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ayy-junipei · 3 months

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Why You Should Watch Bang Brave Bang Bravern

An essay by Junipei while they wait for they friends to come online so we can watch episode 3. Some spoilers for episode 1-2 I guess

Reason 1 - It be Nefarious

Ok so let me tell you how I came to actually watch this show. I have a friend who does one of those seasonal anime review podcast things and I was basically helping man go through the bottom of the barrel. Things that were either going to be cute for an episode before its gimmick ran into the ground or just straight up trash. I was the emotional support Juni.

So we boot up Bang Brave Bang Bravern knowing only that it's a generic mecha show with a fucked up name and a bromance thrown in for fun. That's what we thought

THAT'S WHAT WE THOUGHT

We thought things were getting interesting when the aliens showed up. Ok it's not just a gritty anime it's a Pacific Rim Top Gun thing, ok, that's more interesting than what we thought, that's fine.

AND THEN BRAVERN SHOWS UP.

AND WE REALISE THIS ISN'T JUST A GRITTY REALISTIC MECHA. IT GOT COLLIDED WITH A FUCKIN SUPER ROBOT SHOW FROM THE 70s.

I have not had my jaw this dropped since episode 1 of Code Geass. We were played like fiddles bro.

So we watch episode 2, wondering where the hell its going to go from there. IT GOES TO-

Reason 2 - Robot Gay Hell

As a person who enjoys human sized people kissing 10ft tall death machines, I have been starved my entire life. I take what I can get.

So imagine my surprise when the show sets up that Bravern is head over heels in love with his pilot Isami. So much so that he refuses to let anyone else get in that cockpit. Wahey!

It has mostly been played for a joke, that's the one single downside. That's not very sustainable. BUT I am very curious to see where it goes. This leads into-

Reason 3 - Something is UP my Dudes

If the carefully planned bait and switch says anything, it's that the show has a lot more planned up it sleeve. And you see that in allmost every scene. Bravern and the one-dimensional aliens creates a massive tonal dissonance with the original part of the show.

You see, the realistic gritty mecha bit is still playing out like a realistic gritty mecha. Our boy Isami gets waterboarded by the CIA for any info he has on Bravern. Things don't magically get better after Bravern saves the main cast, the Earth is going to shit real fast.

So if you think of Bravern and the aliens in the context of the more realistic part of the show, shit is mighty sus. Are you really going to take man's word that he's a hero here to defeat the bad guys?

It could turn darker, it could turn spicy, or it could sustain the show past the "gimmick turns stale real quick" problem anime has these days.

If you've made it this far good job soldier, now get out there and make me some gott damnged robot yaoi. I HAVE STARVED FOR 20 YEARS FOR THIS CONTENT. GIVE IT- GIVE IT OT ME NOW

#Bang Brave Bang Bravern #Bravern #Isami Ao

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perenial · 9 months

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gene im so glad you said this cause I haven't seen anyone else comparing it to the book as source material for like character and tone but i am So sure that if terry was alive the season would not be like this but i fear good omens fans dont realise how big a factor the lack of terry's influence is?? or like they forget that good omens was never just neilman???

ok before i go any further: i rly don't want to detract from anyone's enjoyment of the season and everything im going to say comes from a place of love for a) the original novel (& season 1 to a certain extent bc it got me back into it lol) and b) tv as a medium so like peace and love on planet let people enjoy things etc etc

but

like u said, terry's influence on the book was enormous – what makes gomens gomens is the balance of his genuine warmth and precise understanding of humanity tempered with neilman's sardonic voice and general like.....savvy approach to storytelling? i guess u could call it? anyway what rly helps the book is that it took them years to write it, passing ideas back and forth and rewriting each other's work until their voices blended seamlessly and a well structured capital-s Story was created. when i praise the book for being self-contained i think a huge part of that comes from the circumstances in which it emerged: two authors with complementary styles writing in a v particular time period where they had both the space to play with their ideas and the constraints of the novel as a storytelling format from which to craft something extremely specific.

adaptations are a tricky business and a tv version of gomens produced literal decades after the book was always going to have some unique challenges, but i don't think that's a bad thing bc the challenges could prove to be creative opportunities to take both the established audience and those new to the story by surprise. my biggest hot take here is that i don't think translating a story into a different medium means it has to follow the original narrative exactly, bc each medium has its own ways of communicating information and these structures, rules and traditions in turn inform what that story is. what matters more than following a story beat-by-beat is capturing what that story is about at its core, what themes and messages and ideas it works through and how.

all this is to say i never expected tv gomens to be a perfect reproduction of the book and if it had it been, it probably would have been worse off for it. that being said, there are parts of the book – like u said, its tone and character – that needed to have some fidelity in order to pull it off, and for the most part s1 did that bc it was still working predominantly within the bounds of the novel & its core ideas. while i did have some issues w how neilman & amazon adapted some details and characterisations, i generally rly liked s1 – it reminded me of why i loved the book and it was just generally fun to watch.

s2 was. not that fun to watch

a few positives before i go ham w the critiques:

the hair & makeup + costumes were fantastic (although i feel like s1 was slightly better re: makeup?)

the sound design & score made some of the more awkward scenes bearable and thats no mean feat imo

david & michael gave incredible performances w what they were given – michael especially managed to salvage aziraphale enough that his complete 180 didnt feel completely tonally dissonant (more on this later)

the detail of the sets is NUTS and i genuinely want to see more of hell bc of how intricate and fun the props look

i actually like gabriel/beelzebub!! their getting together montage worked for me, although they could have spent sliiiightly more time establishing what it is they like abt each other so much + why gabriel wanted to stop armageddon 2.0 so suddenly

the opening scene, although not on par w the novel's & s1's, was visually gorgeous and thematically resonant (although neilman owes me royalties for ripping it off from this shitty fic i wrote back when raphael!crowley was all the rage lol)

now w THAT being said:

like i said yesterday, the pacing was fucking awful. flashbacks are hard to work w at the best of times and the way they were used in this season felt so needless, especially the 40s one in ep 4 that takes up like 90% of the episode. in both flashbacks + present day there were scenes that dragged for no real reason, dialogue that looped back around on itself to stretch out the runtime, and weirdly enough places where there should have been character & plot work where there just,, wasn't any?? for example, maggie & nina's night locked in the café – some parts of the dialogue in later episodes made out that they'd had some rly deep conversation abt how they feel about each other or even that they'd had an affair, but that isn't clear from those scenes in the café. i'm not saying we had to see that conversation in its entirety but that there needed to be more connective details – either in dialogue or direction – that gave that part of the story coherence.

