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familyagrestefanblog · 3 years

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Theory for “Gabriel Agreste”

Saying that I'm EXCITED for this episode is an understatement, I'm THRILLED! So let me give you my speculation for what could happen in it and how it’ll affect the future, because pieces are literally just falling into place in my brain and I just have to write this down.

The episode is called" Gabriel agreste" because in this episode Gabriel will create a (long time) Sentimonster for himself that'll take his place and cover for him in his civilian life while he himself gets completely swallowed by his Hawkmoth/ShadowMoth identity (which is a direct paralell to the fate Marinette just escaped by telling Alya her secret). He doesn't want to "waste" anymore unnecessary time by having to NOT be Hawkmoth, which then completely separates him from Adrien who very much was one of the last (if not THE LAST at this point) few strings that kept him grounded in his humanity.

The episode takes place right before the middle of the season and since it's season 4 we are talking about here its fair to assume that both Adrien and Gabriel are back at (at least) suspecting each other to be Chat Noir and Hawkmoth again at some point. Adrien is going to be even more rebellious after the status quo break and set up of "Lies" so him maybe (or maybe even confirmed already to Gabriel) to be Chat Noir could definitely be the factor that sets Gabriel over the edge, rips these two apart for good (as I foresaw in my analysis of "Jackady") and brings Gabriel to distance himself altogether while covering his own identity from his son by creating a Sentimonster (bc Adriens secret being discovered by his evil family is already forshadowed to hell and back, just like him ending up getting Homeschooled again this season, mark my words)

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"Queen Banana" is supposed to take place right before "Gabriel Agreste" and we have a leak where it's seen that Adrien is now kinda taking on Nathalies role since she is (supposedly) still bed ridden.

Seriously, just humour me here and stay with me. This would mean that Adrien would get to see and interact with his father much more often and Gabriel wouldn't be able to ditch everything and turn into Hawkmoth as easily as he was able to with Nathalie.

A cover up Sentimonster was actually already kinda forshadowed in "Party Crasher"

by introducing HoloGabe with the intention of providing Gabriel with alibis and to attend meetings etc for him in the future so Gabriel can invest more time into being Hawkmoth. But a Hologramm is not suitable for every occasion, which is where the Sentimonster comes into play.

At first Adrien wouldn't notice much off about his father and the few things he notices Adrien actually doesnt mind. If SentiGabe is really supposed to replace Gabriel as... Well, Gabriel, that also means as a FATHER and my money is on SentiGabe being created to be a better father than the original. SentiGabe does everything Adrien wanted his father to do in s1-s3: Join Adrien at dinner time, spend more time with him, is in general in better of a mood and not such an unpleasant dick and so on and so on.

Easy to say, Adrien basically welcomes the good change he always wanted in his "Father" with open arms and chooses to ignore things that seem suspicious and the always remaining gut feeling of something just being... off. This will collide with the unveiling of more of the family (+ Emilie) mystery which will for Adrien all continue to point at Gabriel as Hawkmoth because of one event that is likely to happen in episode 4.

I'm currently writing on yet another post about this topic in particular, so I will link it HERE for elaboration once I post it, but in short, I think Rena Rouge and the Grimoire secrets Marinette shears with Alya could be the catalyst of Adrien suspecting his father to be Hawkmoth again.

Adriens memories of the time he went through the Grimoire himself in "Volpina" would be triggered again after seing the Grimoire page Rena (honestly, quite recklessly) brings along into battle and from then on things will slowly pile up until Gabriel deflects from himself with SentiGabe in "Gabriel Agreste" (just like he did in “The Collector”)

People WAY to easily forget how ready and serious Adrien was in "The Collector" when he actually concidered his father to be Hawkmoth.

Keep in mind that Ladybug was only able to tell Chat Noir the weakest reasons of her suspicion against Gabriel (while the Grimoire being Guardian property was NEVER found out by Adrien... til NOW) that being Gabriels mysterious personality and the butterfly logo of his brand.

These arguments are weak because they are ONLY actually suspicious in the specific context of Gabriel being Hawkmoth. Once you have proof against that they hardly hold any ground anymore, hence why both Adrien AND Marinette so easily brushed off these points after seeing Gabriel akumatized. I mean, excuse a designer for choosing a BUTTERFLY as his logo when his last name is literally the name of a butterfly type. The fuck kind of accusation is that??

So I hope you understand that when I say that, yes, these reasons DID trigger further memories/realizations for Adrien in that moment

It simply was only the tip of the iceberg.

The fact that Adrien not only gave Ladybug the fucking benefit of a doubt and heared her out about accusing his FATHER of being HAWKMOTH and took it THAT seriously and wanted to find out if his father truly IS Hawkmoth means that Adrien very much sees his father as capable of being Paris villain Nr 1. This... understanding and acceptance of Gabriels nature already had to be in Adrien much prior to "the collector" to set it off like this. And while normally Adrien chooses to turn a blind eye towards his fathers bad qualities in favor of seeing Gabriels redeeming (and even the rare somewhat GOOD) qualities, Adrien only does so because he thinks Gabriel hasn't crossed the line yet that makes his father undeserving of these loving conciderations. But Gabriel being Hawkmoth IS CROSSING that line for Adrien and he immediately sets aside his remaining/choosen love for his heavily flawed father and willingly sees Gabriel for what he is.

Adrien already did it once with only a few somewhat solid reasons and the Grimoire being kept secret from him altogether,

So he will do it again, just this time the proofs and developments are supposed to stay for good.

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This development would not only be forshadowed by "the collector"

But also by the episode "Ladybug". There Mayura used a Sentimonster version of Ladybug against Chat Noir, using their love against him. What she didn't know though was that Ladybug actually isn't in love with her partner (yet) which ended up with Chat Noir being put in the situation of having to decide which Ladybug he believes to be real.

Does he believe and hold onto Sentibug who returns the love he so desperately seeks in life or does he let go of his hopeful wish and accept the heartbreaking reality of once again not receiving his love in return from yet another person he holds so dear?

In "Ladybug" Adrien couldn't make that crushing decision yet (and don't clown in the replies about this, not only was the situation vastly different it's also a cruel thing to ask of Adrien) but as we are used from Miraculous by now, that episode was only the set up for future events.

What Adrien couldn't let himself believe about Ladybug and Sentibug he will have to FORCE himself to accept about his Father and Hawkmoth. Same set-up of the Sentimonster symbolising Adriens desperate and hopeful WISH what his loved one were vs the crushing, heart wrenching reality of what his loved ones actually ARE. Just that letting go of his wish for Ladybugs love didnt seem "necessary enough" for the mission to succeed so he just couldn't MAKE himself give her up whereas accepting and seeing that his father is Hawkmoth is going to be one of the most crucial sacrifices of the show, changing the game forever. So as horrible, cruel and soul shattering as this is, putting an end to his fathers villainous reign for the sake of the greater good is a reason worthy enough to force himself through his pain.Which brings us once again back to “The collector” (which seriously forshadows almost everything I love that episode), because there is ONE major aspect that episodes sets up like crazy

And that is:

And thats where we are heading now.

This entire time Adrien wanted his Father to behave more fatherly, spend more time with him and improve his explosive behavior but he always got disappointed over and over again. So how heartbreaking would it be if over the course of the second half of the season THIS would be the very reason why Adrien gets behind Gabriels secret? Because SentiGabe behaved too fatherly for Adrien to truly buy it in his heart and when forced to decide what he actually believes his father to be - like the fatherly Sentimonster or the villainous Hawkmoth - Adrien has to and WILL recognize and accept his fathers true nature and turn against him, as it has been set up for a LONG time now.

This season shit’s about to go DOWN!

#Miraculous #Miraculous Ladybug #Ml spoilers #Ml Theory #Ml season 4 #Episode: Gabriel Agreste #Adrien Agreste #Chat Noir #Gabriel Agreste #Hawkmoth #Agreste family drama #or tragedy #thats more like it #SentiGabe #I am so EXCITED for this episode!!!#Ml analysis

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renidrag · 3 years

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i read your analyses of riley (i love it) and i think you would be great at describing this, why do you think greta and riley fit so well together? is it bc ,in a way, greta helps riley to open up a little bit more and riley helps greta to come out of her shy bubble a little bit? what else? or is it something else?

I think their contrasting personalities somewhat tease out the best in each other as you’ve said definitely, but there’s also an element of them not necessarily making sense together at least on paper because they are so different. They don’t really have that much in common beyond their mummy issues, but I think what I’m most interested in with them and even just in queer relationships in general isn’t that kind of calculated attraction, and instead just this overwhelming feeling of rightness and calm and warmth and comfort and relief that comes with meeting certain people. It doesn’t make sense and I don’t even really think it’s nameable and it’s almost bewildering how it hits you right in the throat like you’re about to cry because you’ve finally found the someone that feels like home to you

I don’t think their whole story would be as joyful and painful as it is if it weren’t for that very base connection that goes beyond any kind of emotional compatibility or whatever, where they’re just so instinctually drawn to each other that even though they haven’t figured out how to be together yet they are always always seeking out each other’s eyes wherever and every time that gaze happens it feels just as intimate and gut-wrenching as if they were actually touching. They see each other, which is like a pretty simple idea but feels simultaneously like this big epic baroque melodramatic moulin rouge romance and also the quietest most agonising character play ever written. I read this clarice lispector quote today, ‘we recognise each other and call it love’ and it made me feel jennyslatescreaming.jpg

Even in ep 1 where they barely even know each other and have seemingly no reason to ever interact, Riley asks this blushing and stuttering Greta to her party and then finds her sitting there and she says ‘hey, there you are’ like she’s been looking for her forever, and then when Greta tries to get up and leave Riley reaches out and puts her hand on Greta like hearing whatever small thing she has to say is the most vital goal in her life right then. As a writer I’m so so jealous that somehow the writers have taken such simple dialogue (‘it wasn’t me not liking you’ I’m gonna jump off a cliff) and tiny moments of normal human interaction and made them feel so huge and operatic???

You know when a queer romance is good and you feel like you shouldn’t even be watching it because it’s the most tender and honest thing you’ve seen, so much so it’s almost embarrassing and you need to give them their privacy? Every time a new episode comes out I basically have to sit there and like bite my hand or pause the video for a bit to stop myself actually screaming cause it feels insane to me that I would even be watching this on a too big dusty tv in my lounge room. Anyway I don’t even think I really answered your question but what Riley and Greta make me feel is this passage in one of my favourite Siken poems (‘You Are Jeff’, much highlighted and abused and thrashed on tumblr in like 2010 but whatever it’s good):

#answered #anonymous #another 3am wall of text for y’all #maybe I should take some of this energy to my ACTUAL NOVEL #instead of just being hideously jealous that the character work and the plot in this #is like the most precise and razor sharp and lean narrative arc that I’ve ever witnessed #a short story should be like a knife they said #yeah well so should your favourite half hour queer teen dramedy #genera+ion #generation hbo #griley #luoreno #riley x greta #greta x riley #riley luo #greta moreno

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lesbianrobin · 3 years

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What do you think are the good and bad aspects of each season of ST?

ok 1. thank u for this question omg and 2. this answer may or may not be a mess, but either way it’s long (almost 7k words lmao) bc i’m insane, which is why it’s under a cut. it’s still by no means an exhaustive list but these are the things that just kinda came to mind.

also i realize you asked “good and bad” and i wrote this whole post as “strengths and weaknesses” which um. is not Exactly what you asked. but close enough <3 i also ended up including a lot of au ideas ksjdckmn bc like i personally hate when people say a certain plot or whatever was bad without suggesting anything that could have improved it yknow so whenever possible i tried to provide Some idea for fixing the issues i had with the show!!

season 1

strengths (this is probably gonna be the longest section but that’s because a lot of these strengths also apply to s2/s3 by default)

nostalgia and authenticity

this one’s pretty simple, but i think that season one did a good job of blending classic eighties media homages (such as the many many e.t./el parallels) with explicit pop culture references (such as mike’s yoda impression, mentions of the x-men, etc) to create a show that’s essentially dripping in early eighties nostalgia without it feeling too forced. before st, i think the most popular depiction of the eighties in mainstream media was that overly exaggerated neon scrunchie aesthetic from the mid to late eighties, and it was usually done in a comedic sense first and foremost. st took a different approach, instead focusing on the early eighties, a time that’s often ignored in favor of going either Full Seventies or Full Eighties, and i think that this choice likely resonated with adults who lived through the eighties and hadn’t yet seen something that felt quite so accurate to their own adolescence. a lot of young people who watched st were totally unfamiliar with this period of time, unfamiliar with books/movies like “stand by me” that st borrows from heavily, and i think st lent more seriousness to the eighties than most young people had experienced so far, and this was refreshing and interesting!

