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everlastingfable · 3 years

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a jumbled mess of my thoughts about voltron

This’ll probably be the messiest post you’ll ever read. I’m done trying to finish this and edit it into something coherent, so I’m just combining the 3 drafts I have written out into one massive post. I doubt anyone will read this whole thing, but each draft is a sort of rewrite of the last, so there’s a lot of overlap. But there’s also a lot of new thoughts too as I kept thinking about this. There’s also a lot of unfinished thoughts.

There’s mostly negativity in this btw. This fandom had/has an amazing ability in making you think that this show was utter garbage. on par with riv//erdale or s//pn, but it really wasn’t. Like many shows they had weak points, it was never perfect, but it’s much better than we’re told to remember it as.

Intro from Draft 3 because I liked the way I started it:

This is all of my thoughts about Voltron, the show itself and the fandom. I have tried to write this post out for over a year or two now, so it was originally intended to be my final thoughts about the show. Obviously, it’s evolved since then into whatever this is. There may be some things that I’ll be wrong about, because I’m not about to dig through hundreds of discourse posts and old interview videos to prove a point that I doubt anyone’s gonna care about. This will 100% be based on my thoughts, opinions, and experiences.

That said, I don’t even know how to begin to describe how much I love this show. I’m probably one of the few people who have no regrets about enjoying this show as much as I do. I’d wholeheartedly recommend watching it, because it’s genuinely a good show. Voltron did the unimaginable for me. I don’t usually enjoy sci-fi stories. I especially don’t enjoy mecha stories. Yet somehow, Voltron combined the two and made a show that I loved so much I can’t stop thinking about it even though it ended over 2 years ago.

Draft 1: thoughts about a year after it ended without rewatching any seasons since it ended

It’s been about a year since voltron ended. I never wrote my thoughts about s8/the show then so here it is now. Because I decided to wait a year I honestly don’t remember a lot of specifics. But I still have a lot to say about it. This is very long and is basically everything I have to say about this show. I love voltron. It’s been an important part of my life during college. 90% of all papers I wrote were about voltron. But as much as I love it, I won’t deny that it fell apart at the end.

Note: I tried to categorize these thoughts so I don’t get off topic and can talk about everything fully. But because they overlap so much there’s definitely some minor repeats when I connect two parts but decided to hold off talking about it all the way until the right section.

PRODUCTION

This is something I’ve expressed concern over while it was airing, but in a span of 2 and a half years, they premiered 78 episodes. That’s a lot, especially when you consider that production for s3 started after s1 premiered. There’s a lot of really good voltron review videos out there that aren’t just “oh I’m so cool I hate voltron” but there was one that talked about how the production was a mess and the writers couldn’t make up their mind for the endgame ship. And while that doesn’t sound like an important issue, it really does show when it comes to how characters are written together and (I think) the fandom war.

Summarizing what that video said because I don’t remember who made it, the writers/producers never made up their mind on which ship was supposed to be endgame (klance, sheith, allurance, kallura). And this really does show in the show itself. I don’t like klance. I especially hate it because of my experience with the fandom, but I won’t deny that they were sometimes written romantically. The same goes for sheith. And that’s the problem.

I don’t think the world building parts of the show was fully developed either. Shiro was supposed to be a teen like everyone else but then he was an adult. His and keith’s relationship was honestly vague for a good while. I don’t think anyone really knew how each characters’ relationships with each other was supposed to progress. Was allurance always supposed to be endgame? Because they didn’t really interact that much until like season 6, and then it was kinda sudden from what I remember. There was very little, if at all, parts where we were shown oh allura might like lance romantically. Keith’s relationship with the main cast didn’t exist for like 3 seasons. It was messy.

Speaking of which, keith disappeared for a good portion of the show. I assume it’s because steven yeun was busy. Which is fine but then I think about how quickly voltron came and went, I wonder why they couldn’t slow down a bit so they could still have steven voice keith during those episodes. Maybe it’s because of how much I love keith, but he honestly felt like a central character to me.

If I think about teen titans, for example, this show also had 5 main characters. Sometimes certain characters would get a spotlight for a season, but all-in-all they were fairly equally represented. It didn’t feel like robin was the main character. But that’s how I feel about voltron. Keith, and shiro to an extent are the main characters. A good portion of the plot relies on them. Shiro got kidnapped, keith leads them to the blue lion. Shiro is the leader with keith has his right-hand man and they mostly interact with each other. So when shiro “dies” and keith takes over, it starts to feel like keith is now the main character. Now he’s the leader and the arc is about him growing into becoming the black paladin and stopping lotor, who is his main enemy. But then he disappears.

Again this is most likely because of my bias towards keith, but the episodes after that felt lackluster. Lance didn’t really get his character growth to become a good second-in-command. Because that development was supposed to be based around keith. :P. A big part of lance’s growth is to learn to stop needing to feel that he’s better than keith. And him accepting keith as the black paladin was a huge part of it. But with shiro as the leader again lance loses that development. Keith’s not in the picture anymore, and the person in-charge was already in a leadership position and has nothing to learn by being there.

Before I go way too deep into my thoughts about the plot/characterization, I do want to mention the animation. The fighting scenes are amazing and one of the most beautiful 2d animation I’ve seen. That is, when it is actually animated and not just the camera panning on a still image. Here’s where my biggest concern over the time comes in. 2 years is absolutely not enough time to animate that many episodes. I was genuinely worried for the animation company because it could not have been a good experience. And yes, we got more episodes sooner, the quality definitely dropped and it’s a real shame. Who knows when we’ll get another american cartoon in this style. I love this animation style but it takes time and a lot of skills to do, so not that many companies do it. I honestly wished they took their time with the show not just to get more time to animate, but also to flesh out some of the plot.

PLOT

As hunk said in one episode, they don’t linger on dramatic events that just happened. This show is very fast paced, and that’s not a bad thing. But they never took the time they needed to really feel the weight of everything that happens. Keith’s galra heritage reveal was basically swept under the rug. So was the shiro clone, lotor’s death, zarkon’s death, naxzela, and so many more. In general, that was a big problem with how the episodes went. If it wasn’t for the sheer number of fanfics covering those topics, they were really swept under the rug. It honestly kinda felt like the writers didn’t know what to do with the aftermath of their reveals. But some of these were pretty essential to the plot of the story.

