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lizacstuff · 3 years

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SCK ask (more 36/37)

(Asks under the cut)

Anonymous said: I agree with your takes on how the writers just aren't nuanced with Serkan's character, but there's also parts of the criticism that dip into acting choices rather than script especially knowing how much they improvise. I've seen people annoyed with certain tiny things like "why aren't they holding hands here" or "why doesn't he LOOK in love here" and it kinda makes me uncomfortable? If, for the fandom, basically everything edser do is "unscripted" then it feels like they're almost blaming Kerem

Oh boy this fandom and their “unscripted” this and “Edser left the chat” that. I can’t tell you how uncomfortable that makes me. It takes 100s of people to make this show, Hande and Kerem are not the writers, and while their personal closeness may impact their comfort levels while working, everything Edser does is NOT evidence of a relationship. Sheesh. So insulting to them as actors.

You know what narrative I’ve seen spring up that is also insulting? The “Kerem is so over this and has just checked out.” WOW, way to indict him and call his professionalism into question. I have not seen anything on screen that makes me believe this is true. The fans who say that I think are just really butthurt about this storyline and projecting it onto the actors, but they should realize what they’re saying when they do that. It’s extremely rude.

As for scripted vs unscripted, the actors make 100s of choices per episode that were not verbatim in the script, that is what they are supposed to do. They and the director interpret the script. As for fans criticizing Kerem for things like, “why aren’t they holding hands here” or “Why doesn’t Serkan look more in love there” not sure where that criticism is coming from, but that is probably during dialogue, that is scripted, where they are trying to create a certain mood and perhaps hand holding wouldn’t work in that moment. Or the exact look a random fan wants, wouldn’t work in that moment. Whether we like it or not, this set of writers have decided Serkan is an actual robot, that is not Kerem’s doing. At all.

Obviously, all that being said, there are a lot of wholly improvised scenes in this show. More than on any show I’ve ever watched. Anytime there’s a montage of them doing something, that’s improvised. The script probably says “Eda and Serkan make sandwiches” or “the gang plays volleyball” or “Eda and Serkan recreate the pottery scene from Ghost” and the actors go to town. We know from Kerem’s recent tweets that parts of when they were high were improvised, because he tweeted about how the horsey sound was inspired by the BTS video of 25 that he posted, and he talked about being inspired by the movie The Mask when improvising the tango scene. These actors are good at it, I’m glad the show recognizes that and continues to create opportunities for them to do that. But that shouldn’t be confused with them having control over the over-arching story that is being told. They don’t deserve any blame for this mess.

Anonymous said: i think the problem (about feeling disjointed that you were talking about in your asks) has to do with drastic tone shifts, which i feel has always been a prevalent problem in the show. the balance between too MUCH drama and heaviness to all of a sudden super light-hearted fluffiness, but none of the payoff for the past drama that occurred. or maybe some of the payoff is still coming with this new selin drama because i don't see what the other use for it would be.

Yes, lets hope there is payoff still coming. And good observation on the tone shifts, I agree with you, but I think prior to 29, the drama was less impactful to the viewer. The crash/amnesia storyline was so heavy and so upsetting that it’s like whiplash to have the lighter stuff when the characters are in that sort of agony. But I agree with you that that balance is where a lot of the disjointed feelings come from. They try to insert comedy to lighten up and against this horrible backdrop that only ends up either making the side characters look callous, or the main characters like they don't remember the last scene.

To your point about it always being there, I remember being like “whoa, what was that” when the narrative would be going merrily along and then suddenly throw some very heavy character stuff at us. Like in 6, when it’s a battle of wills and a merry race against time and then all of a sudden we are learning about Serkan’s brother dying and getting the first glimpse of his childhood trauma. Or in 10 when the tone shifts and we learn about how Eda’s parents were crushed by a retaining wall and the terror surrounding her claustrophobia. I remember thinking at the start this is such a light fluffy show, but they’ve really given the characters some heavy mental health stuff to deal with. Serkan has panic attacks, Eda has claustrophobia and some sort of narcolepsy, Aydan is agoraphobic. It’s always been pretty heavy underneath it all.

Anonymous said: You know what would be nice to see after the rejected proposal? If Eda doesn’t really give Serkan a reason and he decides that she must have said no because of the way he treated her during the amnesia days. And then we see him anguishing over it. The writers could actually have another chance here to write a better conversation for them. Will they do it? Probably not but it’d be nice.

If this is a device for Serkan to self-reflect, I’ll all for it. It would be nice!

Anonymous said: Do u think we’ll get another fragman? Maybe tmr or thursday?

I think we’ll get one later today, we shall see. I don’t know whether to eagerly await it or be terrified at the prospect. Hopefully, some of the footage they shot yesterday will be in it!

