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aggressiveguitarnoises · 5 months

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i have media studies exam (although mock so its fine) that i didnt study for so im gonna force myself to practice by applying barthes narrative theory to season 1 hannibal (vaguely tbh cuz its the whole seasom but ok)

hermeneutic codes(how do u even pronounce this omfg) :

enigma codes, they are def crucial to this show as each episode raises more and more unanswered questions as the audience continues watching the show, questions like who is commiting the crimes, is will ok, does he know how fucked up his clocks are, is crawford fucking stupid, is abigail ok, what the hell is hannibal doing, why are they using cat guts for strings, are the dogs gonna live oh my god please can the dogs be okay for once

usually done by leaving cliffhangers for each episode

it drives the audience forward and interests them so they continue watching the show to find out the answers to their questions

its also a convention to use hermeneutic codes for horror crime shows like hannibal

Proairetic codes:

action codes, the actions done to drive the narrative forward, previous events drive other events into action. ngl this one is fucking stupid to apply i dont get if i ever apply it correctly

in hannibal, proairetic codes tie a lot with hermeneutic codes as the actions of the characters raise questions for the audience questioning their choices and makes the audience wonder what will happen next. the action creates tension and makes the audience wonder how the created problem(if there is one) will be resolved. for example when hannibal lecter called abigails father to inform him that "they know" and that fbi is on the way. this drives the narrative forward as then the audience wonders how the characters will react and wonder how the actions will affect the story. this action ended up with abigail becoming an orphan and their suspect dead, creating a few side plots and introducing new characters. this constant tension created by each action drives the narrative forward and engages the audience to continue watching the show

semantic codes:

connotations, things associated with something, the deeper level meaning of a symbol. this one is hard yet so easy cuz theres literally SO many of them

they basically give insight into the plot and characters, building personalities and maybe even starting the deep questions the audience will have

for example, for hannibal, hes quite sophisticated, the semantic codes for that would be how he wears suits all the time, his overall style and his acquired taste. those things connote sophistication, wealth and even control and power (especially the suit and his high respected position as a psychiatrist)

but another thing that can be derived from things like how hes always careful, always has a cloth that doesn't leave any fabric fibres, how he doesn't use anything digital, only physical things like journals to leave no traces, the fact that hes literally eating his evidence lmao, his knowledge and experience of human anatomy and mind connote that hes a careful, experienced, ambitious man and prob(definitely) is a serial killer

symbolic codes:

it has such an easy concept that its literally confusing to understand. its basically symbols, binaries, a thematic/structural device, but it's basically about themes and contrary signs specifically, which is ig why its kind of difficult to understand since its specifically binary symbols

some symbolic codes in hannibal would be life vs death, clearly a reoccurring theme with all of the crimes happening, good vs bad, murderers and their victims, health? both physical and mental? stability? work vs personal life? idk its so hard to pin point it even tho its so easy and common idk

a better example woukd be the bad vs good binary used in star wars with ghe colours of light sabers

Cultural codes:

literally cultural and social conventions, knowledge that comes from the outside world of the text, specific connotations used

example, FBI for crimes and america, religion and faith, the whole fbi units especially medical, even Christmas is a cultural code as its a celebrated event of certain social and cultural and religious conventions

bruv i cant think of any more examples even tho i know theres so many

hope yall enjoyed my silly analysis of hannibal as my media studies application practice if u read it all xx

#idk why i did this on tumblr instead of just writing all of this in my notes or smth #media studies #gcse #a levels #fucking british education system #media studies a level #nbc hannibal #hannibal #roland barthes #barthes theory #narrative theory #hannibal nbc

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variousqueerthings · 5 months

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Oh, I love puppets! / I'm just passing through, like fish in the night

It's The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived tiiiime, and this is one of the big recurring thematic episode holders of the season, and possibly... possibly I should watch them again at some point, when I'm not over-inundated with what in hindsight was a bit of a bonkers schedule of getting through M*ffat-era in a relatively short space of time, because I think some of it lost me a bit. not the plot, just a couple of Things here and there, which actually goes back to the first couple of episodes, where they were mentioning a Hybrid, but I'm like. wait did I miss something? was this Hybrid relevant or did it just Appear as another legendy type thing? why is it being mentioned like everyone knows what it is out of the blue?

this not because I remember the Hybrid being mentioned in these episodes, but because "Me" mentioned them in the finale episode and I was like... wait, hold on a second, I missed all this build-up, does it tie back into these episodes... I cannot tell you, I honestly can't, I cannot remember, I didn't note when the Hybrid was mentioned. but I will rate what I do remember!

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 10/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored, or given agency to her emotional interiority): 3/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 7/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 5/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 3/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 8/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 7/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 10/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 8/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 6/10

FULL RATING: 67/100 (if I can count….)

this season is so far pretty consistently in the high 60s. it's a good season, but a few things are definitely starting to look like A Pattern (this is why it's great to have a System, I can be like "it's not just vibes, see I have a System, and if people tell me the System is highly subjective, I can knock over a water deliberately and run away in the confusion)

OBJECTIFICATION: as far as I can remember there's nothing here on that front. we've been cured at this point, I tellya

PLOT-POINT: Clara isn't really going through an emotional journey in the first episode (the Doctor sure is though boy oh boy) and straight up isn't in the second one, unfortunately. we'll get to that.

COMPLEXITY: okay so on the surface, these are quite simple, chill plots, I enjoy them both. the snag is... what the fuck just happened with Me??? immortal Me???? really immortal Me???? I wrote way more about that in the point below, but yeah I think they should have made her... less immortal. durable perhaps. long-lived. but ooh that was... that was very very immortal huh

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: one thing I've noticed, that I dunno which point to put on and so has ended up here (but maybe it should have been on the "plot point" point, is that several times throughout this season we've smash-cut to "Clara is in danger in some way/close to death and then the Doctor gets her out of the situation"

I note this because I feel like it's there as a recurring joke, but also it comes up in "Face The Raven" that Clara seems to be enjoying herself too much with these life-and-death situations, but... I don't think it's clear enough. Idk if I'm being pedantic or not, I really really don't, but I'm not a fan of these "insights" into their adventures being uniformly about danger as a Joke

couple of times, sure, but... do you ever go somewhere just for the joy of the experience? why no snapshots into fun/beautiful/joyous experiences? like back in Rings Of Akhaten, it felt like yes there was danger because of circumstance, but the point of the journey was to experience, in fact the thing that tends to keep companions coming back is "anything could happen next that is wondrous, despite the danger (although the danger could become intoxicating, this isn't the goal from the outset, and how companions interact with that danger when it appears in balance with the joyous experiences gives a lot of the tension of their individual stories)."

this is a thing that happens at the beginning of this episode and is irrelevant to the rest of it. Clara's relationship with danger beyond "she weirdly doesn't care much" isn't as explored as I'd want it to be. genuinely why do we never see them setting out to have a good time? what do these scenes tell us about their dynamic, and are they telling us this On Purpose, or am I reading too much into them?

I'm jaded I tell you, jaded!!!! I never know when M*ffat is doing something because of "fun setpiece opening" or when it genuinely Means something. Fuckit I'll read into it: Clara has a weird fucking relationship with danger, because she seems to have been casually on the verge of death several times and brushed it off in a super chill way within the same episode! there we go, read into it

the other way to read into it is Clara has a weird fucking relationship with danger, because the Doctor's influence has made her believe she is literally invincible and nothing really bad can happen -- this despite her boyfriend yeeting himself into the atmosphere after becoming a cyberman

anyway, there is actually some real ongoing Plot stuff in this lol, I went off on a tangent to begin with because of that being the beginning: this plot is not... really related to Clara. it semi-is because of the end of the season, but I do think it's weird that this double-episode about Me -- who will later travel with Clara -- doesn't really cement a bond between Clara and Me. like yeah, they get on in the first episode, but in the second episode where we meet Me properly -- the Me we'll know moving forwards -- Clara just isn't there. I genuinely don't get it, because I've said that there are episodes where it feels like Clara is redundant from a thematic and lore/plot-building perspective, but this episode which sets up Me, doesn't also set up little threads that could make us look back end-s9 and say "ah yeah, I can imagine what kind of co-travellers these two might become"

but back to Me. IIIIIIIIIIIIII have questions. I actually think this is way bigger for some reason than a lot of more commonly discussed lore-building. like, sure, Time War, granted I was 10 or so so maybe that's just in my read of the story as indelible, but then bringing Gallifrey back, yeah, makes sense, it's a show that goes on forever, Timeless Child, yeah why not, [spoilers for the last special in case you haven't seen it] doesn't change much, but the Doctor just... made someone immortal? Immortal immortal???? meet them again end of the Universe immortal??? just travelling around in another Tardis immortal???????? you can just do that?????? why does this shock me so much, idk. maybe it's because with the Doctor you can really fuck with stuff, they're already an alien who can change their face, I get you wanna shake that up sometimes

this just casually happened midway through a season and is -- as far as I can remember -- irrelevant outside of this season of the show. it's sooooooooooo. can we talk about how this works please??? what. what was that for??? so many questions about Me-as-concept, but I guess she's just... out there. still potentially immortal?? she's gotta be more immortal than the Doctor is, how can she be totally unharmed after whatever the fuck trillions? trillion tillions??? of years???? okay stop thinking about this now, brain broken

fuckn Jack was made immortal by the time vortex itself and is less immortal than she is, okay I'm over it now. so many questions

COMPANIONS MATTER: Clara kind of does in the first one, in that she's the point of contact with Ashildr. but then she's literally not in the second one at all. I wonder if JLC had a commitment, it feels like a commitment thing. RIP because that was genuinely an episode I think Clara should have been in

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: this is a turning point for the doctor, and I do note it's happened roughly halfway through his run, in which he basically realises that he has to save this girl, because this face -- in turn -- was saved back in Fires Of Pompeii. truthfully I don't think anyone questioned Capaldi looking exactly like... well, Capaldi, but fuckit, it's Doctor Who, fuck around a bit + it's for good and not evil! (+ hi ten hi donna!!!)

the point is that the Doctor's been having a bit of an identity crisis ever since this face arrived, and spent all of s8 running around seemingly just dissociating from themself and everyone else in the Universe, and s9 they've sorta been going. oh hey people. I don't want to be an asshole anymore. I got flashcards! (I wish actually the flashcards had been there from s8, I think they would have made s8 Doctor much more fun to engage with for me)

these episodes really feel like the episodes to fully nail that, although s9 has been going in that direction from the start. can I trace it back to anything particular in s8, yeah, I guess, it's sort of thereee in certain interactions, especially in the last few episodes. truth be told, now I'm a little away from s8, it's like I can't quite remember just how pissed off and distant he was all the time, I've just got to trust my notes saying he was (this is why we take notes kids -- the kids are me, I did not take notes for s9 so now there is a very limited amount of time I have to write these reviews before it stops existing for me)

I think this works. I have... questions... about the "can't travel with another immortal" bit which I'm putting here, because while I like the Doctor finally voicing their thoughts on some of the internal stuff that's been going on (which, notably isn't to Clara, but then again the Doctor often doesn't tell their emotions to companions, because they must be Spared, get some therapy king, and apologise to Martha Jones someday) -- while I like the Doctor and Me having that conversation about "the mayflies" (which I'm also into as descriptor), I feel like it's a bit of a cop out, similar to back when River Song was like "naahhh can't travel with you because scheduling issues uh Real Plot Reasons I swear" and just like then, I feel like they wrote their way into a corner with this one

I think personally Me should have flat out refused the Doctor. Or have it be like with Jack Harkness -- You Feel Wrong To Me, because Me is frankly a nightmare creature according to season 9, and by this I mean not in personality (remarkably chill considering linear immortality spent Alone until the end of the Universe???) but simply wait what you can just make people immortal like that??? Doctor Who Explain!

I think the Doctor should have been wahaaaay more disturbed having created a fuckn Creature, not just because she may do immoral things because she forgets what it's like to be mortal, but because it's some fuckn Horror Shit that's going on here. I mean, it's there and I'll read more into it, but it's so. "oh yeah, this is a thing I can do, and I chose to do" and not "wait was this a really really really fucked up thing to do??? am I the bad guy???????????? do I remember life and death as concepts???????????????????????????" this is noooot Fires of Pompeii where they handy-dandy yoink out some people so they don't burn to death, this is bringing someone back from the dead and MAKING THEM IMMORTAL. this is more Time Lord Victorious than Just Save Someone

I can tell this will be in my head for awhile....

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: looots of fun references in these episodes, generally just a good time. the only thing is... immortal Me. is. so. immortal. the most immortal. I spit on your other immortals. how did you immortal so hard?? harder than any other immortal character??? did it have to be so, for writing reasons???? (you can probably tell at this point I will be returning to this concept in the finale review!)

“SEXINESS”: I... genuinely do not remember. I don't think there's anything weird here. I should've taken notes, but past me was having a time.

