUST SO GOOD. The constrast between Touka delivering this super charismatic discourse about magical girls, the saint of her cause being lunatic and their actions being just the opposite of the noble cause she says they're preaching is marvelous. They even manage to use this time to reveal that KaMoRe and Tsuruno and co. are on the cult. Really, really well done.

This ending tho. Iroha disappearing is the biggest anime original thing to happen besides Kuroe, so that's got me curious to see what they'll do with this. I love the game, so I have complicated feelings about the anime diverging from it, but I can't deny it's exciting to think about what they'll change up. Ultimately, it's more likely that they're just rearranging some stuff to make the progress more straightforward, but it'd be really cool if it went full anime original too. Just I'm not sure on the odds for that.

I'm sure they'll keep us on the suspense until the very last moment possible but I'm sure Iroha's not actually dead. Looking at a meta sense, there's no way they'd kill a main character off-screen. Storywise, it'd be hard to move Ui's mystery forward without the one person who remembers her and they're not just going to drop this plot, and also for Iroha to be dead Holy Mami would also need to be dead and we can't have that because they haven't even went into what's wrong with her yet. So yeah. I'll believe it when I see it. Would it be absolutely crazy if they did? Yeah, but it ain't gonna happen. (please don't make me have to bite my tongue show)

Whew, this post is long af. I didn't plan for this. I don't feel like writing a season impression because all of s1 was mostly set up for what's to come, so I can't say if it was good or bad until the series is over. Originally, I'd planned to put up another post with my theories for s2, but considering that comes out today I'm not sure there's even a point to doing it anymore lol

In any case, I hope I could provide you some fun with these posts! Being honest, the reason I decided to write this was because I've always liked to hear people's opinions on the shows I like, but I don't really have people to watch things with me, so I just read reddit and stuff. Doing that, when I was watching Symphogear s1 some years back, I stumbled across these posts of someone watching it for the first time and had a blast reading those as I watched. So I wanted to provide someone with that experience too. I'll never reach the comedic genius that person had, but I can at least keep you company while you watch :)

...these are also super useful to check back on the order of events too :v

So yeah, writing these was fun, though there were lots of parts where I really went out of ideas of what to say; it forced me to actually sit down and rewatch (or else I'd procrastinate) and made me pick up on a lot of things. That's a plus in my book.

Now that we are done with this, I hope you are as excited for season 2 as I am! I'm not sure if I'll keep writing about it here, so yeah. Whether we ever meet again or not, remember:

Don't ever make a contract with a white weasel.

#Magia Record #magireco #pmmm magia record #puella magi madoka magica side story #this post is super late #it's 7 in the morning #and I haven't slept help

[deltaengineering]

Winter Anime 2020 Reviews: brought to you by quarantine

aw shit look who’s got the time to do some of these again yeah that’s right it’s me

22/7

For 11/12 of its runtime this was an astonishingly forced exercise in hacky tragic backstory that thoroughly answers the question of what happens when assembly line jobbers jump on the already rickety KyoAni bandwagon. So I was ready to give it a well deserved meme score of 3.14/10. Then it remembered it actually had a gimmick and managed to completely fail at that as well, with one of the most thematically misguided endings I can think of. Oh well, if nothing else I laughed. 2/10

Asteroid in Love

Well, it’s competent and inoffensive. What else can I say? I guess it’s pretty amusing how blatant the gay marriage implications get by the end, but that’s not really, you know, quality all by its own (and Harukana Receive does it better). It’s also weird how its first season clearly ends at episode 9 and it just quickly does a second one in the time it has left. Apart from that it’s a slightly above-average Kiraralike with good character moments but a real drought of content (note: dropping exposition on your topic isn’t content) in the middle. Fun enough, but really doesn’t leave me wanting more. 6/10

Dorohedoro

This had much potential to suck but then it didn’t. The biggest surprise was that Dorohedoro is a comedy; a splatter comedy with a core story worth taking seriously, yes, but this is not horror, or mystery, or even action, even if it has all those elements at points. And it manages to be consistently funny. The other big surprise is that the nonsense really does start to come together and is meaningful where it counts, so it has much better worldbuilding than most. Looks really good too - you might take exception to the CG, but it allowed MAPPA to make the rest look great so it’s overall still a plus. Definitely needs a sequel though, because the plot seems to just get started and then it ends like there’s an episode next week. 8/10

ID: INVADED

Ei Aoki’s Inception fanfic turned out very nice, with neat visuals, cool characters and a story that comes together in the end. I mean, come on, it’s an anime where Kenjiro Tsuda literally talks people to death, how can I not like it. It’s not perfect; it’s stuck with some pacing problems, strangely superfluous side characters and ultimately less ambition than it could (maybe even should) have. But it’s also weird in a good way and moderately thoughtful without being pretentious about it. 8/10

If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die

Romantic comedy? Eh, maybe not quite. Funny riffing on wota dumbassery without being mean-spirited about it? Yep. Oshibudo gets the tone (the critical aspect in a show like this) right and it actually ranks fairly high simply as an idol show when that’s not even the point, which is really surprising. It’s just very charming, even if a little simple. 8/10

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

So everyone’s losing their shit over how great Eizouken is and I’m just like nah, man. Not that it’s truly bad, it certainly has its fun moments and undeniably cool animation at times. But it really says a lot when in a show supposedly all about how amazing creativity is, the no-fun-allowed producer is the only character I like - Kanamori is indeed great, shame about Nerdlinger and Plot Device though. And it’s full of the kind of standard boomer animation bromides that just make me think “well, if Ghibli is supposed to be so great, why am I watching this instead of the real thing?” It also has notably poor and uncreative use of background music, which wouldn’t irk me as much if it wasn’t lecturing on the topic. At this point I’m fairly certain that I simply don’t like Yuasa’s style much, no matter what he does. 6/10

Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story

So I’m watching the “final” episode of this and I realize that I care about this random, poorly explained fanservice fight between Mami and Sayaka much more than I care about any of the characters this show is ostensibly about. And that’s pretty much Magireco in a nutshell: It has very little of its own, what it does have is split among way too many video game characters, and it’s at its best when it’s just being dumb and bombastic or lazily replicating the style of Madoka. It’s definitely not good (and the things it does to the Madoka lore are double ungood), but as long as you keep in mind that it’s just meaningless Madoka-ish things, it’s barely entertaining enough. 5/10

Natsunagu!