(there were pacing issues w the editing too but i don't want to jump down the editor's throats on this one bc im more focused on writing & direction issues)

the second major problem that i mentioned in my tags yesterday is the protagonist shift, which is an issue that started in s1. aziraphale & crowley are side characters in book gomens – significant ones, yeah, but still somewhat peripheral to adam (& anathema who counts as a deuteragonist imo). this works incredibly well w who they are as characters: they're Just Some Guys who happen to be involved in this epic biblical-level bureaucratic nightmare and importantly, they don't want to be in the spotlight. the arrangement was created so that they could explore what it meant to be themselves away from the Big Narrative; literally any time they get involved in larger affairs is bc the plot is alive and caught them unionising on company time. the last fucking chapter is adam (& god) being like haha u guys are alright keep it sleezy and letting them go. like. hello. neil u let them go.

but then!! tv gomens s1 does something interesting at the end w the body swapping addition that i dont totally hate – it gives aziraphale & crowley the extra bit of character work that brings them slightly more adjacent to their book selves. see i kinda view tv a/c as the younger, less settled versions of book a/c; they're still caught up in the immediacy of being key players and haven't fully realised that earth is their home. i haven't watched s1 in a while but one scene i remember rly clearly is crowley throwing all those astronomy texts in the air and angsting abt when he was an angel; i remember it bc his anguish in that scene feels a lot newer and rawer than book crowley's feelings about falling. when tv a/c do their bodyswap, it gives them the chance to land a blow against heaven/hell in a way that solidifies their allegiance to earth in a way that more closely resembles what book a/c have been abt the entire time (still adjacent, though. not parallel).

the reason why this works is that it does one final pivot to orient aziraphale and crowley as almost-main characters in a manner that makes sense in relation to a) their book selves and b) the position the tv show has placed them in. a combination of factors made tv a/c feel a lot less mature than their book counterparts but at the end of s1 they're sort of facing the same direction the book ended in, albeit through their own flashy late 2010s means.

when s2 was announced i was.......apprehensive bc to me, that felt like a satisfactory ending. i get the impression that amazon saw how wildly successful the adaptation was and was like oh shit we could make way more money out of this and neilman, having all those undead darlings that he and terry killed in the process of whittling the book into a workable novel, jumped at the chance to resurrect all those half-realised ideas. but not only were those ideas probably discarded for a reason, they've either been laying in wait for years unworked or they're new inventions, which means they weren't molded in the way that the book had been. like i said before, book gomens underwent years of rewrites and creative collaboration, and i think that process was what made it so good; s2 didn't have that. even if some of terry's ideas made it into s2, his influence is still missing bc he and neilman weren't in dialogue the same way they were in the book (and in some ways s1 bc i know terry was involved in the process of adapting gomens to screen before his death).

i don't think it's a case of newer fans forgetting terry so much as it is the context of terry's involvement being so removed from the current circumstances that certain aspects & discourses (i.e. is the s2 finale queerbaiting (no), does binge watching change the viewership experience (yes), etc etc) about the show overshadow other discussions that would usually be taking place. and before anyone says it's a case of neilman forgetting terry, i definitely don't think it's that either bc thats. yknow. wildly disrespectful. but also there are larger systems and structures at play than one writer no matter how much beef i have w him and his decisions, bc ultimately he's just one guy (a powerful and wealthy guy, but just a guy) and there's a wider cultural shift happening rn towards rehashing old stories without understanding what made them successful in the first place, and that same culture just doesn't allow for much, if any, constructive discourse analysis

so yeah

#replies.txt #Anonymous #god this is so long and rambling i hope it makes sense lmaooo #i have further thoughts on the general fic-y feeling of the season but that wasnt rly anon's question so i'll save that for another time #good omens #good omens spoilers

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minas-linkverse · 2 years

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At a risk of being controversial: I really dont enjoy the fanon trope of making Hylia a villain. I dont claim people who do that are evil or sexist, there's obivous writing potential there and people are allowed to explore it. I personally however find it uncomfortable, and I want to speak out in case someone else feels the same and would be relieved to not be alone.

Hylia as a character is a ...fairly new addition to franchise. We first learn of her in skyward sword, a game that's story aims to explain the reincarnation cycle's excistence.

I think due to that, and how in botw we see the first canon story that potrays the cycle as bad, its easy for new and old fans to point at hylia and go: I dont trust this. (It doesnt help Hylia is connected to vague christian imaginary and people have their own issues with religion.)

Again I dont blame people for this, some fans are new, some are coping with religious trauma, and some just wanna explore the cool concept that is reincarnating heroes.

However, my discomfort comes from a few facts in this matter that I want to put out there for people to consider.

My first issue is that Hylia is not the person who started the issue. We know the evil force that is Demise existed before the cycle, and for some reason or another Hylia nor the other goddesses could not stop him. Hylia made her plan in order to seal demise away for good, and it didnt work. It just didn't work.

It doesnt matter if demise cursed the reincarnation thing or if Hylia decided it'd repeat forever. The fact is that theres a malicious unquestionably evil force that a goddess tried to stop and failed.

You can dislike her plan all you want, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that—

Okay, breather, I am passionate about this but I know my opinion isnt the objective fact. Maybe Hylia could stop this cycle and try something else, maybe she is inhuman in mind and spirit and doesnt comprehend the horrors she has caused. We don't know and you can fill these blanks as you see fit.

But uhm, this does bring me to my second opinion, which might be harder to take seriously it you're disagreeing with this post already.

I think there's sexism around how fans treat Zelda and Hylia, not helped at all by Nintendo's own actions.

I see people be put off by skyward sword Zelda, perhaps writing her unemphatic and clueless of Link's battles to find her. So much so that we ignore the fact she too was ripped from home, told she has to be someone else, and forced to drag her best friend along so the world wouldnt end. She is a victim too, but why do we forget this?

In my opinion it's partly due to the bad writing of women Nintendo keeps doing. Zelda is written so... perfect. Nintendo refuses to aknowledge her flaws as a person and instead is like look how pretty she is, she apologises and Link forgives her, so you should too! ...When, if you dont do so, it feels like you're being manipulated or dismissed whenever she is on screen.

