#it's not going to be like s1 where they do backstories for each one making it all about them

[longtallglasses]

some miwi headcanons just bc ! older ones

i see young mike as kind of loud and not realizing how loud (and annoying) his yelling near people is (ie karen yelling in s1 “mike let’s go!” “COMING!!!”) however he quickly learns not to yell around will, adopting his softer voice for him BUT

in school he’s constantly calling over to will “will come here” “will sit next to me” “will! over here! look at this!” trying to get his attention “will, will, hey will…” other kids are like dude shut up… so many kids know will’s name who’ve never seen him, and mike’s thought of as that kid who’s always calling out for his friend.

i’m an avid rock collector!mike enjoyer. on the playground, in the forest, at the park, at the lake. he’s picking up all the cool ones, storing them away for very important scientific reasons like “this one’s shiny in A Different way!” he sets aside his favorites to show and give to will, very much in the style of a cat bringing a dead rodent to their owner, like “got something special just for you :) a Very Cool Rock :)” will loves how much mike enjoys it and is very excited to receive them, feeling quite special.

will loves stuffed animals (i mean we been knew) when he was younger they all had names and backstories, interpersonal drama and storylines he played out. two stuffed cats he definitely thought of as him and mike subconsciously, as they were best friends. he would act out little dramatic scenes of them running away from some oppressive kingdom, going on an adventure and meeting new friends along the way. … and he may have made them kiss a few times …

obviously small will loved drawing, but i don’t think he was always confident in his skill. after people tell him he’s good he gets caught up in trying to be really good, and gets frustrated when he can’t do something the way he wants. hence crumpled up attempts in the trash mike fishes out. there’s a spell of time where he gives up for a bit and jonathan asks why he hasn’t seen him drawing lately, and will says he doesn’t think he can get any better, it’s too hard. jonathan tells him it doesn’t matter if it’s perfect, he should just draw to make himself happy “draw for the campaigns, your friends think it’s so cool” so will keeps at it focusing on drawing what he thinks him and his friends will appreciate

while watching scary movies in the basement mike and will always held hands under blankets. it started when they were younger and they first got permission to watch a scary movie, they didn’t want to admit they might be getting too scared. during a big jump their hands reached out on instinct and too caught up in the movie they didn’t let go. when it was over they didn’t talk about it, but then it just kept happening every time they got scared. which led to holding hands when upset outside of watching movies. they never really discussed it, it just felt like their little secret thing.

all the boys were nice to holly but will was the only friend who actually liked seeking her out to play w them. (fascinated by a little sister unlike lucas and only-child dustin) mike and will would play games with her sometimes, will thinking she was really cute, and mike thinking it was cute will really liked her. cue karen thinking will is the best influence on her son

i have such a strong image of kindergarten miwi right after they become friends making mud pies together every recess. their teacher scolds them the first few times having to scrub their hands when they come back in. it gets so bad when the recess monitor sees them heading for the dirt they’re yelling “Michael! William! don’t even think about it!” they think it’s so funny to rile them up, they start spreading mud on each others arms “will you need more than that!” they only try to eat it a few times, it does taste really gross. after they’re banned from the dirt, they move to the sand box, it’s only a bit cleaner.

#thinking about THEM #byler #byler headcanon #miwi #will byers #mike wheeler

[lesbian-honey-lemon]

I feel like BH6 the Series could have REALLY handled Karmi better than they did.

They could’ve given her a MUCH more interesting backstory, if she was there the year before (which she would have HAD to be if being the youngest at SFIT was originally her thing) she could have had a very interesting relationship with Tadashi and Callaghan where Callaghan (the dean of students as well as a professor, much like Granville) was much more interested in Baymax than in her work. And it’s not even like Granville because she has the excuse that she’s paying more attention to Hiro because he’s 14 and at college, Callaghan was picking a 20 year old Tadashi over a 15 year old Karmi just bc he’s a robotics student.

And now that Granville’s here, she’s ALSO paying attention to the robotics (and other non-bio) majors over her. Which, as a viewer, is understandable bc Granville herself is more aligned with robotics and tech than biology, but that still doesn’t give her any right to just ignore the other literal child just because she’s a biotech major and she isn’t going to accidentally blow the whole lab up. Granville just dumped Hiro onto Karmi hoping they’d get along, thinking she was unaware of the blatant favoritism going on, hoping Hiro would just adopt her into the nerd gang and make things easier. Granville was completely aware of Karmi’s utter lack of friends and connection from both her peers and any authority figures, and still decided that she didn’t deserve a mentor as much as Hiro did. Which yeah, the bio department should have paid attention to Karmi, but can the fucking dean of students pay attention to more than one genius child at a time? The answer is yes, Granville is fully capable of mentoring more than one student to be functional and ethical people who won’t blow up labs, fight each other, make killer pathogens, or make energy amplifiers.

Meanwhile, Granville didn’t know that the catalyst behind that entire friend group coming together was Tadashi, but Karmi knows this fact very well. She doesn’t want to be with the dead golden boy’s friends and she doesn’t want to be with the new golden boy either. The nerd gang probably wouldn’t want to hang out with Karmi either because she was probably standoffish towards Tadashi too. Or at least, she didn’t acknowledge him if he tried to welcome her into his group. Honey Lemon is probably the only person she would willingly hang out with and talk to (I don’t think anyone can resist her good vibes), Granville should’ve sent her rather than Hiro. Sending Hiro was like rubbing it into her face that she’s not the youngest anymore when it was all she had going for her, even thought Granville didn’t mean that.

Like, they had something good going there with the initial rivalry. Karmi blaming Hiro for Granville favoring him because he’s almost exactly like her old protégé is absolutely understandable. Karmi didn’t know any of Granville’s backstory and probably just thought it was because he’s younger and a robotics major, not because of the whole ‘being very similar to Obake’ thing. But that shit should have been resolved in Season 1. More specifically, in S1 episode 19. She should have had an epiphany in S1 ep 17 that “yeah, Hiro’s not an asshole, Granville and Callaghan had a problem with favoritism of robotics students over everyone else and I should just be fucking mature about it and take it up with Granville instead of picking fights with a 14-year-old over something he has no part in.” They did NOT need to stretch that into S2.

Karmi didn’t deserve to be the series’ punching bag, and she doesn’t deserve to be the fandom’s punching bag either. She’s 16 and at SFIT, she’s just a kid herself, give her a damn break. Of course she’s not going to be emotionally mature about authority figures she deeply respects constantly picking other people over her just bc of their major. She’s 16, of course she’s going to have crushes and write shitty fanfiction, what else do teenagers do?

She’s not some irredeemable bitch, she’s 16 and got fucked over by everyone, the characters, the show, and the fandom.

look at her. she deserved so much better.

#nyx rants about bh6 #karmi deserved better #big hero 6 the series #big hero 6 #bh6 karmi #karmi #bh6 the series #hiro hamada #bh6 hiro #bh6 professor granville #professor granville #long post

[child-of-divorce21]

My s3 of good omens predictions (because I’ve come to terms with the heartbreak that was s2 so I’m trying to be positive)

1. Neil Gaiman knows what he’s doing he doesn’t do anything for no reason, so, something happened in 1941, a kiss perhaps, or something more?

Anyway there’s going to be a part 3 of 1941 and it’s gonna be amazing

2. You can fight me on this idc but, aziraphale didn’t actually go to be archangel to help heaven, he knew metrahon to be a bad person, also aziraphale is naive but not stupid and he knows that when metrahon said he was truthful and a leader, aziraphale knew metrahon was trying to manipulate him because aziraphale literally lied about Gabriel the whole of s2. I think we underestimate how smart and powerful aziraphale is so I think he’s planning to take down both heaven and hell from the inside.

3. this one is obvious but aziraphale is in love with Crowley and they will be *smooch* *smooch* in s3

4. Ok so on s1 e1 god says “it will begin as it will end, in a garden” well blue and yellow make what? Green. Do with that what you will idk

5. “No nightingales.” Aziraphale and Crowley both know that “a nightingale sang at berkly square” is their song and represents their love for each other which leads me to my sixth point

6. They both knew they loved each other since at least 1941 they just weren’t safe enough with both heaven and hell at each other’s throats to where they had to repress it. They always knew though.

7. It will be a great ending to a great show

Thank you if you read all of this, hopefully it made sense

Also, sorry for any grammar mistakes.

Edit: (I forgot one)

8. Ritz is a metaphor for their love. It starts in 1941 (when something maybe/probably happened between them) and so it in 1960 something, when Crowley suggest the ritz it makes sense why aziraphale would say “you go too fast for me Crowley” so I think we’ll be getting more backstory on things like that in s3.

Keep in mind I’m sleep deprived rn and some of this probably doesn’t make too much sense so sorry.

#good omens #good omens fandom #ineffable husbands #neil gaiman #crowley #david tennant #ineffable idiots #ineffable divorce #michael sheen #good omens season 3 #good omens predictions

[peach-fiz]

I actually didn't even bother watching the second season of Loki because of the cheap marketing and inconsistent storytelling.

It just felt like the plot was lifted off somewhere it would have made sense, and a character with a similar ego was replaced with Loki and goes through an arc that might have made sense for a blank slate character, but not someone who already has a backstory.

Loki doesn't even feel like Loki after three episodes in S1. The whole point of having a show like that just seems to be about the TVA and Sylvie.

Also the whole genderfluid thing. They 'confirmed' it in the promo and had a line in the script that went completely against anything they just said.

I knew at once that the writers, directors and other parts of production were really just pulling it in different directions and it would probably sound like a jazz trumpeter and a metal guitarist trying to improvise after knowing each other for 15 minutes.

