#but i do wish a little more people discussed the way the show mishandles that arc in particular

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

So this week's @fansplaining episode was evocatively titled “The Illusions of Crowds,” and part of the episode description read Elizabeth and Flourish discuss a listener letter about the ways fans convince each other of interpretations or outcomes—and what happens when creators are on a very different page. Who’s responsible for mismatched fan expectations? Should fandom hold some responsibility for wishful but ultimately misleading theories?  That sounded great! I had so many thoughts already.  I was into it.  I was down to clown on delusional fans.  I would've gambled real American money that the letter was about Supernatural.  BUT IT WASN'T.  No.  It  was not.

It was about my fandom!  Magicians fandom!!  The working exemplar of angry lunatics harassing each other over tv ship wars was ABOUT US, my beloveds.  I was startled – I was confused – as words like gaslighting and resentment started to pile up, I started to  get very Emotionally Activated, to the point where I had to switch to something else so I didn't arrive angry to work that morning.  How could it be about us, we are FUCKING DELIGHTFUL?

And eventually I calmed down, because I'm healthy, I'm super fucking healthy.  It's a good episode, as Fansplaining always is, and I encourage you to download it or just read the transcript here, but here's a chunk that's representative, or at least relevant to what I want to say:

I experienced this a few years ago in The Magicians fandom—I’d watched the entire first season when it came out and decided that it had some problematic stuff I didn’t love, seemed a little too smug, it just wasn’t for me, and moved on. Fast forward several years and several seasons later, almost everyone in my social media feeds is yelling about how this is the best queer representation ever, everyone has to watch this show, this is going to be the one that waters our queer crops, clears our queer skin, etc. 

So I check it out again. And it is cool! The lead is definitely kissing other dudes. There’s a lot of iffy stuff going on in terms of representation, and just as much if not more textual evidence that the queer ship everyone’s pinning their dreams on isn’t going to be endgame. But it’s still really nice to see, and I can hang out with the rest of the fans and ship it up anyway. 

But slowly, the fandom started to really devolve into being one of the more discourse-heavy fandoms I’ve ever seen (at least the corners that I somehow ended up in), with tons of meta devoted to ‘proving’ that the ship was going to be endgame. There was even a lot of harassment aimed at anyone who tried to warn people the ship might not be endgame, or calling out other aspects of representation that were mishandled and seemed like red flags. Eventually those voices left or stopped speaking, and there were only a few left and they were sort of ostracized.

Okay. So.  I'm sad, obviously, that this LW had that experience, because I have been there with other fandoms and it is so shitty.  (Ask me someday about how I once spent 72 solid hours responding to furious comments from SGA fandom after suggesting that it wasn't a very hospitable place for people who shipped the Wrong Ships.)  Fandoms are supposed to be places where people talk about ideas, and that requires a certain amount of flexibility and willingness to entertain difference; you are doing Textual Analysis Club wrong if you're going full Highlander and decapitating your opponents because There Can Be Only One.  And it's particularly sad to me because my experience of this fandom has been without exception that people are bright and warm and funny and generous and good, sorry to sound so Manchurian Candidate, but speaking my truth here.  It sucks that other people left it feeling so very much otherwise.

Given that, of course I had the immediate reaction of, like, that's not true! That's not what it's like at all!  But I'm not here, I swear, to dispute LW's claims – first and foremost, because I just wasn't there for the time period they're talking about.  I started watching the show immediately after s3 aired, and I watched 4 and 5 in real time, but other than a few random Tumblr posts that got some clicks from folks tracking the tag, I didn't interact with the fandom at all until post-s4, when I decided the only way to Feel My Feelings about this show was to write about it.  When I posted the first chapter of Pretty Good Year, I didn't know anybody, I was just tossing it up on AO3 and hoping for the best.  And it was so well-received, beyond my wildest expectations, and the fandom just kind of took me in its teeth mom-cat style and was like, You Belong With Us Now, New Friend, and that is how I got here.  So what I'm saying is that I wouldn't have ever experienced the same fandom that LW did, not just because I entered the ring as Team Queliot, but even more so because by the time I was talking to people about The Magicians, there was no more room for discourse in re: But Will It Endgame?  It would not endgame.

And I think that's what caught my interest about this letter and this person's story: it's different from my experience in many ways, but it's mostly different because – and it's weird that I never thought of this before but – I never knew a version of Magicians fandom, or Queliot fandom specifically, that was focused around any kind of ship war or in any sense the question of who gets the rose from Quentin in the finale or whatever.  That's just – it makes sense that people must have speculated about that at one point, but not in my institutional memory.  For the three years I've been here, it's all been – you should pardon the expression – a postmortem.

That's probably not incidental to my enjoyment of the fandom, to be honest, because I think the least fun game that fandom plays is try to guess what will happen in canon. We don't know what will happen in canon.  Almost everyone is almost always wrong when they predict, and that's true for every show I've ever followed in real time.  Personally, I can tell you that I watched most of the show thinking that they should pair Quentin with Eliot, because I liked the way that they seemed to support and enjoy each other, but it was obvious to me that the writers were deeply invested in the idea of Quentin and Alice as a great star-crossed love story.  I would never have gone to bat for the idea that the show would end with a Queliot wedding or whatever, because I'm old and cynical. So the fun of the pairing to me was never a mental countdown to some anticipated happy ending... but of course, I wasn't participating in the fandom in those early seasons.  Maybe I, too, would have been drawn in by the hype if I'd had people around me hyping it up as a real possibility.  The Illusions of Crowds and all.