Natsunagu turned out to be a pleasant (if very cheap) short film that’s severely compromised by broken up into weekly 3-minute chunks. Episodes that short can work, but not for material that depends on atmosphere and character engagement. I can only assume I’d like it more if I watched it all in one go. 5/10

Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It

This one started out as a one-note romantic comedy with the rare novel note, which then got more and more tired as it went on, and the introduction of decidedly less novel characters didn’t help. But by the end it recovered somewhat from not being much good at comedy anymore by being actually pretty good at paying off a romance, which is maybe even rarer. Remove bear though, what the hell. 6/10

Somali and the Forest Spirit

Somali just kept doing its thing (which is dadfeels/protect the blob). Still can’t think of another show so intensely laser-focused on that one thing, to the point they’re constructing an entire fantasy universe around it. I liked the fluffy/introspective parts a lot more so than the grimdark/”let’s get Somali into some danger so dad can rescue her” ones, but at least the former ones are more common overall, and I understand that both are important for the other one to work. So yeah, good show, even if I wish it used the big guns less often. 7/10

Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun

I wasn’t too hot on this one at first (apart from the looks, which were always really cool), but I have to say it has won me over by the end. It has likeable and occasionally funny characters, some meat to its setting and a mildly interesting streak of intrigue running though it. Of course it also doesn’t really answer anything, but I’m satisfied. 7/10

Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki S2

Peer pressure presents: the other tourism short of the season, ft. material that fits the format. While it’s still not really good, it’s an improvement over S1. Mainly because it stops trying to extract humor from the characters themselves and gets back to dropping the hot #nagoyatruths, which are the thing I’m here for. 6/10

#anime #review #winter2020 #22/7 #asteroid in love #dorohedoro #id:invaded #oshibudo #eizouken #magia record #natsunagu #science fell in love so i tried to prove it #somali and the forest spirit #toilet-bound hanako-kun #yatogame-chan #nagoyatruths

[noxstellacaelum]

Clary STILL deserved her story

So, Todd Slavkin, the showrunner (along with Darren Swimmer) of Seasons 2 and 3 of Shadowhunters TV, just published a book about his time with the show.  It purports to be a BTS account of his experience running SHTV, with proceeds going to the Trevor Project and a couple of other charities. Sigh.  Every damn time I think I am finally through with this silly, pulpy show, I get pissed off all over again.   

The TL;DR version:  OH MY GOD CAN THIS MAN PLEASE JUST STOP???!!!!  SHTV had the IP rights to the 6-book Mortal Instruments Series.  Clary is the protagonist of this series:  Her journey is the scaffolding upon which the series’ narrative is constructed.  Centering Clary (and her love Jace) in what author Cassie Clare has described as a “girl power” story was an intentional narrative choice in TMI. So why, then, did Todd and Darren treat all of the female characters like garbage and erase Clary’s entire narrative arc in favor of bizarre non-canon plot twists and ancillary characters? Why did they encourage toxic fandom ship wars that pitted fans of Clary (and her love Jace) against fans of Malec?  We NEVER, EVER should have had to choose between representation of LGBTQ+ characters and stories and Clary’s narrative arc.  

Longer version:

First, credit where credit is due.  I am glad that Todd is raising money for worthy charities.  I am a long-time supporter of the Trevor Project, and the show and its fans have been loyal supporters of this organization for at-risk LGBT+ youth for years. Good for him for publicly supporting the Trevor Project once again.

Second, SHTV is to be commended for its racially diverse casting (casting choices for which Todd and Darren cannot claim credit, BTW, since they were brought on in S2) and for its commitment to representation for LGBT+ characters and relationships.  While the show was far from perfect in this regard, in my view -- I don’t think they got bi representation right with Magnus -- credit is due. 

BUT NO AMOUNT OF VIRTUE SIGNALING OR REPRESENTATION THROUGH MALEC CAN MAKE UP FOR THE MESS THAT DARREN AND TODD MADE OF SHTV, ESPECIALLY IN 3B AND THE FINALE. I have gone down this rabbit hole so many times, so I will just summarize here:

In a nutshell, every female character was hijacked.  

- For example, Mayrse seems to have existed in S2 and S3 solely to be punished for her S1 homophobia through a non-canon de-runing, then redeemed by becoming captain of the Malec ship.  In S3, in particular, it’s as though she has no other children. She does not realize that Jace has been possessed by Lilith.  She is never shown helping Jace deal with the loss and heartbreak he experiences first after thinking that Clary was killed by Lilith, and then after Clary’s memory is wiped. Literally the only moment that Mayrse and Jace appear together in the finale is at the Malec wedding -- when she (along with everyone else) neglects to realize that Clary is distraught because her runes are disappearing.  By the end of the finale, Mayrse is surfing in Brazil, worried about the effect of humidity on her hair, while Jace remains suicidal and grieving.  Seriously?!?!?!  Putting aside all of the non-canon fan service plot twists, have the showrunners ever met a mother?  No mother would ignore the pain and trauma that Jace experienced due to his possession by Lilith, or after Clary’s exile from the shadow world.  And, what does show Mayre’s treatment of Jace say about adoption?  For a show so concerned about representation, what about Jace’s story as a survivor of abuse and neglect?

Clary. What is there even to say.  