Keith’s part galra! So he doesn’t look it but there had to be obstacles with voltron forming the coalition. He’s part of the race that caused this war. I honestly think we should’ve seen that reveal become part of the plot, or what was the point of it? They could’ve just as easily wrote keith to be a regular human just like everyone else. Taking the time to add that part of his character needs to have some significance in the story. And yeah, they had krolia appear but she wasn’t really a significant character except to kinda magically fix keith’s problems. In general it felt like they forgot parts that they were foreshadowing with keith. Why could he turn purple sometimes? Did that quintessence he was hit with fix him or help him hide the galra parts? Why does he look so human? What is up with him having that quintessence sensitivity? I’m all for shows ending with some questions unanswered because sometimes it’s impossible to answer it all and let it feel natural, but this just felt like they forgot or decided it’s too much of a hassle and just ignored it.

Okay going into more specifics now, s8 was kinda meh. It especially felt bad because it came out the same day as spiderverse which had a very similar villain motivation, but objectively done better. I think honerva’s motivation came out of nowhere. We see in the flashback episode that she was so intent on getting knowledge that it literally destroyed daibazaal. So, it was established that her motivation is knowledge. Even though she lost her memory and regained it, as haggar she was still very focused on quintessence. We know she was gathering a lot of it, and maybe they said it and I forgot, but we never knew why. Family wasn’t really shown as a motivation for her. Even with lotor it didn’t seem like she wanted to be a family again, but instead was using him for her own unknown motivations. Anyways, the season felt awkward. And the new dynamic they had really needed more time. The last season should’ve expanded to be at least 2 more. It would’ve fit a lot better imo. S1-2 would have zarkon as the main villain, s3-6 would have lotor, and s7-8 would have haggar, who was also the puppeteer throughout the entire show. But she didn’t appear for s7 and her motivations didn’t really make sense in s8 so it evidently felt rushed. There were also so many major characters in s8 we needed more time to see them interact.

So the ending with allura becoming constellations. Gonna be honest that whole last part had me confused. Especially with the fact that I barely remember what happened, why are the old paladins like trapped in the lions? I could excuse the other 4 but zarkon? Especially a zarkon that’s not corrupted? It was weird and didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and that’s all I’ll say about that. I don’t even want to try to suggest an alternative because I think that whole last half of the season is so messy it can’t be fixed. But it was so obviously pandering to the fandom it hurt. Lance getting those marks was so obviously referencing when people wanted lance to be altean in response to keith’s galra heritage. The shiro/curtis kiss was very “look see he is gay and not just because we said so” while nice, was very weak (why wasn’t keith in the shot?).

Despite my complaints, I remember liking s8. I really liked the addition of the atlas, even though it didn’t feel like we were watching voltron anymore sometimes. S7 had to be one of my favorite episodes since s2. Not to say that s7 is better or worse, but I really like it because it felt like a genre shift. I usually don’t like space sci-fi or mecha stories. Voltron somehow managed to combine the two and make me love it. S7 did not feel like either of those. First, a good half of it took place on earth. And I believe two episodes didn’t even have the main cast, and when team voltron finally made it to earth, voltron wasn’t even there until the final battle. I genuinely loved it. I think it was a very well done invasion/apocalyptic story that doesn’t get told in animation that often. But if I think about s7 with the rest of the show, it was awful. It broke up the tone the show usually had and it was a very different way of storytelling that voltron didn’t have before. It wasn’t a space sci-fi mecha story, it was an apocalyptic action story. Voltron was so unimportant they sat on a moon for episodes. It stopped becoming voltron and started becoming a spin-off.

I do have to add that I absolutely loved the color themes in s7. We already had purple for the galra, but in s7 it was very obvious that alteans are themed blue and earth is themed with orange. I loved it so much and it was great. I do like that they gave shiro something to do. Honestly not killing him off in s2 made him an awkward character afterwards. But I didn’t like that they brought back sendak. There was no explanation for it and it wasn’t good imo. He didn’t really do anything besides conquer earth then die. Haggar was also absent the entire season which definitely didn’t help her storyline in s8 because we didn’t know what she was doing the entire time except abandoning everyone who was loyal to her.

I’m usually not a fan of time skips, it has the tendency to gloss over character development or create glossed over recap. Honestly I wish voltron spent more time over the blade of marmora massacre or just the bom in general. They received no rest. Literally everyone part of that group died except for kolivan. Speaking of that episode, there was no explanation for how keith was able to know where macidus was about to appear and that honestly bugs me. There’s so much about keith we don’t know. He has so many abilities we were just never told.

Again a lot of problems within team voltron is that there was never any follow up on things that happened, like keith leaving the team. He becomes the black paladin and no one bats an eye. Lance did make one comment about keith leaving but then it wasn’t ever mentioned again. I get that the writers/producers wanted the dynamic the original had, but they didn’t take the time to work up to it. Keith wasn’t a natural leader, but he suddenly is because he spent 2 years on a space whale with his mom and a space wolf. Like I mentioned earlier, voltron feels like keith is the main character but then they dropped him for a few episodes, realized that he’s important and added him back in while saying “oh he went through a time skip so he grew into the role he needs to be in now”. It feels like a cheap pay off.

I’d like to specifically talk about my thoughts on each season and work back but honestly I don’t think I can remember s3-6 separately. So they’re being chunked together.

Lotor had the potential to be a really great villain. But he had to be foiled with keith. They have a lot of similarities that I think could’ve really played off well together. Lotor isn’t really allowed to have a leadership position. Yeah he was technically in charge while zarkon was recovering, but haggar didn’t really allow him full control. But, he was a great leader. He knew how to read his enemies and form an alliance. Meanwhile, keith had a leadership position thrusted to him, and frankly he wasn’t a good leader. He tends to keep to himself so he never really has to make decisions with a team. It could’ve been great, but shiro had to still be in the story. I’m honestly conflicted about this because on the one hand, I think it really ruined character developments for the main cast, but then I loved the clone shiro plot line. I think keeping shiro prevented keith from growing. He was able to remain dependent on shiro instead of actually bonding with the rest of the paladins. And of course he had to just go awol. Also, lance didn’t really get to have as prominent of a role as I think he could’ve had with keith.