An issue that repeats with Hylia as well. With many Zeldas in many games.

To react to that tonal dissonance with writing Zelda/Hylia as evil is... normal, I think. I don't blame people for feeling that way.

But,, That seems unfair to me. A female character with potential to be complex and good was failed by the writers, and now we as fans continue from that point with making her even worse.

I dont dislike fans who do this, you're just participating in fandom the way you see fit, but I cant enjoy it, it makes me upset. These women are not evil, Link isn't the only character being hurt deeply, and if you could please consider female characters beyond how they hurt ya boy, I'd be so relieved.

...

I'll repeat what I said at the start, I dont claim people who do this are evil or sexist. People are having fun in fandom, and ngl demise sucks as a villain and Hylia is way more interesting to explore.

I just... I think its worth asking yourself why her. Why you don't or do like Zelda. Engaging in things you love with an analytic eye is genuinely good for you and the media you're enjoying.

This in no means is meant to come off as an attack, Im just requesting we look at another angle of things, maybe just to say we did.

I uh, thanks for reading.

#Loz #Hylia #I dont know if I rly wanna tag this that much #I dont like confrontation...#Long post

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the-owl-tree · 1 month

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I wish starlight had a better redemption arc. lowkey that’s the only reason I hate her outside of her dumbass backstory (I could fix it) and the lack of explanation for her being almost alicorn level gifted. like lemme tweak her backstory a bit:

she was considered exceptionally talented and everyone had high hopes for her to go far in life or could even get into celestia’s school (kinda like twilight) but she was suuuuper attached to sunburst in an unhealthy way (bpd gang rise up) leading to her revolving her entire world and life around him and when he left she completely spiraled and used her powers to keep others around her from leaving. her specialty are memory and mind altering spells since she canonically even after her “redemption” can’t seem to stop revoking other pony’s rights to free will.

she operates on pure natural talent and raw might due to lack of proper training so it was actually really easy to defeat her and send her packing out of her village. her second appearance she came back with the alicorn amulet (the one trixie had in that episode, but it was gone so fast I am ignoring it. that’s such a cool item wasted on one episode?? no) which is how she fucked with alternate the realities.

in a world where friendships and bonds are pretty much building blocks for their society I can see it being probable that pony’s without friends could suffer health wise too. not just mentally but physically. maybe she never got her cutie mark and blames friendship in general for stunting her. she doesn’t hate just twilight, she hates ALL of equestria. every other pony has someone and she has nothing and no one. no friends, no cutie mark, no purpose. just rage.

when she is defeated again, she should have faced actual consequences. send that horse to prison. idk. why did cozy glow get sent to hell. this isn’t about her.

I think a probation period or similar where she has to earn back the right to use her magic while attending the friendship school and amending her crimes would have been good to see. she her earning forgiveness. show her earning her cutie mark! show her apologizing to every pony she hurt and then accepting they won’t like her anyway! I know it’s a kids show and really they can’t do too many heavy topics, but also I hate this horse

Starlight's insane magical power without any amulets or anything bothered me, I like the idea of her getting her hands on it instead of her just being super mega OP. I get it's for the sake of the plot but it's also sort of like...does magic need to be trained? What's the point of magic schools if the average unicorn can learn a teleportation spell rather easily? do you guys ever think about how OP magic gets in the later seasons, regardless-

It felt weird that the way they chose to write her being won over by Twilight is literally forcing her between a rock and a hard place. Either start being nicies or apocalypse time forever, isn't that fun! It makes it even more disingenuous with how little time they spend redeeming her or even having her recognize the impact she's had on those around her (it bothers me the show seems more invested in how Starlight has been hurt by the Our Town debacle than the Our Town ponies). It also doesn't help her backstory is embarrassing...like girl write a letter you can levitate quills some kids have to use their damn mouths!

I disagree with her being locked up, mainly because I think MLP's weird tonal dissonance around incarceration is uh really weird for the neon pony story (seriously. why did they lock the child in tartarus, why did they turn the child to STONE). Rehabilitative justice is a GREAT thing for kids to learn, showing that anyone can change with work, kindness, and friendship (in the show at least lol)! But by not centering who Starlight hurt and just rushing through her actually working to be better, it makes her story lacklustre and half-hearted. At least in my opinion!

#mlp chatter #cozy glow is such a baffling decision. writers that is a ten year old

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lannisterdaddyissues · 1 year

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I want to enable your BillRita screaming so for those ship asks...

How do they sleep?

What's their most and least favorite thing about each other?

How are they with PDA?

What's their favorite thing to tease each other about?

What little things remind them of each other?

I would apologize for how many of these things I sent but we both know I'm not sorry...

OHHHHHHH HEATHER YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH YOU’VE ENABLED ME WITH THIS I’M FROTHING AT THE FUCKING MOUTHHHHHHH GRGSHGRHFJGHASRJGHASJFHSAGRJSFSGAS YOU KNOW I LOVE THEM!!! YOU KNOW I DO!!!!

IM SORRY THIS TOOK 84 YEARS BTW AND THERES A LOT OF TONAL DISSONANCE IN THIS BECAUSE I WAS BEING SILLY AT FIRST BUT THEN I GOT SO FUCKING SERIOUS ABOUT THIS YOU KNOW HOW I AM AHRESGAKJHJSGKHALSJGKHFASG ANYWAY-

im putting this under a cut because it is. so fucking long. im so sorry for my mental illness

3. What's their favorite thing to tease each other about? AHHHHHH i think we all know rita will bully bill over anything and everything because she's just. so mean to him 😭 but i think her favorite thing to make fun of him for is his accent, or really just his being american in general because i think he’d be the most stereotypical american guy lol. he has a silly, dumb american accent and he likes silly, dumb american sports and silly, dumb american food! rita pretends to find his Americanisms™ exasperating but privately she thinks they're funny lmao

as for bill, his favorite thing to tease rita about is how messy she is. i’ve already said it, but rita being a messy bitch and bill being a neat freak is one of my favorite headcanons about them sjdfhskjgffjs… you’d think being in the army would’ve taught rita how to put things away but no, bill finds her bras and stuff lying around all the time and it was awkward at first but he’s gotten used to it now, so he lets her have her little rebellion against army regulations and politely pretends that isn’t her. uh. underwear. wedged between the couch cushions next to him when he sits down to do Important Media Relations Major Stuff™ on his computer 😳

