#because honestly does anyone actually enjoy that whole plot through seasons 5 and 6?

[leupagus]

BRB giving all the Lannisters a way more satisfying story arc than the one the show foisted on them

x

The wedding celebrations for Trystane's brother Quentyn and his new bride Desmera Redwyne lasted for nearly a fortnight, with dancing and feasting and even fireworks set off over the bay at the Water Gardens. Every noble in Dorne (and half the nobles of the Reach) had come; even Prince Doran had attended, and it seemed to do him good. His pain-lined face had been wreathed in smiles and he had sat at the head of the table at nearly every meal, coming out from his seclusion for the first time in ages.

Trystane noticed, too. "I don't think I have ever seen Papa so happy," he whispered, leaning toward her during the feast on the last night.

"It's because he has got rid of one troublesome son," she teased him, tapping her finger on his nose. It was true enough: tomorrow, Quentyn and Desmera would travel back to the Arbor where they would take up their duties as heirs to Paxter Redwyne.

Trystane scrunched his nose and moved closer to her on the bench, sliding his arm around her waist. "Soon he will be got rid of another," he murmured in her ear, kissing her gently on the cheek, then the neck.

"Ah, ah, this is not your wedding yet, little brother," warned Arianne as she briskly tapped them on their shoulders, pushing them firmly aside so that she could sit between them. "Room enough for the Mother, if you please."

"You're my sister, not my mother," Trystane grumbled. "And there isn't enough room for your backside!"

"Trystane!" Myrcella protested, but Arianne had it well in hand.

"If I were Mama, I would spank you on yours," she told him, and swatted at him anyway. Trystane yelped and hit her back, and their end of the table erupted into chaos as brothers and sisters, cousins and friends all shrieked and jabbed at each other, tickling and pinching as one can only do to those one truly loves.

Arianne and Myrcella had been thick as thieves when she had first arrived at Sunspear, still dreadfully homesick and afraid. Uncle Tyrion had promised her that the people of Dorne would treat her well; but though everyone had been kind, it was only Arianne who had truly been a friend at first. She had sneaked into Myrcella's room and hid behind drapes or under the bed to jump out at her, shown her the sights of the Water Gardens and Planky Town alike, even encouraged her to speak with Trystane, who at 15 had been terribly spotty and sulky.

Then Arianne had gone to visit her mother and her family, in far-off Norvos. It had been planned for only a few months, but the time had stretched on and on, and only Quentyn's marriage had brought her back at last. Myrcella had missed her even as she had grown closer with Trystane, and part of her dreaded their marriage that would take her away from the drowsy warmth and comfort of Arianne's company, even as it would deliver her back to her family at King's Landing.

Later that night, Myrcella crept into Arianne's chambers and hid inside the great wardrobe, keeping the door half-open as it had been already. (Arianne was shockingly untidy for a princess, and refused to allow any servant in her quarters to deal with the resulting mess. She used to drag Myrcella to her rooms once a month or so and make her sit on the bed, while Arianne picked up the clothes strewn about the floor or flung over the backs of chairs and complained about her own bad habits. Already, Myrcella thought, Arianne could do with a good cleaning.) A short while later the door to the chamber opened and Myrcella readied herself to jump out, just as Arianne had done to her so often.

But Arianne was not alone.

"—Yronwoods aren't pleased by the match," someone was saying. "Lord Anders thought Quentyn would marry Gwyneth, after being fostered with them for so long."

It was Ellaria Sand. She hadn't been seen overmuch at Sunspear since returning from King's Landing two months ago, Lord Oberyn's body in tow. Since then she'd avoided the court, instead spending time with Oberyn's daughters. The few times Myrcella had seen her, Ellaria had been as warm and friendly as before, but with a knife-edge to her smile that Myrcella recognized all too well from the courtiers in the Red Keep. She'd had taken care not to be alone with Ellaria, nor with the Sand Snakes, since then.

"Then Lord Anders is a fool," said Arianne in her sing-song voice, "and should be regarded as such. Gwyneth is a lovely girl, but she is far too little for a Prince of Dorne. The Arbor is a more valuable holding and the Redwynes far more valuable allies."

"And once Trystane is married to his blonde bastard girl, you will have both your brothers safely out of Dorne," said Ellaria. There was the sound of clothing being moved about, and Ellaria sitting down. "Really, dear, you ought to have someone clean in here. There could be mice, for all you know."

Arianne laughed, as though Ellaria had only insulted her housekeeping. Myrcella's hands clenched into fists. Was this what Arianne truly thought of her? And in Dorne, of all places! Where Ellaria herself, and all her lover's daughters, carried the last name of Sand! Ellaria had made much of the Dornish saying that bastard children were born of love and passion, and thus as trueborn as any child conceived by wedded parents. But clearly she held Myrcella in as much contempt as any of the rest of them would back home, if they knew the truth.

They never knew King Robert, the man who'd never once looked at her or her brothers but with resentment and bitterness. None of her mother's children had been loved, not by that oafish lumbering stag who saw them all as shackles that tied him to the Lannisters he hated so much. What shame was there in knowing her true parents, at least, loved each other? And loved their children, even if only one could dare show it? Myrcella wanted to burst out of the wardrobe and declare that she would gladly call herself Myrcella Waters — Myrcella Lannister — and dare anyone to judge her for it. 

But she huddled further into herself and listened, to hear what else Arianne might say.

"I've stayed away too long," is what she said, "if you're this comfortable calling poor Myrcella such names. She's done nothing to you—"

The scrape of a chair signaled that Ellaria had risen once again. "Her family murdered your uncle, who you seemed once to love—"

"—and yet I have been informed of a certain present you sent to Queen Cersei just a few days ago," Arianne overrode her. "A snake, with Myrcella's pendant in its mouth. Hardly subtle, my dear."

Ellaria did not answer, and Myrcella put her hand to her mouth to keep her own silence. Her pendant had gone missing during the wedding celebrations, she had thought a victim of one of the more energetic dances on that first night. But Ellaria had got hold of it somehow? And sent it to Mother as a...threat, it seemed. Or a warning.

"What do you want, Ellaria?" asked Arianne with more gentleness than Myrcella felt capable of. "The Lannisters have already suffered, even if not by our hand: their patriarch dead, their firstborn dead, their brother Tyrion probably dead and certainly dead to them. Even Casterly Rock itself is in dire straits, from what I've heard. You've spoken to my father a great deal of vengeance — but where will it end? Will it be satisfied with Myrcella's death? Or do you need every child of theirs to die, before killing Cersei and Jaime?"

"I—" Ellaria's voice was thick, and there was a long moment of quiet before she spoke again. "I do not know," she said at last, as if confessing.

"Well, I do know," said Arianne briskly, "and I will tell you, if you will listen."

"...I will," said Ellaria slowly. Myrcella hardly dared breathe.

"Good. I did not linger in Norvos for nothing, much as I love Mama. Do you remember Illyrio Mopatis, the magister from Pentos? We met him years ago, when I was a girl and you and Oberyn took me with you to Essos. You were pregnant with Dorea, I think, and Obella and Tyene followed you everywhere with pillows for your chairs. Illyrio then got you a litter and had you carried everywhere."

"Gods, yes," Ellaria said, chuckling. "And he had one to match!"

"Uncle Oberyn kept crowding out the litterbearer in the front so that he could carry you," Arianne said. "At any rate, I saw him — Illyrio. He came for a visit to Mama's estate, and we spoke at great length about certain plans he has been making."

Ellaria's laugh now was sour. "Ah yes, he and the Spider have been making those plans for nearly twenty years, haven't they? Put the Targaryen boy back on the throne with the assurance that this one is sane." She snorted. "They thought Rhaegar was sane, too."

"If by 'this one,' you refer to Viserys Targaryen, his sanity is a moot point," said Arianne. "He's dead. Has been for several years, apparently. But his sister Daenerys has survived. She's been making quite a nuisance of herself in Slaver's Bay. Along with her three dragons, Illyrio tells me."

"Dragons?" Ellaria scoffed. "Illyrio's always said a great number of things. That never made any of them true."

"Which is why I want you to go and find out what is true. Meet with this Daenerys Stormborn yourself. Take her measure. I could only discover so much in Norvos, with Mama's eye always on me. She doesn't approve of Papa's conciliation to the Red Keep, but stories of Targaryen princesses and their dragons aren't to her liking, either."

"Are they to your liking?" Whatever response Arianne made, it seemed to satisfy Ellaria. "Very well. I have two conditions."

"Only two?"

"First, I shall first go to Pentos first and speak directly with Illyrio. He never could lie to me, and if he is so sure Daenerys Targaryen is the true ruler of Westeros then he'll be willing to back that up with coin and supplies. Which we'll need, in abundance."

Arianne sighed. "Very well. Though if you venture so close to Norvos, Mama will insist you visit her."

Ellaria made a prevaricating sound. "Your mother always liked me best."

"She did. And does. What is your second condition?"

"Our daughters come with me. All of them."

"No," Arianne said flatly. "Aside from the fact that it will look strange to have all the Sand Snakes gone, Lorenza is barely seven years old. You would take her across the Narrow Sea to a slave city?"

"Better than leave her here, where Doran can fill her head with his witterings about peace and forgiveness," Ellaria snapped. "If she dies — if any of us die — at least we will not live like your father."

"Take Nymeria and Tyene," Arianne countered. "Obara, if you must. The rest of the Snakes are better off here. What would Sarella do in Meereen, or Astapor, or Yunkai? Those cities do not have a reputation for academic pursuits."

"She can bring her books with her. All of us go, or none. I want nothing of Oberyn left behind for someone else to take from me."

Arianne sighed. "I'll consider it. But I want you to consider, too. If this Daenerys Stormborn is what she is said to be, she will retake the Iron Throne 'with fire and blood.' Take care that it is not your blood, my dear."

They spoke for a bit longer, until the bells chimed the hour and Ellaria departed. How long until Arianne went to bed? Myrcella might stay here the whole night and then what would she do? Who could she tell? Who did she want to tell?

"You are thinking loudly enough to wake the entire palace, little lioness," said Arianne, and opened the wardrobe door all the way. Myrcella shrank back but it was no use; Arianne was looking down at her, shaking her head. "Let's talk, so that you might be a little quieter."

"Are you going to kill my brother?" she asked, not moving.

"No," Arianne said, with a certainty that Myrcella could not help but believe. "Nor will I let anyone else. We do not hurt children in Dorne." She held out her hand, and Myrcella took it.

They sat down on the bench near the window, the one that overlooked the whole of the palace and beyond that, the city of Sunspear itself. The stars here were clear and bright, even with the torches and lights from below burning merrily at this late hour.

"Tommen's in King's Landing, not Dorne," was the first thing Myrcella could think of to say. "And he's not a child anymore." Nor am I, she thought.

Arianne rolled her eyes. "So literal. I forgot this about you. You're right — he's a man grown now, and a husband soon, and already a king. But he is not to blame for the way things are now, anymore than Viserys and Daenerys were to blame for what their father and brother did during the Rebellion."

"My father always said Uncle Stannis should have killed them when he had the chance." She could remember that argument well, as it was one Robert made whenever Uncle Stannis irritated him — which was often. You had only to take them and drown them, and you couldn't even manage that! My brother the great tactician, bested by infants! 

"I very much doubt your father said any such thing," said Arianne tartly, "Though I am sure King Robert said it often enough." She tilted her head as she regarded Myrcella. "When did you first realize? About your parents?"

Myrcella hesitated, but it seemed silly to pretend ignorance now, of all times. "I've always known, I think. When the ravens came from Dragonstone, from Uncle Stannis, saying that we were bastard-born...it wasn't a surprise." Nor had she been surprised at her not-uncle's blunt declaration, cutting himself off from all claims of blood and family. Stannis had always been a hard man to love; she suspected he found it hard to love others in turn. Perhaps it had been as great a relief to him as it had been to her, to know there was nothing that bound them to each other after all.

"I am glad you know," said Arianne, "but that is one reason I wanted you to hear Ellaria's plans, as well as my own. She wants to hurt your mother and father very badly. Her rage has made her blind. My hope is that distance, as well as time, will allow her to see clearly again. But in the meanwhile it is best for everyone if you and she are far away from each other."

"But...those things you said, about Daenerys Targaryen. You want her to come here?"

Arianne sighed and took Myrcella's hands in hers. They were small and soft, dwarfed by Myrcella's long fingers. "Daenerys Stormborn is coming here. Nothing can stop that; sooner or later, she will arrive with her dragons, and she will take the Iron Throne. If your brother and your parents are to survive it, they must have somewhere to go. Someone who will take them in."

Myrcella stared at her. She couldn't mean Dorne; for one thing, Mother would never agree to live out her days here, strolling about the Water Gardens and bathing in the Summer Sea. For another, the Martells and the Targaryens had a complicated enough relationship; even Doran, even Arianne, wouldn't risk the wrath of a new queen by hosting the old king.

"Perhaps Highgarden—" but even as Myrcella said it she could see it for the farcical suggestion it was. She'd never met the Queen of Thorns, but she knew the Tyrells had sided with the Targaryens during the Rebellion; Olenna Tyrell would be only too happy to turn the Lannisters right back over to Daenerys should they put a foot wrong, even if Tommen's marriage to Margaery went through. Which left—

"Casterly Rock," she said, and felt ashamed that it had taken her so long to understand. "You want me to hold the Westerlands." It made sense: Jaime was still in the Kingsguard and likely to remain so, and Uncle Tyrion was long gone (and would be barred from inheriting anyhow, given the accusations that he had murdered Grandfather). Uncle Kevan and Lancel might have claims to it, but Tommen's last letter had mentioned Lancel's latest obsession with some odd religious sect that had gained popularity in the Crownlands. Which left...herself, of all the remaining Lannisters.

Arianne nodded. "Casterly Rock. You were raised to be the wife of a great lord. But I think you are better suited to be a great lord yourself." She lifted her eyebrows. "More importantly, little lioness, what do you think?"

All at once she wanted it more than breath: a home of her own, a castle, a people, a kingdom. A chance to be fair and kind and noble not just amongst the simpering painted faces of court, but in a place where fairness and kindness mattered. She could take Casterly Rock and make something more of it than the just golden bank of Westeros. Myrcella could feel a ravening hunger in her that she'd never imagined, that would take all of the Westerlands to sate.

Myrcella held on tightly. She could feel her fingers turning to claws, her hair a wild mane. "Yes," she said, her voice barely above a whisper but roaring louder in her head, in her throat, in her chest. "Yes."

#is Myrcella a little gay for Arianne? listen who isn't #I firmly believe if Arianne had been allowed to exist on the show things would've gone way better for the Martells #just like in general #and yes I know I'm not having Quentyn do his Essos thing but lbr that baby should just live in a nice protected arbor #he is not made for shenanigans! #anyway today me and mardia hashed out what the lannisters were up to #because honestly does anyone actually enjoy that whole plot through seasons 5 and 6? #this baby can fit so many actually competent characters #got: bitches get stuff done #game of thrones motherfuckers #ficcage of interest

[catgirl-catboy]

choose violence 3 6 7 8 9 10 16 22 and 25 for total drama (and i’ve just realized that’s a lot a lot so obvi if u don’t wanna answer all of them that’s all good)

No worries! I'm happy to scream about Total Drama! Worst case scenario, I get tired and simply finish the rest later.

3.) screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

Shipping Raj x Wayne is somehow homophobic because Raj is in a canon gay relationship. Polyamory is a thing, and somehow I don't think homophobes would enjoy the idea of a fanon m/m ship somehow.

Honestly, any time people expect canon queer couples to be given special treatment in fandom it annoys the shit out of me. Someone will dislike the vibes of the ship. Its inevitable. Honestly, I'm surprised that someone wasn't me this time, since happy relationships like Rajbow aren't usually my jam.

6.) which ship fans are the most annoying?

Can I bash the shippers for my favorite TD ship (of Duncney) for a second?

Shut up about the love triangle. Shut up about Courtney's character derailment. Literally every ship was wronged by canon, we aren't fucking special. A vast majority of the ship tag shouldn't be bitching about canon.

7.) what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

...honestly, thats a hard one. I feel like hate is a strong word, but I don't understand the hype for Noah. (and any Noah ship that isn't Nowen or Noah x Emma.)

Like, sure. He's sarcastic. So what. That makes him a 5/10 at best. He never does anything but be sarcastic and then be mindlessly in love.

I don't hate him though.

8.) common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

lean in. come closer, I don't want anyone else hearing this.

Dramarama is good. and funny. and I like it. Why is it despised?

9.) worst part of canon

The fart jokes are low hanging fruit, so I won't pick them.

I hate how everyone in gen 1 had to be coupled up. What relevance Izzy/Owen have on the season as a whole? Or Geoff/Bridgette? (I like them but point still stands.)

If you introduce a canon couple and get me invested in the romance, it has to actually go somewhere. Lyler was a plot device to get you to hate Heather. Duncney went through an entire arc. Gwent was amazing.

Why do no other ships bring that energy?

I love Samkota, but Sam was just a trophy husband for Dakota after her mutation. He's a passive participant in his own romance arc.

Gens 3 and 4 improve on this I think, but it still annoys me.

10.) worst part of fanon

this is incredibly petty and personal, but WHY IS CODY EVERYWHERE? He squicks me. So much. (honestly, the fact that he reminds me of a past experience when most creep characters don't proves that he feels like a real person. but no.) Why is half the fandom Cody. Can it not be?

16.) you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

I answered this before and I said Lesbian Emma. Now, I'm going to go with Gwortney. These two could barely sell and interesting friendship, and somehow you expect them to carry an entire romance plotline? Its the most bland of bland ships. If you want a Sapphic way to resolve the despised love triangle, Gweather is right there. They actually have chemistry.

It feels like they took all of Duncan's hard work of getting Courtney to relax and enjoy life, and made Gwen have the same effect on her when it doesn't make sense with the characterization. If anything, Courtney making Gwen be more serious makes sense.

(that being said, I'm glad you are having fun, and will reblog cute art.)

22.) your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

The episode recaps. I want Chris to recap my day. I love them.

25.) common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

Other than the love triangle?

Heather's plot armor.

Owen had just as much, if not more plot armor. He makes the group sleep in the woods? Fuck it, Katie and Sadie get lost.

Single-handedly blows the cooking challenge? Uh... (Total Drama writers thinking up Bullshit) Beth and the Statue pisses everyone off more, somehow!

He betrays the guys alliance? This has no concequences for him.

At least Heather's plot armor didn't cause her to win a season.

#ask tag #ask game #total drama

[klahadores]

✨ let's play 10 Qs for GK! 🎆

1- fave character besides harvey/twoface? 2- fave harvey/twoface scene? 3- fave dynamic between 2 characters? 4- best character development? 5- most memorable line? 6- fave plot twist? 7- what did you think of twoface? 8- something you loved about the creation/design? 9- anything you would change about the season 1 plot or characters? 10- what did you think of the season 2 setup?

