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monstersinthecosmos · 8 months

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I am sooo happy I sent that ask!! Your reply was everything I could have wished for and more. I didn’t know anything about the VC universe (I did see the movie adaptation as a kid, but all I could remember were the ~vibes), and now I might actually want to check out the books. I mean I can’t believe how much of it is canon LOL, traumatized kinky asexual vampires wtf? sign me up??? Which book(s) of the series would you recommend to me? :o

In the meantime, I will DEFINITELY be giving your VC fics a try, thank you so much for the pointers!!! I’m already weak just reading your reply, esp. that parallel of post-disaster Armand and Marius being kind of like an AU where Shiro *does* give up on Keith - that actually broke me. A lot of what I love about your fics is how you characterize Keith so realistically and in a way that’s meaningfully informed by his upbringing/subsequent abandonment issues and that’s a thrill to read because, well, it’s just good writing - but also because it makes so much sense, not just abstractly but in a very real and personal way. And while the ~relatability~ of it all makes for a super intense reading experience, it can also be weirdly and sometimes incredibly cathartic imo - which is one of the reasons why I think I keep revisiting your fics (sorry if tmi LOL 😭). But!! In the case of Sheith it more or less all works out in the end because, like you said, it’s such a wholesome ship and they love and prioritize each other so much that (as a reader) they’re kinda like a safe space, delectably complete with all the angst and hurt and fuckedupness of their circumstances/selves (you know, for flavor). However, thinking about a timeline where it does NOT all more or less work out, well that’s kinda super heartwrenching! But yummy? And I kinda can’t wait to get into it but I’m also genuinely scared for my heart LMAO. Anyway I’m sorry for rambling!!! With your permission I will definitely come back and scream about Sheith and vampires because I sorta already am lol.

Re: the teaser xmgdknfnrmsmgdk I can’t even gather enough brain cells to form coherent sentences, I’m just squealing and awaiting my resurrection I guess. Thank you sooo so so much! I got so excited I haven’t even been able to finish reading it 🫣😳😵😵😵

!!!!! Thank you again for such a thoughtful and delicious response! <3

Dgahskjdl g GOSH THANK YOU AGAIN

So this post got really long I’m so sorry asdghkads TLDR: I recommend all of them but I also don’t LMAO and you can skip around and won’t be confused but it will spoil stuff. This is a LOADED QUESTION.

It’s wild like I was thinking about the fic i could stop dreaming and also just in general AGAIN IF WE CAN TALK ABOUT COMMON SHEITH TROPES/FANON like I’ve read many S8 fix-its where Keith is drifting around and he’s just like so cold and broken and empty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And that’s how Armand feels to me! Even a fic like heart nailed open where Keith is just so fucking empty! Or SOURCE DECAY??????? Like I think there’s tons of Sheith AUs or S8 fics where Keith is like Depressed Guy Keith and !!!!!! God it fucks me up lol. Armand is kinda like if Depressed Guy Keith was also like a 500 year old fucking weirdo.

And like BECAUSE they’re vampires and they’re immortal they’re sort of always coming in and out of each other’s lives so like there’s always a hypothetical future where they can work it out. Like i could stop dreaming is about them working it out, right? And what it would take to heal that injury. And there’s a lot of stuff in canon where these characters commit absolute fucking atrocities to each other and still manage to work it out and I think it’s again just an exercise in empathy and asking if we can still deserve love when we’ve fucked up. The characters have CENTURIES to get over stuff (and some of them STILL DON’T LOL) but sometimes they do. Famously & without spoiling too much of IWTV, Armand does something pretty fucking atrocious to Louis and they still have a long relationship and still love each other very much!!!

But ON THE QUESTION OF WHICH BOOKS, jfc hold my beer

I think in Sheith you see people like almost universally dismiss S8; the only fics I ever see of it really are like just gratuitous whump or fix-its LOL which is valid. And VC has FIFTEEN FUCKING BOOKS and you could honestly ask ANY fan in VC which books “count” and which books are skippable and I think everyone has a different answer.

I also think you can read them out of order and there’s always a little bit of exposition to catch you up so you won’t be lost; the only downside is that you’ll get spoiled on the previous book. For example, if you jumped in and read Armand’s book first, it would make sense, but it would spoil what happened at the end of the book before it.

Also to get the movies & show out of the way because it’s faster than committing to fifteen books:

The 1994 movie is a pretty solid adaptation; you can tell they condensed some details for time or whatever but it’s pretty faithful. There’s also the show that came out last year which is …………….. not so faithful lol. The show also heavily focuses on Lestat & Louis which is the juggernaut ship of the fandom but they’re also like the missionary position of the fandom so who the fuck cares lol. (Loustat fans lurking in this extremely niche post I am so sorry, I'm kidding ilu LMAO it's just not my thing!) And tbh the show wrote Armand & Daniel’s characters SO POORLY it like absolutely killed any motivation I had to continue watching so as an Armand stan I can’t really recommend it but it’s kinda like silly and fun if you don’t take it too seriously. And tbh if this entire fact finding mission is to understand VC more, the show literally changes EVERYTHING; it changes the time period, it changes the lore, it changes the story, it changes the character ages, etc. Basically it just kept the names lol. It's a completely different canon so I think even show fics & book fics aren't compatible either.

There’s also a movie of Queen of the Damned from 2002 which is like SO BAD LMAO but also silly fun. It’s a really bad adaptation but I’d put it in between the movie and the show. Marius is in it and the characterization is really strange LMAO. Armand is an extra.

The thing about VC is that it’s very sort of like non-linear and nontraditional storytelling. Most of the books are narrated by Lestat but several of them are narrated by random other people, and a lot of times the same story is retold through other people’s POVs. Like you get the story about Marius & Armand in three different books and each version is a little different because everyone has a different perspective. And regarding reading out of order and having spoilers, I do think it often creates like a suspense vs surprise element because we circle back and revisit the same stories so many times; you might get a spoiler and read a book knowing that a certain thing is going to happen and there’s still the tension of waiting for it to happen haha. Like when I mentioned the cult raids Marius’s house—you learn about that in Book 2 so you read Armand’s book later going into detail about his life and you’re just SWEATING because you know it’s coming. AND THEN YOU READ ABOUT IT IN MARIUS'S BOOK AND YOU'RE JUST DEVASTATED ONCE MORE.

I will say that for me I always recommend just fucking read them lol. Just read all of them. LOL!! But they’re weird and like, you’re gonna hate some of them, but I don’t think you can take someone’s word for it on Tumblr, it must be experienced. But I do understand that it’s a lot of material to get through and so I can give a fair cheat guide I think.

Most fans agree that the first three books (“The Trilogy”!) are solid and worth reading. Those are Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and The Queen of the Damned. IWTV is like this gloomy gothic tome about Louis’s life that started this whole thing and was written as a conversation about grief because Anne Rice’s daughter had died. It absolutely reads like a book someone writes about their daughter dying and it’s REALLY beautiful but it’s also a bit dense at times. If you’re put off by the vibe IT GETS EASIER when Lestat shows up because he literally bursts into the series like Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way ready to like tell you how blonde he is and how he’s gonna fuck everyone’s lives up. The books are still very heavy on existential questions and angst and grief but the text gets a bit lighter and super absurd LOL.

The first three also establish the universe and lore, though, so I think it would give you a pretty solid foundation to understand that type of stuff.

After the trilogy the books just go off the rails like there’s a few about Lestat having stupid adventures and doing dumb shit, there’s a few that cross over with Anne Rice’s witch series (so add three more book so if you truly wanted to read all of them!), then Anne Rice went back to the church and stopped writing vampires so there’s a huge gap, and then she quit the church again and returned LMAO. There’s a final trilogy she wrote before she died that are like, not the heaviest reading and they’re just kinda like silly good times with lots of Easter eggs and fan service. I feel good about the final trilogy being how it ended, just really silly times about them trying to use iPhones and shit, completely wild.

As far as ARMAND CONTENT THOUGH.

Armand does feature heavily in the trilogy so that’s also a good Armand foundation. And it’s REALLY FUN because he shows up in IWTV as sort of a chill mentor to Louis, but then in TVL you get the story about how Lestat met him when he was still in the cult and he was a feral little monster!!! And I love the duality of how Lestat and Louis describe him!!! It’s framed as unreliable narration a lot of the time because like Lestat’s resentment & Louis’s respect for Armand absolutely color the way they describe him, but idk like 100 years go by in between the two meetings so you also see a lot of character growth and see how Armand is doing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God. My heart.

Anne Rice also very often uses like texts inside texts so like, IWTV literally is an interview with a vampire where the bulk of the book is in quotes as dialogue LOL and then in other books you often meet a character who will talk for like 40 pages at a time to tell a story. So in TVL when Lestat meets Armand, Armand takes over for a chapter and tells the story of his life, and then later he meets Marius and Marius ALSO tells the story of his life.

QOTD is a modern story (modern in the 1980s when it was written haha) about how the whole vampire world has to deal with Lestat’s bullshit and they all come together for a common cause. This book features the little novelette about Armand & Daniel as one of the chapters!! It’s so good!! (The chapter is called The Devil's Minion and basically if you needed to understand Armand & Daniel you could just read that one chapter and that's basically it bc then it goes to shit!!! Not to spoil anything but also don't get your hopes up about like heaps and heaps of ship content because there isn't any lmfao fml)

It also features Marius and Armand reuniting with each other after 500 years!!!!!!!! HEARTBREAKING! It’s really good and very preposterous but the writing is so lush and takes itself so seriously you kinda forget that it’s preposterous.

Armand has a POV book later in the series, it’s called The Vampire Armand, it details his life as a human and some of his early years as a vampire with Marius. IT’S SORT OF LIKE A LONG EXTENDED VERSION OF HIS CHAPTER IN TVL.

I do want to say that regarding the BDSM and whatnot that I mentioned; this book is quite controversial because there’s not good BDSM etiquette LOL and like part of the genius of this book is that it can be read as abuse, even when Armand isn’t setting out to tell you the story of how he was abused. I have a lot of thoughts about this because Anne Rice was also an erotica writer and her erotica books were all noncon BDSM; I WROTE ABOUT IT HERE I DON’T WANT TO GET INTO IT NOW but I think depending how people go into this book they either see the kink & sex stuff as explicit abuse OR you can read it as like, fantasy from a porn writer. As a Sheith fan I’m going to assume you’re not that sensitive lol. (But also por que no los dos, that's the flavor baby!)

Personally I think you could read this book as a standalone and like, it’ll be a little whacky without context, but I think I’ve given you a lot of context. It’s basically about his sad sad life, the religious trauma, and all the freaky sex he had. (Also just so you’re not disappointed, the sex isn’t graphic haha but he’ll be like “And then I went to the brothel and they licked honey off my nipples and I came home and Marius sucked my dick in the bathtub” but not like crazy sex scenes.)

Marius also has a POV book called Blood & Gold and it’s my favorite in the series!! IT’S MARIUS’S LONG EXTENDED VERSION OF HIS TVL CHAPTER. I think it’s the one that handles IMMORTALITY the best; the other books often focus on a short period of time or a specific incident and don’t often span someone’s ENTIRE life. IWTV spans Louis’s entire life but he’s only like 200 years old. Marius is 2,000!!!! He’s from the Roman Empire!! So like it’s really exciting to me to read about his whole life and all the eras he lived through!!!!!!!!!!!!

In his book you also get a few chapters about his time with Armand and it breaks my heart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There’s also a third secret option which is the book Pandora which isn’t part of the main series; VC is like actually 13 books and 2 side books? LOL So Pandora is one of the side books. But she was the first vampire that Marius made and they were lovers for like 200 years. This book to me feels like Anne Rice had a lot of leftover historical research and wanted to park it somewhere so a lot of the text is her talking about history stuff but there’s really great Marius content here and Marius/Pandora is one of my fav ships.

A lot of the fandom are more into the original trilogy and the Lestat/Louis content but I’m all about Marius so I’m into the DARK TRIAD of The Vampire Armand/Blood & Gold/Pandora. This to me is the more interesting section of the series but it’s an unpopular opinion so don’t take my word for it.

Other than that I’d also say Memnoch the Devil is my absolute least favorite VC, I think it’s so weird and boring lol but there’s some absolutely incredible Armand stuff in it and the stuff Armand does in this will be spoiled immediately if you check out Pandora or TVA. All in all it’s like idk 10 fucking pages of Armand LOL so if you got an ebook you could probably word search him. BUT YKNOW WHAT? Again don’t take someone’s word for it from Tumblr because like I find this book very weird and boring because it’s the most religious and I was raised atheist; there are people who were raised religious and say this one is their favorite. So what the fuck do I know!

Marius & Armand & Daniel are all in the final trilogy as well if you make it that far. Daniel is sort of always shuffled to the side because Anne Rice didn't care about him so like every time Daniel shows up I like feast on the breadcrumbs LOL but I'm glad to get some context about how he's doing and what's going on with his life.

ANYWYA I’M NOT SURE IF THIS ANSWERS THE QUESTION OR MAKES IT MORE CONFUSING LOL but ! ?!

They’re very weird books, they’re also kinda outdated and racist, but very queer, beautiful prose, incredible characters. They were my first hyperfixation that I can never seem to shake even when I’ve done all the work to dismantle all the ways they’re problematic and imperfect, it’s just yknow sometimes something gets its claws in you LOL. And I go out and explore other fandoms and still always come back to Marius and Armand and Daniel lol. I say that to say I wouldn’t be offended if you didn’t like them LOL but don’t judge me if you give it a shot and you’re like “what the fuck is this”

I just think Armand is like the most incredible character of all time okay!