Although I'm doing the math now, and I'm thinking.  If LW watched all of season 1, then quit, then came back “years later” to discourse about a possible Queliot endgame – yeah, I think it's most likely that what they're remembering is the fandom during early s4, and if you were ever inclined to believe in good things happening to good people, that's gonna be the part of the show that seduced you.  Watching Quentin say nine hundred times that saving Eliot is the only thing he cares about while the Monster exhibits obsessive jealousy over Quentin's attachment to Eliot, then Eliot having the Profound Personal Revelation that the one failure in his failure-soaked life that stands out as most unbearable to him is that he snuffed out the possibility of a romance with Quentin....  Yeah, I do very clearly remember thinking, okay, they're really leaning on all of this, it's got to be going somewhere. I still don't think I ever had the kind of complete confidence that LW's acquaintances apparently had, but yeah.  Even I started to believe you wouldn't write any of that for no reason.  (You would, it turns out, write all of that for no reason.  I mean, you wouldn't.  But they did.)

Anyway, that's not the point.  I don't know what the point is, other than it's just interesting to me that I've had such a rich experience in this fandom with people who are so willing to delve into the histories and dynamics and personalities of these two characters, and all of it has been totally untouched by your standard fandom drama over the holy grail of Going Canon.  Honestly, it's been liberating for the fandom, I think?  We're just so definitively occupying a space that is Not Canon that it's been, as it were, a Magician's Land of our own, something the fandom has made collectively in spite of canon.  Which is very old school of us, and I think in many ways healthy.  Arguing about Which Ship Wins is just a bad and stupid sport that hurts people and makes fandom not fun and not cool.

(And for the record, Queliot not being endgame is, at most, #4 on my list of complaints about how The Magicians ended.  Like, I'm a little complainy about it, but I've got bigger fish to fry.)

#ilu queliot fandom i know it was those assholes on twitter

[marinsawakening]

Hey, heads up for everyone wanting to/planning on watching Princess Tutu: the first half of the anime (or more specifically, roughly the first eight episodes or so) contains fairly realistic depictions of emotional/psychological/verbal abuse. While it is framed as wrong, the perpetrator never apologizes for it to the victim and receives no (narrative) punishment. 

In general, Princess Tutu deals heavily with abuse and unhealthy relationships/toxic love, but in my opinion, this particular plotline was handled significantly worse than the others. Even so, you could argue that the other plotlines on the subject could have been handled better, and I’ve seen other people be more bothered by them than I am. 

In general, if abuse and unhealthy relationships, especially mishandling of them, is something that triggers you, I suggest not watching Princess Tutu.

#i love this show i really do but i really don't like how little this is warned for/discussed when recommending the show #i've known several people who couldn't get through it because of fakir's behaviour in the early episodes #princess tutu #like im glad this fandom doesn't have any fistfighting discourse in it or whatever #but i do wish a little more people discussed the way the show mishandles that arc in particular #i've seen people praising it way more than i've seen critiques of it and like #i could probably do a longer post on why fakir's redemption arc in particular is incredibly mishandled #i think rue/mytho was actually fairly well handled for the type of show it is but I know some people were still bothered by it #and i can't say they're wrong even if it doesn't bother me personally #but that said it IS ironic to me that this plotline received far more criticism than fakir's arc #even though honestly there is no way in which it was handled worse #but that's a subject for another (and longer) post #my posts #ask to tag #not trigger tagging for abuse for now bc I feel like the people who need this warning will have the tag blocked #but if you need it tagged please do tell me!

[thesunshinebunny]

Preety please! Headcanon for Origin Boys (all four of them) reacting to Gardienne asking them about plans abt future&kids. Something like: "How long do you think we will stay in Eel? I am only asking because you know, I was thinking when will be the right time to for us to start family. We want kids, right? Oh, I got it wrong, didn't I?"

I haven't had a request for Eldarya in a long time, apart from the way things are in the fandom… .iiiishhhh, I prefer to stay away from all that tangle of discussions. Anyway, here I leave you something that I hope is cute, enjoy

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nevra

Instant panic.

I'm joking unless no, now jokes aside, it’s true that Nevra spent most of his life being a Casanova and the idea of ​​settling down and having a family scares him.

Not in a bad way, I think we would all get scared at some point, even if it’s a wish already set and talked about, the idea of ​​bringing a living being into the world… is spooky. And Nevra thought exactly the same.

Give him a few days to think about it and then ask again. The best thing is to talk it face to face and calmly, no comments said without thinking and spontaneous, which later end up hurting.

Yes, Nevra was scared, mostly by the fact that the world is a cruel place and anything could happen to you at any time, as well as to his child.

Perhaps in a couple of years, begging the oracle that the situation in Eldarya improves, you can have a quiet life.

Many children, Nevra wants a loooooot of children ... and that they turn out just like him. I don't make the rules

Ezarel

Absolutely not. He's a fucking bastard, what did you expect?

Too immersed in his work and the HQ to think about the distant future.

He may at first be in a state of denial and refused to touch on the subject again, but if you dig into Ezarel's heart, I think you will find a little box ready to start a family at any moment.

I doubt that Ezarel is one of those people willing to leave the quarter without his family or people dear to him, so if one of you decides to leave the city of Eel, the other will follow.

If you touch the right points, I think you will achieve a good conversation, maybe not children for a long time, but a marriage or living together from now on… yes, why not?

If Ezarel is already a bit unbearable being in a relationship, imagine him in a married / engaged life… good luck

Valkyon

Pretty shy baby. Like, for real.

Give him some time to process ... and don't leave him alone, he may mishandle a weapon and end up injuring himself.

Beneath that tough armor and massive arms, lies a sweet heart, ready to give you the future you deserve. He stole your past, so he will dedicate himself to giving you a beautiful present and wholesome future.

He wouldn’t leave his guard, he believes he still has a lot of work to do, but he would be devoted to a promise: he would protect you and the family that you both wish to have.