Anonymous said: For the next episode, I am manifesting a scene of Eda putting Selin in her place when she shows back up in the office. Not in a “Serkan is my man kind of way” but more you need to remember that “I have 45% of the shares & I am done putting up with your crap.” Would also love a scene of Selin saying that Serkan asked her to come back and Eda saying she does not care.

I’m kind of hoping that Selin never steps foot in Art Life again, but we shall see. However, I take your point, a scene like that would be satisfying to watch. Selin did not show nearly enough deference to Eda when Eda was a partner, while Selin demanded it when the tables were turned. It was maddening.

Anonymous said: So I am really hoping the fragman was misleading and the writers do not have Eda spending the whole episode trying to find out if Selin is really pregnant or not. Admittedly I am a tad bit bitter after the lack of a real apology from Serkan in the last episode and him telling Selin to stay at the company but that is still an awful story to give Eda after everything she has been through. Plus Deniz tells Eda to be careful of Selin and that she is after something which if it is just trying to trap Serkan with the pregnancy then why not just say that. Seems like Selin is up to something else as well. The scenes in the fragman do not seem to go together so hopefully this episode will actually be full of some good surprises.

We shall see. I think they have to have Eda investigating on her own to find out whether Selin is really pregnant or not for the plot. Anyway that’s what I’m speculating. She has to find out Selin’s really pregnant, without talking to Serkan (because I still believe he can debunk it immediately because he didn’t sleep with her), and decide to leave. Which will lead to what I hope we may see in the second fragman today. Airport scene!

However, that is just spec, we’ll have to wait and see.

#sck speculation #sck spoilers #sen cal kapimi #edser #sck episdoe discussion #sck 1x36 #sck 1x37 #sckask #asklizac

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klaineanummel · 6 years

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will drive you mad

anon prompted: Hi! I absolutely love the 'Story of my life' verse. I do have a prompt. I am a sucker for jealousy. So I would love to read some of that. Maybe Kurt being jealous of attention Blaine gets from another guy or something? I would absolutely love that. But no matter what you write, I look forward to it!

I'm so sorry, in my last fic I said I would be posting something tomorrow, and that was like, over two weeks ago. I got hit with writer's block like nobody's business, and I just couldn't get past it. I finally managed to get something out, though it wasn't the next part I was planning on, but oh well!

This is a missing scene set between the penultimate and final chapter of “Story of My Life”. I’m hoping to post a masterpost for this verse that will include the story in chronological order.

If anybody has any prompts for this verse, be it missing scenes or future scenes, let me know! I’ve got a couple in the works, but as I already said, I’ve had some writers block issues lately, so hopefully some prompts will get me out of it!! Thank you so much to everybody for all your support on this verse <3 I hope you enjoy this latest installment!! Title is from El Tango de Roxanne from Moulin Rouge!

Read on AO3 | Story of My Life

February 28th, 2024

Kurt needs to start listening to the little voice in his head that tells him things are bad ideas. The older he gets, the louder it is, and he’s pretty sure he just needs to give in and always listen because this?

This fucking sucks.

He sucks on his straw, trying to get any alcohol that may be left at the bottom of his glass into his mouth. His eyes are narrowed, and his lips pursed as he watches Blaine dancing with an absolute giant of a man. Blaine is laughing, and he has his arms raised high up, allowing the man to run his hands up and down Blaine’s sides.

Kurt slams his drink on the bar, then waves the bartender over, quickly asking for another. He turns back to watch Blaine as he waits, glare returning instantly.

He can’t believe this. He can’t believe he agreed to subject himself to this.

Yeah, he’s not entirely sure if these feelings for Blaine are purely physical, a psychological manifestation of him officially giving up, or legitimate, but regardless it still sucks to watch Blaine getting danced up on by some guy who is clearly only looking for one thing.

His new drink is placed before him, and Kurt picks it up, instantly starting to slurp it down. It burns a little, but he ignores it, keeping his eyes glued on the pair on the dance floor.

It’s not like Blaine doesn’t have the right to go out and have random sex with a tall stranger. Really, he has every right in the world to it. Apparently, he’s been keeping himself celibate in his desire to get over Kurt, so it doesn’t surprise Kurt that he’d want to break his streak. Hell, he probably already has, since he’s been so, so over Kurt for three months now.

Still, does he have to do it right in front of Kurt? Is this supposed to further prove just how over him Blaine is?

He gets it; he doesn’t need to be hit over the head with it.

The man whispers something in Blaine’s ear as Kurt sucks down his drink, and Blaine laughs again, shuffling closer to the man. Kurt just glares harder.