SORRY FOR THIS VERY LONG REPLY LOL love you, patience yields focus!

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levmada · 1 year

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oh since we’re on the topic of eren, i want to know. as a levi stan yourself, what are your opinions on eren? am i the only one who absolutely despises him? i think there was a point in the plot where he just lost my sympathy. he went from a traumatized little kid to a power hungry piece of shit in a heartbeat. the man is selfish by all means and i’m sure there’s some “deeper meaning” but even after finishing the manga, i just cannot find any sympathy for him. is it just me?

hmm you’re definitely not the only one who absolutely despises him but i’m not one of those people. (also i’m glad u read the manga bc i can talk about spoilers.)

eren is the most confusing character imo in just about every way. i wanna start with season 4 and rule out the interpretation that he was ‘acting’ being cold and cruel and overall murderous (like in liberio). he’s always been like that. ever since he was a kid he was ‘looking up at the sky’ and pretty much waiting for something to happen, hating the walls. and besides what sheltered (based on what we see of grishas parenting) 9 year old commits cold blooded murder two times? both being that type of kid that would do that, but for a girl his age he’s never actually met? mikasa killed the last guy bc it was life or death but eren was wayyyy too comfortable murdering those men, whether they were sex traffickers or ordinary bandits.

so he’s always been That Way. during the 57th expedition, levi literally said that eren is a monster, and not bc he can transform, but that NOTHING will keep him in a cage. fighting the female titan in stohess? bro already had a bloodlust. “it was like i wanted to die.” “IM GOING TO KILL YOU ALL!!!!” the difference between eren’s bloodlust toward the titans in s1-s3 and onward is him learning that there are other people out there and it’s actually the people stopping him from being free. the whole world hates their island. eren wasn’t satisfied by reaching the sea by itself because he wanted more and more, combined with his desire for revenge.

however: eren cared about his friends. that’s why he was so determined for the rumbling test not to be an option when he was 18, it would’ve meant historia becoming a mindless titan (i think? i just remember historia would’ve been harmed) and he was genuine during the cart scene when he didn’t want anyone to inherit his titan. he meant it when he said he’d always wrap mikasa’s scarf, and he DIDN’T mean it when he said he hated her in s4. that part was acting. idk if i have to drudge up every moment that proves eremika care about each other (shipping aside).

anyway, and when he learned sasha died? he knew it was going to happen - the overall ‘timeline’ of aot is very linear. remember all the flashes of the future at the end of s3p1, the start of s3p2, the start of s2? there are other moments but i’m getting off topic - and he’d laughed bc that’s how eren expresses tremendous grief caused by his own worthlessness. same thing happened when hannes died in s2.

so eren cared about his friends.

MANGA SPOILERS!

hell, arguably eren cared about every innocent person. when he learned he was gonna kill the kid in marley (totally blanking on his name rn sorry), he kneeled in front of him, crying and apologized. that’s another reason i think that the aot timeline is linear. that for 2,000 years, this was set to happen (hence the title of the first episode and the episode where eren goes to paths with zeke). so in a way, EREN is a SLAVE to no one but himself. he didn’t know any of that until he kissed historia’s hand and got all the memories of the future.

about that: when eren kissed historia’s hand and saw the future, he saw up until the moment he starts the rumbling. he didn’t see that his friends would fight him. he didn’t see that he’d lose. i think that’s more proof eren cared about his friends. he knew about sasha, but he couldn’t stop her from dying. when he learned everything that was going to happen, he became so detached bc he knew it was all inevitable.

the person eren is, he would stop at nothing to get ‘freedom’. at his core, he’s malicious and like you said selfish by all means, but he’s not a psychopath either. he thought he had good intentions, and then he had to fully embrace the monster he is. he went from going fucking ballistic at reiner and bert and screaming that they weren’t human anymore to becoming inhuman himself. he’s so fucking complicated.

AND THEN. the final chapter. eren knowing the future must’ve included his knowledge that he sent dina to kill his own mom and start this story. eren knew that he MADE grisha kill rod’s family and steal the founding titan. (more reasons he became detached.) he tells armin that paradis will know peace thanks to 80% of humanity dying, but armin in eren’s last moments acted like he was thankful despite knowing how shit that excuse is, and eren must know it too. a few years of peace and all that environmental damage for what? when the world recovers, it again will try to kill paradis. HELL in the extra pages, we see paradis become a fucking fascist military state. eren didn’t activate the rumbling to protect his friends. eren tried to avoid it to protect his friends.

but it was inevitable. and at the end? he’s a slave to himself. he’s a selfish, immature, pathetic and malicious little brat, the same as he always was. he doesn’t want mikasa to forget about him boo hoo bro. but did he cry about it in front of armin bc eren had any control of beginning the rumbling, sasha dying, etc. and he’s just that horrible? or bc he had no control, and he pushed armin and mikasa away to save them from himself. that could be pretty open to interpretation i think?

so all that said, do i think it’s wrong for u anon or anyone else to hate him? lol absolutely not. even tho i don’t, that’s one of the main themes of aot. there is no black and white. everyone has their one intentions and reasons, and some you can understand, but forgive, some you can understand and can’t forgive, some you can not understand and can forgive. me personally, i can find sympathy for eren, i can understand, but his actions are still unforgivable (even if you simply counted him making that jab at levi that one time on the airship about the letter🔪/hj).

#there might be other things i’m forgetting #but yeah #aot analysis #snk manga #if anyone’s confused or wanna learn more abt what i mean in a better explained way #i’ll rb this with a good yt video

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crispylilworm · 21 days

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I spent the weekend & past few days visiting friends in the Finger Lakes area, going to Niagara for the eclipse, and then ending in Corning for the glass museum and nearby Watkins Glen

Super fun overall but I noticed that there was a noticeable amount of retired people taking the same exact routes as me lmao

Do I have geriatric tastes? Were there just more of them because a lot of these events happened during the normal workday?? Most likely both

Moments I want to remember:

Watched a roller derby match in person, coolest and toughest gals around. Both teams and the fans went out for drinks after too and just all-around good vibes

Got the last seats at a fancy French restaurant for dinner - and the meal was on the company dime too hehe

Had a frangipane dessert for the first time and it had apricots and was amazing

Slept on a couch with a cat as my little spoon

My car may be slightly larger than my old one but the gas tank is NOT - do not wait until next rest stop bitch just go

Buffalo is actually a sizable city unlike the other upstate NY "cities"

Went to Buffalo's Dinosaur BBQ after they closed the Newark location which I miss. Ribs were so tender and tasty but overall the meal was miles short of the Texas barbeque I had last year

The NY part of Niagara Falls was far more enjoyable than the Canada side imo - it was a lot of walking paths and nature-focused attractions and the views were adjacent to the falls which I preferred. Canada side felt like an NJ boardwalk (derogatory) tourist trap and the falls views are across the river and farther away - more activities so good for families with kids or longer stays but less ideal for a 1-day visit like I did

Had my first Tim Hortons experience and it was like a cleaner Dunkin Donuts (DD my beloved I still love you more)

Went on one of the boats that goes straight into the area at the bottom of the Niagara waterfalls - a couple on board renewed their vows Jim & Pam style underneath the falls

Got DRENCHED on that boat ride, which I could have easily avoided but I was at the absolute tip of the bow, and it was cold and early April and a 30 min walk to my accommodation

Experienced ~eclipse totality~ for the first time! It was cloudy so no money-shot photo of the sun being overtaken, but got to experience the dark and the craziness with it. The birds all got confused, the streetlights all turned on, and it suddenly got so cold I could see my breath. Something about thousands of people gathered in one place and cheering and being giddy with joy together was so fun lol, felt like a concert or something but instead just staring at the sun

Stayed at the cutest accommodations, where it was a historical "castle" (mansion extended with additions to become an early doctors office and eventual B&B) and had the kindest host. The house was BEAUTIFUL and was filled with antiques and trinkets. The host was so passionate about the history of the building and making sure guests were comfy and knew about events going on nearby. She singly-handedly cooked a breakfast buffet daily and cut up a plate of fruit for each room AND cleaned all the rooms after check outs what a queen

Went to a local Niagara coffee shop that turned out to be a not-for-profit that provides a cool community space and meals for those who need it - most importantly got a delicious cappuccino

Visited the Corning Museum of Glass and easily could have spent twice as long there if it wasn't just a stop on my way home. They have an impressive collection and a bunch of live demonstrations, definitely worth a visit if you can

#eclipse #using tumblr as my diary again #i literally was just talking with my friends about how we all need to journal more #but like i dont have a physical journal #this will do for now i guess #no proofreading we die like men

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the-gc-record-club-blog · 1 year

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MONTERO (LIL NAS X)

Selected by Taco

OCHIENG’S TAKE

Favorite Song: Scoop

Spit Yo' Game/Talk Yo' Shit: I recently watched a clip of Vince Staples where he talked about superstars in rap, and a lot of what he said boiled to the fact that artists nowadays more often than not are selling moments and moving product more than they are actually moving music. If you look at the newest generation of musical entertainers, there’s arguably no one better than this Lil Nas X. Now I say all this to say that I didn’t really vibe with this album unfortunately, I obviously don’t know his creative process and I’d hate to try and pigeonhole anybody especially since his claim to fame was a genre bending smash hit. But a lot of the songs in this album to me felt they were engineered to try and cover as many bases instead of catering to Nas’ strengths. The standout tracks to me felt like the tracks where Nas had the most fun, “DOLLA SIGN SLIME,” “SCOOP,” and “INDUSTRY BABY” fall into this category. But nonetheless I still respect Nas as an artist, provocateur, and entertainer immensely and can’t wait for his next moves.

Lit-mus Test: 🔥(and a half for good measure)

VANESSA’S TAKE

Favorite Song: Industry Baby (ft. Jack Harlow)

Spit Yo' Game/Talk Yo' Shit: The context for my review is that after the roaring success of Old Town Road, most of my engagement with Lil Nas X's stardom was via his star presence, rather than his music — he's cute, seems very interesting and approachable in interviews, he's hilarious on social media, and by the by he releases a lot of bops that I like. Despite this, I wasn't able to really get excited about a full album; those biases are mine to grapple with. In the spirit of record club, of course I listened to MONTERO in full many times over, but I couldn't get into it and had forgotten most of the songs when the time came to write this review. Undeniably Lil Nas X is a good singer and rapper; he hits some powerful notes on both MONTERO and SCOOP - which, of the songs I didn't know before spinning the full album, is my favourite and nearly took the crown as my favourite song. Yet, I do think this time around the best songs were in fact the singles and the rest left me feeling a bit underwhelmed. If HOLIDAY was on this album I would've added a full flame to my rating because I absolutely love that song. Also, give me a Deluxe Edition without Jack Harlow on INDUSTRY BABY!!!

Lit-mus Test: 🔥🔥(and a half for good measure)

OBELLA’S TAKE

Favorite Song: Scoop

Spit Yo' Game/Talk Yo' Shit: So I just gave this album a re-listen in the gym today before writing this here review. And there is actually something to the whole "voice of a generation" thing when you consider that this album is definitely made by a queer Black kid who was a teen in the 2010s and played Rock Band while keeping up with undergound rappers on Soundcloud. Yfm? And for that alone it cements Lil Nas X as a pop star and in fact, yes, an Industry Baby (zing!). It grabs from a lot of different genres and makes enjoyable bops in each space. It grounds Old Town Road as less of a genre-bender and more of a genre-lender, but still I feel it is representative of how young montero is taking on the music industry and pop culture scene as a talented and versatile artist. It speaks to my overall feelings on the album that even though I really enjoyed my re-listen it didn't result in any of the songs going back into the rinse & repeat playlist (though I considered Scoop again, alas I beat that song into the ground the first go around). It gets a solid rating but it's def not 5 stars imo. However I look forward to how Lil Nas X is gonna grow with time. An Industry Toddler might make something CRAZY who can say?

Lit-mus Test: 🔥🔥🔥

CALVIN’S TAKE

Favorite Song: Dolla $ign Slime

Spit Yo' Game/Talk Yo' Shit: Lil Nas X might be one of the best people alive at generating a "let me stop and see what's going on over there" moment that I actually want to hear about -- at a popstar level (insane degree of difficulty IMO). Usually, they're media / pop-cultural, the type of things that make people say "they should teach this in schools!!!" lmao. But I think this "moment" approach applies to his music too, and that happens to be the subject of today's class. I enjoy X's music the most when he squeezes out those little moments of life on record. "I'm just trying to be the dailyyyy....SCOOP!" has me doing air basketball finger rolls at random. "He don't run from nothing dawgg, get your soldiers, tell em that the breaks is ovvvvveerrr" makes me feel like I'm trying to wrap my arms around a rocket that just launched from wherever the NASA folks go when they're not WFH. As much as I rooted for it, those bursts of energy are few and far between on this album, for me. I genuinely feel guilty about pigeonholeing a person and artist who is so full of creativity, fluidity, and the future -- but I want way more Nas X where he's rapping. GIVE ME A SONG WITH NICKI NOW, though I'm sure he could never have predicted how Onika would be moving in Big 2022. Because rap can be too confining, maybe just more instances where he's on a song that has the same kind of bite as the Daytrip produced records. One thing that unites the two songs I referenced (and my favorite, "Dolla Sign Slime") in my mind is that they KNOCK, and I personally feel that is a better representation of the urgency of the message that Nas has within him. Even if I never get what I want though, I'll still always have my ears open for whatever moment is next from him.