These seasons are also when the lions stopped being sentient robots that specifically choose their paladins to just really cool spaceships. We don’t get that level of bonding that was so prominent in s1 and 2. That’s also something I’m conflicted with. I think the lion swap was a great way for character developments, but it also removed a lot of it. It kinda made the bonding feel useless. The swap also changed the dynamic of the group. Instead of shiro and allura being co-leaders, and everyone else feeling like they’re on equal footing, it felt like Keith was the leader with lance being a needed right-hand man. Hunk and pidge were off doing their thing and allura was a leader but also not. Maybe if they had spent more time working with this dynamic it would’ve felt better. But they didn’t and it didn’t. Voltron also implied that allura was the only one that could control the castle ship, but then she goes to become a paladin and who’s driving the ship?

I do wish we could’ve gotten more about the altean colony and the reveal about lotor’s plans, but that got overshadowed and forgotten by the clone shiro reveal. Maybe I just missed it, but I wasn’t sure what the galra empire and lotor were collecting quintessence for. Was it just to make mechs to rival voltron? Lotor’s death was also very unclear.

The coalition was a much needed thing, but I think very badly executed. They were gathering people from malls. These people are regular civilians who probably don’t know how to fight or fly a ship. I thought it was really weird that they were just getting regular people (aliens?) to sign up like they’re applying to be part of the army. But we never see them maybe join the rebel force matt is part of to learn how exactly to help. I think about avatar and how they also had a rag tag group of people to fight against the fire nation, but these weren’t just regular people living in a village. They were either warriors or very skilled benders. The voltron coalition was just regular people. That genuinely annoyed me because the voltron show just felt like those army propaganda ads, but exciting. Not to mention it was a very hard to watch episode.

It was definitely making fun of how the fandom complains about how characters are getting reduced to a certain characteristic. But it wasn’t done in an entertaining way like the ember island players episode from atla because some of those were legit complaints (like hunk being the fat/food guy) and that stuff wasn’t resolved. Like the ember island players made fun of sokka constantly talking about meat or katara crying all the time, but the show made it very clear beforehand that these characters are much more than that. Is hunk really more than the food guy? As far as the show mentions, the only things he’s done was make the machine to help find the blue lion, and help save the balmera. All of which was in season 1. After that hunk honestly took the backseat in voltron.

I mentioned earlier, but the time skip on the space whale felt like we were cheated out of keith’s character development. I mean we got development, but we didn’t get to see it. The vlog short showed that keith believes a lot of his problems stems from not having a mom (and a dad) in his life. But instead of seeing keith learning to trust and open up to people despite having so many people in his life leaving him, we get a cute montage of him with his mom. As if it makes sense that two years with his mom would fix everything. (side note, I know a lot of people were saying how obvious it was that krolia was keith’s mom, I genuinely did not know until she said so at the end of that episode).

I’m not gonna talk about my thoughts on s1 and 2 because I’m pretty sure I live blogged those and honestly I don’t think I remember it.

CHARACTERS

Now I’m finally talking about the characters and I’m starting off with keith as if I haven’t talked about him enough already. I love keith. He’s undeniably one of my (if not the) favorite characters ever. And he’s obviously a fandom favorite if we’re considering the two biggest ships in the fandom. Or maybe he really is just the secret main character of voltron. We know so much about him, for someone who loves keith, it’s great. We basically know his entire backstory, and yet we know no one else’s (except maybe lotor but even that’s iffy).

I never rewatched a single voltron episode since it ended, and I can’t watch any of the connected shows (meaning shows that have the same ppl that worked on it or the same fans, think dragon prince and she-ra) because the fandom was the absolute worst one I’ve ever been in and parts legit trigger me. I am fascinated with fandoms. I love it. I chose my major because it was the closest I could get to just learning about them 24/7. But the voltron fandom was so incredibly toxic and over two ships? Honestly the fandom itself was a major reason why I couldn’t get super invested in the later seasons. I get afraid when it seems like a certain ship might happen. I actually hoped that certain characters just didn’t interact. (I’m not gonna get much deeper in this because I don’t want to touch this topic with a ten-foot pole, at least not now) Aside from that, I think that the plot and characterizations for voltron got really messy post s2. The lion switch was never handled well imo, and post switch the lions lost that sentient personality that was established in the first two seasons. It also didn’t make sense aside from the writers wanted everyone in the original lions. Or at least, we never got the proper character developments into those roles. Keith left right after becoming the black paladin.

I think another major problem with the show is how some decisions felt like pandering. I remember hearing that they didn’t kill off shiro because he was a fan favorite, so he had to stay for marketing and to make more money. But then keeping shiro alive would’ve derailed the original plot idea. I wish I could see how the story would’ve played out with shiro staying dead.

Draft 2: rewatched the show then started writing this

So I wrote a draft of this like a year ago, realized I don’t remember the show much, so I rewatched the whole show and started rewriting my thoughts.

Pre-rewatch thoughts: It was a good show that was poorly executed

Mid-rewatch thoughts: it’s a really good show that just has some weak points (the second half of lotor’s arc, team voltron’s importance in season 4-6 it feels like a lot of filler episodes until keith shows up again)

End-rewatch thoughts: it's actually a really good show. It has some weak points and some really strong points. Season 8 was confusing though. I went through most of it going yeah okay I guess that can happen.

Final verdict: it's a genuinely good show

What went wrong

It ended on its weakest season, which was also the most abstract and different season. While the main antagonist changed throughout the seasons, it still continued to be the galra empire. Even when lotor joined, the team was still fighting fractions of the galra empire. Meanwhile, season 8 didn’t have any conflict with the galra. The antagonists were honerva and the alteans, who are very different types of villains compared to the galra. There was also little build up to that change. Sure, we got to experience that briefly in season 3 when they went to the alternate reality, but I don’t think that was built up well. Also, the protagonists and the audience are just not prepared. We don’t know how the alteans work like the extent of their abilities, but we were given dozens of episodes to learn about the galra. As a result season 8 just wound up with me feeling confused and thinking “uhh sure I guess they can do that, that makes sense maybe?”

It could not pick who its protagonist is. Yeah the five humans plus allura (and coran?) are the main characters but most shows with multiple major characters still focus one one character as the protagonist. Like atla has aang, adventure time has finn, umbrella academy has five. Voltron just never picks someone and the group constantly changes too, so you end up having to not focus on any character for the sake of time. Of course not all shows do that. Teen Titans had each season focus on a particular member of the team, and tbh I was wondering if that was what they were planning for the show, especially when season 2 was so Keith focused but guess not.