Inside, Valkyon wants a little girl to spoil and teach him multiple defense moves… she will be his little princess, a warrior princess.

Leiftan

The expression on his face showed happiness, even his eyes shone with tears threatening to fall down his cheeks, but inwardly he was dying.

How could he give you a future, a family, when he himself wanted to destroy everything? And even if it were the case that he repented at the last moment, how could he live, as you could live, with the memory of his heinous actions?

Leiftan, for more smiles and encouraging words, is completely denied the idea of ​​having a future with you.

He loves you, for the love of the Oracle, he loves you very much, that is why he knows he couldn’t give you a good future, but a present to remember.

If your intention is to leave the city of Eel, Leiftan is willing to take you to a secluded place, something cozy and comfortable, to spend your remaining days together.

You want children, Leiftan gives them to you, without hesitation, but don't expect him to be around to raise them all the time.

Like I said, Leiftan will give you a wonderful present, but not a bright future.

#eldarya #eldarya x reader #leiftan eldarya #leiftan x reader #nevra eldarya #nevra x reader #ezarel eldarya #ezarel x reader #valkyon eldarya #valkyon x reader

[thesharondefenseleague]

mlm imo werent sexualized to the degree that wlw were in most canon media mostly because of the male gaze. Gay and Lesbian relationships or moments got very limited representation. One was probably more sympathetic but also heart breaking like say brokeback mountain. One was explicit but depicted as grotesque or twisted or perverted or immoral in some way. And the last version was the titillating version. In western media because of the assumed straight male gaze lesbians making out to titlate guys was a common thing like say in Jennifer's body. The equivalent of that with guys wasnt really that common not in western media. Not that wlw couldn't like that content but it was made to be fanservice for men .

So thats what I kind of mean by wlw were sexualized at least in western media. This equivalent with mlm in fandom never really existed they never made out for girls to find hot in the same way. It was never marketed like oh look hot guys making out. Fandom did that but not canon.

As for comic book men being sexualized kind of. There is definitely the unrealistic beauty standards but theres that debate of was it for the purpose of titillating women? Or a result of toxic masculinity putting this unattainable unsustainable goal for men. Maybe both? But both in comics and the movies they are based on the posing and clothing and moments with women get made to clearly sexualize them . It especially ovbious with comics with them twisting their bodies so their boobs and butts are jutting out. Or like movie moments like Bruce landing in Natasha's clevage. Or angles where you are staring down a female character's shirt or she has a boob window for some contrived reason. Or just reasons to give full page spreads of them in skimpy clothing.

Its rare men get depicted like this or posed like this. And when they do it often stands out because its not the norm. It's something unique. Not true with men. Even in form fitting spandex they are often posed and framed to make to make them look powerful or intelligent or to reveal things about their character.

Again not that men never get sexualized or that fanservice is always bad. Or that its not a concern that men are having these terrible body image issues. But just that for women for the sexualization its so pervasive and constant was my point.

Its just as bad in wlw in canon as it is for women in relationships with men in canon when it comes to that sexualization but i hear so much more about the problems about the wlw ship than the mlw ship. Like to use DC as a example i hear so much about how people sexualized or mishandle harleyivy but compared to that i hear very little about batcat in comparison even though Catwoman is often just as sexualized in that ship.

As for misogyny in shipping wars yes it definetly exists and is a problem as is racism and homophobia. But my issue is mostly that the problem isnt because the main popular ships are mlm. But so often I see the argument framed that way.

Like shipping wars existed between m/w ships and still do today. And they are still often pretty misogynistic towards the woman in the other ship. I don't even have to look at other fandoms I remember Steggy vs Starton getting real ugly.

Mysogny in fandom doesn't uniquely pop up when mlm are the more popular ship. Its often just as bad in fandoms where m/w is the popular ship. But people just bring it up alot more they make it bout valuing the men over the women .

Well i mean that goes both ways you could say its homophobic for valuing the straight ship as better than the gay one or liking it more. But either way its stupid they dont care bout sexism or homophobia only that their ship is more popular.

Thats the sentiment of all ship wars the gender dynamics and racial make up change nothing. Nothing except the bullshit you use for the ship war.

The problem is that people are being homophobic and mysogynistic and racist not just in regards to fictional characters but towards real people just to win a ship war. It comes out so easily. Thats the problem imo.

Mysogny for example i think isnt discussed as much when its a m/w vs m/w ship war or drama because as both ships have women it can't be used to slander the other ship. But when its drama between fans of a m/m and m/w it comes out alot again not because anyone really cares but because now because one ship lacks a woman it can be used as fodder for what people actually care about. Tearing down the other ship.

Again not that mlm fandom doesnt have mysogny. They definetly do. But they aren't mysogynistic because they ship two guys together. Thats not proof they hate women. Having a ship with women isnt proof that you aren't sexist towards women. There might be homophobia in fandoms of mlm ships and mysogny in fandoms of m/w ships.

But in the drama between a m/w and m/m ships that doesn't get brought up because no one cares if that problem can't be used to show that someone only doesn't ship your ship if they are bigoted against it. Who cares about misogyny if your ship is two guys? Who cares about homophobia if your ship is straight?

No one because they cared about the popularity of their ship not the actual issues.

Gonna under under the cut for length again.

This is a lot to read so I'm gonna respond paragraph by paragraph and hope for the best in terms of comprehension.