INTERNAL WORLD: there's two worlds here and both are actually fine. I feel like we're not just in these times as set dressing (like I often felt with the paternoster gang and the victorians). the Vikings are a coherent village and I care about them (maybe not totally historically accurate but that's not the point with this, it's the feeling that they belong in the world set up for them) and the 1600s part 2 was given enough to feel lived in. I think it especially helped in both cases that we were seeing people around the leads who felt real -- that's what has often been missing in the past of this era, that it's not just the Super Impressive Immortals And Aliens And Important People but that people exist in these kinds of stories (and they're all important)

POLITICS: this was super unintentional and I'm mostly having a laugh but...

Lady Me: My chosen name is "Me." The Doctor: No it's not [deadnames her].

Doctor Stooop you literally chose your own name in canon!!!

generally, okay, I'm being a meanie here in over-analysing, but I do wish what is very similar to an orlando-type storyline were more queer. orlando is like. my jam. and this character is basically orlando. and she crossdresses. but a queer writer would have been soooo much juicier with this narrative. it's especially noticeable as we've got a couple of literal gender-crossings with Time Lords, but I do think the show is still in its... not infancy but let's say toddler-era when it comes to queer intersectional feminist vibes. it's basically still doing the "girls rule, boys drool" type thing

FULL RATING: 67/100 (if I can count….)

I CANNOT STRESS HOW PERTURBED I AM BY CASUAL HALFWAY THROUGH A SEASON IMMORTAL CHARACTER CREATION. fuckn. who knows when I'll have finished rolling that around in my head

they're good episodes, this is a good season, but. and I write this having recently finished said season. the things it's setting up will not be paid off for me, which is a shame. I enjoy this season, but I enjoy it more for its parts than its whole. I like a lot of the ideas it's putting out that will end up coming back in the last episode. but it's. the way it casually does things and asks me to go along with them, when I'm going, "no nonono wait, I have questions about this one, you can't throw away the rule book entirely," and just adds plot and emotional beats without build-up to those beats. I like those beats, but why didn't you build to them??? (this was a problem in the first double-episode, it's a problem in this double-episode, and I know it'll be a problem in the last three episodes, post Sleep No More)

mayflies though. I do like the mayflies

#im watching nu!who #im watching capaldi who #episode the girl who died #episode the woman who lived #the measurement #oooh i started this write-up at 10 and it is now 1am.. go tf to sleep

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11quillen11 · 1 year

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About Family: The Unbreakable Bond

Okay so Family: The Unbreakable Bond is apparently getting a season 2. This does not make me super happy because I can’t help but feel like the fact that a second season was already planned is what fucked the first season up.

From episodes 5 to 11, the first season is really good. Sadly, that is only six episodes. The first four episodes are filled with irrelevant plotlines unrelated to the main conflict, and the last episode is disappointing because it does not tie up any loose end, delivers no emotional pay-off, and kills off a beloved character for no reason. Even if season 2 turns out great, the issue is that season 1 does not feel like a complete season of television.

If the introduction was only two episodes long, with the reveal of Yura’s identity happening at the end of episode 2, then surely, in the span of a standard 16 episodes, the season would have had time to conclude its most important storylines: (1) Cheon Ryun and Do Hoon taking down what is left of the Union and reforming the NIS, (2) Yu Ra and Do Hoon having an actual conversation about their pasts and the fact that they have been lying to each from the moment they met, (3) Tae Gu clearly telling Yu Ra that he did not kill her parents and helping her get her revenge so they can reconcile along the way.

What I think should have been cut to accommodate this: (1) the kids’ love story, (2) the grandpa’s love stories and the hints that he has super powers or whatever that was, (3) a lot of the scenes with the little brother and his pregnant wife. They should then be replaced by storylines that are tied to the main plot. Like, maybe the grandpa is an army veteran who was friends with one of the antagonists, maybe the brother getting involved with loan sharks ends up placing him in a dangerous position where his life is at risk and he is himself turning into a criminal, and Do Hoon and/or Yu Ra learn and don’t know how to best help him without putting him and themselves in danger, or maybe his storyline places him in a certain position vis-à-vis them that forces them to choose whether to cut him off to protect themselves and Minseo, or risk all of their lives for him. Minseo already has the whole plot with the uncle, who cares about her romance? Additionally, I think it would have been interesting if the family members learned the truth about Do Hoon and Yu Ra, so that they too can become a vessel to explore the theme: would they cut off Do Hoon and Yu Ra to protect themselves and their family?

The theme of the drama is very clear (they spell it out more than once): family matters more than anything. Despite this, there are too few instances where our protagonists, Do Hoon and Yu Ra are tested to prove that they indeed place family above all else. To fully explore the theme, it would have been interesting to see the characters be forced to define who they consider family, if all family is equal to them, and how far they are willing to go to protect their family. Would Yu Ra and Do Hoon sacrifice innocents for their family? Would they sacrifice one family member for another? Would they leave their family behind if they thought it was the only way to ensure their safety? The only time their belief is truly challenged is after they learn the truth about each other, but they both seem to make up their mind very quickly that they will choose to trust each other and remain together despite everything. Otherwise, the show only has them going around trying to protect their family from outside forces, something which should have been the focus of the last, say, four episodes of a 16 episodes season, after they’ve spent ten episodes of proper character exploration.

But hey, that’s just my opinion. Overall, I still enjoyed season 1, but it was definitely disappointing. Still, I have good hope that season 2 (if indeed there is a season 2) is going to be so good it will make up for the flaws of season 1.

#family the unbreakable bond #kdrama #my meta #jang nara #jang hyuk #it must be said that jang nara simply never disappoints #i love her so much

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thetimelordbatgirl · 2 years

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I dunno if I asked or remember asking that question, but anyway, what is your overall thoughts of Wicked World, if you watch all the episodes?

I don't recall you asking either, really, so....

Overall thoughts: it was meh. I did manage to like, watch all of season one and it was really hard to do cause the plot clearly struggled to find what it wanted to do, let alone the fact that some of the characters just felt weirdly written, Evie being the one that comes to mind but Audrey also in some sense and could they make their mind up with Lonnie already?? Girly girl in first film, into ROAR in D2 and hip hop in wicked world???? Did no one know what they were doing with Lonnie at this point in Descendants or-

And the animation....look, its not as bad as Addison’s Moonlight Mystery, that one is meme material. But like, you can tell where the CGI struggled with the hair movements and such and even somehow lightwashed Audrey’s skin??? Apparently they fixed this in S2 but like???? How??? And the outfits....look, a large majority of them are fine...given they mostly wear outfits from the first Descendants, so...but BEN?! WHAT DID THEY DO TO HIM?! Maybe this is why we don’t get Ben wearing shit beyond his king outfits: because when Descendants tries, they somehow give him two different patterned outfits at the same time and different colors for some reason. And you can tell the CGI budget was small as shit...because characters like Chad and Doug are missing, hence why you don’t see Evie and Doug dance with each other in S1 finale and have a weird joke as a result with Evie dancing with the princess crown.

And for the characters we got introduced to....Freddie’s pretty cool, kinda funny with China Anne McClain voicing her in S1, but she’s a pretty cool daughter of Facilier at least, but damn, even if this Mal is more likeable then films Mal, Mal still a bitch about bringing Freddie off the Isle. And Ally and Jordon....they okay. Like, Jordon’s name is a little weird as we can’t tell where exactly the team got this name for a character whose dad was from Agrabah. But like, she’s okay at least I guess, but I’m mixed on Ally: one hand, design is cute and I do like how they TRIED to make her a lil wonderland like, but on other hand: god could her quick to accuse moments in S1 get annoying... And CJ is probably the biggest mood of S1: appearing for maybe one episode and then fucking off afterwards. A mood, I tell you. Tho outside of that, she’s a good character...even if they just didn’t use her very well in the end.

I didn’t really watch S2 per-say, maybe a couple of eps but I honestly lost interest after S1. But I will say from what I watch: meh on the season. At least it had a plot I guess this time...even if the jewels existence is confusing to me because....you telling me the heroes have all these powers given to them, even with the discouragement of using magic, and we NEVER got to see them use the jewels again after this??? Are you KIDDING ME- and they also took the villains away from them but are now giving them finally to the VKs??? What??? HOW DOES THAT WORK- how did only Maleficent hide hers but no one else??? AND WHY WOULD SOMEONE LIKE CRUELLA HAVE ONE- Though ngl, evil Mal was kinda cool to see and her song is a bop at least...even if her whole jewel thing is confusing as fuck still... And for the new guy who was made to be the villain...at least he had more to do this season then CJ did in S1??? But not saying much, and ngl, the crush on Mal feels like....a weird way to tie him to Mal and its never brought up again beyond that mention, not even when Mal tells Evie to distract Zevon like uh, Mal, he has a crush on YOU, not Evie, YOU do the distraction here- And CJ just...appears randomly again in finale and I guess auradon is chill with her suddenly despite all she’s done.

And....not surprised it didn’t get a S3, don’t even try after the mess that was D3. Though out of this, the wedding prep shorts and the zombies one....this is probably the most decent animated series’ Disney’s done so far, so...

#like this is jumbled but been ages since i watched wicked world so #best attempt here really

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poptartmochi · 1 year

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okay so what I was going to post before I noticed I got polls was!! i went through some of my sketchbooks and encountered some sketches i was 🐗 about.. i wanted to share them on here!! I'll put them under a readmore since y'all know I like explaining things 🫣

first off is one of my Steven Universe OC's... pearl!! 😳😃 what pearl? I genuinely could not tell you anymore 🫣 but from what I remember, she was a supporting character to my main OC, Aquamarine (the reveal of the canon aquamarine killed my interest in the show 😭). The two worked on this off-Homeworld ship but rose up against the captain and iirc crash-landed on Earth a long time ago? and Aquamarine was looking for Pearl, who'd lost her memories in the crash. something like that? anyhow I remember feeling like GOD when I decided on that hairstyle! i also like her cape, it's like a translucent bubble around her (was the translucency thing associated with all pearls? I don't remember anymore 😅)

next are some of my bnha 🫣 ocs! They were second year students, if memory serves correctly. truthfully I forgot who they were until I saw the little nametag in the second picture 😶😅

The one on the left is named Ikina Youta, and basically his quirk is that he's like the sun? He can superheat his body, emit light, and funnily enough charge stuff through solar power 😆 A big part of his story was that he was Terrified of his quirk, to the point Aizawa was going to expel him for wasting its potential. His family (he's actually a tie-in to my sister's own characters haha) develop adaptive gear that supports him and keeps him from burning himself alive when he uses his quirk, so now! in his second year! he is breaking ground and testing out the extent of his powers :]

The one on the left is named Uzumeru Tsuyume, and he's actually Recovery Girl's grandson! He has a mix of her and his father's Sandman quirk (i slappa you and you knock out 😈.. which doesn't sound like a superpower at all... LOL!!!), so basically if he touches you you get knocked into a deep restorative sleep. his mother, chiyo's daughter, wasn't a huge fan of him going to UA after helping her mother patch heroes up her whole life, but Tsuyume thought his powers would be most helpful at ground zero and so he went to UA against her wishes. He really looks up to his grannie and has lunch with her twice a week :-] his costume is somewhat of a homage to her, although his friends tease him because it also looks like a racecar driver's outfit, which was not intentional he swears!!!!! but the little racecars on his nightstand tell a different story 👁👁❗ I think, similar to Chiyo, his power is a little draining on him so he's always a little tired and grumpy. he and youta balance each other out :D

they're actually 2/3 of my 2nd year trio! the third member of their group is a birdgirl (i was still debating how Bird i wanted to make her before i abandoned bnha..) named Koetaka Hanami, whose power is basically being an Offensive Opera Singer... her hero name is even Coloratura 😆😎🤠 she's a huge fan of Present Mic and resembles him in some ways... She brings the heat and muscle in their trio! Tsuyume does most of the support work (although sometimes it's nice to have him smack someone just to knock them out lol) and Youta does a lot of person-to-person stuff.. i have forgotten the word for this just now </3 he can also be a human flare so that's pretty useful! but Hanami is the one running in and taking care of the baddies, with her glass-breaking voice haha

I moved on from bnha after the first movie (iirc? whichever one i-island was..) so I have no idea how they'd fit into the overall plot anymore teehee! they are just fun little dolls for my brain now :]

finally are some doodles of the one... the only.... mister sergio joestar dun dun dun! He's actually why I went digging through my sketchbooks to begin with haha!

i remember really wanting to capture his fuckt up Dad Hair + sideburns.. i think the left one does it the most justice- my sketchy style makes his hair lose the plot in the right drawing hehe. anyhow the context of the left sketch is that josuke was an evil baby and would constantly pull on his scarf, but. sergio refused to ever take it off because it was a present and reward for his swagrannie lisa lisa :') so he would just let josuke choke him out.. imagine he's doing the goku laugh, u know the one!

the right drawing is just the lament o' sergio to me. I forget the context but I think that look of mild concern/apprehension suits his journey pretty well.... POV you can sense Dio within a 100 mile radius (plot twist he is having his hot girl summer in japan and is unaware of ur existence 🤪🤪)

my first and i think Only drawing of giorno is here too! i wanted to try an animal crossing style out on him.. when I drew this I wanted to get more into an AC style for my cutesy drawing, to complement the looser and :3-ier style I would use that you can see to his left. i think it turned out nicely! I think the sketch on his left is of my main YOI character, but. your guess is as good as mine lol!

seeing these made me want to pick drawing back up again and maybe commit to doing some studies/use references! I've never done a study of anything and my use of references is. light at best <3 so these really are Pure Sketchies and Doodlies ur honor. i wonder what more serious art from me would look like!