the use of dnd in the show is also quite genius in a way i’m not sure i can articulate?? it isn’t something Everyone would have played at the time, but it’s something that existed within a different context back in the eighties than it does today, and it really lent a sort of authenticity to the naming of the show’s sci-fi elements. like, of course these kids would name parallel dimensions and monsters and superpowers after these similar things in their favorite game! it just feels so real and it grounds st in our reality moreso than you might expect from the typical sci-fi or horror universe.

utilization of existing tropes

almost every single character in st clearly originates from some popular trope. the plot itself is riddled with classic eighties movie tropes. almost every single element of stranger things can be clearly traced back to some iconic eighties film or just to, like, overused horror/sci-fi/mystery/coming-of-age movie tropes in general. this might sound like a bad thing, but it really works in st’s favor! starting off with familiar tropes gives st the ability to easily create a lot of complexity and make a big impact by selectively deviating from those familiar, comfortable tropes!! while el’s whole plot, hopper’s character, etc, are all examples of this in action, i think the steve/nancy/jonathan plot is the greatest example. even from the start, the fact that good girl barb dies while nancy is off having sex with her asshole boyfriend is an incredibly thorough inversion of the most well-known horror movie trope in the book. how often do girls in horror movies have sex for the first time, walk home alone in the dark of night, and live to tell the tale? nancy and jonathan’s dynamic at first glance is a sort of classic “good girl meets boy from the wrong side of the tracks, discovers he’s actually got a heart of gold” thing, but instead of following this well-trodden path, st diverged. nancy is brash, impulsive, and at times downright insensitive. jonathan is angry, bitter, and actually a bit of a creep at first. while they have the capacity to emotionally connect and support one another, they can also bring out each other’s darker side, which is not what we’ve come to expect from that initial tropey dynamic.

in addition, steve, the popular rich asshole boyfriend, is actually... a human being! unlike the cartoonishly evil jocks that we’ve come to expect (especially from eighties movies), steve has complexity. despite his initial immaturity and selfishness, he’s also kind to barb, he backs off when nancy says no, he’s gentle and sweet when they sleep together, his first big Dick Move of the season is in defense of nancy, he realizes the error of his ways after the fight and does what he can to fix it, he’s worried about nancy when he sees that she’s hurt at jonathan’s house, and to top it all off, he ends up saving both nancy and jonathan’s lives when he could have just walked away, and the three of them all work together to fight the demogorgon. like... steve began as the most stereotypical character of all time, and by the end of the season, he had one of the most compelling and unique arcs among the whole cast!

finally, at the very end of the season, instead of dumping steve for jonathan as expected, nancy ends up getting back together with steve, and they’re both on friendly terms with jonathan. i realize that i just kinda. summarized s1. but my POINT is that i don’t think the dynamics between the monster hunting trio would be nearly as fun and interesting had the characters of nancy, steve, and jonathan not been set up to follow certain paths that we already had charted in our own heads. like, within the first couple episodes of s1, it’s pretty obvious that nancy and steve are gonna break up, nancy will get with jonathan, and steve will either die or go full evil or just never be seen again. like, duh! you’ve seen this story a million times! you know that’s how it’s gonna go! so, when the story DOESN’T go that way, the impact of each character’s arc and the relationship dynamics become stronger due to their unexpected complexity and authenticity.

distinct plotlines separated by age group

this one’s rather obvious, but the way that the adults in s1 were essentially in a conspiracy thriller while the teens were in a horror flick and the kids were in a sci fi power-of-friendship story and all three converged at the end... wow. brilliant showstopping etc. not only was it just really well done and unique, it also gave stranger things near-universal appeal. like, there’s genuinely something for pretty much everyone in season one!

casting

obviously this applies to every season sorta by default, but when i think about what made season one So successful, i always think about the cast, and not just winona ryder. yes, she’s absolutely amazing in the show and it’s very doubtful that st would be as big as it is today without her name being attached to it from the start!! however, i think the greatest determining factor in st’s success is the casting of the kids, particularly millie bobby brown. like... el is just absolutely incredible. she’s amazing. this has all been said many times before so i won’t harp on it, but millie and the other kids are all So talented and charismatic and i think their casting has been instrumental to the show’s success.

strong visuals

the way that multicolored christmas lights which have been around for decades are now kinda like. a Stranger Things thing. jesus christ. those lights are probably the biggest stroke of stylistic genius on the show.

atmosphere and setting

this is probably like. the least important one here for me sdjncdsc because i think s2 and s3 both had like Even Better atmospheres and shit but s1 was good too and it laid the groundwork!! i know a lot of people would have preferred st be set somewhere more Spooky with lots of fog or giant forests or whatnot, and while i do enjoy thinking about alternate st settings and how they might alter the vibe, i think hawkins indiana was a good choice. as the duffers have said, placing stranger things in a fictional town allows them more flexibility than if they’d gone with their original plan of using montauk, new york. besides that, i think the plainness and like... flatness... of small-town indiana just Works. like, the fact that hawkins is never really scary on the surface is a big part of the horror in the lab’s actions and their impact. hawkins isn’t somewhere that people just disappear all the time. it isn’t somewhere known for strange occurrences (prior to s1, that is). it isn’t somewhere shrouded in mist and secrecy. hawkins on its surface seems like the sort of place with no secrets and nothing to fear, and that’s the point! the lab is out in the open! it’s right there! everything is so close to the surface, yet so far out of the public eye, and i think that really works.

the byers family’s whole deal (specifically the joyce/jonathan dynamic)

this is going here bc i miss it so bad in s2 and s3. i’m not one of those people who believe The Byers Are The Whole Point of the show, because st is and always has been an ensemble, and el, hopper, and the wheelers are just as instrumental to the plot as the byers, but ANYWAY, i do think the byers were one of the most interesting aspects of s1. joyce’s difficulties with supporting her sons as a poor and (implied mentally ill) single mother, jonathan’s stress as a result of having to earn money, care for his brother, and keep the house in order when his mother is unable to do so, and the resulting tension between them when will’s disappearance and supposed “death” brings the situation to a tipping point? holy shit! it’s so good! that argument after they see will’s “body” is just incredible and gut-wrenching. their relationship feels so real and messy and i think it’s just... good. also winona ryder REALLY acted her heart out and she carried a lot of s1 which i think people often forget to mention so i’m saying it here.

weaknesses

pacing/timing

ok so pacing is probably going to go in each season’s weaknesses, to be honest, because i think they all had a blend of some good and some bad pacing. good pacing is invisible pacing, though, so i probably won’t be putting it in any of the strengths sections and will only be focusing on it in the weaknesses. i’m also probably not going to talk about weird day/night cycle things, just because i don’t want to get nitpicky on timelines because that would require going back and rewatching things to double check timing which i don’t wanna do at the moment lmao. anyway, when i think of bad pacing in season one, i primarily think of two things: nancy’s little trip into the upside down and subsequent sleepover with jonathan, and the sort of staggered nature of the climax in the final episode. the latter is simple so i’ll explain it first: while i understand that each group’s respective climax is like part of a chain reaction and that’s why each big moment happens separately and at different times, i think that st is strongest when the whole group is together, and i think that makes the stakes feel higher too, so i’m not In Love with the way s1 separated everyone and gave each group their own climax.

okay, now on to the nancy/upside down thing! idk if i’ve ever talked about it before, but i think the worst decision made in s1 by far is the inclusion of nancy’s brief trip into the upside down, wherein she dives headfirst into another dimension with absolutely no backup, watches the demogorgon chow down, freaks out and runs around for a minute, and then leaves. like... what the fuck? even putting aside what an idiotic decision this was (because i do think nancy’s tendency to rush into things headfirst is an intentional and consistent character trait), it just kind of destroys any remaining suspense surrounding the demogorgon and the upside down, and it accomplishes basically nothing besides scaring nancy enough to have jonathan sleep over, which is lame. i will break it down.

like, first of all, nancy just getting to waltz in and out of the upside down and get a good, long look at the demogorgon makes the entire thing far less mysterious, and by extension far less scary. like... before this scene, we the audience haven’t got a good look at the demogorgon. we’ve seen its silhouette briefly and we’ve seen a blurry picture of it, but nothing more, and i think that is far more effective at building fear than this jaunt nancy goes on which gives us a full view of the thing and makes it into less of a horrifying nightmare and into more of a humanoid animal. like, maybe this is just me, but i found the demogorgon far less intimidating after that scene than before. it also lets nancy and jonathan know For Sure that they’re right without providing any crucial information that they need to fight the demogorgon (aka it’s unnecessary to the plot), which removes a very compelling story element (the faith nancy and jonathan need to have in order to keep going against a vague and poorly understood enemy, the doubt they might have about each other and their own sanity, the possibility that they might be wrong, the trust they need to have in each other) a bit earlier in the plot than i believe is ideal. at the end of episode 5, nancy goes into the upside down and jonathan doesn’t know where she is and it’s intense!!! you’re thinking like, oh fuck, not only is nancy missing and fighting for her life now too, jonathan might be implicated in her disappearance!! some people already think he’s the one who killed will and people know that he took creepy pictures of barb and nancy before they both disappeared, maybe this is gonna cause some serious problems for him!! maybe nancy will find will in the upside down and she’ll help him survive!! fuck, maybe she’ll actually die!! this is huge!! and then episode 6 starts and they’re immediately like oh nevermind jonathan found the tree and got nancy out and she’s fine. my point with all of this is that nancy entering the upside down could have done A Lot in the grand scheme of the plot, but all it did was just... get jonathan to sleep over so he and nancy could have some awkward romance moments and steve could see them together and pick a fight. which could have honestly happened at Any point while nancy and jonathan were working together to hunt down the demogorgon, without ruining the demogorgon’s and the upside down’s mystique. so yeah <3

weird behavior and dumbass decisions that make no sense (aka the whole camera thing)

gonna go off about the teen plot again sorry but: why was nancy so unbothered and quick to forgive jonathan for taking those pictures? girl what the fuck are you doing? why wasn’t that a bigger deal? why was jonathan’s motivation for doing it so weak and why did they just kind of forget about the whole thing? why did nancy TRACK HIM DOWN AT THE FUNERAL HOME while he was PICKING OUT HIS BABY BROTHER’S CASKET to be like hey can you tell me what’s in this creepshot you took? it’s insane. it’s so insane. i mean i think the funeral home thing is hilarious and i don’t mind it being in the show necessarily but like my point here is that i think a lot of character decisions in s1 just kind of.. happened because they Needed to happen for the plot. like, they wrote this plot that required jonathan to be secretly taking pictures of the party and required him and nancy to work together after seeing something odd in the pictures, but they didn’t like... really consider what that event would mean for their characterization and relationship. the whole thing was sort of just dropped with minimal discussion and i think it did both nancy and jonathan’s characters a disservice and was really mishandled.

lighting and saturation/color grading

i am literally begging horror/sci-fi shows to let me see shit. i GET IT okay i understand that when you’re doing cgi effects it helps to keep the lights down and i’m not mad at any of the lighting in the demogorgon/upside down scenes!! i’m really not i think the demogorgon scenes in s1 all look sick!! but like... dude. the colors. where are they. why does everyone look like a vampire. i know blah blah this was probably an intentional stylistic choice intended to mimic film at the time blah blah but dude a lot of old movies are very colorful!! please just let people have color in their faces so everyone doesn’t look like a sheet of paper!!! also i’m white and not a professional lighting designer so yknow grain of salt but i think lucas was kinda poorly served by the lighting sometimes in s1. not Hugely so, not to the degree that i’ve seen poc be poorly served by lighting in other shows, but there were some times where it felt kinda like the lighting setup was just not designed with darker skin in mind.

horror

i just personally don’t find s1 very scary like... ever. i don’t think they were really Trying to be extremely scary yknow so i’m not counting this as a big deal, but i do think that each season has improved on the horror aspects. i think s1′s horror lies more in the mystery and the unknown than in what’s seen onscreen, and as i’ve said already, i think s1 kind of fumbled that suspense ball.

season 2

strengths

the possession plot

i’ll warn u rn this whole s2 strengths section is probably gonna be really short bc idk like. how much there is to really say i feel like it’s all so self-explanatory skjncmn. anyway yeah the possession plot!! eerie as fuck, and noah OWNED. so did winona tbh and finn and sean etc but like. noah. wow! i think the possession plot helped the show maintain a good amount of tension and suspense throughout the season, and a lot of scenes with possessed!will are flatout disturbing to watch. in a good way. i think the mindflayer and will’s possession were far more genuinely frightening than s1′s demogorgon, and it provided a new layer of depth and intrigue to the antagonist besides just “bad monster want eat people.”

tone and aesthetics

halloween season... literally halloween season. halloween season. that is all.

actually i will elaborate a bit and just say that i think s2 did a good job of having the sort of foreboding vibe that s1 was often going for, but without the annoying darkness and desaturation. so points for that.

also st2 is like one of the best Autumn pieces of media ever like it just. like steve and dustin on those train tracks with the fallen leaves all around them.... god. god the vibes are unparalleled. all of the halloween stuff also really contributes to the nostalgia st runs on yknow it makes you think about childhood and trick-or-treating and you kind of get transported like damn... i remember going to the rich neighborhoods to score the good candy..... idk i just think the whole thing is incredibly effective.