I've been meaning to watch it just so I can have educated opinions on all of it but it's just,, so hard to get into. I definitely agree the marketing was cheap, they did with the 80s McDonald's like they did DB Cooper!Loki and made it centric to the advertising because McDonalds was also getting something out of it which is kinda ass seeing as realistically Loki Laufeyson would burn 6 of them down before he ate in one 😭

I personally don't like either of the major ships in the show but the forced Sylki shit in season 1 really got to me. Like not only did she completely replace him as the main character in HIS show, she's also a variant of him who he wants to make out with and overall it just reads as lazy writing and it's extremely disappointing that Mike Waldron has been put in charge of Multiverse of Madness and The Kang Dynasty since, due to the popularity of the Loki TV show. I was talking to my boyfriend about this last night but it kinda reminds me of the complaints people had ab the last Indiana Jones movie but opposite? Like everyone complained his best friend's daughter was gonna replace him bc she's a Mary Sue and she rlly isnt, she's more reminiscent of Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark she just doesn't wanna fuck him. But the difference is Indy is a character who's majorly blank for little boys to project themselves onto. Which is great!! It works for those kind of movies, but they're not character development centric like the individual mcu movies tend to be. Loki is characterized in a way that he's drowning in identity issues and family problems and he experiences growth in every installment whether it be positive or negative. It doesn't make sense to take the formula of an Indidna Jones movie where he meets up with a woman who's typically a love interest and has her own issues that are only slightly touched on because that's not the focus, and they go do the plot.

Sylvie is not an Indy Girl, they straight up are trying to replace Loki with Sylvie. And you can tell the character wasn't supposed to have as much importance as she does in the show bc the character was worked on more after the actress they chose was buddies with a producer ( and this is no hate to the actress I'm sure she's delightful everything I've seen her in in terms of interviews has been lovely ).

I also absolutely agree they should've just made a tva mini series to introduce the tva rather than bringing back a dead character who soon will not make much sense anyway because Tom Hiddleston is getting older (and also he deserves to branch out in his career).

The genderfluid thing was a cash grab and it sucks ass, they just want money for acknowledging things already canon in the comics, same with confirming him as bisexual.

My boyfriend is actually writing a fic on ao3 called Find Me that's rlly good if you want Loki content that isn't related to the show.

(YES this is shameless promotion sshhhhshshsh) but fr the loki TV show makes me more confident in my screenwriting bc t h a t got put on disney plus. I'm also working on a Loki show rewrite in my spare time!!

#kid loki #loki (marvel) #loki and thor #loki laufeyson #anti loki show #anti lokius #lokius #anti sylki #tom hiddleston #screenwriting #fic rec #loki fic #logyn #logyn fanfic #mike waldron #peachy rants #long post

[abnerkrill]

Nik! Did you watch Rebel Moon? How was it?

Yes hello this is my 4 star review of rebel moon on letterboxd.

But first: a professional, somewhat critical review of rebel moon that engages with the film well, especially regarding anti-colonial themes, and isn't just knee-jerk regurgitated Snyder haterism:

And now more of my thoughts: [edit: Oh No, He Went And Talked For 3 Hours About It, Thanks For Coming To My TedTalk:)

No one has a better knack at putting together a cast list SO ATTRACTIVE TO THE BISEXUALS. read it and weep, boys. (Jena Malone is there too but really just for 1 set piece)

...Jena Malone's one (1) scene set piece features her as an alien spider woman with legitimate grievances against the Empire who now wants to kill kids because all her kids were killed. Like, so valid, girl. Also, did I say Jena Malone as an alien spider-woman? And this is just one scene.

Look, if that pitch doesn't hook you, this film may not be for you, and that's okay, but by GOD my people are the people who hear "Jena Malone alien spider woman" and perk up. I love you, freaks.

The cinematography is ace and always will be under Snyder's direction. music by Tom Holkenborg SLAPS. Costuming and design overall is super super strong. (People on this hellsite are always complaining about inadequate, boring as hell sci-fi design and you get RM and you don't appreciate it for what it is. WAKE UP.)

Costume showcase! Second from the right in this photo showing off those sweet sweet sci-fi costume designs is my beloved non-binary they/them revolutionary Milius. CANONICALLY non-binary, let me add. Imagine SW doing that lmaoooooooooooo D*ve Filoni would fuckin keel over and die

Kora! Our tragic female protagonist of color who's over 40, with a dark edgy sexy background. [KIDNAPPED AS A CHILD!! DEAD FAMILY!!! DEAD LOVER!!!!!!! SHE FAILED TO PROTECT HER WARD FROM ASSASSINATION!!!!! SHE IS THE MOST WANTED WOMAN IN THE UNIVERSE!!]

Bitches on tumblr LOVE taking failmen with sad backstories from media and blorbifying them, but the second it's a woman? please. If this was a man people would be writing the filthiest x reader smut you've seen since Mandalorian S1 came out. If this was a man you'd already have seen 20,000 fan drawings of her with her muscles and tits OUT. God where's my Kora fanart.

I personally have no problems with the plot of this movie (part 1 of 2) being "we must collect warriors to fight the evil empire." That's kinda fantasy story 101 and I still love new, varied interpretations of that plot.

If there's not much interconnecting plot because Kora's just gathering fighters, it's kinda like... that's the point, babes, they'll actually get to it in part 2. We're just at the "forming the team" stage. I revel in that part of a fantasy film and I always want it to be longer, so this film is like catnip to me.

Uh, yeah, this is getting long. More under the cut.

Entertainment professional nitpick time! I've seen someone say RM would be better as a TV show to introduce a new character each episode. And I truly don't think that fixes any of the problems this person has with the film, while introducing way more problems. (Who the fuck would go in on an original concept TV show where each episode introduces a new hero. You could not sell that pitch to a studio, ever, and viewers would instantly check out if they didn't like the introduced character of the week, and the same complaints would be made: it’s just a new character intro blah blah blah. This wouldn’t fix anything! It would very much make it worse!)

Me, like every day, through gritted teeth: that's... not... how... tv... works...

Like be realistic for a hot second with me. Television is not "long movie"—it is a different medium with different rules. Yes, the past decade has blurred many lines between TV and film, but they're still different mediums, and when people blur them ("it's a 10-hour movie!") the results often suck ass, because you either lack episodic structure or you lack feature structure. Snyder is a feature filmmaker who has never worked in TV. Whenever features people jump into TV, it's a whole other learning curve! They're usually terrible at it! You want Snyder to have to learn a new medium? You want him to learn 5/6-act TV structure from scratch? You want him to (horrified gasp) lead a writers room? Those are not his strengths, baby. Let him play in his space opera sandbox.

And I'm not done! You want the casting team to have to deal with the headache of getting feature film actors to star in a TV show? (Pay cuts! Longer commitments! TV production timelines!) You want to do that to me, personally, and fuck up the TV landscape some more by going, "Oh, we can basically just make a Longer Feature Film in TV"? Fuck off with that. TV has different production realities and different basic story structures. A [long] film [with two parts] is still a film, in structure and production practicalities.

Truly, Tumblr media studies brains (derogatory) at it again.

To each their own, but again, I think RM's structure is fun because it gives me more of the goodies (badass, varied character intros) for the price of one (2-hour film.) Like... that's the good stuff, that's often the most exhilarating part of a film for me. And contrary to popular belief, it's not intro to intro without rising tension or stakes. It builds tension as it goes because new facets of resistance against the Motherworld are explored in each character's intro scene. New ways they fight back, new worlds on which they fight back. And a ticking time bomb of the King's Gaze (king's gays lol) catching up.

Here, have a trailer bc Tumblr's mad at me for too much text in one block.

...I like the RM characters. I want to spend time with them and see what other zany shenanigans Snyder will have them do. (Alien bar fights! Taming a space gryphon! Lightsaber battle!) I like the side-quest-y, exploratory, space opera sandbox playground nature. It's fun, and like, again, if you don't perk up at the concept of collecting cool characters like action figures, this film may just not be for you.

To me it's a polycule. Like, the most messed up polycule in the whole galaxy, but it's a polycule.

Speaking of: THE CHARACTERS ROCK. Yeah, we're missing some significant character development because Netflix truncated Snyder's 4-hr, R-rated film into a 2-hr PG-13 version (likely to be able to release the 4-hr cut later, drum up new press, and get more eyeballs on the movie in total in a few months.) That's... not really Snyder's fault [even though he claims he's in on the plan... some part of me thinks it was Netflix's idea and not his. Stinks of studio meddling.] And it's not indicative of the quality of the actual film, which I currently see as more of an abridged version of the R-rated film that's gonna come out and fill up some of these story holes.

If people are judging the film for not being the 4-hour version, and then decide not to see the 4-hour version, that's their call, but it's kinda shitty to act like the 2-hr version is all there is. Like it probably wasn't Snyder's call to do a 2-hr cut! He's said that the 4-hr one is a whole different movie. I betcha the common criticisms (not enough character development, just jumps from character intro to character intro without interconnection, lack of structure) will be helped, if not outright solved, by the longer cut.

I think people are also happy to take a Part 1 of a movie if it's, say, Dune, and the source material has another part, so Part 1 is allowed to be fucking boring, whereas people don't give that kind of allowance to original sci-fi movies, WHICH IS A REASON WE DON'T GET ORIGINAL SCI-FI. If you're painting with as huge and cosmic a palette as space opera Rebel Moon, the 4-8 hours total across the 2 four-hour parts is kinda bare minimum for an epic. So... patience is a virtue? Let part 1 have elements of IT'S KIND OF A PROLOGUE?

What's that saying? If you want the rewards of space opera worldbuilding with an ensemble cast, you must submit to the mortifying ordeal of 2 hours of setup. Geez. Enjoy the wacky exposition or get out of the space opera genre.

Yeah, that leads me to the point of people who don't enjoy space opera are getting mad at RM for fulfilling the promises of the genre. You might truly be happier elsewhere. The whole thing is over-the-top, huge-scale MELODRAMA and I thrive on melodrama. If it's too cheesy for you, don't come to space operas!!!!!!!

On that note, people have said RM is too tropey and too Star Wars-y. But like I said. If you don't love the tropes get out of the genre!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you aren't here for bloodier/hornier Star Wars get out of RM!!!!

Another big idea I would be remiss to skip over. RM is an explicitly, deliberately anti-colonial, anti-imperial text—far, far more so than any other mainstream sci-fi currently being released. Well-intentioned liberals love to tout Star Trek/Star Wars as progressive media but they really hedge and defang all their political commentary, especially in their 21st century franchise form—think the SW sequels/shows straight up woobifying K*lo Ren in realtime and the Trek shows that (while fun!) are really often just nostalgia bait.

RM is pretty fucking radical. Its theme basically is Kill Nazis—or in expanded form, something along the lines of "The empire will eat up everything of value in the universe unless it is met with unified armed resistance built on solidarity."