When it comes to media made about the LGBTQ+ community, you have to keep in mind when it was made, who made it, and who was it made for. And that it's been shown that straight women have had the same reactions to mlm content as straight men to wlw content. QaF was dumbfounded to find that the majority of their audience was straight women when the show's sex scenes were 95% between two or more men and yet that's what they ran with because hey, it got the views. The views of mlm and wlw content in the mainstream media before then was minimized, despite how fucked a lot of the other content could be. If by "most canon media" being directed at the male gaze being summer blockbusters, and more specifically comic book movies, then sure. If we step out of that box, then not really. The film examples you chose are interesting because BB is portrayed exactly how the author of the original short story wrote it which was meant to be heartbreaking since it was a tragic dramatic piece while JB has a woman who wrote and another woman who directed it while purposefully trying to allow to actress to have a level of sexuality without exploiting her as past directors have (also neither of the main characters are lesbians - one is bi, the other I think is straight but maybe questioning?).

The sexualization of wlw in modern western media is definitely a thing. I mean, the first Iron Man film has stewardesses on the private jet pole dancing if I remember correctly. It took until 2016 to stop sexualizing Scarlett in every movie: the changing scene in IM2, the lowered zipper in A1, the ass shot in Cap 2, the boob faceplant in AoU (in your third paragraph, but mentioning it here anyway). It's a joke that you know when a man directs a wlw indie film during the sex scenes. But the mlm equivalent did exist alongside it, and it's what kicked off the century.

Comics and their movies were always for men. The male bodies are male wish fulfilment for their physical appearance. The women are male wish fulfilment for their dream girls. Funnily enough, one of the least sexualized women in comics I've ever read is Sharon. She's rarely, if ever, drawn to be sexualized for the audience. I'm not even sure she's even been in those swimsuit issues Marvel did years ago. And it shows heavily that Marvel struggles to know how to appeal to women without being aggressively in your face about it. The best example of them appealing without pandering is WV, and the worst is the group shots the Russos did in IW and Endgame, especially the latter.

But the men get those poses in the movies too. Thor bathed shirtless for no reason in TDW. There's a scene in Endgame dedicated to talking about Steve's ass. Pratt in GotG. Rudd in Ant-Man. Most actors are expected to look good shirtless and put themselves through intense shit to look that way. So do the women, but they aren't doing it to have the glamor shots of their muscles. And the MCU is not the only film franchise like this. Most, if not all, franchises with majority or entirely male leads expects them all to look like bodybuilders. And I'm gonna take back that it's just for the male audience, because these bodies are meant to appeal to women who are intended to thirst for these actors too. They think these bodies is what will bring women to the theaters.

None of this will change, as you say, that women's sexualization is "constant and pervasive". The film industry is just a part of the larger whole of media. Television and advertising have a treatment of women that's beyond whatever you or I say because there are decades worth of shit to go through that would take dozens of essays worth of writing to fully divulge beyond "please stop it's gross".

Now DC is a whole other ballgame. They're pretty infamous for their artists' sexualization of heroines and villainesses. Harley, Ivy, and Selina are definitely pretty bad, but when I remember what I've seen drawn of Kara, Kori, or sometimes Barbara... But outside of one artist, I think Harley and Ivy as a couple have been drawn tamely. Can't say the same for Selina, because they just can't not draw every part of her body even when she's fully clothed.

I think it's hard not to talk about fandom misogyny outside of m/m ships because of how often popular m/m shippers have rooted their shipping into misogyny. And even with m/f ship wars, a lot of the time the "faulted" character is always the woman when majority of the time it's the man who sucks. I don't get why everyone is fighting for who should kiss Steve because Steve sucks and they'd be better off without him. But because Steve is the object of affection for our fave, we have to fight off everyone else.

Don't look at other fandoms for m/f ship wars. We don't appreciate how tame we were, even at our worst. I'm serious, I've seen so much worse.

I think why the topic of misogyny comes up more with m/m ships is because they follow a similar principle of the male characters being more developed in canon and fanon so it's who people gravitate towards.

There is definitely layers of homophobia in fandom, but there's many versions of how we see it. Homophobes who won't ship anything that's not m/f. Homophobes who ship m/m but won't support IRL rights. People who love m/m but abhor f/f, and vice-versa. The shippers who use them for personal fodder. But the sexism is more prevalent than the homophobia. And the racism way more than both combined.

And it does cause a lot of ammo, and much of it severely unjustified, in ship wars. Literally the bullshit I've seen pulled out of thin air to accuse Sharon of not being worthy because someone said she's a racist for [they literally had no reason just called her one because we said Sam and Sharon are friends because they are] and other nonsense.

The real world repercussions of the homophobia, the sexism, and the racism in fandom... there's just so much. Like we are all still people, and yet we decide because we hide behind screens to be antagonistic, and use homophobic, sexist, and racist shit to attack each other over ships just because we want to paint the other person as crazy, I guess? If you can't see that there are no enemies in ship wars and that the other side is still people, maybe you need to sit out and log off. It's baffling how often it still happens to people. Then it's no longer about ships, it's about who is an asshole.

I will say that Steve and Peggy vs Steve and Sharon is probably the only m/f ship war I've seen where misogyny is talked about. Is, not was, because it still is. Both sides call the others misogynistic. I don't think either side is, but you can see in individuals. Those who tweeted at a certain actress that she was a slut for kissing her costar certainly are though.

You are right that shipping m/m isn't inherently sexist. But tearing down women in those ships to prop up m/m has made me stop shipping certain characters altogether. People, seriously, we don't have to justify why we like them! We can just like them! And other characters can still exist! It's never been that deep.

And you're right, the popularity of the ship helps people ignore any deeper issues within them and this is a power used to silence valid criticism if it pops up.

(I hope I answered everything well for you.)

~Mod R

[theonceoverthinker]

OUAT Rewatch 4X14 - Enter the Dragon

Sorry for all the delays with these reviews! I’ve really been DRAGON my feet through this whole season, haven’t I? 

...You don’t come here for smart puns, Regina! XD

Anyway, there’s a nice juicy review under the cut!