Lit-mus Test: 🔥🔥

#lil nas x #montero #scoop #industry baby #dolla sign slime

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nina-vonnegut · 2 years

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Whenever I see discussions about "age appropriate" media/consumption. And 18+ and nsfw I get the feeling that people are missing the core point.

NSFW is not because everyone is such a prude. And it shouldn't be used interchangeable with 18+ as a tag/warning/disclaimer. It literally means; your boss could take offense if they see that stuff. Volunteering at a church summer camp meant that "fuck monday" is a nsfw post, esp. when it was those b/w graphics and "fuck" was in bigass font. Where I work now no one cares about "fuck" but some horror posts, that aren't even that gory, would get me a second look and maybe a talking to. It's literally just about work. Not sex/violence specifically.

Age appropriate and 18+ is something I see many fandom and nerd people fight about. Violent ops games etc. It's not about kids/teens being too stupid to understand game/show =/= reality; it's about one knowing how to deal with the emotions it provokes. As a teen I used to engage with 18+ stuff on principle. And quite honestly often felt alone when I had to deal with the aftermath. Some scenes do evoke strong reactions from people. It's fiction but it does affect us. And I couldn't really talk to anybody how messed up something was cause I watched it in secret/or boasted how "grown up" I was. Jump scares used to be my go-to scary movie when I was alone. And now I hate them cause it left me with a horrible jumpy reaction. I should have quit when it first started to affect me but I was "cool" so I soldiered on. Certain depiction of violence and gore simply isn't made for younger people. Because it requires a certain amount of self reflection; I am old enough to know if something can/will trigger me and I won't subject myself to it out of peer pressure/on a dare. I also have enough self awareness to check on myself when I notice myself spiraling; however that might be and take a day to calm down. Teens don't have that, there are no "sick days" in school.

Young people aren't that self aware; simply because they haven't been living with themselves for that long and puberty puts them on a mix of chemicals that they have never experienced before. Obviously they cannot self monitor as well as an adult. And we shouldn't expect them to.

And last but imo never least is the topic of household/family time + values. I don't believe shooter games "make" people violent. I believe those games endorse certain violent tendencies. And if those go unchecked, because a teen is less likely to notice, it can absolutely get out of control.

Not every family can guarantee a certain amount of "reflection time" after consuming media. Many parents are already working 2 jobs, have to check homework. There is simply no time for philosophical discussions. And that's okay. That's why there is an age marker for some shit.

Directions and restrictions are made based on the "weakest links" and that's absolutely correct.

Let's be honest, there are enough cracks in the system to avoid 18+. Some parents actively buy that media for their 18- kids. And that's on them. I think it should stay that way. The author/company producing the content is not responsible to deal with unchecked reactions to the disclaimers/triggers. If you subject yourself to stuff it's your responsibility to deal with it. And we do not expect the same amount of responsibility from kids as from adults.

So maybe it's less an attack and "talking down on kids" and more a "we can't break into everybody's homes and check if they are media literate".

We are already confronted with morons who think "Lolita is endorsing/celebrating pedophiles" so media literacy is a rare gem. Now put kids high on hormones in the mix. That's a molotov waiting to explode.

#klukvatalk

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greensaplinggrace · 3 years

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honestly THANK YOU for saying all that abt baghra bc i thought i was going crazy from not liking her??? bc i haven't read the books and only summaries of them on wiki and like. i dunno why ppl like her actually even in the show bc this guy, her son, is like "i wanna make the world better for us grisha" and she's just like "no." even tho he sees that she's MAKING HERSELF SICK from suppressing her powers! she's literally like in bed coughing in the flashback yet seem much healthier at the little palace. also like after everything, after her disapproval, after the fold, after centuries of waiting for the sun summoner.. he never abandons her. he makes sure she's cares for. he doesn't harm her. and i have to wonder if baghra has ever thanks him for that, for just not leaving her alone. like i dunno how im suppose ro believe aleks is a heartless villain when he still cares for his abusive mom like this. like has baghra even told her she loved him (honestly she reminds me of a classic emotionally unavailable asian parent but maybe that's just me). also im wondering if baghra ever told aleks that he had an aunt.. bc like.. now that u bring up her isolating him it's like hmmmm...

not at me being like alina... why do u trust the bitter old woman who literally beats u with a stick and verbally abuses u every chance she gets.. just bc she showed a bad painting... like.. pls use two braincells to see that who u figured out as his mother... is also using his protection..

like baghra could've upped and left with alina. but no. she stayed bc she knew she was safe under aleks's protection.

alsoim just impressed that after his first friend tried to drown him and harvest his bones... he didn't go into hiding???? he still wanted to make a safe heaven for grisha!!! HE STILL WANTED TO PROTECT GRISHA EVEN AFTER HIS GRISHA FRIEND TRIED TO KILL HIM FOR HIS FUCKEN BONES. like... this is the guy im suppose to believe is the villain???

honestly i feel like part of the reason why LB's plotlines seem so bad and disconnected (and sometimes outright racist but that's another rant) and why darkles is disproportionately more violent and villainous in the later books is bc she didn't expect the darkling to be so popular and wanted to stick with her guns of making him the villain. but also wanted the money from aleks's popularity. but like you can't have ur cake and eat it too.

Well thank you for sending this ask! It's very sweet and very passionate. I'm glad you liked my post! I didn't put as much thought into it as some of my others lol. I kind of just talked. But it was nice to be able to finally talk about some of the problems I have with both her character and the fandom/author's perception of her.

HERE is the post this is referring to, in case anyone's wondering.

👀👀 You've hit the nail on the head for so many things, here!

Baghra is extremely emotionally unavailable, basically to the point of neglect. She's also verbally and physically abusive, traits which I doubt were only reserved for her students and not her son. Baghra claims she would do anything to protect him, but I've known a lot of parents who have that mindset and yet still harm their children because they think it's "good for them".

Aleksander stays at Baghra's side for years, and even when they're opposing each other she's never too far away from him. Idk if you've read the books but he does eventually hurt her. And as much as I don't like Baghra, I think his actions were horrid. But I'm also honestly kind of surprised it took him so long lmao.

Yeah I mean, in terms of isolation, let's not forget that she never wanted to introduce him to his father, either. Baghra's sense of eternity clouds a lot of her judgments on relationships, which means she views most people as dust and therefore teaches her son to as well. The problem with that is that he's a growing child, and he needs those social and emotional attachments for healthy development.

I would bet quite a bit of money that Baghra has either never told him she loves him or she has told him so few times it's practically forgettable.

And everything becomes more complicated because so many of Baghra's actions are understandable because of her life and her history, but the impacts they have on the people around her, especially Aleksander, are permanently damaging. And the fact that that's never gone over in critical depth in the books or how it's glossed over in fandom is just very disconcerting. Like, acknowledging Baghra's failings doesn't mean we're excusing Aleksander's actions, it just means we're holding Baghra liable for her own. Which the fandom should be doing, considering she's the epitome of an abusive parental figure.

And Alina trusting Baghra over Aleksander is even more confusing! Especially in the show!! This is the woman who beat her and abused her and tortured her friends when they tiny little children (and who probably still does so now that they're adults). This is the woman who mocks you and harasses you and insults you on a regular basis. Why does Baghra revealing she's Aleksander's mother make Alina change her mind?! Like fuck, I'd just feel bad for Aleksander. No wonder he kept it a secret, I would too! And that painting is enough evidence?! Really?! A random painting shown to you by this abusive mentor that's been making your life hell. That's what you're going to betray your new lover over?

The friends trying to harvest his bones thing is a good point, too. I think Aleksander, especially show Aleksander, is incredibly idealistic. I think he cares too much for others - those he's deemed worth his care (a sentiment given to him by Baghra). Despite everything she's tried to teach him about hiding and abandoning others and never caring and never doing anything to help or reach out or connect with people, Aleksander still continues to do so. It's likely because he never got it from Baghra growing up, and so is desperate for those emotional needs to be fulfilled elsewhere.

His turning point, when Baghra tells him it was understandable that those kids tried to kill him because the world is such a hard place for them - that's crucial. And the reason it's possible as a motivating factor is because of that idealism and that desire to help and that desire to be everything his mother isn't. Baghra tells him this trauma he just experienced was because of the oppression of his people, and instead of following her lead and accepting that, going into hiding and abandoning everybody to their misery, he goes I can do something about that. I can make it so this never happens again. Which is usually how trauma like that combines with one's core personality traits at a young age, especially when there's none of the essential support systems in place to aid in recovery (ie, the role Baghra should have been filling but wasn't, because she decided to exacerbate the problem instead).

And yeah, one of my biggest problems with the ham-fisted "beating you over the head with a sledgehammer of evil deeds" look-how-bad-this-character-is! portrayal of the Darkling in the later books comes from the impression I get that Bardugo doesn't trust her readers. She's so desperate to have us hate this character and think him an irredeemable villain, not trusting any of her readers to engage critically with a morally gray character, that it feels quite a bit like condescending fucking bullshit. Which ew, I know how to engage with literature, thanks.

She really does seem to look down on a large part of her fandom, and imo, the infantilization of the female characters in her books seems to carry over to her impression of most of her female readers as well. Which is why the Darkling's character arc gets fucking destroyed. But he's still a good cash grab, of course, so she'll shake his dead corpse in front of the fandom for money every time she wants something from it.

Also! Another reason I think her plotlines feel disconnected (I'm sorry Bardugo I respect you as a person, but shit-) is because the writing in SaB is just bad. I mean, nevermind the absolutely nauseating implications of the way she portrays the Grisha as a persecuted group who's situation is never actually fully addressed as it should be, considering Grisha rights is what her main villain is fighting for (imo for a series called the Grishaverse, LB seems to be pretty anti Grisha), but her characters and story alone are just wrong for each other. They don't fit together.

And the ending is one of the main pieces of evidence in that regard! You can’t say the ending where Alina isn’t Grisha anymore is her “going back to where she started” when she’s always been Grisha. She just didn’t know she was Grisha because she denied that part of herself that she was born with.

Alina is reluctant to move forward or change, she struggles with adapting, and she’s very set on the things she’s grown attached to throughout her life. She also has some latent prejudices against the Grisha, and so denies the possibility of being Grisha for those reasons as well.

Alina’s lack of powers in the beginning of her life because she willfully doesn’t learn about them to avoid change versus her lack of powers at the end of the book when she’s accepted them and then they’re stripped away from her by outer forces are two entirely separate circumstances. You can’t make a parallel about lost powers and lack of Grisha status bringing her back to the start when she was always Grisha and she always had powers and she simply refused to come to terms with it because of personal reasons.

The first situation is an internal conflict that indicates a story about growth and a journey of self acceptance. Denying herself the opportunity to learn about her heritage and to find acceptance with a group of people like her because she’s tied to the past and because of the way she was raised is the setup for a narrative that tackles unlearning prejudice and learning how to connect with a part of her identity that was denied her and learning how to grow independent and self assured. It’s the setup for a different story entirely. The second situation is an external conflict that centers around the ‘corrupting influence of power’... for some reason.

In a world where Grisha do not have social, political, or economic power and they are hunted, centering your heroine’s journey of self acceptance and growth around an external conflict about... the corrupting influence of power (in a group of people that don’t actually have any power?!) just doesn’t work. It is literally impossible to connect the two stories Bardugo is trying to push in Shadow and Bone without seriously damaging the main character’s developmental arc.

The only way a narrative like this would work, claiming that she has gone back to where she started, is either a) if the Grisha weren’t actually a persecuted group and instead were apart of the upper class, or b) if the one bad connection between the two instances is acknowledged - that Alina denied a part of herself crucial to self acceptance and growing up, and that losing her powers at the end has also denied her. It is a tragedy, not a happy ending.

Alina suffered because she didn’t use her powers. She grew sick. It was bad for her. This was not a resistance to 'the corruption of power and the burden of greed', it was her suffering because she couldn’t fully accept herself.

Framing the ending as a return to the beginning can’t be done if you don’t address how bad the beginning was for your main character. You brought her back to a bad point in her life. You regressed her. This should be a low point in her arc. It should be a problem that’s solved so she can finish developing organically or it should be something that is acknowledged as a tragedy in it’s own right, for the future the world (the writing) denied her.

This is a ramble and it makes no sense and I’m really sorry, but my point is that Bardugo put the wrong characters in the wrong story. The character arc required for organic development doesn’t match the story and intended message at all. The narrative doesn’t fit the cast. She's got two clashing stories attempting to work in tandem and she ends up with both conflicting messages that fans still can’t comprehend in her writing and an ending that doesn’t suit her main character to such an impossible degree that it’s almost laughable.

So yeah, there's a few reasons why I think the story and the plot feels so bad and disconnected. I hope you don't mind me making this answer so long! 😅 I was not expecting to write this much.