And just look at RM's casting. We're not colorblind here; we're very color-conscious. (That's a rant for another day, but I've really started to despise colorblind casting for its extremely well-intentioned-liberal "we're all the same" mentality. It just winds up erasing.) Anyway: RM features the explicitly American-English-Afrikaans empire vs. the Algerian Amazigh protagonist, Black freedom fighters, Japanese revolutionary... and like. Snyder's always gonna be into Vikings so obviously we have Space Vikings too, whatever. Look at me, I can criticize Snyder too! The Poor Sad Space Vikings are not the strongest part of the film!

...Anyway of course the empire vs. revolution is absolutely kind of Star Wars-y since RM is highkey Snyder's Star Wars, but it goes so much further than SW dreamed (or, perhaps, nightmared). SW's rebels/resistance continually get defanged because they're kind of foundationally space magic/singular hero's quest deals, and modern SW with the exception of Rogue One/Andor is just politically, socially stupid. In contrast, RM is about forming a coalition, without something like the Force to help you out. I could write an essay on the ways RM starts in the same place Star Wars starts but takes its politics so much more seriously, so much further.

While I'd argue "good politics" and "artistic quality" rarely correlate, RM is explicitly and doggedly a text about the colonial empire that exploits, enslaves, abuses, and seeks to utterly control marginalized people groups in its quest for domination—and god, I would LOVE to see a resurgence in very fanged, very angry political sci-fi.

One more aside. Snyder has been rightfully criticized for his earlier works basking in fascist-adjacent, hypermasculine aesthetics; 300 is notably super duper racist in how it depicts savage/monstrous Persians vs. Beautifully Good White Spartans Defending Their Culture. (more on "300 Bad" stored up in my brain if anyone wants THAT rant.) To Snyder's credit, none of his films since 300 have really done that—parts of Batman v Superman and his cut of Justice League purposefully poke fun at it. The hypermasculinity is kinda still there, but it's subsumed in the service of melodrama and mythic-flavored cinema, and it's kinda a staple of the action genre anyway, and if you're gonna criticize Snyder without criticizing EVERY ACTION MOVIE EVER, that's just more regurgitated Snyder haterism.

No one is doing mythic action like Snyder these days. No one has the balls and the command of melodrama & operatic visuals. And it comes clearly from Snyder's background in art & art history because all his shots are jam-packed with symbolism and meaning and allusion. So criticize the film for its weaknesses if you like but geez, if I see another post railing about the lack of CRAFT in RM, I will start biting. ALMOST NO BLOCKBUSTER HAS THIS LEVEL OF CRAFT. It's okay that you don't understand visual storytelling, babygirl, but please don't accuse Snyder of lacking craft.

Sorry, you've triggered Cinema Defense Mechanisms in me, I'm gonna have to sit down for a while after this.

I have more takes. Takes hot enough to fuel the King's Gaze (king's gays lol.) But I'll end with a funny observation: I transed my gender (cheers, shouts, hoorays) just about the time I was getting ready to watch Rebel Moon, and in one shocking, epiphanic moment I turned to my partner and went "Of COURSE I'm a man. I like Zack Snyder." So........... do with that what you will.

#rebel moon #dragoninthelibrary #rebel moon spoilers #long post

[mdhwrites]

Do you agree with the idea that Luz is a people pleaser? Or is it just something the fandom made up to make her seem more likable/relateble/interesting with no real basis in canon?

GOD NO! But that's not necessarily a bad thing as the protagonist archtype she's hailing from normally isn't. The problem comes from the fact that she is so ANTI people pleasing that it clashes with her backstory, rare moments in the show and she also just NEVER LEARNS ANYTHING.

This is also a problem for Randy Cunningham: Ninth Grade Ninja. Him and his best friend make a declaration at the start of the year to be popular. They don't care if they're liked or disliked, the goal is for EVERYONE to know their name. This fuels a bunch of teenage shenanigans that are meant to impress people or make them look cool by the definitions they have in their brains rather than what reality is.

Cookie from Ned's Declassified did stuff like this a lot, Danny and Tucker from Danny Phantom are also prime examples of it. It is just a teenage protagonist archtype for them to be trying to live out a fantasy of being special when the reality is that they're just nice nerds who should be happy being who they are. This is Luz. Period.

And there's two sides of this archtype. The first is the FIRST THING WE KNOW ABOUT HER. They will do things to stand out from a crowd because they think it's cool regardless of if it's right. We are literally shown FOUR instances of this back to back from her book report to the montage of her fuck ups. Each time, she is actively looking at what others are doing and going "Nah. Hold my beer and watch this." I mean... She brought fucking SPIDERS to school and looked at best confused as to why everyone ran off screaming and that's not talking about the play she RUINED.

This is then reinforced in Episode 2 when she tells King and Eda to go suck eggs because she is totes a chosen one. She does save them at the end which brings the other half of this archtype when it comes to their fuck ups. When they fuck up, they fix it, commonly so as to not get people killed but also to make sure that either people in general or those closest to them don't HATE THEM. Now, that might sound like a people pleaser... But it's not. It's seeking forgiveness, not permission. I mean in S1 alone you have her explicitly ignoring Willow's wishes in both Understanding Willow and Wing it Like Witches so that she can have her fun before then someone gets hurt or upset and fixing it in someway.

As a note: The moment you realize that SO MUCH of Luz's character is motivated by tropes she likes or be special, a lot of actions she takes take on way worse connotations. A perfect example of this is when she declares in Lost in Language that she'll be friends with Amity come hell or high water... A minute later she's fucking around with Amity's siblings who Amity has shown clear disdain for. Or you can go with Adventure in the Elements where despite her trying to get along with Amity and impress her, she STEALS FROM HER so that she can get the instant gratification of casting magic. And this sort of recontextualization is ALL over the first season especially of Luz just doing bat shit crazy things because it lets her be cool and she never really learns to stop, even PROUDLY stating in Reaching Out that she'll always choose the option that leads to the most chaos. The most adventure, the most tropes. A season and a half in and instead of growing at all, she is still defiantly against reality.

This is also all inherently AGAINST being a people pleaser. A people pleaser wants everyone to LIKE them. Sprig spends half an episode being a people pleaser like this, even if I don't think it's quite who he is. What Luz is after is just to make sure people don't hate her. At best, she doesn't want people to actively dislike her but she mostly cares about if you remember her name. If she left an impression bigger than anyone else.

But I don't blame the fandom for making her a people pleaser. All of what I've said is based on her actions. By her words, she's meant to be someone who has had to hold back who she is. Who has hid from the world so as to be liked by society. Being a people pleaser IS a part of that archtype and that's where we get "Oh no teenagers" and "I'm gonna get made fun of again" and... That's about it. It's actually why those lines annoy me so much because they happen over a season into the show and she has NEVER held back on who she is for even half a second during that ENTIRE TIME. Even Adventure in Elements isn't about pleasing others, it's about not being embarrassed. Being brought low.

But those are literally the ONLY moments in the entire series where she gives a fuck. The Collector and Belos angst? It's not about how no one will like her anymore, it's that they'll hate her because it needs to be that drastic for her to care. It also makes her less of the paragon hero that she sees herself as. And that's laughable because she only has like TWO moments in the entire series where she actively seeks out a way to help someone without them asking. The cure for Eda's curse at the end of S1, where she's trying not to have Eda die in return for watching over her which is just kind of basic kindness and going after King's stuffed rabbit in Titan Where Art Thou. At that point though, the show claims they're siblings so it's just being kind to your family... You know, right before she effectively tells Eda to go rot because she won't let her go fight Belos.

All the while, she is learning NOTHING. The teenage dumbass archtype is GREAT as a main character because it allows so much room for growth. It's part of why Anne is such a good protagonist because while she embraces the lazy side of it more than trying to appear special, she is still a teenage dumbass. As such, S1 spends time teaching her morals and making her grow up so she can be better.

Luz never grows up. Then again, she'd either have to actually face consequences for her actions or care more deeply about others for that to happen. That isn't going to happen though, not when she, and everyone around her, are solely focused on letting her live the isekai fantasy that she's always wanted.

=========

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

#luz noceda #the owl house criticism #toh critical

[the-ninja-legacy-whip]

Spill out your Quiet One Au Jesse Thoughts now

Reffing to this in case anyone is like whuuuuut

SO when the Great Devourer first starts wreaking havoc at the rally, Harumi manages to convince the Fuchsia Ninja to assist her before they all can see the snake heading for the hospital

Antonia runs to the beach for safety with the rest of the evacutees, Fuchsia follows Harumi, and none of them meet Lady Iron Dragon for a very important pep talk

Fuchsia and Rumi make it there just in time to call for an organized evacuation, with Harumi and her parents getting out nice and safely, while Fuchsia takes it upon himself to get the rest of the inhabitants out of the apartment building

But while doing that, The GD (having already destroyed the hospital) loops around to the east side and sets its sights on the buildings. This drives the crowd into a frenzied panic, with Jesse getting caught up in it, and he winds up herded into The Elevator against his will

Elevator drops and shatters, Jesse is the one that winds up with the face scar, and Lloyd winds up pulling himself from the rubble instead. Despite the injury, Jesse's still present to assist in officially taking down the GD...

...but then upon returning to his family, discovers Miranda's ultimate fate due to the destruction of the hospital (wherein which she wasn't evacuated in time because Jesse wasn't there), which, y'know, breaks him

During the following guilt-induced Outburst (which freaks out his already grieving family who know nothing about his powers), Jesse manages to redirect all his self-blame unto Lloyd instead, as none of this would've happened if he hadn't released the snakes, yadda, blablabla, nothing new there. (But, it's all mainly to stop him from blaming himself)

Winds up running away from home because a) can't handle the guilt and b) can't control his Outbursts anymore

Harumi, meanwhile, is doing great! Remains the same girl she'd been throughout S1, keeps her parents, doesn't get tangled in her uncle's web, and doesn't ultimately feel betrayed by each and every one of her friends!

Jesse, meanwhile, seemingly vanishes off the face of the earth, with everyone in the friend group worried since they all knew he was at least present for the battle (Antonia may or may not be present for his ultimate Outburst though)

(he actually crashes with Mystake, who winds up sharing all her Surprise EM secrets + what Miracle Make is + her own backstory being an Oni and everything), wherein is how Jesse ultimately learns of the Oni Masks

He eventually returns to school, charming his way out of answering any and all questions about where he's been or what happened. And with little left to lose, he starts acting aggressively confident towards everyone (acting like Bess, his Garmadon-created clone anyWAY–)

While biding his time, he searches for what remains of Miranda's Elemental Compendium and combines it with Mystake's intel, helping to build his future plans...