- For one thing, the show completely botched Clary’s love life.  First, there was the jumping into bed with Simon, her lifelong best friend, without any sense of struggle/ uncertainty about her feelings, followed by episode after episode of Climon shipping.  Book Clary is conflicted -- she doesn’t always treat Simon very well, but she’s 15 (in the books), and she’s dealing with her identify as a shadowhunter and her feelings for Jace (and the whole incest story line (which I am glad the show dealt with reasonably quickly)). Show Clary seems almost entirely unconflicted.  It’s as though sex with Simon was no big deal -- even though the show suggests that Simon (HER BEST FRIEND) may well have been her first sexual experience, and forgetting the fact that she’d clearly been falling for Jace (who she now thinks is her brother). 

-Second, the Dark Clary storyline is creepy, at best, especially regarding Clary’s sexuality.  Think about it.  Clary  does not sleep with Jace on the show until after Lilith puts the twinning rune on her.  (Despite having jumped into bed with Simon no problem.)  And then, full-on Dark Clary is shown going down on Jace in a club, and assaulting him, when he was grief-stricken and basically roofied. (Apparently, the only time women on the show get to be sexually assertive is when they are evil (read-Lilith) or possessed (Clary)).  None of this made any sense. 

-Third, the memory wipe is total bullshit.  In what TMI universe would Clary, the protagonist, be left alone on an NYC in a skimpy party dress, with no money, no identity, no memories of the past 4 months, no apartment, no mother, no father figure, no love of her life, no best friend, and no chosen family?  In what universe would her love Jace not have seen her runes disappearing?  In what universe would Jace have let Clary walk about the door sobbing, especially when she had just killed her last living relative to save the world, and after she had only just returned from the twinning rune/dark side?   In what universe would an angel have exiled Clary from the shadow world, and taken away her memories, after she saved the world?  Especially when literally every other character got to keep the Sight despite their bad acts (read, Valentine, Aldertree, Jace as the owl, possessed Alec after killing Clary’s mother, Sebastian/ Jonathan after mass murder ...)

Maia’s random Jace hookup. ‘Nuff said.

And finally, the Jace character was basically collateral damage for all of this.

- The show vacillated between blaming Jace for Magnus/Alec/ Malec problems (Magnus losing his magic to free Jace from Lilith) and erasing the parabatai bond between Alec and Jace entirely, especially in 3B, even though though the parabatai relationship is core SH canon.  Alec doesn’t realize Jace is possessed for most of 3A.  He tells Jace to suck it up in 3x11 when Jace is clearly grieving and suicidal.  And, he is shown mixing cocktails in Alicante with Magnus in the finale without a care in the world for Jace’s struggle in the year following Clary’s exile.  It’s all Malec all the time for Alec.  Yes, Jace/Alec have their ups and downs in the books.  But they work through them.  And, the parabatai bond is a source of strength for both book Alec and book Jace. With a couple of exceptions, this nuanced and lovely book relationship is lost in the show.

- In fact, the show deprived Jace of every relationship.  As noted above, Mayrse doesn’t seem to remember that Jace is her child in S3.  Alec is focused entirely on his relationship with Magnus most of the time.  Jace and Clary have basically no screen time as a couple.  And, no one really seems to give a shit. Not for Jace the son/sibling/parabatai.  And not for his mental health, or his trauma after a childhood of abuse and neglect.

After all of this, the wedding was just icing on the cake. Alec and Magnus’s marriage is well-earned in Clare’s books. They get married after five years of a healthy, loving, committed relationship.  They remain -- in addition to their relationship with eachother -- son/sibling/parabatai (Alec) and a brave and loving downworlder (Magnus).  None of this let’s get married the day after Jonathan’s mass slaughter and after Clary is forced to kill her last living relative, after three or so months of mostly unsuccessful dating.

I want to be clear that I LOVE the Malec relationship, and that representation of this relationship as loving, healthy and joyous has a great deal of personal meaning to me.  But I should never have had to sacrifice Clary (and her love Jace) to see a meaningful relationship between Magnus and Alec on-screen.  We ALL deserve nice things, after all.  Lifting up Malec NEVER, EVER mean we had to destroy Clary, Jace and Clace.

SO, I’ll be donating on my own to the Trevor Project.  Maybe someday Todd and Darren will reflect upon the damage that they did.

#tmi #the mortal instruments #cassandra clare #jace #Clary #Jace Wayland #jace herondale

[sol1056]

multipart ask on Keith

I would honestly love your thoughts on Keith’s character development, specifically him leaving for the Blades in S4. Personally I’ve always been on a fence with how they wrote Keith’s character after that. For one, he started as a lone wolf and I always thought they would subvert that along the way with more character interactions and team building episodes like in S1, but apparently S4 throws all of that away. I thought him forcibly being the leader of voltron would be a great opportunity for development but Shiro takes his place in the black lion and Keith just leaves. 

It really didn't help with all the signs pointing as him as the true leader of voltron when he barely even interacted with the team personally (except for shiro) after that point. To top it all off his “maturation” was a two year time skip montage with his mom and he suddenly became level headed and ready to fly Black. So when he finally returns and become the leader of voltron it felt a bit underwhelming and hollow. To be honest I also find his interaction with the team afterwards kinda out of character [...] 

I just wanted to hear from a writers perspective if Keith leaving was a good idea for his character in general. He had some really good scenes in his time with the Blades but i personally think in exchange it took way too much [away from] his development with the others. I also wonder if it's even possible [to execute well] leaving for the Blades and then becoming the leader of Voltron. 

Here’s a general rule: avoid leaving any of your protagonists at a bus stop. 

A few chapters is already pushing it; the equivalent of 1.5 seasons is out of the question for all but the most superlative of writers. I’ve met superlative, and believe me, no one on the VLD staff qualifies. If they did, they wouldn’t have been writing for VLD in the first place. 

The start of S4 will forever baffle me. Had S3/S4 been broadcast as a complete season, I might’ve assumed there was a technical error, and would’ve tweeted at Netflix and not returned to watch until I got word this really was the midpoint episode. No warning, no foreshadowing, not even a peep out of Keith, and suddenly he’s working with the Blades. 

