#Shayled fr

[idkwhatimdoingbutrandom]

Why Heartbreak High Season 2 Feels Different

I was ranting about this in the tags of another post lmao so I think I just wanna make my own post. I really didn’t know how I felt about season 2, especially once I got half way through, so I’m just gonna kinda organize random thoughts here.

Commentary

Lowkey everything falls under this I can’t even lie. My thing is, I can’t fully tell you what HBH2 was trying to say; it might be because it just wasn’t what I was expecting. Season one commented on race relations and sexual trauma and friendship. Season two kind of did that, but it just wasn’t as focused. I hate to say it, but too many things were going on and the cast is just decently big? Malakai’s sexual exploration felt lacklustre, Amerie x Malakai felt lacklustre, Ant x Harper felt lacklustre, Ant’s WHOLE CHARACTER feels lacklustre, Sasha’s performative activism felt lacklustre and like… a performance, Spider… I’ll get into that in a second, the whole election process kinda felt lacklustre (mostly because of the characterization involved), we lost Harper and Amerie’s friendship along the way a little bit with the way we hardly got to address the real issues within it; all the social commentary that came with all of these things fell kind of flat. I won’t say EVERYTHING was bad — because even if we kinda hit restart and redid Ca$h x Darren, I felt like that went solid enough… except for Ca$h’s sexuality conversation centralizing Darren and BACKTRACKING the conversations we’ve already had — but it definitely could’ve been better in my opinion. Just some, NOT ALL, of the commentary this season just felt shallow/ surface level. Everything didn’t make a perfect circle or tie/ work together the way they did in season one.

2. Square One

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel like a lot of the things HBH2 was trying to do was just done better in HBH1. The discussions around sexuality and masculinity and trauma and betterment were all done pretty well from what I can remember of season 1, but then we get to season two and… nothing’s really changed? I get it, they’re teenagers; but also, what am I here for if we’re just restarting and kind of doing it worse? This also ties in with the lack of focus. Season 2’s discussions felt worse because there just wasn’t enough focus, not enough time spent on each thing. Season 2 didn’t really build on season 1. I felt like it was just kinda doing its own thing besides Harper’s trauma because that carried on pretty well. Like we spend hardly ANY TIME in SLT class and that’s where all the magic happens. I kinda mentioned this above, but omg Darren x Ca$h… what happened? Their story was pretty good, but Darren ending up with the Puriteens… they’re too smart. I feel like season 2 kinda undermines the intelligence of the characters. Going from the “you’re my too much” scene to what happened in season two just felt… ????

3. Spider

First of all, it will always be SCREW SPIDER!!! SCREW YOU SPENCER!!!! I hope I don’t have to explain why. With Spider… it just TOOK TOO LONG! We knew what he was like in season one, why did we have to redo this whole thing and TIKTOKIFY IT TOO!? We didn’t need the extra thing with Missy. No offense to that storyline, but if we spent all of that time we did with Spider and Missy with Spider and his mom instead and then realizing his feelings for Missy (which imo came out of nowhere) OR he thinks back on his feelings for Amerie… it would’ve been so much better. TikTok is mentioned like twice, and yet the whole masculinity storyline is basically based off of it. Coach I Forgot His Name was just saying the same thing over and over again, it wasn’t building and the indoctrination process wasn’t that evident. I guess the superficiality could’ve been a point, but Spider is smart. Instead of the whole “just one joke ruins a life,” I wish they were daring enough to actually sprinkle some white supremacist and potentially Nazi (I don’t know the political landscape of Australia so take this with a grain of salt) ideologies in there until it became so extreme that Spider realizes what the hell is going on. Spider’s mom being a TERF is one thing (that we don’t even have time to dive into because the show gives us one damn scene), but we don’t really get to see how that settles in him. How he’ll never be able to please his mother or be who she wants him to be. Idk if I’m making sense lmao. Making Coach a joke character was also a mistake.

4. Rowan

I THOUGHT HIM AND MALAKAI WERE SO CUTE :((((((( My thing is that he was just brought in too early. He could’ve been a major season three character and season two could’ve been spent wrapping up all of season one storylines. Rowan just interrupted everything. He’s incredibly interesting, but with all the things we needed to get done/ wrap up, we didn’t even get as much time as we could’ve with him either. We don’t even get to see what his family life is like or his dynamics with his parents. Because of this, what we would expect to be commentary on mental illness just… kind of isn’t there. And it also takes away from Amerie, and the overall school community (!!!!), being held accountable for/ addressing their bully tendencies. Like as soon as we think “huh everything is fine and good and perfect” after wrapping up season one storylines, the show could’ve spun us around and made us see that there was still a ton of work to do.