But beyond that, he plays his role basically the same, keeping all his resentment buried. The only real difference is that he never gets together with Cole because of his "new" and technically worse personality (though both probably still have lingering unresolved feelings, woop)

Fast forward fourish years, Jesse doesn't directly form the Sons of Garmadon—instead, he convinces the others that there's a (fake) group out to capture the Oni Masks (which he creates the illusion of being real via his After Image ability, sending most of group on wild goose chases while gathering all the masks in one place), and successfully manages to get Lloyd alone to hunt for the final mask

(Which, while ofc needs someone with Oni blood to remove from the pedestal....there's also the added caveat of it only being able to be wielded by a Descendant of Surprise. Which, while Jesse is an Inheritor, he technically isn't a Descendant)

Which is where Baby Wu comes in, as he and Lloyd both still fit that criteria (but Jesse certainly isn't going to give the mask to Lloyd to wear) but ofc Cole is in Dad!Mode about Baby Wu which leads to a probably emotionally-charged confrontation accumulating with Jesse committing a kidnapping whuh

Shenanigans happen and Jesse begins the resurrection ritual—but instead of trying to bring back Garmadon, he's going to bring back his sister—

...except Harumi interrupts and/or sabotages the process, which winds up summoning Zombie!Garmadon anyway, which enrages Jesse but decides to roll with this and manipulates Zombie! Garmadon in order to get everyone out the way so he can attempt the ritual again

More vague shenanigans, he once again gets Lloyd alone, reminding him of how everything always stems back to his actions. Lloyd points out that Miranda wouldn't have wanted him to do this, which ofc sets him off into a Outburst and forces Lloyd to watch as he attempts to kill the Core Four + Baby Wu (in which they get sent the First Realm)

(...Miranda actually gets sent with the guys to the First Realm in S9!Legacyverse proper; here it would be Harumi instead)

Extra angst on Lloyd, woo! But, this finally makes Jesse question his own actions. Not enough to stop, but, y'know.

Then as Zombie!Garmadon leads a legion to protect Jesse as he struggles to begin the ritual again; it's a race against time for the Resistance to snap him back to his senses + not summon the dead again

Zombie!Garmadon starts getting a little too high on power as Jesse starts getting more and more desperate—he just needs a little more time, a little more prep—but the less and less he's able to distance his fault from his actions and it starts to eat away at him

...which the Resistance uses to their advantage, using Mystake's shape shifting abilities to get close to Jesse to cuff him with Vengestone (at least on one wrist) and calm him long enough to get through to him. Jesse then tries to call off Garmadon, but Garmadon takes this as a betrayal and goes on the attack, destroying several buildings in the process.

The group attempts to escape the building they're on, as Garmadon attacked that too, but Lil Nelson (who is also here because Antonia's here and Antonia's here because I say so) gets trapped/left behind. Jesse goes back for him, managing to get him to Antonia and save him in the way he couldn't for Miranda. But then, ofc, the same exit is cut off for him, forcing Jesse to run to the roof so he can attempt to fly/warp/escape that way.

...except, he's still got that Vengestone cuff on that he can't take off, soooo—

Jesse dies, crushed by a collapsing building, ultimately meeting the same fate as his sister. Spooky parallels, uh?

Bonus if Lloyd digs through that rubble trying to find him too

#info tag #content tag #ninjago au #ninjago ocs #legacyverse #oc: jesse marvell #harumi hutchins #lloyd garmadon #ask me if i should tag anything but #it's not like this isn't stuff that happens in the show proper :V #Stuck on deciding whether or not he comes back as the Vengestone Buyer #(because that would be counterintuitive to him as an EM) #and i can't see him gelling with the C.O.C.K. lololol #but maybe he survives via using Miracle Make at the last second #therefore losing his powers (and then also allowing him to be near vengestone for long periods) #wow this writes itself #butterfly effect babyyyy #long post

[sothischickshe]

Up for a discussion question? If we’d gotten a full season three as intended, what would you have expected/liked to see from Beth and Rio?

Hey sweetie, I'm always up for a discussion question danke 🙇🏼‍♀️🥰❤️

I stand by what I said once re what i'd've liked to see from s3, particularly: the full s3 😭😭, whatever their vision for that was, so I could judge it on its own merits!! It remains a very romantic concept to me, bc while I certainly have my issues with other plots in s3 (terrible therapist, donor family, here's a hitman let's give him all our money woo, dean's salesman shenanigans & boring affair with gale etc) the angsty messy sexy brio scenes were soooo delicious 🥺🖤 and then while I understand s4 had a lot to reset from/deal with, s4 (b)rio frequently doesn't make all that much sense to me 🤷🏼‍♀️

but also! i finally started posting a fic which is kinda about that? (rio pov, post s3, eventually very long etc). so im gonna say a lil more (thus warning: minor fic spoilers) behind the cut...

....but this thing keeps moving where i put the readmore?!

how do u make a website this bad. um anyhow

pay-off to the boring dean/gale stuff!! helllooooo beth and dean both sleeping with their bosses?! hilarity goldmine no?!

MORE RHEA. like you can't just introduce a character beth's having a quasi-romance with & rio's presumably had an actual one with, who's seen them both at their softest and uncovered worstnesses, and is surely best placed to comment on say their similarities and then do nothing with it???

beth and rio yelling at each other. surely this was coming??

not ending on that next time empty the clip line (which i don't like) / wrapping up the hitman plot

given the (sudden!) arrival of nick in s4 and depressing rio backstory, i'd've loved some suggestion that rio was like consciously paralleling nick & beth's betrayals of him & considering them as similar and/or that his mentoring of beth had something to do with even the vaguest of plans to extricate himself from nick (plus Revenge) etc

like. acknowledgment and processing of trauma???

weird angsty sex

more brio bar scenes, more brio drinking, more brio laughing (at each other)

if not the furniture return, then at least it being more a topic of conversation...like how wasnt it? beth pitching ideas for earning the return (at least of her kids' stuff??) or rio holding it over her head or at least him going on abt how much he's enjoying her lamps or something!

death divorce. the show held this over our head for far too long. i also like this being decoupled from the brio stuff as much as plausible. beth needs to divorce dean not bc she's interested in rio but bc dean is the worst.

plenty of boland bubbles, that spot lasted abt 0.4 seconds after we sat through all that dean nonsense... we should have at least got rio testing out an empty hot tub cos he doesnt know theyre supposed to have water in or something.

inordinate amounts of brio bickering

ending of hitman/plot consciously paralleling s1 and 2 finales, even if it wasn't literally beth + rio + some man + a gun (ideally with some rationale as to how rio finds said hitman, whether or not that was a reveal of his magical powers)

Incentive Convo Callbacks (also rio vs sushi like a million more times, pls)

scars.

#ty for asking! <3 <3 <3 <3 #nbc good girls #tv #fanfiction #i 4got i have to go find a compooter to edit a half saved draft ask answer...tumblo y r u like this waaah

[orange-locust]

thinking about screen time for oluwande in s2. i'd love it if the pre-reunion arc of s2 had a focus on the dynamic between olu and stede as they try to get back to the revenge. i think it would present really good opportunities for developing both characters

like: oluwande was elected captain by the crew not long ago. now stede rolls up, broke, with no actual skills, and does - what?

my guess is: greets them as their captain. which creates a very interesting moment of tension in which i suspect everyone on that sandbar stares at oluwande.

it's loaded because, on one hand, i still do not think the crew of the revenge find stede especially capable; i think they just learned by the end of s1 to like and appreciate him as a person. this does not mean they necessarily trust him with their lives! on the other hand: stede has a rowboat.

there's still a power dynamic here but suddenly it is much closer to being balanced. oluwande is experienced, a competent leader, trusted by the crew - what does stede have on him anymore? not a salary, not a ship, not even a legal identity. stede has white privilege, a certain amount of upper-class cultural capital (though who knows how far that will get him without the clothes to go with it or how many spaces he still has access to where it will do him any good), and a rowboat.

but it's this show! and so i think it will be treated as an opportunity to unpack all that stuff with a great deal of heart. im curious about, like...

oluwande's development as a leader. what is he a natural at, and where do we get to see him grow? why does he avoid leadership? has he had much opportunity to try?

if we're going by actors' ages, olu is the youngest among the remaining crew by about 10 years. yet everyone, including stede, seems to look up to him. how does he feel about that? (it can be very complicated, when you're a younger person who perhaps has some insecurities and is not going out of your way to Be Important, to be treated like a leader figure.)

the reshuffling of power dynamics among the crew now that inherited wealth is out of the picture, but race and class aren't

stede being forced to actually talk it through, as a crew. what is "it"? dunno. a lot. maybe they decide to do music therapy after all

oluwande and the crew getting to demonstrate some object lessons in what power can be in the absence of wealth. violence, sure, but also collective power, charm, skill, trickery - i suspect they'll all make a name for themselves and i'd love for it not to just be the stede bonnet captain thomas show but a fierce irrepressible gory theatrical weirdness that emerges from all of them.

who is explicitly, and implicitly, the captain at any given point in time? does stede have trouble handing off leadership? oluwande seems sympathetic to stede in s1, but how does he navigate his loyalties to stede and to the crew when they're placed at odds with each other?

obviously, i would also like backstory - i'm very curious how someone with oluwande's temperament ends up a pirate. we've all seen the text post that says oluwande has veteran mcdonald's manager energy. this being the show that it is, i don't think the answer is just going to be Upsetting Colonial Violence, either, although i doubt they would ellide the role of empire completely either. so what happened? did oluwande run away as a young man and have a rude awakening, only to realize you can't really come back from being an outlaw, and maybe that's why we saw him being so sympathetic to stede? did he work on a ship that gradually slid into piracy?

to get sentimental for a second: does oluwande love the sea? or is he dreaming of a home on the shore? has jim changed that? how?

oluwande was a really great supporting character in s1, but i'd really love to see him driving the story in s2. i think it would take the show to some really interesting, fun, heartfelt places

#oluwande boodhari #our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd s2

[butterflydm]

wot on prime rewatch: 1x01 leavetaking

spoilers for all of season one of the show; I’m going to do a reblog of this post to include book-related thoughts that go past The Eye of the World.