#long post #my art #never thought i'd use that tag!#alr i put this post off for long enough. I must now mop the house!!!#described #sriracha.txt

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sleepy-moron · 2 years

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I stand before you today good people of Tumblr to answer a very important question: Why gay Mike Wheeler? This isn't going to be an explanation as to what evidence there is to support this claim because many people have covered the topic way better than I could, it's more of me attempting to explain why I personally am so interested by this interpretation of stranger things.

Okay so I've loosely followed the stranger things community on and off since around fall of 2016?? While I've had occasional brief periods of hyperfixation on the series, it's never been THE hyperfixation for me. That is until we started getting the bigger promo material for season four in October. I fell into a theory post rabbit hole and eventually wound up binge reading a bunch of byler meta posts.....and now I am extremely invested, as evidenced by me even making this post.

The funny thing is I never really had strong feelings about Mike as a character other than him being an asshole in season 3 prior to this. I thought he was generally a likeable enough protagonist(because he arguably fills the role of an 80s kid hero better than anyone else+ he is always relevant in that part of the storyline for the first three seasons) for the kind of story the show is trying to tell, albeit not a particularly interesting one. But Mike being gay changes that, and not for the "you only like the character because they're gay" reasons some people are going to claim. Well it does have to do with that but it really isn't that cut and dry of an answer.

Mike being canonically gay would make him an incredibly subversive character, and I don't mean that in a "wow it's so rare to have a character realize they're gay gradually over the course of a work of fiction" way, I mean it's arguably a subversion of a lot of tropes and story conventions common to works like stranger things. I'd argue that if Mike being gay is indeed the intended reading of his character, that this makes him one of the strongest links between a characters personal arc and the overall thematics of a show I've seen in recent memory.

This begs the question: what is stranger things even about on a thematic level. I personally believe that the biggest takeaways are about the power of love and compassion in the face of adversity, and that people (particularly people in positions of power) are the real monsters for encouraging the suffering and pressure to conform to societal norms at the price of your own happiness. I think most people who have watched the show would agree on these being major themes so I'm not going to explain how the story shows these themes.

Mike (and his hypothetical sexuality and relationship with Will) tie in with these themes pretty damn perfectly. The bond these two share is always linked to the main supernatural threat of the season, and in the first two seasons Mike caring about Will to the extent he does is a big factor in taking down the physical threat of the season. Season 3 is a little different, as a big conflict of the season is Mike ignoring people in favor of kissing El, and Will is by far the character we see impacted the most by this. This conflict is the whole reason nobody besides Dustin gets involved with the mall Russians, and Mike and Will literally have their big fight right before the characters realize the mind flayer is back.

Now that we know how important their relationship is, let's run through how many themes this arc would connect to. These two deciding to go against the very real pressures of society to do what makes them happy, as which is also an act of love/care, and would likely help them fight against the upside down at an unspecified later point in the series. This even works on a meta level, as this also subverts real society's expectations on how the plot of shows like stranger things go. Mike not ending up with El would be a big subversion already but him ending up with Will instead inverts so many tropes. It means the main girl character in advertisement doesn't end up with the guy she's closest with, a gay character isn't in unrequited pining for a hero who's straight, and it also means that no longer being in a relationship with someone is automatically an unhappy ending. Additionally it subverts the idea of needing a relationship to be happy and the idea that relationship plotlines can't be just as relevant to the story of an action/non melodrama show as any other kind of side plot can be. So this boils down to subverting audience expectations based on cinematic conventions to stay true to the story being told, and that story ultimately being about compassion and love overcoming all opposition.

I just think that's the kind of story people need to see sometimes, and it would be huge to see a show this popular do something like this, and I really think that just how well this storyline would fit the show in addition to all the subtext is really why people are so attached to this idea.

#byler #stranger things #stranger things 4 #byler tumblr #gay mike wheeler #mike wheeler is gay #oh boy this is a doozy of a ramble essay #i just had a lot of feelings and kinda just threw all of them into a post #hopefully this is somewhat coherent???#this is the text equivalent of what goes through my head when i become overwhelmed by feelings about a piece of media #to which i then lie on the floor for several hours until i become a function person again

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heretherebedork · 2 years

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I never read the novel so I didn't come into this show all that attached to Gram or Black. I think the criticism about his arc may be the product of watching it week by week and having so much time to (mis)read into his actions. From the beginning, we saw Eugene sneakily meet up with him and hug him the morning after her disappointing night with 'Black', hinting that they're at least friends who seek comfort in each other, if not more. Then we had Gram's nervous reaction to the comment about him pursuing an arts student. Then the drunken kiss that HE INITIATED and she TEMPORARILY RETURNED, when we all know drunk people are usually their most honest selves (AND the fact that the person she chose to comfort her post break up was Gram instead of any of her girlfriends). There were a lot of hints that Gram and Eugene were close (and maybe even borderline cheating with each other) that we all collectively ignored because GramBlack shippers dominated the fandom dialog between episodes. Even his conversation with Yok about his secret crush makes sense being about Eugene, especially because she was his best friend's girlfriend and now ex. He knew she was off limits, and only decided to make a move much later when he saw how uncaring 'Black' was about learning about their kiss. It was a pivotal moment for Gram's character development, if we'd been paying attention. Something in him snapped. His love for Eugene hated seeing her pain, and his friendship with Black didn't even mean enough to 'Black' for him to feel betrayed and angry. He'd been burying his love for who knows how long, sacrificing it on the altar of Black, only for 'Black' to not give a shit? And as for the notion that Eugene didn't reciprocate, she was clearly torn. She kept going to him for comfort (that hug, that night of drinking, she even kissed back for a second). She clearly thinks of him as her emotional confidant, someone trustworthy and dependable, someone she's at least marginally attracted to. She is attached to him, but didn't want to start anything so soon after Black. I don't know, I guess none of this feels out of the blue to me, or like a plot twist. The big question for me isn't that they're potentially endgame, but HOW does their story tie in to the overall plot? This story is otherwise so tightly plotted that even Yok's mom works for Tawi.

Alright, let's do this thing.

I know nothing of the novel so I came to this with nothing but a shrug, a tumblr and a lot of amusement. I, in fact, have never been invested in GramBlack beyond the fact that it made a lot of sense and fit with the narrative we were being given in the story. Because it did.

So, you make a lot of points in this and it's gonna take me a bit to go through it but I'm gonna point out that while some of this does make sense, most of it still only makes sense in hindsight and with the knowledge that GramEugene is endgame.

I mean, from the start, we were specifically told that Gram and Black were best friends and very close and between the G and B little dinosaurs (which were a literal red herring as we have heard basically NO ONE ever call her Gene and there was NO WAY to ever make that connection until they started slamming us over the head with the GramEugene).

Yes, drunk Gram kissed Eugene and she pulled away. Rejection number one! This poor girl. Apparently it doesn't matter how many times she rejects him, she has to accept him in the end. Because that's how this works. Oh. Wait. No. But also she chose Gram because the narrative required a drama for White to want to get closer to Gram so we could continue being misled by White assuming that Gram had feelings for Black because oh wait it made sense in the narrative at the time.

Okay, all hints that they were close were on the same level as Sean and Namo being close and that was a one-sided crush wherein she instantly accepted being turned down and did not continue to pursue him despite him not being interested. Unlike Gram. But also them being close is called friendship. It was not shown until much later to possibly be more.

Do you know why the GramBlack shippers 'controlled the narrative'? Because the show was trying to convince us it was canon. Why would they have White make the assumption? Why would they have the dinosaurs be G and B? Why would they have the note not have a name on it?

No. I'm sorry, the conversation between Gram and Yok does not make more sense if it's about Eugene because the entire narrative we'd been fed to that point had been about how close Gram and Black were, how Black had taught Gram about freedom and rebellion and passion. None of that was connected to Eugene in anyway and, frankly, still isn't. Are we really saying that Gram joined Black's gang to get closer to Eugene?

Yes, she went to him for comfort because he is her friend. She turned him down romantically multiple times because they were friends. There was no sign of her being torn until this episode. Every other episode she turned him down instantly. Women are allowed to seek comfort from male friends without the assumption that this means she is sexually or romantically attracted to him. Eugene and Gram were friends and the assumption that there had to be more because she 'went to him for comfort' is very uncomfortable to me.

Now, is it truly out of left field? No. It's out of the last few episodes, for the most part, but you've also noticed a very important point here... it's completely disconnected from everything else. Nothing else in the plot is touching these moments. And that makes it even worse.

We literally have Gram finding out that Black, his supposed best friend, has an identical twin he didn't know about and there's... no worry? No fear? No looking for him? No wondering where Black has been? No being worried that he was beaten and replaced and that he didn't even notice? Nothing. Just laughter and humor and relief that Sean wasn't actually in love with Black?

Look, yes, GramEugene is a thing now. You can even justify it in hindsight. But that doesn't mean it doesn't also ruin Gram's character by completely removing his friendship with Black as any kind of motive in anything he does and also removing him almost entirely from the plot of the story itself and especially from the gang's story.

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thefools-journey · 3 years

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So. Some of you may be wondering why we haven’t written a whole ton about the secondaries or what have you. Here’s the reason: we were waiting for them to end before we really dug into the problems we were noticing. We felt that it was only fair to wait for the routes to finish so that we had an understanding of the writers’ vision. Who knew, we thought, maybe they would see the problems themselves and course correct, maybe they are building to something we can’t quite see yet and these issues will have actual payoff, maybe-

In light of Muriel and Lucio’s endings, and the general mess that has dominated Portia’s route for a year plus now, we are breaking our silence. We are actually going to talk about this shit show.

The fandom at large has talked about a bunch of issues with the secondaries but for me, the cardinal sin, the thing that really all the issues lead back to, is this: the writers lost sight of the tarot themes which so strongly defined and held together the primary routes. Let me explain.

The primary routes each center around three thematic cores:

The Love Interest’s Major Arcana and its Reversed/Upright meanings

The MC’s Fool’s Journey, both how it can go right and how it can go wrong

A question about the MC’s identity and their relationship to said identity

Asra’s route asks: Who was the MC? How does the MC navigate a past they cannot and will not remember? What do they owe a past they cannot remember? How do they handle the revelations of what Asra, Nadia, Julian, etc did? How do you right the past? Can you?

Nadia’s route asks: Who is the MC? The MC has no past. Are they the Fool only? Are they actually the same person they were? How can they tell? Who are they, really? Are they an imposter? No one can answer these questions for them.

Julian’s route asks: Who will the MC become? How does the MC see their future? Is there anything worth fighting for for that future? What will become of them and their loved ones?

Now, if you notice, these themes are expertly woven throughout the primaries. Asra’s past dominates his route, Nadia is also missing memories and trying to construct her identity both with her family and with Vesuvia, and Julian’s fear of the future drives his flailing for control. Asra has to learn to take a broader view of his actions to get his Upright Ending, Nadia has to learn to trust herself and those around her for hers, and Julian has to learn how to let go for his. These lessons are the issues their cards stand for. The primaries are so dang elegant and delicate in their handlings of theme it is honestly awe-inspiring.

Thematically, the secondary routes have completely lost their hearts. First of all, the MC does not have strong, core questions which need to be answered. They just don’t. I suppose the writers did not want to retread old territory (which is weird considering how tightly bound the primaries are; it really tricks you into thinking you’re living the same events but from different angles depending on your route) but they did not replace the old with anything new. Muriel’s route is, on the surface, about discovering and owning his past, the good and the bad. Why not tie MC’s self-discovery to that story? Or they could have taken the angle that Muriel’s route is about convincing him to be present and active in the world while MC builds an identity for themself outside of Asra, the shop, and the memories they cannot retrieve. Why not tie the investigation themes running through Portia’s early route back to MC and their past? Portia has the unique angle of being as in the dark as MC about all of this, why not discover the past together? And for goodness’ sake, Lucio has no future when his route begins, why not tie that to his need for growth, responsibility, and MC’s own future between the Fool, the Devil, or something mortal and in between?