It feels like they did not have the time to fully flesh out the story. Voltron came and went so incredibly fast. They had 8 seasons (technically 6 if you group up the halved seasons). But also the show only lasted 2 years. It honestly horrifies me to think of the time crunch everyone on the team was going through, especially the animators. You can see the drop in quality as there were very few scenes that involved actual animation for the middle bulk of the show. So then, how much time did they have to develop the story, in addition to execs telling them what they can and can’t do. There’s so many arcs that seemed to start then get forgotten, and I don’t blame the writers for that at all. Although I wish we could’ve learned more about Lance and the Altean sword and Keith with his apparent quintessence sensitivity, they probably just didn’t have the time to plot those out.

It had too much outside influence. Such as, the writers wanting to kill off shiro, but then being forced to keep him on the show because the execs said to. And honestly, the fandom. For example, the whole last episode with Lance getting the Altean marks (an obvious omage to ppl wanting Altean Lance).

What went right

There’s a reason why the show became so popular (aside from being a reboot of a popular 80′s show) and it’s because of the characters. I’m not about the whole “we become attached to characters because the writers did them wrong but we fans can see the potential and that’s why fan works are better” bs that I see going around this site all the time. The first season particularly wrote these characters so well. They’re relatable but also intriguing enough for you to care about what’s going to happen to them.

Some thoughts regarding popular fandom discussions:

It’s a plot-driven show with character-focused fans

I like to think of there being two ways to tell a story: by being character-focused or plot-driven. Plot driven shows are ones like atla, young justice, legend of korra, etc. There’s a conflict that gets introduced and the story revolves around that conflict. Character-focused shows are ones like adventure time or we bare bears, they’re less concerned about a plot line and focus more on the characters interacting with their world. Of course all stories incorporate both parts, just some focus more on one than the other. So, here’s where I think a lot of the issues about voltron and the fandom comes from. Voltron is a very obviously plot-driven show but the fandom is very character-focused. I won’t deny I loved the episodes about keith. Season 4 and 5 were hard for me to watch because I missed my boy. But that’s where the arguments come from. People get upset that their fav isn’t in the spotlight

It didn’t queerbait

I understand watching a show for representation, I really do, but voltron is not that show and that's okay. Not every show has to be revolutionary in its representation of marginalized people. I won't pretend to know the harmful tropes for marginalized people. My consumption of media is not usually diverse. But I will stand by my stance that a large part of voltron's later seasons is about the casualties of war. So of course a lot of people died. I also firmly believe that the producers had a much easier time adding diversity to their own created characters than the main voltron characters, because of rights and all that complicated nonsense. So as a result the ones who were more expendable and could die were also the same characters that they could add diversity too.

I’m gonna add the definition of queerbait here so we’re all on the same page: Queerbait is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation.

But here’s the thing. We were told at comic-con or one of those cons that Shiro is gay, and he had a boyfriend. They actually gave us that. Yeah it wasn’t as explicit as She-ra got, but that’s another point for later. There was no lying about it. Shiro is canonically gay, and his boyfriend was Adam. If anything, this whole thing came out of wanting Keith in a relationship with Shiro or Lance. Yes. I will admit, there are plenty of scenes between Keith and Lance, and Keith and Shiro that can be read as romantic. Someone correct me if I’m wrong but did any of the cast members tease the possibility of Kl//ance or Sh//eith (VAs don’t count, sorry but they don’t really have a say in the story)? Because unless they did, and they did repeatedly, the fandom queerbaited themselves. So many people in the fandom were so certain that Keith would be in a relationship with one of them, there was basically an all out war. Even if there was a chance, did you really think the creators (who were pretty active in early fandom days) would continue that development? It was so so toxic they were forced to shut off any possibilities of that.

In regards to minority characters

Again, I'll admit vld is not the place to go for real, proper representation. Their characters tend to be characters that happen to be a part of a minority rather than a minority character. wtf does that mean? Well, you can swap (earth) races for just about any character and it wouldn't make too much of a difference in how they act. There's some lines that wouldn't work like Lance's "I'm just a boy from Cuba" but other than that there would be no significant change. Of course this goes down to preference. Would you want a minority character whose struggles reflect those in real life and as a result be defined by that aspect of themselves, or do you want a character that just happens to be a part of a minority group but whose life is not really affected by that?

Draft 3: months after the rewatch, mostly an attempt to reorganize the previous two drafts

I’m gonna start with the negatives just to get the ranting off my chest. Season 8 was bad. Yeah. No argument there. Although I wouldn’t say it was bad in the same way Game of Thrones and Supernatural was bad. Rather, it was an interesting and complex premise that didn’t have the build up it needed and honestly needed a few more passthroughs to iron out some parts. At worse, I felt it was confusing to the point where I just accepted whatever new worldbuilding thing they threw at me. The issue with Season 8 vs Seasons 1-7 is that Season 8 had a completely different villain, and a brand new cast dynamic. We got 7 seasons (65 episodes) developing the Galra as the villain. We got to learn who they are, their motives, how they operate, etc. Not only that, but they were pretty basic and easy to understand villains. They’re conquerors. They don’t have any sort of magic, they really just use brute force to attack and enslave the planets. In striking contrast, the Alteans in Season 8 weren’t conquerors. They didn’t care about controlling the universe. They also had magic abilities that our main characters don’t understand and didn’t explore. Season 8 had villains who could create illusions, mind control, and manipulate quintessence. The Alteans are leagues beyond the Galra in terms of complexities as an antagonist, but they didn’t get nearly enough time to be fully developed.

Also, Season 8 essentially doubled the cast size. So despite the fact that we have yet to see much of Keith-as-the-black-paladin Voltron group dynamic, now that screentime is being balanced with the MFE pilots and other Garrison characters. Essentially, there were too many characters, and too little time to flesh out the ideas of this season. A side note, Haggar’s (Honerva?) motivations were lame. I think it would’ve been much more interesting if her plans were just to continue the research she did 10,000 years ago with the rift. That would’ve also brought back the rift monsters which we never got an answer for. What even are they? Instead, her goal to have a family again is really weak. Even in the flashbacks she never showed any care for the more familial aspects of her life. It didn’t make sense for that to be her drive. It also didn’t help that Season 8 came out on like the same day as Spiderverse and the antagonists for both had the same goal, but Spiderverse did an immensely better job.