1. There are several things that I really love about Moiraine’s intro scene: it sets up the two items that she uses at the EotW (the sa’angreal and the knife) and she is wearing PANTS thus immediately already trimming away one of Jordan’s super-weird continent-wide gender quirks where It Is a Weird Thing for women to wear pants. Moiraine’s traveling outfit gives me life. But, frankly, the pants were the first thing that made me believe that we would be getting a genuinely UPDATED version of the story, without all the super-weird stuff about how men and women are so impossibly different that they can’t ever understand each other (even when, ex. the woman in question is behaving remarkably similar to your male friend that you have no issue understanding, and vice versa) and that was so exciting to me. And I’m still excited about it! Another thing that I love is Moiraine talking about how arrogant the ~men~ were to believe they could cage darkness in one big pre-emptive strike and then that’s basically exactly what she takes Rand off to do at the end of S1.

2. In S1E5, we find out that what Liandrin and her Red Ajah sisters do here is extremely illegal! They are not supposed to be hunting down male channelers and gentling them on the spot, they are supposed to take them back to Tar Valon for trial (...when they will get gentled, so for the actual men, it’s something of a distinction without a difference). This is also our first look at the ‘madness’ that afflicts male channelers due to the corruption and I’m really curious about how this will continue to be portrayed as we get more men channeling in the future.

3. The first appearance of Moiraine’s wishful thinking appears in this scene (arguably, the first appearance of her wishtful thinking is in the intro scene when she says that the Dragon might be reborn as a girl; that would definitely make things easier for her!), when she insists that the man that Liandrin just gentled CANNOT be the Dragon Reborn. She happens to be right in this case, but this attitude works less well for her when we get to the end of the season.

4. And then we get the super-awesome shot of the tall ‘moss-covered mountains’ that are actually abandoned skyscrapers. Perfect match for the Age of Legends scene that we get at the end of the season. Continue to love how they wove in the post-apocalypse threads. Subtle but once you know, you can see it in lots of place.

5. I really like how this opening scene with Egwene is all very metaphorical for how embracing saidar is described in the books. And getting our first glimpses of Egwene and Nynaeve is great, but I also like how it’s in the context of this woman-only group in their community because that’s a huge part of their story that they will need to navigate in the future (we know they’re both planning to head to the White Tower as of the end of S1). I do think it’s very interesting how the ‘Women’s Circle’ is not a governing body here but rather the community that all women join when they’re old enough for a braid. I don’t think we get any mentions of the Village Council or Bran as the Mayor either. The Two Rivers seems purely people chilling without a leader and just being a small community together.

6. The locations are so pretty. So, we get introduced to Moiraine & Lan, then Liandrin, then Egwene & Nynaeve, and now we have Rand and Tam. Tam is remembering the old days. Aw, this intro with Rand and Tam is cute, plus it does set up: wolves acting strangely, that Rand’s mom is out of the picture (implied dead), and him and Egwene as childhood sweethearts.

7. I think the show did a good job of marrying together the different backstories that Rand and Egwene’s romance have in the series. In the show, they’re first loves, currently in a relationship but inexplicably not married for reasons that perhaps neither of them could put a finger on if you asked them directly. Before Egwene gets the Wisdom apprentice invite, I imagine they would both vaguely say, “oh you know. we’ll get married some day” and then just keep not doing it.

8. This set of scenes in the Winespring does a good job setting up the friendship between the three boys. We see Rand and Perrin worrying over Mat losing money; and then Perrin also comes over to talk to Rand when he notices him brooding off by the wall. And Mat, in his more teasing way, is trying to make sure that the three of them stay connected as a friendship unit, even if Perrin is married and Rand is with Egwene and off in the mountains most of the year besides. And Perrin and Mat are both introduced in context of their friendship with Rand. This scene is also used to show how insular the Two Rivers is, hearing news of the world only second or third-hand.

9. Lan and Moiraine are such drama llamas, I swear. So Dramatic at all times. Nynaeve gets positioned as the village Protector even here in this introduction -- she’s the one that challenges Lan and tells him to name himself. Nynaeve and Rand are the two characters set up to be the most distrusting of Moiraine, but we see a lot of whispering between villagers in the background.

10. It’s an interesting set of shots that they set up here, actually, given some of what happens later. The people that Moiraine looks at: first, it’s Mat with the girl that we find out later that he stole from; then Nynaeve with Lan in the foreground; and finally Egwene with a shot that racks focus to include Rand and Perrin behind her (who will have a brief love trangle-ish moment later on in the season). But I like this shot of Moiraine looking around and clocking all the potential people who might be the correct age to be the Dragon Reborn.

11. Again, on a rewatch, Perrin’s secret crush on Egwene (and Nynaeve’s knowledge of it) is actually made pretty clear.

12. We get introduced next to Mat’s change in backstory which I’ve personally thought was a brilliant choice from the beginning. Mat’s background feels fairly disconnected from his characterization in the books and this new backstory grounds him as a character, gives him some strong motivations and some strong personal fears. It does add a slightly darker/seedier side to the Two Rivers, in that the Cauthons have clearly fallen through the cracks, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing either.

13. But the set-up here really is heartbreaking for Mat -- a father that is constantly breaking his mother’s heart, a mother who is so consumed by her husband’s betrayal that she’s barely a mother to her children, and Mat left to essentially parent his little sisters. And it sets up Mat as someone who has both strong reasons to want to be far away from the Two Rivers (to escape his family and the reputation his family would have in the village) and to return to the Two Rivers (to take care of his sisters). And he’s also set up as someone who only has his ‘true self’ seen by a handful of people -- his sisters, Rand, and... potentially Perrin, though Perrin doesn’t get as much screentime about it, and potentially Nynaeve as well -- and everyone else sees this surface gloss of who he is, including Moiraine, Egwene, and his own parents.

14. I do actually wonder if part of the reason that they cast the sisters so young was because filming just takes a long time, longer than the books are set in, so they may just be planning to have the events of the books take place over a longer time frame.

15. We do see here than Egwene and Rand’s relationship is definitely favored by both his father and her parents. Tam and Rand stay behind after everyone else has left to help the al’Vere’s clean up the inn, essentially acting as in-laws already. The scene between them alone is really good, too, and you can feel the tension of Egwene having something to tell Rand and being uncertain about it, and Rand is clearly aware that something is Going On but isn’t sure he wants to know, and so they ended up sleeping together first and then dealing with their actual issues afterwards.

16. I also really really love the platonic bath scene with Moiraine and Lan. Nonsexual and nonromantic intimacy between people who are essentially platonic life-partners at this point. It’s a great look under the ~dramatic~ surface that they were portraying to the villagers earlier. And it’s nice that our first bit of nudity is a guy’s butt. And I love the implication that, over the years, Moiraine has embraced some of the customs from Lan’s homeland.

17. Rand does essentially take this as something of a break-up while Egwene seems more torn on whether it is or isn’t. But then part of the issue that they end up running into later on in this episode and at the end of the season, is that Rand likes to process things alone in his head and Egwene wants to talk it all out as it’s currently happening, so they have some communication incompatibilities but it isn’t chalked up to Women are just Like This and Men are just Like That, the way that things like that tend to be spun as in the books.

18. And the intro to Padan Fain, where we find out that he acts essentially as Mat’s fence for items stolen from people in the Two Rivers works really well and it just... it does make me sad about how the show had to get adjusted post-Covid, and was not able to have Mat end out the season facing off against Fain, as I’m sure he was originally supposed to do. Fain’s whole speech about how he hated going to the Two Rivers every year would have hit harder if he’d been saying it to Mat.

19. We do see here, in a more subtle way, how most of the villagers are eyeing Moiraine and Lan suspiciously.

20. The sort of semi-post-relationship conversation with Egwene and Rand on the mountainside is very good as well. That she knows where to look for him when he’s in a thoughtful/brooding mood and the actual content of the talk as well. Honestly, I feel so puzzled by a lot of the complaints from some people about Rand’s behavior towards Egwene that I saw? It all makes perfect sense to me? She breaks up with him but then, next episode, she wants him to be instantly over any heartbreak and, at the same time, offer her boyfriend-type cuddles at night. And I get it from Egwene’s PoV too -- it’s a very stressful situation and she’s used to looking to Rand for comfort in stressful situations, so she’s going back to her instincts/old habits. But it’s just weird how I saw people call him clingy when she is the one who literally tries to physically snuggle up with him after she breaks up with him? How is he supposed to ‘just get over her already’ when she’s doing stuff like that? idk some people don’t seem to expect men to have human emotions and it’s weird to me. She’s allowed to be nostalgic about him to Aram but he’s not allowed to be nostalgic about her.

21. Rand had a whole Vision about his future (not the magic kind) and he needs some time to adjust to that vision changing. And, like... that’s fair and completely a normal human reaction to being broken up with and I do not understand why I saw so many people being weird about it when this set of episodes aired. It’s not like Rand had a made-up fantasy about Egwene -- they were literally in a romantic and sexual relationship! That ended extremely abruptly! And then they all got traumatized by having their village attacked! Even without the additional trauma that Rand was operating under, his behavior made sense.

22. Nynaeve and Moiraine do get off on such a hilariously bad footing here. Moiraine takes such a terrible approach to trying to feel Nynaeve out on her parentage, etc. Though I can see how the sort of overwhelming presence that she’s trying to use here would work against a lot of people, but it just majorly puts Nynaeve’s back up. I’ve thought a lot about how Rand might react to learning that Moiraine sent the Red Ajah after Mat, but Nynaeve would also have an extremely explosive reaction, especially because she shows a lot of sympathy and understanding for Mat in Primeverse.

23. Aaah, Nynaeve firmly establishing herself as The Protector of the Two Rivers Folk and she is, she so very much is. Zoë Robins is just so perfect as Nynaeve and I love her in the role so much. The casting is so on-point.