Secondly, the routes lost their tarot backbone. We have a primer on how to get specific endings for each LI and it still holds, but the writers did not follow through on the thematic coherence of each secondary. The Hermit is looking for something, be it perspective, insight, a solution to a problem, whatever. The key here is that the Hermit must find or learn what they are searching for, this thing must change their understanding of the world, and finally, they must bring this lesson back to the world from which they retreated. Can someone please enlighten me as what exactly Muriel learns then teaches the world around him? Nothing Muriel learns from Morga, MC, or even the Hermit ties back into anything. The Devil warns that you are out of control and exerting a lot of manipulative, destructive behavior on the world around you. It asks you to take responsibility for yourself and your actions. So can someone tell me why Lucio’s route actively avoids any interaction or reflection on two of Lucio’s biggest victims: Muriel and Julian? Why does the route only try to make amends with the “easier” of his victims in the cast? The Star is first and foremost the card of clarity, the light at the end of the tunnel. Perseverance, if you will. Yet Portia’s route has been the muddiest of the trio; the writers drop the investigation aspect of her route in favor just handing her and MC information they could have easily found and muddying the waters with Tasya (she blows up the palace but it’s all okay bc she has a secret daughter Julian never thought to bring up or mention) and the complete removal of the Devil as antagonist.

So that leaves just the Fool’s Journey trying to hold this stool up with only one leg. And well...it doesn’t go well. At best, the secondary route books pay the barest surface level homage to the themes of the individual cards. At worst, they ignore the cards completely. Muriel's Moon book has nothing to do with illusions or delusions or lies or even an Alice in the Looking Glass upside down world. Portia's back half is a complete and utter mess, starting with her Temperance book being so badly mangled that Muriel's aftermath book does it better. Lucio's route too bungles the Tower and the Star. There just isn't enough here to carry the routes alone.

Add to the core loss the loss of intertextuality. The primary routes are very good, even great but they too do have their moments and mistakes. What helps strengthen them when the cores stumble is how the trio is woven together. Things you learn in Asra's route can inform the way you play Nadia's, for example. Julian's route informs what is going on in Asra's route and slots some missing puzzle pieces together. Nadia's route tells you of the power struggles she is facing and informs the other two routes' handling of Julian and his trial. On and on, the three routes support each other because they are built out of the same basic plot beats, just tackled in very different ways. Now, the writers are allowed to try and write whatever they want. They apparently wanted to be more experimental and less tied down to an overarching plot with the three secondaries. Okay, fine, they are allowed to do that. The problem is that they sacrificed one of the key strengths of the primary trio and didn't replace said strength with anything else. They also, on some level, harmed the very premise of the game, which is that only the player's choices and route selected change the overall plot. Instead of feeling like legitimate possibilities or offshoots of the same timeline/plot, the secondaries feel almost like Arcana AUs. The secondaries throw out all relations to the primaries and each other as quickly as possible and for what?

It is probably the height of arrogance to suggest fixes for works whose behind the scenes I do not know. At the same time, some small, obvious changes could have salvaged Muriel and maybe Lucio's endings (rip Portia). Instead of having the Hermit appear as a disappointing cameo, why not have him say something cryptic to Muriel, then have MC start trying to seal the Devil. Then let Muriel use his forget me mark to cloak MC and hide them from the Devil's attacks. Protecting MC by hiding them from Lucio, keeping him focused on Muriel, seems to me a simple third solution between Muriel's desire to run and his desire to never fight again. It lets him stand up to Lucio and let him have it while holding onto who Muriel has become. The Reversed End would have MC try to draw Lucio's attention at some point, disrupting the sealing, and eventually leading to Muriel killing the Devil. With Lucio's Upright End, I just have to ask: why doesn't MC fully claim the power of the Fool instead of the Devil? We don't need the other Arcana involved in this fight; we have three routes that demonstrate that. Just have MC pull Scout into the conflict, then have Lucio tell MC he believes in them, then add his power to the mix. You got yourself a full Fool who leaves Scout guarding the realm until they and Lucio's mortal bodies fail and they return to the realm to be together forever. Boom, you're done, you can even add some ambiguous lines so that players can decide how happy their MC is with this arrangement, send me the check.

Here is the bottom line. Our group is full of aroace, and several combinations therein, individuals. We are the last group who should have gotten into a dating sim of all things. But the Arcana did something with the primaries that was special; they wrote a compelling plot with dazzling lore, complex characters, and strong themes wrapped up in a dating sim bow. The writers know better and we know they know better. I do not know what happened with the secondaries, especially around books 10-11, which is where minor issues slowly start spiraling into major ones, but it is clear that Nix Hydra needed some more planning before they released these routes. Hopefully they will learn.

TL;DR: Nix Hydra fired their tarot consultants about eighteen months ago and it has wrecked their secondary routes until they were just embarrassments. They never intended for the secondary routes to even exist and once they had to make them, they scrambled and threw out everything that made the primaries work.

- Mod Telos

#the arcana #The Arcana Game #arcana game #arcana game meta #arcana meta #arcana discourse #the arcana lucio #Lucio route #the arcana muriel #muriel route #the arcana portia #portia route #lucio morgasson #lucio montag #muriel #portia devorak #The Wheel Turns

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takerfoxx · 3 years

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The Owl House, Season 2, Episode 6, "Hunting Palisman," First Impressions!

Screw it, I'm doing this now!

Well, it's happened. Our new rival, the Golden Guard, finally gets his own episode. And it is a doozy!

So, there's a lot to talk about there, and as such, I'll refrain from doing a plot synopsis, as I mainly started doing those because I had trouble coming up with new things to say in season 1, and get right to the analysis.

Firstly, let's talk about the first thing we learn: we get Belos's personal council (forget their names). I think they're the coven leaders? Anyway, from what I gather, their overall plan is to fuse the Boiling Isles with the human realm, which...kinda makes sense. One has the magic, the other has the resources and so much more real estate. Also, I expect questionable fanart of the furry one on my desk by tomorrow, or I will be very disappointed.

Next, we get more on Belos's little situation. Still no word on if he's Wittebane, but we do learn that his malady doesn't just weaken him, they outright cause him to mutate and start spewing goo everywhere! And it is both disgusting and visually awesome. I'm guessing that if he is Wittebane or at the very least a descendant, our guy tried to force himself to become magical through unnatural means instead of learning wild magic from the ground up like Luz is doing, and that gave him his current problem that he needs to absorb the lifeforce of palismans to control.

Also, Golden Guard refers to him as "Uncle." Interesting. Well, Golden Guard is a straight-up native, so is their relationship actually blood, or more of an adopted sort of thing? Signs point to the latter, given the whole "took you in" thing.

And Kikimora and the Golden Guard got a bit of a rivalry going on, one viscous enough that she doesn't mind a little murder to get him out of the way. Fascinating.

Okay, onto to Luz. Now, her getting rejected by the palismans was pretty obvious. We wouldn't have a story otherwise. At first I thought it might be due to her lack of natural magic, but then if that were the case then the Bat Queen would have said something, and we got the similarly magicless Golden Guard getting his own palisman at the very end (more on that later). I guess Luz's goals really haven't been all that well defined. I mean, she's living her dream, but her dream has mostly been based on her favorite books about Azura, and she hasn't really given much thought to what being a witch would actually entail and where that would take her, while everyone else already is a witch and thus have separate goals.

However, we do get a couple interesting takeaways from that whole scene.

Firstly, yay for Bat Queen, we need more of her.

Second, Principal Bump's scorpion-hat thing is his palisman, and my man has an absolutely fabulous do under it! Also, he lost an eye at some point.

And now Eda is actually assisting at the school in some kind of unofficial capacity? Huh.

And Amity is AWOL, no doubt due to post-kiss gay panic. Oh, Amity.

Well, she'd better get back soon, because we all know what resident bi-disaster Luz does with her former rivals!

Okay, okay, in all seriousness, I do think Lumity is endgame and don't see Golden Guard (or Hunter, as we'll be calling him now) as actually being a real threat, though he and Luz did end up having a ton of chemistry in their dynamic. And I honestly don't see him switching sides soon enough to really get any sort of triangle going. But hey, a rapport was formed.

So anyway, here's what we now know about the guy.

1. He is a white-haired pretty boy, AS PREDICTED!

2. He doesn't have magic of his own and, like Belos, relies on technology. Apparently it runs in his family.

3. He is at Belos's right hand, something Kikimora is not happy about.

4. He genuinely wants to help Belos but doesn't know what happened to him. Whatever it was, it was big.

But in terms of character types, he is definitely a Zuko though, albeit a bit lighter. He even has a scar! Or at least, I think that's a scar. And a missing tooth. Was it always missing or was that because of the fall?

And he does seem to have an innate fascination with wild magic, but suppresses it because he also is an actual believer of Belos's ideals. This might start changing though, especially now that he has a palisman of his own. Oh, Rascal. Is that really the wisest choice.

I admit, I was also expecting Rascal to bond with Luz, so the Hunter thing was a nice twist. Her carving her own palisman does tie into her thing about forging her own path, so I'm curious what it'll turn out to be, and what magic she'll actually be able to do with it. I also kinda expected the echo mouse to turn into a palisman, despite knowing that that's not how it works.

Man, this season really has been firing on all cylinders, hasn't it? Shame about DISNEY BEING JERKS AND GUTTING SEASON 3!!!!

#the owl house #toh #the owl house spoilers #toh spoilers #luz noceda #golden guard #hunter #eda clawthorne #principal bump #kikimora #emperor belos #palisman #amity blight #lumity #reaction

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dreamsatdusk · 3 years

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Analysis: Baghra and the Apparat

I received an Anon ask a while back and accidentally published it before it was done a while back. Privated the post but decided to have the final product as a new post just in case; I don’t want it buried in tags from way back.

The Ask:

Hello! Can you do a breakdown on Baghra's character and the Apparat's? I'm interested in reading your thoughts about them

Thank you for the ask! And apologies for the delay in response.

Baghra

One of the first Grisha meta posts I wrote years ago was about how the way Baghra and her hut are portrayed evoke the impression of Baba Yaga. Her appearance, hut in the woods (likely amidst birch trees), and something of her attitude all lend themselves to it. Since then, I’ve also come to think there might be a bit of tie in to the tale of Vasilisa the Beautiful, who was forced to go and bargain with Baba Yaga for a light against the darkness.

Looking past that surface, in the trilogy we are presented with Baghra as a figure both ascetic and penitential, as well as bitter and unkind. The latter traits are well explained by what we learn of her history: she has had a long life filled with a great deal of loss, with countless threats to Grisha and particularly to she and her son, different as they are even from other Grisha. Her childhood was a sad one brimming with trauma and what she recalls of her parents to Alina causes me to think that she did not feel truly loved by either one of them. I think their treatment of her and behavior toward each other shaped her perspective on life in profound ways, ones she never got past.

But the former traits don’t have so obvious a cause on page if you look more deeply. Her lifestyle is very austere despite the fact there is no need for it - she is not on the run and in hiding any longer as she was in the Darkling’s youth. Her conversations with Alina in regards to her son are couched in religious terms: she is worried about his being beyond redemption, she speaks of merzost as abomination, and so forth. In R&R, she has Misha read religious parables to her to pass the time.

This clashes with what we know of contemporary Grisha. It is said at one point in S&B that Grisha don’t put much stock in religion and we see the Darkling does not seem to either. Not to mention the fact that he and his mother knew at least several Grisha who later became considered saints. I find it likely they suspected other saints could also have been Grisha - Grisha and martyred for it, their true identities obscured so later people could pray to them and not have to consider the ‘unnatural’ people they were. It makes a lot of sense that neither Baghra nor the Darkling would invest much consideration in Ravkan religion as it is presented on page. In fact, it seems like they’d find it more infuriating than anything. And yet.

The Second Army has no need to lead lives of deprivation. Yes, they eat ‘peasant-style breakfast’ and such, but their rooms are gorgeous, they have beautiful clothing, sugar for their tea and so forth. Baghra surely wouldn’t be living in a tiny dark hut in the trees unless that is what she wanted.

There’s also the fact that she shows signs of not using her summoning powers. Even before S&S, she’s apparently quite chilly a lot. It makes sense she wouldn’t show she could summon shadows where other Grisha could see. But the indication is she isn’t using her powers at all. That is another way she seems to have chosen to deprive herself, to the point of impacting her health. Perhaps she even hoped that it would lead to her death, but apparently it has not been enough to override the impact of her amplification talent.

Looking back at the woman seen in Demon in the Wood and was glimpsed in the tale she tells Alina of her past, it very much seems to be something happened to turn who Baghra was into who we see in the trilogy.

I suspect much of the true reason is that she is pretty much a plot device in the story. She needs to spook and horrify Alina into running. Her talk of ‘redemption’ and ‘abomination’ are peculiar in terms of many other elements we see in the books. I’m writing a meta on the amplifiers and merzost and such that goes into this further, but I’ve also written some in the past about how there’s no real reason to believe merzost is inherently bad. Baghra has clearly decided it is though and speaks of it and her son’s actions in absolutist terms. Because she needs to in order to have the narrative run how it does, more than once.

And again, what reason would this character really have to put so much faith in Ravkan religion?