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mcbride · 3 years

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TWD S11 Predictions - Carol/Daryl focused

disclaimer: i don't know anything. i have no sources. just my predictions, thoughts and wishful thinking based on filming tracking, intuition, some theories, images from the teaser/promo trailers and more wishful thinking!

solely focused on Carol and Daryl's storylines, cause apparently that's all my heart cares about anymore! as a wise person once said (Espy, my positive fairy! if you're reading this, ilysm), our baes need to be dealing with their own issues and demons, separately, while getting some closure with other people, so they can finally move forward together.

so i don't expect many actual caryl scenes in part 1 of s11, but i fully expect them to keep each other in mind, and even make some decisions based on a future they wanna have together even before they resolve the awkward tension between them atm.

imo the perfect caryl arc in 11a would include a lot of emotional encounters, drama, disappearances, fake deaths, torture, tragedy, dog, closure and make up and make out... after the jump....

it appears that Carol and Daryl will be involved in different missions at the start of the season - he will head out with Maggie's group to search for food when they are caught up in a storm and have to hide out in the subway tunnels; while i presume she stays back to defend and help clean up ASZ or goes on her own mission with Kelly and Magna.

Carol, Kelly and Magna end up stumbling upon Connie's journal, a symbol of hope for all of them. they might even decide to search the area for any more signs of Connie. i really want Carol herself to find Connie and bring her back to Kelly. and not cause Carol is a hero who saved Connie, nooooooo cause Connie can save her own self. she is strong, not a damsel in distress. she went through hell but she made it back. i think we will see Connie and what she has been through, however, i don't believe she will reunite with anyone from team family before the MSF (11x08) or even MSP (11x09). no idea who she and Virgil are running from in the trailer - it could either be a whisperer, a stray reaper or just some crazy random motherf*cker they run into.

while Maggie's group are in the tunnels, dog runs off and Daryl goes to search for him, never making it back to the group for some reason. after the storm is over, Maggie and the group search for Daryl but not having been able to find him (?) they just assume he is gone, possibly dead? i don't know why Maggie would give up so easily searching for family, but it seems like her current MO to just leave people behind.

along the way, Carol and Magna will find common ground and actually become besties cause she desperately needs some female friends. please and thank you. they can bond over the hope to find Connie alive and well, or the fact, both of them are currently in a very awkward position with their boos while having no idea where the heck they are.

Daryl probably got separated from the group while escaping a small herd in the tunnels (cue to Daryl's face covered in blood in the woods) and when he finally finds dog, he comes face to face with a masked reaper formerly known to him as Leah. he is shocked to learn she's part of the group that targeted Maggie. Leah is probably bitter Daryl chose his family instead of her a few years ago cause she has no idea he came back for her... so she and her friends take (willingly or not!) Daryl prisoner... possibly torture him and play mind games to gather information on team family.

in the sdcc trailer, there are some very heartbreaking scenes with Carol (and Aaron?), i cannot wait for it. i know it's gonna make me cry so hard and i've been needing Carol/Aaron friendship for years. at the same time, i expect Carol to also have some badass fighting scenes with her daughter-in-law and new bestie, Lydia, and tia Rosita! YES girl power!! people need Carol and she's totally there for them.

Aaron seems to be in a bad place emotionally (possibly something happened to Gracie, or just the fact they lost a lot of people in the whisperers war!) and Carol will be there to urge him not to make the same mistakes she did. hopefully, these 2 can join forces and come up with a masterplan to defeat the reapers.

Daryl being Daryl who always wants to save people even from themselves, tries to convince Leah to change sides, join team family, or convince her own family to leave his family alone. he's unsuccessful and when Daryl tries to escape, setting the whole place on fire and killing a few men on his way out of the reapers compound, Leah threatens to harm dog. cause why not? she obvi loves nothing or no one! they take Daryl back to another cell, and dog manages to escape.

meanwhile, Maggie's group returns to ASZ, where they tell Carol they believe Daryl is lost or dead. please give me all the angst that comes with Carol thinking she may have lost Daryl forever! she has been pretty committed to the group and rebuilding their home, but i believe her first instinct will be to run, to leave... TO FIND DARYL!!! cause no way in hell would Carol just accept he's gone unless she sees it with her own eyes.

WELL in true 'if you can't beat them, then join them' fashion, after a few brainwashing sessions with Leah, Daryl tells her all about the note (FIND ME) he left for her at the cabin, how he knows he made the wrong decision then, declares his loyalty to her and joins the reapers...

dog arrives at ASZ just as Carol is about to leave to search for Daryl. good boy always comes back home to mama and together they will find and save dada. (bear with me! from now on i'll be totally running wild with my wishful thinking... it will pretty much read like some fanfic plot!)

Daryl keeps trying to fit in with the reapers group, but he's only taking a page from Carol's undercover book - fake it till you make it + destroy them from the inside. what he doesn't know is that Leah and her new/old bf (Pope!?) have been planning an attack on ASZ behind his back. they simply let him know, this is his chance to prove himself to the reapers. he has to go along with the plan (or DIE!), but he hopes to be Alexandrians' inside man, helping them protect their family at all costs (ironically, exactly what Negan did when he joined the whisperers and they attacked Hilltop... just not the same motivation! i guess Carol wasn't so wrong about Negan after all!)

at night, Daryl puts on his reaper costume and they head to ASZ. reapers learned the location of the place by tracking dog. the plan was much bigger and more explosive than Daryl expected, the reapers destroy a big part of ASZ brand new rebuilt wall and set fire to a bunch of houses and the mill before Daryl can even react.

Alexandrians and reapers fight as Daryl sneaks out to lead the kids to safety. he finds Maggie, asks for Carol, and is glad she is out there looking for him, relatively safe, rather than around to fight and watch ASZ fall.

while out looking for Daryl, Carol hears the explosions, sees the fire and she and dog return to ASZ as fast as they can. they are greeted by Leah at what used to be front gate...

i realize this is getting extremely long, so i'll just say that i absolutely don't want Carol to have anything to do with Leah's possible imminent death. i don't want that guilt on her conscience, and i don't want her to feel like Leah is just another person she took from Daryl (like Connie!). i don't even want Leah to die! unless she's trying to hurt or kill Daryl.

somehow i think it would be a good twist, if for a quick second Carol thought Daryl had betrayed them and joined the reapers for Leah. of course, Carol knows better. SHE KNOWS DARYL. he would never, but for a brief panicked moment, it would be good to see her react to that. i can only imagine the pain in her eyes. but she also trusts Daryl with her life.

we have no idea what Leah knows about Carol, but i'd like the pocketknife Daryl regifted to come back. how would Leah react? likely angry to see another woman with something that was hers. i want to believe Daryl would never tell Leah anything about Carol because she is just too important and too personal to share. but maybe Leah can tell there was someone else !? who knows.

i just want it to be completely clear Daryl is done with that part of his past. Daryl is not alone and lost in the woods anymore without his brother Rick and his bestie Carol. ever since Carol brought him back, Daryl has acted like he knows exactly what he wants and he's done playing games. and what he wants is not Leah or Connie. he wants for ALL his family to be safe and happy, and he wants to run away with Carol and see the world. AND i want both Carol and Daryl to feel free to be free and live freely.

as for the make up and make out part... (that's saved for 11b, hopefully!)

team family won, most of the reapers are dead, except for Leah. Daryl (with Carol's nod of approval!) decides to spare her, gives her some supplies and tells her to get lost. at the same time, Eugene arrives with the troopers from CommonWealth to help with the whisperer war. WHOOPS. 2 wars, 2 late, bruh! but the group leaves to join the good people at CW.

Carol and Daryl have a very long conversation about everything that happened and what they have been feeling. Daryl telling her exactly why he was so mad at her (she kept leaving, can't commit!), her actions (almost getting herself killed!) since Henry's death and how he needs her in his life. no matter how she sees herself or whether she thinks she's worthy or not, he just wants her to be there next to him for whatever is to come.

plus Carol realizing she needed to get closer and let people in without fear, not give up hope and actually fight for a better future for herself. and finally, admitting to Daryl that it was horrible to think he might've been gone forever, promising to never make him feel the way she felt. basically, a promise to never ever leave him again (cue to making out!)

#caryl #caryl rants #caryl predictions #carol peletier #daryl dixon #dog dixon #s11 spoilery #good lawd this is long af #did i go full td here?#or plausible possibility territory?#wishful thinking #speculation

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fuckyeahisawthat · 3 years

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Have you been asked yet to rank Trust eps? Cos I'm asking! But your the criteria for ranking I leave to you to decide.

Ahahahaha I’ll have you know I put way too much thought into this. :-D

Ok so first of all, there is no such thing as a bad episode of Trust. The whole thing is really tightly written, every character and plot thread has a purpose, and even the episodes that I haven’t watched over and over again are important to the overall story. And a lot of the impact of the show comes from things that are cumulative over multiple episodes.

That being said, I do have favorites. Since the definitive ranking of Primo’s outfits has already been taken care of, here is my ranking from least to most favorite based on some nebulous criteria of artistic/narrative effectiveness and emotional impact, my judgement of which is obviously highly subjective and also correct.

Under the cut because this got ummm unbelievably, ridiculously long.

10. The House of Getty (episode 1)

Sorry Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy, the pilot is my least favorite episode. Still think it was the wrong choice to open with a flashy (and, I can tell, expensive) sequence showcasing the death of a character we literally never see again. And, look, I’m an impatient viewer. If I don’t get someone to root for/emotionally identify with/otherwise catch my interest early on in a narrative, I’ll tune out. And Old Paul is not only unlikeable--far from a mortal sin in dramatic storytelling--he’s boring. I don’t care about any of his rich people problems, and I’m not the kind of viewer who can be kept engaged just by hating someone and watching them be terrible.

Some of the secondary characters in the Getty household do have interesting plotlines, but we don’t get to learn very much about them in the first episode. And I do think things get interesting once Little Paul shows up (although I maintain that the whole episode is more interesting if we understand what the stakes are for Paul getting the money), but if I had started watching this show with no context I wouldn’t have made it past Old Paul’s pre-coital erotica listening routine.

If this had been anything other than the first episode I might not have ranked it last, but extra penalty points for leading with your least interesting characters.

9. Lone Star (episode 2)

This episode is, I think, saddled by the fact that it has to do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of exposition and setup. It mostly works because Chace is an entertaining narrator, and once we get to Italy with Gail I think things zip along at a pretty good pace. Opens with an attempted rape to show how Bad the Bad Guys are, which is...not my favorite trope.

Once again, I think a lot of the information in this episode would have worked better if episode 3 had been episode 1. (We’d already know who Berto was when Chace meets him; we’d already know about the box of guns in the apartment; we’d know when certain characters are lying.) This whole show runs on the suspense of the audience being the only party who knows what’s going on with all the characters at once; I think trading mystery for suspense here was the wrong move. I also can’t help thinking there was pressure to front-load the well-known American actors in the beginning of the show at the expense of the strongest narrative choices.

Imo the best thing about this episode is the sort of...multiple competing images of Paul that emerge. His mom sees him as an innocent victim who couldn’t possibly have planned any of this. Chace sees him as a spoiled rich kid trying to swindle his granddad. Neither one of them has the complete truth.

Next we get into some episodes that are certainly not bad, but their greatness is more on the level of some bangin’ individual scenes than a whole package.

8. John, Chapter 11 (episode 6)

Again, this isn’t a bad episode. The main reason I put it near the end of the list is that the first time through I got sort of impatient during the first half. We, the audience, by virtue of our extra-textual knowledge, know that Paul can’t be dead, and we spend about half the episode before we know what really happened to him, which felt a bit too long to me.

This episode does have some fantastic individual scenes including: Leo talking Primo down in the farmhouse, Leo and Paul’s conversation about Angelo’s death, Gail being an absolute badass, and the meeting between Salvatore and Old Paul. A lot of these scenes are essential on a thematic level, but I don’t think the episode as a whole is the most streamlined.

7. Consequences (episode 10)

I debated for a while where to put this episode because the overall feeling of 57 Chekov’s guns going off in the space of one episode is SO satisfying, and the resolutions of some of the individual plotlines are delicious. Ultimately I would have liked more space for Paul and Gail and less Old Paul being grumpy about his substitute child museum’s mediocrity (although the scene with the bad reviews is hilarious). Once again I feel like the show creators felt they had to pull the focus back to Old Paul to wrap things up and I just. don’t care.

That being said. The resolution of Primo’s storyline? SO SATISFYING. And tbh I don’t dislike the scenes that exist with Paul and Gail; even the happy scenes have this poignant tone to them. I think they were trying to deal with the fact that his irl story is just...incredibly fucking tragic, and you can see a bit of the strain showing.

6. Kodachrome (episode 7)

I know episode 7 is not one of your personal favorites, but it’s the one where I think jumping between multiple plotlines/sets of characters is used to the most satisfying dramatic effect. It has this sense of dramatic irony that feels like some Shakespearean family tragedy. The whole episode, we are hoping that Paul Jr. will finally do the thing we want him to do, which is stand up to his father. And he does it--but at the absolute worst, most selfish and destructive moment possible.

Paul Jr. may be the literal worst, but I do have compassion for him in the flashbacks, mostly because it seems painfully apparent that no matter what he does, he will never be able to please his father. But he doesn’t seem to realize this, and he keeps trying, even as it’s destroying him and his relationship with his family. Credit to Michael Esper for his performance for making me feel a smidgen of compassion for this bastard.