5. How do they sleep? they sleep back to back because it's a show of trust and vulnerability for both of them... blubbubbublbddlwwbwudfbfbldludubldublub;;,.,$$.,$,&.,., goodbye... i'm crying now...

of course, by the time the morning rolls around bill is normally lying half on top of rita and drooling a bit on her shirt, which isn’t super sexy but bill will be bill 🤷‍♀️

7. What's their most and least favorite thing about each other? AHHHHHH oh my god. i have to think long and hard about this and it sounds like a cop-out but i truly don't think bill really has a favorite thing about rita. if you ask him what it is, he will actually spontaneously combust from thinking too hard.

but the short answer is her smile!!! he works so fucking hard to make her smile—cracking jokes, doing nice things for her, earning her praise by proving his competence—and he swears it lights up the entire room whenever he can get her to do it!!! 😭 and if he can get her to laugh? he won’t be able to think about anything else but that sound for DAYS

on the other hand, his least favorite thing about her is…well, probably her optimism. she's not very good at it. in fact, most of the time it just makes him feel worse whenever she tells him he’ll just have to try harder next time! like gee, thanks rita! he was already doing that but he’ll take it into consideration… just like he did the last time… and the time before that… and before that…

when it comes to rita though, she would never, even on pain of death, say anything sappy like her “favorite thing” about bill where someone else can hear her, but i think her favorite thing about him is—surprisingly, since it’s his least favorite thing about her—his optimism.

for her, it’s just been so long since she was able to enjoy things without feeling guilt or some kind of loss, but bill somehow never lost that. which certainly isn’t to say he didn’t acquire his fair share of trauma or grief or loss along the way, but he remains steadily resilient in the face of adversity even in the very last iteration—“we’ve had worse :)”—and that strikes a chord with her, i think. then, slowly, being around someone so stubbornly happy despite carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders starts to not only impress her, but it heals her. with his help, she learns to enjoy things again: the delight of a good meal after years of carrying a bad aftertaste in her mouth, the comfort of a spacious hotel room and a soft bed after sleeping on the ground for god knows how long, the satisfaction of a healthy jog just around the block after spending years running at a sprint with no breaks. the all-consuming joy of someone knowing her the way she never dreamed anyone would ever know her again after before. the relief of not having to think about 'before' anymore because now she has an 'after' to look forward to instead.

ahem. sorry. i got carried away for a second.

that being said, her least favorite thing about bill is easy to pin down and that is his complete and utter lack of dignity LOL... rita can say for absolute certain she has never met a man with as little pride as bill cage, and although he is rather funny and makes for surprisingly good company on a quiet day, he is often ridiculously embarrassing to be around and can be very difficult when he doesn’t want to do something because he’s being a chicken about it🙄

14. What little things remind them of each other? ohhhhhhh 🥺🥺🥺 i apologize because u will get a LOT of sappiness for this but-

on bill's side, he is reminded of rita in everything, but mainly in their experiences together. he sees her in a young woman's loosely braided hair as she passes him on the street. he sees her in his coffee cup when the waitress taking his order asks if he wants sugar or cream. he sees her in the sun at 6:45pm exactly, when he and rita sat together on the fence outside the farmhouse and watched it disappear over the horizon. in his lifetime, he's experienced everything with her, and he probably has as many things to remember her by as there are stars in the cosmos.

of course, he's reminded of her in other ways as well. things she taught him. he thinks of her when he looks to the sun to check the time rather than turning over his wrist, just like she taught him. he thinks of her when he does his stretches at the gym, just like she taught him. he thinks of her when he checks all his exits every time he enters a room and someone closes the door, just like she taught him. everything he knows he learned from her and for her.

it's harder for rita though, because she doesn't have anything to remember him by, so she remembers the little things instead: his preferences and whatnot. she pretends not to care when he tells her where he's from or what his favorite color is, but she thinks of him when his favorite baseball team is shown on television, or when she goes for a walk in the park and it starts to rain even though it's sunny out because sunshowers make him smile the brightest :')

26. How are they with PDA? UGHRGRHREHGHUDRHGJSHRKHASG DONT MAKE ME THINK ABOUT ESTABLISHED BILLRITA AND PDA ILL EXPLODE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

no but bill has ALWAYS been a pda guy that much is so obvious!! i think he was always chasing something real with his old girlfriends, and even if it never felt like much with them, it was better than nothing... and then he fell head over ass into the mimic war and the closest thing to PDA he got was a kick in the gut or the barrel a gun trained on his temple, so surely no one can fault him for craving comfort, reassurance, intimacy—anything to take him away from the reality he was living in for even 5 seconds.

...and this did not answer the question at all which is to say bill is SO fucking annoying (affectionate) about pda 😭 rita please hold his hand please kiss him on the forehead please cuddle him he wants to hold you he wants you to hold him PLEASE!!! he will actually die if you don't and then you'll be sad (he hopes) :'(

meanwhile rita is a fan of pda in the way cats are a fan of anything. she either wants all the fucking pda or none of it. if she's not the one initiating, bill is Not the one getting it 😔

#OKAY THATS IT THATS THE POST. I FINALLY FUCKING ANSWERED THIS AFTER 84 YEARS GOD BLESS #ask #reply #thethistlegirl #mutual #edge of tomorrow #bill cage #rita vrataski #billrita #headcanons

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utilitycaster · 11 days

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My biggest complaint about last night's episode was the tonal dissonance between the two halves (thought admittedly I only partially understood the Opal/Ted thing, and will have to watch the VOD on Monday to fully parse it). I find your Hamlet/Sheer Madness metaphor incredibly apt.

During the episode, I wondered if there was going to be a longer wait until we returned to the Hells, and if Aabria and the Crown Keepers had been brought in to fill space while the main cast or parts of it were unable to follow their regular filming schedule.

If that were the case, then I thought that ending the Bells Hells portion of the episode where they did the right choice, and made sense from both a narrative perspective (once the Hells arrive at the encampment, they will report to Keyleth and begin planning for their next steps, thus entering the next arc of their story), and a characterological perspective (they are still fresh off the fight and the loss of FGC, their intial feelings have been established, and while I'd love more rp, I think the next step of actually proccessing it and letting it propell them is more likely to be tied to their next actions/mission). Liam also provided a lovely button with his call to Dorian, and ending it with his call yet unanswerd increases acticipation. It felt very much like the last beats before intermission in a play, or the last episode of a tv show before the mid-season hiatis. I was therefore willing to be more generous. While the tonal dissonance was incredibly jarring, and ultimately I feel did both halves a diservice, I could understand them wanting to a) end on that beat, and b) keep to the usual length of their episodes.