What’s a possible in-universe explanation for this? I think the creation of the Shadow Fold works well for that. We find out that what the Black Heretic was actually trying to do was recreate Morozova’s amplifier experiments and something went wrong. (This is the focus of the upcoming meta I mentioned above.). The Fold happened and all of the people within its bounds were transformed into volcra. All in all, a horrific situation, however much an accident. This could have functioned as such a systemic shock to Baghra’s worldview that she sought solace and perhaps forgiveness in religion. I suspect she felt guilt, which is pointed to in things she says in the trilogy. Also, she’s the reason the Darkling even had Morozova’s journals - she went back to the village she was born in and found them, per R&R.

I still think her being invested in the Ravkan religion itself is a weak point, but could be generously explained by just how traumatized she was by the Shadow Fold situation. She may have desperately wanted something to believe in. That said, the lack of any sign in the books of what more lies behind Ravkan religion than Saints and the fact that Baghra knows that at least several of those Saints were actually Grisha, doesn’t make this the strongest argument to me.

I also wrote some weeks back on how Baghra was portrayed as emotionally and physically abusive to Alina and according to their own accountings in R&R, other Grisha as well. In the early days of the fandom, I never really saw that acknowledged, though it has gotten far more recognition this year with new people reading the books since the release of the tv show.

Overall, she is a very bitter person and I think a lot of what we see of her is driven OOC by her being largely a plot device and IC by guilt. She feels guilty about the Fold’s creation and so forth and lashes out at others in misdirected anger.

I think this also relates somewhat to her treatment of Alina in S&S and R&R. She blames Alina for not ‘adequately’ running away (went after the stag instead), blames her for the Darkling putting himself beyond redemption (in Baghra’s mind - like too many people IRL, she seems to not understand what redemption actually is), blames her for the sea whip, for wanting to find the third amplifier. She blames Alina for these things, but it is likely a mask for further personal guilt. Of all people, Baghra is likely the one who would have been most successful in stopping the Darkling before things took the path they did. He trusted her.

But her nasty treatment of others obscures that Baghra is largely a passive character in the trilogy. Whether out of love or some variety of religious concern, she doesn’t try to kill her son. She doesn’t remove Alina from the situation in a more final way, only tells her to run. And in the end, she commits suicide rather than more directly confront the Darkling.

The Apparat

Okay, after all that, I don’t have near as much about the Apparat. *L*

If Baghra’s surface details are meant to evoke Baba Yaga, then I think the Apparat’s point to Rasputin. His physical description was practically a caricature (if you’ve only seen the show, he looked far less revolting in that than he was described in the books) and he starts out as a trusted advisor to the Ravkan royal family.

One of the big questions about the Apparat is about what he truly believes. He was in cahoots with the Darkling around the coup against the Lantsov dynasty in S&B, but he later swung his support behind the Sun Summoner. I think it would be a believable reading of the text to suspect he may have planned to do so since learning of Alina’s existence. There’s no real reason to think he truly supported the Darkling’s cause or cared much for Grisha themselves; on the latter point, I think the greater support is for the idea that he does not care about the Grisha and just used them to get what he wanted.

His presentation is a mix of True Believer and power-seeker and a great deal of the questions around him relate to where one thinks he falls most strongly on that spectrum. Alina’s interactions with him in S&B have the hallmarks of a fanatic, but then, these signs are also seen through Alina’s eyes and you have to consider whether she is seeing reality or a careful act. I think the case could be made for either. But either way, I also think he wanted power. I suppose you could argue he wanted power on behalf of Sankta Alina, but I think his actions in R&R show that an Alina who wasn’t going to comply with his wishes was deemed more trouble than she was worth. If she had died, I don’t think he fundamentally would have cared. She had established enough of a reputation, was known to enough people, that he could have exploited her as a martyr without having to deal with the reality.

The Apparat was the sort of character I tend to really dislike (religious manipulation, etc.). Something that struck me in all the books is how more than one character was strangely...tolerant of him. He backstabbed people more than once and yet nothing was every truly done about it.

#Grishaverse #Grishaverse Meta #Baghra Morozova #Baghra #The Apparat #The Grisha Trilogy #Shadow and Bone

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ellasadventuresinfandoms · 3 years

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Okay, back in May @isolatedphenomenon asked me if I had an les mis fic recs and I went "oh boy do I !" and then promptly fucked off and disappeared from tumblr for like 6 months...

Anyway on the off chance people are interested, here is my vastly too long list of my favourite les mis fanfic (that I'm almost 100% sure I'll have accidentally missed some of my favourites off of...)

The vast majority of these are main pairing Enjolras/Grantaire, so I've put those first, divided into multi-chaptered and then one-shots. Below that will be other pairings!

Multi-chaptered

• Witch Boy Series : magic AU, starting with Grantaire solving Enjolras' curse - this is just Incredible world building which gets better as it goes on - my favourite is the Babet interlude

• World Ain't Ready : you know how fandoms tend to have a fic that is just associated with it ? in my experience, for les mis this is it - and well deserved ! High school, fake dating AU with some of the most engaging writing

• BE : Enjolras is dragged back into theatre production, helping Eponine put on a production of Hamlet - really love the characterisation in this, and this is really one of those modern AUs that actually feels like real life - really good writing

• After the End : the definitive apocalypse AU in my eyes - les amis are an underground resistance to the dystopian government - really wonderful characterisation of Grantaire and the amis

• You never have to wonder; you never have to ask. : I tend to find fic by scrolling through bookmarks of a pairing, which means I often see repeats; this is a fic that if I see I just re-read cause I know I'll enjoy it - the amis sparked a failed rebellion, and now 18 months later Grantaire ends up staying at Enjolras' after returning to Paris for Marius and Cosette's wedding

• Your Heart on Your Skin : Soulmate AU with flower tattoos marking important emotions and events - wonderful concept and world building

• Impatient to Be Free : Daughters of Bilitis AU - if that doesn't make you excited I don't know what else to say to convince you (aside from saying the author is a simply wonderful writer)

• You Dance Dreams : Okay. Not to be over dramatic, but this fic did genuinely qualitatively change my life, in that it was the first thing that got me looking up contemporary ballet and now that's like one of my favourite things and big hobby So. Also its really great writing; music/creative arts school les amis with Grantaire choreohraphing the ballet for Combeferre's opera, with a heavy emphasis on Grantaire realising he really never actually got over Enjolras

• philia : this one is an absolute classic to me, but not given nearly enough recognition - one of the more realistic college AUs ever written, and the writing of Grantaire is so good because it hits the perfect balance of sympathy and annoyance about his behaviour (that's a genuine compliment)

• Coffee Hooligans : fucking tragedy this never got properly finished, Enjolras leads the amis as social justice vigilantes and tries to hide the criminal bits of his life from R

• Fighting the Hurricane : Pacific Rim AU that's less an AU and more just placing the les mis characters in the Pacific Rim universe. Really good and riveting read, also super interesting depiction of Grantaire

• Weaving Olden Dances : Fairy AU - Grantaire "claims" Enjolras to prevent his execution - really good writing, love Grantaires characterisation

• Paris Burning : canon era (sort of) where cities have a physical being - Grantaire is Paris and becomes entangled in Enjolras' revolution - oh the world building is truly *chefs kiss*

• Euphoria is You For Me : Enjolras and Grantaire keep meet cuting in a wonderfully written Brooklyn - feels like a love letter to Brooklyn at times, and I really like the characterisation of Grantaire

• so please just fall in love with me this christmas : Enjolras works for the environmental company Grantaire volunteers at, and keeps getting secret gifts at Christmas - I sound a little like a broken record but the Grantaire characterisation is very good

• You Are the Moon : Wild West esque Space AU - Grantaire has to call on the amis to help rescue Valjean and Cosette, despite Grantaire leaving the amis 6 months before. On re-reading the Enjolras characterisation feels a little rushed, but overall fantastic story telling and the Grantaire arc is a Delight

• Pandemos : Enjolras is aphrodite, and seeks peace from all his suitors in R/Hephestus' cave

• Pining for You : Hallmark christmas romance - Grantaire returns home to work on his father's tree farm, and Enjolras is the lawyer helping prevent the farm being sold - cute as shit imo

• Once We're Kings : Fantasy AU - a country hosts a ball to marry Prince Enjolras and the rival country sends Grantaire as a fuck you - one of the best ways of doing Enjolras as a prince in a fantasy and just really nicely written

• Never Bitter and All Delicious : Fairy Godmother AU - yes really, yes its genuinely a very good read

• On One Condition : Fantasy AU - Enjolras is a bored knight who finally goes to check out the local dragon, which turns out to be Grantaire - I really like how they capture Enjolras' stubborn nature and it's such a well written soft growth of love between them

• That's How Easy Love Can Be : Les Amis work at a primary school; and its secret santa time! very fun portrayal of Enjolras

• The Lark and Her Lieutenants : re write of canon where Cosette is the leader of the revolution - just *chefs kiss*

• If You Tickle Us, Do We Not Laugh : Grantaire is Enjolras' secret android - really good at writing a relationship that's incredibly loving but just keeps being antagonistic and coming off wrong

One Shots

• True Colours : AU where you leave colours on the people important to you - Enjolras and Grantaire falling for each other is so soft and gently written its lovely, this is genuinely one of my favourites

• Keep It Kind, Keep It Good, Keep It Right : this one is so good to me, because it builds off my pet hatred of everyone assuming Enjolras doesn't care about (or at least actively show he cares about) his friends

• blooming : very soft post-dystopian utopia that has just a really wonderful sense of hope and light to me

• and the wall leaned away (or: The Pros and Cons of Tilling) : perfectly realised characterizations of the amis, Grantaire needs a date to her final year art exhibition - deals with anxiety over protest in a way that actually hits for me

• not just one of the crowd : R helps run a leftist bakery and bike repair shop - very cute characterisation, and I think more les mis fanfic should link to anarchist essays

• Lovesickness : Enjolras is an idiot and thinks he's sick rather than having a crush - the writing of Joly and Combeferre in this is some of my favourite depictions of these two

• If there's a rocket, tie me to it : absolutely heartbreaking sci-fi AU about the amis as doomed mecha pilots

• Where I Fall is Where I Land : Enjolras is a Roman commander as Rome's power is leaving England, and then meets the pict Grantaire (+ fun soulmark stuff !)

• You Started Foreign to Me : Enjolras moves to america and R is the overnight grocery clerk who helps her learn Spanish - cute fluffy lesbians with a wonderfully written driven Enjolras

• Love Is Touching Souls : very cute soulmate AU - and one I really love for really truly considering the implications of soul marks and creating historical lore around it

• Ten Years : R is a musician, and it non-linearly charts his relationship to Enj from high school to 10 years later

• put up with me then I'll make you see : Grantaire lives above Enjolras, and its christmas - I find it to have a very fun interpretation of pining Enjolras

• A Cat Called Trash Can : this was one of the first les mis fics I ever read (yes I know it says it was published in 2020, but I think it has to be a re-upload or something?) and it does still have a special place in my heart - Grantaire rescues a cat, but Enjolras is the only one with an apartment free to look after it

• Still I'm Begging to Be Free : inception AU where les amis have to rescue a sleeping R from his own brain

•I'm in it for You : cw: illness, cancer - R has cancer and is being a martyr about telling his friends so Enjolras drives him back from chemo

• walls come tumbling down : sky high au - a very good high school AU with the perfect level of campy superhero powers

• This brave new world's not like yesterday : Enjolras needs a job, so ends up working in a bowling alley with Grantaire and bonding

Enjolras/Grantaire/Combeferre

• In Defiance of All Geometry : les amis are a student co-op house, Enjolras and Combeferre are pining friends and Grantaire is the newbie

• Still the Same : this is very good writing and very compelling - if you can get over the (imo) plot hole of Enjolras working for the FBI. R was an art thief Enj put away and is briefly helping the FBI out, and Combeferre is Enjolras' husband

• To Kingdom Come : cw: war and PTSD from that, Enjolras and Combeferre are part of a group of refugees that have crossed into a more fantasy land, and Grantaire is a lone traveller from that land that attempts to help - that was a shit summary of this very emotional, wonderfully written fic about war and love in all forms

• Gonna need (a spark to ignite) : I always love a twist on a classic trope, and this is a very fun take on the soulmate AU - Enjolras loses feeling in his soul mark as a child, falls in love with Grantaire and then his soulmate, Combeferre, turns up

Eponine/Cosette

• Pretty Girls Don't Know the Things That I Know : simply stunning writing - perfect example of soft writing about a harsh world

• she knows her way around : Eponine and Cosette bond, ostensibly so Eponine can find out about her for Marius, and their interactions are so playful and realistic, its wonderful

• always find me floating on oceans : Cosette stows away on Eponine's pirate ship - I do always have a soft spot for eposette fics (not just cause I ship it) because they truly characterise Cosette in a really considered and interesting way

• There's No Making Love : I'm putting this under eposette even though there is some significant enjolras/grantaire content, because the Cosette characterisation is so fun and cute

• round and round again : this fic really beautifully translates Cosette's bad childhood and then isolated teenage years, and the impact that would have on her as an adult into a modern AU

• Underwater Thunderheards : this is based off the book The Scorpio Races, and is just a really nice short fic about longing

• How To Change The World Without Taking Power : Marius has a crush on Cosette and she's tried being polite and subtle in turning him down, so just ends up fake dating Eponine instead

• blood red fruit and poison's kiss : Snow White AU - Cosette as Snow White

• The Winters Cannot Fade Her : Snow White Au 2.0 - Eponine as Snow White - this was written as a pair to the one above which is just so cute to me

• marriage à la mode : Cosette and Eponine run a bridal shop together and it's very cute !