He knew the minute Blaine asked him if he wanted to come out dancing that he’d regret it. Blaine claimed they needed a “single guys” night out, to take a break from all the wedding craziness. Of course, as much as he knew he’d probably have to sit through something exactly like this, Kurt couldn’t say no, because it’s Blaine, and even before this stupid attraction and these stupid feelings hit him, he’d never been able to say no to him.

Well, except for the billion and two times that he’d rejected him. But he spent enough time torturing himself about that, he didn’t need to go down that rabbit hole tonight.

He taps his fingers against his once-again-empty glass, lips pressed tightly together as the man starts to press kisses up Blaine’s neck. Blaine’s eyes flutter shut, and it makes Kurt’s stomach flip in an entirely unpleasant way.

For some reason, the sight of Blaine like this causes him to flash back to that New Year’s Eve all those years ago, when Blaine angrily screamed at him that he’d been kissed by boys and fucked by boys. Kurt watches Blaine and this man, unable to look away, wondering exactly how many boys he’d been fucked by. The number must be much higher now. Blaine’s grown up into the most beautiful man on the face of the earth, and Kurt knows that he isn’t the only person aware of that.

He sucks on his straw, not really getting anything. He wonders how many boys – how many men – Blaine has fucked.

He’s sure this giant will be added to the list by the end of the night. Kurt’s upper lip curls up in disgust at the thought of it.

He has no right to be upset about it, since he has no intention of taking Blaine home tonight, no matter how much the alcohol in his brain is begging him to. He knows it wouldn’t be right, or fair to do that.

Still, just because he’s not going to, that doesn’t mean someone else should, right?

He drops his glass on the counter, shaking his head at himself. He’s being stupid, and utterly ridiculous.

Struggling a little, he manages to stand up off the barstool and throw several bills next to his glass, hoping it’s enough to cover the drinks he’s consumed. He then makes his way as efficiently as he can to where Blaine is still getting his neck sucked on by that freaking tree.

“Hey,” Kurt says, probably too loud, even in the middle of the dance floor. “Hey, Blaine.”

Blaine’s eyes open, and he shifts his neck away from the man, though he doesn’t stop dancing with him. “Hey, Kurt!” he greets, instantly grinning.

Kurt gives him a tight smile in return and says, “I think I’m going to head out.”

Blaine raises an eyebrow and smirks teasingly. “Found somebody already?”

Kurt shakes his head. “No, I’m just. I’m tired. I’m going to go.”

Blaine watches him for several moments, the movements of his body stopping. He then nods decisively and steps out of the mans hold. “Okay. Let’s go then.”

Kurt’s eyes widen, and he says, “No, you don’t have to come,” at the same time as the man says, “Hey, what, don’t leave!”

“Yeah, I should come,” Blaine says. He turns to the man and says, “Sorry. Thanks for the dance, though!”

The man looks incredibly disappointed, but nods and then shuffles off, keeping his eyes on Blaine as he goes, clearly upset at not getting to take things further.

Blaine doesn’t seem to notice. He claps Kurt on the shoulder and says, “Come on, it’s getting too hot in here anyway.”

He starts to head toward the club’s exit, briefly stopping at the coat check to get their things. Kurt follows him silently, thoughts going a million miles an hour.

It’s only when they’re fully outside the club, wrapped in their winter gear, that he manages to find his voice.

“Why didn’t you stay? You clearly had something good going with that guy.”

Blaine shrugs, tucking his scarf into his jacket. “Didn’t feel like it. Tonight was supposed to be about you and I hanging out, anyway, and I barely got to do that. I’d rather go back to your place and play Uno or something.”

“Than get laid?” Kurt asks, unbelieving, a stupid bit of hope fluttering in his chest.

Blaine chuckles. “Believe it or not, not everything is about sex, Kurt.” He puts his hands in his pocket and starts to walk in the direction of Kurt’s apartment. “Haven’t you ever just wanted to hang out with a friend?”

Despite everything, Kurt can’t help but smile.

He feels a little stupid for how… well, stupid he’s been acting all night. This isn’t some guy he just met and is desperately crushing on. This isn’t an ex-boyfriend, or someone he’s keeping things casual with.

This is Blaine.

“Yeah,” Kurt says, unable to stop himself from linking his arm through Blaine’s. “Especially when that friend is you.”

Blaine grins up at him. “Aw, you flatterer.” He cuddles in closer to him, shivering a little from the cold. “You’re gonna make me think you like me or something.” His eyes sparkle with the tease of it, and Kurt’s heart warms.

You have no idea how much he thinks, smiling down at Blaine, and tugging him even closer.