“babysitter” steve

by sending nancy and jonathan off together, the show created a problem: what to do with steve? this problem pushed them to create the unconventional and unexpected duo of steve and dustin, and the world is so much brighter for it. seriously though we all know steve and dustin are great i don’t need to argue that point. all i’ll add is that i think allowing steve to grow in this way, serving as a mentor figure and becoming genuine friends with someone so unexpected, really took the originality of his character to the next level. no longer content just to defy his archetype, in s2 steve begins branching out in ways that never would have been considered in s1, creating an incredibly complex and interesting person from the sort of character that most shows would have simply written out or killed off for convenience’s sake. and it works and steve and dustin are such a joy to watch and i love them. <3

the lucas/max plot

so first of all max mayfield is the most perfect baby girl on god’s green earth and idk what i would do without her but anyway. i think lumax is the best romantic relationship in the show and not just because they’re the only ones with like an age-appropriate approach to the whole thing. it’s also because their relationship accomplishes more than just putting the two of them in a relationship!! lucas and max spending time together motivates billy to do his evil shit, providing more conflict in the narrative, and it also helps establish max as part of the group in a relatively natural way while giving both her and lucas a great subplot. lucas (and dustin) has a crush on the new girl, they start spending some time together, and lucas ends up needing to decide whether he’ll keep the secret of the upside down and lose her, or risk both of their lives by telling her the truth. that’s a pretty big, character-defining decision that he gets to make!! max has to choose whether to trust this boy she barely knows and endanger herself, or to walk away and stay safe, yet another great character-defining choice that also contributes to the sense we get as an audience of max as somebody who’s incredibly lonely and desperate for love and connection. this post is way too long already and i have a ton more to say so i’ll stop now but yeah i think lumax really Works in the show without ever distracting or detracting from the overall plot and narrative in the way that some other ships (coughjancycough) often do.

balance between the normal and abnormal

s2 i think did a pretty solid job of melding daily life with more fantastical sci-fi horror elements. i enjoyed seeing so much of the kids at school in the first few episodes!! you really get a strong sense of where they’re at in life, what their daily lives are like, and you get a sort of gradual shift into madness that makes everything feel more grounded than i think it would if they had just leapt straight into the horror shit, yknow?

the el and hopper dynamic

go back and rewatch s2 and tell me that’s not one of the most moving portrayals of parenthood and trauma and growing up that you’ve ever seen. you can’t. or well you can but i won’t listen. i really can’t imagine stranger things without el and hopper’s relationship, and it’s my absolute favorite part of s2. their whole dynamic is so beautiful and complex, and gives them each amazing personal arcs in addition! the black hole scene is literally one of the show’s greatest moments of all time. any given scene between the two of them in s2 is just guaranteed to be heartwarming as well as heartbreaking, and i think that makes for an incredible show.

weaknesses

flashbacks

okay this applies to Every season they All have too many flashbacks but in s2 specifically... please stop showing me shit from season one. i watched it. i know what happened. you don’t need to spoon feed everything to me!! flashbacks can be a really helpful way of delivering information to an audience, but st has a bad habit of not only being kinda demeaning in how often they flash back to shit that the audience already knows, but they also have a bad habit of using flashbacks almost as a crutch to avoid having to deliver information subtly and naturally.

you know i gotta say it... the lost sister

this is so sad. the lost sister really is like a great concept for an st episode, and i’m not mad about the idea of st taking a break from the normal action to focus on one story for a full episode, but the execution of it was just dreadful. kali and her crew feel very over-the-top and stereotypical, and its placement in the season totally kills the tension and excitement that was built in “the spy.”

i think the lost sister honestly could have gone over far better, even with the stereotypical fake-feeling gang kali has, if they had just swapped it with “the spy” like... ok, the end of episode five has el setting off to find kali and will collapsing on the ground seizing. right? imagine if, instead of immediately following will to the lab, we’d followed el. we don’t know what’s happening with will, but it’s a very simple cliffhanger that leaves us on edge without making us feel cheated by the show cutting away. we follow el on her little journey, everything happens much the same as canon, and then at the end, el sees hopper in scrubs. she sees mike, screaming, sees that they’re both in danger. holy shit!!! what the fuck!!! what’s happened since we left will seizing on the ground??? we feel el’s fear and confusion. she decides to go home. and then... boom. “the lost sister” is over. now, we rewind, right back to will seizing on the ground, and “the spy” commences. we learn how they got into the danger that el saw in the end of “the lost sister,” and we sit on the edge of our seats all through “the spy” and “the mind flayer,” KNOWING that el is on her way back to save them but not knowing when she’ll arrive!! idk i don’t think that would have necessarily saved lost sister but i think it may have alleviated some of the issues that i and many others have with it, timing-wise.

the nancy/jonathan sidequest

once again, the idea of nancy going off on her own little mission to find justice for barb after s1 is like. amazing. genuinely i love that plot for her and i can’t imagine anything better for her to have focused on in s2. unfortunately though i think her and jonathan’s little trip to see murray was just kind of... lame. the whole thing just felt like an excuse to get the two of them alone together, yknow? which is fine i guess people contrive all sorts of situations to get characters alone together for romance reasons but in this case i think it just really doesn’t work for me because of what it’s juxtaposed with. like, will is POSSESSED, and jonathan is just off on a mini road trip and sleeping with his bestie, and jonathan never seems to communicate to joyce/will that he left town, and joyce never like... thinks to tell him that will is like sick and fucked up and they’re looking at him in the lab??? like it’s so weird i know joyce always forgets about jonathan when shit’s happening with will but jfc you’d think at some point in that like... 72-ish-hour period where jonathan was out of town she would have thought about him. like at least once. maybe i’m forgetting something and she mentioned him sometime and i missed it but even still, i hate the juxtaposition of nancy and jonathan just like cheers-ing at murray’s place and sleeping together and whatnot while everyone else is dealing with possession or trying to hunt down dart yknow? it feels really boring in comparison and i think it could have been done far better. like it was SO insanely easy for them to get into the lab and get an admission of guilt and escape with it!! i think it might have been a lot more engaging if maybe someone from the lab tailed them to murray’s place and they had to like lose the tail and race to get the recording out to as many news outlets as possible before they got caught, or something like that. the tension in their plotline is completely resolved in episode four!! episodes five and six are just them screwing around and addressing envelopes. while there were a lot of strong ideas in this plotline (i really enjoy nancy going out of her way to get justice, and the fact that they have to water down the story to make it believable), i just think the focus on nancy and jonathan getting together hindered it a lot without adding a ton to the plot or their individual characters.

season 3

strengths

starcourt mall as a setting

while i don’t think the mall was utilized quite to its full potential (something i could make a separate post about if anyone’s interested), i do think that starcourt was a genius addition to the series. i’ve said this before, but building a new mall is a literal Perfect in-universe justification for a significant leap forward in fashion and aesthetics, and it provides a great location for characters to just... be characters. idk how else to articulate this i just think that the mall is a great setting to let people interact with each other and to bring people together who may not have been otherwise (i.e. scoops troop). not to mention how sick it was to see the mall get wrecked toward the end kdjncdkm like they were able to do so much more with the mall in terms of like The Finale than they could with just the byers house or the cabin or the school or even the lab. i love all the back tunnels they run through it’s such a fun like acknowledgement of how this glitzy eighties mall is just a real place where employees get shipments and take out the trash and shit idk it’s all about the perfect facade and what’s hidden what’s underneath what’s hiding in plain sight etc etc i’m just saying words now. anyway.

willingness to experiment and go against expectations

gay robin. neon aesthetics. giant fucking meat monster. i know some people hate both the neon and the meat monster but i personally think they were kind of amazing and like. yknow regardless of personal tastes i think it’s impossible to deny that s3 had a lot of incredible visuals, and they’re all visuals that just wouldn’t have been possible if the show were too afraid to stray from its s1 aesthetic. robin being canonically gay (and her resulting friendship with steve) and the season’s striking visuals are two things that most everyone (besides like homophobes skjncdknm) can agree were great, right? and they were both departures from where the show began and what we all expected!! so yeah i think while some of the experimentation in s3 wasn’t ideal it was also that experimentation that allowed for some of the season’s strongest elements to come about.

the hospital sequence (and the season’s action/horror scenes in general)

this one is fairly self-explanatory. while they may have underutilized the “body snatching” element of the season, the hospital sequence with nancy and jonathan fighting off their possessed bosses did an amazing job of building tension and creating a genuine sense of really intense and personal danger.

in general i think that s3 melded action and horror rather well, particularly in the sauna test, the hospital, and when the mindflayer busts through the roof of hop’s cabin. horror can come from many things, and in this case, st elicited horror largely from the feeling of helplessness, and it was really effective for me personally. i think it worked better for me than s1′s brand of horror because it doesn’t rely so much on a lack of knowledge or a sense of suspense that inevitable disappears upon a second viewing.

the body horror we got in s3 was also really fun! that’s it i just think all the blood and guts and slime were fun and i would like more of them. once again, the impacts of body horror are less dependent upon the viewer being in the dark or unsure as to what’s happening, and as such i think it tends to be a little more effective at eliciting reaction in the long term.

timing and mechanics of the battle of starcourt/finale

i think the battle of starcourt is just fucking awesome, and beyond that personal opinion, i think it’s the most high-stakes and intense finale of all three seasons, and this is for two main reasons! 1. el is out of commission, and 2. (almost) everyone is in the same cental location. this means that (almost) everyone is in danger all at once, and they are all working together at the same time to fight the same threat. s1/s2 have their groups more fragmented for the finales, and while i understand why in each case and i wouldn’t call either season’s finale necessarily weak, i do think the centralized nature of the s3 finale just Works on another level. in s1 and s2, large segments of the cast are already perfectly safe by the time el dispatches the primary threat. in s3, however, everybody save for dustin and erica is still in danger up until the last moment, and el is seemingly (you can def debate how much power she still had in her when she peeked into billy’s mind and whether the memory broke the mindflayer’s hold on him or if she was actually controlling him to some degree) completely vulnerable. this increases the tension and raises the stakes, making the finale a real crescendo to fortissimo as opposed to a series of little mezzo forte moments. i hope everyone reading this knows music idk how else to phrase that my brain is stupid.

emphasis on friendship and adolescence (but in a different way than s1/2)

this is definitely a controversial one but i think that s3 really did like... show a side of friendship that had been more or less unexplored thus far in the show. el and max were amazing, and i think it’s really nice that we got an opportunity to see the kids have some growing pains as well as see them support each other through Normal Adolescent Stuff like boyfriends and breakups instead of just like. death and trauma. this is maybe just a personal preference, but i think it can be really enlightening and provide a lot of depth when you get to see how characters respond to normal everyday conflict and not just how they respond to giant world-ending conflict!! letting el use her powers for goofy teenage shit like spying on boys and messing with mean girls at the mall is not only fun for her and the audience, but it also really emphasizes just how much those powers are a part of el, making it that much more devastating when she loses them at the end of the season.

weaknesses

tonal dissonance

so this is like. obvious. but it must still be said! i won’t go on and on about it since we all know this so i’ll try to like talk about it from an angle people don’t usually? anyway. it seems to me like they were maybe a little worried about s3 being too dark. while the choice to really lean into humor was definitely driven by the sorts of eighties teen films from which s3 drew inspiration (like fast times at ridgemont high), i think it was also done in an attempt to alleviate the more troubling implications of some events in the season, particularly the russian bunker plot. like, yeah, st can be incredibly dark, but if they’d played the whole “children being stuck inside of a foreign military base, tied up, tortured, and drugged” thing completely straight without the humorous elements that exist in canon, it had the potential to be like... disturbing on a new level. steve and robin don’t have powers like el yknow their kidnapping/torture doesn’t have any sci-fi elements to sorta soften the blow. they’re just innocent teenagers being brutalized and traumatized by grown men. so anyway yeah i think maybe the writers were concerned about this storyline coming off as too dark and they wanted it to be a little more whimsical but they ended up pushing way too hard in that direction and creating extreme dissonance at times. this goes for joyce/hopper/murray/alexei too, but to a lesser extent. i think the ridiculousness in that group felt a lot more like... realistic. but still.