In an ensemble cast, the point is that it’s an ensemble; you don’t forget one of your core cast at the bus stop while the story-bus trundles on. If Keith were meant as a protagonist, then sidelining him for 1.5 seasons is an even worse crime. If the intent of the story, thematically, is 'stronger together’, shoving one of them out of the picture is pretty much the antithesis. 

This is not to say you can’t do it; in hindsight, I think the clone should’ve been shelved and the real Shiro returned at the end of S3/S4. But that comes with the assumption that a) the team would struggle a great deal more in his absence, b) prompting development that would create a new dynamic once Shiro returned, and c) that Shiro himself would change in some degree, from/during his absence: one that, by definition, that would need to be complete.

In other words, if you’re going to remove a protagonist, two things must happen. One, they must be removed, which Keith wasn’t. The story checks in on him irregularly, and each time, he's treading water while the story moves on. Two, the absence must become a driver: in a sense, the absence is a presence of what’s missing, and regaining the character must be paramount. 

VLD put minor effort into recognizing the impact of Shiro’s absence, limited mostly to the torture-porn of watching Keith isolated in (and by) grief. It couldn’t even be bothered to do that much, when it was Keith’s turn to fall off the team. No one missed him, no one needed him. The result was a clear message there was nothing Keith brought to the team that couldn’t be done by someone else. There was no presence in his absence. 

Consider the few scenes in S4-S6 with anything of Keith. His storyline did nothing to push the main story forward. In S4, the Blades are focused on tracking a new quintessence, a subplot that discovers nothing, provides no twists, and goes nowhere. In S5, despite Keith being with the Blades, the two groups have dropped communication to such degree that neither is aware of the other’s participation in the Kral Zera. 

If you’re determined to leave a protagonist in another castle, for heaven’s sake, use that distance to allow them to continue to impact the main storyline. Make their absence into a working presence that can link the two groups; the complete radio silence just underlines how meaningless the story considers Keith, in the overall plot. 

In that light, Kolivan’s left-field decision for Keith to extract Krolia feels like VLD was grasping at straws, trying to find something to occupy Keith. Worse, that mission contradicts S4: the quintessence is no longer blue, no longer notable for its energy levels, and no longer transported to secret bases in massive quantities by major warships. It’s back to the usual maroon, carried on small cargo ships in limited quantities, and now a dangerous substance with questionable side-effects. 

In a nutshell, VLD left Keith mired in pointless actions with no bearing on the rest of the characters (hello, suicide attempt never mentioned again). Late S5, VLD realized it needed to get a move on, if Keith was to get an upgrade. So it took the easy way out: an overload of exposition flashbacks that neatly evaded any emotional beats between Keith and Krolia. VLD had no idea how to get Keith from point A to around point K, so it settled for just telling us Keith had grown up. On a space whale.

Had we been given a better reason (or any reason) for Keith joining the Blades, had we been given a hefty sub-plot for Keith that led him back to the team in an organic fashion (or at least dovetailed with the main throughline), had the story used those seasons to show us Keith learning with the Blades in a way he couldn’t or wouldn’t with the team... well, for one thing, it’d still contradict the ‘found family’ and ‘stronger together’ themes, since it’d be even more clear that Keith was stronger elsewhere. 

But setting that aside, at the very least, Keith wouldn’t have returned feeling he’d gotten a personality transplant. We would’ve seen his progression, such that any given point along the way would’ve been recognizably Keith, even if the starting and ending points were almost a one-eighty. It’s called character development; most stories do it as a matter of course. 

I’m left concluding that the creators genuinely don’t grasp that characters will change per their experiences. It’s a crucial element in storytelling, because characters are the core of any story. If you can’t figure out what would make a character choose A this time and B next time, you’re failing on one of the most fundamental aspects of characterization. In fact, you’re missing the entire point of a story: character choices are the plot.

I do have to take exception to ‘signs pointing to [Keith] as the true leader.’ I’ve posted before about the mentor trope, and how Shiro’s S1/S2 arc contradicts Keith as Black Paladin. I suggest you read those before coming at me with the assumption VLD did any of the work required to establish Keith's leadership as inevitable. 

It’s possible to have someone strike out on their own, learn valuable lessons, and return grown-up and able to handle the situation they’d originally fled. It’d be a very different story, though, one that isn’t focused on a titular robot, but on a single protagonist’s journey. It’d also be a story that has nothing to do with ‘stronger together,’ as the movement away (to learn) and back (to reclaim) means the protagonist only became stronger when they weren’t with the rest. 

Keith taking command of Black in S6 should feel like a victory in terms of his arc: where once he’d recoiled, now he steps forward. But since we never saw how or why his perspective changed about leadership, all it would’ve taken is a subtle shift in Yeun’s delivery and we could be talking instead about how Keith returned and was still in his ‘you want me to lead, this is how I lead’ pique. 

Shiro’s return creates another turning point where the question would be logically raised, and it’s almost as though (once again) there’s an episode or two we didn’t get. It’d be reasonable for someone to raise the question of whether the team now swaps again. Yet no one does, and we’re supposed to expect Keith --- who waved the little ‘Shiro is Black’ banner far more and for far longer than any other character --- is now content to command Black, with no need to even broach the topic. 

That’s a radically different perspective Keith shows in S7 onward, and it’s a problem created by the lack of development for Keith, in S4-S6. In the course of a single episode, we literally went from Keith being his slightly out-of-his-emotional-depth awkward self, to someone clear-eyed and commanding almost to the point of arrogance. It’s not helped when his original characterization returns for the duration of his fight with Shiro --- only to blip out again as soon as Keith returns to the team. 

And forcing that abrupt shift on Keith’s part meant the rest of the story (and the characters) got shoved around into their respective places and out of shape, as well. Stories are made of characters, and characters are dominos. You knock one over, and it has a cascade effect. Changing Keith from the character we knew to someone else wearing his face could not happen in isolation, and every character around him suffered as well. 