Another thing that didn’t make sense to me was Keith giving the speech to the rest of the Galra. He is not the right character to give that speech. Sure he’s Galra, but he didn’t even know for most of his life. For him to say “we” like he’s also a citizen of the Galra empire feels so weird. He never grew up with the Empire’s influence, and we never saw him experiencing Galra culture with the Blade. He learned about the Galra as an outsider, and despite the fact that he’s part Galra (he doesn’t even remotely look Galra), I don’t think that gives him the authority to say a speech like that. The speech is similar to Zuko’s at the end of ATLA, and that makes me feel like it would’ve been a lot better had Lotor said it. I think even Kolivan would’ve been a better fit than Keith.

The more I’m writing about Season 8, the more I’m remembering just how messy and confusing it was. Additionally, the last bit of Season 8 was so obviously pandering to the fandom it gives me second-hand embarrassment. Lance getting those marks was so obviously referencing when people wanted Lance to be Altean in response to Keith's galra heritage. The Shiro getting married was just to make it more obvious that he’s gay, but had no build up. (There were definitely more but I didn’t write myself a list and I’m not rewatching that season)

Second, “Voltron queerbaited”. [this was posted before here]

Speaking of which, Voltron premiered summer of 2016 and ended in winter of 2018. That’s about 2 and a half years where they aired 78 episodes. That’s stupid fast, especially for an animated series. I’m constantly worried about what the people working on that show had to endure. For sure, Season 3 with Shiro coming back wasn’t written until at least Season 1. I recalled the execs demanding that Shiro not be dead since he was a popular character. It’s honestly concerning how little time they had to work on the show, and it unfortunately showed. In the later seasons, a lot of the shots were just still frames that moved across the scene. And the plot line with Lotor could’ve used some work. Although, I think Shiro being forced in there was also a reason for it being so shaky.

I honestly hate Seasons 4 & 5. I cannot tell you what happened because my brain keeps erasing it. Obviously, the lack of Keith had a huge impact on my opinion of those seasons, but it also felt like a whole lot of filler episodes, and not the fun ones with character development. With Keith mostly out of the picture, and Lance becoming the right hand of Voltron, that should’ve been a great time to develop Lance to become a second-in-command. To have him go through an arc where he overcomes his insecurities. It would’ve also been an amazing time to develop his and Shiro’s relationship. But we didn’t get any of that.

I genuinely believe Keith was supposed to stay the black paladin and Shiro wasn’t supposed to come back. Keith would be an amazing foil to Lotor. They’re both half-Galra. They’ve both been given a new leadership role that they don’t want. The middle arc always felt so weak to me, and as I mentioned earlier, the Allura/Lotor interactions were awkward. It feels shoehorned in because someone has to interact with Lotor and I guess the writers decided Allura was the best option?

Season 3-6 felt like the epitome of what happens when showrunners are forced to do whatever the execs say and have no time to properly develop their story. I’ll forever be bitter at all the character and relationship development we lost because of that. We never got to see Keith really learn to open up to the team and start to trust others. But Keith still had to get to that point, which is why I assume they had the time jump for him. It’s so disappointing because we lost what could’ve been a great character development. It also made Keith being the Black Paladin again feel cheap. We didn’t get to see the struggle he had to be the leader Shiro saw he could be. He was just suddenly leading them and they worked like a proper team.

Voltron also had a lot of plot holes. Now, I don’t expect shows to answer every question, because it’s impossible to tie everything up and leave no questions unanswered in a natural way. But, there’s a lot of things that felt like the beginning of a plot line or honestly needed some answers. Like, Lance shifting his bayard to a sword. What was the point of that if it was never mentioned again? It felt like that was an important start to an arc for him that just got forgotten. Also, what was up with Keith’s quintessence sensitivity? How was he able to sense where that druid was. How did he know he could summon his bayard to him. I think the part that bugged me the most was that Keith was the only one who did that. Also, Keith’s eyes becoming slitted during his fight with Kuron was never addressed, and I really wish it was. It felt like such a throwaway moment that could’ve been interesting to explore more. Although I’m not too upset with that one as I think we were given enough to piece together a reason for it.

#have fun with this monstrosity of a post #over 7k words #personal #my thoughts about #frxstguardian #kingofthewilderwest #honestly the only two people this post was intended for #I give up!!

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ellewords · 3 years

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HI ELLE IM SORRY I ALMOST FORGOT TO REPLY BACK I FORGOT TUMBLR EXISTED (i was about to sleep coz its around 6:30 or something but like suddenly ur icon popped up in my head and oHMYGOD)

HOW HAVE U BEEN!!! I READ UR RECENT WORKS AND THE COLLEGE TSUKKI ONE WAS SO AMAZING LIKE SERIOUSLY IT WAS SOOOO GOOD.

ANYWAYS UR A SEULGI STAN??? ngl that actually does make sense. i was betting either her or joy omg. BUT IM A YERI STAN AND THE WAY THEY STYLED HER AND EVERY OTHER RV MEMBER THIS ERA WAS ACTUALLY DECENT THIS CB WAS A GOOD COMEBACK ESPECIALLY FOR THEIR EXTREMELY LONG HIATUS HHH (quick whats ur favourite bside in queendom and in their overall discography mine is i just and la rouge)

and actually i feel like u might be the type to like building tiny houses :o and if u do feel like starting it i highly recommend something simple (if im right, theres this one house called happy times from a brand(?) named flever the curtains pissed me off but it was sooo worth it and simple)

ALSO ARE U CAUGHT UP IN HOSPITAL PLAYLIST??? COZ (spoiler alert if not) OMG IKSUN AND JUNWAN’S RECENT INTERACTIONS MAKE MY HEART BEAT FASTER ESP THE ONE WHERE THEY WERE IN THE ER IDK WHY BUT IM A WH0RE FOR HONEST CONVERSATIONS LIKE THOSE. AND OMG IKSONG??? THE ANGSTY IKSONG FLASHBACK SCENE MADE ME FEEL FOR SONGHWA AAA i really hope it all works out in the end all five of them are so funny and unique and nice in their own ways they deserve to be happy :(