Now that I know we are getting the Hells back presumably sometime after break next episode, I am not only feeling less forgiving, but also rather confused. I can't think of another reason to split the episode beyond shock value, and also can't help but wonder why they didn't just bring the crown keepers in during the second half for what I am assuming is the reunion we will be getting next episode, and have all of the

Opal/Loth stuff happen in a flash-back one-shot at a later date. While the Crown Keepers and their earnest slap-dickery were bound to change the tone regardless due to their nature, I feel that would have at the very least mitigated some of the emotional whiplash.

If you were to speculate, why do you think they made the choice to split the episode this way?

Also if you had to bring the crown keepers into the main campaign, how would you do so while maintaing narrative integrity and emotional tenor? (Or not, sometimes crack is fun, and if you have alcohol induced ideas, I'd love to hear them as well).

I truly do not know why they made this choice. The only thing I can think of, since it doesn't seem to be related to personal life reasons nor giving Sam more time to work on a character since functionally it's not more time than finishing out this episode with Bells Hells and airing a Crown Keepers episode for 93 is the surprise factor. And I'm going to be honest: I know this is something that is fun when you are at the table and so I think the "it's their game and their table" rule applies* but more often than not these surprises end up kind of sucking as a viewer.

I'm going to be honest but very vague re: bringing the Crown Keepers into the main campaign because I am waiting until after next C3 episode, and probably a bit after that, before I say anything more specific, but. I probably wouldn't. I liked the Crown Keepers well enough when they aired, but a lot of the generosity I extended at the time to the rougher patches is something I've since had second and third thoughts about. I would do another Kymal-style two-shot and then I'd have Dorian come back into the main campaign.

*just as a note: It's their game and their table means they get to make the decisions that they want to make and acting entitled and as if you deserve the outcome you personally want - as people did, for example, when Molly died - is, well, entitled and not something you have a right to ask for. It does not mean you can't say "I disliked this choice greatly."

#cr spoilers

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zahri-melitor · 5 months

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Okay I have opened March Solicits. Reactions as I go (and I'm feeling salty today):-

Chip I am trusting you to land this ZEA storyline. Also Zur!Tim is when? I am still hotly anticipating the possible fallout from that.

If Harley is back on Suicide Squad is she leaving Birds of Prey? Please?

(Also hot take but I think we're past the need for Harley to be on Suicide Squad. Part of me perked up at Black Alice and Clock King on SS, but eurgh. Harley)

Is there anything more eye-rollingly boring than "Bruce Wayne origin story" at this point?

Batman & Robin continues to look fine

I'm reminded I need to find time to sit down and start Ram V's 'Tec run.

"What's wrong with Nightwing" (I cover my mouth and laugh) anyway this looks very Tom Taylor levels of stakes.

I woke up to the Barbara discourse so I was already spoiled on this, but... sigh. Kelly Thompson not understanding the need for BoP to have someone in the troubleshooter/research role is hmmm a flaw. I am giving the team some leeway still though, as I DO think they're doing good Dinah content.

Outsiders: ...you know I actually have no clue what DC has done with Nocturna since the 2011 reboot apart from the fact she's apparently back. She's Kate's ex? (who isn't at this point??)

I'm again reminded that putting Poison Ivy on my longlist to read is probably a thing to do.

Red Hood: The Hill - "in their civilian lives, seeds of jealousy begin to drive a wedge between Jason and one of his oldest friends". Now don't get me wrong, actually developing Jason having his own cohort is something that is so necessary, but...it's intensely funny to me to see a book pretending Jason has a civilian life and longstanding friends. Go on.

World's Finest: look, I trust this team but you know what I don't need in my life? "the first meeting of Joker and Lex"

...oh damn, PG don't do this to me, that story concept looks halfway okay? Though it would still be funnier to hear about the team of Kara and Karen, ACTUALLY.

The Flash: you know what? I'm still enjoying Si Spurrier on this. Jai and Max sounds like an AMAZING team up actually.

Speed Force as a title is confusing me in that it's not only a mini, it's a mini that's actually keeping abreast of continuity around it for the characters involved. What is this? post-Crisis? (Keep this energy up)

I'm sorry, Wonder Woman is looking worse and worse. That cover makes me HUGELY uncomfortable. (the flag actually even more than the sword)

Sinister Sons remains looking SO BAD

I acknowledge that Amazons Attack is a bad rerun of a bad event, but also Mary Marvel is in it and I love Mary soooooooo (even though I know it makes other people mad)

The Green Arrow situation has been heavily canvassed, but my personal complaint is, in a slow meandering storyline to start with, we are at issue...10? and we finally get 4 women all at once? Why is Mia arriving with this group? Why are they all together? Why are any of them talking to Waller, particularly current Waller, let alone working for her? Why issue 10/12? (sings the 'devaluing women in Green Arrow again? Is it Tuesday?' song)

The old JSAers minis final issues - yeah that looks fine

CREEPER IN SHAZAM??? What??? The Creeper in a wacky hijinks book? This could be very fun but wow is that a tonal dissonance.

Blue Beetle *whispers* I'd actually be cool with Ted retiring from active hero work again. It's a good look on him.

Ape-ril - BANANA SCENTED COVER????? I feel this has gone underappreciated

I am, actually, excited for the Barda DCInk book. Though I wonder how much of the Furies backstory is going to get softened for it.

I still can't believe they're reprinting Dixon Nightwing AGAIN, in a 1024 page trade paperback. Why not collect Grayson? Why not finish out the Robin and BOP Dixon collections instead? WHY AS A PAPERBACK BRICK with all the downsides of both TPBs and Omnis and none of the benefits of either format?