Main Takeaways

Past

I love how this plays as the evil version of every “young person melts the heart of older person and convinces them to go back to doing what they love” story! While it’s not a parody -- and is in fact played deadly straight -- it’s funny as hell to watch because of that!

It’s kind of weird seeing such vague mentions of Mal’s backstory. All throughout the episode, we hear clues, but are never given anything concrete. I wonder when or even if we ever would’ve gotten a backstory for Mal and Briar Rose.

Present

Wow, I gotta say, considering how DESTROYED Mal was by what Snowing did to her kid, stealing another kid is just horrible (The fact that he’s turned back into August and she may or may not have known that is irrelevant for me since she stealing a son from his father at the end of the day) ! I don’t know if it’s exactly poorly written or not -- a case of extremism turning her into what she hates or mishandling a character who is supposed to be more balanced between being evil and sympathetic. I guess it’s up to interpretation, but given that the there doesn’t get to be a reaction from Marco to Maleficent over the fact considering how big of a deal it is that she reverted a little boy back into being a grown man, I feel forced to say the latter.

This also applies to Regina too, ESPECIALLY considering her conversations with Marco in the last episode and this is more of a problem than I realized. She’s stealing a child, putting him up against three villains, AND disposing any direct means of contact between herself and her backup. And the fact that Rumple reverts him into being August at the end of the episode changes nothing here because that wasn’t an anticipated move. It’s even more distracting given the gravitas of the moment where Emma and Regina try to figure out whether or not to steal him in the first place. Regina says she’s going to protect him and pull out if he’s in danger, but what does she think they’re going to do to him if not threaten his life? Even just the emotional duress of those kind of threats is crazy to do to a kid. And then to drop her phone so he can’t even be tracked? It’s played as this necessary evil, but is never given the payoff to back up what a horrible and reckless thing this was to do. They STOLE his childhood -- what was essentially his happy ending -- and that has to be answered for by ALL involved parties: Maleficent, Regina, and Emma too for ultimately agreeing to this.

This segment has a really interesting theme of not being overly insistent on complete control. Throughout it, Regina insists to her friends that she can handle the Queens of Darkness. Even as the stakes raise, she makes risky and riskier decisions that she says she can manage. This culminates in a horribly risky decision (See above) that, in her insistence in keeping control over the situation and her sureness that she’s right, has Regina abandon her means of getting backup. And this all ends with Regina, forced by her own hand, to relinquish control to Rumple. I think that this is an important lesson for Regina to learn, and while I didn’t like the big decision that she had to make for lack of a proper fallout (I’ll actually discuss in a bit why I choose this episode to take the issue with it), I think the rest of the story is good!

Stream of Consciousness

-Regina, you trying to KILL ME with the cut of that shirt?! Because it is working!

-Damn, Regina is AMAZING at acting evil! XD

-HOW THE FUCK DID YOU CRUSH GLASS?! ARE YOU THE FUCKING HULK? XD

-I love how Regina looks between Mal’s castle and her book like “I’m gonna get my favorite author to sign my book!”

-Wouldn’t someone just win “Don’t Be a Hero” by only saving themselves?

-I love how there were freakin’ BETS on the game! XD

-We got another Henry and Belle scene!!! Tbh, I wish there was a bit more substance here too. Belle ADORES books and this is literally a mystery surrounding a book! Why couldn’t she give him some advice on maybe where to look or just talk about the nature of books! You have two book fans sharing a scene! Why not use that?

-I would KILL to know how Regina’s night of drinking with the Queens of Darkness went! Like, they drank a whole bar! XD

-To be fair, Emma, Regina’s probably not reaching out because she’s hungover as FUCK after DRINKING A WHOLE BAR! XD

-MAL, DRUNK AS FUCK, SINGED A COP CAR! XD WHERE ARE FICS OF THIS! THIS IS THE TRUE SEQUEL TO “THE HANGOVER!” XD

-”Some drinking.” SOME DRINKING? YOU DRANK AND ENTIRE BAR! XD

-I like how Regina’s “pathetic” flame was more of a matter of nervousness than inexperience. It shows that Regina’s learned a lot during her tenure with Rumple while still having a lot of space to grow.

-Maleficent is introduced as a druggie! She literally stabs herself with something that “takes the edge off!” XD

-”You need to remember who you are.” “That Maleficent had a foul temper, and if you insulted her, she’d turn into a dragon and eat your flesh.” Holy hell! My eyes are filled with hearts!

-”Where the hell have you been all night?” I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW THAT AS WELL!

-NOW WHAT KIND OF CRAZINESS HAPPENED IN THE VAULT?! XD

-To be fair, Emma, Regina’s been ROCKING this undercover mission so far.

-This episode is full of sexy, badass people, but this cake is the sexiest thing of all!

-”Well, look at which two survivors found a dinghy together.” ...Rumple, HOW ARE YOU SO BAD AT BEING KILLIAN? IT’S NOT ESPECIALLY HARD AND YET YOU SOMEHOW FAILED AT IT! It’s like trying to pet a puppy and instead doing a handstand! XD

-I love how Storybrooke can appear on a GPS system! Is someone in town just a really good techie or is Google our new God? XD

-”The only magical thing you’ll find here is duct tape.” Accurate! XD

-”You didn’t ask your questions more forcefully.” Oh trust me, she did. It was scary.

-”One little snafu?” YOU WOULD HAVE TO STEAL A CHILD!

-”Break some rules.” YOU ARE STEALING A CHILD!

-A Pirate’s Oath! XD What the hell? Someone’s just looking to cop a feel!

-I love the fact that it is 100% canon that Regina rode on the back of a dragon. Maleficent gave her the best piggyback ride in the UNIVERSE!

-Wait: GOLD HAS A CABIN?