💌 thanks for sharing the love! #GothamKnights 🦇💋

SLAYYYYY i love quesitons about htingsss this is how i look rn answeirng these btw 👇🏽

in addition to harvey/two face (because he really was showstopper sawwy to the knights), but i reallyyyyy adore duela. not only was she hilarious, her character arc/development throughout the show was great. always enjoyed whenever she was on screen i was like omfgggg my bestie !!

where do i even begin......the one that sticks out in my little brain of mine is when harvey overdoses on his anxiety meds and meets face to face with harv/fugue!harvey. that was absolutely incredible and i replay that scene in my head like a rotisserie chicken bc those writers put their whole pussy into it

at first i was going to say duela and carrie because their dynamic was soooo much fun but after 1x13, harvey and duela pulled my heartstrings like damnnnnnn i did ackshully tear up at that monologue naurrr don't let my mutuals know that. honorable mention are the row siblings because WAHHHHHHH 🥺😭 they mean so much to me

i mentioned duela's development in my first answer and i am not very eloquent with words if we're being honest but the way that she gained a sense of purpose and wanting to actually help gotham through all the trials and tribulations that were thrown at her...really wish we got to see more of that

it's a toss up between "big dent energy" and "guess who rode of the bat wang" .....honestly anything that comes out of duela's mouth is funny as hell who let her be that way

hmmmmmmmmmmm my fave was def harvey being duela's dad. did i call it from a mile away? yes, but it was absolutely satisfying to be right. i actually cheered out loud and punched the air MWAHHH

gosh, when we finally got to see his whole entire face, that shit was absolutely terrifying in a good way. interesting way of how rebecca was the one to toss that acid on his face. sadly, as much as it was all scrumdillyumptious, two face had like a total of three minutes of screentime and we will more than likely never see him again....does anyone have james gunn's number i need to ask him for a favor,

im not following any of the cast and crew of gk pero i have seen some of their tweets and the level of dedication these people put into the show....anyways, everything was so well thought out,,,i nominate the bat cave that shit was really cool. loved the water concept since it wasn't done before in the dc universe

LOL ermmmm, *scratches neck* is this thing on.....NOT to be mean or anything but i wish there was more action. as much as i luv the pauses for breath, i also luvvv ffight sequences. also a part of me thinks the show dragged a little. i know it was only 13 episodes but 18 would've been better. and though i loved the funny bits, sometimes i wish the show took itself seriously. they tried to target to gen z but mannn, at times i had to kinda duck my head bc it was embarrassing and i'm not even gen z. idkk i cant be too harsh on the show bc they did what they could and i enjoyed it overall!!

where is the s2 blueprint ik they're sitting somewhere in the producers' houses....but yeah, i actually liked how gotham knights ended! it works well ffor a mini series. the ambiguity of it all is ripe with possibilities for the fans to gnaw on. turner being trained to become the next batman, the gotham knights putting their boots back on to save the city thinking turner is gone for good, harvey allowing harv to take over with the potential of becoming a major problem....tag me in any stories you write, you guys 👍🏽❤

#ask #omgggg thank you saurrrrr much for sending me this ask i had a blast answering these <333 #everyone go watch gotham knights right neowwww if my dad who owned a comic book store enjoyed it you will to ^_^

[neongreengummiebears]

Disorganized Thoughts on Sex Education Season 3

I binge watched the entirety of season 3 on Friday, and after sitting with it for a couple days, I have composed myself enough to offer some thoroughly disorganized thoughts on what I’ve seen. 

     While I did enjoy many things about this season, I don’t understand the people who claim it was the strongest. In fact, I believe that it was the weakest. I don’t know what exactly happened during the delay, but I swear they have to have lost staff. Writers, perhaps editors? Whoever usually reins things in a bit, keeps the show grounded, and everyone in character. Whoever had that job, they’re either gone, or they’ve just stopped giving a fuck which, while relatable, is unfortunate in regards to this show. Now what do I mean by that? Let me elaborate:

1. This season was gross. And I don’t mean in general, like I didn’t like it. No, I mean that the writers decided that being sexually explicit wasn’t funny enough and decided to add just a fuck-ton of fart jokes and toilet humor. And I get it, okay? This show prides itself on being crass. But you can be crass without being disgusting. I acknowledge that this comes entirely down to personal preference, but I can’t stand toilet humor and I feel like this season really ramped it up. Every episode was someone farting or talking about shit, or that god forsaken thrice cursed bus scene. Sex doesn’t gross me out, talk about sex all fucking day I don’t care, but I don’t need to watch an extended scene of someone digging their own shit out of a bus toilet in a sock and chucking it out the window onto someone’s car. And even just smaller things, like Aimee talking about the flour constipating her or her taking a massive shit in Jean’s toilet when she and Maureen were there. Those scenes weren’t necessary for the plot in any way, which leads me to believe they were just there because someone thought they were funny and if that’s you’re thing go off, but it most definitely isn’t mine. 

2. Ruby and Otis. And more importantly, what was the point of Ruby and Otis? Now don’t get me wrong, I like Ruby as a character and I found their relationship interesting. And I think that it would have been even more interesting if the writers had devoted more time to properly developing it- Ruby was getting better as a person but she wasn’t there yet. I liked it once Otis started standing up for himself more, and demanding respect in the relationship and as she started to actually care for him she did come to treat him more respectfully. I think with more time they could have been really good. But they didn’t get that time- she said she loved him and they didn’t even work through that fiasco before he was kissing Maeve at a gas station. Overall it had a lot of potential but the way they played it left me just sitting here like...why? Like from a narrative standpoint what was even the purpose? Because from where I’m sitting it really only served as yet another roadblock standing between Otis and Maeve and even though I shipped them like CRAZY in season 1 and 2 the constant unnecessary roadblocks are getting a little old. Which leads me to my next point...

3. Why was Maeve and Otis so unsatisfying? That’s not actually a rhetorical question, I can tell you: Because the writers put so little effort into what is supposed to be the main couple on the show. I feel like they put more effort into keeping them apart and then when it comes time to put them together they’re just kind of like NOW KISS, they only talk like once after and then they ship Maeve off to America. Now I’ve heard rumors that Emma Mackey might not want to return to the show for season 4 so if I had to guess at all of this I would say that both this point and the last was a sloppy attempt to cover their asses in the event that they can’t get her to sign back on. If she does return, they can explore the relationship between her and Otis in season 4. If she doesn’t, they’re probably going to put him back with Ruby. But they couldn’t just write her off without at least touching on the relationship they spent the past 2 seasons building, even though Otis and Maeve barely interact in this season, which is frankly another reason why it felt so shoddy. They spent exponentially more time talking to other people and then half the time when Otis was talking to her he was super cringe. 

     Overall, despite loving their relationship initially, the characters have changed so much from their original dynamic, and have interacted so little, that I really don’t even know what’s pulling these characters together. It’s disappointing to admit that I’m kind of over it but honestly even the writers don’t feel invested. it kind of feels like they put them together because the audience expected it and after 3 seasons of anticipation the payoff was generally underwhelming. 

4. Otis. Just...Otis. I understand that Otis was introduced as being a very nice helpful character in season one. He was the quintessential good guy. And then in season 2 he got to explore being a douche for a bit- which is fine. He is a teenager and he was going through some shit. But I really felt that by the end of season 2 he should have resolved that particular plot point. And he was a little better in season 3 I guess? But he didn’t really progress until the end of this season and from a writing standpoint I feel like they really dragged that out for too long. 

5. What’s with this show and it’s hard on for cheating? Like seriously, why does almost every relationship have some kind of infidelity. Like, were Otis and Ruby officially broken up when he kissed Maeve? Maeve certainly hadn’t broken up with Isaac, and this was almost directly on the heels of their very emotional sex scene. There was the issue with Jean and Jakob last season, and Eric cheating on Rahim with Adam. And then Eric (for some reason) cheating on Adam this season with random Nigerian dude whose name I can’t remember. Just...why is this a thing? 

     But also can we just talk about how weird the break up was? And out of left field? Like they literally spent the whole season developing their relationship, and then they get to Nigeria and after hiding the whole time he is subtly able to talk about Adam to his grandmother. And he sounds so proud, and so nice when he’s doing so, and not at all like he’s planning to end this wonderful relationship he’s describing. And then when he gets back, guilty after cheating on said boyfriend (like he should be) he asks Adam, seemingly as a test, if he would go out to a club with him. And Adam says no because that isn’t his scene and like...Eric knows that isn’t his scene. But at the same time, I feel like if Eric had sat him down and been like “You don’t have to wear makeup or dress outlandishly, just come to the club with me because it’s important to me” I really think Adam would have gone. And if the clothes and make-up were a dealbreaker like...why? You know who you’re dating. And while wanting him to tell his mom isn’t an overwhelmingly outrageous request, when you start getting into his physical appearance then that’s just actually trying to change him as a person and that’s just a really shitty thing to do. 

6. I promise there will be some positives in this list at some point but before that...what the fuck Eric? Like, I understand that Eric wants to get out there and explore his options, find someone more comfortable doing the things that he wants to go do. That’s realistic I guess, your high school relationships don’t work out and just because Adam came out for him he still isn’t obligated to stay in a relationship with him. But from a fictional narrative standpoint? What the fuck is this? Adam and Eric were one of the most popular ships on the show. They have been foreshadowed since season one, and had so so much effort put into developing them both as characters. Adam has come such a long way. They have brought him so far out of him comfort zone that Adam in season 3 is almost a completely different person to Adam in season 1. They spent so much of this season further developing the relationship they established last season, and for what? To break them up at the very end? WHY? 

7. Following on the heels of point 6, Aimee and Steve. They didn’t need to break up. I understand the direction the writers were taking this- Aimee wants to be single for a while to fully process her trauma and get to know her own body again. And that’s valid. I just don’t like it because I very strongly suspect that she will have a new love interest next season and that all her stuff about being single isn’t going to be shown. It will all happen off screen during whatever time skip they employ between seasons and then they’re going to use the fact that she is single to introduce a new more dramatic love interest for her since golden retriever boy Steve wasn’t interesting enough for them. Maybe that’s just me being cynical but if anyone can come out of season 3 NOT feeling a little cynical it would probably be a miracle. 

8. A positive! Finally a positive! I love the relationship between Adam and Rahim. Do I want them to date? Not particularly. I wouldn’t be mad if it happens, but I really just like them as like awkward begrudging friends. Some of my favorite scenes this season were the interactions between the two of them (Once again, the disgusting bus ride notwithstanding) I like Rahim a lot more when he isn’t interrupting my ship (which is a habit of mine. I liked Ola a lot more once she broke up with Otis) 

9. I don’t think Viv was out of character. Some people have been saying that she was, but I don’t think so. She has always been ambitious and even Jackson understand that about her in the show. And even when she was working for Hope and carrying out her rules, she was never an antagonist because she never gave up her personal morals to do it. For example, when Hope had them divided into boy and girl lines, Jackson asked her where Cal should go. She told him that boys went to the left and girls went to the right but as soon as Cal was like “Im not a boy or a girl,” Viv was immediately like, “ Oh! Right! Let me ask Hope.” She approached the situation in a way that made it clear that she recognized this issue as a legitimate problem and when she went to Hope it wasn’t framed like “This person is being an issue refusing to choose,” but instead like “We didn’t account for this possibility, that was our bad. How should we fix it?” Later on, on the class trip, Viv even lied to Hope and told her everything was fine because she didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. Viv took the opportunities presented to her, but I never interpreted it as her being an antagonist in any way. 

10. I love that Viv and Jackson remained friends, and I love that Viv has her sexy long-distance boyfriend who sexts about wheat XD Her sexting was one of my favorite scenes- well written, laugh out loud hilarious. No complaints. Sexy boyfriend was indeed very sexy and honestly, Viv absolutely deserves him. 

11. Mr. Groff better apologize to Adam next season, or at the very least have any kind of fucking conversation with his son at all or else why the fuck did I watch SO MANY scenes developing him as a sympathetic character? They could have spent that time developing ANYONE, but instead we were focused on him so like...I’m going to need some kind of payoff. Make it relevant

12. I want more bonding scenes between Adam and Maureen. I love Maureen- I love her friendship with Jean and I love how she always chooses her son over  her estranged husband (as she should) I especially love her very loving and supportive relationship with Adam, even though Adam is terrible at communication. It’s a self indulgent wish, I’d just like to see more. 

13. Isaac. I made many posts after the season 2 release, about how much I despised Isaac. Unlike Ola, I find that I didn’t have a complete change of heart but I don’t hate him AS MUCH as I did before. I still don’t like him though and while you might think “Yeah but you hate anyone who stands in the way of Otis and Maeve” no. This is historically accurate and yet, this season? Not true. For example, I don’t hate Ruby. Do I think her inclusion in the story was handled poorly in a way that made the entire plot point unnecessary? Yes I do. I also feel that way about Isaac, but less so because I feel like the relationship between him and Maeve deepening was better foreshadowed and was kind of the natural conclusion given the events of the previous season. As a character though, I still don’t really like him, and after 2 seasons of him I don’t think it has anything to do with him interfering with Maeve’s relationship with Otis- I just legitimately don’t like him. And I don’t like him with Maeve. I think the biggest irritant this season was the way that, after confessing about deleting the message he was like “yeah I fucked up but only because I like you so much, just forgive me” And then at one point I believe I remember Maeve apologizing to him for her reaction to everything. But then when he found out that she kissed Otis (admittedly a shitty thing to do) he got so mad and like, held a fucking grudge about it. And I get it, he has a right to be mad, but also boy you were the one groveling like 2 episodes ago get over yourself. They both fucked up in different ways but he acts like he has the moral high ground all the time and it gets really annoying. I don’t know, maybe I’m letting my general dislike of the character color my perception of events, but this show has managed to change my opinion on characters before but it still hasn’t made me like him so I think it’s just not going to. 

14. What the hell were they trying to do with Hope? Like legitimately, what? Because I can’t quite figure it out. And that’s mostly because I feel like they were trying to make her a nuanced and sympathetic villain, but they broke a cardinal rule- To make a villain sympathetic you must also ensure that nothing they do is inherently irredeemable. For example, principal Groff. He was a grade A dick for the past 2 seasons but I still feel that, now that we have a sympathetic backstory, if handled properly he could still come back from this. He can see the error of his ways and if he works really really hard to make amends to his family he could perhaps have his character turned around. In Hope’s case however, I would argue that they did makes her nuanced, but failed to make her sympathetic because as a character she went too far. If they had stuck to her just being a general tyrant of a headmaster - enforcing strict rules and regulations but doing so out of insurmountable pressure from her own bosses -  and then softened us towards the character by showing us her willingness to help Maeve get a scholarship, her troubled marriage, and her inability to conceive, it could have worked. The trouble is when they brought in her racism and general bigotry. Those weren’t flaws brought on by stress, those were deeply rooted character flaws that the character isn’t going to overcome because by the end of the season the character hasn’t even admitted them to herself. The issues were addressed by others, but not by Hope herself, leaving me to believe that the character herself still views them as a nonissue. I would be very surprised if she even appears in season 4 and moreso if they manage to even half-way redeem her. I’m relatively certain we won’t see her again, which makes me question the effort put into her character development. 

15. I like Jakob as a character, I don’t like him as a love interest for Jean, but I LOVE him as a father figure for Otis. It’s very conflicting because I want him to stay in Otis’s life, but I don’t like him as a romantic interest for Jean. also it’s pretty clear he isn’t Joy’s father so that’s going to be an awkward fucking conversation. If she even tells him. The way the show is going I kind of feel like she won’t, or will at least put it off for as long as possible. 

16. I want more interaction between Otis and Jean. Positive interaction, not just her being intrusive or Otis being a little bitch. I like their mother-son dynamic when they’re getting along so I just generally want more of it. 

17. Adam. Adam has become my favorite character in this show and I just generally want more of him and his relationships with others. I love his relationship with his mother but I want more if him and Emily, and him and Ola and now him and Ruby. I want to see him and Ruby discussing the Kardashians. I want him to train Madam and enter her in more competitions and just ultimately grow his social circle. Get all the love and support for god’s sake this boy needs it. 

Im sure there are plenty of things I’m forgetting and you can ask me about them if you like but for now it’s late and I’m tired. 

#sex education season 3 #sex education season 3 spoilers #sex education #otis milburn #eric effiong #adam groff #jean milburn #maeve wiley #Aimee #I don't know Aimee's last name #My bad

[absolutebl]

This Week In BL

April 2021 Part 5

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Close Friend Ep 2 (JaFirst) - First is a cat. No actually a cat. It was WEIRD. Cute, but creeping towards beastiality. It reminded me of that strange series out of China (@heretherebedork says Youth in the Breeze). The most amusing thing to me was that the cat used Thai formal linguistic register when of course cats would use informal rude guu mueng with EVERYONE. No cat would use pom. Don’t be ridiculous, Thailand. 

Second Chance Ep 5 - still invested, things progressed for all 3 couples, in one direction or another. They cuties. I love them. Carry on. 

Y-Destiny Ep 5 - the “virgin scoreboard” is gonna make the seme real hard to redeem with this pairing. If they bother. This might be a life lesson episode. What does it remind me of? Oh yes. Kids. *SHUDDER* Point of interest: did you notice Team uses ha with Mon? What a pushy flirt. 

Lovely Writer Ep 10 - honestly I just love it when Poppy shows up in anything, why is he such a delightful screen presence? (Gene’s brother) Sorry, distracted. What happened in this one? Oh, ya know, stuff and things. Family drama. (It is just me or have they been giving us some long ass episodes lately?) Obligatory beach trip activated. (Result = dumb probability mathematics jokes.) Next week it looks like we have Keeping Actor’s Closeted 101. You know the Casting Couch? This is the Casting Closet. 

Fish Upon The Sky Ep 4 - early stage confession, how fun. It’s not unprecedented it just usually means we are in 4 act structure, not 3, which means Fish might go more serious than I thought. Honestly? I’m losing interest mostly because I’ve gone from mild annoyance to active dislike of Pi. Happened to me with Tine too. They better redeem this obtuse tsundere uke soon or he’s not tsundere at all he’s just a jackwit. 

Brothers Ep 13 fin - a kiss and the family finds out about the not-so-brotherly brothers, drama, graduation, THE END. My side-dish happy heart made thumps over Q + delivery boy, I’m sad they got so little screen time. My babies KhunKaow did get a tiny coming out sequence as such. I’m seriously considering doing myself a bootleg of just the KhunKaow plot, but that means I’d have to rewatch the whole darn series and I can’t STAND the idea. Which should give you insight into how not good this show it. Very NOT good. Must we get a season 2? Please stop now, Line. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

HIStory 4: Close To You (Taiwan) Ep 7 - Muren is the cutest peanut and anyone who says otherwise can fight me, although they probably have to go through Licheng first. I was NOT invested in these two at the beginning, but as a couple? They own my soul. The other storyline is still the dumpster fire that I can’t decide to roast marshmallows over (knowing they’ll get tinged with eu de trash) or flee from in horror clutching my pearls and my nose. H4 continues to provide the quality psyche torture I’ve come to expect from this franchise. *sarcastic thumbs up*  *** A word on seeing Boxiang show up (side dish from H3:MODC). It was an unexpected pleasure, I loved his pairing (May/December is a winner for me *glares at Method*) but I do think it was a bone from the franchise telling us that we are never getting that spin-off or reboot that people yearn for. However, how AWESOME that Licheng has someone to go to and ask about topping properly. Otherwise he’s sure to have screwed it up. (Pun intended.) 

Papa & Daddy (Tailwan) Ep 1-2 - this came out of nowhere and is ADORABLE. Applies a ton of BL tropes (cheek kiss, his closet, B&W stripes, drag baby around, boop) but what IS it? More slice of gay domesticity than romance. Like 2019′s Kinou Nani Tabeta? or currently airing Close Friend. I enjoy this style, very wholesome, but I’m not sure what to call it. (Bonus points for cutie lesbians.) A bit weird to have a kid with your partner and STILL not be out to your parents. I hope they aren’t going to throw in a break up for dramatic effect. 

My Lascivious Boss (Vietnam) Ep 4 - I’m really enjoying this series. It’s unabashedly queer, although there’s some problematic stuff lurking under the wig. How it ends is gonna dictate if they handled this stylishly. But hot damn the leads ZING on screen together and their crackling prank-flirting is a joy to watch. 

Word of Honor (China) Ep 31-33 - moving into the home stretch. Big rescue and the band is back together (presumably for the final slaughter). Then a death! *this is my shocked face* Did I tear up? Of course I did. 4 act structure is designed for maximum pathos during the final 1/4. Did we all faint from the symbolism of the love token hair stick being gently thrust into Ah Xu’s bun? Sure we did. All that and sill I’m flagging. This is a long-arse show. Save me, Korea, with your iItsy bitsy teenie weenie...

Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding (Korea) Ep 5-6 - I am getting such strong 12th Night vibes from this. Tae Hyung is now brigadier of BL’s historical himbo brigade. (To be deployed whenever you are in need of poetry or a cut sleeve.) This show is all ridiculous charm and I LOVE it. Although, five seconds of Lee Sang is not enough Lee Sang. I had to immediately rewatch Wish You. 

Gossip

Nitiman gave us an actor intro BTS teaser. 

Kang In Soo (AKA Kyang Insoo) posted a cute behind the photo shoot of Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding plus a silly interview with Jang Eui Soo on his YouTube channel (you should subscribe, it’s a fun channel, his fitness regime is both insane and inspiring). 

My Engineer 2 dropped a couch interview with the boys but it feels like one that was filmed a while ago (oh and no subs).  

STARTING SOON: Nitiman, Love Area, Top Secret Together, Be Loved in House, & I Promised You The Moon  

Nitiman (Thai) May 7, One 31. University set, moons, engineering students, enemies to lovers, adapted. - Looks to be a solid 2 Moons knock off, I’m in.

Love Area (Thai) May 8, AIS Play, 10 eps total. Restaurant set, stars Pak Chavitpong (the only good thing about Cupid Coach) and the OST is sung by Jeff Satur (Ingredients). - It’s boys in love revolving around food = my kryptonite, try to stop me from watching this probable trash. 