Like Shiro and Lance, Keith had major potential to be a groundbreaking character. He was introduced as the kind of independent, socially awkward, spitfire character usually pushed to the forefront in American media, yet S1/S2 gave him a solid place as Shiro’s greatest supporter. Keith had all the makings of a hero we rarely see: someone who truly believes the title of leader is beside the point, that the team is what matters.

I’m used to Gundam, which almost always strives for a resting place of five (or four) protagonists standing shoulder-to-shoulder. There might be one among their ranks who gets the central position, but the narrative is firmly consistent that should the team lose any one person, it would fall apart. There’s no need to ever tell us the team is ‘stronger together,’ we can see that lesson play out, over and over, whenever the team is divided, split up, or loses someone. 

AtLA followed a similar pattern; by the end, it’s obvious the strengths each person brings to the final battle. There’s no question that every single one is crucial for victory; there’s no point where someone leaves and there’s not immediate and significant impact on the remaining characters’ successes. Sure, Sokka may not be able to bend like the rest of them, but without his brains, they’d be sunk. Katara, Toph, and Zuko might not be able to bend every element, but if any one of them isn’t there, the team is going down. Aang may command the central position, but he can’t do it all on his own. 

While AtLA shone in having characters who visually broke the mold of our usual white-dominated, male-dominated American cartoons, it also broke away from the lead hero + band of intrepid (but far less capable) sidekicks. Like Gundam, it presented a group of characters who grew into a true team. The pictures might show Aang in the middle, but every one else contributes an equal amount, in their own way.

VLD had the makings in its first two seasons to go that route. But its EPs wanted dark and edgy, a perspective too cynical to embrace the optimism inherent in a team-based story. Sure, their deconstruction of VLD’s S1/S2 trope-subversions brought the story to a point where Keith was declared the definitive top guy, the true Black Paladin, head of the paladins. 

Thing is, pushing Keith into that position required altering his personality beyond all recognition, destroying the team dynamic, and gutting any chance of recognizing the other characters as equally integral to team success. In effect, making Keith the de facto leader required destroying the team: and what’s the point of leadership, then?

#vld #voltron #characterization #character arcs #analysis #sol thinks about stuff

[stvlti]

An ode to Mr. Robot Season 2's structural brilliance

Some post-finale viewing observations

Okay can we talk about the impeccable narrative structure in this season for a second?? The way they brought all the subplots together in the finale episode is amazing.

【------ MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW BEWARE ------】

Dom literally tying most of the characters' roles and statuses together on her "crazy wall" of string-connected evidence, giving us a visualised summary on which players are still in the game-- 

Dom's arc starts slow, at first just circling around names and places we the viewers already know, with a large side helping of seemingly-irrelevant character-driven scenes with Alexa. But the time spent following Dom around the breadcrumb trail finds its payoff here, as it's built up this reservoir of information that guides her and Darlene's arcs to intersect at this terrific reveal in the finale.

And it shocks us, almost as much as it shocks Darlene, just how much the FBI already knows, because the narrative almost deliberately sidetracks us by selectively focusing on the other characters' arcs. While we were busy following Darlene's fuck-ups, while we were trying to separate fantasy from reality in Elliot's mental battles with Mr. Robot's mind tricks, wondering what on earth is actually real, the FBI subplot has steadily presented to us objective, previously unknown information that bridges the continuity gap between end-of-S1 and S2's events (e.g. the casing of the bullet that's been fired from Darlene's stolen gun). And as the season draws to a close, it is Dom with the FBI subplot that punches a hole through the tunnel vision of Darlene, Angela, and Elliot's respective third-person limited narrative POVs, to bring us back to an objective perspective of the events that have transpired thus far in the series.

“Are you distracting me right now?”

On a metatextual level, the Elliot/Mr. Robot conflict has served as a big narrative red herring, at times blinding us from the bigger picture of the story, just like how on a textual level, Mr. Robot has blinded Elliot to the new developments in the 5/9 plot (with Stage II, etc.)

For over half of the season, the Elliot/Mr. Robot arc has directed the viewer to examine the unreality of Elliot's corner of the storyworld as he copes with his new, strangely-barren routine, has invited us to agonise with Elliot over the whereabouts of Tyrell - it has, in a nutshell, left us preoccupied with piecing together events / missing scenes from the past that's led to Elliot's self-imposed exile. Which leaves little room for us to examine events that are unfolding in real-time, or speculate about events to come, outside of Elliot's bubble.

Example: in hindsight, the series has more or less already telegraphed to the viewers that there should be a second phase in Mr. Robot's plan after 5/9 - it was alluded to in as early as S2E04 (during the "init1" flashback, when Elliot put on the mask and the Mr. Robot jacket for the first time, and explains to Darlene the importance of seeing the plan to completion in the aftermath). So logically, the viewer should already know a "Stage II" is in the pipeline. But because the Elliot/Mr. Robot conflict arc has been so effective at occupying our attention, by the time Stage II actually pops up in the plot, it feels as much of a surprise to us as it does to Elliot.

The series deliberately misleads the viewers in more ways than one, with narrative red herrings that are built into the very structure of Season 2; sometimes Elliot is complicit in it (see: the prison reveal, how he was lying to the viewers the whole time), sometimes we are as blindsided as he is by Mr. Robot intentionally concealing information from the viewer.

And speaking of distraction...

Elliot with Mr. Robot and Tyrell at the warehouse--

There's an interesting parallel here, when they talk each other through the plan as a refresher for Elliot (who has “forgotten everything”):

In the first season, Tyrell admires the ingenuity in how Elliot (advised by Mr. Robot) framed Terry Colby as a red herring to cover their tracks - their actual move being part of the fsociety plan against Evil Corp and not merely a petty act of revenge against Terry the individual, which Tyrell had mistaken it for.

Now, here, Tyrell again admires the “cute distraction” Mr. Robot created to cover their tracks executing Stage II - that is, Mobley & gang leaking the FBI con-call about phonecall surveillance measures inadvertently became the smokescreen for the real purpose (or at least, Mr. Robot's purpose) of fsociety's FBI hack: to plant Dark Army's femtocell into E-Corp so they had a way in to execute Stage II.