I think the other thing this episode shows is how both of Paul’s parents keep putting him, a child, into roles and circumstances that he shouldn’t really be in. He’s wandering around through what seem like very much adult environments with his dad and Talitha in Morocco. In the Trust version of events he’s there when Talitha ODs and is the one trying to revive her while his dad is having a breakdown in the corner. Gail seems like the more responsible parent but there’s something about her bringing Paul as her “date” on a night out, and the understanding that this is a thing that happens regularly...to me the disturbing part is not so much bringing a young kid to a party with adults but the unspoken expectation that Little Paul will fill the void of companionship that his father has left empty. (Gettys expecting Little Paul to step in to cover for the failings of his father is a repeated theme, and it even plays into the ear thing. His family has failed to pay the ransom, so this is now a problem he has to solve himself.) Combine this all with Leonardo going, um, excuse me but what the actual fuck is wrong with your family? and I think it makes a very effective episode. And the last couple minutes had me yelling NOOOOOOOO GODDAMMIT because you can see what’s going to happen and you’re just watching it unfolding like a car wreck. Also has one of my hands-down favorite scenes, of Paul and Primo in the car waiting for the ransom.

5. White Car in a Snowstorm (episode 9)

The ~ D R A M A !!! ~ This episode is an opera. I mean this whole show is dramatique but episode 9 really leans into the vivid imagery--that snowy highway in the mountains above the sea, the all-white ransom exchange, Paul clinging to the pole at the shuttered Getty gas station, some Very Serious Mobsters throwing the ransom money around like idiots in a moment where you’re encouraged to be happy along with them.

This is also one of my favorite episodes for Primo and for Primo and Paul’s weird sometimes-alliance. Primo walking away from Salvatore to go tell Paul “they always pay in the end”? Primo and Paul teaming up to argue with Salvatore about why Paul shouldn’t die? Primo being all threateny to the doctor treating Paul because somewhere deep down he is worried (that’s my take and you’ll never convince me otherwise)? Primo dressing up to fake-scab on a postal strike in order to find a misplaced severed ear? All gold.

Fun fact: the letter Gail writes to President Nixon did happen in real life, but as far as I can tell the phone call did not. The real details of who convinced Old Paul to finally pay (some) of the ransom are considerably less cinematic. They’re the same amount of sexist though!

Ok now we are getting to the top tier...

4. That’s All Folks! (episode 4)

This is definitely the episode that took me from “ok this is fun” to “oh holy shit I’m invested now.” It’s the episode where we get introduced to most of the Calabrian characters and their world. It’s also the episode where we start to realize that Primo is not just a fun antagonist but is really a parallel protagonist to Little Paul, with his own set of relationships and motivations that we start to see from his POV. (I’d argue that, with the exception of his very first scene, we’ve mostly seen Primo through other characters’ gaze up until episode 4, and this is the point where we start watching him as like, the character whose pursuit of a goal we’re following over the course of the scene.)

This episode ranks high for capturing so much of the weird mix of tones that makes Trust work. It can be very funny. (I never fail to fuckin lose it when Fifty is on the phone with Gail the first time and when he’s talking to the thoroughly unimpressed newspaper switchboard operator.) It has this weird unexpected intimacy between characters you wouldn’t think would connect with each other. (Primo and Paul, Paul and Angelo; in retrospect the arc of the relationship between Primo and Leo gets started in that scene in Salvatore’s kitchen.) And it has one of the show’s absolute best record-scratch tone shifts when Primo gets the ransom offer. I remember saying “oh FUCK” out loud the first time I watched the end of that episode, when Primo comes back to the house, visibly drunk and clearly furious. We’ve seen him be violent plenty before now in the show, but always in a controlled, calculated way. This is the first time we see his potential for out-of-control rage-fueled violence and he’s terrifying!

3. La Dolce Vita (episode 3)

I stand by my claim that this episode (with a few minor continuity adjustments) should have been the pilot. Can you imagine a title card that’s like “Rome 1973” and then away we go with Paul snorting coke and taking racy photos and jumping on cops and fucking his girlfriend in what is definitely not proper museum etiquette, and then the smash cut to Primo intimidating and robbing and murdering people? And that’s the opening of the whole show? And you’re like how are these characters connected and then they meet each other and it’s the fucking sunflower field scene??

Anyway aside from the fact that I think knowing the information in this episode would have made episodes 1 and 2 more interesting...it’s just a great fucking episode. It’s kinetic and propulsive and funny and tense and violent and features Primo’s sniper skills and his ass in those cornflower blue trousers. I rest my case.

2. Silenzio (episode 5)

I’ll be honest, I went back and forth on the top two a bunch. Silenzio is definitely my personal favorite episode, and I’d argue that it’s the best written, in terms of what it accomplishes narratively, which is to keep you emotionally invested in both Paul and Angelo trying to escape with their lives, and Primo and Leonardo hunting them down. That’s so fucking hard!! And yes some of it is great acting but it starts from the foundation of the writing. It’s just such a perfect little self-contained horror movie, and it has this profound sense of fatalism to it, because you know from the beginning (if only by virtue of only being halfway through the series) that Paul is not going to escape, and you sort of know that there is only one way this will end for Angelo. And yet they escape by the skin of their teeth so! many! times!

It’s also the episode where you see how much power the ‘Ndrangheta has over people’s lives in this community: Salvatore is like God, calling his servants to him with the church bells. Combine that with the visuals of two characters running for their lives mostly on foot through this unforgiving landscape, and you really get the sense of this environment as a harsh place where most people have a very constrained set of choices, and the claustrophobia of that. You get the sense in this episode that everyone is trapped in these expectations of violence and duty and honor. Angelo did what anyone with compassion would do, and saved Paul from what seemed like certain death, and he’s doomed for it. At the same time Primo is doing exactly what anyone would expect him to do in response to a subordinate who disobeyed him. In some ways the end of the episode feels inevitable, unsurprising, and yet they do SUCH a good job of winding up the tension until the literal last seconds of the episode, and then releasing it with a big dramatic bang. It’s so good!!

1. In the Name of the Father (episode 8)

Ok I’ll be honest the ONLY reason In the Name of the Father edged out Silenzio for the top spot is that it is really clear they pulled out all the stops in terms of making this episode feel extra heightened in a show where everything is already heightened. Like, the cinematography is different? They still use handheld a lot but I swear there are more still shots and more extreme, editorial camera angles like that shot of Francesco looking upward in church where the camera is looking down from above him. I can’t tell if they actually tweaked the color grading or if the bright white and blood red just stand out against the Calabrian color palette which is mostly earth tones, browns and greens and blues.

There are just. So many layers to this episode. The imagery! The literal sacrificial lamb at the beginning, Francesco being guided by Leonardo through an act of violence against an animal, something that I’m sure they don’t even see as violence but just part of farm life, part of survival and in this case part of a celebration, but something that fathers teach their sons how to do as part of becoming a man in this world. Paul as the metaphorical sacrificial lamb later, drawing parallels to Jesus (the lamb of God), Isaac (a father sacrificing his son), any number of martyred saints, pick your Catholic imagery. The blood of the lamb on the tree stump and Paul’s blood on the stone. The communion wafer (the body and blood of Christ) and Francesco at the end with Paul’s blood and a literal piece of his body held in his hands the same way.

And then there is like, the suspense of watching everyone marking time through the steps of this community ritual that’s supposed to be a joyful, communal celebration, while we know that there is a secret ticking away under the surface. The slow unfolding of the lie told to one person spreading to everyone in the village, and then the knowledge that Salvatore knows spreading to all the people who’ll be in trouble for that. The relationship arcs between the main Calabrian characters...not resolving, but sliding into place for the final act. Primo finally being done with Salvatore. Primo and Leo’s alliance being cemented and Leo physically stepping between Primo and Salvatore, to protect Primo. (No one ever protects Primo!! Still not over it!!!!) The confirmation celebration as a mirror of the Getty party in episode 1, the parallels drawn between the 3 Pauls and Salvatore-Primo-Francesco and how Primo reacts to being passed over as heir vs. how Paul Jr. reacts. Little Paul having two whole minutes of screen time and managing to break your heart with them. Regina! Just...Regina’s whole everything. The music going all-instrumental for an episode and having this haunting, dreamlike but still tense quality to it. And the fact that we never cut away from Calabria to another plotline gives the whole episode this hypnotic, all-encompassing quality. It’s just. SO GOOD!!!!

#fadagaski #asks answered #trust fx #long post #so so long omg #i can't believe how long i spent writing this but HERE IT IS #trust alternate watch order

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mallowstep · 3 years

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(Reed anon again)

Just--wtf did Riverclan do with Reedpaw when everyone was rescued? Even in Canon? Like, poor fucking Mistyfoot--two of her kits are with her, but her third and final kit is still in enemy territory, still underneath Tigerstar's paw, Blackfoot is still his mentor. If even a *hint* of Reedpaw's true parentage got out, he'd be fucked. He and Leopardstar would both probably be dead, Leopard carrying Tiger's legacy or not. Tbh I wouldn't doubt Tigerstar'd be petty enough just to kill all of Riverclan itself. Like...Greystripe, you fucking LIVED in Riverclan for a few fucking MOONS. How do you forget or at least NOT recognize/remember the queen that nursed your kits' own kits? You told Firestar you visited them every chance you had. Like...Grey, I get you were worried for you daughter, but dude...you left a child who you saw as a baby to a toddler (thereabouts) under a war criminal. Someone you KNOW had a subordinate who was not against poisoning kits with deathberries. Someone who tried to kill his OWN apprentice. Then, in the Leopard AU, this kid is stuck in the apprentices den during the rescue. Leopardstar and Mudfur cannot get him out without alerting Shadowclan Apprentices. They chose Mistyfoot and Featherpaw's heath and safety (which, at this point it's better than nothing.) And Misty has to choose Feather when Mudfur leads them out of their prison. He then gets to see the absolute horror of his LEADER, murdered, loose a life, to this Monster, see her go through what his mother did, only that IT'S far, far, worse than anything that'd been done at this point. He sees his clan's medicine cat turn against their leader, verbally agreeing and harassing her...just... this poor boy.. In Canon, Misty Au, Leopard AU it all sucks. Dark AU, not so much--still horrific, but Blackfoot is Reed's father in that one, so as his mentor Reed's safety is somewhat assured had Tigerstar not realized Reedpaw was Misty's kit, and that Misty's kits had not all died.

oh my god anon why r u so Damn Good at making me feel things

okay okay okay hm. i'm just gonna -- yeah i'm just gonna put the whole thing under a cut bc i'm a lil too tired to do the thing where i start with the pg-13 and below stuff and then do a cut.

cw: sexual assault, parent being involved in sexual assault of child

heck if i know. i'm like. 100% sure mistyfoot's kits were forgotten about. they were nameless characters for a Long time. reedpaw isn't in any of the allegiances for riverclan in tpb. i...like. i've read tpb how many times? and i honestly didn't know mistyfoot had kits until i checked out the warriors wiki and was like. oh. she had kits? with blackclaw? what the fuck?

i wouldn't put money on it, but i have a feeling the scene involving mistyfoot and her kits could be read as riverclan kits in general. again, wouldn't put money on that, it's just a hunch.

anyway, i kind of just. mistyfoot could have had another litter in the year between tpb and tnp, or during po3, or literally any other time and then we wouldn't have the reedpaw problem (tm).

WAIT

WAIT WAIT WAIT I WAS LOOKING AT THE WARRIORS WIKI AND

HE'S AN APPRENTICE IN TNP

what the FUCK

he's fucking like. several YEARS old. he's 2 and a half years old and he's a fucking apprentice oh my god just give mistyfoot a second litter it is not that hard.

actually. since mistyfoot's litter isn't named...new hc that reedwhisker is a different litter? hm. anyway.

my tangent on the reedpaw problem aside;

oh yeah, he's so fucking dead. imo prob not him and leopardstar -- riverclan would Riot if their leader was killed, and tbh, so would part of shadowclan -- but him and blackclaw. damn.

and yeah? idk? god. i don't know. tbf he's not in prison i don't even know. altho. actually, to give greystripe some credit -- the fact that mistyfoot doesn't ask to go back for him and how risky the riverclan rescue is, i think "not going back" is actually a reasonable choice.

honestly do we have an erin statement that reedwhisker is part of the same litter as prim and co. it's not on the wiki. i want to know. because i think everyone just assumed he was and -- maybe there is a statement but i want to see it.

because mistyfoot is not the type to abandon her kit. like. what? no. mistyfoot? mistyfoot? my brother just died but i am fucking fine get me the hell out of here mistyfoot? no i know i'm starving but like hell you can apprentice featherpaw to someone else mistyfoot? you're telling me SHE would leave a kit behind without so much as a word about him? fat fucking chance.

in conclusion, unless someone can provide evidence an erin said reedwhisker was part of mistyfoot's first litter, i'm going to assume the intention was that he was a second litter.

and back to the actual topic, now that i'm done for real hopefully.

yeeep. he can't be rescued. and -- mistyfoot has very few choices here. featherpaw is dying, reedpaw is safe for the moment, she won't get another chance. she's not happy about it -- she misses him so terribly much -- but she doesn't. yeah. god. that angst. i hope like. someone somehow just Tries to let reedpaw know it wasn't voluntary.