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eastgaysian · 1 year

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hi ming, as one of tumblr's foremost nicholas britell scholars i was wondering if you had any thoughts on the music that plays in the tomshiv stair scene in 4x04 and their apartment scene in 4x01. to me these moments just sounded so like.... sappy and melodramatic in a way that was tonally dissonant with the rest of the show, and almost made it hard for me to take the scenes as seriously as i otherwise wanted to. am i hearing these cues wrong? not picking up something that britell is doing with them? or are they truly ill-begotten soundtrack decisions?

you're telling me i write papers about music for school and now i gotta write em for my succession blog too when does it end. no it is fun to get a music question thank u caden :)

first thing i'll say is that if you feel like the score is tonally dissonant or overly sappy, then i can sit here and be like Well clearly the use of the leitmotif from andante in C minor is meant to tie this scene to this other scene or this is evoking wagner's tristan chord or whatever, and i don't think that invalidates feeling like it's tonally dissonant or sappy. composing for tv means composing music that's supposed to work with a scene, and if it doesn't then it's not doing its job. i love nicholas britell's work on succession but it is music with a clearly defined job.

truthfully i cannot be assed to do a full harmonic analysis of the piece and i don't think it would be particularly revealing anyway. i think the winds arrangement in 4x04 is interesting, i feel like we mostly get piano and strings in succession music. that might push the sappy feel lol. it's in f minor, the main theme is a simple descending sequence, it's got a little phrygian flair. the extended piano+string arrangement in 4x01 yanks the main theme from the title theme but most succession pieces yank something from the title theme, it's pretty sensible and economic tv composing.

really i think the oddity is that it feels like it's an s4 'tom and shiv theme,' which is... just not something that we've had before? and that is tonally dissonant from how music is employed in the show overall, which underscores emotionally tense moments but not usually in a way at all adjacent to being a 'love theme.' i'm pretty sure most of the Romantic Relationship Scenes are music-free, or if they have music it's a very different feel from the slow melodrama of this piece. i dunno! it's definitely a choice. i'll be listening to see if this piece pops up again in other tom and shiv scenes

#mingbox #was out pretty much all day today ack

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that-rackin-frackin-varmint · 3 days

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#32 — 07/30/2022 7:20 AM

A Long thread commentary on:

(Adding the read more tag here because this post is hefty. All the text proceeding this is my live commentary from back then)

Bruh Elmer how did you end up leaving that brochure out in the open?

This is cursed. Daffy flying? And geese that look like him?

Fashion designer in the making

This isn’t even on Daffy. Why are the ice skating zone and fishing zone in the same vicinity of each other?

Elmer’s good at ice skating, and Daffy got bored before he even started to fish lol

The duality of man

Daffy being chipper the whole comic, while unknowingly ruining Elmer’s day is… not my go-to Daffy story. It’s fun when he drives the narrative and doesn’t just happen to be a nuisance without trying to. They didn’t even interact the whole time. So yeah, this main story feels like a bust.

Present day thoughts: I still stand by this sentiment. When you have characters with big personalities like Bugs, Foghorn, or Daffy Duck, it's better off utilising them for the comic format, since comics lend itself better to more fleshed out/interesting characters. Elmer suffering at the hands of Daffy isn't a comic-only premise, but I argue the reason this premise can work better in the cartoons is because the visual gags can be properly timed-- whereas in comic form, unless you're a really good visual gag writer for comics, the looney tunes gags don't hit as hard. I personally think that a pint of absurdism, art medium-shifting, and momentary tonal dissonance adds to what makes animated looney tunes gags hit. Looney tunes comics are the looney tunes shorts without the music, stage presence, and genius pacing -- which can't be helped, but it is what it is.

#melon ramble🍉#looney tunes #daffy duck #elmer fudd #looney tunes comics

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ghostwise · 10 months

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Self-Rec Tag Game 🌹

Rules: share five of your own fanworks (fic, art, etc.) Then, tag five more people to share the things they've made.

Tagged by @palipunk and @isayashai thank you sm ;v; 💞 I will tag @s1ithers @coldshrugs @arcann @vlwv @ruushes if you like!

Something you absolutely adore:

Four Little Crows off to Meet the Maker :: This is chapter 1 of my Antivan long-fic, Quinta de Talpa, and it sets up Zevran and Hamal's quest to oppose the Crows while also serving as a 'marriage proposal' fic. I think it's a punchy start to a really long project, and I adore it! It motivates me to continue. :)

The door to their room opened before he could knock, and Hamal looked at him, brow furrowed, eyes heavy with lack of sleep. In one quick sweep, he took in the blood-stained clothes. Zevran shook his head. He pushed his way in.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I may have… underestimated things.”

2. Something that was challenging to create:

For Suffering is Such a Part :: AO3 :: This is the first long-fic I finished, and it took me years to complete. I found it incredibly daunting to work on anything longer than 1k, but I was deeply attached to the story and couldn't get it out of my head; I dedicated myself to completing it for several months after picking up an old draft. It's set during the Nature of the Beast quest in Origins. I uh still think about it a lot o_ o;

“My! Aren’t you a poet!” Zevran exclaimed, laughing into his wrist. “Am I just a hunk of meat to you?” Grinning broadly at him now, Hamal settled down on one knee, amid beams of sunlight. “Vhenan, to me you are the spring thaw, and all that comes with it.” Zevran looked at him. He blushed to the tips of his ears. He would definitely have to think of sweet things to tell Hamal in revenge—but he was far more poetic in Antivan, and had been caught off guard, so for now he acquiesced. “The things you say,” he told him softly. “Fine, you win. I’m a spring thaw.”

3. Something that makes you laugh (or smile, if that fits more comfortably):

The Reading Stone :: AO3 :: I love writing silly banter, but I often worry it goes too corny. I fear making anything too tonally dissonant. With this one I just had fun with it, and wrote some ensemble goofiness in Orzammar. :)

“And as I said, there is no need,” Hamal retorts. “You all sound like Ashalle. I can get by just fine without glasses.”

“Not if we go by all those bruises you’ve collected, walking into corners,” Alistair tuts. “How do you manage in a fight?”

“An enemy is just a big shape. I simply hit it until it stops moving!”

“Maker…”

4. Something that surprised you (in how it turned out, how much other people liked it, etc.):

All That Matters is That You've Kept on Living :: AO3 :: This was a sweet short piece between Zevran and Isabela. But it felt unpolished and I almost didn't post it! The response was very positive, I was happily surprised. I still feel I can expand on it. Maybe one day. :)They deserve so much love, two of my favorite characters.

Yanking her legs back she tucks them beneath herself and tackles him with a hug, affectionate but very much exasperated.

“You talk about your husband too much, Zevran! No one will ever want to sleep with you!”