newspaper plot

once again i feel like i don’t even need to say this skjdncmn we all know it was insane how the show basically ended up delivering the message “while misogyny is a serious problem poverty and classism are not” and i’ve said it on this blog a million times so i don’t need to repeat myself. i’ll focus on another weak point of this plot: the fact that it completely separates nancy and jonathan from everyone else. once again, the show’s preoccupation with j/ancy held them back! like... can you imagine a version of s3 where nancy and jonathan both worked in the mall? i have a lot of ideas about this possible au and like how the plot could play out differently if they worked in the mall but first of all it’s just more realistic, second of all it further utilizes the mall as a central setting, and third of all, it would bring everyone together. as it is in canon, nancy and jonathan were unnecessarily isolated from the rest of the group, and this isolation was detrimental to both of their characters. like, they only ever get to interact with each other! if they’d gotten summer jobs in the mall, they could have had more interactions with the kids/steve/robin, and they absolutely still could have had a similar argument! maybe in this case, nancy notices the rat thing (or something else odd) herself when taking out the trash behind the mall, and she wants jonathan to ditch work with her to check it out bc she thinks it may be related to the lab. jonathan doesn’t want to ditch work because he needs his job, nancy argues that they’re working shitty mall jobs anyway and who cares if they get fired, and we get more or less the same thing as s3 without the cartoonishly over-the-top misogyny. i mean honestly i think the rat shit could have been cut entirely it didn’t rly... accomplish much of anything. in my opinion. like imagine s3 without the rat plot you literally would not be missing anything except it would be more surprising when the dudes melted into goo at the hospital. so yeah i think it would have been better if nancy and jonathan had jobs at the mall, weren’t isolated from everybody else, and were maybe absorbed into the party’s plot or the scoops troop’s plot from very early on, allowing them to interact with more characters and have a less... dumb.... plot. like god splitting up nancy and jonathan between the party/scoops troop would have been So Much better i just. sdkjcnksdmn anyway yeah.

briefness of group reunion/separation of groups

remember in s2 at the beginning of “the gate,” where mike and hopper had a confrontation and max and el met for the first time and el hugged everyone and steve and nancy had their sad little moment together outside... where’s that energy? obviously the s2 reunion wasn’t that long either, but it made space for some significant emotional moments to take place. s3′s reunion had some hopper/el/mike resolution, but besides that... there was nothing, really. i just think that the whole group getting together in s3 was SO exciting and powerful the way they did it (with both the scoops troop and the adults having their own Big Moment reconnecting with team griswold family), but the emotional potential was more or less squandered.

i also think in s3 at times they were really stretching to keep everybody separated even though it made no sense. and like... in s1 the separation worked bc nobody else knew that (x group) was experiencing weird shit too, and beyond that, each group (as i mentioned in the s1 section) was sort of operating within their own genre and bringing something unique to the season. they’ve stopped doing that though! now, the groups aren’t separate bc each plot is tonally/structurally different, the groups are just separate bc... they need to be, because it’s a big ensemble cast and you can’t just have them all be together for a whole season or it would be way too difficult to coordinate things and keep the show dynamic. all this is to say that i’m excited for s4 because the location differences make it so there’s a Reason for each plot to be separate at the beginning, and i think that’ll work better.

general ridiculousness

i dont mean like i think it’s bad that they made jokes this is just me lumping in all the dumb shit like hopper not worrying about el and not wanting to check on the kids, him and joyce bickering long after they both know they and their children are in danger, max seemingly forgetting that billy is a racist abuser, etc etc. i think many of these are just a symptom of the show 1. trying desperately to keep the groups split up a certain way even though it may not make any sense, and 2. trying to fit into a certain genre/trope mold when their actual characters are more complex than the tropes they’re imitating. this is so fucking long already i am not gonna elaborate further rn but i trust u all know what i mean.

soooo... yeah, that’s about all! i mean it’s not all there are definitely many more things i could talk about and i know i focused sorta disproportionately on the teens which is my bad :/ but i’m done for now. thank you for asking, and apologies for the delay in responding!! i’m sure some people reading (if anyone read this far) will disagree with some of what i’ve said and that’s alright like i’m not The Authority on st or anything i’m just trying to talk about like my own thoughts yknow? so yeah luv u all i hope someone enjoyed reading this!!

#asks #em talks #lesbianrobin.canon #stranger things #if u actually read all this i love u and im sorry #these r just my opinions!! and im sure i misremembered some shit my brain is swiss cheese #i did my best tho

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andie-cake · 3 years

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My internet crapped out so I couldn't watch the talkback, so here's my Yellow Jacket thoughts babeyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!

So the Yellow Jacket song is a banger, and I love seeing Angela be fucking unhinged.

Right, so Lauren as Hannah? My main concern heading in is that Lauren!Hannah would kinda lose that authentic appeal of Kendall!Hannah, but I was wrong to doubt Lauren bc she Knows what she's doing. She pulls the role off very well, and she makes for a very endearing Hannah. I think I do still prefer Kendall in the role, but Lauren was a good understudy choice!

Tom cameo <3 out here being a Dad <33 love this man <333

God, this is like the first time we've gotten an in-depth look at what getting visions is like for Hannah. Freaky as hell, the editing was wild, dude.

Poor Lex, seeing her freak out so much in the hospital was gut-wrenching :(

Joey as Ethan! He's got that goofy big brother energy down pat, the hair's a good vibe for Ethan, and he's more Italian than ever. In short, good understudy!

K so since I haven't had much of an opinion on Lexthan as a ship as of late, that first scene had me a bit iffy. Lex tossing the wrench was a bit much, that had me worried for a bit. But just about every other interaction between Lex and Ethan made up for it, you can tell that they care about each other and Hannah a lot. Ethan especially, he clearly just wants what's best for this little family, and it's nice! So there's my renewed opinion on Lexthan, flawed but nice!

WEBBYYYYYYYYYY!!!! God, seeing her trying to cheer Hannah up with this fuckin' Genie from Aladdin malarkey was a delight, I'm glad she gets to be fun and nice. Like that whole bit had me grinning like a dope, so it made the following argument all the more sad.

There was something about Hannah having the little birthday girl crown on her head all throughout the Pizza Pete's scene that was very funny to me. Also goofy big brother Ethan peaked in this scene.

WEE-WOO, WEE-WOO, WEE-WOO-

Eddie Chiplucky sounded exactly what I imagined he would sound like, thank you once again Curt for my rights.

The fight between Stopwatch and Spitfire was top notch, what a cool scene. I'll get to them as characters in a sec.

Lex is trying so hard for Hannah, my heart is killing me-

"I caught you a Pokey-mannnn"

Okay, so Stopwatch? First of all, his name being Daniel is yet another instance of Hatchetfield's aversion of the One Steve Limit trope. Second of all, what a sweetheart, I love him. Absolute cutie. I'm glad Hannah gets to have a friend <3

I IMMEDIATELY GREW SUS AT THE MIND MILK BEING BLUE, AND MY SUS-NESS WAS JUSTIFIED. WAS NOT ACTUALLY EXPECTING POKEY TO APPEAR IN THIS SEASON, BUT BOI THERE HE IS AND HE SCARY

Hannah's match with Spitfire/Sophie? mM, good shit. Seeing Hannah fucking Snap with her powers was such A Moment, and her noticing Pokey? Horrifying!

GOD HANNAH GETS TO HAVE FUN FRIENDS WHO HAVE POWERS LIKE HER, YOU GO SWEETIE <33333 I better see some fuckign art of Hannah, Daniel, and Sophie being Besties together soon. Just wish that Jaime and Jae's characters had been named, we could've had a quintuple of Fun Friends

Also Use It or Lose It is p fuckin neato. I don't remember the song too well, brain's kinda all over the place atm, but the video was trippy as hell.

Man, it is so nice to see the CaliforMIA trio being happy, if only for a bit. It's sweet <3

Y'all, the REVELATION that Lex used to see Webby was UNPARALLELED.

Right so glad I wasn't the only one thinking "oh god, has Pokotho's nickname actually been Otho all this time like he and the other Lords in Black were the fucking ghosts from Pac-Man?" for most of the episode. Very glad they called him Pokey later, bc that would've been Devastating.

Charles/Chuck/Charlie is like the perfect mix between Wiley and the Watcher World Barker, what a bastard man.

"BACK IT UP, BITCH"

God, Ethan trying to work up the nerve to propose to Lex is just aUGH, my heart-

Right so Otho? Terrifying. Watching him just fucking assimilate poor Sophie while Hannah can't do anything to stop him was just,,, aaaaaaAAAAAAAA. And Hannah only wanting to fight him to save her friend? OOF, this episode is just fuckin' me up at every turn.

Hannah's fucking Power Yell at the beginning of her match with Otho is the only thing I care about now, like okay, go off kiddo!

Lex's vision of all the Pokey's was so fucking CREEPY, and Webby calling out to her? Flawless, loved it.

All the TGWDLM background arrangements in this story were incredible, I was getting so pumped every time one showed up.

Once again, Lauren's excellent Horror Movie Scream™ comes through, if on a lesser scale this time.

LOCAL BEST OLDER SISTER EVER BLOWS UP AN ELDRITCH BOY'S HEAD TO SAVE HER SISTER, MORE AT 11

Ethan coming THROUGH, like he rly said "hurt my girls and you fucking Die, bitch", love that for him.

What an insanely melancholy ending, holy shit. Lex and Hannah needing to go on the run, Ethan not getting to propose and being left alone, Lex's note, the overall mood of it all? Fucking OUCH.

Next Time was just,,, such a lovely song, you guys,,, damn,,, idk what else to say, it just made me feel A Lot Of Things,,,

What a season! It's been an absolute blast, I gotta say. I'm still not sure how I'd rank the episodes (especially since I forgot to rewatch ep 3 before my ticket wore off, whoops), but still, what a banger of a season. I'm so happy, and I can't wait to see what comes next for this series.

#hatchetfield #nightmare time #nightmare time spoilers

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razberryyum · 4 years

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Scumbag System (SVSSS donghua) Episode 10 Thoughts (spoilers)

(covers SVSSS chaps 24 - 26, BC Novels Translations)

And thus the first season of the SVSSS donghua comes to an end...rather weirdly abruptly to be honest, but more on that later. Obviously I love the donghua. It was not perfect, but it still exceeded my expectations. I truly appreciate what they were able to do within their budget constraints and I think they captured the spirit of the source material perfectly, which is really all I hope for when it comes to adaptations. The writing was strong, the humor hit the spot always (for example, when poor Shizun got motion sickness from sword riding, I guffawed), and they also gave us some of the most beautiful characters I’ve ever seen on screen, especially with Shen Qingqiu, Luo Binghe and Liu Qingge. I really, really hope they release official figurines for them. I’m going to start saving my money now just for that possibility.

Even though their time together in this episode was short, the BingQiu love was definitely strong. They gave them a combo move that was not in the source material: for someone like me who grew up watching Cantonese dramas, two characters who have a combo sword move (”雙劍合璧”!) are usually a couple so I was especially tickled by this addition. I am always thankful to the donghua team for the little Easter Eggs they give us for BingQiu, like the way Binghe's eyes lit up when he sees SQQ...

or when SQQ touches him...

Once again, for those not in the know, it can easily be interpreted as a disciple just being devoted and filial to his Shizun. But for those of us who have read the novel, of course we know it’s indication of Bingmei falling in love with SQQ. I love how subtle yet significant these little expressions of Binghe’s are, and I hope they continue on with these little touches even in the next season.

Of course then there are the more obvious gestures, like that HUG:

It lasted for a good 15 seconds and oh my God look at the Binghe’s hand placement! There was totally nipple groppage happening there! This wasn’t in the book by the way...SQQ didn’t get woozy and Binghe most definitely didn’t have to catch him like some fainting damsel, so we have the donghua team to thank for this wonderful moment of (sexy) physical contact between the two of them.

The donghua team was also especially generous in this episode since not only did we get some BingQiu love, but we got a pinch of LiuShen and QiJiu love too.

LQG’s eyes were on SQQ the entire time! And then Yue Qingyuan as usual took any opportunity he got to touch his Qingqiu. So all shippers were fed. Hell, they even threw in some more straight-baiting again so peeps who are watching the show for the “straight” romance between Luo Binghe and his never-to-be-future-wife Qin Wanyue were fed too since the scene where Binghe gives her the handkerchief to wipe away her tears were not in the chapters of the book for this episode, and racking my brain I don’t even think it was in the book, period. I’m trying to remember if that handkerchief even holds any significance but even if it does, it’s all for naught since we know Qin Wanyue is at most just a minor side character. She does pop up again later on but then is mostly forgotten, so...not quite sure what that moment was all about other than to, I don’t know, throw off the censors?