(i'm not Much One for "you left me you didn't love me" angst if you Can't tell. a pinch of it for flavour, but not as a main plot line, y'know? nothing wrong with it it's very good i just don't like writing it.)

god -- god. in my mind tigerstar takes the life from leopardstar privately bc riverclan would fucking riot but just. reedpaw realizes what's happening. so he follows bc of course he does. he's not the reason tigerstar knows what's going on, but he thinks he is.

and he's there hiding and he sees tigerstar kill leopardstar and hears him tell mudfur what's going to happen and he's sitting there in a bush or something just trying not to so much as twitch because he's so dead if tigerstar finds him. he's so fucking dead.

so he just sits there until long after tigerstar and leopardstar and mudfur have left and when he gets back to camp everyone wonders where he went and he can't explain.

and it feels terrible but he realizes tigerstar is still gloating over everything because as pissed as he is that he lost mistyfoot -- now he's truly taken out every thread of riverclan's leadership.

(frankly no i still think tigerstar's most effective control method for riverclan would be to tell stonefur that if he messes up, he'll kill the apprentices and/or mistyfoot and/or rape mistyfoot, and do leopard au on leopardstar, therefore getting all 3 riverclan leaders in blind obedience to him. he'd have to be much more discrete about leopardstar, maybe convince the clans it's a political thing, i'm not sure. the point is, nothing would Visibly be wrong, all three leaders are just going for this, and so of course riverclan would go along with it. but tigerstar's too much of a prideful asshole to appreciate another culture in enough depth to manipulate them effectively.)

anyway. so reedpaw realizes like -- ah yes. i'm escaping punishment because tigerstar is distracted. and -- god. yeah. oh my god.

and at first like -- he doesn't like. witness anything. tigerstar has some sense of subtly. not a ton -- but enough. direct evidence would be a problem. so no, reedpaw is just sitting with this knowledge in his head. mistyfoot escaped and she was carrying tigerstar's kits (was she? he hadn't seen her he misses her so much he hopes prays she's safe), so now leopardstar is going to.

and the thing about letting things sit like that is that the brain is very, very powerful.

(He called my mother a whore, Reedpaw thinks, and he wants to throw up when he remembers it.

Tigerstar and Leopardstar and Mudfur are having a conversation again and Reedpaw thinks of how Tigerstar would wrap his tail around Mistyfoot, like they were mates, and he wonders what Tigerstar would say if he didn't have to pretend.)

so. you know. yeah. good angst oh my god.

and now mudclaw has flipped from -- one of his best protectors to a great enemy. see, here's the thing. tigerstar only tells mudfur he's going to make him watch. leopardstar ain't dead that long. so reedpaw doesn't know what shadepelt knows and shadepelt would tell him but if shadepelt tries to talk to reedpaw...bad for the both of them.

and reedpaw is around blackfoot and blackfoot is a good guard and how long until -- reedpaw is asked to tell blackfoot something while blackfoot is on guard and he hears mudfur say, "You're a slut like your mother" and he -- can't. maybe he freezes, can't remember what he was supposed to tell blackfoot.

("Spit it out," Blackfoot says, but Reedpaw can't remember why he's even here.

"Even your own father thinks you're just a useless whore," Tigerstar says. He's not speaking loud -- Reedpaw would have to strain to hear the words if his entire world hadn't narrowed down to them.

"Reedpaw," Blackfoot growls. "Spit it out.")

hm. yes. god. bad. good. damn.

and yes the dark au seems like. once again "the angst is very different so i don't know how to rank its magnitude because emotions don't work like that" but. on one hand -- his dad. protection. safety. good. on the other -- his dad really did let two of his siblings die and his mom get raped, huh.

hm. good stuff.

#ask #anon #reed au #misty au #leopard au #dark au #yeah we hit all of them #mine

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haleigh-sloth · 3 years

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Hello! Your meta posts are wonderful and I was just wondering if you have written about how you think the redemption of Dabi, Toga, and Shigaraki will go down in terms of where they will end up. How will hero society reconcile with their crimes without locking them up and leaving them to rot (which seems to be antithetical to the point Horikoshi is trying to make). Do you think they will be rehabilitated into society or at a facility? Or something else?

Whhhaaat 🥺🥺🥺 I know for sure that I’ve rambled about what I think will happen and hope will happen here and there but idk if I’ve really dived into it. Idk if anybody’s ever asked so here I go!

So as far as society reconciling with their crimes without locking them up, that’s not really going to be that hard tbh.

Think about the way society is portrayed right now in the manga. Just look at the chapters between the end of the war arc and now. Society is only getting worse. It’s growing more chaotic, disorganized, and dangerous. And even worse, but very important to note, society is stooping low to a point where they are blindly discriminating against each other just because of how someone looks (sound familiar?). The way things are right now, they’re only going to get worse and worse until the final battle involving AFO gets here, and all of this can be put to rest. It’s as the vestiges said in chapter 310, society is going backwards. Everybody is using their quirks illegally and lots of people are out committing crimes, playing vigilante, and destroying the cities just by using their powers. So by the time the final battle gets here, do you really think they are going to have the capacity to really care about what happens to the LOV? Not only that, but the main LOV members are being set up to redeem themselves by helping defeat AFO, at which point I expect that final battle to have caused so much chaos and destruction in society that there is literally no point in worrying about what happens to the main 3 villains who literally helped save the world. I mean...their redemption is rooted in defeating the one true villain of the story--AFO. Little Tenko wanted to be a hero who saved people, and defeating AFO is satisfying that dream of his. That’s his, and Toya’s, and Himiko’s redemption.

After that last final battle, everybody should be more worried about finding their families, rebuilding their homes, finding new homes, etc., more so than worrying about what happens to Toya, Shigaraki, and Himiko who just helped save them all from imminent death at the hands of AFO. So that’s how I expect the story to address the whole “do we lock them up? do we not?” situation.

As for what I think will happen with each member, well, it’s really up in the air for ones like Spinner and Compress (assuming they make it out alive), but for the main 3 I kind of have an inkling of what I think might happen, but I can’t say for sure. This is ALL just speculation and predicting so please take it with a grain of salt lol.

For Toya, it’s actually pretty obvious. He has to go home. He has 10 years without his family to make up for, and so does Rei. Toya will heal best in an environment surrounded by unconditional love. He also has to get to know Shouto, seeing as how he never got to. As for whether or not E is included in that...well I can’t say what I expect yet. Either way though, I’ll be happy as long as Toya is home and he can finally have a real relationship with Shouto and catch up with his mother and other two siblings. He just needs to be safe and happy.

For Toga, I THINK because of her age being that of a high schooler still, she may end up at UA. Maybe. Also I should clarify, I don’t expect UA to be a regular high school by the end either. I don’t see how society can go back to having a prominent school that feeds into the quirk elitist system that the story is criticizing and actively dismantling. What we’re learning right now in the backwards aging hero society is that everybody should have the privilege and opportunity to train their quirks, not just a select privileged few who have “strong” or “cool” or “convenient” quirks. People not knowing how to use their own quirks is exactly why society is shit right now. So I think UA will be more of an all inclusive institution by the end, and Toga will find acceptance there around other kids her age. That’s the thing about her too, she yearns for friendship. She has it with the league yes, but you can tell by how she goes after Ochaco and Tsu that she needs that connection with other teenagers and girls her age. She is still a teenage girl after all, and the LOV is comprised of all guys way older than her lol. So that’s what I kind of expect for her.

Shigaraki is hard for me to get a handle on ending wise because ideally I’d like for All Might to survive and take on that mentor/parent role for him. Kurogiri kind of took that role for Shigaraki, but I’m absolutely positive he’s not going to make it past the final battle. I mean he’s already dead so. But there’s a very real chance All Might might not make it out either. I’d rather he did though. I’d rather Gran Tostito bite the dust. I feel like All Might may survive so he can take his second chance at taking care of his master’s legacy, her grandson. He missed the opportunity the first time and those consequences were...well you see it now lol. So I feel like it would make sense for him to take that second chance, but again I really don’t know. He’s kinda the perfect character to kill off? But taking All Might out of the equation, I don’t know to be honest. Shigaraki has no family waiting for him. Which I think is important to remember. Really right now all he has is Midoriya, who is still technically a stranger to him. I do think they’re going to form some sort of bond and life-long friendship, I just don’t know how that will look in terms of “the aftermath”. But I don’t think Shigaraki will be alone by any means. He has no family so he’s going to have to find one in the people around him. I expect that main cast of 7 to kind of stick together in the aftermath, so there’s the people who will surround him who care about him. But as far as like...where he’ll live, I have no idea. I have it in my head that Aizawa may take on that mentor role I mentioned earlier, if All Might doesn’t make it. Aizawa is the only pro hero set up to have a change of heart, he’s the only pro who currently criticizes the system in place, so he’s kind of in a perfect position to take Shig in as well. Plus, Aizawa already took in Eri (who is Shigaraki’s reflection). So that’s very possible imo. But as far as relationships and friendships go, Midoriya will be there for him and I think Bakugo will be too. They’ll be an unhinged chaotic trio of absolute madness. It’ll be great. They deserve it tbh. Also with Shigaraki, I highly highly doubt he’ll be going by that name anymore. His name is Tenko Shimura. He and his family went missing when he was 5 years old. He was kidnapped and held hostage for 15 years, and now he’s finally been found.

So basically I expect society to be in such dissarray that they don’t have time to worry about the league, especially since by the end the league will be an established ally, no longer an enemy.

Now I have heard the possibility of them all being in behavioral hospitals like what Rei was in. And I’m not like...against it, but I don’t love that idea either. Mostly because I don’t want BNHA to suddenly start sticking with the rules of reality. Why can’t they heal in the best environment for them? WIth people who love them? I would prefer for them to be completely free by the end. If they do get put in behavioral health hospitals then I would at least like to be shown them living their lives after their release. I don’t want it to end on the note of institutionalization. I want to see them be free.

So yeah, happy endings for everyone! If this isn’t what happens exactly then that’s fine. What matters most is that they’re all happy and get everything they need. Toya needs to be with his family, Toga needs to be accepted, and Tenko needs to heard, acknowledged, and cared for. I think all three of them will get that regardless of how it looks.

#jeez long post again sorry guys #bnha #bnha asks #bnha endgame #bnha speculation #bnha predictions #boku no hero academia #anonymous #bnha lov #bnha league of villains #shigaraki tomura #todoroki touya #toga himiko

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theyarebothgunshot · 3 years

Note

ROSE I AM FREAKING OUT HAVE YOU SEEN THE PREQUEL STUFF???? WHAT IS GOING ON, my god... I was literally about to go to sleep, decided to check Tumblr one last time and see this.... what WHAT!! WHATTTT!!!!!! I don't even know if this is good bad or what but just JENSEN IS PRODUCING A SUPERNATURAL PREQUEL AND DEAN'S GONNA BE THE NARRATOR OR Sth LIKE???? -🐸

YEAH i am normal about this <3 (jk i am also freaking out) welcome to: people screaming to me in my inbox about prequelgate ft. j/2 fallout theory. let's goooo!

Another copypasta and suddenly chaos machine is full on gay I love this prophecy

you know whats funny i just checked the j/2 tag and i feel like for the first time in a long time they are starting to realise that maybe THEY should be the ones who are "gutted" *sips tea*

ROSE HOLY SHIT ROOOOOOOOSE ITS HAPPENING HOLY SHIIIIIT

YEAH

Nevermind just read prequel and well good luck I guess but just you know kind of bleh who wants to watch John Winchester well let’s have hope anyways

i know a lot of people are bummed out but i am kind of very excited actually?? i trust robbie and even though yeah j*hn winchester turned into a nasty abusive bastard, it can be interesting to explore how it all started (imo). it's just the first of many stories they can tell.

I can only accept this circus if it’s Dean telling the stories to his and Cas’ kids and then we have a revival to show that the whole finale was in fact the end Chuck wanted there Jensen I fixed it

i would not say no to this

heyloo bee anon here

um- wtf is happening?

jackles prequel series?? why? i want to be excited about this but sheesh im scared

because supernatural is never dead <3

okay, but, jensen... john winchester ≠ jdm, you don’t have to go /that/ hard for him 🙃

true true... though i am waiting for jdm to comment on this, please i need it

WAIT A SECOND J2 FALLOUT THEORY TRUE??

LMAO HELL YEAH BESTIE

Rose you really picked the worst time to sleep for real

bestie it was literally 4 in the morning, what do you expect from me sdfjsfhsf

I can’t literally can’t we were all right LMAO j2 fallout theory is real and cockles (Misha supporting Jensen) is [gunshots] I’m just laughing cause what the hell is this timeline we’re living LMAOOOOOOOOOO

we would always end up here <3

Do we have the copypaste anons to thank for JP basically confirming the J2 fallout? lol 🦚

yes, everybody say 'thanks annoying idiots!'

ROSE, WAKE UP, COME HERE,

THERE'S A LOT GOING ON FFS

YEAH I KNOW BUT I NEEDED SLEEP

Anticipating that there's going to be a lot of yelling about the prequel on here: I am cackling, but also, I mean, the first time Dean got a look into his parent's past, Cas was the catalyst: literally entered Dean's mind and catapulted him to the 70s. So idk, it's not completely unreasonable to expect some Cas cameos, maybe setting up a parallel timeline since Dean is narrating. What I'm saying is, this is Jackles, he's getting JDM and Misha in on this lmao -Honeymoon Anon

you were right lmfaooo also i fully agree. misha's tweet further cemented that thought for me. he knew about this prequel and i dont think he is cas-baiting us, i think he'll be involved. i'd also be obsessed to see jensen and jdm act together again (though idk who jdm could play seeing as it's a prequel and he is way too old to play young j*hn)

longlivethetribbles heeft gevraagd:

Heyyyyyy bestie, are you SEEING the absolute madness going on right now holy shit

well a little late but I SURE AM BESTIE

bestie wake up pls s16 finale just dropped.