Zevran draws in a sharp breath, then he collapses into laughter.

5. Something you want other people to see:

Not a Homecoming, But Something Like It :: AO3 :: Another fic set in Antiva. This one comes very close to being part of QDT, but ultimately it is able to stand alone. Adelmar is mentioned in FSISAP, too, but only through flashbacks. She's an important part of my extended worldstate, as she helps Zevran heal past traumas, and vice versa (she was a prostitute at the brothel he was born in).

“I’m so glad you’re doing well. So tell me,” she scoots closer and looks at him eagerly, “What sort of life did you have, after you were adopted?”

“Adopted?”

By the kitchen counter, Hamal catches the subtle edge in Zevran’s tone. He pauses, holding the knife in his hand as a lull falls over the kitchen table, but he doesn’t know enough Antivan to guess what’s happened.

What’s happened is this: Zevran and Adelmar came from the same place, and know enough about that life to instantly understand that a lie has been told.

“Oh,” Adelmar breathes after a moment. “You… you weren’t adopted.”

Zevran lets out a laugh. It’s his ‘stalling’ laugh, and now Hamal is looking over, arms crossed, searching his face for clues.

“I was not adopted,” he says.

#this is a fun tag game bc it encourages artists to hype up their work AND gives us a personal look at what creators love to make #giving you all flowers rn 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹#edit: just noticed the buggy text editor cut off the last section ough. fixed.

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rad-roche · 1 year

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i am on the very very very last pages of playback which means naturally i have put it down at 97% and am instead writing an extended post on the big sleep, which is seven books and seventy-seven years of movie ago

the plot of the big sleep, the book, is famously convoluted. this isn't me being dismissive, it works because it is, but it's not the sort of mystery where you have the fun of piecing things together yourself. you're in it for the characters, the tone, the city, all that good stuff, the plot is just a stand to hang the many stylish hats on. i've read the book twice, and i've seen the movie twice. it's mostly humphrey bogart and lauren bacall staring lustfully at one another for an hour and a half. the plot had to be changed to support a 'happy' ending so it goes from confusing to absolutely incomprehensible. it's very, very good. don't worry about it, it's fine

the book isn't my favourite of the series (that'd be lady in the lake) but it's a classic, deservedly so. the long and short of it is, phillip marlowe, private detective, is hired by an ageing oil magnate to deal with his daughter, carmen's, blackmailer. on the way out the door, his other daughter, vivian says 'ah, you're here to find my missing ex husband'. from there a whole bunch more happens. i know this isn't a particularly compelling summary for the people reading this but you have to cut me some slack here not even chandler knew why that guy in the car died. i'm just normal men i'm just innocent men. anyways

the book is named for the bitter, bitter monologue at the end. marlowe has found out what happened to viv's ex-husband: carmen murdered him in a fugue state. marlowe, who is fundamentally good in a world that cannot support it, participates in (briefly) covering up the murder to spare their aging father the horror of finding out what his daughters have done because he's going to die anyway. it's also about the closest the book gets to any kind of optimism

What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now.

if you have party poppers, now is the time to set them off. the movie ending is different. this in itself isn't a bad thing, i'm not of the belief that adaptations have to be totally beholden to the original, but it's a 'happy' ending and it's tonally fascinating. marlowe, in cold blood, chases the bad guy out into the street and into a hail of bullets. he and viv, (who in the end he can't stand in the book) get together romantically. the (mandated) happy ending, where everything works out quote unquote, is so dissonant that it actually feels much darker. i thought that was interesting

#text post #mach speed postin about old ass novels #this is off the top of my head so forgive any details i got wrong but if you know the big sleep You Know What I Am Contending With #we lost so much to the hays code. yeesh #spoilers also the book is worth a read

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wolfsbanesparks · 1 year

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Omg hold up

Darla needs to have a whole adventure in Gothom where instead of doing what she was told to do, which was to grab lunch and come back home, instead makes new friends with the vigilantes and anti heroes.

Possibly even at one point she helps out the batfam with a major mission, all for the trade of the rare Night Wing/ disco wing toy from bat burger, for her brother, Freddy.

And just imagine the conversations they could have!

Night wing: Hey, slow down there, don't you think you're speeding a little too fast in this lane?

Darla: Oh, I'm so sorry Mr. Sir Night wing! You can't run as fast as me, I forgot-

Night wing: No, it's alright, I know enough speedsters and-

Darla: That you're old.

Night wing: ....

Night wing: ....I'm sorry what? H-how old do you think I am??

Darla: Ummm...like, 30. 35? Am I guessing too low?

Night wing, clenching his chest and checking for grey hairs: Guess lower....I beg you....

Aaaa, and Darla teaming up with Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, for whatever reason, seems really neat, too!

This is so cute! Just the tonal dissonance of having Darla’s adventures in Gotham is so fun!

I can totally see her going on a "secret" mission to get Freddy a cool present and along the way gets to hang out with various vigilantes. (Poor Dick feeling old lol). Darla doesn't even think about how much Freddy would like literally anything signed by a Gorham vigilante or two.

I feel like Harley and Darla could match each other's energy. And Harley would get invested in helping her find a limited edition toy. She'd accidentally teach Darla a few swear words and there might be an explosion or two but they get the toy in the end and that's all that matters.

Ivy would be doing her best to wrangle the two of them, but they are a handful even for her. She secretly thinks it's sweet how excited they are.

#ask me whatever you want y'all #darla dudley #batman #harley quinn #dick grayson #nightwing #poison ivy #Darla’s adventures in Gotham continue: now featuring a couple od our favorite rogues!

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mushroom-jack · 4 months

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I MADE A PLAYLIST

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4LiugeS4QsLgJVEpz8Q9cO?si=QLszdBs2RYaSqXK1tkLKLw

please check it out and lmk what you think!!

Linked again here for accessibility

What you’ve done here is given me an 11hr 8m playlist, so I’m not gonna go through and review it song by song like I usually would /silly. Here’s some general thoughts just from looking through it though, and I may give it a more in depth listen at a later date!

- lots of Taylor Swift. No judgement from me, I’m just not familiar with her music.

- Actually loads of these songs/artists I don’t really recognize so you’re gonna have to wait for me to actually listen to some of those (if I do ever get around to it)

- Hozier, generally speaking, is spot on. I write tompercy to Hozier all the time. Francesca Hozier is especially spot on.