#klaineanummel fic #klaine fic #klaine au #klaine #age difference #under 2k #prompt fill #fic: soml

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shervonfakhimi · 4 years

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The Comeback Nuggets

Before I get the ball rolling on this article, I just want to make a couple of things clear:

No, this is not going to be about how the Los Angeles Clippers gagged away a 3-1 lead after being the supposed title favorites in the eyes of many (not mine!), blowing leads of 18, 19, and 12 in Games 5-7, respectively.

No, this is not going to be about how the stars of the Clippers (Kawhi Leonard and Paul George) did their best to imitate the Clone Troopers in ‘Star Wars’ by shooting nothing but clankers with their livelihood on the line, going 0-11 from the field in the 4th quarter for a whopping 0 points.

No, this is not going to be about how the head coach of the Clippers has blown a 3-1 lead now for the third time, with three more blown 3-2 series leads attached to that resume.

I’ll let someone pettier than I to hash on with these topics. You can’t blow a 3-1 lead to yourself; someone else has to snag victory from the jaws of defeat. And, for the second time in this bubble postseason, the Denver Nuggets were the ones to send the Clippers packing, becoming the first team to ever win two playoff series in a single postseason after going down 3-1.

Obviously, as a Laker fan, it brought me great joy to see who many regards as the stiffest competition in the conference to bow out early in the playoff proceedings, but as a fan of the league itself as well, it was cool to see the hipster Nuggets work their way into the mainstream spotlight by knocking who many considered the favorite to win it all and reconsider the actual effect and impact of certain popular NBA trends of previous years. The Nuggets win was a big-time score for continuity, as the Nuggets currently have seven playoff contributors who have played together for at least three consecutive seasons, starting with the 2017-18 season (and that doesn’t even count Will Barton since he has yet to play for the Nuggets in the playoffs). To put that in context, the Nuggets missed out on the playoffs that season after they lost the last game of the season to… Jimmy Butler’s Minnesota Timberwolves. Butler has now played for two more teams since and is now thriving for the Eastern Conference Finals-bound Miami Heat. LeBron James beat an upstart Boston Celtics team featuring Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Marcus Smart, sans an injured Kyrie Irving to get back to the NBA Finals. Tatum, Brown, and Smart are the only Celtics from that team that are on this year’s iteration of the team, while LeBron is a Laker alongside Anthony Davis, who won his lone series as a Pelican in the 2018 playoffs. The only 2017-18 Lakers that are on 2020’s team? Kyle Kuzma and Alex Caruso. Only four members of the 2017-18 Miami Heat are still on the squad: Game 1 Eastern Conference Finals hero Bam Adebayo, Goran Dragic, Kelly Olynyk, and Heat Culture OG Udonis Haslem. Amongst the 2020 conference finalists, the Nuggets are anomalies.

The Nuggets also got here riding the back of an actual center. Nikola Jokic and his transcendent skillset make him anything but a traditional center, but in a league where wings and perimeter playmakers are the ones everyone around the league is fawning over and building around (and rightfully so), Jokic still is a seven-foot brute force. Teams have not had as much success building around big men as in years prior. The last time an NBA team that featured a center to make an All-NBA team (Jokic made this year’s All-NBA 2nd team) reached the conference finals, let alone the NBA Finals, was the 2012-13 season with Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs. Coincidentally, Jokic’s foe in the Western Conference Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers, feature Anthony Davis, who made First Team All-NBA as a center, but still. The Nuggets are zagging while most of the rest of the league is zigging, and that helped them pull off one of the bigger upsets we’ve seen in NBA history.

For a team lauded with so much depth and versatility, the Clippers had no match for Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray’s duet, and that led to their demise. Clippers’ big men Ivica Zubac and Montrezl Harrell were thrown into the fire and could not put it out. Zubac at least could bang with Jokic, but could not stop fouling him and stay with Jokic’s herky-jerky shiftiness. Montrezl Harrell had to deal with personal tumult and was late to the bubble, but the Clippers got killed by his ineffectiveness. For the playoffs, the Clippers were -68 and outsocred by 11.6 points per 100 possessions when Harrell was on the floor, per NBA.com. Meanwhile, the Clippers had a Net Rating of +17.7 when Zubac was on the floor.

When a big would guard Jokic, Jokic would pop to the three-point and drop bombs on the Clippers almost every time when the Clippers took away air space for the guards initiating the two-man game. When the Clippers would make the next rotation to try to take the Jokic threes away, that in turn led to open threes for other guys to drill, spearheaded by great unselfishness and movement with Jokic leading the way, as evidenced by this Jerami Grant corner three. Jokic shot 35% on threes during that series against the Clippers but missed all four of his threes in Game 7 when it did not end up dictating the outcome of that game and missed both of his threes in the Clippers’ Game 1 rout. Not those threes don’t matter because they do, but in the other five games of the series, Jokic shot just below 47% from deep on 6.4 attempts per game.