- 🍯

and WHAT a great one it was

I love coming home from work to see all of the chaos unfolding on Tumblr and Twitter. I'm absolutely buzzing right now. I'll probably still be here by the time you wake up and check tumblr 😂 - 🐢

lmaooo and were you still awake?? did you see my freak out??

Oooh bestie wake the fuck up, I know you’re gonna be excited for this one jsnsjsj

god i had SUCH a morning like. it's 12:00 now and all i did since i woke up is check tumblr rip

short summary: jen and dee gain the rights, they post on ig/twitter about a prequel ft john and mary that no one asked for, the fandom loses its everloving shit as usual, they trend on twitter thanks to the beloved twt intern who missed us, misha qt’s jen about cas possibly benefiting from being in the prequel, then j*red qt’s jensen abt how his feelings got hurt by him not being told about a prequel his character as no involvement in & he initially throws a tantrum, and the rest is history - 🦋 anon (ps: i hope this helps a little, i’ve been scattered brained trying to keep up with it all night lmao so pls let me know if i missed anything, bug crew !!)

thank you so much darling i figured it out eventually but this is a helpful summary!!!

I hope you enjoyed waking up to all of this XD -🐢

i sure did!!! also that answers my question about you being awake lmao

I WILL NEVER EVER EVER FORGIVE MYSELF FOR SLEEPING THROUGH ALL OF THIS DRAMA AND NOT EXPERIENCING IT IN PERSON I DIDN'T NEED THIS SLEEP - tea anon

well the party was still going strong this morning so im not TOO "gutted" see what i did there lmaooo

Now that you are caught up with the news... So idk if you remember this but...didn't jarpad tell jackles he was up for a reboot in an online panel? And jackles answered that this was news to him??

-🍯

yeah i think you are right but he was clearly joking and didnt expect jackles to actually be working on something already

J2 anon spare more of those anons let's finish this - tea anon

please, we're having a ball in this bitch

I saw a post on tumblr where someone said now that Kripke gave J&D the rights, maybe they’re starting with a prequel just to end on a reboot in years time and honestly ? I wanna believe that so badly. This is tinhatty but what if this is all calculated in a way that makes it so that Jensen is slowly starting to fix everything that was wrong with spn - now that he has the rights and he’s slowly making spn his own story ?! I mean he did say in his ig post he wants to ‘fill in the rest’ - and maybe Mary and John’s story is only the beginning of spn related content from J&D to come ??? Maybe he wants to give spn the justice it deserves ?? Thoughts ??

i dont think this is tinhatty at all i think this is very possible and not that much of a reach. i could see this happening yeah for sure

want to hear something funny. I found out I had a ruptured blood vessel in my eye because I was sending my friend a video freaking out when the prequel news dropped and I noticed the corner of my eye was red af. and when I got back online jared had tweeted.

DJFHSJD ANON THE CHAOS OF IT ALL, HELP, are you okay? <3

rose.. bestie... how are you feeling about The News? nsfshsf being european is a curse </3 🐞

i feel GREAT im living for it i feel on top of the world tbh (and yeah it really is dsjfhs)

What am I waking up to I can't WHAT I rested my eyes for like 5 minutes help *hits reblog button* - anon anon

yep yep essentially djfhs

“Jensen and Misha are Co workers who barley talk”

I can’t be sure of course but I’m fairly certain that this is the copypasta that brought the j/2 fallout theory back to life. Who’s apparently ‘barely talking’ now? skansjsjsj. It’s almost prophetic, these j/2 anons have superpowers I’m telling ya.

-poker face anon

next time we get one of them we should be thanking them lmaooo

ok, but are we gonna talk about the "When Daneel and I formed Chaos Machine Productions, we knew that the first story we wanted to tell was the story of John and Mary Winchester [...]"-quote because the way this is phrased implies they formed CHAOS MACHINE Productions with the intent of telling this story (first), i haven't been in this dumpster long enough but the name just tickles me in that Misha way, isn't it so sus??? am i missing something???? i mean with this announcement they SURE lived up to that name... 🧩-anon

you are absolutely right, chaos machine SCREAMS misha and we are all here for it!!

hey hey hey. joining the clownverse, there's no way THEE cas girl danneel doesn't know just how much the fandom loves misha and cas. so 2 + 2 = misha in the spn prequel!

AGREED

So I think I finally managed to catch up on wtf happened while I was asleep and my brain melted. What a shit show to wake up to.

Anyway thoughts.

I don't hate the idea of a Mary&John sequel. I think it has the potential to be good (It has the potential to be really bad too, so I'm kind scared).

🕯️🕯️🕯️ manifesting Mary being badass and John being kinda useless🕯️🕯️🕯️

As for the Jensen and J*red thing.

I can see Jensen not telling J*red even if they are still friends, because J*red is kinda good at accidentally telling Secrets. He could have told him right before he announced it so, so that J*red didn't have to find out from twitter. He was on the show for 15 years, he is bound to get asked about it. The public twitter meltdown was really unprofessional so. Like you have Jensen's number J*red. You could have sorted that out in private like a normal person, but instead you choose to act like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

Is it weird that I'm actually going to be kinda that for them if the actually had a falling out, even tho I don't like J*red all that much. They seemed to be really important to each other and while I thought before that the might have triefted apart a bit, I didn't think that the where actively fighting.

- 🐌 anon

the thing is, the polite/normal thing for jensen to do was text him before announcing it on twitter. it's weird he didn't, and that makes me believe that maybe yeah they did have a falling out. especially with the way j*red responded to it on twitter. if he had no other reason to be this upset (no prior beef or falling out) you'd think that he wouldn't be responding like this. on the other hand, the man is a mysterie to me so who the hell knows. i'm not gonna mourn about it if they did/do grow apart because j*red is just.... awful imo.

#frog anon #bee anon #peacock anon #subtlerainy #honeymoon anon #bestie mutual #honeypot anon #turtle anon #butterfly anon #tea anon #ladybug anon #anon anon #poker face anon #puzzle pieces anon #snail anon #good lord i think i got more anons about this than about anything else before lmao #good luck to anybody who actually reads this <3

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wildflowers-of-trolberg · 3 years

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Top (or bottom) 5 worst episodes?

Okie anon you asked for it - a lot of these I don't like for the same reason so sorry in advance:

I know most of the fandom considers this episode a masterpiece, but if I'm honest it's my least favourite by a wide margin. My biggest problem is Hilda and Johanna's relationship; I'm sorry, but Hilda is entirely in the right and Johanna is at her absolute worst here. I know the scene of her crying in the car was meant to show her side, but honestly it didn't work for me. Just because something is hard for her to do doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, and it's her own fault that she's become the kind of mum she never wanted to be. Besides that, I really don't like all the deaths in this episode; I can just about stomach Lloyd in The Witch, but Hilda plunging, terrified, into the Time Worm's maw or the last Mr Ostenfeld getting caught halfway in its mouth and screaming for help as he's lifted up and devoured are genuinely horrific and IMO, genuinely go too far for this show. I don't care that it's not graphic, it's still horrible. I do think the "not like this" scene is genuinely heartbreaking in a good way, and I love Mr Ostenfeld and his history with Tildy, but it doesn't make up for what I can honestly call my discomfort episode.

This is, again, down to Johanna being a bad mum and no longer supportive. Hilda absolutely goes too far with the "just a mum" comment, but she's a kid lashing out at a parent who's consistently (barring The Deerfox) been getting worse. I also don't like how it draws an equivalency between Hilda waiting for her mum to return from a place she knows is potentially lethal on a dangerous rescue mission, and Hilda doing the thing her mother has been supporting since she was six years old. I also know it's a product of the adaptation (all of my issues with this are really down to the last two graphic novels not being suited at all to TV adaptation due to the changes in S1, IMO), but I don't like how we spend the entire thing with David and Frida separated from Hilda; their side of the story with Gerda and Erik is this episode's saving grace though (although I can't forgive it for blowing up the airship).

I'm not a big fan of sad endings, but I know this one was needed for the overarching narrative. What really gets me with this one is that the sadness is never properly paid off; Frida never apologises for how awful of a friend she is in this episode. She has a moment in The Black Hound where she admits they were right about Kelly, but she never actually says sorry to Hilda for dismissing how much her best friend did for her and telling her she wished she had never moved. I don't hate Frida, far from it, but I can't enjoy this episode knowing it never gets a satisfying resolution.

There's a big jump up in this one - I actually want to like this episode, and I almost do, but there's two things that really spoil it for me. The first is that I really don't like kidnapping as a plot point, in the sense of "we have your loved one" being a source of conflict; it's weird to explain but it really sets my anxiety off and I hate it. That's not really a fault of the episode itself but it's still something I don't like. The other thing is the sheer amount of implied horror. It's hard to enjoy this one knowing that the Yule Lads are still slaves to a monster who could eat them at any moment and has eaten people they care about before, and that up until this year the Lads were feeding her children. How many parents have lost their kids to this monster? How many are missing, never to come home?

I actually do like this one, though Woodman has never done anything for me either way, but it's the lowest of episodes I actually like because of Johanna. I won't repeat myself; just see my first issue with The Fifty Year Night for an explanation.

#ask pika #negative #hilda the series #hilda netflix #the fifty year night #the stone forest #the ghost #the yule lads #the beast of cauldron island #bad mum trauma hours #pikas detailed thoughts

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galacticnova3 · 3 years

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i want to hear 👀👀👀 it upsets me a ton when people treat nova like he’s evil hhhhghgh

I HAVE BEEN ENABLED.

OK SO. First of all, we don’t have any kind of indication of Nova’s moral leaning… in regular Super Star. HOWEVER, Super Star Ultra does give us an idea if you pay attention to Nova after Meta Knight makes his wish. Nova makes a very surprised expression, and one that I also wouldn’t say is a stretch to interpret as simultaneously worried. The latter point in particular is because of how you can see the white of his eyes, which generally represents a fear or concern sort of surprise vs just something unexpected. I mean look at him, if this doesn’t look like “are you sure? like really are you absolutely sure that’s what you want???” then I don’t know what does.

This is contrary to what an evil being would most likely do; obviously if you’re an asshole you’d want to just sit back and watch this evidently entitled blue bitch get his ass handed to him on his silver platter of a mask. After all, assuming Nova is evil also assumes he acts of his own accord in some way, and considering his level of power, it’s not like he’d have to be worried about his own safety in that situation we’re that the case. Basically, he had literally no reason to react like that if he didn’t care about someone’s safety besides his own.

Now, my second point is a bit more vague due to not being supported by dialogue or visuals but instead just understanding/connecting dots. Nova is, obviously, a clockwork star, and it can be assumed all/most clockwork stars function similarly. The only other one we see in the games is Star Dream… aka the Access Ark, considering they’re separate, but Star Dream is the sentient part, hence me referring to them in this case. Star Dream doesn’t seem capable of acting on their own originally; not until they take Haltmann’s soul and begin acting on their own perception of what would grant his wish to give his company prosperity. Even then, though, they’re still seemingly “locked in” to trying to complete that wish, even though they’ve not only become sentient, but can recognize that it puts them directly at risk.

Now, we’ve seen that exact same thing play out with Nova, in that he was still trying to grant Marx’s wish even though Kirby was killing him from the inside. Once again, to say Nova is evil implies he is in control of his own actions; if that were the case and he was just threatening Popstar because he’s a jerk and intentionally interpreted the wish that way, why not stop and interpret it a different way? After all the entire basis of this kind of morality requires him putting his own mean-spirited spin on the wish being made, so it’s not like he wouldn’t already have been just finding a way to bend it. Obviously an all-powerful asshole would not be able to continue being like that if they can’t also act in self-preservation when things go wrong.

That leads into my third point; based on what we’ve seen of Nova, he is at the very least not just self-centered(as he showed concern), and he evidently isn’t acting based on his own decisions, but rather his programming or equivalent. The latter point makes it difficult to realistically make him out to be evil, seeing as we haven’t seen him do anything evil that was his own choice. That’d be like saying a gun is evil because it was used to shoot someone. Both of those points do lend themselves to the neutral spectrum very easily; he does what he’s told, and doesn’t question it. If you want to be boring this is where you can easily ignore his obvious reaction and go “he’s not sentient”, and if you do that you get the bonus of knowing you have greatly disappointed at least one person. Also tbh the same goes for the evil interpretation imo; there’s literally so many characters like that already, ‘jackass genies’ is literally a trope. Why not do something new and interesting?

On that note, the first point also allows the argument that he could be on the good spectrum(not chaotic tho) if you squint really hard and overthink his one moment of expressed emotion. It’s a pretty tragic concept that I am admittedly extremely biased towards for reasons, but what if Nova is good, yet can’t refuse to grant bad wishes even if he wants to? Sure, he can be used for good as well, but someone like him would most certainly meet many more selfish people in his time(such as a certain jester) than good folks. It’s a lot easier to wish for money or power than for peace or comfort. It’d be like being a pacifist sword, to be honest; sure, maybe one guy would use you to make watermelon slices for kids or something, but most people would use you to do harm, and you have no control over that.