Sure, Mr. Robot's approach to his diversion tactic is somewhat different between the two seasons - there's a cooperative element in the first season, and even though he did not give Elliot all the facts, at least Elliot was lucid when he executed the Dulles server hack / framed Terry Colby / infiltrated Steel Mountain, leading to the completion of the thermostat hack for 5/9. With Stage II, the bulk of the events leading up to the paper records storage building battery room hack happened without Elliot's knowledge. But whether it's a cooperative partnership or an antagonistic relationship between the two sides of Elliot, Mr. Robot always gets his way. It's a cyclical problem with no solution, just like when Elliot attempted to beat Mr. Robot over a chessboard duel - because Elliot can't escape from an inseparable part of himself.

This structural cyclicality seems to be intrinsic to Elliot's narrative, and generally symptomatic of his history with this disorder - just as he's forgotten his sister before, he finds himself again in futile conflict with Mr. Robot, Mr. Robot coming out on top in the end.

Quick Interlude

Damn dude, how far ahead did Mr. Robot plan for this?? None of this would've been set into motion if Elliot hadn't gotten on a terminal. Those first 4 episodes Mr. Robot's been trying to get access via Elliot to a computer? It's all so he could influence Elliot to work on Stage II without Elliot noticing. And he'd tried shooting him, making him eat cement, all kinds of torment in his own mind but to no avail. And then along came this opening - Ollie and by association Angela becoming persons of interest in FBI's investigation - Mr. Robot saw this opportunity and he leveraged it to get Elliot onto a terminal under the guise that the two of them were gonna just hack the FBI to cover their own asses. When in fact it was a move to advance Dark Army's part in the plan.

The FBI/E-Corp hack is actually so pivotal to the plot in Season 2. 

3 narrative threads rest on and converge at this plot point: 

Elliot's thread going in is he was gonna hack the FBI to protect Darlene (and Angela and himself).

Mr. Robot's thread going in is to infect E-Corp's network (within the building from which the FBI was operating) to give Dark Army access to it, with the consequence of executing on Stage II coming out of this story beat.

But a second consequence flows from this and into Dom's narrative thread, because the hack itself is now revealed to be the event that drove the breakthrough in her investigation, the thing that helped her identify the remaining persons of interest and round up the missing pieces of her puzzle, so to speak. The hack led Dom to Angela, who was found acting suspiciously on the day of the hack. The hack also led Dom to Cisco, and subsequently Darlene, who've been made because of the domino effect following the execution of the hack. (The domino effect is as follows: Darlene & gang based their operations in Madame Executioner's house, where they hacked the FBI / leaked the con-call AND filmed fsociety's last video. This led to ME's murder, and also led to Cisco's cover being blown as he went back to retrieve the video tapes, which finally led to Darlene's detainment.) The fact that the hack has advanced the FBI investigation is an unforeseen consequence (at least, unforeseen to Elliot and the audience)*, and a revelation that rounds out the FBI arc of the story and ties it all together quite neatly for the season's finale.

(*) Unless you mean to tell me they're gonna reveal it was intended as part of Mr. Robot and Dark Army's convoluted plan all along™ to have Tyrell take the fall for being the suspected criminal mastermind and for everyone else in the orbit to get caught on by the FBI... and that it's for a greater good that's yet to come. If someone told me this a season ago I would've told them to shut up, I would've said you're thinking way too deep about this, that there's no way Elliot and DA are geniuses of this calibre. But now? With all the stuff Mr. Robot has pulled off again I'm not so sure. This show has really caught me in a mood for conspiracies......

Elliot, Mr. Robot and Tyrell at the warehouse, continued: let’s talk about the shift in Tyrell and Elliot’s dynamic. 

It’s so interesting, the way they structured the finale EP so that it opens with a flashback from the S1 continuity - the Coney Island "You're not seeing what's above you" scene. There, Elliot is the one with the upperhand and Tyrell the one that has to plead with him (”help me understand”). But the episode closes on a scene in the present time, where Elliot is the one that is utterly lost and has to turn to Tyrell for answers. You can see Tyrell’s confusion at Elliot’s outwardly erratic behaviour. At this point in time he does not know (the full extent) of Elliot’s memory issues and DID - so for him it’s basically seeing a god break down and dethroned in real-time. I just love this use of juxtaposition between the opening and ending scenes of the EP to draw attention to the shift in their relationship.

Narrative red herrings, continued: Chekov’s gun, the Macguffin, and other subversions of expectations 

It's clear misdirection is the name of Sam Esmail's game, and it's none so clearly demonstrated as here with Darlene's stolen gun. Planted into the story all the way back in Season 1, it is literally the series' Chekov's gun. Whether the gun went off is one of the bigger questions we all had coming out of S1 after that foreboding shot of the popcorn machine on the night of 5/9 - a question S2E01 teases the answer to again with its opening flashback to Elliot and the popcorn machine.

What I love about this season is how it just piles on several more different possibilities onto the gun motif to mislead the viewer further -

Romero's death: more than a fair few of us speculated the gun went off on Romero, which is also a speculation Mobley suggested (what if the Alderson siblings are trying to get rid of evidence, or they leaked information to Dark Army and the Dark Army is now cleaning house, starting with Romero).

Tyrell is dead and Mr. Robot shot him: a theory that audiences dug into as soon as Tyrell went missing in S1E10, which is lent weight to when Dom found the bullet casing at the arcade, and is finally explicitly alluded to during S2E06 - from the sitcom sequence, in which Tyrell is stuffed in the trunk of the car in a visual callback to Shayla's death, to Mr. Robot's confession to Elliot that they shot Tyrell.