Top Secret Together (Thai) May 14, Line TV. 5 couples, one IRL (Newyear from I Am Your King), story arcs revolve around secrets.  - I’m getting fatigued by these multi-couple sampler pack dramas, but I’ll try it for Newyear’s sake.  

Be Loved in House: I Do (Taiwan YES!) May 20, Viki. Office set, relationships prohibited at work by a new boss, one of the employees is determined to figure out why. Grumpy/tsundere pairing so loads of drama. - I am so flipping excited for this one. A 4th BL series from Taiwan in less than a year? That’s unprecedented. GO BABY ISLAND GO! 

I Promised You the Moon (Thai) May 27, Line TV. Follow up to I Told Sunset About You with the boys now at university. - I won’t be watching this as I have yet to finish season 1. 

Possibly Gameboys season 2.  - Rumors are all over the place right now on this. 

Next Week Looks Like This: 

Some shows may be listed later than actual air date for International accessibility reasons. 

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here.

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something.

#thai bl #thaibl #asian bl #second chance #lovely writer #close friend #brothers #Fish Upon The Sky #gmmtv #y-destiny #episode recaps #HIStory 4: Close To You #friend or lover #taiwanese bl #My Lascivious Boss #vietnamese bl #word of honor #chinese bl #Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding #korean bl #this week in bl #Papa & Daddy #Nitiman #My Engineer 2 #Love Area the series #Top Secret Together #Be Loved in House: I Do

[keets-writing-corner]

I need to guuuuuuuuuuuuuush

I’m absolutely obsessed with Owari No Seraph/Seraph of the End. It has everything I want in a story

okay this got long so I put a cut

A romance I’m actually invested in: 1) it’s gay, like not even ambiguously gay, like very explicitly gay and it’s remarkable 2) it’s somehow enemies to lovers, best friends to lovers, and childhood friends to lovers ALL AT THE SAME TIME 3) the mutual pining is ridiculous, but manifests in “I MUST PROTECT” 4) omg they’re so devoted to each other???? 5) heavily implied in the anime and manga that they are each other’s reason for living after their trauma

Ambiguous characters: 1) we’ve got not one, not two, BUT THREE HIGH RANKING CHARACTERS within their respective organizations with THEIR OWN AGENDAS, screw whoever gets in their way 2) one of the said lovers from above pairing? Technically, he’s officially on one side, but he makes it very clear he actually doesn’t care about anyone EXCEPT his love interest and actively goes behinds people’s backs all the time to get what he wants. He has exactly 0 trust except for his love interest, which means he’ll literally fight both sides to make sure love interest is safe 3) THE FREAKING QUEEN, at first she’s like in a terrible one sided relationship with one of the characters with like... uh what’s it called? Power imbalance? Like she is 100% in control of this other person because they are wholly dependent on her, and she knows it, and often calls this other person her pet, and like, you think you’re supposed to hate her because she’s one of the contributing factors to the other character’s trauma but then it’s like, wait, actually, maybe she ALSO has ulterior motives and is one of the few people said character can actually trust with their wellbeing and their own interests being the only one who actively helps them with it 4) HMMM THAT SUPER SHADY DEMON/HUMAN ROMANCE YOU KNOW THE ONE IM TALKING ABOUT

Characters that suffer: okay listen, all of the characters have suffered through trauma, but special shout-out to Mika who has gone through my favorite kind of trauma to watch that develops characters. Spoilers for the rest of this paragraph so if you want to check out the show skip over it. okay gone? for real? you okay with getting spoiled if you haven’t seen yet? alright. last chance. Okay so first thing we know about Mika is that he’s an orphan and has a found family with his orphanage group right? even when they’re all being held captive by vampires underground, he at least has his family. Mika goes above and beyond to make sure that despite that they’re essentially just acting as the vampires’ blood-stock that their time there isn’t as bad as it could be. He offers himself up to one of the nobles, saying the noble can suck his blood if he gives him things, so he gets stuff like actual real food for his family to eat. In the manga, you can see that this is really draining on him, but he does it to see his family happy. Mika also knows that his crush absolutely hates it there, so he plans an escape, except oops they all get ambushed by the very noble he stole from and was swindling, and literally everyone gets killed in front of him except his crush, well I guess at the time he was too young for crush, so I’ll just call him Yuu. Anyways. Mika and Yuu manage to knock out the vampire noble working together, but Mika is fatally wounded so only Yuu actually escapes. AND THEN MIKA IS FORCIBLY TURNED INTO A VAMPIRE BY THE QUEEN, like he hates vampires, he considers them monsters, he doesn’t want eternal life or whatever, AND SHE FREAKING TURNS HIM TO KEEP HIM FROM DYING (the way she does it too could be considered traumatizing as well) and then he proceeds to be raised by people he considers monsters and hates that he’s become a vampire, and like does everything in his power to not drink human blood (resorting to drinking the Queen’s blood, and she’s fine with it cuz it keeps him completely dependent on her) like MMMM THAT POWER IMBALANCE IN A WORLD FULL OF THE MONSTERS YOU HATE WHILE BECOMING ONE YOURSELF IS ALREADY DAMAGING ENOUGH, and then he finds out that the very adults he used to trust as a child, were actually just treating him and his found family as guinea pigs and lab rats and that the only people who actually cared about him was his found family, who are all gone except for Yuu who isn’t there, so yeah oops, he hates humans now too. Like mmmm that is some tasty juicy angst right there. It manifests in him never smiling anymore, never speaking, just sitting there stoically. Like this was the little boy who was happy smiles all the time, either when he was genuinely happy with his family or putting on an act to deceive and he’s just so broken after the timeskip that we never see him smile until late in season 2. OH LETS NOT FORGET THE WHOLE VAMPIRE THING RIGHT? Mika doesn’t want to drink blood, but his body compells him to. He refuses to at least drink human blood, which works for a while but by the time the second season rolls around, the queen’s blood just isn’t cutting it anymore and there are so many scenes where his instincts take over and he almost bites someone only to snap out of it last second and start sobbing because he believes he’s becoming a monster. AND THAT’S NOT EVEN ALL OF IT, JUST THE THINGS THAT I LIKED THE MOST TO WATCH

spoilers over

the side characters: While I do think they could use a little bit more development, but that’s probably because they’re not quite rubbing me just the right way like Mika is, so they pale by comparison BUT there are some things I enjoy 1) we’ve got a literal troll on the team. I’ve seen some people call her annoying, but omg I love seeing her troll the others. also she uses a scythe and it’s awesome 2) OMG THERE’S A SWEET BABI BOY ARCHER??? slight spoilers, but my favorite part was when he reveals that his demon decided to give him more powers because he treats his demon like a friend, and talks to it at night before going to bed, sometimes asking it what it’s favorite color is?? 3) okay okay okay, listen, I already like the character by himself, the sniper dude, he’s already great as he’s written. But then add the fact that not only does he look EXACTLY like Victor Nikiverov from Yuri on Ice, BUT HE HAS THE SAME FREAKING VOICE ACTOR TOO that just cracks me up 4) I love the one vampire side character who keeps trying to befriend Mika, and Mika just keeps stonewalling him 5) honestly the queen is really badass, and as much as I hated her at first, I actually enjoy every second she’s on screen 6) There’s a vampire called Crowley and idk what it is with him but he just gives me “Big Fun” vibes even though he’s one of the most ruthless characters in the show

plot and arcs: it doesn’t drag itself on and on and on, it actually completes goals and important benchmarks fairly quickly so we don’t need to keep waiting on things to happen. But at the same time, is so drawn out that you still can’t help but feel like it’s taking forever to get to where you want it to go and it’s great because it means you get so much story to enjoy. Also, the fact that the protagonists always have one clear goal at a time, but us as the viewers see other things happening behind the scenes, without always understanding what they are, and we’re stuck seeing this collision path where everything is gonna intersect and you know it’s going to be terrible and there characters are going to suffer but you love that. 

anyways, Seraph of the end is super good, I loved it, the anime isn’t enough so I’m actually chasing after the Manga for once. Mika is officially one of my all-time favorite characters and he deserves to be happy. If you know what I’m talking about cheer with me, if you haven’t seen it yet, omgggggggggggggggggggg GO CHECK IT OUT IF ANY OF THE THINGS I SAID APPEAL TO YOU

#seraph of the end #owari no seraph #Mika #Mikayuu #I'm gushiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing #I'm obsessed #send help #I watched another anime a while ago that a similar sort of gay romance going on #and i really wanted to like it because I loved the premise behind it #I really did #but it was so badly executed that I could only watch it ironically #THEN I FIND THIS #AND ITS SIMILAR PREMISE BUT DONE IN ALL THE WAYS I COULD EVER WANT #also omg the music is amazing #half the joy for me is the music #Do you guys have any idea how hard it is to get me to ship?? #anyways this has consumed my life for now

[evakuality]

Mia, episode four

1.  Hanna staring deep into Mia’s face as she talks = not loosening my conviction they should be together.  But either way, I like this little scene.  One thing I think Druck does well is translating the ideas of all the russ-stuff from the og into its own thing that makes sense in its own context.  These suggestions really are all terrible, though.  I’m not at all surprised that Jonas and Matteo are taking the mickey out of it (side note - I missssss themmmmmm).  I know I’m seriously anti Alex and so I’m not feeling even remotely charitable, but I really dislike the way he’s walking in all ‘I have a much better idea than you guys’ and acting as if he’s better than them.  Plus, then they ended up using it and... ugh.  I just... I really hate William and poor Alex is bearing the brunt of that.  It’s probably not his fault; I just brought a whole lot of baggage into this viewing.

2.  I do love that Leonie is still ‘in charge’ in this way.  It’s a nice continuity from s1.  And she’s not perfect in any way; a lot of her little mannerisms and the way she acts and speaks from s1 are still here, but she’s mellowed a bit.  It’s not as directed and petty; she just likes being in charge and running stuff.

3.  Wow a lot is going on in this first clip.  Amira is getting her voice heard like a boss here!  (sidenote #2: she is stunning in this outfit with this makeup etc).  It’s obvious that she’s pretty used to Mia and her very set opinions (a bit like Leonie but she does it in a different way) and knows the only way to get what she/they need is to basically steamroll over every attempt Mia makes at speaking.  I like the point that Mia’s principles aren’t as important as the people who wouldn’t be able to pay the larger price.  Like, I get it - she’d rather not have anything to do with Alex (me either tbh) but Amira is also right.  Excluding him on principle isn’t fair to the bulk of the students.  However, ‘he shows up with all his money and his damn poster and now he’s a nice guy?’ - I mean, exactly.  Still.  There are other considerations and it shouldn’t be black and white.

4.  Oh, this walkway/ramp thing again.  My beloved setting returns!  Honestly, I really really love this school building.  It’s got so many little corners and changes and different spaces and this space in particular is used to really good effect.  Like rn, Alex has the high ground and while Mia is trying to stand up to him, it’s ineffectual because they’re having to use high angles on her vs low on him.  He still has the power.  And even when they come together, and there’s a seeming meeting of equals, he’s still got the high ground, even if just barely.  And as he walks away with his insufferable smirk, he regains that high ground even more (do I like this plot at all?  No, but I do like the film techniques used to explore it). I just really really love the way the camera works in these spaces.  Unlike a ‘normal’ school, this one has so much depth and variety even when they reuse the same spaces.  None of the times this thing is used is the effect exactly the same even when it seems similar.  Hmmmm, now part of me wants to look at every time it’s used and see how it’s done.  Somebody stop me.

5.  Yikes - I’m only 6 minutes in and I already wrote an essay.  Okay, let’s try to be more brief as we continue.  Oh.  Mia alone and in a nice space with warm tones around her (unlike the other two scenes this episode).  I do like these moments when we hang out with our mains and I’m glad we’re starting to get that more with Mia.  Very interesting that she chooses to fold and iron her clothes as a reaction to the ‘mega geil’ comments about Alex.  Clearly she’s starting to feel out of control about the whole business with Alex and the things he’s saying to her, and this is one way of her reasserting her control.  She likes having things under control and we see it coming out in these odd ways now that she’s found something that is out of her control.  She clearly gets some peace out of it, but it’s so rigid that you can tell it must be about to crack soon.  Nice touch with Hans bringing the comic relief.  I love him so much!!

6.  Lol, Matteo looks super disgusted by this chirpy conversation about Hans’ affliction.  I like that his characterisation is still traceable.  He’s not AS low and isolated as he seems in his season (the benefit of perspective I guess), but he’s still slumped and isn’t as engaged in the things around him - here and even with Jonas earlier.  It’s just nice to see because I know his season came pretty close after Mia’s so it’s good that it doesn’t seem to come out of nowhere.  Continuity - Druck is good at it.  Also how uncomfortable he is when the discussion turns to what gay penises look like - clearly he already has some ideas about how himself and equally clearly he doesn’t want to talk about ‘gay’ anything when it might be connected to him.  Little does he know, his phone already gave them ideas.  But I do like him already being the biggest Hanna/Jonas shipper - like, he’s so determined to make up for his interference that he’s fully trying to interfere again, and it’s a nice segue into ‘why does anyone spend a whole evening stalking someone’ - yeah, we see you Mia.  You’re more intrigued by Alex than you care to admit.  I enjoy these little seemingly unimportant clips of them just hanging out that actually advance the plot or characterisation.

7.  Hanna: Mia, please come to this place to save me from being alone with Jonas.  Mia: I’m on my way (despite not wanting to go at all) - are we seriously telling me she’s not at least a little bit in love with Hanna?  Seriously.  The need to help Hanna out is strong in this one.  But also... more mirror reflections, but this time she’s more centered (not entirely but more so) and her whole face is in shot.  Things are ‘coming together’ so to speak.  And ion hindsight, I can’t even seem to spot Jonas?  Is he even there?  Was Hanna trying to get Mia there through stealth????

8.  Yikes, this thing they’re doing where they say stuff about each other is a bit brutal.  Amira’s ones are mostly pretty awful, and targeted at her religion.  Very interesting that for the others, they seemed more focused on who they are rather than ‘what’ they are, but it’s not the same for her?  Like, I know we explore this a bit in her season but there’s been so much through the whole 2 seasons so far that I feel even more like we lost the opportunity to truly explore that more.  RIP the s4 she deserved!  

9.  I don’t like Alex still (he’s still too arrogant and irritating for me) but I do like the quiet slow way Mia is warming up to him.  She doesn’t want to, but you can see her re-evaluating him and starting to recalibrate her thoughts.  Like it’s not rushing and he is at least a little more interesting than William and has more charisma so I can see why she would become intrigued once she shifted her perspective.  Unlike William, who remained gross through the entire thing.

10.  So Mia’s desperate need to be in control and have everything perfect even extends to Alex’s place and his stuff?  Considering she still thinks she doesn’t like him, she’s taking a lot of trouble with his space.  Suuuuuper awkward alone times here though I do like this shot of Mia exploring Alex’s place and the camera just sort of following along with that and taking in what she sees.   Being this tight on her really plays up how ‘tight’ her PoV is and how she’s not seeing outside the bounds of what she wants to see.

11.  This is a very very long clip, but there’s something charming about it too.  Alex is... hmmmm, not exactly a good guy as yet (he’s still doing some quite douchey things), but he’s starting to open up and be real while still trying to protect some stuff that’s and that’s a lot more believable than William was.  I know he was supposed to be like that, too, in a lot of ways, but I never found him convincing.  Not the way Alex is.  I don’t like him (this is genuinely not a type of guy that appeals to me at all) but I can see why he might win Mia over.  Which I never did understand with Noora.  We shall see - there are things from later in Noora’s season that fill me with incandescent rage, and if those happen then I can’t warm to Alex properly at all.  But for now, I can see why Mia might be won over.  Even if I can’t forgive him for the way he treats Kiki and acts like he’s the only one with all the right answers.

Lots of long clips in this one with a whole heap going on.  It would have been something to go through this live, I’m sure.  I found lots of little moments in this one to like, and I like how Druck has managed the characters and the interactions to make it feel natural.  Considering that I really cannot stand the og of this and that one was very long, I think they’re doing a fairly good job of keeping this one engaging and a decent pace even if I still dislike one of the characters.

#druck #mia - episode 4 #wow this got long again #update on feelings about Alex - still don't like him

[firelxdykatara]

hello!! i just wanted to ask- i wanna do an ouat rewatch bc CAPTAIN SWANN but its pretty long and i honestly dont care for the other characters/how badly the overall writing was handled.. which are your favourite captain swan eps? anything them centered and i think ill just skip around to rewatch their romance as they did invent romance 😭😭 ty in advance <3

they absolutely did invent romance, you are right about that and i love them so much

UHMMMM as far as my favorite CS eps, here’s a roadmap of what I personally consider key eps in their journey (some of this is from memory but I haven’t done a full rewatch in a while so i’m going through the episode list as a refresher)

2x06: Tallahassee--this is a must-watch ep for any CS fan, and I really think this is the episode that sparked the fire that CS would become as a fandom. It has everything--flirtatious banter, all kinds of tension, deliberate parallels drawn between Emma and Killian’s pasts, as well as their first meeting being intercut with her relationship with Neal (which serves, especially in hindsight, to highlight just how sketchy that relationship was, and why she couldn’t bring herself to trust Killian--because the last time she felt this way about anyone, it ended horribly)

2x08 and 2x09: Into the Deep and Queen of Hearts--these episodes cover the race to the portal between Emma&co and Hook/Cora and while they don’t do a ton for CS as a relationship since they’re still enemies at this point, it lays great foundation for their future relationship development. Plus, sexy swordfight, Hook going out of his way to save Aurora’s heart--he may be a pirate, but he has standards ok--and Emma realizing Cora can’t remove her heart without her permission? Poetic Cinema

2x11: The Outsider--more of a Killian-centric episode, it shows a lot of Killian at his worst but it’s necessary for his overall character arc and I genuinely love looking back and seeing just how far he managed to come, to the point of eventually even letting go of his (very understandable) grudge against Rumplestiltskin.

2x12: In the Name of the Brother--am I including this purely for Emma&Hook banter in the hospital, and Killian saying ‘hey beautiful’ when he’s lying on the road because he just got hit by a fucking car? You bet I am. Also, go to youtube and look up ‘ouat season two deleted scene jello’, because it’s beautiful and there was a tremendous outcry in the fandom when we realized it had been cut from the episode lmao (It’s also the episode that made me start shipping Frankenwolf, which I’m still sad never went anywhere, but they had a lot of potential and great chemistry.)

2x22: And Straight On Till Morning--A few of the episodes in between have some fun minor interactions and flashbacks (and I always approve of episodes where Killian gets one up on Rumple, so 2x15 is fun for me if i ignore all the Neal bits) but the finale is where we finally get a glimpse of who Killian could be beyond his need for revenge. He didn’t have to come back, he didn’t have to bring back the bean and help the town--but he did.

Season 3a: there’s a lot of really good stuff here for Hook and Emma that is interwoven between the A plots of other episodes. I think, as far as half-season arcs go, it’s one of the best (and everything after 4a bombed hard, but I digress) But there are a few episodes that stand out if you don’t want to watch the whole season. (I recommend starting with the premier though, it was a really solid season starter overall.)

3x05: Good Form--this is the culmination of David’s poisoned-by-dreamshade arc, and is also Peak Captain Charming Bromance. Hook not only keeping David’s secret, but doing everything he can to help save him??? Poetic cinema. It also provides some crucial Killian backstory, showing how he lost his brother to the very same dreamshade. Plus, the character development--Pan offers Killian a chance to escape the island with Emma if he kills David, and instead, he saves him, refusing the deal and damn the consequences. Also also? The first CS kiss which drove the fandom WILD.

3X06: Ariel--not only to I love OUaT’s take on Ariel, but this episode has the infamous Echo Cave scene, which involves a lot of feelsy confessions and Killian being the one to tell everyone that Neal is alive and helping Emma save him despite his own growing feelings for her.....IT’S JUST A LOT AND I LOVE IT.

3x07: Dark Hallow--oh man, I’d forgotten about this episode, but it has Killian and Neal fighting over Emma, which may sound eye-roll worthy, but Emma is allowed to tear them a new one about it and it’s one of the few times she’s allowed to actually???? put her own feelings first so I have to include it here on spec

3x11 and 3x12: Going Home and New York City Serenade--these mark the end of 3a and start of 3b respectively, and it has some amazing shit like Killian vowing never to forget Emma and Emma smiling as she replies, “Good.” And then she and Henry are in New York with their memories completely altered, but Killian shows up because Storybrooke is back and in jeopardy, and he helps Emma get back to her family and her home and, much later, Emma finds out he sold the Jolly Roger to be able to do it and it’s just. It’s beautiful ok.