• Temporary Hold : I personally find this a really fun and very unique take on Cosette - with exams coming up she decides she needs to get laid on the reg and so hits up Eponine to act as if they're already long term girlfriends

Combeferre/Courfeyrac

• better than you had it : fake dating but kick it up an emotional notch - Courf and Ferre pretend to still be together after breaking up for a family event

• take flight, come near : nice and cute low fantasy, where Combeferre runs a dragon sanctuary and Courf finds an injured dragon

Rare Pairs

• The Future's Owned by You and Me : cute Enjolras/Feuilly with actual radical politics and real life organising difficulties and wins

• First Dates and Other Dangers : Combeferre and Grantaire agree to go on a blind date and it's awkward until it isn't - just cute !

• after midnight : Combeferre has insomnia and meets Grantaire in various all night fast food chains

• as you are : Bahorel and Jehan getting ready together

• Almost Romantic : Jehan works at a museum, and takes Combeferre on a little tour

• Understudy : Jehan/Combeferre, with Combeferre's insecurities regarding being seen as second best to Enjolras

• Here There Be Dragons : Courf/Enj/Ferre - Courf and Enj are superheroes and Ferre is the doctor that patches them up

• To Let it Occur (Laisser Faire la Nature) : Feuilly has a stupidly long stopover in Paris and meets Enjolras

• rule of three : Courf/Enj/Ferre as spies and loving boyfriends

• Good Rhetoric : snapshots of cute cuddly courf/enj/ferre

• subluxate, dislocate, replace : found family and chronic illness with Joly/Bossuet/Musichetta

• Strike stone, strike home (like lightning) : so this fic took one minor piece of lore about Tolkien's dwarves and made a beautiful j/b/m fic from it

• Almost Inevitable : Bahorel/Feuilly friends-with-benefits

• god only knows (what I'd be without you) : Bahorel/Feuilly with a closeted Feuilly and a beautiful Feuilly and Eponine friendship

#les miserables #fanfic rec #les mis #les miserables fanfic #les miserables fanfic rec

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sidigtal-anim · 3 years

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AMPHIBIA SEASON 2 FINALE: INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS AND SHIPPING

SPOILERS FOR ALL OF AMPHIBIA PRE-"TRUE COLORS" & SEASON 2B TRAILER

It's time.... I can't believe this is the final week of Amphibia before the hiatus for Season 3. We can cry about that in May, but for now we have some business to get to with Relationship drama!

DISCLAIMER: This is a shipping/platonic interpersonal relationship discussion post for the relationship between all three of the girls. All healthy ships are good ships, but I’m talking from my perspective. This is my own speculation for the show, and what I interpret may not be the crew’s intent. So I’m doing this with the knowledge that there’s a possibility that this is all speculation and not canon.

If no ships at all, or the ship you wanted did not happen in the Season 2 finale, do not blame the artists and creators for such. Many fandoms have done this and it’s possible that it will happen again. Just don’t be those people who ignore the hard work and beautiful storytelling the Amphibia crew have done and just complain to them about not doing the ship you/we desperately wanted. Harassing the crew for telling their story is a horrible thing to do. So please be mindful of that.

I will also talk about both monogamous ships and a potential polyamorous ship (which is WILD that a Disney frog isekai has one of the most potential for LGBT Poly representation). So if you're polyphobic or monophobic, this post isn't for you. (while you're at it block me.)

But let’s get started:

The Polaroid

A recurring prop used to showcase the happy memories of Anne, Sasha and Marcy. We’ve only seen two of the same Polaroid: one with Anne, and the other with Sasha. It's used to showcase the three girls' tight friendship and bond initially on Earth, and I think if Marcy shows hers, it might showcase the angst of her working for Andrias. (More on that theory in my plot speculation post.)

There is no one else to morally ship them with.

Pad Thai shippers, calm down. In a show like this, there would be a dude who came to Amphibia with the three girls and Anne or someone would fall in love with him. But like The Owl House, there is no hetero ship presented with Anne, Sasha or Marcy that aren't Amphibians. The only people we can ship the three girls with are each other, and even then Sasha and Anne's ANGST is too much for a healthy relationship at the moment. Marcy would be the only real potential option for a happy ship with Anne. (Don't attack me Sashanne shippers, just stating the facts on screen.)

"Well, romance isn't the focus of this show!" You're right. Romance isn't the focus, but the show does do romance. We've seen several times with Sprig and Ivy, and Hop Pop and Sylvia. They may not be the centre focus (which is one of the reasons I love this show) but it exists. The show has done romance several times, and if they culminate a romance with [two or all three of the] girls, it would make sense. The potential is there, but will it happen?

Romance Thread

Hop Pop and Sylvia, Joe Sparrow and Bessie, Sprig and Ivy, "Quarreler's Pass" where Hop Pop asks Anne if she has a boyfriend to fill the awkward silence: these are all romance threads/points throughout the season and it makes so much more sense to have them culminate in this finale or at least showcase an idea of further explicit queer relationship, and do the romance in Season 3.

An overarching story with these three girls has been their interpersonal relationships with one another as Sasha is controlling of both of them, and Anne and Marcy try to find their own path and reach their own autonomy. By having Marcy and Anne find themselves devoid of Sasha, they are free to be themselves.

Sasha as a Complex Character

Sasha at the current moment is not ready for any relationship with Anne or Marcy, especially with what we learn about her in “The Third Temple” in using Marcy, Anne and the Plantars to storm Newtopia. She is a major component of angst in the show, and the main conflict to Anne and Marcy's arcs. Especially with the Season “wrapping” up their angst by "Battle of the Bands", but touching on it in several episodes of the season: it seems like it's going to be thrown over to the next season. The Season 2 finale will be somehow more angsty than “Reunion” (which... how are they going to do??) and the Season 3 finale will introduce a sort of distrust arc and denouement of them realising their relationship and dynamics were not healthy. The biggest disconnect in the last episode was Sasha thinking that after she uses them to get into Newtopia safely, she can somehow control this relationship she has between Marcy and Anne.

[You might be wondering: "okay, but if their angst is doubling down this season, why do a big post on potential shipping and relationships?" Because I can and I want to. I'm just very into these adorable teenagers being in a happy relationship as soon as possible (especially if it's not hetero).]

Sasha and Marcy - Hold your horses, this isn’t a Sasharcy segment. I’m talking about the relationship and interactions between these characters themselves.

We haven’t yet seen how Sasha and Marcy interact without Anne there: similar to Season 1 where we knew who Anne and Sasha were in terms of their own characters, but in “Reunion” we saw how their dynamic was and how that played a great influence on the Battle of Toad Tower. I think “True Colors” will delve a little into that with perhaps a flashback.

Another similarity and difference between the two is that Marcy is willing to give up her hyper fixated goal for the people she cares about. We see it in "The First Temple" where Marcy is willingly forfeiting the game to save Anne and the Plantars from the harm of the Temple. While with Sasha, we see in "Barrel's Warhammer" that she is persistent in going through with obtaining the Warhammer, even at the cost of the people around her. In this instance, Percy and Braddock. I definitely think that Marcy and Sasha are two foils while still being similar overall. If Andrias' plan means risking Anne and Sasha, I think Marcy would very quickly try to undo it and help Anne.

One theory I saw floating around was in "Reunion", Sasha forgot it was Anne's birthday, and so she sent Marcy to find her a gift while she distracted Anne with all the "fun birthday" stuff. I think perhaps we'll see some more of that, to showcase their relationships as a second chapter to "Reunion" where we see their dynamics. Or it could just be a Season 3 thing.

Anne and Marcy

Something I really like is a post made by @pyroclastic727. They talk about how Marcy and Anne were other-ing each other when I’m their relationship with Sasha. As much as Anne and Marcy cared for each other pre-meet-up, Anne in Season 1 focuses on Sasha. And of course who wouldn’t? Sasha is a force to be reckoned with, and last such an impression that we were terrified of who Marcy was going to be before we met her. I recommend checking their post here for full context.

One thing I am interested in that will probably be a Season 3 flip is how Marcy and Anne met. They seemed to be friends since they were babies, there isn’t really an understanding of where their relationship started. It could be they were best friends, but they started othering each other once Sasha joined them. But now, they’re high tier solid friends again.

The major thing Sasha isn't accounting for is the fact that Anne has changed and grown over time. She's not the exact same girl from Earth, she has grown and changed. Become better and able to stand up for herself. Sasha and Anne's relationship seems to be more angst driven than it was in "Reunion". (HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE???)

THE ARC OF WOMEN LOVING WOMEN

Now that the general stuff is out of the way, let's dig a little deeper into the arcs of the three girls these two seasons so far.

101B - “Best Fronds” - We see Anne’s relationship with Sasha, and how she manipulates Anne and Marcy to do as she says. I’ll talk about this a bit more in the “Barrel’s Warhammer” section from Sasha’s POV, but this is big stuff.

110 - “Toad Tax” + “Prison Break” - These two episodes tie in Sasha and Anne’s angst for the season. It directly ties in two plot threads that are very prominent in ”Reunion”: “Toad Tax” with Anne’s progression as a character and her connection to the people of Wartwood, while “Prison Break” shows Sasha willing to do what it takes to get back home and find the other girls. This is the main plot of the season 1 finale, where Sasha helps Grimes to get what he wants in order for her and Anne to find Marcy and get home, even if it means killing off Hop Pop since he’s a frog and according to her, he doesn’t matter.

119B & 120 - “Anne of the Year” + “Reunion”

There's so much to unpack here. But this is a major moment in Anne standing up for herself, Sasha's "sacrifice", and the future of their relationship hanging in the balance. This is the main trigger for the Sashanne dynamic, the toxic and angst driven story. The end of Act 1 of this 3 act story.

201A - “Handy Anne”

This is an essential episode. The premiere immediately starts off with mentions of Sasha in the events of the Battle for Toad Tower. In addition to Marcy being mentioned only a few moments later. Clearly Anne isn't over the events of Toad Tower, but she's pushing forward and trying her best to move on positively; especially with trying to find Marcy, her third and final friend sent to Amphibia.

204 - “Quarreler's Pass” + “Toadcatcher”

As I said, the Hop Pop/Anne B Plot in "Quarreler's Pass" where Hop Pop tries to fill the awkward silence by asking Anne if she has a boyfriend is very telling of their relationship. But what I find interesting is as soon as the episode ends with Hop Pop saying, "Now we can talk about Anne's boyfriend again." And he gets shoved off the cliff. We immediately go to Sasha. We could have had any other episode with Sasha, but why the one immediately after discussing Anne's romantic life? We know the show likes to tie in plot threads through A and B episodes, so it's a possibility!

"Toadcatcher" is all about the Sashanne angst from Sasha's perspective. She tries to distract herself with training, but Grimes points to her that she's afraid their relationship will never be the same again. Sasha also reveals that she has been training to protect Grimes, the one person she can count on right now. After the fight with Yunan and making plans for storming Newtopia with a Toad Army, Sasha says, "It's not over between us. Not even close." Which just highlights their angst arc for the Season. We'll touch more on it in the B segments of 217 and 218.

206 - “Marcy at the Gates”

Here's the thing about this episode. We touch on Sasha and Marcy in the F-Wagon, and then we speak more on Marcy than Sasha. Something Anne says in the beginning with Sprig: "Look, Sasha and I might be going through a rough patch, but that doesn't mean I don't care about her." It shows Anne still cares about Sasha, and she wants to continue their relationship in a healthy way moving forward if possible. If not, then it's something she's willing to let go.

The rest of the episode is a Marcanne fancam people. So much love for Marcy, some suspicion of her from Sprig. But in the end, she's loved by all. If you don't love Marcy, you're a monster. A key reaction in this episode is wariness in the fandom: after Sasha, everyone was terrified and unsure who Marcy is and if she had a similar trait. But she’s amazing and a wonderful nerd.

Something I did find interesting in the Rebecca Rose interview that Matt Braly (and creator of The Owl House Dana Terrace) is that Braly said Marcy was the most important key to the whole show: if the audience don't love her in the first few minutes of her introduction, the entire show would collapse. What is so vital about Marcy that would cause the entire story to collapse? Is it the romance or the plot? Is it the overall arc or what?

207 - “Scavenger Hunt” + “The Plantars Check In”

Marcy and Anne episodes, with Anne feeling insecure about Marcy and Marcy feeling envious of Anne's social skills and befriending the people around her. It solidifies their dynamic and doubles down on Marcy being the cutest and greatest character of all time.