That might be it. Maybe there’s some more, but I think this is generally my thoughts. HBH2 was very entertaining and fun and I’ll never get tired of Australian culture, but it still felt different.

#Heartbreak high #heartbreak high s2 #heartbreak high spoilers #heartbreak high netflix #Shayled fr #OK IM DONE YAPPING NOW

[thessalian]

Molly!Warden vs Kinloch Hold, Again

Molly: Okay, this is one of those things where you built on an old ruin, right?

Sentinels: *silent attack*

Molly: ...There aren’t any people in these. Why are they moving?

Finn: Magic, that’s how! Also a tear in the Veil, so possibly demons!

Molly: Just making sure we weren’t dealing with more golem stuff. So ... stabbing will still work?

Finn: Perhaps try it and find out?!?

Molly: *stabs tear in the Veil*

Veil Tear: *seals*

Molly: ...That is the most counterintuitive bit of nugshit I have ever seen. But then again, I shouldn’t be surprised. It worked in Blackmarsh.

Ariane; Finn: ...wut.

Molly: Never mind, just ... chatty statue.

Statue: Horrible Things!

Finn: Um ... looks like we won’t get answers until we seal the rest of the Veil tears.

Molly: So ... did you guys consider maybe not building your mage school / prison hybrid on top of a weak spot in the Veil that sprouts more holes than my old socks for no good reason?

Finn: Actually ... that’s by design. Some of the magic we use works best when near thin places in the Veil, so...

Molly: So ... you have your mage school on top of a spot that could just randomly leak demons at you, and then you get Templars using that as an excuse to be shitlords. No wonder those twits in the library said that things in Kirkwall are getting dicey.

Finn: Oh, Kirkwall. That whole place is built on more blood magic than--

Ariane: WE. HAVE. A. MISSION.

A few more stabbed Veil tears later

Molly: ...This is an actual, literal dungeon. And there’s bones in here.

Finn: .........Fr-from dinner, I’m sure.

Molly: And that last room looked like it contained torture implements.

Finn: I ... have no response to that.

Molly: Dude, no wonder Anders wanted out so bad. Also ... you used to keep your phylacteries in the same space as your dungeons? You know, where you kept mages for trying to escape?!?

Finn: Funny you should say that; they apparently moved them when one of our people went a bit ... erm ... blood magic on the Templars after destroying his phylactery.

Molly: ...His name wouldn’t have been Jowan, would it?

Finn: Well, yes. How did--?

Molly: You should know he went on to try to hide Connor Guerrin’s magic from everybody - failed, by the way, and his lack of decent training got him demon-possessed, and that led to a fun night of beating back undead - and poison Redcliffe’s arl. He got locked up and then kinda executed.

Finn: Oh. No wonder they moved the phylacteries.

Ariane: I’m sure it’s fun dissecting your coincidences one at a time but the armour is coming for us again.

Several stabnations later...

Statue: You’re looking for the Lights of Arlathan, and possibly Cadash Thaig.

Molly: ......Oh, fuck a nug.

Ariane; Finn: What?

Molly: I’ve been to Cadash Thaig. At least we won’t be wandering into unknown territory. Shale ... my golem friend, she was from there. A very long time ago. Back in the Ancient Age. Shayle, of House Cadash. I’d like to see her old monument again anyway.

Ariane: So we go to dur’genlen ruins before we go to elven ones? When looking for an eluvian?

Molly: Statue said they were hidden there, from Tevinter. The Deep Roads is a great place to hide things. And since I already have a map of the place, it’ll be a fairly quick search. C’mon. Thanks, statue-lady. Hope you’re feeling better.

Finn: You have inordinate concern for things made of stone, it seems. Is that a dwarven thing?

Ariane: Are you always this racist?

Finn: ...Possibly I’m a bit sheltered and need to expand my education. Farewell, Eleni Zinovia. We’ll speak again soon.

Statue: Nuh-uh.

Finn: ...waitwut.

Molly: How about parsing the cryptic nugshit while we’re on the road?

Finn: You want me with you?

Molly: I want anybody who can kill a magic-user with their own mana. Last time I went without a mage in a travel group, I got Misdirection Hexed into next Tuesday and had to resort to the kerboom. Oh. Which reminds me. Hey, Sandal! Got any corrupter agent? I found a great recipe for magic-dispelling boom.

Sandal: Enchantment!

Ariane: ...I suppose you’ll do. Just ... don’t ask me if my name means anything in elven, alright?

Finn: Well ... I won’t now...

#Molly!Warden #Thess liveblogs Dragon Age #witch hunt