But it takes two to tango, and Jamal Murray took his turns at terrorizing the Clippers’ frontcourt as well. Getting dealt the waves of arms from the likes of Patrick Beverley, Paul George, and Kawhi Leonard did not do many favors for Murray’s efficiency, but he did his work against the Clippers’ bigs. When he was able to get a big switched onto him, Murray made quick work of said big man. When Murray was able to get daylight in the pick and roll against a dropping big, he fired those shots quicker than Han Solo sitting in a booth at the Mos Eisley Cantina sitting across from Greedo (Murray shot 46.5% from three in the seven-game series against the Clippers, and is now shooting an astronomical 49.1% from deep on just below eight attempts per game). Jamal Murray made his name in the Nuggets’ first round series against the Utah Jazz with three straight games of 42+ points, including two fifty pieces, but, as someone who hasn’t always seen the light when it comes to Jamal Murray, he has clearly leveled up and his play against the Clippers was the last evidence I needed to see to believe it. Want a stat to believe it? Jamal Murray has run 9.6 pick and rolls per game in the playoffs, generating 1.10 points per possession, per NBA.com. The only players to generate more points per possession while running at least three pick and rolls in the playoffs? Donovan Mitchell and Lou Williams. Not too shabby.

So if both Jokic and Murray are killing it from deep, in order to prevent threes, you’re supposed to switch ballscreens, right? Well as we saw earlier, Murray is going to roast any big the Clippers have that switches onto him. So how can the Clippers switch? By putting Kawhi Leonard on Nikola Jokic and Paul George on Jamal Murray. That should work, right? Nope, wrong again. Put a wing on Jokic and Big Honey gets to work on the block. Maybe the Clippers probably should have just lived with Jokic posting them up to death; after-all, in the regular season, Jokic post-ups generated the same amount of points as a Marvin Williams spot-up jump shot, but scoring is so hard to come by in the playoffs and the Nuggets likely knew they could get Jokic on the block pulverizing the Clippers *any* time they wanted, and because Jokic is one of the few efficient post-scorers in the league (remember, these Nuggets are anomalies), they could live with post-ups taking them home. So the Clippers would counter by doubling Jokic, feeding directly into his prowess as the greatest passing big man in NBA history. The Clippers could have played smaller more to get more offense on the floor if their game plan was just to double Jokic anyway, but that isn’t stopping the fact that they had no answer for Nikola Jokic.

That wasn’t the only weakness the Nuggets exploited. Playing through a big man was one way to take out Kawhi and George’s on-ball defensive sturdiness, but the constant movement and cutting from the Nuggets was another way. The Clippers rotation features a couple of defensive liabilities in Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell and the Nuggets made sure to make the Clipper pay for playing them. Watch Jamal Murray set a screen on Lou Williams, hiding on a lesser offensive player (Torrey Craig). Williams isn’t paying attention, gets caught on the screen and Craig gets a layup. Typically, teams will seek a lesser defender out and make him defend the offense’s best player and iso him to oblivion. The Nuggets did that too, but emphasized movement and cutting and executed it to perfection. Kawhi and George are great off-ball defenders as well, but it is easier to score on them with someone delivering you the ball in front of the rim as opposed to asking them to do it by themselves. This play is a good example. Denver runs Murray off a pin-down screen with George trailing him. Murray then gets the ball from Jokic in a dribble-handoff with a head of steam, then rejects the screen with a gorgeous spin move to eschew Paul George and get to the rim for a dunk.

Watching the Clippers play offense was a polar opposite. They never had an offensive identity. Trading for Marcus Morris Sr. was a move many (not me) lauded, but one I found puzzling. Why get *another* ball-stopper on a team full of ball-stoppers? Kawhi has grown a bit as a playmaker, but wasn’t good enough against the Nuggets. Many Nuggets would stunt and rotate off Clipper shooters to get Kawhi playing in more traffic, and it worked. That the Clippers could not hunt Michael Porter Jr. after he looked lost against the Jazz Round 1 was pretty damning. The best pick and roll playmakers can read the floor and manipulate defenders into thinking something is going to happen, only to get what they originally wanted. Kawhi couldn’t throughout the duration, like here when Porter Jr. rotates perfectly to stall a Clippers possession then pack Harrell at the rim after a Clipper offensive rebound.