- the tonal dissonance going between viva la vida Coldplay to who is she I monster is HILARIOUS

- all the things she said tatu is also a hilarious song to be on this playlist but I’ll take it

- the crane wives <3 tongues and teeth is on my ASOR playlist as well!

- SPIDERVERSE SONGS???????????

- TCHAIKOVSKY SWAN LAKE???????????

- SOMEONE GETS HURT FROM MEAN GIRLS

- glass animals the other side of paradise and take a slice. I’ll take those vibes

- fallout boy. I’ll take those too

- GILDED LILY HELL YEA!!!!!!!!!!!! Gilded Lily is like one of the Percy songs to me

- therefore I am Billie Eilish actually works as a Tom song I never thought about that

I hope you really had fun making it!!! I’ll definitely give it a proper listen at a later date, I just can’t commit to doing it now or I’d never answer the ask, so you just get these initial thoughts for now.

I also have an ASOR playlist, which can be found here

And I HEAVILY recommend my friend @silveritecrow’s ASOR playlists, which are for Tom and Percy respectively. They’re super fantastic, and I love the interpretations of these two characters that they showcase :)

#tompercy #a study of resonance #asks

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ultrahpfan5blog · 1 year

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65 - Review

Decided to go catch 65 on a whim today because I had nothing much to do. Plus, I love Dinosaurs and a fairly decent budgeted movie with Dinosaurs sounded appealing. Maybe because I have been watching The Last of Us recently, but the traumatized father who lost his daughter, finding purpose in saving a surrogate daughter is a story that just works. And it is placed in the confines of essentially a monster horror flick, except Dinosaurs are the monsters in this situation. This film isn't great but I found myself having enjoyed it by the end. I totally admit that anything with Dinsoaurs is an easy appeal for me. Plus the Dinosaurs, although mostly seen in the dark, look pretty good for the most part. I do feel that the film could have been a little tighter at the beginning because the first 15-20 minutes do drag a bit. Also, I feel that the decision to have the little girl not speak english didn't pay off. Because there isn't enough dialogue in the film in between the Dinosaur moments. Adam Driver is performing at a level much above what the film is deserving. Or maybe he's just incapable of not being great. He quite literally carries the film single handedly. The film gets more interesting in the back half where we get some bigger and scarier Dinosaurs as well the ticking clock of impending doom. Certainly the climax is pretty great. All in all, I enjoyed it despite recognizing that the film isn't that great. It kind of straddles an in between, where it doesn't fully embrace the fun of a Dinosaur movie, but neither does it fully able to be a serious sci-fi survival horror film. So there is some tonal dissonance. Apart from Driver, Ariana Greenblatt is excellent as well as Koa. Also, Chloe Coleman makes an impression in a small role. Overall, I would say a 6/10 with an asterix that I am biased towards films with Dinosaurs.

#65 movie #adam driver #dinosaur #scott beck #bryan woods #ariana greenblatt #chloe coleman #65 2023 #65 million years ago #65 film #commander mills

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vegaseatsass · 1 year

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for the ask game!! 20, 21, 22

These are such good ones! Thank you, anon! 20. part of canon you found tedious or boring & 22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores I'm going to do these two together, because when I looked deep within for the answer to 20 (since at this point I am pretty sincerely engaged by every single little moment in KPTS ahaha), I realized that there were the parts of canon I found a bit tedious to get through in my first viewing, that I'm always overeager when I'm showing the series to someone new for them to get through so they get to what I think are the emotional hooks of the story and keep watching, but many of those parts are now the answer to 22? Like every part of Porsche defiantly sucking at his job in episode 2: hard/cringy to watch on the first viewing, but on second glance I'm so proud of him for resisting the situation he was put in every way he knew how. He can't quit, quietly or otherwise, but he CAN suck!! Lol. We see in the bar and the boxing ring that Porsche puts his all into his work and is amazing at it, so it's a bit heartwrenching to me, how being punished and shelved and told he's the worst of the lot is such effective conditioning to get him to start willingly working hard at this role he was coerced into. It's fun to watch bodyguard Porsche be all bamf and hypercompetent later, but it is a loss of agency and there is a tragedy in it, so yeah, I love the freedom and whimsy of episode 2 now and hold it so close to my heart. (I also savor the amount of Tankhun we get in episodes 2 & 3!) Similarly, I, like just about everyone else ever, found the Tawan episodes a bit draggy compared to how enthralled I was in episodes 4-8 and 11-13, but after poring over weird little guy Tawan in my head, and reading meta about him (how he was the woman in the tower and a picture of where Porsche could have ended up, and still might), I'm obsessed with both him and those episodes, and think fandom should talk about both 400% more than it does. I mean, EYE should talk about him 400% more than I do, whenever I forget about Tawan in a ship poll or whatever I give myself the stinkeye but yeah, there is so much to mine in those episodes (Vegas doesn't seduce with whips and chains he seduces with smol sad boy eyes and MARRIAGE PROPOSALS; Arm showing his love by helping you surveil your boyfriend who is his boss?), let's ignore them less, fandom!

To try to give an honest answer about what I find boring in canon now, I will say that I thrilled over all the late canon Kinn/Porsche domestic bliss on my first viewing, and I still love the tonal dissonance of how sweet and happy they seem before the narrative reveals that Porsche's being there is even more coerced than he thought, and Kinn knew that, and now here are 5 other fucked up reveals that they're both going to look away from so they can be together - but bread placement aside, a lot of those later scenes don't really tickle my brain on rewatch. I'm like: GO BACK TO THE FUCKY DRAMA ALREADY!! lol 21. part of canon you think is overhyped See I'm gonna suck at this meme because I don't think that anything is overhyped as in fans talk about something too much when it's not that great, but I will say the early Vegas/Pete interactions (magnum dong condom scene, temple scene) stir almost nothing in me shipwise. I love the stakeout scene for Pete flinging himself at Pol (and on my second viewing, for the realization that Pete is SO competent at so many things but not??? spying??? so why does Kinn keep sending him???), and I love the temple scene for Macau's eagerness to wingman for his brother @ prey animals (and in retrospect, it is fun that they have this "we'll make it through so many near-death experiences together" foreshadowing), but the actual Vegaspete of it all did nothing for me in those moments. It took a while for me to suspend my disbelief when reading fanfic and imagine that there was any chemistry between them before Pete was cackling in the throes of ball torture.

#kpts #asks

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