I’m also not sure why we spent so much time with Liu Mingyan and Gongyi Xiao in this episode. Nothing against them personally, I like both characters very much (despite my previous complaints about GYX’s character design), and it’s not that they don’t deserve more screen time, but this was the season finale! Even though the next season has been announced, God knows when we’ll see it next year and how many episodes it would be, so every minute of screen time matters! That’s why I was a bit puzzled that they used up half of the episode showing LMY basically facing the same perils with her group of fellow disciples as before and GYX just running from that huge serpent. Even if that thing DOES turn out to be Zhuzhi-lang, it was still a bit much. They weren’t exactly character building scenes either so...why? Budget reasons? Didn’t have enough money to pay SQQ’s voice actor (Wu Lei-laoshi) so they had to stick in miscellaneous scenes to lessen his screen time?

I’m kidding of course. God I hope that wasn’t the reason because that would just be sad.

Speaking of miscellaneous scenes though, what was going on with these two dudes?

I gotta admit, I’m a bit salty that these two mob characters got to do what our main couple can’t. What’s their story? Why do they get special privileges? Damn these nobodies. XD

All kidding aside, I have to say, of all the episodes this season, this might be the weakest one, not only because of the “filler” scenes, but also, the way the episode ended was so odd, especially for a season finale. The season basically ended on a scene transition. Not a cliffhanger, just a scene transition, and then cut to credits. What?? Why??? It’s almost as if they just ran out of time so had to stop the show all of a sudden. And then as if to make up for it, they added post-credit scenes which, honestly blew me away because it was so unexpected. It was indeed almost enough to make me completely forgive the weakness of the episode as a whole and that weird-ass ending.

I teared up! The scene was kind of chopped up, didn’t even flow that smoothly, but I still got emotional! I’m sure when I see this scene in its entirety next season I am just going to be destroyed. I think they made it even more gut-wrenching than it was in the novel. Looks like the donghua team really aren’t gonna hold back when it comes to delivering the BingQiu knives.

We also got to see Mobei-jun appear in the post-credits scene; I guess they had to stick him in there since he was featured in the poster for this season, so it would have been weird if he didn’t at least make an appearance.

I immediately thought of him as Sephiroth’s younger cousin when I first saw him on the poster and I still feel that way. Anyone related to Sephiroth, I will approve and instantly have affection for. For the MoShang shippers’ sake, I hope the Shang Qinghua they create for him will be just as pretty. I think I can now safely discard my guess from last time and also that moon-faced bearded ojisan others have guessed. We actually got a glimpse of the real deal in this sequence:

They strategically made him blurry so you can’t really make out his features, but what we still can tell from there is that he does not have facial hair (hence, he cannot be the ojisan) and the hair crown he’s wearing is silver and different from the twinky sect leader. So I guess we’ll be getting a fresh out of the microwave Airplane Bro instead of any of the no-name potential cannon fodder we’ve already seen.

We’ll probably get the abyss opening up in maybe even the first episode of next season but that’ll still leave a lot of ground to be covered in just 10 episodes (rumored). There haven’t been any talk about a third season, but I really hope it’ll happen, even though it might take them a while to make it. I know it’s premature to even think of a third season when we haven’t even gotten an actual release date for the second, but I’m greedy because I already miss the donghua. This season was over so quickly, I’m already mourning the lack of new episodes. I hope we get the second season in the first quarter of next year and then by some miracle, a third or even fourth to properly finish out the story. I know we will never get the FULL story, but as long as they keep the spirit of BingQiu’s love and continue to hint at it like they’ve been doing this season, I will be more than satisfied.

And while I’m wishful thinking for new seasons, I hope we also get a BingQiu duet and character songs. I love the opening and ending theme this season, if they want to save money I totally don’t mind if they just use the same OP/ED themes in the next season as well, but I hope they throw in a good BingQiu insert song and then release some individual character songs as well. I’m still not a fan of Binghe’s voice, but maybe they can have someone else do his vocals for the songs. SVSSS is the older son of MXTX’s works, I feel like it already got short-shrifted in terms of adaptation since it got the lesser budget compared to MDZS and TGCF. Hopefully with how popular the donghua is this season, it will be given a bigger budget next season so they can bring to life all the subsequent proceedings from the book properly. And whatever they’re paying Wu Lei-laoshi, SQQ’s voice actor, they should double it because that man is just amazing. I worship his voice and performance. I wish he would read the audiobook version of the the novel. I would listen to the hell out of that. I have always loved SQQ, but if I’m going to be honest, I came into the show just a little more excited about seeing Bingge being brought to life. I still love Binghe of course, in all his phases, however, now, because of Wu Lei-laoshi’s stellar voice performance (and of course SQQ’s beautiful looks), I’m leaving this season absolutely head over heels about SQQ/Shen Yuan. Also thanks to the show, I’m completely obsessed with Liu Qingge as well. So for those two reasons, I will eternally be grateful to the donghua team.

#SVSSS #Scumbag System #Scum Villain donghua #Scum Villain Self-saving System #BingQiu #LiuShen #QiJiu #MoShang

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magpiefngrl · 4 years

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For mao dao zu shi what would you take from the novel, drama and donghua and combine into a new show? Also have you read the manhua/comic

Hi!

I haven’t read the manhua yet, I think the English fan translations have been taken down. If anyone knows a place online to see the original, I’d appreciate a link; I don’t read Chinese but I know the story already and just want to feast my eyes on the pretty pics.

Now, to your question (and what an excellent question!):

For me, the drama did the best job in showing the character relationships. The creators leaned hard on all the character moments and if the plot didn’t quite hold together... *shrug*. Some of their changes were because of censorship (gay romance, zombies) but others because of this emphasis on relationships.

Which is why, in the drama, there is a stronger bond between wwx and his shijie that (irrc) isn’t quite there in the books. She’s in the Cloud Recesses with her brothers (unlike the novel), she’s there when they flee the massacre of the Lotus Pier (unlike the book). She’s present in more scenes and portrayed, very prominently and clearly, as a person wwx adores and as someone who’s openly affectionate and very, very fond of him. The impact of the battle in Nightless City is gut-wrenching, precisely bc of this change.

The drama also has a lot more interaction between lwj and wwx in his first life. In the novel, there’s no travelling around to find Yin Ti iron. We go from the interaction at Cloud Recesses (where wwx is kicked out early) to meeting after Burial Mounds. This doesn’t translate to a strong bond between the two, nor is it clear why lwj wants to help wwx so desperately. But in the drama it makes sense: they’ve gone on a mission together. They discovered a homicidal statue in a cave, killed the Wen Owl together, discovered the Chang Mansion and arrested Xue Yang, had drinks in a tavern with third-wheels jc and nhs. They’ve had all sorts of adventures and experiences together. Add the actors longingly glancing at each other, and lwj’s worry after Burial Mounds makes perfect sense. It’s also more heart-breaking to see wwx reject him the way he did.

I also like the change with wwx’s death. It tells me the producers took a good look at their material and said: “these are the two most crucial relationships in wwx’s life, his boyfriend and his brother”, and then wrote this scene where one is trying to kill him and the other trying to save him. They condensed the essence of these relationships and their arcs in a pivotal and highly cinematic scene. So kudos for that.

Other little elements that the show enhanced on: Wen Qing was a more prominent character; wwx saving Wen Ning in the lake created a debt which explained why Wen Ning would be so willing to risk his own life to help him save jc.

What I would remove from the drama is the cartoony evil of the Wens. A throne room with zombies in a stark palace surrounded by mountains of lava ruled by a man who’s on the brink of insanity? In the novel, they’re simply a very wealthy and powerful sect that decides to expand and take over the cultivation world. An imperialist royal house, if you will, which I prefer. Wwx is also a more grey character. His heretical path is stark and obvious: he’s resurrecting zombies to fight in his stead. He creates fierce corpses in the Blood Pool. He loses control of the Ghost General once when he kills Zixuan. Losing control is an actual consequence. Lwj is right to worry. Esp considering how wwx dies in the novel.

Whereas in the drama, he’s casting this super aesthetic black smoke (which I LOVE, don’t get me wrong) and manipulates resentful energy but it’s not as obvious as to why this is so frowned upon. But this change was because of censorship.

The donghua sticks close to novel canon. The design is stunning. Truly amazing visuals. They also have the same voice actors as CQL! It’s a great and fast way to familiarise oneself with the fandom bc there are only two seasons with a handful of short episodes that speed through the main bits of the story.

tl;dr:

What I’d take from the three is:

--from the drama: the emphasis on character relationships plus the way Wei Ying died.

--from the donghua: the awesome visuals (the slaughter of the turtle in the cave! magnificent!)

--from the novel: the more realistic depiction of the cultivation world and the grey morality of our necromantic flute boi. Edit to add: AND THE ENDING!! Would Lwj ever leave wwx’s side after 13/16 lonely years pining and missing him? NO, HE WOULDN’T! (yeah censorship, I know)

Thanks for the ask!

#the untamed #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #cql #inbox #i adore the series #and enjoyed the novel and the donghua #this isn't me hating on them #just cherry-picking the best from each

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rickybowxn · 4 years

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let’s talk about ricky bowen again

dude ep5 and ep6 has crushed me. the way that they are alluding to ricky’s mental health these two episodes is so incredibly loud in the most subtle ways. and not to mention so damn relatable.

ricky bowen is crying for help and comfort rn and it’s so sad and incredibly heartbreaking to watch.

episode 5 mostly set up the emotion derivative and complexity for all of ricky’s actions in episode 6 to be as angsty and as wonderful as they were so i’m just gonna be pretty straight to the point with this first half of the post. let’s take a closer look and start with episode 5:

watching this sucked. he’s growing up, and bottling up all of these feelings to be strong for his dad. i love that they establish ricky’s response to conflict and trials: as someone who wants to be there for everyone else, even though it’s pretty sad to watch. he passively states what’s going in his life but never really talks about it, throughout the next few scenes, we realise that he deals with his conflict by being there for everyone else and well... not dealing with his conflict. he literally grows up and as fucked up as it is, becomes the parent. it made my stomach twist and it was written really well. my poor baby boi.

in his next two scenes with gina, we see exactly what was established with his dad:

in the first gif, he states his conflict in passing and then flips it to gina to talk about what’s going on with her. i’ve said again and again that he’s rlly bad with explicit verbal communication and this is a great example of how he’s good at being a support system for literally everyone, but has such a hard time being kind to himself. he uses ‘it’s a whole thing’ as a fast and sure way to dismiss his issue as not worth talking about and instantly wants to make gina the focus. the writers really did well with establishing that.

this gina and ricky interaction was great. not only did it establish rina’s chemistry, it also gave us the setup to ricky’s actions in the next episode - this play is what’s keeping him afloat rn. the people, the lines, the rehearsals are effectively helping him stay grounded and not lose his mind. it’s rlly heartbreaking to see how much he’s actually hurting, especially because he explicitly doesn’t show it throughout this episode or the next.

(i plan to do a rina arc post as well, and i’ll save most of my thoughts on them for that, but while we’re here, the last two scenes we broke down really established this strong and substantial connection between the characters really well. the writers pushed past the ‘we’re both outsiders’ arc and really gave ricky and gina substance and common ground for a solid dynamic. their motives and actions are very similar, and that’s why they have such a good foundation for gina’s understanding of, and being there for ricky in ep6, as well as where-ever the writers decide to take them - i personally prefer friendship but i know that some of y’all are rina shippers and that’s also very much on the table and i’m rlly okay with either! as much as i want rini to be endgame, they have established such wonderful characters with such amazing arcs and i want all of them to be explored and the writers are doing good work with it rn).

and now let’s look at episode 6, where they drive that stake into our hearts further. this is ricky’s reaction to carlos breaking the ms. jenn news to everyone:

you can see him unwind. you can see his world fall apart bit by bit as the realisation hits. the established safe haven he has, doubling down as a distraction for everything going on in his life right now, is being torn from under his feet. it was personally one of the hardest and heartbreaking things to see this ep, it’s just constant angst with him oof.

but then, in the most ricky bowen fashion ever, he jumps right back to wanting to fight and keep trying, he stays despite everyone else leaving (starting with nini, and i’lll mention why that’s important in just a second). he puts aside all the anxiety he has if the play (at that point, most probably bound to end) falls apart and commits to fighting for it, clinging desperately to it:

and now as for everyone leaving, the writers used it as such a good way to establish how significantly important the play is for especially ricky, carlos and gina - the three people who stayed. as a side-note, carlos’s attachment to the play is established and developed later in the episode with the string of dialogue in big red’s basement, so i’m not gonna elaborate, it was way more explicit than ricky’s arc that led to the climatic monologue(ish) he delivered towards the end of that same scene.

for nini, the play is the path to her developing her self-confidence and maturity so she embraces it to grow (and she’s slowly rediscovering herself just generally), not to run away from the rest of her life, unlike ricky and gina:

like nini, the rest of the cast uses the play as an opportunity rather than a distraction, and that’s what sets ricky and gina apart from them. this made it easier from them to walk away and wallow in the possibility of the show ending (also that look ricky gave nini walking way *my heart shattered*). ricky (and gina) is established to clearly not have that same luxury. this scene sets up ricky and gina having the play as this tether that’s keeping them at bay from things that they should be dealing with (we don’t know about gina’s issues yet and i’m very ready and excited to cry about that angst by the way), so their instinct is to stay and try and fight for the play/keep practising.

the next scene explicates why this play means the most to ricky, and as with everything about his arc rn, it’s heart-wrenching:

he’s in complete denial of the only thing keeping him together rn falling apart. it is sad, heart-breaking and gut-wrenching. this angst is delivered with such fucking excellence by joshua bassett that i kinda wanna punch him lmao

and here’s where it hits home. gina realises the reality that they might not come back to the show and is ready to face it (instituted by her even asking the question in the first place), but ricky’s denial contrast that so heavily this scene. that denial is what establishes the play meaning the most to ricky. just by watching the scene, you can tell how he’s unravelling, trying not to let himself be overwhelmed by the possibility of it. it’s so fucking angsty ugh.