210A - “The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers”

This is a heavy episode for Sashannarcy. Although not seeing Sasha since "Toadcatcher" and we wouldn't be seeing her until "Barrel's Warhammer", this episode does good to remind the audience of Sasha's presences and lasting effect on the girls. Anne talks about Sasha as though she still wants them to be friends if possible to continue their relationship in a healthy way.

The episode does more so focus on Anne and Marcy in the sleepover, but Sasha's presence is still very strong, enough that you feel her presence looming over them. It's not healthy, but it's part of the healing process.

210B - “A Day at the Aquarium”

This is where alarms were set off about Andrias. His proposition for Marcy directly after she tells Anne to go with the Plantars back to Wartwood really does create a new dynamic. So far, it seemed as though Marcy really wanted to have her friend around her. She had no one from Earth until Anne came, and it seems as though she can't reveal informal secrets and insecurities to King Andrias or Lady Olivia. It is a real victory to have Anne go with the Plantars to Wartwood, but Marcy is left without her friend and Andrias takes advantage of that. It's still very unclear what his plans with her are, but that's just the other shoe waiting to drop.

214 - “The First Temple”

Marcy is wonderful. We see flashbacks through Anne's perspective as we see Marcy's issue of extreme hyper fixation not allowing her to pay attention to her surroundings. This was in "Marcy at the Gates", but it doubles down here. It even shows in the Temple where Marcy seems to be so into all the trials that she is unable to see the Plantars being squished, burned or smashed to pieces as a result.

I mentioned this as a comparison, but Marcy really does give up all her chances of recharging the Green gem just to save Anne and the Plantars. She gives up her hyper fixated goal just for them. Her extreme presence of empathy and care of Anne and the people who she may not have incredible emotional attachment to is what separates her from Sasha.

215A - “New Wartwood”

Directly after "The First Temple" with Marcanne development, absolutely no one saw this segment coming in hot as one of the gayest ones yet. It is an Anne and Marcy episode with a slight emphasis on Mayor Toadstool. I think I would have seen this episode as solidifying Anne and Marcy's friendship if not for that blush in the beginning of the episode. Marcy geeks out about the swamp Wartwood is built on top of, and Anne blushes at her asking for more info she learned in the town. If Anne and Marcy were "just friends" I don't think Anne would have blushed at Marcy geeking out about frog stuff. The only other times we've seen her blush is when she's embarrassed, and it doesn't seem like that's her emotional state at that moment. You could just brush it off and say its an error, but there's no way that's an error. It went through production and post-production and was locked in! There's no way that's an error!!

216 - “Toad to Redemption” + “Maddie & Marcy”

Not a lot to say here, but this is important. These two episodes are directly after "Return to Wartwood" and a while after "The First Temple". Each segment features Anne and Marcy having their own adventures, and their stories can be separate from one another. In "Toad to Redemption", Anne is helping Mayor Toadstool remain the Mayor of Wartwood and not become the head of the Southern Toad Tower. In "Maddie and Marcy", Marcy is helping Maddie with reviving a pet to life. Both Anne and Marcy are key players this season, but they each play a supporting role to people they didn't really talk to or meet previously in these segments. This shows their independence from one another, and that my friends is the sign of a healthy relationship!

217 - “The Second Temple” + “Barrel’s Warhammer”

Buckle up folks, the Sashannarcy segment we've been waiting for.

"The Second Temple" has a focus of Marcy and Anne, but more specifically Anne since this Temple was her trial. Still not sure of the exact location of the temple, but it's fine. The trials show Anne and how she cares about the people around her, how she is the "heart" of the group, and her growth from Season 1 up until that point. The deep love she has, especially at the end where she gives up charging the gem midway to save her friends who are screaming.

"Barrel's Warhammer"... yikes. This segment is perhaps the biggest insight into Sasha's psyche we've seen. In comparison to Marcy who gives up what she hyper fixates upon for the people around her, Sasha is persistent and attaches her worth to her goal. She does not like failure or losing, and I think that shows in this segment. This shows her absolute fear of abandonment and desire for complete control (which we'll talk more about in "Battle of the Bands") over the situations around her, which causes for unsympathetic actions and negative repercussions of the people around her. This episode (very late into the season) just highlights Sasha's journey further and what she needs to work on. It's not Anne and Marcy for leaving her: it's her. Her tunnel vision is shoving them away.

218B - “The Third Temple” - This episode made me feel so down on shipping. Like it’s a great episode over all, but what it means for the Season 2 finale is... angsty. Sasha fake apologises to Anne in order for her and Grimes to enter Newtopia safely for the invasion. Just as much as she understands she is doing it, her slight look of conflicted feelings at the end of this segment really does showcase how even she is unsure if she should go on with this. Sasha really does not deserve Anne and Marcy, and I think she knows it too.

219 - “The Dinner” + “Battle of the Bands”

The biggest disconnect Sasha provides is that she believes after they get the Toads to invade Newtopia, she can get her friendship with Anne and Marcy back "under control". Which I believe is the friendship they had back when they were on Earth. Sasha didn't realise how much Marcy and, more specifically, Anne had changed in their time in Amphibia. Sasha is really the only person who hasn't changed nor made solid emotional attachments to anyone other than Grimes. Anne and Marcy grew, while Sasha didn't. "The Dinner" just proves that where she is unable to have her feelings of being other-ed in their relationship. I think Sasha's fear of missing out, and not being the centre of their relationship just plays into her "Barrel's Warhammer" insecurities and problems.

While "Battle of the Bands" shows her need to be in control of everything and everyone around her, even with her realising it's very tiring. She doesn't like mindless people (like Toadie) who obey her every command, she likes the challenge of controlling people into submission. Which is very bad, but I think by the end when she plays the song she realises it's okay to let loose with help from Toadie. Even at the end when the three of them lose to Grimes, she realises that it was more fun to play with Anne and Marcy with a silly, heartfelt song instead of making it perfect and winning with a controlled performance. By the end, Sasha is controlling them because she does have the plan to invade Newtopia with Grimes. But this is just the calm before the storm.

TL;DR - I don’t think a relationship can healthily start in the finale, especially with the Sasha betrays Anne and Marcy betrays Anne plots both coming to a head. There’s no way that Sasha is going to be an immediate better person and get into a relationship with Anne and/or Marcy. There is a logic to them starting the relationship, but I don’t think it’s gonna be this season. Instead, I could see perhaps a declaration of love or some kind of coming out scene happening where someone confesses their love to the other. I don’t come to this show for shipping, but there is a logical through line as a connection to the overall story which could culminate in romance.

Either way, lemme know your thoughts and ideas! No shipping wars in the comments please, but do tell what you think? Is it happening? Is it not? Are we going to be explicit in canonising (by that I mean a confession of love or something) or saving it for Season 3? As always, let me know your thoughts!

#disney's amphibia #disney amphibia #amphibia #hop pop #annarcy #sprig plantar #marcanne #sasha waybright

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reyeslonestar · 3 years

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Question what are some things you wanna see in season 3 of lone star? Character development, plots, anything

I want to see Tonya Kong write every episode. that's all. thanks for asking!

sadfkja I joke, I do have other ideas, but that is definitely high on my wish list! i'm gonna go through by character and talk about what I'd like to see for them, so this is gonna get quite long whoops...

the main thing that I'd like to see overall, though, would be evidence of an overarching season plan or arc - it doesnt necessarily have to be a plot that stretches through all the episodes or anything major, but I'd love them to have plotted out the season before they start. from watching this season and then reading interviews after the finale, they dont appear to plan many things from the start and end up throwing in ideas as they go along. if they plan it from the start they can foresee how theyre going to affect character development more, and they can have a bit more balance in the types of episodes they have, so that the season is less insane and more naturally ebb-and-flow with a few light episodes to break up the drama.

okay, onto the characters! just going to do this in billing order for simplicity's sake. customary reminder that these are just my own opinions and thoughts, and this is more of a wish list than a realistic expectation.

if you want to search for a specific character, ctrl F for one of these terms including the dash at the start:

-Owen

-Tommy

-TK

-Grace

-Judd

-Marjan

-Paul

-Carlos

-Mateo

-Nancy

press “j” to skip the whole post.

-Owen

okay so I'd love to see them actually develop his character. Owen has been given a lot of backstory with lots to play with development-wise, but to me it feels like the show never goes anywhere with it. he's got a lot going on what with 9/11, feeling responsible for the fates of his fellow firefighters, the codependence of his relationships etc. I'd like to see him go to therapy and see him grow some self awareness and seek to manage himself better, rather than all his screentime devoted to him being a hero when other characters have the situation handled. it would really show him as a good leader if he drew on the skills that his team has and refer to them for advice/ideas. realistically he is the main character, so I'd like them to develop him like one.

also, I kind of love the chief role for him? I think it would suit him really well. but it would drag him away from the 126 and split up the dynamics too much so it would make for bad tv and I wouldnt actually want to see that. good for his character though.

-Tommy

I love Tommy :) just wanted to say that.

so obviously Tommy's got a lot of grief to handle next season, and I don't want them to shy away from that. I want it acknowledged and processed. (I'd also like a little bit of seeing the twins' grief too, because they're also suffering a massive loss). maybe something with Judd helping Tommy learn to manage her grief with his own experience of losing the original 126, encourage her to go to therapy, plus Tommy, Grace and Judd all feeling the loss of Charles together. after all, Grace and Judd were his friends and they will be grieving too.

I'd also kind of like to see Tommy have something outside being a working mother. obviously we're going to need to deal with that a lot especially now that Charles is gone, but I feel like she's been assigned the Character TraitTM of being the working mum and I'd like to see them give her a hobby or something. idk. and give her a night off with Grace or something. give her something just for her.

-TK

okay so I think theres a fair likelihood that theyre going to return to looking at TK's addiction next season which im not averse to. I think him struggling with his sobriety would be worthwhile to see for his character and to show that its not a straightforward path, plus it makes sense with all the insane stuff they've thrown at them in s2. however, Id like to see it in the context of his friends and family rallying around to help and support him and show him that he's got people to rely on, and that he's allowed to rely on them, plus the support of his AA meetings and therapy. I also need them to lay the groundwork for him struggling, so putting in signs of him deteriorating so the situation makes sense. this storyline doesn't need surprises to be interesting or good, and frankly it shouldn't have any.

as for him and Carlos, I definitely want to see them househunting! I'd like to see the combination of househunting/Carlos with Tommy's kids/Grace and Judd having their baby have an impact on their perspectives regarding their future and spark that conversation (like, looking at houses with more rooms and thinking about kids, future, marriage etc). I think that maybe one of them, probably TK, or maybe both of them those boys have way too many parent issues having anxieties about being a dad could be an interesting way to add tension without being too drastic, and then that can be resolved in a way that reassures them of their relationship and reaffirms their strength as a couple. the talk about the future would also lay the groundwork towards a proposal at the end of s3.

-Grace

grace :) my love :)

I could watch episode after episode of Grace kicking ass and saving people over the phone. I'd love to see an episode set there? like, some kind of story within the call centre with all the handlers having to resolve that between them, but also tie in the first responders, so we see the fire team, the paramedics and Carlos all working but we only see the bits that Grace and the other call handlers hear, if that makes sense? also an actual Grace/Carlos team up where they are coming in from the different angles with different amounts of evidence and figuring out the best way to solve something together. plus I'd like to see her maybe get some recognition for being awesome at her job, maybe another handler coming to her for advice on how to solve something.

of course we've got the baby Ryder on the way, and I want that to go comfortably and smoothly for her. she deserves that. lots of wholesome excitement for her and Judd from the whole extended firefam, baby shower, gifts, the full works. pamper grace please.

-Judd

judd4captain2k22. please.

yeah I know its not gonna happen, but I loved judd stepping in as captain this season and I'd love to see that continued with him taking more leadership, and Owen deferring to him for advice/council in a work environment rather than personal life. maybe set up a long term idea about judd being a captain someday.

he's gonna be a dad :') so what are his anxieties about that? why were they putting it off before? was it related to his PTSD? he's got lots of people relying on him now, how does that make him feel? what if his kid loses him? id like to see him still using therapy as a tool to help himself deal with everything. lots of meaty questions to dig into there :D

-Marjan

I'd quite like to see more of her balancing her daredevil nature with the impact of that and realising how much danger she puts herself in sometimes. or on the flip side, maybe the team is dealing with a really dangerous situation and they utilise her fearlessness to save people. her relationship with social media could also come back? but bring in the development they gave her this season, and her Firefox presence is more serious, less flippant?

I think that theres now a space for her to explore her sexuality/romantic experience now that she hasn't got her engagement with Salim as a kind of failsafe. maybe she wants to put herself out there and date, but thats really daunting as shes never really had to do that before? personally I think this could tie in really well with a self discovery/exploration regarding her sexual orientation, but I doubt they’d go there with her, so thats just my headcanon.