Yes, the Clippers choked this series away, but that doesn’t do the Nuggets service for what they did. Nikola Jokic outplayed a two-time Finals MVP. Jamal Murray outplayed Paul George. Michael Malone ran circles around Doc Rivers in the coaching department (Malone deserves a lot more credit in the discourse). Some will chalk it up to the randomness of the bubble with no home-court advantage, which surely there is something to say about that, though the Clippers don’t have a home-court advantage and the Nuggets were without the Mile-High altitude they feast upon. Maybe the Clippers were the better team all along; they did have double digit leads in three consecutive elimination games. But the Nuggets have shown resilience far before the landed in Disney-World. This iteration of Nuggets literally knows nothing but seven-game playoff series. This wasn’t a fluke. The Nuggets were better than the Clippers, and deserved every ounce of their two comeback series wins in their route to the Western Conference Finals. The Lakers will have their hands full as well. They will have to earn everything. After all, that’s all the Nuggets have done in this postseason.

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sleepymarmot · 6 years

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Twilight Mirage liveblog 4/5 (episodes 55-63)

55-56

Ha, Austin rereads the passage I just came back to relisten

Yeah, this only proves the point that you can't put the wellbeing and infrastructure of an entire society on the shoulders of 300 people with superpowers, and the warmth of their personal relationship with the rest ot the people! Sorry, I can't make myself sad about this system that was ridiculous and inherently unsustainable from the start!

But how about… Not mean humans ~enslaving innocent Divines~ because they're not idealistic enough or too utilitarian or w/e… not the Divines going “Oh no the 30k years of our love weren't real! You only want us for our bodies! Guess we'll die” and flopping over… How about Divines actually step up and sacrifice themselves willingly for the common good, you know, the way countless humans have done in this universe across both arcs?! “They could be made to be what Candidates once were” Oh boo fucking hoo!

I'm just. Thinking of C/w finale and how unnecessarily brutal it was and how many people sacrificed themselves and others for the greater good. And you're telling me that the Divines and the entire Fleet as a society are too precious for that? And I don't mean sacrifice yourself like Belgard, I mean the bigger picture. A utopia that isn't for everyone isn't a utopia, etc, see that post about The Good Place that got a surprising amount of notes lol

Also count me as an Independence kin still. I would absolutely break up with someone over the right to die (then run away and make everyone really upset by my mere presence then behave in such a way they have to kill me, twice. Okay maybe not this part)

Honestly the whole concept of the Fleet sounds so toxic. It's like being fully financially dependent on your beloved parents forever.

Oh wait here's another thing I must rage about: they stopped making new Divines so that they wouldn't be enslaved! Here's a novel idea: how about instead making a Divine that could be turned into a more productive machine… you make that machine in the first place??? You know, how people in real life make machines to use instead of manual labor??

Like, the problem with Divines is a two-sided coin:

Flawed individuals should not possess inordinate amounts of power. They might abuse it, misuse or just use with good intentions but in controversial or questionable ways (see: the Divines in Counter/weight).

As a flip side, making an entire community almost fully dependent on labor of a small group of sentient beings of a separate species is an unfair burden to them, and even if it is provided willingly. The benefitters become dependent on providers, which is exacerbated by the latter's small numbers (the Fleet being thrown into a crisis by the loss of the final Divines and only coming out of it fine because another superpowered being happened to be nearby). The providers are put at risk of exploitation (the Divines of being “enslaved/killed”), especially since they are outnumbered. The benefitters’ genuine love for the providers is undermined and may eventually be corrupted and superseded by their vested interest in maintaining this arrangement -- but at the same time, wanting more resources is a natural thing and people cannot and should not be blamed for it. This relationship may be mutually beneficial (and it was for an astonishingly long time) but carries an inherent risk.

So Divines potentially have too much and too little power at the same time. Both of these problems could have been avoided if “a special kind of synthetic beings” and “algorithms and robots that provide unique services that form the backbone of society” were two separate things in the first place! Fine, you can't undo what happened tens of thousands of years ago under very specific circumstances and specific threat, but you could try to recognize the problem instead of building a community whose structure is bound to bring that problem to the forefront sooner or later.

Okaaay, so where did the Divines that “didn't make the cut”, other than Independence, go? Is there a club of really bitter superpowered rejects somewhere?

I really don't get why Tender is having such a crisis

Austin and Janine are a pair of sadistic bastards lmao

I can't believe it's only been an hour into the episode, feels like an eternity (in a good way)

On the one hand, it's nice that at least Anticipation was thinking about the things I wrote above. On the other, “They could be made to be what Candidates once were” becomes even more ridiculous, because Anticipation is using her excerpt like a candidate Right Now! In order to determine whether she and her kin should be used!

Tender gets her own version of the “Independence makes Grand an offer he can't refuse” scene :D

Okay, my first objection to “giving it to Sho” was “um, you want to waste that resource on becoming a museum piece?!” but my current one is, unlike the players' “Anticipation would hurt Sho”, is “do you really want to combine this with Sho's high-strung personality?”