(another side note, as i said before, i’m probably gonna make another entire post about the gina/ricky arc but i had to mention this. after this exchange, her supporting him and taking his mind off of all of this by asking him to do something he loves and perform the acoustic version of ‘when there was me and you’, grounding ricky for a bit, was one of my most favourite things to watch this entire episode, even being primarily a rini shipper - they rlly sold them i can see their growing popularity as completely justified, they were hella cute this ep).

now this moment is where i felt like sobbing and reaching into the screen to hug him:

he finally opens up about it. why he’s so desperate to keep this play alive and why saving ms. jenn’s job is so incredibly important to him. and i loved that nini helped him say the words he needed to say. the look of relief when he was assured that he didn’t have to do any of this alone, just with nini finishing that sentence for him - that nini, gina, big red and everyone else was going to be there for him, and hear him out - fuck, it was beautiful!! it also encouraged him to take charge and chant ‘what team?’, he was ready to fight and everyone readying with him was so magnetic to see. it was also clearly therapeutic to him bc during, and after the final number, he looks genuinely happy, and we see him fully smiling/laughing more than the last 5eps combined.

he finally gets a win and it may not solve all his problems, but being one of the motivating factors in saving ms. jenn’s job through his vulnerability in this scene really gives him a leg up and i loved watching it. i hope they don’t dismiss everything he still has to continue to have to deal with (making this an all problem solving cure as sometimes disney does) but that aside, i’m so glad they had subtle continuity in furthering his character’s development these last two episodes even though he wasn’t a primary focus. it was subtle, nuanced and genuinely so complex and enjoyable to watch.

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emilypemily · 4 years

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one thing i really liked about the first episode of losing it on channel 4 (there has only been one episode) is that it presented this one girl’s autism diagnosis as a good thing

like, you’ve got this incredibly anxious, suicidal 11 year old girl who has panic attacks so bad that she seizures, and cannot understand herself and why she feels just so incredibly not like everyone else, and cannot understand what she is feeling, and its just gut wrenching, and then the CAMHs team she’s under were able to say ‘i think we are dealing with an a autistic child that has anxiety, and we can work with that’ was just really powerful.

and they were so clear to say that the autism wasn’t the problem, but it was the fact that she was undiagnosed, and once they could diagnose her they could adjust their care accordingly. and the parents were so quick to say that it was a relief, and the girl said it was a relief, bc now she knew why she was ‘different’, and it wasn’t that she was a bad person.

idk, there is so much scaremongering around autism and it gets treated as so alien and mysterious in a lot of documentaries that it was good to watch a documentary where an autism diagnosis is treated as a very good thing, and a relief. like ‘now that we know here you are coming from, it is easier to treat you for this other problem’.

i thought in general losing it was very good, and very empathetic, and not sensationalist. they also follow this one mother who suffered from postpartum psychosis and tried to kill her husband and baby (and herself) and the narration didn’t keep reminding us of that (often in mental health documentaries the narration will go on and on about the one ~crazy~ thing a person does), she brought it up on her own terms, and every time there was always a care professional or her husband there to say that she was very unwell, and it wasn’t her fault, and she wasn’t bad person,

and even though i did think louis theroux’s documentary on mother and baby units in psychiatric care (mothers on the edge? i can’t remember what it was called) was good, louis theroux would still get stuck on certain details, and fixate on certain things, which is understandable, but i think losing it does a much better job at letting the patients speak for themselves, with minimal, but empathetic narration (was surprised to see that it was thomas turgoose!)

this ended up being a lot longer than i expected. it’s a good documentary. there is a LOT of stuff at the moment around ~ending the stigma of mental health~ which is good, and i work for a charity that that’s a major aim, but sometimes i find it too vague and it’s all about ~starting conversation~ and asking ur mates if they’re all right, which again is good, but i think there needs to be more about ending stigma of specific mental illnesses, ending stigma of psychiatric hospitals and psychiatric care, more understanding of people in crisis, more empathy for people who have been sectioned, more stuff like this documentary.

i read one review that said the downside of the documentary is that it tackles the most severe cases, and i think i find that to be a strength? because that’s the stuff that we (society) won’t talk about. a comedian will do an insightful and relatable bit on their anxiety/depression but will still make schizophrenia a punchline. not that i’m pointing fingers. (i am.).

but there is a divide between ‘understandable/good’ mental illness and ‘crazy/bad’ mental illness, and we do a lot of talking about the ‘understandable’ mental illnesses and then still alienate and mystify the ‘crazy’ mental illnesses. i say this as a person with an ‘understandable’ mental illness, with an extended family member that had schizophrenia that we are still not really ‘allowed’ to talk about it, which i think in the long run was incredibly damaging to their son, who misses them and yet doesn’t feel able to openly express that he misses them. the only person he could ever talk to about it, because she was the only person willing to talk about it, was my mum, who is dead. so, idk. this isn’t going anywhere.

this is yet another sentence to talk about how long this post got. if ur in the UK u can watch it on 4od https://www.channel4.com/programmes/losing-it-our-mental-health-emergency/episode-guide/

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quillyfied · 5 years

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playing catchup, here’s some thoughts about DCA episode 120, with 121 coming here in a bit.

- I love these fireside episodes, and Satine Phoenix is an excellent person to mediate their discussions; she’s very warm and empathetic and these losers need that desperately

- Strix’s timeline is screwy, as I believe I have discussed on this blog before, but…uh…there’s a particular piece of Strix backstory Holly wrote that if it happened before she went to Baba Yaga…yikes. I don’t want to discuss it in too much detail but Strix would still have been so, so young for this particular piece of trauma, that’s gut-wrenching to think about. All of their childhoods included some form of trauma at a heartbreakingly young age and all of it is hard to think about but wooow.

- Paladin training is no joke, but I wonder how much younger than the others Evelyn was, to have advanced to full paladin status at 22 (probably younger). Given her leg, that’s really hella impressive.

- Relissa and Kagan are TERRIBLE and I can’t wait until we meet them, I am hoping for bloodshed on Diath’s behalf. But now Diath’s question to Paultin during the therapy episode makes more sense—“Was she nice to you?” KILL ME

- Diath’s fond smile and his tone of voice when he says her name after Strix says “so we CAN kill them!”, I’m drowning in my feelings pls help

- Yeah, trying to parse the conversation better, it does sound like Diath was dating both of them. So polyamorous Diath is most likely canon, which is…huge, honestly.

- Just going off of the body language and his facial expressions…that is not Diath’s root fear of cages and enclosed spaces. He probably had that long before Relissa and Kagan got to him. If anything, being imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit would probably crystalize that fear into a full-on psychosis, if it wasn’t there already

- okay imagining little bitty Evelyn zipping around in her boots makes me SO HAPPY, what a cutie patootie she must’ve been. Her expressed desire to be helpful is also very telling of an active child who felt useless bc she couldn’t get around as well, and I’m sure Father Sunbright capitalized on that desire to be useful to turn her into the self-sacrificing paladin she is (I’m sure to make her self-sacrificing and indebted to him personally, not just Lathander, but I’m bitter about him and hope either he doesn’t get raised or if Telastin tries, he just doesn’t come back…sidenote, I wonder if Chris is worried about too many plot threads out there waving in the wind that he has to braid back together, I’m sure he can do it, but this season is so complex compared to others)

- MORE ABOUT PAULTIN’S CHILDHOOD PLS. NATE. NATE PLS. I know that alcohol-induced amnesia is a huge part of Paultin’s character as an in-game expression of Nate not having much of a backstory for him, but come on, it’s been years XD He probably wouldn’t spill about it just yet, anyway, Diath hasn’t. I’m just grumpy and impatient.

- Aww yeee plot pie

- I feel like Paultin and Sandra having a rental is an important detail in this particular case; it feels like a setup, if this crime family was making a habit out of going into noble houses and Paultin and Sandra’s house was close to one. Maybe Sandra was mixed up in something she shouldn’t have been and Paultin didn’t know about it bc he’d been busy with work before she died, but the face-mangling in particular is suspicious to me. The whole death scenario in general is just brutal, suggesting extreme emotion or senseless bestial mauling (leaning towards the second), but making the face unrecognizable…there’s usually a reason why that happens, and that reason is usually either trying to cover their tracks or body-planting. So what I’m saying is, I’m reserving a shred of suspicion that Sandra might not be dead (actually evil, off doing other things, not sure what the motive would be, we just don’t know enough about her for me to make a clear judgement, but I’ve got my eye on you, Chris). I do not want that to happen at all in the least, for many reasons, but still…hmm.

- Diath’s reticence makes so much more sense now but I’m still a little heartbroken that he doesn’t feel comfortable enough with Strix, at least, to divulge a bit of his childhood to her. Yes I am upset as a viewer that there’s still so much we don’t know (upset AND excited), but after everything the Waffle Crew has been through together, it’s still baffling to me that they have mistrust and uncertainty. But them’s people, I guess, they all have their trauma that they’re carrying around.

- “Please don’t call me Hokage” OMGF JARED

- For real, though, after the clusterbumble Plurio tried to pull with saying Paultin owed him, seeing the real legit 100% authentic Diath express yet more of his devotion to his friend by tracking down people who hurt him deeply in the past has me absolutely sobbing, these stupid boys care about each other so much. Also vengeance!Paultin is kinda terrifying to watch but it’s been a while, it will be interesting to see where his rage takes him this time.

- (Esepcially given the talk he gave Alisanda about rage and revenge and how that hatred never goes away and changes a person for the worse, hoo boy, I hope for their sake that Relissa and Kagan really didn’t kill Sandra)

- EVELYN NO THAT’S NOT HOW YOU CHILDREN. My inner daycare teacher is screaming.

- Nat’s devotion to Diath is a+++++ and I think she in particular is very good for Diath’s development as a person and a leader. Also Anna and Jared using sign language onstage was great, I don’t know if all if it was legit since I don’t know much, but it was still cool to watch.

- Diath needs to go bond with Simon next…especially once next episode finally sinks into him :P (I am pretty sure they let slip to Diath what happened with Simon and the kid during the therapy episode, but the players forgetting details is okay, they’re all human beings with busy lives and insane schedules)

- Paultin acknowledging Evelyn as Simon’s mom is the BEST, I’m just waiting for Simon to call them Mom and Dad out loud now :P

- THROW THAT SHADE, PAULTIN, YOUR SON HAS LEARNED FROM THE BEST. YES DIATH, LET’S DISCUSS HIDING THINGS.

- AGREED, VLAHNYA, THEY SHOULD ABSOLUTELY TALK MORE.

- Squiddly’s mode of breaking the fourth wall without actually breaking the fourth wall is amazing, I’m not sure what to call his in-universe fluidity with the rules of reality but it’s delightful, I’m so upset it is a little weird for Nate to hold entire conversations with himself in a dnd setting

- They need to learn to take care of the kids…and themselves…AND EACH OTHER…I think I feel a whump fic coming on

- All of these poor broken adults need a mental health day where they just do things for themselves, where’s that special episode, Chris Perkins

- little lesson about love~ (once again getting SO CLOSE to someone explaining to Strix about feelings and giving her context for romantic emotions, WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP CHICKENING OUT ON HER, SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS BEFORE I DIE)

- Paultin’s face-touch to Diath is a masterful little touch of comedy, combining Paultin’s two favorite pastimes: 1. Messing with Diath, and 2. Bringing back random plot elements and using them to greatest effect. I am 99% sure that part of Paultin’s motivation for doing that was planting the idea in Diath to touch someone ELSE’S face :P Or at least, the part of me that knows Paultin ships his friends as much as we do wants to believe that. Jared’s face through the whole thing was killing me.