3x17: The Jolly Roger--there’s honestly not a whole lot in the back half of season 3 (until the CS movie) but of course anything named for Hook is a must-watch, and this is where we get the iconic line I swear on Emma Swan--which is Killian saying he’s in love with her before he even realizes it. We also find out just what he did to Ariel, and his attempts to make amends are what lead to Zelena being able to curse him, so it’s great from a character perspective as well.

The next four episodes round out the end of the season, and there’s a lot of great stuff in them--Hook refusing to get Emma to kiss him, but Emma feeling like she can’t trust him because he didn’t tell her about the curse to begin with, and then kissing him anyway to save his life regardless of the consequences.... but the only ones that are absolutely necessary are the final two episodes.

They are colloquially termed ‘The Captain Swan Movie’ for a reason, after all.

Killian and Emma essentially have an entire Time Travel adventure all to themselves, where they accidentally ruin her parents first meeting and have to fix it so that she’ll even be born, Emma finally getting into the storybook, the pair of them dancing at a ball, Killian rushing to save Emma only for her to get out of the cell herself, because “The only one who saves me is me.” Killian saying “I would go to the ends of the world for her... or time.” Finally fixing the timeline and making it back to Storybrooke and Killian feeling like he doesn’t deserve a place at the table so he doesn’t go inside, but Emma comes out to him anyway and finds out he gave up the Jolly Roger for her, the true start to their relationship...... IM CRYING JUST THINKING ABOUT IT I’M SORRY.

I personally really enjoyed 4a, the Frozen arc was one of the last good half-season arcs of the show, but a lot of people disliked it so it’s really up to interpretation. I don’t have as many Intense Opinions on this season (except hating almost everything about 4b and the queens of darkness arc), but I will say the episodes with good Killian/CS moments are 4x02 (Emma nearly freezes to death, Killian is desperate to save her, Captain Charming teamwork, my heart hurts), 4x04 (Emma asks Killian out on a real date, he tries to get his real hand back from Gold, things go massively awry and he winds up back under Gold’s thumb), 4x08 (Killian tries to save Emma from Gold’s plans), 4x11 (the 4a finale is just great in general), and then..... it cannot be overstated how much I hate season 4b, but 4x15 is the Killian-centric ep where his past with Ursula is revealed and he makes amends to her in order to get her to leave the QoD alliance and it’s great character stuff for him, and then there’s the season 4 finale.

Both parts are worth watching, if only because Deckhand Coward Hook still being a braver, more heroic man than ‘Hero Rumplestiltskin’ warms the very cockles of my heart, and of course the second part of the finale has him helping Henry to save Emma and it’s beautiful and also Emma watches him die for her and it is angsty as FUCK but gods I love it. Here’s where it gets tricky, though--my recommendation is, turn the episode off right after Emma finds Killian back in the present day of Storybrooke and they reunite.

Just turn off the episode there and skip right ahead to the s6 musical episode (Emma and Killian’s wedding ep) and pretend they got married and none of seasons 5 or 6 ever happened. >.> (Although I will say certain parts of the Underworld arc were incredibly feelsy despite how much I overall hated the season: 5x11 (the 5a finale, Killian as the dark one STILL being a better man than rumple, we love to see it), 5x15 (I am not immune to Brothers Jones feelings ok), 5x20 (emma literally takes a True Love Test trying to find a way to save killian, you don’t get more romantic than that--also Killian telling Emma to promise she won’t put her armor back up just because she lost him again??? my HEART), 5x21 (Hook does what he can from the Underworld anyway and zeus sends him back to Emma, they really just said ‘today I will invent romance’ and then Did That)

And then, yeah, just skip to the wedding. It’s beautiful, I enjoyed the music, personally, though I know musical episodes are hit or miss with most people. And if you turn it off when the last musical number starts (after the wedding ceremony, I believe) you can pretend it was the end of the show! =DDD

.....Oh my god I just rambled for years. I HOPE YOU FIND THIS USEFUL, ANON. I 100% support a CS-centered rewatch, their episodes were consistently some of the best across the entire series, and they are truly one of my favorite romances of all time.

#ouat #captain swan #captain swan episode rec #asked #long post #Anonymous

[em-neko]

KISSED BY THE BADDEST BIDDER MAIN ROUTE REVIEW

hey! so i just finished watching kaylaslovely on youtube’s review of the main five (+ rhion) bidders routes and so i thought i would make my own review, because i felt like it. so here you go!

i will be reviewing all nine main routes, or main stories. each story will be rated using these five categories: plot, pace, romance, mc (since she’s different in every story) and love interest. at the end, i’ll give the story its final rating and i’ll let you know whether i recommend it or not.

i will try not to include any spoilers, but just in case, consider this your spoiler warning!

remember, these are my personal opinions.

summary: you are a maid at a hotel called the tres spade hotel, owned by the ichinomiya group. one day, you get dragged into the ivc (an exclusive party for the elite, held inside the hotel) and you basically get lost. while you’re wandering around the area, you enter a storage room where a lot of expensive items are held. little did you know, those items belonged to a blackmarket auction, the ivc was only a cover for said auction. being the clumsy queen that you are, you manage to bump into the statue of venus and knock it over. when the men responsible for the expensive items find you, they throw you into a giant birdcage and put you up for auction instead of the statue.

from here, you can pick one of the main five love interest (eisuke, soryu, mitsunari, mamoru and ota) to buy you. the other love interest (except for rhion) only appear in the second/third season, they purchase you from eisuke (presuming eisuke bought you but you never fell in love). rhion is part of an “au”, but his story technically takes place in season one. does that make sense? okay, perfect. now, on to the review!

EISUKE ICHINOMIYA: THE ARROGANT CEO

plot: 8/10, the plot is a cliche and fairly overused trope... but i love it. it’s well executed and feels unique and original, even though the core of the plot really isn’t.

pace: 8/10, in my opinion, i think the pace was very good. it wasn’t too slow or too fast (although it leaned on the slower side) and i feel like mc fell in love with eisuke at an appropriate time in the story. the ending felt slightly rushed but i feel like that’s a common theme with love 365 stories.

romance: 7/10, not as romantic as other routes (i mean, it’s eisuke we’re talking about), especially at the beginning, but there were moments that made me smile.

mc: 6/10, she’s definitely a bit of a pushover in this route. i wish she stood up to eisuke more, i wish she was sassier, it would’ve made the story sooo much funnier!

love interest: 7/10, eisuke’s kind of a jerk in this story, but hey at least he’s entertaining? (he has his cute moments tho)

final score: 72% (b-)

recommendation: sure? to be honest, it was pretty okay, a little boring compared to the other routes but for the low low price of literally 0$ (his main route is free), it’s not bad.

SORYU OH: THE COLD MOBSTER

plot: 9/10, i really liked his plot! i’ll admit, i’m not a fan of gang related stories, in fact, i usually hate them, but soryu’s story genuinely surprised me! i especially loved the fact that mc made a female friend along the way, usually other females in stories are seen as rivals (as in eisuke’s case), but it wasn’t the case here and that made me really happy. we support women in his household <3

pace: 7/10, the ending was really rushed in my opinion, like way more rushed than the usual rushed love 365 ending. when it ended i was like, “are you serious?” it just felt abrupt. the rest was fine tho.

romance: 8/10, the romance was subtle (due to soryu’s cold and mysterious demeanor), but you could definitely feel it. there was sooo much chemistry between the characters, so it felt really romantic.

mc: 8/10, she’s a little boring, but at least she’s relatable, like her actions/choices make sense in this story.

love interest: 9/10, c’mon, who doesn’t love soryu? there’s a reason why the whole fandom simps for this man. he’s the perfect mix of cold and innocent, and his reaction to regular people things (like going to the supermarket) is hilarious! he’s really sweet too and you can tell that he really cares for mc.

final score: 82% (a-)

recommendation: yes! even if you don’t like gang related stories, i’d still give his route a chance.

MITSUNARI BABA: THE WOMANIZING THIEF

plot: 9/10, i really loved the plot. it’s basically a romcom with action and criminal activity, it’s gold.

pace: 8/10, there were some parts that felt rushed, but overall i think the pace was fine.

romance: 10/10, the most romantic story of them all (i don’t expect any less from baba). their interactions are so cute and i loved watching them get closer and more comfortable with each other.

mc: 8/10, even though she’s kind of dumb, it works because this story is more comedic, her naivety and trusting nature helped the plot advance rather than disrupting it. she’s also really sassy in this story, i loved watching her shoot down baba!

love interest: 9/10, i love baba! i love the womanizer character trope, i know it’s an unpopular opinion but i still love it. he’s actually a total dork and he has the best lines, i smiled throughout the whole story!

final score: 88% (a)

recommendation: it’s one of my favorite main stories, so i definitely recommend it! however, if you don’t like romcoms or womanizers, you’ll probably hate this story lol

MAMORU KISHI: THE SLACKER DETECTIVE

plot: 8/10, his plot is intense. it’s action packed, there’s twists and turns and it definitely kept me on my toes. however, it is a little hard to keep up with at times, i definitely had moments where i got lost.

pace: 8/10, like mitsunari’s story, the pace was a little inconsistent, there were times when scenes felt rushed, idk if it was on purpose because it was a more “action-y” story, but even some of the “romantic” moments felt rushed.. which was a shame because there weren’t many.

romance: 7/10, it wasn’t very romantic, honestly. they had their cute moments, but they were rare. they have good chemistry, like the best friends you hardcore ship, but there just wasn’t much actual romance. i would compare their relationship to judy and nick in zootopia, like friends but a little more.

mc: 5/10, the mc actually bites back in this story, which is refreshing. however, she nags mamoru a lot, and i got sick of it really fast, to the point where i’d roll my eyes whenever she opened her mouth towards the end of the story. she acts like mamoru is a child incapable of taking care of himself, yet she gets angry when he calls her “kid” or treats her like one? wtf? ALSO, one third of the story is her being jealous of a dead person, which is literally so unreasonable and illogical. i could rant about her all day i swear.

love interest: 9/10, mamoru is so relatable, it’s not even funny. i love the way he speaks and i love the way he reacts in situations. he acts like he doesn’t care, but you know damn well the man cares more about mc than anyone else. he’s also surprisingly patient (which, few bidders are), as i said, the mc is really immature in this story, and even tho he acts annoyed, he never actually gets angry at her. there’s something really cozy about him.

final score: 74% (b)

recommendation: if you like action packed stories, i would recommend this story! with that being said, the mc really ruined it for me.

OTA KISAKI: THE DECEPTIVE ARTIST

plot: 5/10, it was too predictable. literally three chapters in i was like, “oh, i see where this is going” and sadly i was right! it was really dramatic, which i actually enjoyed, but the overly predictable plot ruined it for me.

pace: 7/10, the pace was fine, however i feel like mc realized she was in love with ota at the wrong time. i wished they would’ve picked a different moment (maybe later) in the story to make her realize she’s in love with him, or just change the scene completely. because it was like one moment she just saw him as her buyer and at the snap of a finger she’s in love with him, like what?

romance: 5/10, there was literally one romantic scene in the whole story. there were some other cute moments but they were completely overshadowed by ota’s attitude. also, the whole dog fetish really turned me off, especially because the mc was clearly uncomfortable with it.

mc: 7/10, i feel bad for her. she’s really submissive and shy in this story, but like it makes sense (i would act the same as her tbh, i’d be too weirded out to give any sass), so she gets a pass.

love interest: 4/10, ota is so unlikeable in the first season omg i’d almost forgotten how much i used to hate him. however, he becomes really sweet after season 3, you just have to suffer through the first seasons lmao

final score: 56% (d)

recommendation: i really like ota but that story was not it. i wouldn’t waste my coins, honestly. if you really wanna read ota, read one of his substories or any story after season 3, don’t bother with his main route. however, his cg’s were one of the prettiest, so hooray?

SHUICHI HISHIKURA: THE ALOOF POLITICIAN

plot: 8/10, i liked this plot. it felt more serious than the other stories, but that wasn’t a bad thing.

pace: 7/10, same problem as soryu’s story, the last chapters were hella rushed and it made the falling action pretty confusing.

romance: 7/10, it wasn’t very “romantic”, but there were definitely scenes were you could really feel the attraction between the two. i find they compliment each other well.

mc: 8/10, this story was not meant to be a comedy, but the mc made it one. she’s so stupid that it’s actually hilarious, i honestly couldn’t stop laughing at her cluelessness. usually i’d find stupidity annoying, but in this story, i loved it. it made the heavy storyline easier to digest.

love interest: 9/10, shuichi’s a vengeful bitch, which makes his soft moments that much cuter. i like how he has his quirks, and how he has a professional stoic side as well as a soft caring side.

final score: 78% (b+)

recommendation: yeah, for sure. however, if you don’t enjoy the stoic stern hard-to-read type, you might not enjoy this story.

HIKARU AIHARA: THE MYSTERIOUS HITMAN

plot: 9/10, i really enjoyed this plot. it was like a romcom mixed with a dark-ish drama, it was really unique.

pace: 8/10, the pace of the story was good, however i felt like there was a bit of repetition in the story, in scenes and in dialogue.

romance: 7/10, i absolutely love hikaru and mc’s bantering! i think they’re so cute and it’s just really funny to read. it’s subtlety romantic and you can definitely tell that they like each other. with that being said, hikaru’s treatment of mc at the beginning of the story really ticked me off.

mc: 9/10, okay, she had her annoying moments like she always does, but the mc is so funny in this story! she reminds me of the mc from our private homeroom. i really liked her.

love interest: 9/10, here’s the thing, if you don’t like tsundere’s... you’ll fucking hate hikaru, because he’s a tsundere to the max. i love tsundere’s sooo, yeah i loved him hihi. he’s fucking adorable and his dishonesty towards his feelings is really cute. he’s also a sad boy, which made me have a soft spot for him.

final score: 84% (a-)

recommendation: honestly, i did not enjoy this story the first time i read it. i think it was because i didn’t understand hikaru’s sense of humor at the beginning, so i thought he was just a dick and mc was an idiot for liking him, but when i reread it after reading a couple of hikaru’s substories, i actually liked it. so, if you like tsundere’s i’d definitely recommend this story, if not, steer clear.

LUKE FOSTER: THE GOOD DOCTOR

plot: 9/10, i liked it! it felt a lot sadder/darker than the other plots, but it wasn’t overly depressing. there were lighthearted moments throughout and i like how luke gave mc a job instead of using her for personal gain or pushing her around all day. it was also surprisingly intense, with a few steamier scenes here and there.

pace: 8/10, the pace was pretty good, but like hikaru’s route there were scenes that made me go “i feel like i’ve read this before...” there was a rhythm to the story, or at least that’s what it felt like.

romance: 8/10, this story was definitely more intense than romantic. they still had their cute moments though, especially towards the end.

mc: 6/10, the mc is so nosy, impatient and short tempered in this story omg. she’s so quick to judgement and she has no sympathy towards luke for like the first 11 episodes of the story which really bothered me. also, she didn’t seem to understand luke’s way of showing affection and it got a little frustrating. she’s just exceptionally bad at reading people.

love interest: 8/10. if you love sad sweet boys who are surprisingly hot, you’ll love him. his collarbone obsession might weird some people out, but i found it hilarious and it was the perfect way to balance such a sad story.

final score: 78% (b+)

recommendation: if you like sad yet cute stories, i think you’ll really like this one.

RHION HATTER: THE MAD AUCTIONEER

plot: 10/10, his plot is amazing! it’s so adorable, innocent and unique, all while somehow managing to make me a little emo. rhion’s also the only bidder (besides luke) who didn’t use mc for personal gain, he actually bought her for some sort of companionship which was really refreshing (wow, the bar is set low yikes).

pace: 9/10, the pace was really great, it’s a slow burn too, which i love, but the last couple of episodes felt a little rushed.

romance: 10/10, it’s probably as (or maybe even more) romantic than baba’s story. there are so many cute moments, even when mc and rhion don’t really know each other yet. the romance is really sweet and pure, but it feels so real.

mc: 9/10, i love how she interacts with rhion! she’s relatable in this story and her actions are sensible, she has a mind of her own and she isn’t afraid to speak it.

love interest: 9/10, it’s rhion. he’s so precious! his shy and sweet nature is such a nice change from the other bidders and i really love how he slowly opens up to mc. also i think his alter ego of the mad hatter is really cool!

final score: 94% (a+)

recommendation: it’s my favorite story on the app for a reason. i definitely recommend it, even if you’re more into the sexy stories, i still think you should give rhion’s main route a chance! i made my friend who isn’t even into otome games play it and she really liked it.

FINAL RATING: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

i’ll admit, trying to look past the human trafficking bs was really difficult at first, but if you can manage to turn a blind eye to it and try to remember that it’s just a video game and everything’s fictional, it’s pretty good. the love interests are great, there’s some action, there’s a some drama and there’s a lot of humor. the sub stories are really good too!

#kbtbb #kissed by the baddest bidder #voltage inc #otome game #love 365 #love 365: find your story #kbtbb review #otome review #nina’s words

[everlastingfable]

a jumbled mess of my thoughts about voltron

This’ll probably be the messiest post you’ll ever read. I’m done trying to finish this and edit it into something coherent, so I’m just combining the 3 drafts I have written out into one massive post. I doubt anyone will read this whole thing, but each draft is a sort of rewrite of the last, so there’s a lot of overlap. But there’s also a lot of new thoughts too as I kept thinking about this. There’s also a lot of unfinished thoughts.

There’s mostly negativity in this btw. This fandom had/has an amazing ability in making you think that this show was utter garbage. on par with riv//erdale or s//pn, but it really wasn’t. Like many shows they had weak points, it was never perfect, but it’s much better than we’re told to remember it as.

Intro from Draft 3 because I liked the way I started it:

This is all of my thoughts about Voltron, the show itself and the fandom. I have tried to write this post out for over a year or two now, so it was originally intended to be my final thoughts about the show. Obviously, it’s evolved since then into whatever this is. There may be some things that I’ll be wrong about, because I’m not about to dig through hundreds of discourse posts and old interview videos to prove a point that I doubt anyone’s gonna care about. This will 100% be based on my thoughts, opinions, and experiences.

That said, I don’t even know how to begin to describe how much I love this show. I’m probably one of the few people who have no regrets about enjoying this show as much as I do. I’d wholeheartedly recommend watching it, because it’s genuinely a good show. Voltron did the unimaginable for me. I don’t usually enjoy sci-fi stories. I especially don’t enjoy mecha stories. Yet somehow, Voltron combined the two and made a show that I loved so much I can’t stop thinking about it even though it ended over 2 years ago.

Draft 1: thoughts about a year after it ended without rewatching any seasons since it ended

It’s been about a year since voltron ended. I never wrote my thoughts about s8/the show then so here it is now. Because I decided to wait a year I honestly don’t remember a lot of specifics. But I still have a lot to say about it. This is very long and is basically everything I have to say about this show. I love voltron. It’s been an important part of my life during college. 90% of all papers I wrote were about voltron. But as much as I love it, I won’t deny that it fell apart at the end. 

Note: I tried to categorize these thoughts so I don’t get off topic and can talk about everything fully. But because they overlap so much there’s definitely some minor repeats when I connect two parts but decided to hold off talking about it all the way until the right section.

PRODUCTION

This is something I’ve expressed concern over while it was airing, but in a span of 2 and a half years, they premiered 78 episodes. That’s a lot, especially when you consider that production for s3 started after s1 premiered. There’s a lot of really good voltron review videos out there that aren’t just “oh I’m so cool I hate voltron” but there was one that talked about how the production was a mess and the writers couldn’t make up their mind for the endgame ship. And while that doesn’t sound like an important issue, it really does show when it comes to how characters are written together and (I think) the fandom war. 

Summarizing what that video said because I don’t remember who made it, the writers/producers never made up their mind on which ship was supposed to be endgame (klance, sheith, allurance, kallura). And this really does show in the show itself. I don’t like klance. I especially hate it because of my experience with the fandom, but I won’t deny that they were sometimes written romantically. The same goes for sheith. And that’s the problem. 

I don’t think the world building parts of the show was fully developed either. Shiro was supposed to be a teen like everyone else but then he was an adult. His and keith’s relationship was honestly vague for a good while. I don’t think anyone really knew how each characters’ relationships with each other was supposed to progress. Was allurance always supposed to be endgame? Because they didn’t really interact that much until like season 6, and then it was kinda sudden from what I remember. There was very little, if at all, parts where we were shown oh allura might like lance romantically. Keith’s relationship with the main cast didn’t exist for like 3 seasons. It was messy. 