24. We get another establishing friendship scene with our three boys. And Mat just instantly can tell something’s wrong with Rand, even as Perrin is just like ??? about it. He susses out that it’s about Egwene and that it was Really Bad in terms of their relationship. Then a little later, we also get the bit where Rand and Perrin give some money to Mat so that he can buy lanterns for the girls. There really is kinda a vibe where Mat is extremely emotionally aware of both Rand and Perrin, and while Rand and Perrin are both emotionally aware of Mat, they are not particularly aware of each other. Which tracks with Perrin having a secret crush on Egwene and that making himself distance himself from Rand (slightly). Rand and Perrin still care about each other but don’t ever really get the one-on-one scenes that Rand and Mat, and Mat and Perrin get. But they did a really good job setting up these three as a close friend group.

25. And we do see that Egwene is also sad over the ending of her relationship with Rand (she’s crying on the bridge) and Nynaeve comes to listen to the wind with her. I do think it’s interesting that they set up both Nynaeve and Egwene as each having strong bonds to two of the boys but somewhat-to-mildly disapproving of the third one -- Nynaeve is very compassionate with Rand and Mat later on, but tells Perrin to go home to his wife; Egwene was in a romance with Rand and trauma-bonds with Perrin, but has a more antagonistic view of Mat. It makes things feel more complex than they were in the books, imo.

26. Oh, hey, that’s a beeswax candle! Nice. I love what they did with the candle ceremony. The show did such an interesting thing where it made the whole Wheel and the reincarnation feels a lot more like a vibrant cultural aspect than it does in the books. It influences the Two Rivers beliefs here and it influences the Tuatha'an people’s beliefs when Perrin talks to them in later episodes. It just really grounds the people’s behavior when it’s attached to these spiritual rituals (and I am saying this as an atheist who does not personally perform any spiritual or religious rituals -- I don’t do it, but it is a very common part of the human experience and it makes sense that it would have this kind of impact on people who live in this world). And the whole idea that the candles light the way for souls to come back and then you have a celebration to remind them of what’s worth coming back for.

27. The little touch of Nynaeve setting out the candle on the other side of the river and wiping away her tears immediately and walking away, because she feels like she needs to be strong for the village and not let them see her show her pain. And then her not dancing at Bel Tine. Those little touches showing how she has to set herself slightly apart from all of them.

28. The horror of the Trolloc attack in the middle of the dancing works really well, imo. We don’t see any of this in the book because we’re entirely in Rand’s PoV but this whole section does set up a lot: we see Mat going back into danger to act as a protector, we set up Perrin having an understandable trauma centered around the violence of the axe, we get Nynaeve trying to protect the villagers and Egwene by her side ready to fight with her, we see the initial panic of the villagers and then them rallying together, we have Padan Fain sneaking off in the middle of the attack, and we get Rand and Tam dealing with that same horror in isolation up mountain. And we get to see how well Aes Sedai and Warders work as a team, which was very cool and useful. They did a good job with the choreo there, because it really does feel like they can anticipate each other’s moves. And Egwene and Nynaeve both get a close look at what Aes Sedai are capable of accomplishing.

29. We don’t get to see Rand and Tam’s conversation in the woods here, but since this is a rewatch, we all know that it happened and will impact Rand’s behavior going forward. He just found out that his dad picked up a kid in the aftermath of a battle and took him home, so he’s got an identity crisis going on in the background of every scene that he’s in from this point forward.

30. I’m just gonna feel bad for Egwene for a moment, because she went through the rough journey of believing that Nynaeve was dead from here until they’re reunited in E6, and then post-E8, she is potentially going to be told/implied to that Rand is dead as well. Anyway, like I mentioned above, I totally understand why Egwene seeks Rand’s comfort in E2 because this is a very traumatic experience.

31. Moiraine and the Winespring collapsing together is such a cool shot. I really love it. Epic. And Lan covering her to shield her from the debris. What an amazingly visual illustration of what a Warder does.

32. Rand arriving back to the absolute ruin of the town. Heartbreaking. Ah, and Egwene telling Rand that Nynaeve ‘is gone’. Just this whole section of people counting up their losses is heartbreaking. And the little moments of connection in the tragedies, like Egwene and Rand hugging each other or Mat putting his hand on Perrin’s shoulder. Interestingly, the hand motions that Moiraine does here to heal Tam are similar from what I remember of how she draws Shadar Logoth’s corruption from Mat, both scenes that Rand witnesses.

33. Rand immediately challenges Moiraine which was another thing that viewers held against him despite it... making sense? He talks about the same sort of logic later on re: Thom as well -- that it’s possible that the convenient stranger who showed up right before the trouble conveniently helped them in order to win their trust. Rand doesn’t know that Moiraine is getting Protagonist Hero Shots.

34. The things that Moiraine tells them (notably: she tells them because Rand challenged her): that an Aes Sedai saw glimpses of the future twenty years ago, that the Dark One is waking, that his whispers are in the backs of their minds, and that the Dragon (the one person who can stand against the Dark One) has been reborn and is one of the four of them. And that they need to leave, because the Trollocs are chasing them, specifically, and if they stay then the town will be destroyed.

35. I’m also intrigued by the implication that maybe the entire village just learned that one of their four kiddos is the Dragon Reborn? Since Moiraine isn’t leaving in secret the way that they did in The Eye of the World. It’s difficult to say, because everyone else is busy working on the town and we don’t get reaction shots. But everyone does know that their four kiddos are very publicly leaving with the Aes Sedai and it’s clear that there were goodbyes, if short ones, so even if they don’t know that the Dragon is involved, they do know more than the Two Rivers knew in the book.

36. Love getting that iconic ‘a wind rose’ line. <3

#wot rewatch #wot on prime #wot #wheel of time #moiraine damodred #lan mandragoran #nynaeve al'meara #egwene al'vere #rand al'thor #mat cauthon #perrin aybara #the wheel of time #wotwatch

[time-is-restored]

more whinging bc i got negative hours of sleep last night and i need to stay awake somehow lol

cw: discussions of misogyny + abuse

god the more i think abt it the more exhausted i get by the gender politics of ted lasso.

like god i do genuinely think that rebecca's arc in s1 is one of the best depictions of a mean + cruel woman ive ever seen on TV specifically bc it manages to thread the needle so well? like they never tilt her balance too much and doom her to being either totally fucked up + evil OR totally soft and sweet and harmless. and ted's 'divorce makes u crazy' response to her apology STILL makes me crazy wrt the sheer. understanding and empathy there, and she's just. given so much more depth than ive come to expect, especially for an ensemble cast sitcom w a (then) p short run time.

but my fucking god. we literally don't learn a fucking thing about michelle. im pretty sure the one (1) concrete thing we know about her comes in the fucking finale, and it's that she's a teacher for... something. the two most important people in ted's life and we don't know anything abt them! they're literally just empty symbols representing the importance of Family™, and that vacancy does nothing but weigh ted's storyline down!

like, i liked michelle's episode/storyline in s1, bc the blinding novelty of a woman instigating a divorce not being the Actual Devil, as well as a just. generally very empathetic + nuanced take on how divorce shakes out between two ppl who really care for each other, was so 'WAIT TV CAN DO THIS??' that i felt satisfied with that being Her Arc™. divorce happens, life happens, people fall out of love, and it hurts but its ultimately okay. the show, at the time, was ultimately abt a football club and how caring abt that football club helped everyone around it.

but then the show sticks around, and her continued absence just... raises a lot of questions? how did the conversation abt ted going overseas happen? what conversations did they have abt henry? how long term was it intended to be? did money really not factor into it all? like it's one thing for a character's backstory to be vague when it's not really the focus of attention (s1 was ultimately rebecca's story before anyone else's), but when it's the load bearing stone of their '''''''arc''''''' in s3...????

like. god. and then it fucking infects every other woman on the show!

sassy + nora? well sure we'll give you a softball - you can have one (1) scene where a woman is able to resolutely and firmly reject a man asking her out without immediately being seen as cruel or gameplayey (not that the audience will see it that way! she's already a lecherous temptress for them!), but neither of them will ever be able to speak to rebecca onscreen again, even after the heart-wrenching scenes in s1 CLEARLY establishing them as a beating heart of rebecca's arc.

shandy? nope, don't even think abt her motivations/drives, just forget her. simi? LMAOOO imagine a black woman getting a personality beyond righteous anger. jack? three-four episodes, and we learn so little abt her that her conflict with keeley - which SHOULD'VE have been a huge emotional beat - just feels like a kick in the teeth (and while, yes, i absolutely agree that in a real world context, jack's rejection of keeley would be largely motivated by class, in Ted Lasso Land™ rebecca is just as rich - if not richer? - and we're never once encouraged to interrogate her priorities).

barbara's the one that really makes me miserable, bc i feel like on a show with less run time, she could've played REALLY well. she's a great contrast to keeley, has an amazing delivery, and the scene where keeley + her first discuss the snowglobes shows that she has the potential for some really moving vulnerability + pathos. but instead they give SO many of keeley's scenes to characters who ultimately get written out, so when barbara stays it's like... okay? sure? like, i was so stoked that barbara survived the Mass Exodus of side characters that i didn't wanna look the gift horse in the mouth but... wasn't the last thing we saw of her and keeley's relationship like. general resentment + distrust abt the shandy debacle? when did that improve? how???

i don't think i'll ever have enough mental real estate to explain how disappointed keeley + rebecca's 'arcs' in s3 made me, and at least there's the saving grace that. virtually no one other than jamie got a coherent arc this season, so at least it was on some levels an egalitarian screw up. but fuck dude. keeley was just forced to react to bad things that were happening to her, and we got to see her do her job (which, unbelievably, does actually involve things other than being an awkward manager!) precisely one (1) time.

i even like rebecca's arc on paper - i think it's really cool to see a character backslide so intensely in terms of obsessing over and struggling to come to terms w a past relationship, especially an abusive one, bc like. yeah! that shit sticks with you for longer than a season! and beyond that, seeing her regain her sense of self and what SHE actually gives a shit about was oftentimes just as sweet as s1. but her scenes were poorly connected, and she had to carry WAY too much of a burden as the Resident Speech Giver for any of her internal characterisation to make sense. like, sorry, but it's kind of hard to believe a character's Going Through It™ when they have to spent near 100% of their screen time giving Take It From Me, Kid, speeches. and then she's not even given a real opportunity TO fuck up + sabotage her relationships, even when she starts getting really weird w ted! it's all just so meaningless and like nothing that she does is ever going to matter. she never speaks to zava again, we don't get to see her interact w bex or kate, her pleas to ted get COMPLETELY shut down...