Favorite Dynamic

Rump-illian and Belle. I absolutely love Rump-illian and Belle’s subplot here. Rumple, for better or worse, knows Belle and is exactly slippery enough to forge a story to get the dagger back for himself but also not infallible as to still fail to  discuss things he wasn’t privy to. Major props have to go to Colin. He’s playing Rumple playing Killian and that is AMAZING! His lines and delivery are just awkward enough to capture Rumple’s failure to perfectly capture Killian, but they’re close enough that they could fool someone who’s just getting to be close with Killian like Belle. He’s always a little off center in how he conducts himself, making the reveal something that could feasibly be guessed but also surprise everyone! And the transitions -- the one at the docks the one as he walks into the pawnshop, and the one outside the pawnshop are done so well as to make the whole subplot even better!

Writer

David Goodman and Jerome Schwartz are in charge of today’s episode! So far, they’ve had a perfect season! But...well… Look. This episode isn't bad, but I do wish the present segment had some more polish. Considering that the three people involved in that final decision are all mothers and to not do more with that idea is really distracting in hindsight.

Rating

8/10. I’m torn about whether or not I should punish this episode for what goes down with Pinocchio. This episode is more setup in that regard than payoff and it’s not bad setup. But at the same time, I do have to ask myself if that payoff was ever going to happen and if it wasn’t, then the setup of something that upon inspection is so fucked up. And I do think that the payoff wasn’t intended to come up -- they had to know -- and so I do find fault with this episode for executing this idea in such an irresponsible way. Otherwise though, the storytelling is really good. Everything makes sense, the story’s engaging, the pacing works, the characters are for the most part in line, and the theme of the past segment lines up in a way that’s subtle, yet effective.

Flip My Ship - The Home of All Things “Shippy Goodness”

DRAGON QUEEN - This is my JAM! Look at Regina’s face as Mal enters the room. That is the face of a woman realizing “I am gay for LIFE!” And in the present, could these two flirt any MORE?! <3 Just look at the aspirin scene! Mal and Regina are both letting their guard down (Regina’s being more of a casual spitfire, Mal’s not wearing the jacket and is giving a bit more info), Mal’s helping Regina out a bit, there’s candles everywhere, and there’s a touch of loose tension in the room. It’s enough to make the moment pretty sexy. ALSO, they go on a mission alone and the presentation to it plays out exactly like an impromptu date! This is the BEST! I just love how Regina smiles for Mal. It’s big, but natural and just kind of happy!

Swan Queen - Dude! Emma is so worried about Regina! That panic in her voice is CRAZY and her dedication to having Regina’s back and protecting her really shows how much she cares for Regina! This as some of their best shippy moments by the sheer amount of concern Emma has for her!

Captain Swan - While it doesn’t work exactly, Killian does a really good job assuring Emma that things with Regina will be okay.

Mal/Briar Rose - “What happened to you?” “A Rose. A Briar Rose.” Mal says that line in the same way someone talks about someone who they had a bad breakup with!

-----

Hi!!! Thanks for reading and shout outs to the fine folks at @watchingfairytales and to the lovely @daensarah! See you all next time!

Season 4 Total (121/230)

Writer Scores: Adam and Eddy: (34/60) Jane Espenson: (20/40) David Goodman and Jerome Schwartz: (38/50) Andrew Chambliss: (22/50) Dana Horgan: (6/30) Kalinda Vazquez: (22/40) Scott Nimerfro: (14/30) Tze Chun (8/20)

Operation Rewatch Archives

#ouat #once upon a time #watching fairytales #ouat 4x14 #jenna watches ouat

[purrickly]

2018 년 11 월 26 일 :

`* INTRODUCTION:

“5, 4, 3, 2, 1… show time! Are you ready? Give it up for your host… ONE!’’

“Hello, everyone! How was your weekend? We had our first snowfall of the year, so I hope that you guys have been keeping warm and enjoying the wondrous sight responsibly. If you haven’t already bought yourself mittens, I’d suggest you go out today to stock up! I always lose mine, so I tend to buy several pairs at a time. But enough of me mishandling my things, it’s time to check out what the weather will be like this week!”

`* WEATHER REPORT :

Monday: There will be a few clouds!

Tuesday: Even more clouds with rain too!

Wednesday: Let’s mix it up with sun and clouds!

Thursday: And the sun wins, so it’s mainly sunny!

Friday: Sike, there’s another chance of a shower!

Saturday: No wait, it’s pretty sunny for us again!

Sunday: There’s been an agreement of a mix of sun and clouds!

( MUSIC BREAK ) :

Bloo - I’m the one.

IZ*ONE- La Vie en Rose.

N.Flying - LIKE A FLOWER.

`* TIP OF THE WEEK :

“I spend the better half of my day looking up at ways we can make our daily routines a little less burdensome, or even at small projects that I can take on and create which will put a smile on my loved one’s faces. And to start us off this week, I think the way we start our day is important. So why not with a smile? It’s cold and a nice glass of hot tea is both refreshing and good for you too. But if your loved ones are anything like me, they might be lazy and opt out of preparing themselves any breakfast - let alone tea. So let’s help them out! You can create tiny little envelopes, and stuff them with a cute message to go along with it, in place of the tea-bag’s original identification slip. The same slip that we usually just yank off from the string and toss into the garbage without so much a second glance. I’m sure with this little incentive in place, they’ll eagerly rush into the kitchen every morning to see what note you’ve left behind.”

( NEW MUSIC ) :  

KEY - One of Those Nights (Feat. Crush)

Lovelyz - 찾아가세요

MINO - FIANCÉ.

`* GUEST FEATURING:  

[jaewook]: “Listening to new music always excites me. And my sunbaenim have killed it with their new releases! But do you know who else has been killing it recently? My good friend Mark! Say hello to everyone.”