- Parenting, you guys. PARENTING. BEING RESPONSIBLE ADULTS. Oh gosh they’re going to have to leave Waterdeep at some point (bc I have a suspicion that Dungeon of the Mad Mage is going to be, if not THE last, then one of the last arcs DCA has, IDK how much longer fifth edition is gonna last and how many adventures they can turn out for it?? How often do they update DnD???), which means leaving the kids, which means there’s going to be a goodbye episode and I’m NOT READY.

- Elements of this are bleeding pretty flawlessly into the next episode, whether Chris actually watched the fireside as of streaming 121 or not, so once that post goes up, I’ll be glad to explore more about Simon and why I’m screaming in terror and delight.

#dice camera action #dca spoilers #just some late late thoughts don't mind me

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theclaravoyant · 6 years

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tequilaasquared said: Yeah it was the Daisy stuff that hurt me the most. I’m very wary of storylines that basically exploit delusions, hallucinations and psychotic breaks for the sake of ‘drama’ and excusing a character for doing bad things. I’m not holding out hope that it doesn’t turn out to be a complete ableist mess but hopefully it’s dealt with somewhat satisfactory for everyone. There has to be something more.

agentofserenity said: I’m agreeing with @tequilaasquared on this

Yes, omg, there is HUGE potential for this to turn into a horrifically ableist mess and I’m really nervous about that. There’s a difference between creating a flawed character, creating a character with mental illness issues, and creating a character with an alternate personality who is evil and abusive!! They’re walking in a minefield here, tying themselves in knots that it’s going to be incredibly hard to undo in a respectful way. From where I’m sitting at the moment, they either assassinate Fitz’s character, use his disability for shock and trauma, or some horrific combination of both. Fingers crossed they find the skinny golden path of truth somewhere in there and do my boy (and Daisy, who he put through the forking ringer this ep) right.

lapiccolina said: I agree with you. They have to be going somewhere with this. Because it is what happened with Daisy that bothers me the MOST. So they HAVE to fix that. And hopefully next week, cuz I do believe I see her quaking Fitz, is the start of the fixing.

I’m also concerned about that, because that’s where it gets into character assassination territory for me - they’re having Daisy fight with a Fitz who would never really have done those things, but he did, and then they had him say that he still thinks it was the right thing, which to me is kind of, irredeemable really? I mean, it was so brutal and violating! There’s no way ‘my’ Fitz would believe something that correct would ever be the right thing! And yet they have a history of sort of waving at these two and going “oh yeah they made up it’s fine” when it’s like……. literally the opposite of that.

I mean, the fact that they even picked Daisy to do something to, that they went in this direction, does tell me that they’re making more complex choices than I would initially expect (which would have been more about Jemma) so I do have a little hope left, but… Fitz is one of my favourite characters in the world right now and I feel like they’re ruining him by turning his “flaws” into straight-up abuse and I’m not sure how they can resolve this. Maybe they can. Maybe this is really the darkest timeline and Our Fitz is waiting somewhere further down the road to come back to this time and make something different, but I’m feeling a bit low on trust right now. It’s going to break my heart, and not in a good “holy shit my feels” kinda way, if this is how my favourite brotp dies.

(and that includes if they handwave the makeup. this is too far now, too much serious shit has happened between them. I need gritty, gut-wrenching, painful resolution. I need them to work for it. I wish I could wave the last ten or so minutes of this episode away and fix it but I can’t, except in fic, which don’t get me wrong I will ABSOLUTELY do, but I’m gonna keep a close eye on how they get themselves out of this one. it could be INCREDIBLE and MIND BLOWING but I’ve said that a few times now, so…. they’ve never been on thinner ice in my books tbh. which is unfortunate bc there are/were such great things they could do with this! I’m still hanging in, but there’s gonna be a lot of fic and healthy servings of denial involved, that’s for sure.)

#aos s5 #aos spoilers #conversation #/#//#///#aos wank #negativity

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salted-barbed-wire · 7 years

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Scoundrels

OK. This has been a work in progress for a long ass time. I almost just decided not to post it because I did some research and I think that a lot of people did kind of the same theme I’m going for here. I hope you guys like it, I hope it’s well written, I hope I can continue this series.

Summary: Unnamed OC has been dating Adam Cole for 6 months. AU takes place around the time that the BC have been plotting to fire Adam but haven’t told (Y/N) yet. Marty shows up, flirting ensues, Adam gets possesive and jealous. But Adam is also so distant and secretive with some texts, emails, and phone calls he’s been getting as of late. (Part two to come if this goes over well?) Warnings: Cursing. Jealous Adam. Possessive Sexy time. Wondering what Adam Cole is up to. Word Count:2906

Tag friends: @i-kneel-for-king-loki @straight-outta-the-asylum@ridingmoxley @geekoftv@paradoxical-opheliac @ambrosegirlforever@wrestlingnoob @m-a-t-91 @livingthestrongstyle @lip-sync @princess3733@nickysmum1909 @ambrose-asylum-ft-mitch @shieldlovereve@jubaleelovehate @xstylesxclashx @the-geekgoddes@stardustmoonlightflower @lovelikelove @ashleycv88 @cesaros-smile @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch @alexispoo-roleplay

“Come on, Adam!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. I slammed my hands down on the mat in time with the crowds’ claps to get him up. Instead, he just lay there, holding his ribs with one hand. “Get up!” I yelled again.

He stumbled to his feet. His opponent, Marty Scurll, thrashed his umbrella up the side of Adam’s face. It went flying out of the ring, nearly hitting me. I gasped at the sight of my boyfriend lying on the mat of the ring. Scurll’s arm wrapped around his leg and pushed his shoulders down. The ref hit the mat, for the first count and I jumped onto the apron and faked to come through the ropes, making sure Marty noticed me.

His wide-eyed smirk told me he was all too thrilled about me trying to jump in and help. The ref stopped the count as planned, yelling at me to get out of the ring. Marty released Adam and walked over towards me, looking me up and down.

“Come on, Love.” The Villain called me with a wave of his hand. “You know you want to play with the big boys.”

I swallowed hard. I was still unsure of what this man was capable of and didn't know if I was ready to find out. Luckily, I could see Adam rallying behind Marty out of the corner of my vision but attempted to keep the focus on me.

“Come show me what you've got.” I snapped at Scurll.

The grin on his face was enough to knock me out of the ring, “Gladly, Darling.” He growled and took another step towards me.

I dropped to the mat and slid underneath the rope just in time to see Adam wrap his arms around Marty’s midsection and pull him into one of the most painful suplexes I had seen him perform.

The ref hit the three count and I couldn't help but mumble, “Good riddance.”

----

A week later….

“You guys have been hanging out with who?” Adam growled at Nick and Matt who were sitting across from us at Denny's.

I couldn't help but smile at the strain on Adam’s face. He was so cute when he was angry, at least when he was angry with someone else. We had been dating for the last 6 months, which was shortly after I had become a member of the Bullet Club. Of course, being the main female member and Adam Cole’s girlfriend meant I was constantly over protected and watched over. Honestly, I never felt like Adam took my wrestling seriously.

“Marty Scurll,” Matt said his name again, “He's a pretty cool guy to hang out with. You guys should get to know him.”

Adam looked at me, “Do you believe this? This was the same man that just tried to break my fingers and kill me with an umbrella and these guys are making episodes of ‘Being the Elite’ with him.”

I sipped on my coffee, “Pretty crappy of them if you ask me.”

“Hey, (Y/N)! Don't be like that!” Nick grumbled, “I take offense.”

I rolled my eyes but kept my mouth shut. Adam and Kenny hadn't been on good terms as of late and I knew the only reason Marty was around was because Kenny willed it. As much as I liked Adam, I wasn't really willing to give up my Club membership for him. So it was best to just go along with Kenny’s plans, whatever they may be.

“Hey, guys!” A cockney accent came from behind us.

I didn't have to turn to see who it was, I knew Marty had been invited by the Young Bucks to have breakfast with us. I also didn't have to look to know that Adam was seething at the sound of Marty’s voice.

“Hey, Marty!” The Bucks said and stood to welcome him. Adam and I remained sitting.

Marty turned to Adam and I, “Hey, long time no see.” He stuck his hand out for Adam who begrudgingly took it.

“Marty,” Cole said curtly.

“Come on now, man. Let’s not allow the past to come in between us. We can all be good mates, right?” Marty chuckled.

“Sure we can.” Adam’s lips were still pressed together in a thin line of disapproval.

Marty turned his attention towards me, “Hello, Darling.” He flashed a smile at me like he did the other night.

I could feel anger boiling inside of me. I stuck my hand out to shake Scurll’s, “I prefer to go by, (Y/N).”

Marty turned my hand over and kissed the back of it, looking up at me through his eye lashes as he did. “Pleasure to meet you...again. I haven’t forgotten about you.” He half whispered.

I felt a blush creep from my neck to my cheeks. Suddenly, Adam’s chair went flying back as he stood up. I jumped at the sound of it scrapping across the floor, wrenching it away from Scurll’s grasp. His blue eyes were cold as he glared at the Brit.

“Back off.” He half growled.

Marty leaned back in his chair and held his hands up, “Did I do something wrong?” He asked.

I stood next to Adam and wrapped my arm around his, attempting to pull him back before the scene got further out of hand. “Adam, he didn’t know. Come on, let’s go home.”

“Didn’t know wha-?” Scurll’s eyes darted between Adam and I, “Oh.” He said above a whisper. “Oh!” He said a little louder as the realization hit him. “You two are actually together then? My apologies, Cole. I wasn’t trying anything with your girl. I wouldn’t ever do that to a Bullet Club friend.”

Adam took a step closer, muscling through my attempts to keep him back, “I don’t share, Marty. My girl, my club, my spotlight.” He took my hand and hauled me off to the register so we could pay our tab, “Come on, (Y/N). Time to go home.”

----

The drive home was so quiet my ears were ringing as I pushed my key into the lock of Adam and I’s flat. He hadn’t said a word but I knew he was still fuming and was trying to calm down from the whole incident at breakfast. Most likely, Adam was embarrassed that he had caused a scene. I hadn’t ever seen him act that way. Normally, he’d put an arm around my waist and kiss me roughly in front of any guy that tried to flirt.

I twisted the knob and pushed the door open to our living room. Adam immediately went into the kitchen to get a glass of water, still not saying a word to me. A sigh escaped my lips and I headed off towards our small, cozy bed room to put my purse and shoes away.

He’s overreacting. I thought to myself as I kicked off my Chuck Taylors. Marty isn’t a threat to him. I don’t even know Marty. I care about Adam. There was a twinge of anger the twisted in my gut. Adam has been so distant lately. Today started off different and we were beginning to enjoy ourselves like before him and Kenny had their ‘disagreement’. If it weren’t for Marty, Adam and I would probably be laughing and kissing and talking. He ruined my day. I huffed at the thought, setting my purse on the hook next to my nightstand.

A hand on my shoulder caused me to jump. I knew it was Adam’s, that wasn’t what had my heart racing. It was the forceful way that hand spun me around to face him; how it gripped me tightly when Adam’s hungry lips met mine. His arm wrapped around my waist pulling my body as close to him as he could manage.

“You’re mine.” He whispered against my lips.

A whimper was all I could manage before his lips began to devour mind again. His hand had moved from shoulder to my hair, refusing to allow me to come up for air from his kisses. Adam’s erection was pressed against my thigh roughly as it tented out in his basketball shorts.

There was a tug at my roots and Adam pulled me by my hair to throw me on the bed in front of him. He reached for the hem of my sun dress and tried to pull it off my body before I had time to unbutton the facets on my back. I heard the rip of fabric behind me as it was painfully forced off my body. I fell back on the bed, looking up at him with a glare that would kill anyone else.

“You ripped another one of my dresses!” I exclaimed, angry with him.

He ignored my comment and instead pulled his shirt off over his head. I couldn’t help but bite my lip at the sight of his well sculpted body. The lines from his muscles had my hands itching to reach out for him. I stubbornly tried to push the thoughts of licking the ‘V’ shaped lines down to his hard member out of my mind.

“You… you’re.. You’re not going to distract me from being upset about my dress!” I scolded.

Adam was too busy rubbing his cock from the outside of his shorts to pay any attention to what I was saying. His eyes were wandering my frame that was sprawled out on the bed. I was only wearing a pair of lacy pink panties and a defiant glare.

“All mine.” He mumbled, pushing his shorts and boxers down his hips. I watched his cock spring free and let out another moan. By now I was soaked through the fabric of my panties with want for him. “You’re in for a treat, baby.” His hand gently traced a swirly pattern along my thigh up to my core. “I’m going to fuck you harder than ever before.” His fingers nimbly hooked onto the lace, barely brushing my folds. “You’re going to go hoarse from screaming my name.”