but the thing that REALLY makes me sick is this complete lack of interiority absolutely butchers the characters of jade + jane, who are otherwise RIFE with potential. like, jade is a completely unflinching, unapologetic asshole to nate + his family, and that's never interrogated. even in Sitcom Land™, it's more than reasonable to view jade's actions as racist, especially when she doesn't give the same treatment to others (at least not as i recall? honestly i usually watch the taste of athens scenes while peeking out behind my hands, so i could 100% be wrong here). and yet, suddenly, and completely inexplicably, she's charmed by nate. she wants to give him the time of day. she finds him attractive, and wants to date him, and generally take control of his life and force him into a decision that is literally the exact opposite of what he expressed wanting to do. except even that LAST thing isn't allowed to be interrogated, bc god FORBID a woman is enough of a fully realised creation to actually be culpable of the terrible shit they do!

and fucking jane??? beard's so head-over-heels for this woman that the emotional abuse + extremely controlling tendencies don't even make him bat an eye, and we don't get to know anything about her? she's literally just the suggestion of an alluring woman! good at sex! good at chess! fuck you if you wanna know more, even though the show ENDLESSLY hits you over the head with how painful their relationship is for beard - beard who is given virtually no other storyline. like, i literally can't read brendan's refusal to label jane as abusive as anything other than like. that bio-essentialism shit where ppl 'women are better than men <3' so hard that they end up genuinely and wholeheartedly arguing that someone's sex defines their morals - or worse, that their sex is a deciding factor in determining whether someone's actions are good or bad. not context, but a legitimate 'add points if woman, take away points if man' variable.

like that's so feminism 101 it's legitimately almost worse than nothing. that's like getting as far as 'hey so you know how we're all inundated with both implicit + explicit messaging abt what is Valued and Good for women vs men to-' before shoving ur earplugs in and going 'if you are oppressed by society we'll automatically stamp a 'good person' label on ur head and now we don't have to think abt any of our biases + internalised beliefs ever again <333'. the most useless and fucking pointless stand against the patriarchy ever, especially coming from the same show that ENDLESSLY slots characters into the 'loving gf/wife' archetype and then give them Literally Nothing Else. my comrades you have literally just done madonna/whore 2: oops all madonnas! this is not liberation!!!! this is a miserable cage!!!!!!!!!

im just. higgins' wife. mae. trent's daughter and anonymous 'her'. the women at the hotel and the restaurants and the firm and the fucking physios, fuck - dani's gfs! who are they? what do they want? where do they go when the camera stops rolling? can anyone hear me?? hello??? hello???? brendan hunt i am OUTSIDE YOUR HOUUUUUUSE

#ted lasso spoilers #ted lasso meta #ted lasso critical #dead girls by p.enelope s.cott has been stuck in my head for approximately a month bc of this fucking show #its so fucking nuts being treated to rebecca + keeley in s1 and then slowly realising w dawning horror that its literally only down from #here. and also listen nothing but respect to my comrades out there who can take michelle + henry as written #and immediately + painlessly extrapolate from their significance in ted's life to viewing them as like. important figures narratively #but to me they literally never got beyond the carboard cutout stage? like. yes thank you if u love ur family its sad when u leave them. #why'd he leave them then lol. #LIKE. if both michelle AND henry are just these. passive vessels who are neither invested in ted staying OR leaving london #and the only motivation we're EVER given for ted's move is 'michelle wanted space'. like sorry for wanting an actual deconstruction of ted' #motivations rather than the worst mystery box of all time! if i wanted a story abt 'man misses family :( please don't ask any questions abt #the family in question-' i could just close my eyes and imagine a stock image of a sad business man. #wagh. ted bud they gave you so much potential + so many demons and then just wiped them away w no exploration outside of like. two #scenes w sharon. u are also in this cage king but at least u got a good two seasons of mc character energy before they locked the door :( #something something sorry for having an ace attorney witness stand breakdown when the show i liked Was Bad. do u still want to be mutuals

[guardianbee]

I just realized that what sets Netflix's Stretch Armstrong above the rest of contemporary superhero cartoons is that it gave each protagonist a rich inner and personal life, both separate from their superhero identity AND serving as their motivation to become a superhero. Compare Jake, Nathan, Ricardo, and Riya to Marvel's Spider-Man's main protagonists - Peter, Miles, Anya, Gwen, and Harry.

Out of the five MSM protags, only Peter has his personal life consistently explored. Harry's personal life is explored but only in opposition to Peter's, and once Harry's arc concludes in S1, he drops off as a protagonist entirely and becomes a supporting character in S2 & S3. While Gwen gets some personal life development in S1, it is to only forward the villain-of-the-week plotline. Once that resolves, Gwen is hardly given any real character growth except in a few key episodes with Anya. We never see her father or what her life is like outside of Horizon High. Miles and Anya both have a single episode that explores their family dynamics and THEN we only see Jefferson and (a fake!) Maria as poorly-executed villains to add drama to the last half of S3. Neither Miles or Anya organically develops without either Peter or Gwen around.

With Stretch Armstrong, each of the protagonist's family and past are explored. You get the backstory, you get familial dynamics, and you get motivations. Jake wants to be a hero to both escape the confines of the rigid expectations his father places on him AND because he feels like he can finally put all the lessons his dad taught him to use. Nathan wants to be a hero to protect his family and stay close to his friends. Ricardo wants to be a hero because he finally wants to belong somewhere - he wants community, and he wants friends that he doesn't have to leave behind. Riya's primary motivation is avenging her parents and taking down Rook before his corporate schemes go too far. And notice how all their motivations are distinct to their family dynamics and personal ambitions!

Why do Gwen, Anya, and Miles want to be heroes? We don't learn about Miles' desire to protect his neighborhood until S3! What are they motivated by? Just a desire to help? They're just naturally good people and want to make the world a better place? But why? Where does that desire come from? What do their family and community think of them - how are they motivated by those factors? MSM hardly explores that - MSM is primarily in service to the fantastical elements of Peter's life. And, when we do have time to catch up on the protags' personal lives, it is almost always Peter that has these moments. The MSM writers wanted to give Peter a team but then they never explored that team, never gave the audience to care about them other than "they're Peter's friends," while Stretch Armstrong gave Jake a team and THEN chose to develop each protagonist into their own fully-realized character. The show was about Jake but his team was not there to just serve his character and story - they each had their OWN character and OWN story. Had SAATFF been picked up for an S3, I'm almost positive Erika's personal life outside of Nathan would also have been fully explored to the point of being a main character rather than a secondary one.

IDK man, it just feels like contemporary superhero shows and comics in general can't balance the fantastical with the average, day-to-day lives of their protagonists. That's why ITSV and ATSV are so revered and stand out - because of that balance. Miles is a compelling character because he deals with and endures all these fantastical elements of his life WHILE having problems with his parents and deciding what his future will entail. Gwen is a compelling character for similar reasons. Their romance is compelling for these reasons - balancing the fantastical with the mundane - Gwen protecting Miles by keeping him away from Spider Society and all of its secrets, but still feeling jealous when Miles eyes Margo; Miles coming along with Gwen to earth-50101 to help her and then slightly panicking upon learning Gwen has been staying on another earth with a dude named Hobie.

If superhero writers have forgotten this, if they can't find that balance and explore it, then we're really in fucking trouble for years and years to come.

#idk i was just remembering that saatf was such a good show #and since i've been watching msm and thinking of how empty it is outside of parksborn #the comparison was bound to come #marvel's spider man #stretch armstrong #stretch armstrong and the flex fighters #saatff #peter parker #jake armstrong #posts on the run #text post

[countessofravenclaw]

Something I have come to realize, when I write my OCs, most of who are parents of extablished charcters in the source material, is that Normalize Married Couples Being In Love.

Honestly, lot of the parenst in main stram media sitcoms and Disney Channel shows are often portrayed not so well. The dad is often portrayed totaly hand off and complete (for a lack of a better word) loser who the mom needs to always whack on the head to do anything and they are always bickering and disagreein all the time.

So like, do these people even like each other? We are supposed to believe that these people are in love, because they ahve gotten married and had sex at least enough time to have the kids that are often the main characters.

So if you had to think of a "parents" from a Disney show that don't bicker all the time and you can also belive that theyvare together because they love each other... Who are you thinking and why is it Monica and Miguel Valente? They are literally the only ones.

This is why when I write my parent OCs, especially Gastón parenst since they are so far more develobed than most of my other parent characters, you better believe they are couple goals. They are good parenst who love theit kid more than anything, but are also maddly in love with each other because that's the reason why they even had a child with each other in the first place.

Obviously it is different if parents not being together or the marriage being in trouble is part of the plot or someone's character. BUT NOT AT THIS POINT I AM TRYING TO MAKE.

Okay, so back to specifically Gastón's parents. Have I been kind of hamming how good theirt relatioship is? Yes. Will I keep hamming it? Also yes. Is that some sort of foreshadowing about some trouble in a horizon? Absolutely NOT.

They have their tragic backstory, which includes everything from losing your parents to burn out to almost dying and infertility, and they pretty much went through hell to get where they are in S2AU and in my canonical fic series as well. When you have been through all of that with one person who has been your strength and the one constant, you'd bet you'd still absolutely be in love even after 20 years of marriage and even in your in your early 40s, which isn't even old. There is no way that flame will go out.

For me, it also just makes sense from Gastón's point of view. He seems to have very ideal view on love and he really believes in it, even from start of S1 with Delfi. From his comment to Nina about how "wouldn't it be good if her parenst got back together" he has clearly never known a day of divorce in his life. He's also such a great boyfriend and know how to treat his girl well. Those are very clear sings of what sort of enviroment he has grown up in and what sort of example he had at home.

Also Gastón's affinity toward physical affection with people that he loves, I feel like it is also something that he's from his parenst. It has been setting that is demonstrated by them, toward him and towards each other.