Mr. Robot's metaphorical gun (visualised) with which he attempts to intimidate Elliot into compliance: the gun takes on a metaphorical meaning as it becomes one of Mr. Robot's many mind tricks that he uses to torment Elliot. Coupled with the prison reveal, the revelation that everything we saw on screen was a lie for 6 and a half episodes, it complicates any later appearances of a gun whenever Elliot is in the room, as there is no way for the viewer to know if a gun is a real gun or merely another figment of Elliot's imagination.

All 3 of these theories are subverted. Romero's death is revealed to be a Macguffin (an accidental casualty, unrelated to any of the players in the 5/9 plot), a plot device to kickstart Dom's FBI investigation, and drive Darlene's arc into the FBI hack plot point to intertwine with Dom's arc.

The second and third theory go hand in hand, as the visual parallel between Tyrell pointing a gun at Elliot to force compliance, and all the earlier instances of Mr. Robot threatening Elliot with a gun, further misleads us into thinking Tyrell really is dead and merely another illusion weaponised by Mr. Robot to intimidate Elliot into going along with the plan. 

But the most brilliant subversion of expectations here is how by having Tyrell shoot Elliot, the story actually does have Chekov's gun go off on-screen. It is the payoff nobody expected, as we were all still looking to the past and trying to answer the question of whom the gun went off on. (That Dom found the bullet casing at the arcade already answered the question of whether the gun went off at all, but nobody expects the gun to go off again.)

If you made it to the end of this, congratulations, and thanks for reading x

(This meta was also posted on r/MrRobot.)

#mr. robot #mr. robot meta #elliot alderson #tyrell wellick #tyrelliot #dominique dipierro #darlene alderson #leslie romero #it's not cross-tagging if i literally mention all of them and their roles in the story #jesus this took me way longer than reasonable #it started out as some follow-up notes / thoughts to my finale liveblog and i went into sicko mode with the meta so #had to create a separate post #7 days and 2k words later... here we are #Eugenia writes meta #fsociety txt #spoilers // #long post

[cassiopeiasara]

Fanfiction Writer Appreciation Day

Hi everyone! Here is my annual post inspired by this. I know the point is to go comment on stories but I also love to share some favorites so maybe the writers get some new readers and comments from more than one person. you can catch up on older recs here: 2015  2016 2017 Keep in mind I do have a fic rec tag and I don’t use it lightly so that’s always another place to search on my blog for stories I enjoy. Without further ado some faves under a cut because as usual, there’s A LOT:

Broadchurch: Jocelyn/Maggie

Stay by GirlonaBridge. You ever read something and you’re like THAT! I want to write something like THAT! That’s how I felt reading this absolutely gorgeous fic about Jocelyn and Maggie’s first time. It’s got great pacing, it’s sensual and it’s loaded with feelings and longing and just GOSH. 

Moments In Time by @tea-and-procrastination This was such a rich and wonderful exploration of Maggie and Jocelyn’s history and I adored it so much.

Grace and Frankie: Grace/Frankie 

I’ve sadly not read as much in this fandom as I desperately want to and I’ll be changing that very soon but these are some of the stories I’ve managed to get to. 

anyone who has become by @ellydash Sometimes fics are written so brilliantly in character with such a compelling plot that you realize what a blessing fic really is. Then sometimes you read a fic that’s just exactly the kind of story you want to explore and you feel like anyone could read it regardless of familiarity with the media from which it comes. The true miracle is when you get both in one fic and that’s this fic in a nutshell. It’s a fantastically woven story of realization, identity, and relationship: to oneself, to family, community and a partner. I’ve sent this to so many people including ones who have never read fic in their life because it’s just that special. 

There I Will Be by @telanu I’ve read this story so many times I can’t even tell you. There’s grief and figuring out what you want and confession of feelings and just it’s a gorgeous work of art. 

Done With the Compass, Done With the Chart by @chainofclovers This is a sequel to a fic that was on my post last year but it is a fine and glorious story in its own right. I love that each chapter is told from a different character’s perspective. It’s a masterful story full of change and feelings and just read it, you won’t regret a minute of it. 

Wonder Woman: Diana/Etta

The Holiday Girls by @steellily This is a wonderful story of Ella being a badass and Diana finding her way post the loss of Steve and the war. Also all the fluffy feels. 

be yourself my ally by imperfectcircle We got fake relationships, Themyscira, accidentally adopting kittens. I mean what could be better?

Etta Candy’s Last Stand by sanguinity Bed sharing, hilarity, this is just a great time of a fic. 

The Worst Witch: Ada/Hecate I could literally rec so many of the glorious fics out there but this is a brief overview of my favorites. 

Children Will Listen by @applebottomclaudiajeans As far as I’m concerned this story is required reading for hackle fans. It has Mildred antics and that warm fuzzy feeling of being queer mentors and examples of happiness. I also give a blanket rec to the rest of @applebottomclaudiajeans‘ stuff but this remains my fave. 

on ne voit bien qu’avec le couer by @amillionmillionvoices This one will make you laugh, cry and feel all the feels. It has the added bonus of being told through Mildred’s eyes. @amillionmillionvoices has such delightful prose and if you’re a multishipper, I highly recommend you check out her other stories because she does not disappoint. 

Roses and Thorns by @meridelclarke I give a blanket rec to all of Meri’s stuff (especially You May Ask and The woods are lovely, dark and deep) but this story is special in its wonderful exploration of the magical world, Hecate’s backstory including Broomhead, how far Mildred and her friends are willing to go for their teachers and of course the wonderful blossoming relationship between Ada and Hecate. It’s a beautiful ride and I’ve read it so many times. 

a new love whispering by @farmerdamsel This was among my first fics in this fandom and it remains my favorite. It’s a great Ada and Hecate meeting and growing into getting to know one another. (Also a blanket rec for other fics from this lovely author)

from afar I’ve loved you (but never let it show) by @bigbaddoctorwolfe A blanket rec for all her fics but this one, gosh this one has everything you’d want in a holiday fic. There’s excellent imagery and relationship and fluff and I just can’t gush enough about how much I still adore this fic. It ties with throughout all of time, I am yours as my favorite story. 

witchcraft in your lips by @theuncertainhour A beautiful post s1 finale fic. Also blanket rec here too, :)

Second Snowfall by @cosmic-llin I like this story’s prequel too but I love the ceremony and tenderness and lovely kiss in this one. Also a blanket rec for fics here too (what can I say? this ship has some talented peeps). 