MODERN FAMILY !!! the ending is so upsetting in a mostly positive way and cAN I JUST SAY I RARELY CRY WHEN I WATCH SOMETHING BUT THIS!!! it took me three days before i could think about the ending scene without having any tears form in my eyes good GOD. my sister and i started b99 recently and we made it to s4 rn and honestly i am so glad to see a show where they can actually make lgbtq jokes without it being homophobic. and all of the characters are so <3 !!! its so cop propaganda but it also portrays poc and lgbtq people in such a good way that i can’t hate it :,). also idk if its the enfp in me but something about jake peralta and phil dunphy feel really really relatable. AND OOOH COMMUNITY HAS BEEN ON MY ‘TO WATCH’ LIST FOR AGES BUT BECAUSE OF THIS IM GONNA WATCH IT ONCE I FINISH WATCHING AHS (idk if u watched but hell house and coven >>>). ALSO THE GOOD PLACE’S LATTER SEASONS ARE JUST AS GOOD AS THE FIRST TWO IM SO GLAD THEY NEVER TRIED TO KEEP IT GOING UNTIL IT BECAME A PILE OF SHIT (ie: i love supernatural but…supernatural 😔). as for criminal minds i started it not too long ago but i can’t find the site i used to watch it on so i couldn’t finish season 1 </3 .

ANYWAYS YEAH LETS TALK ABOUT THESE MORE PLEASE I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR UR THOUGHTS ON THESE SHOWS (and more shows that u like hehe). LIKE FOR EXAMPLE: DID HALEY DUNPHY HAVE A GOOD ENDING (i think not she and andy were good together and her ending turned her into her mother and not in a good way) OR DO U THINK IKSONG HAPPENS THIS SEASON (ngl im betting that if the show doesn’t end on s2, then definitely s3) OR ANYTHING AT ALL (why am i so in love with tsukki and daichi good god also if haikyuu were real which school would u like to go to and which team would u support but also why does one tooru oikawa look like he would watch legally blonde on a weekly basis and sometimes with wing spiker hajime iwaizumi who now knows every word to the movie).

(btw yeah we have the same timezones :D but as for country 😬)

ITS THE WEEKEND ELLE!!! GO DO SOMETHING GREAT!!! UR AWESOME!!! AND PRETTY!!! (i’ve never seen u but u just give off pretty vibes srsly)

- <3

"I forgot tumblr existed" -- pls omg why is this me on some days?? anyways, ramble a lot on this one so putting everything under the cut hehe <3

first of all,, glad u liked the tsukki fic !! it really made me crave the college bf of my dreams who cuddles me when i can’t sleep (which is honestly every night at this point)

hold up,, why does me being a seulgi stan make sense to people omg ?? I got another ask a while back where they said they figured I was a seulgi stan what ?? also yes joy !! bias wrecker right there,, heart goes dock doki for her aaaa YERI !! pls honestly I could just scream about any and all rv members at this point, they have me by the neck I tell u ;-; I love pushing’ n pulling’ from queendom but from their overall discography I love la rouge as well, the bass (?) is immaculate but I also have a soft spot for light me up for some reason ??

oooh noted,, im always on the hunt for new hobbies so ill take this into consideration if I ever want to start building tiny houses hehe

AAAA IM NOT CAUGHT UP ;-; I just started ep. nine when I got caught up in uni stuff and couldn’t watch ;-; but I am hoping for iksong endgame + junwan/iksun endgame,, honestly I just want all of them to be happy wherever and whoever that happiness may be,, they all deserve the world ;-; AND THE OST ?? pls my fave band performance has to be the one from zoo (?) called met you at the subway station or something like that from s1, what about you?

MODERN FAMILY YES !! it’s just so rewatchable and heartwarming and I love the portrayal of family,, like yeah stuff isn’t perfect but you’re all there for each other in the end,, very easily one of my comfort shows...the finale made my heart clench but I thought it was a good way to wrap up the series </3 I feel the same about B99 honestly,, like yes cop propaganda but also the poc + lgbtq+ rep makes my heart all warm and sighh phil dunphy just lowkey jake peralta as a suburban dad,, I feel like he’ll treat Mac in the same way Phil treats Luke <3 COMMUNITY IS AMAZING,, the way they just play around with so many genres and concepts is amazing like no other show could have pulled it off but them aaaa and yes tgp is just godtier television,, the way I audibly gasped at the s1 finale?? no other show will ever get that reaction from me

oooh I loved Andy so much, he and Hayley were great together... I don't mind her getting back together with Dylan as he did mature in the later seasons while still keeping that charm, I just wish they didn’t make her a mom bc there are better ways to show her growth...I wish we could've seen her thriving in fashion/business with Dylan eventually becoming a nurse ;-; I hope iksong does happen tho they’d be so so good together but I do understand the hesitance bc of their decades long friendship ;-; PLS I AM ALSO ASKING MYSELF WHY IM IN LOVE WITH TSUKKI AND DAICHI I CANT HELP U THERE </3 I think I’d support seijoh for my mans but also Karasuno bc I love a good underdog team,, wbu? yes oikawa does watch legally blonde on a weekly basis with iwa he told me so himself <3

ME ?? AWESOME ?? PRETTY ?? THESE WORDS CANT POSSIBLY EXIST IN THE SAME SENTENCE AAA BUT TY GO DO SOMETHING FUN TOO !! AND TAKE CARE <333

#💘 — love elle!#🎐 — <3anon! <3

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meandmyechoes · 3 years

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Something I wrote May 8th, 2020 02:44 about Rebels that I forgot to publish. But actually contain a lot of context for how I feel about reusing Ahsoka in general. I formally apologize for every ill will I had for Rebels Ahsoka’s design.

hot take: I don’t like Rebelsoka. Yeah, as if you can sum up my opinion like that.

Why I don’t like her is a really petty and subjective bias, so I am not being fair. The real problem I have with Rebelsoka was mostly my personal lack of enthusiasm in her art style and early on her role was... replaceable. Her unique place is as an ex-Jedi, which is why I’m glad and more accepting when they turn her story away from the Rebellion to focus on Jedi Business. Her early lines in Rebels was... delivering information that could easily been given to another rebellion officer. And it felt off to switch from that unsure teenager to this full-blown wise mentor.

With everything, the final verdict is of course, Rebelsoka is amazing. In the end the potential outweighs my complaints. Yeah, information feeder, cryptic vocabularies or poor cosmetic choices can be forgive in exchange for awesome duels, delightful mentoring and GOSH THAT ANGSTY “ANAKIN”. not that i hope we see more ahsoka stories but i hope we see more ahsoka stories you know. more than that 45 minutes of it ◔̯◔

As a TCW traditionalist, of course that was my definition of Star Wars. Bitter of replacement was a common feeling in the year 2015, but I’m also reasonable enough to expect a major stylistic change with Disney’s acquisition. So all in all, I am glad we at least have another show instead of none at all.