Speaking of which, keith disappeared for a good portion of the show. I assume it’s because steven yeun was busy. Which is fine but then I think about how quickly voltron came and went, I wonder why they couldn’t slow down a bit so they could still have steven voice keith during those episodes. Maybe it’s because of how much I love keith, but he honestly felt like a central character to me. 

If I think about teen titans, for example, this show also had 5 main characters. Sometimes certain characters would get a spotlight for a season, but all-in-all they were fairly equally represented. It didn’t feel like robin was the main character. But that’s how I feel about voltron. Keith, and shiro to an extent are the main characters. A good portion of the plot relies on them. Shiro got kidnapped, keith leads them to the blue lion. Shiro is the leader with keith has his right-hand man and they mostly interact with each other. So when shiro “dies” and keith takes over, it starts to feel like keith is now the main character. Now he’s the leader and the arc is about him growing into becoming the black paladin and stopping lotor, who is his main enemy. But then he disappears. 

Again this is most likely because of my bias towards keith, but the episodes after that felt lackluster. Lance didn’t really get his character growth to become a good second-in-command. Because that development was supposed to be based around keith. :P. A big part of lance’s growth is to learn to stop needing to feel that he’s better than keith. And him accepting keith as the black paladin was a huge part of it. But with shiro as the leader again lance loses that development. Keith’s not in the picture anymore, and the person in-charge was already in a leadership position and has nothing to learn by being there. 

Before I go way too deep into my thoughts about the plot/characterization, I do want to mention the animation. The fighting scenes are amazing and one of the most beautiful 2d animation I’ve seen. That is, when it is actually animated and not just the camera panning on a still image. Here’s where my biggest concern over the time comes in. 2 years is absolutely not enough time to animate that many episodes. I was genuinely worried for the animation company because it could not have been a good experience. And yes, we got more episodes sooner, the quality definitely dropped and it’s a real shame. Who knows when we’ll get another american cartoon in this style. I love this animation style but it takes time and a lot of skills to do, so not that many companies do it. I honestly wished they took their time with the show not just to get more time to animate, but also to flesh out some of the plot.

PLOT

As hunk said in one episode, they don’t linger on dramatic events that just happened. This show is very fast paced, and that’s not a bad thing. But they never took the time they needed to really feel the weight of everything that happens. Keith’s galra heritage reveal was basically swept under the rug. So was the shiro clone, lotor’s death, zarkon’s death, naxzela, and so many more. In general, that was a big problem with how the episodes went. If it wasn’t for the sheer number of fanfics covering those topics, they were really swept under the rug. It honestly kinda felt like the writers didn’t know what to do with the aftermath of their reveals. But some of these were pretty essential to the plot of the story. 

Keith’s part galra! So he doesn’t look it but there had to be obstacles with voltron forming the coalition. He’s part of the race that caused this war. I honestly think we should’ve seen that reveal become part of the plot, or what was the point of it? They could’ve just as easily wrote keith to be a regular human just like everyone else. Taking the time to add that part of his character needs to have some significance in the story. And yeah, they had krolia appear but she wasn’t really a significant character except to kinda magically fix keith’s problems. In general it felt like they forgot parts that they were foreshadowing with keith. Why could he turn purple sometimes? Did that quintessence he was hit with fix him or help him hide the galra parts? Why does he look so human? What is up with him having that quintessence sensitivity? I’m all for shows ending with some questions unanswered because sometimes it’s impossible to answer it all and let it feel natural, but this just felt like they forgot or decided it’s too much of a hassle and just ignored it.

Okay going into more specifics now, s8 was kinda meh. It especially felt bad because it came out the same day as spiderverse which had a very similar villain motivation, but objectively done better. I think honerva’s motivation came out of nowhere. We see in the flashback episode that she was so intent on getting knowledge that it literally destroyed daibazaal. So, it was established that her motivation is knowledge. Even though she lost her memory and regained it, as haggar she was still very focused on quintessence. We know she was gathering a lot of it, and maybe they said it and I forgot, but we never knew why. Family wasn’t really shown as a motivation for her. Even with lotor it didn’t seem like she wanted to be a family again, but instead was using him for her own unknown motivations. Anyways, the season felt awkward. And the new dynamic they had really needed more time. The last season should’ve expanded to be at least 2 more. It would’ve fit a lot better imo. S1-2 would have zarkon as the main villain, s3-6 would have lotor, and s7-8 would have haggar, who was also the puppeteer throughout the entire show. But she didn’t appear for s7 and her motivations didn’t really make sense in s8 so it evidently felt rushed. There were also so many major characters in s8 we needed more time to see them interact. 

So the ending with allura becoming constellations. Gonna be honest that whole last part had me confused. Especially with the fact that I barely remember what happened, why are the old paladins like trapped in the lions? I could excuse the other 4 but zarkon? Especially a zarkon that’s not corrupted? It was weird and didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and that’s all I’ll say about that. I don’t even want to try to suggest an alternative because I think that whole last half of the season is so messy it can’t be fixed. But it was so obviously pandering to the fandom it hurt. Lance getting those marks was so obviously referencing when people wanted lance to be altean in response to keith’s galra heritage. The shiro/curtis kiss was very “look see he is gay and not just because we said so” while nice, was very weak (why wasn’t keith in the shot?).

Despite my complaints, I remember liking s8. I really liked the addition of the atlas, even though it didn’t feel like we were watching voltron anymore sometimes. S7 had to be one of my favorite episodes since s2. Not to say that s7 is better or worse, but I really like it because it felt like a genre shift. I usually don’t like space sci-fi or mecha stories. Voltron somehow managed to combine the two and make me love it. S7 did not feel like either of those. First, a good half of it took place on earth. And I believe two episodes didn’t even have the main cast, and when team voltron finally made it to earth, voltron wasn’t even there until the final battle. I genuinely loved it. I think it was a very well done invasion/apocalyptic story that doesn’t get told in animation that often. But if I think about s7 with the rest of the show, it was awful. It broke up the tone the show usually had and it was a very different way of storytelling that voltron didn’t have before. It wasn’t a space sci-fi mecha story, it was an apocalyptic action story. Voltron was so unimportant they sat on a moon for episodes. It stopped becoming voltron and started becoming a spin-off. 

I do have to add that I absolutely loved the color themes in s7. We already had purple for the galra, but in s7 it was very obvious that alteans are themed blue and earth is themed with orange. I loved it so much and it was great. I do like that they gave shiro something to do. Honestly not killing him off in s2 made him an awkward character afterwards. But I didn’t like that they brought back sendak. There was no explanation for it and it wasn’t good imo. He didn’t really do anything besides conquer earth then die. Haggar was also absent the entire season which definitely didn’t help her storyline in s8 because we didn’t know what she was doing the entire time except abandoning everyone who was loyal to her. 

I’m usually not a fan of time skips, it has the tendency to gloss over character development or create glossed over recap. Honestly I wish voltron spent more time over the blade of marmora massacre or just the bom in general. They received no rest. Literally everyone part of that group died except for kolivan. Speaking of that episode, there was no explanation for how keith was able to know where macidus was about to appear and that honestly bugs me. There’s so much about keith we don’t know. He has so many abilities we were just never told. 

Again a lot of problems within team voltron is that there was never any follow up on things that happened, like keith leaving the team. He becomes the black paladin and no one bats an eye. Lance did make one comment about keith leaving but then it wasn’t ever mentioned again. I get that the writers/producers wanted the dynamic the original had, but they didn’t take the time to work up to it. Keith wasn’t a natural leader, but he suddenly is because he spent 2 years on a space whale with his mom and a space wolf. Like I mentioned earlier, voltron feels like keith is the main character but then they dropped him for a few episodes, realized that he’s important and added him back in while saying “oh he went through a time skip so he grew into the role he needs to be in now”. It feels like a cheap pay off.

I’d like to specifically talk about my thoughts on each season and work back but honestly I don’t think I can remember s3-6 separately. So they’re being chunked together. 

Lotor had the potential to be a really great villain. But he had to be foiled with keith. They have a lot of similarities that I think could’ve really played off well together. Lotor isn’t really allowed to have a leadership position. Yeah he was technically in charge while zarkon was recovering, but haggar didn’t really allow him full control. But, he was a great leader. He knew how to read his enemies and form an alliance. Meanwhile, keith had a leadership position thrusted to him, and frankly he wasn’t a good leader. He tends to keep to himself so he never really has to make decisions with a team. It could’ve been great, but shiro had to still be in the story. I’m honestly conflicted about this because on the one hand, I think it really ruined character developments for the main cast, but then I loved the clone shiro plot line. I think keeping shiro prevented keith from growing. He was able to remain dependent on shiro instead of actually bonding with the rest of the paladins. And of course he had to just go awol. Also, lance didn’t really get to have as prominent of a role as I think he could’ve had with keith. 

These seasons are also when the lions stopped being sentient robots that specifically choose their paladins to just really cool spaceships. We don’t get that level of bonding that was so prominent in s1 and 2. That’s also something I’m conflicted with. I think the lion swap was a great way for character developments, but it also removed a lot of it. It kinda made the bonding feel useless. The swap also changed the dynamic of the group. Instead of shiro and allura being co-leaders, and everyone else feeling like they’re on equal footing, it felt like Keith was the leader with lance being a needed right-hand man. Hunk and pidge were off doing their thing and allura was a leader but also not. Maybe if they had spent more time working with this dynamic it would’ve felt better. But they didn’t and it didn’t. Voltron also implied that allura was the only one that could control the castle ship, but then she goes to become a paladin and who’s driving the ship?

I do wish we could’ve gotten more about the altean colony and the reveal about lotor’s plans, but that got overshadowed and forgotten by the clone shiro reveal. Maybe I just missed it, but I wasn’t sure what the galra empire and lotor were collecting quintessence for. Was it just to make mechs to rival voltron? Lotor’s death was also very unclear. 

The coalition was a much needed thing, but I think very badly executed. They were gathering people from malls. These people are regular civilians who probably don’t know how to fight or fly a ship. I thought it was really weird that they were just getting regular people (aliens?) to sign up like they’re applying to be part of the army. But we never see them maybe join the rebel force matt is part of to learn how exactly to help. I think about avatar and how they also had a rag tag group of people to fight against the fire nation, but these weren’t just regular people living in a village. They were either warriors or very skilled benders. The voltron coalition was just regular people. That genuinely annoyed me because the voltron show just felt like those army propaganda ads, but exciting. Not to mention it was a very hard to watch episode. 

It was definitely making fun of how the fandom complains about how characters are getting reduced to a certain characteristic. But it wasn’t done in an entertaining way like the ember island players episode from atla because some of those were legit complaints (like hunk being the fat/food guy) and that stuff wasn’t resolved. Like the ember island players made fun of sokka constantly talking about meat or katara crying all the time, but the show made it very clear beforehand that these characters are much more than that. Is hunk really more than the food guy? As far as the show mentions, the only things he’s done was make the machine to help find the blue lion, and help save the balmera. All of which was in season 1. After that hunk honestly took the backseat in voltron.

I mentioned earlier, but the time skip on the space whale felt like we were cheated out of keith’s character development. I mean we got development, but we didn’t get to see it. The vlog short showed that keith believes a lot of his problems stems from not having a mom (and a dad) in his life. But instead of seeing keith learning to trust and open up to people despite having so many people in his life leaving him, we get a cute montage of him with his mom. As if it makes sense that two years with his mom would fix everything. (side note, I know a lot of people were saying how obvious it was that krolia was keith’s mom, I genuinely did not know until she said so at the end of that episode).

I’m not gonna talk about my thoughts on s1 and 2 because I’m pretty sure I live blogged those and honestly I don’t think I remember it. 

CHARACTERS

Now I’m finally talking about the characters and I’m starting off with keith as if I haven’t talked about him enough already. I love keith. He’s undeniably one of my (if not the) favorite characters ever. And he’s obviously a fandom favorite if we’re considering the two biggest ships in the fandom. Or maybe he really is just the secret main character of voltron. We know so much about him, for someone who loves keith, it’s great. We basically know his entire backstory, and yet we know no one else’s (except maybe lotor but even that’s iffy).

I never rewatched a single voltron episode since it ended, and I can’t watch any of the connected shows (meaning shows that have the same ppl that worked on it or the same fans, think dragon prince and she-ra) because the fandom was the absolute worst one I’ve ever been in and parts legit trigger me. I am fascinated with fandoms. I love it. I chose my major because it was the closest I could get to just learning about them 24/7. But the voltron fandom was so incredibly toxic and over two ships? Honestly the fandom itself was a major reason why I couldn’t get super invested in the later seasons. I get afraid when it seems like a certain ship might happen. I actually hoped that certain characters just didn’t interact. (I’m not gonna get much deeper in this because I don’t want to touch this topic with a ten-foot pole, at least not now) Aside from that, I think that the plot and characterizations for voltron got really messy post s2. The lion switch was never handled well imo, and post switch the lions lost that sentient personality that was established in the first two seasons. It also didn’t make sense aside from the writers wanted everyone in the original lions. Or at least, we never got the proper character developments into those roles. Keith left right after becoming the black paladin. 

I think another major problem with the show is how some decisions felt like pandering. I remember hearing that they didn’t kill off shiro because he was a fan favorite, so he had to stay for marketing and to make more money. But then keeping shiro alive would’ve derailed the original plot idea. I wish I could see how the story would’ve played out with shiro staying dead.

Draft 2: rewatched the show then started writing this

So I wrote a draft of this like a year ago, realized I don’t remember the show much, so I rewatched the whole show and started rewriting my thoughts.

Pre-rewatch thoughts: It was a good show that was poorly executed

Mid-rewatch thoughts: it’s a really good show that just has some weak points (the second half of lotor’s arc, team voltron’s importance in season 4-6 it feels like a lot of filler episodes until keith shows up again)

End-rewatch thoughts: it's actually a really good show. It has some weak points and some really strong points. Season 8 was confusing though. I went through most of it going yeah okay I guess that can happen.

Final verdict: it's a genuinely good show

What went wrong

It ended on its weakest season, which was also the most abstract and different season. While the main antagonist changed throughout the seasons, it still continued to be the galra empire. Even when lotor joined, the team was still fighting fractions of the galra empire. Meanwhile, season 8 didn’t have any conflict with the galra. The antagonists were honerva and the alteans, who are very different types of villains compared to the galra. There was also little build up to that change. Sure, we got to experience that briefly in season 3 when they went to the alternate reality, but I don’t think that was built up well. Also, the protagonists and the audience are just not prepared. We don’t know how the alteans work like the extent of their abilities, but we were given dozens of episodes to learn about the galra. As a result season 8 just wound up with me feeling confused and thinking “uhh sure I guess they can do that, that makes sense maybe?”

It could not pick who its protagonist is. Yeah the five humans plus allura (and coran?) are the main characters but most shows with multiple major characters still focus one one character as the protagonist. Like atla has aang, adventure time has finn, umbrella academy has five. Voltron just never picks someone and the group constantly changes too, so you end up having to not focus on any character for the sake of time. Of course not all shows do that. Teen Titans had each season focus on a particular member of the team, and tbh I was wondering if that was what they were planning for the show, especially when season 2 was so Keith focused but guess not.

It feels like they did not have the time to fully flesh out the story. Voltron came and went so incredibly fast. They had 8 seasons (technically 6 if you group up the halved seasons). But also the show only lasted 2 years. It honestly horrifies me to think of the time crunch everyone on the team was going through, especially the animators. You can see the drop in quality as there were very few scenes that involved actual animation for the middle bulk of the show. So then, how much time did they have to develop the story, in addition to execs telling them what they can and can’t do. There’s so many arcs that seemed to start then get forgotten, and I don’t blame the writers for that at all. Although I wish we could’ve learned more about Lance and the Altean sword and Keith with his apparent quintessence sensitivity, they probably just didn’t have the time to plot those out.

It had too much outside influence. Such as, the writers wanting to kill off shiro, but then being forced to keep him on the show because the execs said to. And honestly, the fandom. For example, the whole last episode with Lance getting the Altean marks (an obvious omage to ppl wanting Altean Lance).

What went right

There’s a reason why the show became so popular (aside from being a reboot of a popular 80′s show) and it’s because of the characters. I’m not about the whole “we become attached to characters because the writers did them wrong but we fans can see the potential and that’s why fan works are better” bs that I see going around this site all the time. The first season particularly wrote these characters so well. They’re relatable but also intriguing enough for you to care about what’s going to happen to them. 

Some thoughts regarding popular fandom discussions:

It’s a plot-driven show with character-focused fans

I like to think of there being two ways to tell a story: by being character-focused or plot-driven. Plot driven shows are ones like atla, young justice, legend of korra, etc. There’s a conflict that gets introduced and the story revolves around that conflict. Character-focused shows are ones like adventure time or we bare bears, they’re less concerned about a plot line and focus more on the characters interacting with their world. Of course all stories incorporate both parts, just some focus more on one than the other. So, here’s where I think a lot of the issues about voltron and the fandom comes from. Voltron is a very obviously plot-driven show but the fandom is very character-focused. I won’t deny I loved the episodes about keith. Season 4 and 5 were hard for me to watch because I missed my boy. But that’s where the arguments come from. People get upset that their fav isn’t in the spotlight

It didn’t queerbait

I understand watching a show for representation, I really do, but voltron is not that show and that's okay. Not every show has to be revolutionary in its representation of marginalized people. I won't pretend to know the harmful tropes for marginalized people. My consumption of media is not usually diverse. But I will stand by my stance that a large part of voltron's later seasons is about the casualties of war. So of course a lot of people died. I also firmly believe that the producers had a much easier time adding diversity to their own created characters than the main voltron characters, because of rights and all that complicated nonsense. So as a result the ones who were more expendable and could die were also the same characters that they could add diversity too.

I’m gonna add the definition of queerbait here so we’re all on the same page:  Queerbait is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation.

But here’s the thing. We were told at comic-con or one of those cons that Shiro is gay, and he had a boyfriend. They actually gave us that. Yeah it wasn’t as explicit as She-ra got, but that’s another point for later. There was no lying about it. Shiro is canonically gay, and his boyfriend was Adam. If anything, this whole thing came out of wanting Keith in a relationship with Shiro or Lance. Yes. I will admit, there are plenty of scenes between Keith and Lance, and Keith and Shiro that can be read as romantic. Someone correct me if I’m wrong but did any of the cast members tease the possibility of Kl//ance or Sh//eith (VAs don’t count, sorry but they don’t really have a say in the story)? Because unless they did, and they did repeatedly, the fandom queerbaited themselves. So many people in the fandom were so certain that Keith would be in a relationship with one of them, there was basically an all out war. Even if there was a chance, did you really think the creators (who were pretty active in early fandom days) would continue that development? It was so so toxic they were forced to shut off any possibilities of that.

In regards to minority characters

Again, I'll admit vld is not the place to go for real, proper representation. Their characters tend to be characters that happen to be a part of a minority rather than a minority character. wtf does that mean? Well, you can swap (earth) races for just about any character and it wouldn't make too much of a difference in how they act. There's some lines that wouldn't work like Lance's "I'm just a boy from Cuba" but other than that there would be no significant change. Of course this goes down to preference. Would you want a minority character whose struggles reflect those in real life and as a result be defined by that aspect of themselves, or do you want a character that just happens to be a part of a minority group but whose life is not really affected by that? 

Draft 3: months after the rewatch, mostly an attempt to reorganize the previous two drafts

I’m gonna start with the negatives just to get the ranting off my chest. Season 8 was bad. Yeah. No argument there. Although I wouldn’t say it was bad in the same way Game of Thrones and Supernatural was bad. Rather, it was an interesting and complex premise that didn’t have the build up it needed and honestly needed a few more passthroughs to iron out some parts. At worse, I felt it was confusing to the point where I just accepted whatever new worldbuilding thing they threw at me. The issue with Season 8 vs Seasons 1-7 is that Season 8 had a completely different villain, and a brand new cast dynamic. We got 7 seasons (65 episodes) developing the Galra as the villain. We got to learn who they are, their motives, how they operate, etc. Not only that, but they were pretty basic and easy to understand villains. They’re conquerors. They don’t have any sort of magic, they really just use brute force to attack and enslave the planets. In striking contrast, the Alteans in Season 8 weren’t conquerors. They didn’t care about controlling the universe. They also had magic abilities that our main characters don’t understand and didn’t explore. Season 8 had villains who could create illusions, mind control, and manipulate quintessence. The Alteans are leagues beyond the Galra in terms of complexities as an antagonist, but they didn’t get nearly enough time to be fully developed.