-Paul

I want them to draw on Paul’s observational skills and perceptiveness more, especially on calls and in emergencies. I remember someone (sorry I cant remember who) pointed out that he would have been a great character to centre the arsonist plot around in terms of noticing the clues etc, so id love a storyline that revolves around him dealing with an emergency like that. I also really want a Carlos and Paul friendship so maybe them collaborating on a call to solve something, that’d be cool.

can we give Paul a girlfriend please. if im not complely insane, there was a reference to someone in like,, 2x04?? someone who put mayo in his sandwich? idk I havent checked (edit: it was aioli in his banh mi! thank you @meneatyoghurt), but if there is someone can we show him having a fun and loving relationship please. I dont need there to be any drama. just them having fun on a date or something.

-Carlos

so I know that some people are keen to see him in his police role more but I really don't need much of that. on calls with the 126 I'd like to see him be the officer in charge more, but I don't need police-exclusive storylines. I've talked about it here if you want to know why.

the only area that I'd like to see would be in the direction of reform/addressing the flaws of the system, and I think they can do that on a personal level for him, because he and Mitchell need a chat. if they'd gone with her decision in 2x08, he, Mitchell and the bank robber would all be dead, and I think thats gotta have some impact. also the fact that he was suspended for trying to preserve life. theres a lot they could work with there and maybe have him thinking about how he can do good and how he can effectively protect and serve. not to mention, the opportunity that would provide in terms of addressing his relationship with his dad and how he maybe sought approval by pursuing a police career?

also I’d like him to learn that he doesnt need to accept blame/preemptively put blame on himself and that he doesnt need to apologise when someone else hurt him. kind of want to send him to therapy. kind of want to send all the characters to therapy. but yeah, him learning that he can accept apologies and understand that he doesnt have to make people feel better for hurting him. hes allowed to be hurt and feel pained about it. and that can tie into his relationships with Mitchell, with TK and with his parents.

I think I mentioned most of the tarlos stuff in TK’s section, but I wouldn't mind at least one instance for them where we see it all from his perspective instead of TK’s.

finally ive mentioned above how i’d like a team up with Paul on a scene and both of them figuring it out together. I'd also like them having a friendship outside work, just the two of them, bonding over books and being relatively sane people compared to the rest of their friends.

-Mateo

Mateo is so sweet. I loved 2x14 and the recognition he got, more of that please! also theres still so much I want to know - one of the more consistent things they set up for him in s2 was his faith, so I want to know more about that. what's his relationship with religion and God? he's pretty isolated from his family so how does he feel about that? is his religion something that helps him feel connected to them? maybe the church helped him find a community when he first came to the states, before he got settled with the 126, and he finds reassurance in faith that God is looking after his family while he cant be there? I think maybe there's scope for a conversation between Marjan and Mateo about that, about that distance and caring for their families through faith and prayer.

also, if he's still with the horrible firehouse, I'd like to see the other firefighters being won round by his resilience and stepping up to look out for him, and someone backing him up against the captain. Mateo is used as the butt of the joke most of the time, but I'd also like to see a bit more acknowledgement of things like losing his house and the bullying hes going to get more of from this firehouse.

-Nancy

I think that her speech to Tommy in 2x14 was really telling, and I'd love to see them expand on that a bit more. first on the loss and fear of losing her friends and coworkers, but then also on her hopes and aspirations - she said she wants to be a paramedic captain so lets see her working to take her exams and qualifications, and showing initiative on scenes etc.

id like to see more of her being integrated into the 126 group. she and marjan turned up to the hangout together, so lets develop that relationship more. I would love it to be romantic but I'd also love to see that as a friendship. but also her forming bonds with others in the group as well as more of her and TK being a chaos duo. I love that they stole the ambulance, more of that insanity please!

I think thats it? if youre still reading, youre insane and I appreciate you a lot! honestly im open to all sorts of things in s3, this isnt a prediction or anything, its just stuff I think would be interesting based on where the characters are now.

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logically-asexual · 3 years

Text

okay i'm already procrastinating and i don't plan on sleeping any time soon so here we go.

☆ ✩ my personal ranking for every season 1 Sanders Sides episode. ✩ ☆

i think it's going to be pretty similar to @dukeofonions' but let's see if i find something new to contribute haha. i see you didn't include that one about Patton in the Big Game or whatever, so i'm not including it either xd. also i think i'm going to count Accepting Anxiety as one episode only.

edit: i finished and now i dare you to drink a shot of water every time i say the word spanish or a version of the word comfort and become very well hydrated.

#16 I'm in a Disney Show

(i agree with dukeofonions here) i always forget this episode exists. it was ok in terms of being happy for real life Thomas but as a Sanders Sides episode it didn't do anything. the sides were just giving their opinions but it wasn't very funny or interesting. also i'm bitter because it made me look up the episode he was in and i didn't like it at all. i don't know if i'm too old for those Disney shows now but Thomas was literally the only good part of it, everything else was really dull and boring imo. a waste of time.

however, Logan supporting clickbait is one of the funniest things ever, and i'll never forget it.

#15 Becoming A Cartoon

i didn't hate this episode but it was just .. meh.. you know? several factors contribute to this. one, i couldn't feel much nostalgia for Butch Hartman's shows because i watched them in Spanish, and everything feels really weird when they speak English, i don't like how my old cartoons sound in English. two, it was disappointing to me because we were all desperately waiting for Plot™ and instead they give us this short episode about nothing (oh how the tables have turned now it's the other way around haha). and three, i didn't like the style of the animation :/ their faces and expressions freaked me out, Roman's douchey face still haunts me.

#14 Way Too Adult

here i'm biased because i don't like Patton much, and i didn't back when i watched the series the first time either, so this video was a little disappointingwithout the rest. also it wasn't relatable to me because i am still too young and dependent on my parents haha. but Patton is funny and it's funny to laugh at Thomas' struggling.

#13 The Dark Side of Disney

i've never been a fan of Disney movies. i actually never watched Mulan or the Lion King or Aladdin as a kid, so meh. i liked the ending, though, it was cool to see Virgil have fun and be right for once. it does make me a bit uncomfortable because the way Thomas tries too hard with Virgil's mouth movements and his low voice reminds me of a guy that had made me v uncomfortable not long before watching that video. so an icky feel overall.

#12 A New Year of Lying to Myself

this video was actually kind of fogettable to me. i had a hard time connecting the voices in the song to the characters and idk. i don't love it nor hate it, just .. neutral.

#11 My True Identity

pretty much the same opinion as dukeofonions, again. it's a good introduction and it's good that it was the beginning of it all but on its own it's not very special. i think it's awesome on Thomas to have come up with such a clever idea, like choosing the dad, the teacher and the prince and putting them together and match them with thoughts?? that fit so perfectly?? it really is just very impressive when you think about it, that it was just a random idea he had for a short 5 minute video.

#10 Taking on Anxiety

i liked this video a lot because when i watched it i had recently been a lot on tumblr, and found out through relatable posts that i had anxiety. so watching this video was really fun and it made me happy to feel so seen, specially the intro when Thomas just talks about what it's like to have Anxiety and Virgil is so smug about it.

- ★ -

okay now that those are out of the way things are going to get hard... all the following i love with all my heart so i'm going to rank them based on the smallest things.

#9 Growing Up

once more, Patton isn't my favorite. so that's why i'm putting this here, plus the echo at the end askjhsahg, but i love love this video. i remember we were waiting and oh so ready for the angst of nobody taking Patton seriously. and we received!! i love that though Roman and Logan are antagonists here, they're both so happy about Thomas wanting to have a healthy life. and i just adore the way Logan admits his mistake at the end and asks Patton directly. my heart... also aw.. the nostalgia. i remember none of us knew how to spell Patton's name and were writing it in very funny ways until Thomas and Joan told us lol.

#8 The Mind vs The Heart

when i watched this video the first times i didn't like it much, because i only had eyes for Virgil, but later i came back to it and loved it. so taking that into account i'm putting it here. logicality was the first ship i ever shipped in the show because i saw a gifset on tumblr of Patton screaming "what do you know about love?!" and Logan "apparently more than YOU" and the caption said "MARRIED", and i thought hey yeah... anyway. i love them. they're both my dads since that day.

this video is so so so relatable and i love it. Logan and Patton are so much fun arguing and i love how they compromise at the end and work together. im reconsidering.. i might move it higher? no, fine i'll leave it here.

#7 Making Some Changes

this video was absolutely hilarious. i personally couldn't see it as the Sides still once they were acted by Thomas' friends, i enjoyed it more as that bunch being silly and trying to be the sides but failing in so many ways, while sometimes nailing stuff suddenly. i really don't take this one too seriously as an episode. except Joan!Logan and Valerie!Logan, my beloved... i love how Joan acted as Logan and their voice and that they kept their ace ring on.. there's a reason i had them as my icon for so long. and Valerie looks a bit (a lot) like me with the glasses and dressed in dark colors, plus she spoke Spanish and there's .. no words to describe the joy i felt when seeing/hearing that. wait i'm getting emotional...

#6 My Personality Q&A

when i watched this Virgil was my favorite side and i didn't care much about the rest lol. when i heard his answers i related to him SO much it was scary, and also his voice is so soft and it was all very comforting. it was also when i first starting looking at Logan with more attention, because when he brought up Big Hero 6 and Fall Out Boy and said he didn't sing and would recite it like a poem? it only took a couple seconds but my brain said "me" and never went back.

now this video is a little underwhelming to watch for me, most of the appeal for me was in finding out the answers, and also watching it when we didn't know a lot about the sides. now we know more and want to know more so it's not as fun to me as it was first.

i wish so bad they'd do another one, although i know it would be more difficult with a much bigger audience, i think they can manage and i just need it. the chaos.. the energy.. they all being so savage with each other, learning little random facts about them you didn't expect.. i need it.

- ★ -

oh boy top 5 here we go. the next three are practically a tie. i can't choose.

#5 Alone on Valentines Day

i love Valerie, and the idea of this video was perfect and so perfectly excecuted. every side just giving their crazy opinions on how to woo a random stranger, i laughed SO much. first with Logan speaking simlish out of nowhere? at that point i didn't know practically anything about the sims except that it was some video game and the whiplash of Logan going AYO and the rest killed me. then when Roman whipped out that dialogue in Spanish??? my life was completed. i've never felt more happy than i did in that moment gosh. just the hilarity of Roman's drama, the shock of them speaking Spanish suddenly like that, the absolute JOY of seeing a creator i like speak (may i say) perfect Spanish, the other characters' faces after that.. never been happier.

also the conclusion was so cute. Virgil solving the whole problem without wanting to. i loved it.

#4 Am I Original

i think this video speaks for itself. it was fun to watch them all do the ideas Roman had, plus Logan and Virgil nodding at each other, (i love them so much), plus the angst at the end of Roman's perfectionism, plus Roman's just perfect name. this video has it all.

i think Thomas posted it kind of late at night and i watched it at 7am in the classroom as i waited for my classmates to arrive and the class to start. (i usually was like 40 minutes early to school due to mom’s work). i had to contain my laughter and it wasn’t easy.

#3 Losing My Motivation

i started loving this video after a while, when Logan passed Virgil in the position for my favorite side. but once he did this episode was beautiful. it's so funny and i love Logan and Patton's dynamic so much. and the video also so damn relatable in general. i felt so seen with it because they named all the problems i have when procrastinating, down to Patton's vague explanation of his feelings, it's exactly how i feel every time i want to do stuff. and the plot twist! i can hear the dramatic sound effect and see how they all turn to Logan clearly in my head, and it always makes me smile. plus there's so much Logan angst that can be dug up and overanalized. i love to watch it over and over.

#2 Accepting Anxiety

this video was perfect. everything we wanted. we knew it was coming and it delivered perfectly, better than any fanfic done in the waiting time. the week between the parts was agonizing but in a fun way somehow. i remember precisely when i was watching part 2 in my living room. i screamed. and i cried, a lot. i was feeling terrible at that time in my life and Thomas was such a comforting presence and i can't begin to describe how this episode made me feel.

and later it is always fun to rewatch with all their different reactions to being in Virgil's room, the energy of that was on point. Thomas is such a great actor and the characters where just amazingly performed. plus it gave so much to talk adn think about, the idea of the rooms, lots lots of insight into the characters, foreshadowing, so much. it's just perfect i have nothing else to say.

#1 (for purely emotional reasons, ironically) My Negative Thinking

i think Accepting Anxiety is the best episode of the season objectively but my favorite is My Negative Thinking. because i love Virgil and Logan so much and seeing them argue together was and is great. the comfort.. i can't repeat that word enough throughout this post. it's such a soft video while not being overwhelming with Patton and Roman's outbursts. just quiet (mostly) and clear and with perfectly timed humour.

Logan my beloved.. learning spanish... helping me with my own anxiety.. and their debate was so good. and the fact that they were friends i- i can't. Virgil didn't think Logan liked him and Logan told him explicitly that he did and the casual softness of it i cant even. Logan is happy that he tried.. it's just marvelous. Virgil and Logan as best friends will always be my favorite pair, and their dynamic will always be what i strive for in any relationship i might form, with both sides silently comforting each other within their own limits and realistic perspectives. so nice.

- ★ -

so yeah. that's all. thank you if you read all the way up to here. ♡ ♡ ♡

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #roman sanders

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