There was a tug at the fabric and then I heard a RIP from my hips. Adam held up the scraps of what use to be my undergarments and gave me a shit eating grin. “Oops,” was all he said before dropping down to his knees between my thighs.

“Adam fucking Cole, you son of a-,“ I sucked in air as his tongue flicked my clit once, whimpering as it happened again and again. My head spun from the sensation and I was already beginning to see stars. His bottom lip pushed up against my bud then his tongue rapidly swiped over it as quick as possible.

My hips bucked against his face. I was so close to the edge, but my body need something. It needed him to fill my throbbing pussy with his cock. I whimpered as the climb to my orgasm seemed endless, “Fuck.” I hissed, “Adam, I just need you to fuck me already. Please!”

I felt his tongue stop mid lick against my heat. “Is that what you want?” He whispered against my sensitive wetness.

“Yes, please! Adam, I need you!” I begged.

Adam wasted little time. He stood and yanked the bedside drawer open, pulling out a condom and sliding it onto him with ease. I wiggled myself closer to him, eagerly waiting to have him inside of me. Adam took hold of my hips and pulled them towards where he stood at the edge of the bed. I reached down and gripped his member, guiding it towards my entrance. As soon as he felt the wetness on the head of his dick, he pushed it in roughly.

My eyes rolled back as he began to move inside of me, pumping in and out, using my hips as leverage. My hands gathered the sheets above my head into my fists, holding on for dear life as the orgasm that had been building came closer and closer still. My walls squeezed him and my legs wrapped around his hips. A chorus of moans and mewls sang from my throat.

“Fuck, Baby girl, you take this cock so well.” He growled. “This pussy, this body, it belongs to me. You belong to me and only me.”

He continued to slam in and out of me, my breasts bouncing with the force. Releasing one of my legs, Adam reached down and gently ran circles over my clit with his thumb. I couldn’t take it anymore. I cried out his name as my vision blurred.

Adam wasn’t going to give me any rest. As my orgasm hit, he pulled out and positioned me back farther onto the mattress. He grabbed my hips and rolled me over to my stomach. My legs shook a little as he propped me up so my ass was in the air.

“God, you’re beautiful. You’re all mine.” He growled again and shoved himself inside of me as quick as he could.

My walls were clenching around him again and more moans and curses spilled from my mouth. Adam gathered my hair up into one hand and jerked my head up. The pain in my scalp only caused me to moan louder as our head board slammed against the wall from the force of Adam fucking me. He pulled me up further so I was more in line with his body and his hand that had been holding my hips, moved to rub my clit again.

I began to cry out again, filled with pleasure. “Say my name, baby.” He whispered in my ear. His breath tickled my neck. “I want everyone in the complex to know who’s fucking you right.”

His cock hit my g spot just right and his finger flicked against my clit and I screamed, “Fuck! Adam! Oh my fucking God! Adam!”

I heard him groan his thrusts become sloppy. Adam’s climax came after just a few more pumps into me and I could feel his member throbbing from how hard he had came. We both collapsed onto the bed, out of breath and sweaty. My whole body was numb. I could feel the blood pumping through my veins as I lie there in a state of total bliss.

I rolled over to see Adam on his phone, brows furrowed as he read a text. Curling up onto his chest to snuggle, I kissed his skin that glistened with sweat. “What’s wrong? Got a noise complaint already?”

I could feel Adam shake his head, “No.” He said simply. “Just something I need to take care of in a minute.”

This time it was my turn to have the worried look on my face, “What?” I asked as I looked up at him, “What do you need to take care of?”

He set his phone down on the night stand and leaned back on the pillow, “Just a phone call I have to make.”

“You’re being awfully suspicious.” I said raising my head to look at him.

“It’s business. Nothing more. I’m not supposed to talk about it with any one.”

My curiosity was getting the better of me, “What do you mean you can’t talk about it with anyone?”

Adam shrugged, “I was told by the company that this issue must stay under wraps. You’ll find out soon enough.” He gave me a wink and a kiss on the forehead.

My head was still a little fuzzy from the heavenly sex we had just had, but I knew something was up. Something that I probably wasn’t going to like. It had me worried to say the least.

“Is this about Kenny?” I asked finally.

Adam’s eye twitched a little, “Can we not talk about this?”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to talk about Kenny and the Club right now. I’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

“Adam, what you said at Denny’s earlier…” I stopped, knowing that this was only going to start a fight. “Never mind.”

Cole sat up, causing me to move from his chest, “What?”

I chewed on my lower lip, “You said it was your club.”

“So?”

He was being incredibly difficult, “It’s not your’s though. Kenny is our leader.”

Adam rolled his eyes and walked over to grab his shorts that were crumbled up on the floor. “He may be your leader.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I spat back at him, “What on earth are you planning?”

“Nothing.” He shrugged again and put on his shoes.

“Where are you going?” I asked my chest feeling heavy.

“I gotta go make this phone call. We’re out of bread for sandwiches, I’ll go get some more while I talk to these people.” He walked over and gave me a light peck on the lips, “I’ll be back in a bit.”

I watched him leave our bedroom, then let out a sigh after I heard the front door shut. What is he up to? I thought to myself. Pulling myself together I stood to grab a glass of water. My black silk robe was laid out on the door of the closet and I quickly wrapped it around me so no one from the outside would catch a glimpse of me.

The water felt so refreshing against my sore throat. Now I just wish I had something to calm my head and heart from all this worry. My eyes wandered over to the bread box, where two full loaves of bread sat, ready to be eaten.

#adam cole x reader #marty scurll x reader #scoundrels series #adam cole #marty scurll #adam cole baybay #i'm a scurll girl

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freshginandtonic · 5 years

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My Watch is.. still going

Since starting a new position at work and waking up at 2:30 every morning I have become a hermit - bad for my social life and general wellbeing, but a great time to start watching a new TV series. Or rather, a show that’s not new at all, just one that everyone has been watching for 8 years, and I’m just jumping on the bandwagon now. Yes, I have finally gotten into Game of Thrones. As I write this I have five more episodes of the final season to watch, so I figured now was as good a time as any for some self-reflection on the fact that, in between working ten hours a day, the rest of my time has been devoted to finding out who will end up on the Iron Throne and sleeping.

I’ve always been of the credence that yes, one day when I’m 60 and have enough time, I will in fact sit down and watch Game of Thrones. That all changed at 4am in the last week of May, when I arrived at work to find a package on my desk - w the words ‘unbowed, unbent, unbroken’ written on it - I later learned that was the motto of one of the great houses of GoT - and a USB inside, with the first season all ready for me. Thanks to my colleague Will, my watch had begun.

Throughout each episode I’ve live texted Will my thoughts, emotions and reactions to just about every scene - usually in all capitals. I’ve noticed this has greatly added to the quality of my viewing - it’s nice to know you can send a one line quote from Season 2 episode six and he’ll know exactly where I am in which episode and can respond in kind with a follow up line, appropriate gif or meme. It’s different to the normal viewing experience because while you don’t have the immediacy and intimacy of an in-person response, the anticipation of a text reaction feels like more of a shared, special event - I’m taking time while watching this thing to let you know I’m watching the thing: here are my raw thoughts. Far more exciting.

My phone had to be put down for some moments though - particularly for the Battle of the Bastards - it was such a sensory overload I couldn’t be trusted to text properly AND keep track of Jon Snow.

So I began, a novice in season one (in love with Jon and Robb and protective of Ned - how well did THAT turn out?) and I quickly realised I wasn’t going to be able to get through this without some help. So I had some red wine to cope with the first big death of the season (it’s been so long I can’t really remember who it is now) and got on with it. Then came Ned’s death (cue gasps) and onwards to the most important part of season three - no, not the Red Wedding - you better believe I’m talking about Robb Stark’s first relationship and sex scene w cute healer Talisa. I will say I never thought a scene with a leg amputation could be choked with sexual tension, but let me tell you GoT made it happen (context: Robb is on the battlefield being smouldery, Talisa comes to help a wounded enemy soldier and has to cut his leg off while she and Robb exchange heated flanter) and then they finally get it on after she tells some heart wrenching story about her brother (sad but it went right out of my head as soon as I saw Robb’s bum. It’s the important things).

There’s been a lot written about the shock value of Game of Thrones - killing main characters for the sake of killing them, using sexual violence as a plot device, and gratuitous violence. Regarding the sex and violence; first, there’s a Lot if it. A lot more than I thought. Lots of boobs and bums and moments where I had to pause when a family member came into the room. I was pretty surprised at how normalised this became for me - before long I found myself glad and inwardly cheering when someone got axed, poisoned, or ripped apart by dogs (you all know who I mean here.)

When violence was used, sometimes in not-so-great moments (shall we be reminded of Sansa’s awful rape scene) - it did sometimes serve as a real catharsis to see some truly terrible people be given their comeuppance (Ramsay’s great ending, Joffrey’s wedding, ) Other people who don’t deserve it are brutalised as well (once again Sansa, and how many others I can’t remember). There’s definitely no discrimination on that front.

There’s also a weird sense of redemption. Not in every character (obvs - what show is this again?) but being able to follow a character’s arc in one go without break has made their journey all the more meaningful. Particularly for the character of Theon: (a brief summation: he betrays his adopted family and best friend, then gets mutilated and psychologically tortured and broken down before he breaks down and changes). Seeing him come to back to life and find his morals again has been a real highlight and emotional strongpoint of the show for me. I cheered and teared up for each bout of progress he made - fair play to him, he took his fucking time and made loads of mistakes along the way, but he got there.

Regarding the controversial Ending™ my dad told me he read about one guy who binged the whole show like I’ve done, and he had a markedly improved opinion of the final season compared to other people. Everyone I’ve spoken to has, in their own words, said there’s a Golden Period (roughly seasons 2 - 6), and then everything from then on is basically horse shit. I don’t know if that’s right or I’m in a position to judge yet, but right now there’s nothing more satisfying to see characters who have been on separate journeys for literally 8 seasons come together and interact after so long.

So to sum up watching seven and a half seasons, roughly 68 hours and 4080 minutes of TV in under a month - it’s been A Lot. I think I have popular and unpopular opinions about the characters and storylines (pop: Jaimie and Brienne need to bang) vs (unpop: Dany’s character development - nope and she needs to stop conquering cities pls). I am glad I’ve waited this long to watch it all in one go (if I had to wait a year to find out what happened to Jon Snow after the season five finale I would have fucking RIOTED). I’ve appreciated the small moments: the Night’s Watch banter, the dire pups, Jon and Ygritte’s excellent enemies to lovers relationship (a personal favourite trope of mine), and everything Varys says, to the bigger pieces of the puzzle: Jon’s true heritage, the Stark’s getting avenged, Arya’s and mainly Sansa’s transformation from the girl who wanted to marry Joffrey to the absolute badass bish she is from where I currently sit.

So is my life changed? Nope. But at least now I’m part of the cultural carpet. My watch is nearly over, but what an absolute time its been.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS OF GREAT MOMENTS FOR THOSE IN THE KNOW (AKA EVERYONE ON EARTH)

Sam getting ripped for reading by all the dudes in the Night’s Watch

Dany’s excellent outfit choices in s7/8 - a particular shoutout to the winter outfit of season 7 episode 8 and the grey frock with the red dragon cape (LIVING for the texture)

Ditto Cersei - taking power suits to a whole new level since taking the Iron Throne (this particular outfit is an absolute LEWK and the picture doesn’t do the spiky shoulders justice)

Jon’s transition to the man bun post-resurrection (I personally detest man buns but I absolutely loved this change for him)

Sansa’s dead straight curtain of hair - there’s something super satisfying about it after years of her wearing those Padme Amidala style ‘Southern Style’ hair

The entirety of House Tyrell (particular mention to Lady Olenna who deserves all the awards in the world for only killing one character in this show)

Lady Margaery’s sassy backless dresses (she knows how to make the most of the King’s Landing climate)

Jaime and Brienne’s entire relationship (from the enemies to friends trope to him GIVING HER HIS SWORD AND A WHOLE SUIT OF ARMOUR) - if that’s not a love confession then I will just cut off my own damn hand

The entirety of the shirtless Flex Scene™ of the pilot

Sansa saying the iconique phrase ‘How do you answer these charges, Lord BaELISH’

Any time anyone said the words ‘King in the North’

Battle of the Bastards - need I say more. I won’t big it up like so many of the magazines and entertainment websites did, but it felt like one of the most realistic depictions of a medieval battle you could find. I felt it in my gut. I don’t know how you couldn’t. When Jon couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t breathe.

Bran literally being the group member of the assignment who drags you down bc he just sits in a cave

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