Also, Season 8 essentially doubled the cast size. So despite the fact that we have yet to see much of Keith-as-the-black-paladin Voltron group dynamic, now that screentime is being balanced with the MFE pilots and other Garrison characters. Essentially, there were too many characters, and too little time to flesh out the ideas of this season. A side note, Haggar’s (Honerva?) motivations were lame. I think it would’ve been much more interesting if her plans were just to continue the research she did 10,000 years ago with the rift. That would’ve also brought back the rift monsters which we never got an answer for. What even are they? Instead, her goal to have a family again is really weak. Even in the flashbacks she never showed any care for the more familial aspects of her life. It didn’t make sense for that to be her drive. It also didn’t help that Season 8 came out on like the same day as Spiderverse and the antagonists for both had the same goal, but Spiderverse did an immensely better job.

Another thing that didn’t make sense to me was Keith giving the speech to the rest of the Galra. He is not the right character to give that speech. Sure he’s Galra, but he didn’t even know for most of his life. For him to say “we” like he’s also a citizen of the Galra empire feels so weird. He never grew up with the Empire’s influence, and we never saw him experiencing Galra culture with the Blade. He learned about the Galra as an outsider, and despite the fact that he’s part Galra (he doesn’t even remotely look Galra), I don’t think that gives him the authority to say a speech like that. The speech is similar to Zuko’s at the end of ATLA, and that makes me feel like it would’ve been a lot better had Lotor said it. I think even Kolivan would’ve been a better fit than Keith. 

The more I’m writing about Season 8, the more I’m remembering just how messy and confusing it was. Additionally, the last bit of Season 8 was so obviously pandering to the fandom it gives me second-hand embarrassment. Lance getting those marks was so obviously referencing when people wanted Lance to be Altean in response to Keith's galra heritage. The Shiro getting married was just to make it more obvious that he’s gay, but had no build up. (There were definitely more but I didn’t write myself a list and I’m not rewatching that season)

Second, “Voltron queerbaited”. [this was posted before here]

Speaking of which, Voltron premiered summer of 2016 and ended in winter of 2018. That’s about 2 and a half years where they aired 78 episodes. That’s stupid fast, especially for an animated series. I’m constantly worried about what the people working on that show had to endure. For sure, Season 3 with Shiro coming back wasn’t written until at least Season 1. I recalled the execs demanding that Shiro not be dead since he was a popular character. It’s honestly concerning how little time they had to work on the show, and it unfortunately showed. In the later seasons, a lot of the shots were just still frames that moved across the scene. And the plot line with Lotor could’ve used some work. Although, I think Shiro being forced in there was also a reason for it being so shaky.

I honestly hate Seasons 4 & 5. I cannot tell you what happened because my brain keeps erasing it. Obviously, the lack of Keith had a huge impact on my opinion of those seasons, but it also felt like a whole lot of filler episodes, and not the fun ones with character development. With Keith mostly out of the picture, and Lance becoming the right hand of Voltron, that should’ve been a great time to develop Lance to become a second-in-command. To have him go through an arc where he overcomes his insecurities. It would’ve also been an amazing time to develop his and Shiro’s relationship. But we didn’t get any of that. 

I genuinely believe Keith was supposed to stay the black paladin and Shiro wasn’t supposed to come back. Keith would be an amazing foil to Lotor. They’re both half-Galra. They’ve both been given a new leadership role that they don’t want. The middle arc always felt so weak to me, and as I mentioned earlier, the Allura/Lotor interactions were awkward. It feels shoehorned in because someone has to interact with Lotor and I guess the writers decided Allura was the best option?

Season 3-6 felt like the epitome of what happens when showrunners are forced to do whatever the execs say and have no time to properly develop their story. I’ll forever be bitter at all the character and relationship development we lost because of that. We never got to see Keith really learn to open up to the team and start to trust others. But Keith still had to get to that point, which is why I assume they had the time jump for him. It’s so disappointing because we lost what could’ve been a great character development. It also made Keith being the Black Paladin again feel cheap. We didn’t get to see the struggle he had to be the leader Shiro saw he could be. He was just suddenly leading them and they worked like a proper team.

Voltron also had a lot of plot holes. Now, I don’t expect shows to answer every question, because it’s impossible to tie everything up and leave no questions unanswered in a natural way. But, there’s a lot of things that felt like the beginning of a plot line or honestly needed some answers. Like, Lance shifting his bayard to a sword. What was the point of that if it was never mentioned again? It felt like that was an important start to an arc for him that just got forgotten. Also, what was up with Keith’s quintessence sensitivity? How was he able to sense where that druid was. How did he know he could summon his bayard to him. I think the part that bugged me the most was that Keith was the only one who did that. Also, Keith’s eyes becoming slitted during his fight with Kuron was never addressed, and I really wish it was. It felt like such a throwaway moment that could’ve been interesting to explore more. Although I’m not too upset with that one as I think we were given enough to piece together a reason for it. 

#have fun with this monstrosity of a post #over 7k words #personal #my thoughts about #frxstguardian #kingofthewilderwest #honestly the only two people this post was intended for #I give up!!

[aqvarius]

[WALKTHROUGH + REVIEW] Her Love in the Force: Ayumu Shinonome: S3 Love’s Battlefield + His PoV

Honestly, I think this route is one that I went into almost completely blind. With some other routes (particularly Ishigami’s and Soma’s), I kind of had expectations going in. But with this one, I basically had no idea what was going to happen.

Ayumu’s Love’s Battlefield is another example of how the quality of Her Love in the Force just keeps improving. I have been so impressed by every single route that’s come out this season in particular. It was heartwrenching and frustrating and some things are still unresolved, but I’m excited for the future. Ayumu’s routes have a knack of setting up the premise for the next part so well that I’m just left impatient for the second half of the season. 

With the walkthrough, please bear in mind that there is no good-happy ending meter in this route for some reason so I’m not sure if all answers will take you to the Happy Ending, but these are the answers I chose that brought me to the HE.

Walkthrough:

Ep 1: "His sharp tongue." "That's not the plan."

Ep 2: "I miss fried shrimp." "Kaga trusts you."

Ep 3: "Is that sarcasm?" Explain

Ep 4: Stay silent. "I meant it."

Ep 5: "What's your name?" Abstain.

Ep 6: "Move, please." (gives all options) Don't check.

Ep 7: It's Ayumu. Hug him. (one of the potential options is give him the finger? lol?)

Ep 8: "I prefer black tigers." "No thanks."

Ep 9: Don't answer. "It's panties."

I don’t have much else to say in terms of expectations or even as an intro, so click on through to read my thoughts about this route and his PoV, character and relationship development, my analysis on Ayumu and his MC’s dynamic vs her dynamic with Tsugaru, and my screenshot of the GREATEST BACKGROUND that Voltage has ever gifted us. Here, I have basically tried to keep major plot details to a minimum but beware of minor spoilers. 

Reality:

Ayumu is the person who had maintained strict boundaries the whole time during her time in the academy, so naturally it makes sense that he’s the one who finds it the hardest to detach from these roles and the dynamics that it causes. This is expressed beautifully in his PoV, which I highly enjoyed and definitely recommend. I’ve been thinking that with this new season in particular, the PoVs don’t cover all the key moments in the MS, but rather they complement them with new scenes that really wonderfully paint a broader picture of these two sides to the relationships. Despite the fact that he doesn’t quite yet know how to break away from these roles, Ayumu’s relationship with his MC changes a lot outside of the Academy. He’s a lot more open about wanting to help her. His hints to her are so obvious that even she gets it. I never imagined we would ever hear our favourite sour patch kid Ayumu straight up say “I’d do whatever it is she wanted if only she’d say something to me”?! Three times over, he practically begs her to open up to him and let him help her, and she’s the one pulling away and keeping secrets this time. I understood why she did it but dear God, I felt so frustrated for Ayumu.

This route is full of super heartwarming scenes where you can feel just how much Ayumu cares about supporting his MC, to the point where he almost breaks rank just to set her up in a good position. Ayumu is someone who, before now, hadn’t yet challenged the bureaucracy of the National Police Agency (unlike Kaga and Soma) and barely even ever goes against the orders of his own boss Kaga, but this route places him in a position where he almost commits insubordination for his MC. I love that we first get to see him deal with things when he acts out in a frustrated way, and then again when he’s calmed down and had a think, and that leads to that scene in the park in episode 7, which is one of my favourite scenes in the whole route. His PoV is (naturally) more enjoyable for seeing his own anxieties and frustrations about the situation. This route reminded me again that Ayumu is totally a one-woman man, and when he falls in love, he falls so hard.

Something that I find interesting and different about this route is thinking about Ayumu’s position now that they are both working in the same division. Ayumu is someone who has spent two whole years watching his MC and setting up the chess board for her behind the scenes so she can make the most of her abilities and execute the perfect checkmate. But now that he doesn’t have the position or ability to set the board up for her, we get to see his frustration at wanting so desperately to help and yet being unable to do anything. At the academy, he had a position of authority as a special instructor. But at HQ, he’s just another lieutenant. Sure, he’s a genius and a specialist unlike anyone else, but ranking-wise, he’s in the same position as Goto or even Kurosawa. That’s something that you also feel with Goto’s route – the inability to affect change in the same way that they could within the setting of the academy. In this new context, Ayumu isn’t like Kaga or Ishigami, who can stand on their own against Tsugaru. Soma too has a higher rank so the issue of power and bureaucracy isn’t something that needs to be explored as much (and also he’s kind of a wild card even within Ishigami’s team and has always done his own thing, including a lot of independent investigations, which is why in his route the main dynamic between Team Tsugaru and Soma is Tsugaru getting Momo and MC to spy on Soma).

I saw a couple of comments about how awful Tsugaru is in this route and one on hand I do think that he is a lot more fun to the MC in other people’s routes (mostly Ishigami’s, then Goto’s, then Kaga’s), but on the other I think that if you hate him here, you’re gonna despise him in his own route. I’ve said it a couple times here and there, but I really feel like the version of Tsugaru in Ayumu’s route is the closest to his true personality. Tsugaru’s own profile calls him the worst boss and the most malicious person. Even Momo calls him 天邪鬼, basically calling him someone who messes with people just for shits and giggles (the term used for a demon who is deliberately contrarian). If you don’t like how little Tsugaru respects the MC in this route, oh boy you are gonna be in for a ride when you see how he treats her in his own. There’s a reason she comes to loathe that smile of his. Weirdly enough, in the Good End, the Tsugaru Squad dynamics seem to get to about the same level as they are in the other routes. There’s even a cute scene in the Good End where Momose actually kind of attempts to console the MC when Misato screams at her, and the Special Story from the Ending Set also shows them interacting in about the same way as they do in other LIs’ routes, with the three of them working as a team. I wish there was more sense of development in terms of building that team relationship (and I will expand on this later too).

I don’t know if any of you have watched Agents of SHIELD but this need-to-know basis (and feeling like there are clearance levels for information) thing gave me severe AoS vibes. At the same time, you do understand why an institution such as Public Safety would need to isolate information, for security purposes. It would be no good to have someone, especially a rash new detective, get caught and tortured and spill all the beans, right? And the thing is, this need-to-know thing is not new to Ayumu’s MC at all. You only have to look at his Sequel and Graduation routes to see her being left in the dark by Ayumu himself in two consecutive seasons. The big difference here is that whenever Ayumu acts, he always keeps her abilities and strengths in mind, with the plan always taking advantage of the things only she can do (such as having an eidetic memory). So she doesn’t need to follow instructions (although he always leaves her clues), but the plan is already designed to work with her usual attack patterns and abilities. With Tsugaru, however, they don’t know each other. She doesn’t know how Tsugaru thinks (nor does anyone except Momo), and while Tsugaru may know what she thinks, he probably sees her as volatile and unpredictable. If she were working under Ayumu in this case, he may have taken into account the fact that his MC might have tried to accost Misato’s assailers in the basement, but Tsugaru (rightfully, tbh) expects people to trust him and follow his orders since he always has a reason for doing the things he does, even when no one (except Momo) understands what they are. 

I’ve previously touched on my opinion that Soma is probably the closest OG character to Tsugaru, which I’ll expand on here too. Actually, let me rectify that statement: Tsugaru is probably the most similar to Soma and Kurosawa – I would say his character maybe sits in the middle of their personalities. The common factor here is not just their enigmaticness, but the way they keep a friendly mask on while they use people as tools without remorse while keeping their plans hidden, or only understood by a select few people who get it without words (which is actually similar to how Kaga does things too). This is why he needs a Momo 2.0, to be able to have a similar sense of foresight and understand why they need to enact certain plans. He needs more pawns like Momo, who allow themselves to be used because they understand the bigger picture, even if, on the surface, the steps towards justice seem unethical. And sometimes they really may be unethical, but this is Public Safety so what do you expect lol.

So even though it’s totally legitimate to complain about Tsugaru in this route, it was necessary for him to be like this in order to demonstrate the shifting dynamic between Ayumu/MC and MC/her new superior in a new context. It’s important to note that both Ayumu and Tsugaru start out by giving the MC seemingly inane errands to do. Because she’s gotten used to the idea that all the small, seemingly useless things that Ayumu makes her do are for her own developmental benefit, she expects the same of Tsugaru. But frankly, Tsugaru doesn’t have the time to do stuff like this. He’s a captain, she’s a working detective, and she needs to start being responsible for her own growth, so when she finally gets it into her head that he isn’t going out of his way for her, she becomes despondent first and then insistent on doing things her own way.

What then happens is an obvious lack of trust between senior/junior between Tsugaru and MC. It’s something that we see her gradually develop over her years at the academy, but she hasn’t yet learnt to rely and trust on people other than Shinonome when they aren’t tailoring everything behind the scenes for her benefit because this is what he has always done. It isn’t said explicitly but this is what he (and Kaga and Tsugaru [and Namba lol?]) are talking about in His PoV when they talk about smothering bunnies, especially when they are in a new family. Because Ayumu has always gone above and beyond to pave the way for her to follow her own sense of justice and still have everything work out, she hasn’t yet learnt to develop trust in other people’s senses of foresight and that acting independently according to her own sense of justice isn’t always the right thing to do, especially when the plan isn’t set up for her sake. Ayumu sets everything up for her because that’s the way he shows his care for her as his mentee and then girlfriend (and we LOVE that about him!), but Tsugaru has no reason to do so at all.

The MC in this route was different. To be honest, I got flashbacks to Kaga’s first season routes, especially when she was just gonna pack up and go back to Nagano. It’s quite a different reaction from Ishigami and Soma’s MCs, who just naturally hone in on work and basically become workaholics when faced with adversity and heartbreak. If Ishigami’s MC’s defining trait is being a workaholic, Goto’s is sweetness , Soma’s is actually being able to do her job well without messing up dependence, Kaga’s is insecurity, and Shinonome’s is how chipper she is. Obviously this is an extreme dilution of her character (and I could write a whole piece just on her characterisation) and she embodies all of those traits listed above and more. But more than anyone else, Ayumu’s MC is the most upbeat and stubbornly optimistic, so seeing a more insecure and pessimistic side of her definitely felt different and a bit odd. In the past, even when she’s een down, she continues to just do her job. The reason why she gave me Kaga S1 MC vibes is because of that insecurity and pessimism. Kaga’s MC is someone who was initially prone to giving up because her sense of morals and justice does not align with what Kaga is willing to do for Public Safety. You get a sense of that with Soma’s MC at the beginning as well, but Soma is gentle enough on the surface and just encouraging enough at the right moments that she doesn’t give up. The relationship between Kaga and his MC at the beginning is similar to the relationship between Tsugaru and Ayumu’s MC in this route, since Kaga is also someone who acts on his intuition and expects others to be able to understand him without a single explanation.

In this route, the MC starts to break away from Ayumu’s protection and act on her own. This is well and good, but what I would have liked to see is her starting to be able to work with her team and prove herself as someone who is compatible with them and not just capable as an independent agent. I loved the silly Eiji cameo (with his yamato nadeshiko tshirt, naturally) but I think that sense of development could have been built up a bit more had she been able to work with Momose. And no I am not just saying this because I love the concept of bodyguard Momo lol, but because then we would get to see her demonstrate her individual capabilities and slowly earn Momo’s trust and respect (and by proxy, Tsugaru’s, since Momo is his dog). We know she is more than capable in terms of technique. In the Happy Ending, Tsugaru even acknowledges that he knows that MC’s specialty is hacking without being traced, so I kind of wish that they had let MC prove her abilities individually but also learn how to work in a new team that does things a different way. Essentially, I want her to get to a point where she can adapt to working under difficult people in the same way that Kaga’s MC understands exactly what he needs even if he just says “file”, or know what his strategy is with one clue, or know what she needs to do when he says the word “jailer” a particular way even when he’s pretending to sell her off to a rich millionaire.

(Once I saw the name Mr Hattori I was like.... this is a ninja name... it could only be ONE PERSON)

Personally, I think that in the Happy End scene where MC and Tsugaru are talking, what Tsugaru wanted to hear from MC was an apology not just for acting on her own but for not trusting him and just running off and doing her own thing. A big part of this route was about MC needing to prove the academy’s, Shinonome’s, and her own worth to Tsugaru and I don’t feel like this was necessarily successful, since the one thing she should have been able to demonstrate to earn Tsugaru’s acknowledgement is that she can adapt and make herself useful to him. Anyway, in the next part of the season, I really hope we get to see her begin to learn how to work in a new team. The unity between the three of them that we see in Goto’s route is incredible, and we even see the moments in Goto’s and Soma’s routes where Momo comes to respect her abilities. I think the best way to show off Ayumu’s effect on her life and value as an academy instructor would be to show off the techniques that he specifically taught her in order to help Team Tsugaru and prove her place on their squad as an IT specialist, instead of acting on her own. 

On a personal note, I also just really wanted more Momose. We’ve seen in other routes (particularly Soma’s) how kind he actually is and how much he cares. In Soma’s route, he even defies Tsugaru to support you. One of my favourite parts about the SS3 routes is seeing Momo gradually warm up to you. I’ve mentioned the little bit in the Good Ending, but it would have been nice if there were a few more subtle moments like that to show how the MC starts to prove herself to her team.

I don’t want to spoil too much about the plot, so I will say that HLITF always knows how to write a compelling mystery, and I enjoyed that they kept us in suspense even when MC cracked the case so as to preserve the element of surprise. I also enjoyed the last couple chapters as well, and what happens just when you think everything is sorted… Of all of the SS3 routes, Shinonome’s sets up the most clearly not only for his Episode 0, but also for the second half of the season.

I did find the pacing a bit odd and not as tight as Soma’s, Goto’s, or Kaga’s (Ishigami’s was……. Wild……) but it wasn’t too confusing to follow, although I would struggle if I had to draw out a timeline since there are so many small ups and downs that it’s hard to pinpoint a specific narrative structure with clearly defined acts.

Aside from that, there were so many little moments I loved. The dinosaur planetarium date, MC being thirsty for Ayumu so many times (what’s new), MOMOSE IN A VINTAGE ROARING TIGER SUKAJAN AND SUPREME T-SHIRT LIKE THE ABSOLUTE HYPEBEAST HE IS, Ayumu’s desperation during the climax, and that one line where she says “Ow! That hoppity hurts, kids!” Let me know what little details you most enjoyed about the route too!

Edit: Can’t believe I forgot to mention this but that ONE SCENE WHERE HE’S ALL EXHAUSTED LIKE “BUY.... ME.... NECTAR” AND SOMA IS JUST STANDING THERE LIKE “WHAT NECTAR DO YOU WANT ME TO BUY FOR YOU” LMALSDKFSLSFDK LIKE AYUMU JUST ACCIDENTALLY ASKED HIS SUPERIOR TO RUN A PEACH NECTAR ERRAND.

The CGs were stunning too – I have absolutely nothing bad to say about them. The kabedon CG and the Happy Ending CG are my favourites in particular.

The appearance of the RMD doctors is definitely… gratuitous lol but I didn’t mind it. I thought they would at least play a bigger role (with maybe Sen in paediatrics at least). I so desperately wanted MC to acknowledge that Sen seems really similar to Ayumu?! But the appearance of the RMD MC in Ayumu’s PoV was even more gratuitous and I HATED IT LOL!!

I wondered if the translation and coding of this route was maybe a bit of a rush job? Or at least affected by the work from home situation. Firstly, there was no good – happy ending meter, which in one sense was quite nice because I got to read the whole thing in one go and just pick the options I thought would work without worrying about the meter not going up. It reminded me of old school Voltage games. Secondly, in episode 6, there’s an error with the option selection during the CG scene. If you select the first option (“Move, please”), it actually gives you the dialogue for all three options one after the other. Thirdly, in the Happy Ending chapter, after the HE end card goes up, there’s an extra scene which is actually a few slides from the ending of the Good End (re: Naru). I’m not sure if this is an error or just needed to give the context to set up for the second half of the season. In his PoV, they also left in a card from the JP version, which is delightfully, painfully heartwrenching to read but was left untranslated.