Better than Ever by @thosetigerseyes There’s Hecate being surly and not taking care of herself then Ada offering to help, a massage and I think you can guess the rest. This one and To Draw Down the Moon tie for my favorites of Jen’s work. 

to sleep by your side and wake uninterrupted (we may manage it one of these days) by @matildaswan There are BIRTHDAY SNUGGLES. Also hilarious Mildred antics. Once again if you’re a multishipper, you should check out her other lovely work too. 

Survival Skills by @marvellouslymadmim starts a series of 8 stories that present one of the slowest slow burns I’ve ever read. There is some great Dimity characterization along with lovely mentoring moments with Mildred. I don’t just recommend this one because it’s the first but also because it’s an absolute delight. 

Also I need to mention these two adorable stories by @steellily for Dimity/Julie:

Tea for Two? and Once Upon A Time

#Jocelyn x maggie #grace x frankie #diana x etta #hackle #hubblestar #fanfiction writer appreciation day #fic rec

[dontbeallupinmyfriesdawg]

what did you think of hayley's death ? phoebe tonkin seems to be in conflict with carina on twitter. i don't understand why they have to kill hope's mother, they did that to elena and the whole cast of tvd. the worst is elijah, i'm not team haylijah but they build this relationship for 4 years and now nothing ? what a time lost...

I never like Hayley but her death was crap. the whole thing about her falling for bad boys and Hope doing the same thing... god and Julie Plec sees herself as a feminist?

Here’s the thing,

this is why I can’t get behind people who are up in arms about Hayley’s death.  Because from the very beginning of TO the very conception of Hayley;’s character has been misogynistic. Hayley was only ever meant to be a side character on tvd. When the TO writers made the decision to make her a major character they didn’t bother fleshing out her character or back story or giving her plot outside of Tyler Katherine or Klaus; they got her pregnant.

Here are some metas I’ve written about Hayley in the past

“Hayley’s entire conception as a character is that she’s a plot device. She’s Katherine’s leverage, she’s part of Tyler’s solution, she’s mean to Klaus’ end, a sort of stumbling block in Forwood's relationship. She’s barely a character on TVD but what they did is put her on To under the guise that they were fleshing out her character when actually they just used her as a human incubator and then a baby mama, then a mum, then a love interest. Through all of though there’s not much that’s compelling about Hayley the character. She’s the ‘wolf queen’ but what does she actually do. She’s so special and perfect and Elijah is in love with her but why?”

“Hayley’s purpose was to be part of Tyler’s tragic, coming of age, werewolf, pack leader story. She was a footnote that got turned into a novel. If this was executed well (and if Phoebe could act) I wouldn’t have minded. Klaus was meant to die at the end of season 3 but he was so popular and Joseph’s acting was so good that they kept him on. Arguably, even though they butchered it, Klaus was deserving of a spinoff, the Original family were interesting as a concept. But instead of using that dynamic and interesting concept and centring a TV show about it. They centred it around a bratty teen pregnant werewolf instead. In many ways, the conception or rather, inflation of Hayley’s character on TO was just as sexist a feat as creating Camille. Hayley initially has two purposes. Carrying Klaus’ child (i.e: status as a human incubator) and being Elijah’s love interest. She is then upgraded with motherhood and takes on a third role as Jackson’s wife and then his widow. Arguably Jackson is the only character on TO more useless than Hayley herself. It goes to show you Hayley lacked so much agency and significance that her love interest was the third wheel in his own relationship and was killed off solely so Halijah could bone (*shudder*). My main problem, however, is the pedestal Hayley is put on. There is nothing special about her. She’s not even a nice person. TO conveniently swept under the rug the fact that she had a hand in ruining Tyler’s life and had the audacity to bring him on the show to villainize him and make Hayley out to be a victim. I lost count of how many times in s2 Klaus called Hayley a queen or told people what an amazing fierce majestic hybrid kween she was. Her marriage to Jackson was literally just a marriage of convenience, she became alpha by default, not to benefit her but so as to have an army to protect the magical miracle baby, thus fulfilling her role as baby mama/incubator. So yeah, the whole empowerment element of kween Hayley the all-powerful hybrid was dog shite. Phoebe’s acting is a huge part of it but to be fair to PT the writers didn’t even try to flesh out Hayley’s character and give her depth, they just slapped on a series of tropes and annoying traits and occasionally declared to us, the audience, how invaluable she was.“

So yeah it doesn’t surprise me that Hayley’s death was unnecessary, male-centred and misogynistic because that’s Hayley’s entire character in a nutshell. 

Neither Carina or Plec is anything near to feminist and it’s hilarious watching all their righteous indignation on twitter in regards to sj issues, it really is.

I think what they did to Elena’s character is slightly different to Hayley’s but I’m not going to write a whole meta on it now. What I will say though is that Elena at least had some, plot and characterization although it is very deep set in misogyny and furthermore Elena is very much like liquid in that she takes the shape of whatever container she’s in. In other words depending on who she’s in a scene with, kind of depends on what Elena you’ll get. I think this was less the case s1-3 though.

As for H*lijah I couldn't care less about them, unfortunately, you’ve come to the wrong blog with that. I’m very much of the opinion that there wasn’t really much ‘built’ with them.

#the originals #to #anti hayley #sexism #feminism #anti julie plec #anti carina mackenzie #anti halijah #Anonymous

[fromsolaria-archived]

random guy: wyd?

stella: *snorts & blocks the guy*

brandon: wyd?

stella: behold, a prince texted me

#☆ . ooc : crack & memes. #( s1 side plot in a nutshell ) #( cue tecna saying something like '..well tecnically he's not a prince' & stella shushing her )