Obviously, in my writing, since they still are the parents there are certain lines that I will not cross when it comes to romantic interraction. You can probably guess what

#soy luna #soy luna fanfiction #Because great foundation for a whole family is healthy marriage #And someone in DCLA should actually have that

[enderspawn]

still thinking about... a prime defenders power swap based one-off/case fic thing. probably set vaguely early/mid s1 era*, probably caused somehow by le frog like every other oneshot. the practicality of swapping their powers is handwaved, its just some sci-fi magic bullshit

dakota gets william's ghost powers, vyncent gets dakota's super strength and speed, and william gets vyncent's class powers and the greats.

dakota gets so excited, bc williams powers are so cool! he probably immediately starts abusing the wisp form and giving william a heart attack about it. vyncent accidentally rips a door off the hinges trying to open it. william has a second heart attack when he hears a voice telling him to go to bed at 2 am when hes "alone".

but also like... the Key here is that the power swap does a freaky friday type thing where they also learn something abt one another-- both from lived experience and the entire thing causing them to have to sit down and talk to one another abt their powers.

william has to learn to give up control with vyncent's powers, since he literally Can Not Be In Control when one of the greats takes over- its kinda a Big Deal for him. not only that, but allows him to get to know the greats outside of vyncent as a whole. if you want a ghostknife angle, maybe theres some light shovel talk bc its funny. when they inevitable switch back, it helps him feel more safe w the wisp form-- or at least that ppl will be by his side if worst comes to worst. it also helps him better understand vyncent and the greats and Their relationship (much like how the 10 month gap did, but More So)

vyncent has to deal with everything being so much More due to the enhanced senses. (which is also then neat foreshadowing to dakota's sensory overload mechanic in s2, since that only occured after dakota spent a while in Not-A-City and vyncent grew up in a fantasy medieval setting). i want him to go to dakota to ask how to handle it, bc the fan in william's room is keeping him up at night and he's already broken 4 doors. dakota kinda shrugs and tries to counsel vyncent, giving him advice that dakota learned on his own. in that overly casual dakota way, he'd drop his Tragic Backstory(tm) too which throws vyncent bc he always thinks of dakota as so immature and out of touch, someone who hasnt Gone Thru shit and needs to grow up. so realizing just how much dakota has gone thru and Goes thru each day to deal with his own powers kinda changes his perspective (bc that scene of vyncent yelling at dakota.... yeah </3)

dakota is having a Whole Ball abt it, and despite how uncontrollable william's s1 powers can be he seemingly even has it under better control. but that doesnt stop william from asking him to tone it down or Stop, which dakota ignores until he realizes william is serious. he asks why and william gives him the whole tightrope explanation, that he's scared something is going to happen to him yeah but hes terrified somethings gonna happen to dakota. dakota makes a comment abt how even if it did, it would be okay! bc he wouldve been saving someone else, so its worth it. william blows up at him, asking what they would do-- what would happen to william's powers, what would we be without you? etc. it kinda bashes into dakota's head that he has something in his life to be around for, ppl who care about him. not only that, but it also makes some of william's fears Click for him. He still may think its worth the risk in certain scenarios still, but he understands why william is so hesitant-- bc he wouldnt want to lose william, and apparently there are ppl who wouldnt want to lose him either.

in short, they all get a bit of a different Thing out of it, like a different lesson/revelation-- william's is power based, vyncent's is relationship based, and dakota's a bit of both.

after they've all had long enough to learn their various Lessons and hijinx, some hand-wavey, also-probably-le-frog-caused thing happens to switch them back. BOOM, case fic/oneshot done.

*set in this time for simplicity? for one, no s1 finale means william's relationship w the wisp form is simpler to explore bc theres no additional trauma. post s1 is possible, im just lazy FJKFJFDSF. for two, i... did not work ashe into this while brainstorming </3 both for power swapping and for just Interacting w the crew, he would add another layer of possible development and convos. for three, i dont know how the s2 ep11 break thing will impact their power sets yet so.... excluded from the power swap </3

i also just think its something where it would cause a lot of convos they DO have in canon way earlier to achieve the outcome i want, which doesnt rlly work if they've already had those conversations (primarily looking at you, s1 finale convo).

#jrwi #og post #vyncent sol #dakota cole #william wisp #i vaguely talked abt this in an old deleted one off post but. yeah <3 #yeah idk how they swap either. #remember that time they implied williams powers are only bc hes not a human? and not just The Event? #yeah idk how that would be transfered either <333 #(jeb bush voice) please clap

[blazethecheeto]

Ok some of you are going to hate me for this but I genuinely really liked Shadow and bone s2!! I was spoiled beforehand of how bad the ending was and how they changed so much- etc. But hear me out , I thought the changes (at least, most of them) made a lot of sense and actually made me like the story more!

First off, Inej going off to fight slavers with her ship made a lot of sense to me. She was looking to the future this whole season. She wanted to find her family, to be free of Ketterdam and her debt to the Staves. Inej looked so free in her last scene, chasing down a slaver ship just like the one she had been captured on. They established that nicely in the show and I love that she's going to find herself (of course she's coming back for the heist, I'm not worried about that). Also the boat crew are going to be such a power team (Mal, Inej, Tolya, Tamar, Nadia)

Malina's changed 'ending' made me really happy too! I adore how they split paths in the end, because I dislike soulmate tropes if they're done badly (which they usually are). However this line that they said, "If I come back to you, it's by choice. Choice, not destiny." Yes! That's everything I wanted from them. They can't be in love because he's the Firebird and basically serves the Sun Summoner as a weapon. (I am become a blade-), but as two people. They have to go away to find themselves before they find each other. Also, in the books, Mal was absolutely miserable tagging along, being Alina's loyal soldier. He wanted to be out there, exploring the world. Being Sturmhond was a smart move as Nikolai has to focus on being king and Mal fits his vibe. Alina is the opposite, she likes the power, as we saw, she craves it, for better or for worse.

They opened up so many great storylines that could make the third season. Alina being an evil queen with shadow summoning abilities that parallels her with the darkling?? Nikolai as the king, also filled with merzost?? One, maybe I'm biased as a nikolina shipper, but now they can understand each other's darkness. we still have yet to get the "i want to kiss you" scene from them. There are actually a lot of things and plots from both books they could fit in the third season. The Apparats cult for one. I know that Alina is going to get more powerful, and this is where the Soldat Sol comes in... maybe she accepts them this time and raises her army. Her hair could still turn white from using her shadow powers. I'm very excited for the prospect of Alina's character development in s3.

Characters like Adrik, relationships like Tamadia, they still need to be developed as well, so they could focus on them in s3. Harshaw and Oncat need to be introduced! Inej's trauma needs to be addressed, and hopefully in s3 or the spin off, they focus a lot more on it. Nina's past as well.

Another change I liked was Matthias choosing not to kill the wolves, and instead killing a guard, permanently imprisoning himself in Hellgate. That was surprising to me because I was going into that scene prepping myself for the wolf deaths. Although I do love Matthias killing them in the books because it shows how messed up Hellgate has made him become, this outcome in the show changes things. Now he is not innocent, now he saw Nina and the pardon that was just out of reach. Matthias damned himself and it hurts. That Helnik angst.

I loved loved the Crows this season. The mini heists, the banter, the development we got from everyone but Jesper especially?!! I was shocked and so so happy that he got an episode to embrace his Grisha heritage and got to be a badass Durast like YES I have been waiting YEARS.

The burial scene with Kaz and Pekka, I agree would have been insane in the SoC spinoff, but I think it fit a lot better in s2, because one, Pekka had already been introduced as a big bad in s1, it wouldn't have made sense to wait years and years to finally take him down for "book accuracy. " Kaz backstory, Pekka taking the Crow Club, all of those things are in Sab s2, so why not just do the burial scene in s2? Also it was so well done I had chills.

There are obviously things I did not like, and I will make another absurdly long post to rant about that. But I think the hate around the season for book fans is unnecessary. I didn't think it was rushed, and I was satisfied as a book fan!

#pls dont come for me this is just my opinion #there were stuff i really disliked but some things i really did like #mine #fandom rant #shadow and bone #grishaverse #long post #like damn #alina starkov #mal oretsev #nikolai lantsov #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #jesper fahey #pekka rollins #helnik #matthias helvar

[thatiranianphantom]

Nancy Drew Rewatch 114: The Sign of the Uninvited Guest

Oh HERE WE GO PEOPLE! The OG Nace scene, the one where we solve Tiffany's murder, the next in a line of very exciting episodes.

Patrice is a better employee than all of them put together.

Nancy stage-whispering about Lucy's death 😂

Oh crap Laura's back

The accident was literally in no way Nick's fault?

We know I'm not a Laura fan, but you don't spring MOVING TO EUROPE on someone. That is absolutely something you talk about at length first.

A big pat on the back for the guy that plays Josh Dodd, and also the ND team. He was suffering from ALS at this time, and you really couldn't tell. They really accommodated him.

Ace snacking on popcorn in front of the murder board.

Oh my GOD does Karen deserve this lecture.

But I do enjoy Ace kinda evening Nancy out.

I want Ace and Dominique's backstory. This dude is the chillest guy in the world, how did this rivalry start?

Ace: I'm not going to the library

Next scene: Ace in the library

Guy carrying a stack of Nancy Drew books!

A moment for this: Carson defends the people of Horseshoe Bay awfully hard for a populace that bullied a pregnant child into suicide, then made her memory into a ghost story.

If 1983 (as on Ryan's email) is his birth year, that makes me feel quite old....

THIS. SCENE. THE EYE CONTACT. THE CHEMISTRY.

S1 did a great job of making Ryan look INCREDIBLY guilty.

It's weird seeing Nancy's locket without the compass charm....

"Oh, nothing. You seem super innocent," is such a perfectly Ace line.

This reenactment was amazing.

Nick is absolutely correct, Tiffany's death is not their fault? It's literally only Josh's fault?

My rewatch partner @middleagedresidentofriverdale and I have discussed that during the scene outside with Nancy and Ryan, no actual water is coming down. Her hair flips from wet to bone dry between shots, and while their hair is generally wet, their faces are completely dry.

You can really see them testing the Nace here.

Nancy, once again having no regard for her own safety. But she catches a murderer!

One who apparently has the highest pain tolerance in the world.

The way Amaya speaks to Bess is gross, just putting that out there. There is a difference between flirting and borderline sexual harassment.

I remain confused as to wether Laura and Ace even....liked each other?

#TIP watches ND #Nancy Drew CW #ndcw #Nace