Aaand Tender makes the right choice :D I'm glad.

Wow! This second episode has wildly exceeded all my expectations. What a ride

57-59

No offense, but I wish the three episodes of “everything is Advent's fault somehow, again” didn't stand in my way to the much superior premise of “Grand Magnificent and Waltz Tango Cache rescue Fouteen from a newly arrived rival faction's flagship”. God, I hope this goes in some interesting unexpecting direction asap.

Wait, was it ever mentioned that Echo's family is also separated onto the two planets? That's new to me, and it would have been relevant to the first post-Miracle arc.

Gig making a bold move, getting hit with 4 stress at once and gaining a status at the beginning of the mission:

Blease tell me someone has redrawn that Community gif with Echo entering the completely trashed ship. That's such a good image

The entire throwing maneuver and the rolls they got… Absolutely fucking crazy

I actually yelped out loud when Echo failed a fucking desperate roll inside the light beam

How come Echo's nanites were inactive before but got activated now? How does that work?

It's strange how suddenly the show got intense again! The missions after the Miracle felt fun but unengaging for me, and I didn't expected it to pick up until the finale. So many ups and downs in this arc! Can't believe how quickly and often it went from “we basically won” to mortal danger in about one turn. The title should have been “Echo Reverie's Terrible, Bad, No Good Day”… Glad to see the theme of the weight of violence back. It feels very natural as a conflict between Even and Echo, but I wonder if later it would involve Grand Magnificent too – the discussion during Even's message for Cascabel reminded me of what I wrote after the holiday special.

60-61

Being one of the only two party members doesn't suit Waltz, he has to act dumb for the sake of player agency

I understand why Jack wants to see what the “new job” is about, but not why Fourteen does!

Ending the recap on “Now you're gonna go your separate ways, and everything's gonna fall apart” is, um, nice

Wait, why is Fourteen on their last life? And how would they know that?

Oh, here's the arms dealer Grand Magnificent I was waiting for lmao Although to be honest… That design wasn't that special in terms of military power, right? I remember the disussions of its complex appearance and the difficulty of shaping the material into this multifaceted sculpture, but it didn't have any innovative armor or weaponry, right? It's not like it's the first and only q-glass mech. I mean, setting aside the base problem that it might not be the most wise and ethical idea to give weapons to the amoral people for whom you just delivered a bomb (and are trying to ignore that fact) while they're tearing your friend's body apart, and that they would have settled for less… it's not like he gave them the part of the actual Divine Independence. I guess we'll see what Advent will do…

At some point Jack, I think, said that Grand is acting like Lem and I was like. Please don't. Can you not go into that direction in the future too please. I've already been concerned about his character arc since finishing Winter and this isn't helping!

Anyways today I had enough free time to listen to five episodes and now I'm hungover and also sad. I'm glad Grand Magnificent didn't suddenly become heroic but also this is depressing. Can't wait for everyone (minus him posssibly?) to finally meet and share the wild shit that happened to them recently. Tender is an excerpt! Fourteen is a knight and also on the brink of dying forever for some reason! Echo has fought in a civil war against their brother! Grand sold out to everyone's #1 enemy and left!

I don't really get ending episode on so much exposition… I understand the awkwardness of retelling an event that was intended to happen onscreen, but when Schism attacked, I assumed that fighting it would be the finale. On the other hand, I thought the same about the September Incident, and how happy I was to be wrong!

62-63

The downtime episode was excellent – exactly the thing I like! Two notes:

I can't be the only one bothered by the use of the word “fascist”, right? Greedy cynical bandits and graverobbers, capitalists, terrorists, whatever… but what does fascism do with any of that?

Everyone's plans for the future were pretty vague, but what I really didn't get was the heart of the debate between Signet and the Cadent. It sounded as if they were talking about the same thing with different words sometimes…

The doctor is Jace, correct? Rapid Evening, academic career, stratis, husband and wife, used to be rivals with someone named Rose? I had to relisten to the entire vignette looking for clues and trying to rememer anyone who would fit all of these descriptors.

#friends at the table #blah blah blah

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kissofgallifrey · 6 years

Text

I was actually debating myself whether to write this post, but as a very dear friend told me not long ago, writing things out is good for the soul. So here goes.

I’ve been having a hard time watching Rumple and Belle in season 5b and in season 6.

I know they’ve had their difficulties. It’s a fairly complicated relationship. Both of them made an awful lot of mistakes - Rumple hurt and betrayed her, more than once, and just as much, she chose not to see what was right in front her. After all, it takes two for tango.