Even though I dropped out, I was there for Rebels in the beginning. If nothing, I learnt from Clone Wars not to underestimate a Season 1. Yes, no one from the Ghost crew captivated me the way Ahsoka did, but I liked them all equally. It was an enjoyable show when I judged it as an exposition and sanely do not compare it to the finale that Clone Wars was building. So Ahsoka coming back at the end of Season 1 really put me in a difficult place, when I thought I could move on to this new family, having accepted her departure.There were rumours, but I kinda expected her to set off the S2 premiere instead. I was also spoiled of that very last minute of revelation. Anyway, when she came back, and I heard Ashley’s voice, I just broke into tears. It’s literally a resurrection. I also couldn’t believe, that I actually get to see Ahsoka again in my life, and that she is suddenly so mature and wise.

It was difficult for me to adjust for two reasons: the art style and her maturity. I guess now I could put myself next to Anakin in 709 describing how I felt meeting Ahsoka again. I also really hated her art style in Rebels initially. She was... streamlined? had slick skin, but her lekku stripes are jagged, and i never get to see how her lekku grew into the shape they are now. and her whole facial patterns are different too?? and she actually doesn’t have clear sky blue eyes anymore? but somehow has deep purple eyes? and just all around no-no with the art style when it first came out. The style wasn’t an issue when you don’t have the my favourite as a veteran character for comparison. (say you don’t see me complaining about Hondo that much but didn’t they do him dirty) Even though I had no problem with her outfit or headdress, it’s just not my favourite of hers. and the fact that they’re forcing me to watch a cartoon character lined with age! and how tired she looks, with wrinkles! and pouches under her eyes! don’t do this to my poor daughter! let her stay happy and carefree as a 14-year-old 5ever! (18-year-old me holding an angry PTA sign)

It also closed a book on however I want her to be. stupid war in the stars making me accept canon. I would’ve been content with her just leaving and staying alive, when every fan set out on her dying before RotS. Yeah maybe she threw her entire ‘life’ away but at least, she’s not, dead you know. And seeing her thrown into another war, threw herself into another war, I wan’t sure I could handle that. The grief, the guilt, the regret, the sight of not seeing her standing by her family again. (good lord Filoni gave us the Rex and Ahsoka hug ;_;) I just want her to stay happy and carefree in my head okay?

and that constant battle of wanting to see more of your favourite character but also level enough to not want her to steal the spotlight form a promising new cast? and the lowkey distrust towards Disney that they brought in Ahsoka to trick more audience into a less-popular show? as a fake-ass apology? Are you suppose I’m ever gonna forgive you for cancelling Clone Wars even though you brought back its characters and basically made a TCW sequel? Are you asking me to overlook the damage, done to both TCW veteran characters AND Rebel’s originality if you don’t do it right? And when they really don’t give us much Ahsoka mid-season it was kind of.... *deflating high-to-low 7-note crescendo* If Disney is actually giving us “what the fans want”, it’s because we damn well deserve that apology without ever needing to forgive, less alone thank.

So anyway, I did dropped out of Rebels after the Season 2 finale. A bit of real world reasons too because I was getting busy in college and I have Rider, an all-year-round show to fall back on. So i just totally turned away from Star Wars in general after March 2016 where it was dead dead for Clone Wars. I caught up a bit of S3 but never finished it, and I’ve been on and off trying to do it to recover from TLJ but it didn’t feel enough (+ plus real busy irl)

I only even found out Ahsoka the White on social media and was utterly confused. Not sure if it was the best decision creative-wise then, and frankly hand’t given much thought since. But I definitely don’t mind Ahsoka Not Dying. I think I have more questions directed to this girl in person on her life and fashion and spaceship choices more than anything. You just sort of reached a point where like god let them rest.

I only wrapped up the series before I saw Walkabout. And there was like a 3-month gap since I started rewtaching late January after ep9. But I ran through the last season in 2, 3 days? It was really good. I didn’t expect it focus on just one planet, but the plot was good, even though the primary enforcer villain monkey just looks meh. Somehow strangely, the character I grew attached to is Kallus. You know, he is not in the main cast whatsoever so he really may not die? And the whole time as the finale draws closer I just was on the edge of my seat hoping none of my faves die. (Yeah the only mistake that finale made was sacrificing Gregor. not nice Dave.)

And the epilogue was amazing. The resolution again subverts expectation in a good way and gave us what’s plausible but not expected. And I love how the show actually balanced warfare and lore. The mythological episodes border on fantasy fairy tales but it still suits my taste. The balance is actually better done here than on Clone Wars. In a show titled Clone Wars, you kind of expect it to be about Clones and Wars. But Rebels connected the spiritual journey of the characters to the wider warfare. They needed the Force to train and guide them to their victory. And this prominence of the Force as a plot element and narrative influence is something I found missing in the later seasons of the Clone Wars (6 not withstanding).

The show made me genuinely escalates in loving these characters and gave us a well-rounded, complete Star Wars experience. It’s not my favourite, but it’s definitely a good show.

#tcw reviews #myechoes #why am i defending myself over nothing #this is a bit long and could be counted as meta but is actually devoid of reading of the text lol #ahsoka tano #star wars

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elijahmikaelsom · 4 years

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Thoughts on Elijah’s red door plotline? I think it started out interesting in s2, but they never developed it properly and kinda forgot about it. Then of course they completely ruined the concept in the seasons-that-shall-not-be-named..

My thoughts are exactly the same! I think 2x05 was one of the best episodes of the entire show. And the concept is really interesting: a man known as "noble" is actually hiding terrible acts in his subconscious. It symbolizes what makes Elijah one of my favorite characters. He is a "self-aware" monster. He knows he has done terrible things. He tries so hard to cling to what little humanity he has left and he wants to be good, but fails miserably. It's just so interesting that one of the most powerful people in the world resorted to creating a fake place in his mind in order to build an identity for himself that he can live with. If it was explored more it would have been amazing but like you said they just...forgot about it after a few episodes? I still don't understand how it works. For example, when Aurora told Elijah that Klaus killed their mother and Elijah compelled Aurora, how did that memory go behind the Red Door? What is the timeline, I mean. Because if you ask me your brother killing your mother and lying about it is not something you would forget easily. Did Elijah immediately feel so guilty about wrecking Klaus' love life that he put the memory behind the door? He didn't confront Klaus, so it must have been pretty quick, but it just doesn't make much sense. Murdered mother trumps compelled girlfriend, no? How does he put memories there anyways? I just have so many questions. Apart from a couple things, we also don't know what is behind it. It could have been a great way to explain the character and show some flashbacks of Elijah, unrelated from the other members of the family.