[minwoo]: “Hey, guys! It’s UKIYO’s Mark, here to humor my night owl of a friend, and to congratulate him on his new job as a radio host! I’m happy to be here and I hope you give him a lot of love! He’s doing a good job so far.”

[jaewook]: “Thanks, Mark. I’m flattered. But I’m also extremely happy that you’re here too because we had something interesting to talk about tonight, didn’t we? Do you want to fill everyone in on what that is?”

[minwoo]: “Okay, so… I’ve been passionate about art for as long as I remember. And I wanted us to remind us all of the positive benefits it has for us as a society. Whether it be how we view it, what it means to us, or how we use it during our daily lives.”

[jaewook]: “I’ve learned to appreciate art more through you, so I’m glad you came tonight to discuss this with me. Everyone is in for an interesting ride for sure!”

[minwoo]: “This has been bothering me for awhile, but I do not think there are many people out there who believe that art can contribute to a positive change. And not enough of us appreciate the importance of supporting our local art galleries. However, personally, I believe that a major part of artistic practice has always had a social responsibility towards the audience and, in that sense, art can be a nice way to inform the viewer of numerous social issues.”

[jaewook]: “I agree with you there! Because if we stop think about it, many artists throughout history, have been committed to issues of social or political order without ever losing sight of the aesthetic purpose of their works! Isn’t that so cool? It takes a lot of talent and hard-work to achieve that! And personally, I love that there are many forms of ‘speaking from the heart’ rather than just us using words.”

[minwoo]: “It’d also be nice to have more people who were engaged in using art as a method to teach others. There’s so much we can all learn from each other, so why not with a few strokes of a brush?”

[jaewook]: “That’s true! In my opinion, when we’re crafting something, thoughts are reflected, and people are related to. It is through what we do, that we live. Art is not something, to me, which can physically "move away or to something", but rather a phenomenological event of everyday life; of living. Living is creating, creating is art.”

[minwoo]: “Exactly! So I just hope the next time someone brushes painting - and the power it holds (if wielded properly) - aside, that they’ll stop and spare some of their time to research what that art piece may symbolize to the artist who created it.”

[jaewook]: “You and me both, Mark. You and me both. It’s always nice when people take the time to discover what someone’s work may symbolize. It would make anyone feel like what they’re trying to say is being heard. And speaking of being heard, can you guys try to decipher what the next few songs may be trying to say? Let’s give it a shot together!”

( FINAL MUSIC BREAK ):

Block B - Shall We Dance

PENTAGON - Naughty boy

Kris Wu - Coupe ft. Rich The Kid

` * ENDING SEGMENT :

“If you’re still here, I want to thank you for sticking it out till the very end! And tonight, my wish for you has always been for you to see how radiant you are. You have a heart that bleeds for the wounded. You give all of yourself to people. You love even when it hurts. You keep believing even when the world tries to break your faith. You choose hope in the midst of agony.  You have never been less than because of your trauma. You have always been so much more. You are resilient. You shine brighter because of the cracks in your soul. I just wish you could recognize how much light you bring to everyone who encounters you. Goodnight, Seoul.”

#meowgic: 002.

[reminiscent-bells]

best-ofs, 2017

putting in a break here, this is real long

best book I read: The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

It seems trite to pick this in a year where every Tom, Dick, and Harry was comparing the Trump administration to Atwood’s novel and when Amazon was putting on a big-budget adaptation (which, for the record, I have not seen). The effect that this had on me, though, cannot be understated. Sad, wry, and all-too-familiar in places, this is a masterpiece that deserves to be up there with 1984 and the rest of the great nightmares.

honorable mention: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell

I’m not much of a historical fiction person, but this masterfully wrought story of a Dutch clerk and a Japanese midwife in early-1800s Japan is well worth your time.

best comic: Batman, Volume 1: I Am Gotham, Tom King, Mikel Janin, et al.

King and his collaborators’ work on Batman since DC’s most recent relaunch seems to be on a trajectory to match or even surpass the Grant Morrison era in the pre-New 52 era, a reshuffling of the core cast that will pay huge dividends down the line (if DC actually makes a wise long-term decision for once, which, who knows). Despite his tendency to learn a little too hard on certain stylistic tics, I think King might be the best writer working in superhero comics today.

honorable mention: Detective Comics, Volume 1: Rise of the Batmen, James Tynion IV, Eddy Barrows, et al.

Yes, two Batman titles in one year is a bit of a cheat, but this is so fun that it’s hard to pick something else. Tynion turned up on a panel discussion on the great comics podcast Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men where he was introduced as the writer of “DC’s new X-Men title, Detective Comics”, which is exactly what this is - a team of misfits and outcasts cobbled together by a reticent, demanding mentor...who in this case is Batman. This is easy to miss out on with all the fireworks over King’s work, but give it a shot.

best comic (non-2017): MIND MGMT, Volume 2: The Futurist, Matt Kindt

Kindt’s work on the beginning of his psychic-X-Files saga MIND MGMT was good, but the second collection reveals it as a ship-in-a-bottle in the middle of a much weirder, wilder museum - there are few volume 2s that build on the success of the first as much as this one does.

honorable mention: BPRD, Volume 3: Plague of Frogs, Mike Mignola, Guy Davis, et al.