Then 5a was sort of a game changer. Thing is, we all know Rumple was a coward. Even after he became the Dark One. Cos that’s the thing about power, isn’t it? You look for it when you’re afraid because you think it’ll help you beat the fear, but in truth, you rely on it, and so the more you have, the more scared you become. And the same thing happened to Rumple, just like it happens to a lot of other people.

Cos we all have our defence mechanisms. We all have our walls. Some are more obvious than others. With Rumple, it’s always been his power. He lost Bae over it, he sent Belle away because of it, and even when he got back together with Belle, he couldn’t let the walls down enough and ended up losing her.

But then season 5a came, and Rumple was forced to actually deal with the fear instead of hiding behind his magic, and surprise surprise, he discovered he actually can be a hero.

Then he got his magic back, and things sort of started derailing.

Which is pretty much where it started to really annoy me.

I mean, yes, he did something wrong, and yes, he should’ve told Belle, or better yet, he should’ve let them destroy the darkness (that’s so cliche). But the man he was, the man who took an opportunity, isn’t the same man who once killed the Dark One to protect his son.

‘Cause you see, that other man was a coward. He thought magic would help him become brave, but he didn’t realise that’s not how it works. He managed to protect his son, and later on to protect the people he loved, but deep down, he was still a coward. He knew the only reason he could protect anyone else was magic, and that’s why he couldn’t lose it.

The man who took his magic back wasn’t that man. He was a man who knew he didn’t need magic to be strong. He was a man who’d just found out that maybe, maybe he doesn’t have to use magic as a wall to protect himself. That maybe he can be brave. That maybe all he needed was someone to fight for, and that would give him all the courage he would ever need. He was a man who, despite everything, knew he could make the right decisions. He had that in him.

Getting his magic back was just sort of an extra layer of defence. Which, let’s be fair, most of us wouldn’t say no to.

Now, I understand why Belle was angry with him for lying to her. I understand why she felt she’d had enough. But that point was exactly the one point in which she needed to have faith in him. Because he was still the man who stood up to Emma to protect her. And the “beast”. Both parts, together. And after all that time in which she told him that she loved all of him, that all he needed to do was to try and do the right thing, suddenly what she wanted was either everything or nothing.

And it really annoyed me, because she had such complete faith in him back when he hardly deserved it, and now that he was making an effort, now that he was changing, she rejected him completely. (Also, didn’t anyone learn from Regina going through the exact same process? I mean, come on.)

And then the dream world and the baby (okay, regardless of whether she was doing the right thing leaving (which I think she was, just not the way she did), am I the only one who thinks that if you’re taking advice from a foetus you’ve got big problems?) and things very quickly spiralled out of control and all I wanted to do was to scream at the telly. Because it’s fucking frustrating to see Belle going from complete trust to the other extreme, which of course drives Rumple into doing very stupid things, which in turn makes things even worse.

Cos the thing is, it’s very easy to go back to hiding or running away. I should know. And yes, I agree, Rumple can be good and he chooses to run away. But that doesn’t mean he’s too weak to be good, or whatever other crap she says there. Maybe, just maybe, he’s tired of fighting this endless fight against his instincts, when the person he’s fighting for keeps rejecting him anyway. Because you know what? Even the strongest person can’t fight forever.

Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we decide to give up. But sometimes all we need is someone to help us stay up and keep swimming.

And Belle used to know that. She knew it later on and she even said it in 6x09. But what happened in between? Between 5x16 and 6x09?

I mean, I get that she was tired of his lies, but in 5x16? That was exactly the point he tried to be honest with her, he tried to do the right thing, even though he’s not quite sure what it is. And just when he actually deserved her faith, when he needed it most, she snapped at him. It’s not just walking away, saying she needs time to figure things out. It’s going completely “you’ve an evil monster and I hate you” on him. Like what the actual fuck.

If you’ve no one to fight for, you just go back to your instincts. That’s the thing. Everyone need someone to fight for, someone to help them fight. Rumple is just like all of us. He’s done terrible things, yes, but in the end of the day, he’s just as human as the rest of us.

And you see, when she told him what she did in the end of 6x09, he chose to do the right thing. He didn’t use the magic on her. Which is actual proof this whole thing could’ve been avoided with a little bit of faith.

So yeah, I don’t criticise her for taking a step back. I kinda do criticise her for the complete 180 degrees change. And it was so fucking frustrating to watch, especially because it happened just in the moment he was beginning to become a different - better - man. Which he still is, I think (we’re in 6x15), but he. certainly had a setback there for a while.

At least, it was good to see them finally realising what they’ve done to one another and actually working together. And it was good to see Belle seeing the new Rumple, and Rumple continuing along that path. He’s not the same man he was. I just hope he can still have a happy ending.

#once upon a time #ouat #Rumpelstiltskin #personal-ish #opinion

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