In Kaga’s, Ishigami’s and Soma’s routes, my heart hurt for their MCs. But in this route, my heart ached the most for Ayumu. I honestly feel that Ayumu’s Love’s Battlefield gave him more character development than his MC, which… I don’t mind, actually. This route was delightfully frustrating to read, actually made me cry once (but not as much as Ishigami’s or Soma’s; the latter made me have to take a break to sob for a good while), and also really hyped me up for his Love’s Trial route (愛の試練編). The special story in the ending set is WONDERFUL and I would highly recommend getting it if you can (although I’m still mad that we need to purchase these stories instead of getting them as a bonus for unlocking both endings like it used to be in the standalone app). Finally, it gave us this absolute gem of a background. Even if the route had been complete trash, it would have all been okay because of this one background.  

#ayumu shinonome #her love in the force #hlitf #takaomi tsugaru #takeru momose #seiji goto #hyogo kaga #hideki ishigami #shusuke soma #toru kurosawa #review #walkthrough #voltage inc #voltage otome #otome game #otome romance #love 365 #love 365 find your story #enjoy my 3500 word long review lmao #i still haven't published my soma review

[magnumdays]

The Episode of Lost Opportunities AKA 2x16

SO I wrote this before watching the promo, then I did and now I know most of us are just FREAKING out about next week (and I’m freaking out the most because ummm they’remakingmyfanficintoanactual EPISODE!!! How does one deal with this????)  but if you want a break from freaking out, here are some thoughts on last night’s episode!

So even though 2x16 was perfectly enjoyable, I’m going to have to officially re-name it “The Episode of Lost Opportunities” because there were so many plots and just tid-bits they could have done great things with.

So yeah not really a review today, instead I’m going to (in true Jenny Nicholson fashion) make a numbered list of things I think they should have added /done something with, in no particular order.

Miss nr. 1. Not having Higgy tease Magnum back with British pet names. I’m honestly devastated by this. Like what would a little sarcastic “come on luv” or a “Dearie, come here” from Juliet have cost them? The closest we got was Babe take our selfie.

Nr. 2. Not having Mr. Dorky Helpful But Cute guy ask Higgy out. I really thought this was where it was going with him being all “it’s just our second date, we met online” and yeah even though he looked about 12, it would have fit the episode. 

Plus they could have had Magnum standing to the side gesturing like “go for it” and her either saying yes or no and later her and Magnum having a little chat about it. The Yes with him being all “I convinced you to do it” proud and also mildly jealous. The No, with her being all “he’s a suspect” or “he went on a love bus tour!” or “I’m not ready, bc of the dead fiance, remember him?”

Nr. 3. Which takes us neatly to - drowned guy should be bringing up some feelings for Juliet as I’m fairly certain back in Day of The Viper they mention something about how Richard washed up on the shores of something-something (I mean obvs he was shot before but I’d still imagine some associations there).

Also her own almost drowning in 1x19 (even if this episode’s dude wasn’t drowned, it did seem so at first and he was still in the water). I just feel maybe there could have been some feelings here that our favorite duo actually talked about. Just a nice little call back to either one of those would have been great. One line! Is that too much to ask for?

Nr. 4 on the list of missed opportunities is for me going to be Theresa (Teresa?). TC’s old flame. And this is a big one! 

I honestly would have loved it if they went with this - as in have him not be so damned noble and let the childhood sweetheart go. Like, why not have them actually try to make a go at it?

Maybe she could have been there with just her boyfriend rather than husband to make it less of a thing and then maybe give it an episode or two and have them talk over the internet before she comes back and they get back together! Because why can’t anyone have a girlfriend? Like why do all of the guys need to be such lone wolves? 

I mean, I get it, because they are a family/brothers, but having even just one more minor female recurring would be interesting and would add dimension to the gang and characters!

Now this is like one of those random side plots that don’t really do much because in the end nothing has changed. Other than us learning a little more about TC, which is nice, but it doesn't seem like it will actually impact future episodes and didn’t really connect a whole lot with the episode. TC is just off getting closure to a relationship we never knew he needed closure for. Which means we’re not super invested.

I feel like this is a bit of a problem with the show in general. We get really nice and moving and character developing stuff for characters we haven’t been shown to need, as with Kumu last week and now TC. Rick and his dying “dad” Ice-Pick and even Shammie with his lying army buddy. Even Gordon and his son. Jin and his sisters and that’s why he steals.

These things could all have had 100 times more impact if they’d established these problems/ relationships earlier. Like if we had learned Kumu's husband had cheated on her and had a child with another woman (or maybe that Kumu is a bit sad she never had kids on her own) sometime before - over the past 30 episodes, wouldn’t last week’s episode, where she finally reaches out to the husband’s kid, would have been so much more emotionally satisfying? 

Same if Theresa had been mentioned as TC’s great love and maybe him being sad some episodes ago (or even back in 1x19 when his dad doesn't come to visit - that could have been about him seeing a post about her getting married and him being upset about it and connecting with Rick about that.) 

Like I get that maybe sometimes they just throw random things in there but at the same time why do they need to do that? Want to do that? Isn’t there someone keeping track of the big picture? Giving characters long running story arcs over a season or even multiple ones should be someone’s job. 

If it’s not, I volunteer! 

Seriously Lenkov I’m currently unemployed and totally up for it, just give me a call! I already know we think the same... (Marriage of Inconvenience). 

Nr. 5 Not having Gordon comment something on the fact that he’s been called to a murder scene on a Island Love tour bus site by his favorite PI duo. Like yeah they’d have told him why they were there but he still should have teased them about it! Like “What were you two doing here anyways? Something going on?” and both of them giving a horrified “NO!”.

Nr. 6 when the guy says “is he crazy?” after Magnum jumped into the waterfall pool thing, not having Higgy be all “Yes, he is”, then jumping in after him, was a huge miss. That would have been so funny and shown how much alike they are (even if Higgy will always be the sane one...)

Nr. 7. Not having Magnum and Higgins try to pretend to be together when the bus driver catches them. I mean come on! At least some more hand holding! Snuggling? I’m not saying to just kiss already okay maybe I am saying that.

Nr. 8. Not one real Miggy moment in this episode? I mean lots of bickering and maybe for a moment with her being all “well done” when he tells the cheating a-hole he’s an idiot for having an affair. And if the camera had stayed on him for a few seconds more when they’re toasting at the end we know we’d have gotten a Mangum looks had Higgy soft heart eyes moment. But we didn’t. But other than that, not really much feel-y moments even if we got plenty of cute stuff.

Nr. 9.  Sandy and how they find out Sandy is the killer! Like what? She cut the bus’s fuel line  which makes no sense, she’d wouldn’t want to trap herself right?  Sandy if you’d just not cut the fuel line and stayed with the group, you’d have been taken back to civilization and no one would have figured you out! Or you should have left right away on car/4-wheeler you must have prepared for escape, not stayed around! You could have left down long before the cops got there or the autopsy revealed anything. Same for why does she give her knife to her date? Why not just throw the knife away? She’s in the jungle, big chance it will be found. Not.

And why kill someone in the middle of nowhere, making yourself one of the, like, 8 suspects? Like come on girl, for a hit woman you’re not that clever. Also if you had a gun, why strangle a guy 2x your size? That’s not a smart plan either. Just get a silencer and shoot the guy when he’s on his morning jog back in the city or something! I feel like the only reason they had her be the baddie was so Magnum/ Higgins could say “Shot through the heart” // “How is that for poetic” all dramatically after Gordon took her down.

Problem nr. 10. Tied in with this I just think Sandy as the killer should have not happened. 

In fact, I think having the sweet loving wife as the killer would have been wonderful. 

It would have been a much better twist! Dead guy could have been poisoned (traditional how wive’s kill their husbands… just saying) and then he fell off the cliff. They could surely have found some weird clue to that, like maybe his throat is all swollen and stuff to make them think foul play and then when they’re moving the body towards the end, Magnum realizes it’s poison.

But Higgy stayed back with the ‘grieving’ asthmatic widow and oh no! Must rush back to save my one true love platonic partner. 

We could have had some sort emotional moment where the Wife got Higgy with a knife at her throat and is all “He was supposed to be my best friend, my partner, my everything and he did X” and Magnum being all “Well that woman you’re holding a knife to is my (best) friend, my partner and she didn’t do anything so please put the knife down!” Or something. 

I mean I know that sounds like I’m off in Miggy fanfiction land but honestly I think they could have made it work (this is hilarious when re-reading after watching next weeks trailer). She could have teased him about the best friend bit but then she could have been all soft, “Thomas. Thank you. I’m glad you're my friend.” And the episode could have ended with how love just never seems to end well for anyone which would have been way more on theme for the vibes in this episode (and frankly whole show because no one gets to have a romantic relationship for more than, like, 3 episodes).

Nr. 11. Higgins hair. Not putting it in the fluffy “Blood In the Water” style was a big miss because that hair made her look so freaking adorable. Just saying. I mean both my babies are always adorable I just love the poofy fluff hair from that ep!

Anyways, those were my 11 missed opportunities for episode sixteen!

My fave bits were Magnum and Higgins fake couple thing at the start. Magnum being all like “While we’re up here we might as well take a selfie!” and then when talking to the old couple his, *I’m just gonna keep my hand here, on your waist! I’m real smooth* move. 

I enjoyed the fast action pack-ed-ness of the whole ep and the pretty Hawaii scenery we got. The more I watch Magnum PI the more I want to visit Hawaii (one day when there is no Corona, I’m much richer and 20h airplane rides are suddenly comfortable, I will!) and just enjoying all the amazing natural beauty and stuff.

The Rick and TC’s interactions were also highlights, I loved the whole “just pretend to walk by”. Like so middle-school yet so relatable because who hasn’t done that when we’re like, is that Lisa from second grade? And just we walked down the cat food aisle perusing cat food (when we most def. don’t have a cat), just to check if it is indeed Lisa.

Also this made me crack up so hard.

Magnum: Muffin? 

Higgy: Could you please not refer to me as a breakfast pastry.

That’s just so on point for Higgy I can’t even!

You guys agree with my missed opportunities? Or have any of your own for this or any other episodes?

______

(And who is desperately searching for a time machine to steal so it can be next week - right this minute!! LIKE!!! I’m still freaking out from the trailer.)

#Magnum pi #miggy #magnum pi 2018 #thomas mangum #juliet higgins #magnum pi season 2 #magnum higgins #so much potential

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

Approximately how close is Luca to the rest of the hphm gang? Like... A number out of 10 ? He seems like a cool character and i kinda wanna know more about his relationships with the lot... Sorry for bothering

You certainly aren’t a bother! I welcome questions like these and find them flattering! If anything, this will help me define Luca and their relationships because I’ve been wishy-washy about that, for sure. (Oh, just so you, Luca uses they/them.) 

Rowan - 11/10. This is Luca’s best friend, no question about it. The closest and most important bond in their life, second only to Jacob. At this stage I very well might just ignore the whole concept of MC and Rowan becoming distant because even though Luca does have a twin, they tend to see Rowan as having that level of importance and trust. Needless to say, Y6CH18 completely shatters Luca’s world and leaves them spiraling, and they still are. 

Ben - 6/10. It was stronger in the early days, when Ben was still timid. Luca never wanted to believe Rowan’s theory about him, they always trusted Ben. But when he abandons caution for recklessness, Luca is about driven mad trying to keep him safe. It’s stressful, it’s not fun, and admittedly Luca’s opinion of Ben sinks at this point. 

Penny - 8/10. These two have always been close, the dearest of friends, and Luca will defend Penny to anyone who talks trash about her behind her back, which is definitely possible for people who get as popular as her. Going off of canon, MC and Penny tend to hang out a lot, and that works fine because they’re Housemates and best buds. Penny’s parents adore Luca too, so that’s nice. 

Merula - 9/10. One of the major contenders for a potential end-game. I pretty much wrote Luca around their interactions with Merula. From first, they never hated her. Simply found her perplexing and mildly annoying. They didn’t blame her for the Bulbadox powder incident. Even then, they were showing her mercy. This inkling of mercy eventually evolved into genuine care and protective instincts toward the Slytherin witch who reminds them so much of their brother.

Bill - 6/10. A solid pal, like a big brother. He doesn’t fill the hole that Jacob left behind, but I chose my URL for a reason, and Bill would be there for Luca and they’d get along quite well. Sharing solidarity in how they both trust Rakepick, and heartbreak when that comes back to bite them. 

Skye - 8/10. This is just the story of Merula and Luca, but translated to Quidditch and without the phase of being opponents. Luca was very wary around Skye and not impressed by her at first. But by the end of Season 1, they had grown fond of her, felt loyal to her, and despite being keenly aware of her flaws, they stuck up for her and tried to gently guide her toward making smarter choices. 

Murphy - 5/10. They aren’t that close. Not that they aren’t friends, because they totally care, and Luca appreciates his company. But compared to the other folks on the team, Luca and Murphy are friendly with each other, but haven’t really opened up or connected on an especially deep level. 

Orion - 8/10. This right here, is the guy who fills the hole that Jacob left. I can’t quite explain it but there’s something about his wisdom and serenity that Luca just latches onto. They seriously admire him, enjoy his company, and want to make h him proud. They’re basically in awe of Orion, and he seems to see a lot of potential in Luca as well. 

Rath - 5/10. A relationship that was initially built upon uncertainty and fear gradually evolved into being an unconventional friendship through the events we see in the Rath TLSQ. Luca never wanted to be at odds with Rath, but admittedly it does feel a little awkward to trade friendly and affectionate banter. 

Tonks - 9/10. A complete disaster, an absolute nightmare that is constantly spawning chaos...but she’s just so damn lovable, and it’s not like Luca doesn’t have a history of surrounding them-self with people who are equally dodgy. Tonks is one of their closest friends, though she also felt slightly awkward around them for a while, as Luca’s aunt is Alice Longbottom, who was victimized by Tonks’ own aunt, though obviously Luca never holds this against her.

Tulip - 9/10.  Another contender for end-game, and could even share them. Tulip swept Luca off their feet almost immediately. Whatever winds up happening, it’s safe to say she was their first crush, and they always found her amazing. Growing very close to her in Year Three, especially thanks to their mutual connection to Merula. I like to think that Tulip knows she needs someone to reel her in now and then, even if she won’t admit it. Luca does that for her. 

Barnaby - 6/10. Similar to Murphy, it’s not that there’s any issue in this relationship, because there absolutely isn’t. Luca simply didn’t grow as close to Barnaby as to some other people, but they always thought very highly of him and similar to Ben, they were protective of him and wanted to keep him safe from harm. Also, his hugs were always amazing. 

Ismelda - 5/10. Luca had ambivalent feelings toward her for a while, after Year 3. They’re not really a hateful person, but they weren’t very fond of her. Made a couple of attempts to make peace, but they didn’t really go anywhere. After “Crushed” they came to understand her more and begin to develop pity, which only evolved further by Year 6, at which point they would unironically hang out with her. She begrudgingly appreciates the company.

Charlie - 6/10. Like Bill, he has a warm and cordial friendship with Luca that is able to flourish more regularly as they share classes, and Luca could honestly listen to Charlie talk about dragons all day. They don’t always understand, but Charlie’s presence is calming, and that’s why they like it.

Andre - 4/10. Luca and Andre get off on the right foot, but they barely talk. To Luca, Andre is that one friend that they wish they could get to know better, and feel bad because they never have time for them. Andre is so disconnected from the plot, but he does nice things for MC like making them outfits, Luca would appreciate it.

Jae - 7/10. In my headcanons, Jacob and Jae knew each other before Jae was at Hogwarts. So Luca and Jae were friends when they were young, but fell out when Jacob disappeared. Avoiding each other until Year 5, whereupon they reconciled and reconnected, becoming better friends again. 

Badeea - 5/10. Obligatory clarification that this is due to them simply not being very close, not because there’s any bad blood, there isn’t. Luca thinks highly of Badeea and admires her abilities and she admires their heart and kindness. There isn’t much more to say about the friendship than that. 

Liz - 6/10. Luca seriously respects her and always has. Sure, she’s a bit odd, but they more than agree with her about a lot of things that most people wouldn’t. They care about the well-being of creatures too, and Liz is always fun to be around, even if her personality is a bit prickly. She gets along well with the likes of Penny and Barnaby, no way she wasn’t going to like Luca.

Diego - 3/10. Okay, this one is actually due to some friction between the two characters. Diego just entirely rubs Luca the wrong way, and he eventually catches on to that. They’re never enemies or anything, but they’re also not really friends either. I just feel like Diego would be the most sexual person in general, and Luca’s very ace, so it’s a struggle for them to coexist. 

Talbott - 6/10. Luca’s very fond of him, and grows to sympathize with him during his quests. Talbott is just such a relatable guy, and while Luca isn’t the most anti-social, they understand the instinct. I also like to imagine that they’re less pushy than MC is in-canon, and that Talbott appreciates this. Luca is the one cat that Talbott can tolerate.

Chiara - 8/10. She’s closer to Luca, because they do share a House, so how could they not be? She was part of their friend group since Year 1, alongside Tonks, Penny, and Rowan. These two have a lot in common. They’re both socially awkward, but caring Healers who are on the quieter side but carry dark secrets they aren’t responsible for. Of course they connect. 

Beatrice - 9/10. These two would become the most unlikely friendship, but would quickly become close. Beatrice is the chaotic type Luca gravitates toward, and Luca has the gentle energy of someone like Penny without the appearance of being pretentious or trying to control Beatrice. I think she’d very much appreciate that and latch onto Luca the way she did Ismelda. I see these two understanding each other quite well as time goes on.

This was fun! Thank you for sending it my way!

#Luca Fawley #HPHM Headcanons #Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

[unabashedrebel]

Top 10 Characters

In no particular order

1) Lara Croft (Tomb Raider) Can I just say that I love how the reboots, both the movie and the new trilogy of games were phenomenal as a long time fan of this character? They did her right. They focused on her origins, how she came to be this mythic Tomb Raider who delves into the greatest mysteries of the world while fighting against an evil Illuminati type organization.

But she always has tenacity. She always has grit. She’s not always sure of herself, or her abilities, but still continues to do it anyways because it’s the right thing to do. Not to mention I love the whole cultured rich girl who gets her hands dirty literally all the time. I’ve loved everything about her characterization in the last few years.

2) Really the entire FF7 cast but; Tifa Lockhart (FF7) Is anyone actually surprised by this one? Look at my blog. It’s pretty Tifa-rific lately. Honestly I have no good excuse for this, I can’t actually trace back what the reason was that started me on really liking her character. Basically because she’s been my video game wife since I was about 10 years old.

I guess, if I really thought about it, I enjoy her realness. She’s an optimist but not fully in your face about it, she promotes kindness, she’s the mom friend. Always looking out for everyone else at the expense of herself. They’re traits that I really admire in people, and you know what? It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that maybe those feelings were in part brought on by a video game character from my childhood. Not only that but I’ve always loved the story thread with her about the conflict she faces in doing what she believes is the right thing, and the fallout that ensues.

Not only that but she’s a fucking badass.

3) Spider-Man (Peter Parker, Marvel) Shout to to the most relatable super-hero ever created. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Spider-man is a staple of New York, even if he’s fictional. He’s just... boiled down to that essence of a Queens kid. It’s amazing as someone from around this area.

But seriously, I think I like Peter the most because he really is relatable. He really does worry about the same things I find myself worrying about. He really does shoot out quips like that’s his super power. He really does try and do whats right regardless of what others think. He’s conflicted, he’s unsure of himself, he’s been granted this great power and feels the need to go out and help people with it, and again at great personal expense. He’s, to me? What a hero should be.

I guess I like him so much because I see a lot of myself in him. I can relate and put myself in those shoes. I can relate my experiences to his, and i’m not talking about getting bit by a radioactive spider. I’m talking about the human side to Peter Parker. His stresses when he’s out of the tights.

4) Geralt of Rivia (The Witcher, and again I love all the characters Geralts just tops. Ciri was a close second.) Yeah, yeah call me out and say ‘someone just binged’. YOU KNOW WHAT MAYBE I DID FOR THE SECOND TIME YOU CANT STOP ME.

Seriously though. For a character who does not like being social? Geralt is so beautifully written for. Fun fact, I haven’t actually played the games save for the half way through 2 and the intro to 3. But I read the first novel and I’m working my way through the second, and Geralt? He’s a man of few words. But when he does speak? Everybody fucking listens.