The first few collections of this series, following Hellboy’s teammates after he quits the secret BPRD organization, kind of flounder, but Davis and Mignola really hit their stride here with this sequel to an earlier Hellboy story that grows into a hybridization of Mignola’s earlier work and a Stephen King novel.

best movie: Blade Runner 2049

This also feels like kind of a cheat given my love for the original, but there was simply no other movie that had my gears turning after I walked out of the theater like this one did. The plot elements of this, of course, have been speculated on endlessly since Ridley Scott released the Final Cut of the original film, but My Guy Dennis Villeneuve manages to introduce enough new elements and uncertainty in the mix to keep you guessing - I found myself continually questioning what I really knew about anything that had happened or was happening. It was always going to be impossible to make a movie as good as Blade Runner, but Villeneuve came closer than anyone could dare.

honorable mention: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

I have my misgivings about the Finn and Poe portions of this, which feel like they mishandled the two more than a little, but the Rey/Luke Skywalker storyline is, as a whole, a barn-burner, building on both Rey and Luke’s characters in extremely satisfying ways. It was easy to imagine where they might go from Rey and Luke on the island at the end of The Force Awakens, but I don’t know if I imagined they’d go here, which is what makes this so great.

best album: I See You, The xx

I gave this a pretty casual listen on Spotify when it came out as I was kind of a marginal xx fan - I enjoyed their first album but didn’t really care for Coexist. I was totally blown away and listened to it all the way through several times (this is something I rarely, if ever, do with big pop/pop-ish releases). Virtually every track on here except for the extremely forgettable closer is perfectly performed and produced, from the playful, somewhat taunting “Dangerous” to the self-doubt-as-anthem “On Hold”. Should go down as their best album to date.

honorable mentions: Piety of Ashes, The Flashbulb / Sleep Well, Beast, The National

I couldn’t decide between these two, so here’s a twofer for you. Benn Jordan’s style as The Flashbulb has shifted along a spectrum of sweet spots between acoustic music and electronic music, and he seems to have somehow found the sweetest one yet in Piety of Ashes, which alternates between intimate material you might have expected on Arboreal or Love as a Dark Hallway (”Starlight”, “Goodbye Bastion”) and big, broad electronic pieces that feel like Jordan uncovered something he could always do that was just off-camera (”Hypothesis”, “As Water”).

When I first heard Sleep Well, Beast my comment to a coworker was “I only like some of it now, but I think I’ll like it more as time goes on”. This was a rare example of me actually showing some predictive ability, because this has really grown on me with time (maybe its intent as commentary on life in the Trump world as something to do with this). Highlights are the sad, sweet “Nobody Else Will Be There”, also-sad-and-sweet, but in a different way “Carin at the Liquor Store”, and the driving dark heart of the entire thing, “The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness”, which has been a constant play for me this fall/winter.

best TV show: Twin Peaks/Twin Peaks: The Return

A triumph for David Lynch and Mark Frost in every sense of the word. The era of “prestige TV” feels like a cheap trick by HBO, AMC, et al. to get us to watch the same old stuff with a slightly higher budget after 18 hours(!!!!!) in, around, and beyond (and I mean beyond) Lynch’s little town in the Pacific Northwest. Kyle MacLachlan deserves about 400 awards for his triple (quadruple?) role here.

honorable mention: Mr. Robot

I think Sam Esmail failed to stick the landing again (I wasn’t a fan of season 2), but the earlier parts of this season are maybe the highest highs the show has ever hit - Elliott and Mr. Robot fighting over his body in the bowels of the ECorp fortress from the end of season 2, Darlene struggling to extricate herself from the FBI, and the terrifying-yet-awe-inspiring scene of Angela laying out her plans to Mr. Robot as New York comes back to life at the end of the first episode. This isn’t always the best show, but boy, can it ever be good.

best video game: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

This is to video games as Lynch’s third season of Twin Peaks was to television: a throwing of the gauntlet to every competitor to dare and match this. Where other games would put physics puzzles in their own little sandboxes, BOTW applies its physics to just about everything and lets you see how far your tools can take you. Where other games would put everything on the map in perfectly zoomable, filterable control for you, BOTW challenges you to build the map yourself and actually get out there and explore. I’ve gone back to this in the harder Master Mode with the release of the last DLC, and there’s still nothing that can touch this. This is destined to be a touchstone for decades to come.

honorable mentions: The Talos Principle/Batman: The Telltale Series

The Talos Principle is everything I wanted The Witness to be that The Witness wasn’t: thoughtful without being heavy, clever without being impossible (well, mostly not impossible, there are a few of those puzzles I don’t think I could have cracked on my own). The writing is sharp as a tack, featuring a variety of philosophical discussions between your character and a whip-smart AI. A really excellent puzzler.

Batman: The Telltale Series marks yet another appearance of the Batman on this list, but what an appearance! Telltale throws out several sacred cows of the Batman behemoth, but instead of making something malformed and uninteresting, it feels like the freshest Batman has been in ages. I eagerly await every new episode of this, because I never know where they will go next.

best podcast: Important If True

This is yet another “feels like I cheated” entry, but the Idle Thumbs guys’ work on Important If True deserves to be recognized. They could have simply recycled the Robot News segments from Idle Thumbs for this, but instead they went for something much wilder, taking people’s advice on what wishes to ask for from a genie, going through breakdown procedures for old Chuck E. Cheese competitor restaurants, and speculating on a Jessica Fletcher vs. Jaws matchup (as in the shark). The most wildly funny podcast going now. Recommended episodes: “Fight Garbage With Garbage”, “Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins”, “A Wish Upon a Star”

honorable mention: Waypoint Radio

With the Idle Thumbs guys winding down to a monthly schedule (sorta), Vice’s Waypoint staff’s podcast has readily stepped into the hole left behind by the Thumbs for regular doses of industry coverage. It’s great to see Danielle Riendeau and Rob Zacny getting more exposure outside of the Thumbs ecosystem, and Austin Walker, Patrick Klepek, and Danika Harrod are this sort of perfect perpetual motion machine at the heart of everything. Recommended episodes: “The Orange Casket”, “R.I.P. A.I.M.”, “Someone Explain To Me The Alien Alloys Before I F'ing Explode”

#best-of #2017