I’m sure that would get exhausting… Might explain his eternally tired look. Just waiting for the next summoning and hoping whoever gathers the stars isn’t doing so for nefarious reasons, but having no say either way. Finally some guy shows up and seems the noble sort, and then he makes the most dangerous wish imaginable. Despite how he’s become so accustomed to disappointment that he doesn’t even react anymore, because yeah yeah ok planet dominator #5018 it would be my luck that I meet someone else like you this summoning, he doesn’t hide his shock. Like damn this guy might straight up have his face impaled by a lance in the next two minutes, he knows that right? But no matter what happens, Nova can’t do anything about it.

Anyways because I want to try and reel this in somewhat, my last tiny point is that Nova is never fought directly. Star Dream Soul OS(the Access Ark part) has a whole external battle, an internal one with the pillars, and then the heart also attacks you directly. Nova? Nothing. He’s got some separate internal defenses that he probably doesn’t control (patas, volms, and dacoogas), but other than that you literally just break all of this old man’s ribs and subsequently induce a heart attack and paralysis. Nova never attacks or directly fights back, and Kirby never fights him face-to-face. I personally interpret this as Nova using what little control he does have to make himself easier to stop, even at the cost of his own life, because he never wanted to do something evil in the first place.

Actually I just thought of one other potential point. It’s at least sorta implied Nova was the one used to seal Galacta Knight. If that’s the case, why would he have been trusted to do so if he twisted wishes in purposely bad ways? Like that’s just an obviously terrible idea. Sure let’s leave someone who enjoys the suffering of others to keep this dangerous guy locked up, I’m sure nothing bad could come of that. Famous last words right there.

#asks #rambling #my headcanons #maybe I should make a rant tag tbh

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ellelans · 3 years

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You made a tag comment about how Buddie wasn't planned from the beginning. And therefore what we got in Season 2 wasn't (at the time) the groundwork for a love story. I agree completely! Much of it I can see as either a bit of fun (the Christmas elf, the instagram girl) or that kind of hyper-masc heterosexuality that loops around itself and becomes gay (Buck's whole...thing with Eddie in the beginning, the focus on Eddie's body/hotness/physical appearance). But sometimes I step back and look at the whole and I'm all 🧐 🤔.

I don't even know what I'm asking lol. Would just love your thoughts/feelings on the confusing spectacle that are Buck and Eddie in season 2. And when/how/why did the show change their mind?

Thank you so much for the ask and you know what? Let’s talk about it.I recently had an in depth chat about this pretty unpopular opinion with a friend and I tried to explain to her why I don't see buddie as an actual pairing or having any canon potential until early s3 and why I don't believe they were planned from the beginning.This will be long and all over the place of course lol

The first and the most obvious reason is the way 911 deals with main characters and their romantic arcs.They don't actually drag it on for long because there is no need or time for that since every single main character has a strong storyline of their own and any romantic development between any pair as an additional combined storyline. Relationships happen fast on 911 because they are planned ahead and the only relationship that took longer than usual few episodes was Chim and Maddie and they were already kissing and planning a date in 2x11.

Also when shows enter their second season there is never a way to predict how long it will stay on the air and because of that it is impossible for me to believe that buddie was planned as some epic old school slowburn that is nowhere as close to be resolved after 3 seasons.When I say old school slowburn I mean shows that have this one heterosexual romance at the center of the universe that is usually stretched across seasons and builds up sexual tension between characters and it takes literally years for them to finally get together.We have these two characters that where made for each other and you KNOW that they will eventually get together because of some ridiculous pining that will eventually end in a kiss and everyone will scream and cry.And maybe that’s how buddie feels to me now after years of careful build up-but the way I see it they as a potential something didn't happen in s2.

We all joke about how character introduction of Eddie is the gayest we have ever seen and Buck's reaction to him as true bisexual and I do that myself too because I am a bisexual too and tbh its hard to unsee (also I don't want to) but lets remove our rainbow glasses for a second. What really did happened in that scene? Eddie's perfect abs on display,Chim and Hen fun comments on how beautiful he is,Bobby's praise and bragging about getting Eddie and his Silver Star on the team and Buck's insecurities flaring up as a reaction to all of this.Buck immediately feels threatened.At this point we of course have no idea how deeply his insecurities run or why,but as episode progresses we witness Eddie on his first call making a better decision to how to handle a medical situation and backed up by Bobby.It has sort of a devastating effect on Buck,who suddenly starts acting like we have never seen him before.Then there is a that scene at the gym where Buck tells Eddie how he is his problem. And later we of course have the scene in ambulance when Eddie asked what exactly they are measuring. Because that's what it looked like - a usual macho men measuring context. But the thing is 911 doesn’t toxic masculinity when it comes to main male characters and we saw many examples of that already by then,but the biggest one was supposed to be BuckandEddie. Equals,partners and best friends.

911 was already pushing boundaries with cast,characters and relationships diversity and I strongly believe that what they wanted to show us was a male equivalent of what we are used to see in female bffs -a different kind of a friendship between men. Men who care about each other,who talk about feelings,discuss sex,dating or why they don’t,who again openly acknowledge that they find each other attractive and giving advices on how to take a more flattering selfie,who are not afraid of crying, admit they are struggling or heartbroken or loving their kid.Honestly when was the last time any of us saw a male friendship like theirs?Men are not allowed to be like that on TV (I am still shocked that its a Fox show tbh) and especially with each other.We are not used to see such a development so no wonder people started paying attention-which was what writers wanted,of course.

But that also brings us to that important question about queer undertones,subtext and do what we actually see in s2. Are there queer undertones?Absolutely. Subtext?It’s right there but you will probably not get it unless you’re reading between the lines.Before we get to Christmas Elf,there was ‘’He is cute!/He gets that a lot,you should’ve seen his kid...’’ Maddie and Buck scene that is once again reinforces that Buck finds Eddie attractive and it shouldn’t be a surprise because we already know from 2x01 he has eyes - but they mention it AGAIN and that personally made me raise a brow or two.By the time we get to that Christmas episode,we already have Shannon back and Buck finally moved on from Abby with Taylor and then Ali and then we are given another queer coded scene-with Christmas elf.And its very cute and to an average heterosexual viewer its a nice little joke,but any queer watching that scene was probably taken aback a little.

So why imo did Tim&Co do it and when they realized they can actually see where they can take BuckandEddie and when they started becoming buddie?My answer is ship teasing.It’s what a lot of people actually mistake for queer baiting,but we are not talking about that rn.Ship teasing works like charm and if shows can get away with that-they will totally use it to their advantage.It’s usually not always malicious,but it IS always intentional because that brings in a category of people that were overlooked for a long time-online fandom.Now I have seen some opinions that fandom doesn’t really matter,it’s the ratings that count and that is NOT TRUE.You can have your ratings,but if there is no buzz online?Your show is going nowhere.For at least a decade now every self-respecting production has teams to monitor fandom activities because it gives them better ideas about how consumers(fans) are interacting with their product (show).Fandom is important because we generate the buzz.So I do believe that BuckandEddie and that sweet ship teasing were to get a certain part of the fandom pay attention.

I wasn’t here when S2 aired so I don’t know if that was the case,but it is obvious that these scenes I talked about above made fans pay a LOT of attention. And maybe that was the reaction writers needed to start changing course from ship teasing to start building up to something else.They maybe didn’t plan it at the very beginning and on paper,but lets also not forget the insane chemistry between Oilver and Ryan,which imo is another big reason-it's impossible to ignore.

Because S3?Is light years away from S2 in terms of BuckandEddie-they became buddie.In s3 Buck and Eddie become each other’s significant other,they are in a primary relationship. ’’Buck invites Eddie...’’?!!!!! It is not yet romantic and probably won’t be until ending of s5 if we are lucky-but it is in your face,they are not subtle anymore.I personally saw buddie only at the end of 3x03 when Eddie came over and said that there is noone in the world he trusts with his son more than Buck, looking like he did into Buck’s eyes,while ‘Photograph’ played in the background right before Buck’s overvoice about being seen and found and a raft to bring one home. After S4 ending tho...we all know that something is about to happen and its like there is electricity in the air as we are waiting for s5!

Probably a lot more thoughts than you expected,but I have many feelings about these two and when buddie goes canon this post will become completely irrelevant lol 💖

#what i was trying to say #is that s2 still can be read as heterosexual #but s3? no way #s3 was different #it was impossible to ignore that something is going on #911 #buddie

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thegoodomensdumpster · 5 years

Text

You might be tempted to think that Newt and his family would have to be the boring ones, while with the Devices being witches and professionnal descendants of Agnes Nutter life would be constantly thrilling. Nope. It’s the exact opposite. The Devices have been following Agnes’ predictions for centuries. There is no place for anything random in their lives, they have only two sets of minds: absolute blind certainty and “no”.

Look, Anathema panicks completely when she loses Agnes’ book, a book her and her family have been studying so thoroughly that they have an exhaustive set of recapitulative cards. She has known she was to be involved in preventing the end of the world since she was a kid. She has probably studied and memorized all the predictions she thought to be linked to Armageddon. She has her cards. She knows her stuff. She is competent. And yet, when Anathema loses her book - and if we disregard the emotionnal attachement that, imo, shouldn’t be kicking in this much when you have a fucking end of the world hours away -, when she loses her book, her emotions get the best of her. Because it was not part of the course she was supposed to take, and that had never happened to her before. Now, let’s take a look at Newt. That guy has been blowing up computers unwillingly since forever, even though he has a passion for all things electronic. He didn’t stop living because he had obstacles to overcome. Heck, he probably learned coding and manually wrote scripts that would work if entered in a computer by anyone other than him. He gets job after job, and doesn’t stop searching for something to do even when he feels discouraged. He signs for the fucking Witchfinder Army when he doesn’t think witches are a thing and when Shadwell, of all people, is the one doing the recruiting. Why not ? One more weird thing in his life, at least he might make some money out of it. And there, in the chaos of Shadwell’s appartement, he manages to understand all on his own that something is up in Tadfield. He also, when presented with enough proof, wholeheartidly admits that witches are real, and so are demons and angels and other things, and he doesn’t panic nearly as much as one should when confronted with a real UFO -ok, he might have been a bit stunned, but still. “Yep, my girlfriend is a witch. Yep, the antichrist is our neighbour. Yep, I helped prevent Armageddon last week. Oh by the way, should I go buy more toilet paper?”

Newt has been so used to adapting to chaos, he can actually make sense of it. And my personal take on this is that it’s also the case for his family. They’re all chaotic. They all have incredibly bad luck ( as a possible result of a curse, courtesy of Agnes Nutter ).

So here are Newt and Anathema, at a Pulsifer family meeting. Anathema thinking “oh its gonna be lovely meeting Newt’s family, something quiet and normal after all this Armageddon thing”. Anathema. Oh. Anathema. Sweet summer child. She doesn’t know that all Pulsifer family meetings end up either in the emergency, or locked out of the house, or running after some kind of wild animal that managed to steal Uncle Patrick’s casefiles that he absolutely needs because he’s been at war with his neighbour for basically thirty years because he could never gather all the files when he needed them and he finally had them all and that fucking boar barged into the garden as he was walking by and somehow got all tangled with the casefiles and now all the Pulsifer have to stop aunt Meredith from showing off her wrestling techniques because dammit woman, you’re nearly 80 years old, stop strying to wrestle a boar, and then when they’re all back home covered in mud and, of course, without the files, they have to try out cousin Dean’s horrible new culinary experiment and someone always ends up having diarrhea after trying out Dean’s cooking so everyone starts betting who it might be this time, and now they’re talking about how every Pulsifer around the age of twelve has avoided an anvil falling out of the sky because yes, that is a thing that happens to every member of this family and every kid knows that they’ll have to avoid an anvil some day, but wait didn’t a Pulsifer die because of that whole anvil thingie back in 1923, and now some people are arguing because it might have been 1935, and oh, that reminds Newt’s mom of that time her great-uncle Patrick (there are several Patrick Pulsifer of course, the last one is 2 years old, it can get very confusing) woke up and had a toad in his slipper, so of course when he tried to put them on he couldn’t and he fell over, and she doesn’t remember exactly how that whole thing happened but one thing led to another and at the end of the day great-uncle Patrick was in a hang-glider he couldn’t control and had somehow lost his trousers while the town’s priest was running after him, and there was a plate of lasagna that were too hot involved somewhere and oh, she can’t remember but it was hilarious. “And” Anathema asks, “why did that argument remind you of this story?” “Oh” says Mrs Pulsifer. “I don’t know. It just did.” There is ZERO logic to that whole conversation. Anathema, who has never had any surprise in her life before losing Agnes’ book, looks desperately at Newt. “I thought your family was normal.” “But... We are normal????” Anathema thinks about arguing something back, but she is interrupted by aunt Hortense who decides that now is the perfect time to explain how she nearly died yesterday after going into a scientology building without realizing where she was stepping into. Anathema doesn’t say anything in the end. She’s already too exhausted for that.

#tbh i think my family is way closer to newt's than it is to anathema's #we're really chaotic #i've got funerals story that would deserve to be turned into an hour and a half long comedies #good omens #meta #headcanon #ficlet #long post #my stuff #Newton Pulsifer #newt pulsifer #anathema #anathema device

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