5) Kassandra (AC: Odyssey) Uhhhh, first women to win the wrestling Olympics? How could I not.

As a long time fan of Assassins Creed and the wonderfully written characters that I have been lucky enough to get to know as protagonists? Kassandra takes the cake. She was blunt, sassy, smart, and took nobodies shit. Forever has she branded the word Misthios in my head with that Greek twang. To the point where I get excited when I hear it.

Maybe it was a mix of being in the Ancient Greek world with her, another one of my favorites. But there was just something about her character that stuck out to me. Something I haven’t seen in their writing since Ezio.

6) Joel (The Last of Us) How the fuck could I not love the gruff and sad dad?

Dude the characters in this game were so insanely well done. Like you could literally tell that, besides the fact that it was an amazingly fun game? The dev team TRULY cared about the story, the reception, and the buildup.

Lets be real. That first scene with him when everything starts is about as heartbreaking as it comes. It sets you up to really accept that this man has lost everything, that he no longer cares about anything but survival, because he’s already learned that when you care? Those things can be easily taken away.

He’s cold. He’s quick. He’s capable. He’s ignorant to everyone else. Right up until he meets Ellie and that little girl begins to peel back the layers and show that Joel, under it all, is actually a pretty good guy who has been dealing with his trauma by building up walls.

All and all? I would recommend anyone playing this game just to see the transition of Joel. Ellie, as well, by no small measure. But Joel’s growth was one of my favorite things to ever watch unfold in a game.

7) Revan (Star Wars) Okay so I know this ones a bit obscure. He was actually featured as a protagonist of one of Star War, in my opinion, best roleplaying games. 

Basically I love this character because I think he actually GETS the whole thing. The cults. He doesn’t really subscribe to either of them, rather he’s used them to further his own goals. Which you know, as an RPG you get to chose, usually I like to chose he did what he did for the right reasons. Because the Jedi were failing the people they had to protect. Because he couldn’t stand by and watch a war be fought while they deliberated what to do. He never fully reasoned with the Sith, and as far as I knew didn’t quite care to share their extremist values. Frankly, he’s by far been the best representation to what I feel is a very opinionated debate in Star Wars: Why chose either side? They both suck in their own ways.

He saw passed all that, started a movement, started a war of ideologies when the universe was still young enough to hear those kinds of debates play out.

His story will forever be one of my absolute favorites in Star Wars.

8) Ahsoka Tano (Star Wars) If you haven’t watched the Clone Wars animated series and you’re a fan of Star Wars? What the fuck are you doing. This character alone is enough to justify the 7 season watch.

The Padawan of Anakin Skywalker. How can that go wrong, right? Actually, Ahsoka is one of the reasons I began to like Anakin in the first place. The whole series shows a different side to characters we love, honestly, you got to see Anakin be the best Jedi general anyone had ever seen. You got to see him train this young woman into an incredible Jedi, and honestly? The younger sister relationship that Ahsoka has with Anakin is just so well done.

But beyond that there’s so much to love about Ahsoka. If you haven’t caught the theme, I really do love strong characters who still have flaws. Who still have a lot to learn. Who make mistakes. But even after she had, never once did Ahsoka give up on what she believed in. Her values, in the end, proving to be stronger to her then the values instilled by the Jedi, even if they aligned.

My favorite thing is that you got to see her journey, literally from a learning padawan to a fully fledged Jedi badass. 

If we don’t get an Ahsoka series on Disney+ I’m gonna be pissed.

9) Nathan Drake (Uncharted) Cheeky rogue with a heart of gold that often gets by on sheer luck alone.

Need I say more?

10) Tanjiro Kamado (Demon Slayer) Okay, so don’t really expect many people to know this one.This character is the main protagonist in an anime that has literally taken all my attention. From the animation, to the story, to the undeniable ways in inspires me to write Sori.

Tanjiro, perhaps, is the driving force behind this. I just love this kid okay? He started out as NOTHING. Literally, nothing. He fought against overwhelming odds, knowing full well he would die, to save his sister. And in that moment? The person he was fighting let him go. He then sent him down the path of becoming a demon slayer.

This kid, who as far as I know was part of a large family of commoners gave everything he had to training his body to fight demons. Every time he stumbled, he found the strength to continue. He never gives up. He learns, he thinks, he’s a smart kid with this absolute bottomless well of determination.

I don’t want to ruin the plot of the anime too much because honestly this has been my favorite thing since Dragonball Super. You should go watch it. I promise you will understand right off the bat why I love this character so much.

I was tagged by: @serelia-evensong​ @safrona-shadowsun

Gonna tag: @draenei-tales​ @wildname​ @zeehva​ @ravensteel​ @fair-fae​ @monster-of-master​ @palaceofthedeadmemes​ @zariasilverleaf​ @starforger​ @asharinhun​ 

I’m also not sorry this is a long post. How dare you ask me to talk about shit I love.

[bespectacled-panda]

after seeing dumpywoof’s post I was inspired to do a tier list of my own!!! and boy howdy do I have some hot takes of the century it turns out,,,

the seasons are more or less organized in descending order within the same row as well (e.g. MC 4 > MC 5). also, shamefully copying dumpywoof & putting a detailed & overly verbose explanation for each season:

S Tier

Terraria 3: For me, absolutely nothing compares to Terraria 3. No other season combines such perfect participant dynamics with such heart-wrenching drama—not to mention the existence of Team New Kids who make me cry on a daily basis, or the incredible fake twist ending. It would be a sin to put this season anywhere but alone at the very top. Also props for being the only (1 of 2) post-show that actually includes all of the cast.

 A Tier

Minecraft 4: This is the best season for shenanigans alone, hands-down. It’s largely just the participants shooting the shit together, especially in the latter half of the season when it gets down to just the four of them. & I have a huge soft spot for men being wholesomely foolish together I suppose, so here it goes fhdhfhd.

Minecraft 5: To be honest, I have not seen this season since it released, which is a crime, I know, I’m sorry :orb: But I remember it being very very good, & I cannot imagine my taste will have changed that dramatically in just a few years, so. in truth, this one might be actually better than MC 4, but as I have not seen it in many years I can’t say that for certain. Either way, though, it’s definitely one of the best seasons out there.

MineZ 1: To me, MineZ 1 is the reverse of MC 4: low on shenanigans & high on drama. It’s pre-Todd era, but the editing in this one is honestly Todd-level, I would say. It’s so incredibly tense, especially the scene with McJones & PBG trying to escape the caves, and I feel like the sheer stress of it all brought out a new side of a lot of the participants, most notably Dean—who sounded genuinely agonized at times. A very very quality season all around, IMO.

Terraria 2: This season probably objectively deserves to be B tier, but I am it giving A tier for personal bias. I just,,, love the dynamics okay. Jeff & McJones especially made for a killer duo. It was a rare instance of McJones being the funny man himself rather than being the straight man to someone else’s funny man; he was super uncharacteristically goofy & almost borderline flirtatious at times, it really made for some good moments fhdhfjd. Plus then you got McJones solo commentary at the end which I greatly enjoyed. Just,, a very enjoyable season, very mid-HC era, very light & easy to watch, all that good stuff.

Diablo II: Man,,,,this absolutely 100% does not deserve A tier, I know, I’m sorry, but I just can’t bring myself to put it lower. I have A tier love for it :orb: Admittedly, the game is horrendously ugly and confusing to watch, but the shenanigans + the cast dynamics win me over in the end. Paul especially was great in this, & I hope he makes a return someday. Loving fathers Paul & Jirard with their sorceress son McJones making their way through the end-game just cannot be beaten. (Anti-shoutouts to Ross though, I don’t know anything about him, I am sure he is a lovely man, but GOD. WHY DID HE KEEP RUNNING OFF ON HIS OWN & GETTING LOST BUT THEN FORCEFULLY REFUSING HELP,,, ROSS YOU ARE THE WORST DHDHFJDJD)

 B Tier

Minecraft 7: Boy,,, this is going to be a controversial take fhhfjdjf. I just don’t know how to explain it, but something about MC7 felt,,,, Very off. I don’t know what it was, just something about the season seemed very,,, almost like you could tell things were falling apart behind the scenes, & they were trying to pull it back together but weren’t quite succeeding. It’s not a bad season in any regards, of course, I just,, don’t enjoy it nearly as much as a lot of others,, it’s missing that crucial spark of life in my opinion,, also Dean leaving to go to work was kind of strange,, I get it, it’s probably difficult to work around his real-life job,, but it felt strange,, he got like temporary immunity. Nothing like that had ever happened before I don’t think. And also they never even explained why Dean wasn’t there for like three episodes fjdjfjhd,,

Minecraft 3: God I feel like I just keep digging myself into a deeper & deeper hole here fhsjfjd,,, but man, I did like MC3 to be honest. It wasn’t the best season, it kind of went nowhere, but I liked the cast & there was a lot of good funnymoments. Smooth & Shane were very good guests who I feel like really rounded out the season, & Jontron did not come off as terribly overbearing as I believe that he has in other seasons. Overall, pretty decent, I’d say.

 C Tier

Minecraft 2: MC 2 & MC 3 are very similar, but I think MC 2 is slightly worse, both in terms of entertainment & cast. NCS & Kyrak did not hit like Smooth & Shane did,,, and I feel like just everything that happened in this one was fairly forgettable. I was torn as to whether this should be a B or a C, but I put it here in the end just to drive home that I really don’t like it as much as MC 3, I don’t believe.

Minecraft 6: Oh lord, this is a nuclear take fhdjfjd. Again, this isn’t a bad season at all, it has its good moments, especially Chad & Dodger, they are angels & I love them & want them back. But boy,,, just. Many things went wrong here. None of the twists panned out like,, at all, which I know isn’t necessarily anyone’s fault, the concept of this twist & of twists in general is very good. But it fell so flat here, especially with the revival. There was,, no debate at all about what to do. They hyped it up like they had this big decision to make, but then nobody made any effort to dramatize it at all. It was basically just Dean deciding by himself and everyone just sitting back & letting him. For the record, I have no qualms with the fact that Dodger was revived, I fully agree that she deserved it over McJones, but it was not played well at all IMO,,,      I do have to admit, though, with a fair amount of sheepishness, that the thing that most sullies this season for me is McJones’s death. Just,,, his horrible, so so avoidable, insanely early death, coupled with his retirement shortly thereafter & him becoming so jaded with hc that he expressed borderline hostility & hatred towards it just,,, hurts. I kinda don’t wanna see the events of MC 6 now knowing the aftermath. I understand fully that this particular point is not something most people care about to say the least dhfhdjd, but,,, in all honesty, I really don’t have any desire to rewatch this one, as objectively good as it might be. It was a win but it felt like a loss, if that makes sense. Also the post-show lacked all three people I actually wanted to hear from fhdjfjd neither the two people who could’ve been revived nor the actual person who did the reviving were there to share their insight & perspectives on it :pensive: 

 D Tier

Starbound: man,,, starbound. This is a very mixed bag for me. On one hand, I disagree with people who say that it was boring or that nothing happened, I found it very tense, Todd’s editing had me on edge throughout every episode. But on the other hand,,, man. Very few memorable moments, what even happened in this one,, also I feel like the game mechanics/plot weren’t explained very well, I feel like I remember being vaguely confused all the time as to what was happening. Probably will not ever rewatch either.

 Have Not Seen

DayZ: I will not ever be watching this season both because I do not know anything about DayZ & because from what I’ve heard it was an absolute disaster, I’m just not interested in getting involved in that fhdhfjdk

Terraria 1: There’s not really a reason I haven’t watched this one. Just,, I haven’t made my way down to the earliest seasons yet. Although as mentioned before, I have seen a few clips of this season, & Jontron seems to be pretty obnoxious in this one, so I don’t how much I’ll enjoy the parts with him in it, but I definitely do want to watch it someday.

Minecraft 1: The same as Terraria 1, I just happen to not have seen this one by chance. But unlike T1, I am much more looking forward to actually watching it, it seems really good, I want to experience that legendary very first season at last dhdhfjd

MineZ 2: Man,,, many things about the behind-the-scenes of this season make me sort of uncomfortable honestly. Just,,, the visceral second-hand shame & embarrassment of someone in the hc fandom being so rude & bothersome to the cast,, somehow it makes me feel personally responsible even though I didn’t do anything fhdjfj,,, Also,, once again continuing with the trend of me being saddened by McJones expressing dislike for seasons fhdjfjd,, I do recall him saying, regarding this season, something like “I think it would’ve been better if we just never did this,” which,,, ow. That doesn’t make me particularly enthused to watch it fhdjfjd. I probably will end up watching this season someday to be honest, but I’m not looking forward to feeling the cast’s frustration & unhappiness with the situation,, (EDIT: I want to be clear that there is no actual drama surrounding minez 2!!! it is a perfectly fine season, there is nothing wrong with it, it just happens that I personally am bothered by the fact that there was a lot of like,,, frustration coming from the participants regarding the player who was stalking them. this in no way means that minez 2 is an objectively bad or problematic season!! if minez 2 is your favorite season I completely respect you, there is nothing wrong with that!! there is a lot to like about the season as a whole!!! I just personally care too much about mcjones having a bad time in seasons bc it’s what ultimately led to his retirement, & that makes me sad fjdhfjdjd. but it has come to my attention that my wording made it sound like there was drama about minez 2, which there never actually was, I am very very sorry for my unintentional yet poor choice of words.)

#私がポストしたもの #about time I have a 'my own posts' tag #I hardly make them but they do exist from time to time #also god. good lord this is so long. #get me talking about pbg hc & I just won't ever stop fhdhfhdh #shoutouts to anyone who actually reads this #also again. this is by no means my opinions on objective season quality. fhshfjdj #this is just my opinions on how much I personally like & would rewatch each season

[fairydust-stuff]

Top Ten reasons to like Claude

Ok, here's the thing I dislike Claude as a person he's slimy, manipulative, emotionally abusive, acts like a perverted creep and he killed Alois then stomped on his poor little heart. That being said he's a great antagonist he's so good in fact it seems the writers had to make him Ciel’s stupid stalker later on in the season and make him too easily defeated by Sebastian dispite the fact, Claude nearly killed him in their first  fight. Also i now I've said this before but i hate when people hate on Claude but then praise Sebastian. They both manipulated and planned the death of children. Claude smashed Alois's head open, but Sebastian stabbed Ciel once he realized serving him isn't beneficial to him anymore. If you prefer Sebastian fine, but stop acting like Sebastian is a pure selfless saint who never does anything wrong. So let's take a look at Claude's less badly written attributes

1 Hobbies Come how many demons can do origami, tap dance and sew. Claude has actual hobbies besides being a butler and their kind of interesting and cool. Honestly i wish we knew how he learned to make origami or how he learned how to do a Spanish Flamengo and who else thinks get getting Alois and Claude as dance partners would of been epic!

2. Goofball For all his stiff upper lip, extreme formality and annoyance and disgust at Alois's immaturity and antics. Claude can be a real goofball he does that weird thing with his glasses to entertain Alois in the OVA. He starts a food fight with Sebastian while they're preparing food for the masters. Then he even dancing around taunting Sebastian going " He saw you! He saw you!" I may dislike Claude x Alois as a romantic pairing, but i have to admit whenever I see flashes of this slightly more silly side of Claude, i can see how Alois might of fallen for him.

3. Patience I've got to admire how easily Claude puts up with everything in comparison to Sebastian. No matter what weird antics or shenanigans Alois gets up to. Claude just goes about his business as usual, even when Alois literary stretches his face into a smile. He continues to not only put up with it but to keep talking. He makes Alois try hard to even get the slightest reaction from him and honestly props to him for that, because as much as I love Alois it must be trying to actually live with someone who goes through constant mood swings, and you have to fight just so you can dress them every morning.

4 Rivalry with Sebastian These two are so petty toward each other two demons got into a food fight, i repeat a food fight! When they're not trying to out demon each other, they're trying to out butler each other. Its hysterical to watch! Claude’s always the one to throw the first taunt and piss the usually arrogant Sebastian off. Anyone who gets that kind of reaction out of Sebastian i can't help but like. Also Claude nearly sliced off Sebastian's head and trapped him in his web in the first half of the season. For the first time in a fight in Black Butler there's actually a stake. Sebastian is matched by an equally powerful and cunning opponent this should of been a bigger plot point then it was. In fact, I wanted to see more of their fights just because they were so childish and Sebastian wasn't guaranteed a win without working for it for once.

5. Manipulative In a antagonist this is key and up until the end when he gets over confident. Claude skillfully played everyone on the chess board. He had Alois snared in his web codependent on him and cut off from everyone else both in the house and in London. According to an old writer roleplay Claude treated Alois like he mattered slowly reeling him in. He also tricked Sebastion by pretending to make a deal with him, that Alois would be sacrificed and they'd fight over ciel. When he wanted to eat them both the whole time. The smirk of smug triumph on Claude's face when he says " I'm afraid my rose decayed." implying he made the deal with a dying rose to make their demon pact not stick. He made Ciel think Alois's memories were his by shoving Alois's soul into his body and using a metal asylum to mess up Ciel's brain. Turned the kid against Sebastian and got him to order Sebastian to never see him again. Honestly he would of won if it wasn't for Hannah. So i have to admire his plan it was actually good as far as evil plans go.

6. Claude is a screw up This may be a weird thing to like but i honestly find Sebastian too good at everything sometimes. Claude who leaves sauce on the plate, doesn't know how to comfort Alois without being creepy, who gets over confident and tells Alois the truth in the maze, when a lie would have helped him more, underestimates Hannah even though she threatened him over Alois's safety is just less perfect and i like that because perfect characters are boring and it's not interesting to see them go up against anyone.

7. Relationship with Alois This twisted dynamic kind of draws me in in fact i don't think we got enough interactions between these two or explored their obsessive relationship. Yana describes Alois feelings for Claude as "addiction" implying a toxic inability to quite Claude. The interesting thing is Claude seems just as addicted to him. At the end of the show Sebastian points out the smell that intoxicated Claude was Alois soul not Ciel’s. That and the OVA Spider's Intention and season 2 flashback suggest Claude finds Alois facinateing " The soul who dances in fire” Claude describes him as. And furthermore Claude is drawn not to Alois’s cruelty like you’d expect from a demon grooming a sinner but his passion. Even when Alois’s is shown crying over the butterfly he acidently killed Claude is fixated on him like he’s something, Claude can't quite figure out. At one point when Alois uses the truth of Luka death to deceive the priest and Alaster. Claude looks visibly surprised and when Alois decides to take Ciel from Sebastian to make the other demon suffer. Claude calls him “ magnificent” and there is a subtext of the two them scheming together rather than Claude just taking orders. There seems to be a kind of twisted intimacy there between predator and prey with these two and their roles constantly swap.

8. His catchphrase People claim he stole it but that's ridiculous Sebastian says " I'm one hell of a Butler." Claude says "that's what makes a Trancy Butler." there's a huge difference. Actually I prefer Claude's catchphrase because it's never exactly the same. " Sugar into salt one moment" and Red into Blue the next." at least Claude keeps it interesting and it's never straightforward its almost a riddle that the viewer has to figure out his meaning.

9. Loyal in the end I'm still mad at him and annoyed all can give Alois is he was a worthy meal after all. I don't think it makes up for him screwing with Alois's head for all those years. However I can't help but notice even when he seemed to hate Alois, Claude never denied being a Trancy Butler it was part of his catchphrase. Actually as much as some fans swoon over how close Sebastian and Ciel are, Sebastion has never once defined himself as the Phantomhive Butler. His catchphrase puts the emphasis on how awesome he is while Claudes is a bit braggy as well, its implies to serve Alois to be a Trancy Butler is an honor. In fact Claude even dies saying " A stray dog into an Earl. " he even with his last breath still remains and is proud to call himself Alois's Butler.

10. Hints of discontentment . Claude mentions that he wanted excitement, something to ease the humdrum of a very long empty life with no purpose but devouring souls. This makes since as it hints Claude’s pursuit of Ciel had less to do with the boy himself and more to do with the fact he wanted danger, flash and a challenge even if it ended in his demise. In the end Claude acknowledges Alois brought excitement into his long boring life which was something he did not expect. This line implies Claude was as bored and apathetic as Hannah used to be and was looking to feel something as a demon through devouring and the thrill of the hunt because it never occured to Claude to try any other way. He's basically a demon haveing a mid life crisis, how can i not enjoy that?

#Black butler #claude faustus #claude appreciation #Claude is basically haveing a midlife crisis and latch's onto abused kids to give his life meaning #This guy is way more interesting then Sebastian in my opinion