We got 1 (one) mention of it in s3. Literally one line. It's usage in s4 and s5 was really cheap in my opinion. In s4 it was simply used to break Hayley and Elijah up because Elijah is "bad" and "a monster". When it comes to s5... I don't get it? To be fair I have only seen s5 once so I might be missing few crucial details. I think it was just used to give unnecessary dramatic effect. "Oh Hayley died Elijah feels guilty so he doesn't want to open the red door." What I really don't get is how Hope literally put Elijah's mind after the chambre de chasse? Was it ever explained? In s4 Freya only managed to go into Elijah's mind because his mind was stuck in the pendant. So how did Hope do it? Again it looks to me like the writes wanted some cheap drama. Maybe I could understand it better if I watched s5 again...but I really don't want to 😂 Pretending it doesn't exist is easier.

#sorry it took me a while to answer #ask

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inmyarmswrappedin · 4 years

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So what are your view on WTFOCK? I’m cofused?

Hi anon 💐 My opinion/impression about wtFOCK is that it’s amateur hours, essentially.

Ideally, a Skams cast would be comprised of young unknowns and writers who have first hand experience with the topics in each season, but in order for all these people who wouldn’t have tons of professional experience to deliver a good product, you need a really experienced showrunner, directors, producers, and so on who really know what they’re doing.

Take SKAM for instance: The reason why these young actors were able to deliver the performances they did is because Julie Andem had lots of previous experience directing young actors. Without that guidance, you can’t expect high school aged actors to give Oscars level performances.

With wtFOCK, what I see are people behind the scenes who don’t know what they’re doing, so they kind of just wing it. Scenes are added just to pad the episodes that were a little on the short side in Skam. These scenes are really just filler and never go anywhere, like giving Luka in s1 more scenes with Jana for... reasons? It was not to build a Luka/Jana relationship that’s for sure. Same with Noor. We get tons of Noor content in s3 that makes her seem cool and edgy, but then she acts exactly like every other Emma Larzen before her.

Now I guess having no idea what they’re doing can be good when Nora Dari, for instance, gives her opinion that Yasmina wouldn’t attend parties. They don’t have any real opinions of their own about this, so they say sure and just write the character out of those scenes. And instead of creating new scenes to develop Yasmina’s character, they sub in Luca for Sana moments. Even when it makes no sense, like Amber is just going to try and kick out her childhood bff from the squad because that’s what Vilde did in Skam with Sana. But when I see content like the Eurovision ig lives --- oops sorry, I forgot that most people in tumblr fandom only started to watch wtFOCK when Robbe’s season started dropping. Anyway, between s2 and s3, the cast did an ig live reacting to the Eurovision song contest in character --- anyway, so when I see content like that, it just kinda looks like someone said, “hey, what if we tried this?” And everyone was like, “sure, why not?” Without maybe thinking, does this ESC content develop the characters in some way, does it have any relation to the storylines, are we just having the cast all meet up at someone’s house to react to Eurovision live in character just because we can?

The problem is when you add filler scenes that really should get a follow up, like the physical assault and the hint at Robbe contemplating suicide. But because the people behind the scenes literally have no idea what media representation of LGBTI people has been like in the past, or responsible use of trigger warnings, or fandom’s personal investment in a main from a show that drops content daily and erratically (even though they bought the rights to Skam precisely because Skam developed that kind of overinvested loyalty - like every other Skam), or really.... just about anything that comes from making a show short of how to work a drone cam. So these scenes are added and some people praise them so they think they’re amazing! I mean, if some stans say this is realistic or they have the best social media, it must be true! And some people complain, so they’re like, “well, what do you want us to do here? Should Sander and Robbe talk about it? Okay, we’ll add a couple lines to this next lockdown clip. Does that work? Is it good?”

And this goes for pretty much every incomprehensible decision Wtfock has ever made. They make Britt the Sonja not for any character arc reasons, but simply because the actress is there, so why not? They make Milan hit on teens because idk, wouldn’t that be kinda funny I guess? They make Moyo the most homophobic Isak friend to date in any Skams because the teens they consulted said they didn’t relate to Isak’s season because everyone in Isak’s circle took his coming out well... So why not use Moyo? Kinda seems like the black guy would be the most likely to have a problem with that... does anyone in this extremely white writer’s room disagree? Why do fans read so much into what we do anyway? Why do they pick apart our scripts like it was a matter of life and death for them? It’s not like we bought the rights to a show which entire premise is for viewers to hang onto their devices for the next piece of content after all.

Anyway, my beef with wtFOCK is with the crew (and specifically the showrunners, directors and writers). I have no real opinions on the cast, I’m sure they’re doing as well they can considering no one in that joint has any clue what they’re supposed to be doing.

#ask #wtfock #Anonymous

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kinetic-elaboration · 4 years

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October 20: Mr. Robot 2x12

Watched the finale of Mr. Robot S2 tonight. I... was probably too tired to really appreciate it, but here are a few notes anyway. Mostly about Dom and Darlene lol.

Seeing Elliot as Mr. Robot is so weird. Rami as Mr. Robot, I guess I should say.

So either Tyrell also recited the red wheelbarrow poem to someone else, or, and I assume this is right, Elliot passed it on to Dark Army. I feel like that’s the biggest immediate hint that this takes place in the past--later obviously they’re not at Coney Island but sometimes it’s hard to remember things from one scene to the next imo.

I don’t know if I have the brain for this.

Darlene. :(

What an intro, though. Great resolution to the cliffhanger of who died (not that it would have been really realistic for Darlene to die this early but like...anything is possible).

Santiago trying to be the bad cop. The Patriot Act doesn’t negate the Constitution for citizens like talk like you’re the smartest person in the room all you want Constitution > statutes is still how it works.

All these USA references--imo probably not what will age best from this show. “Characters like you aren’t welcome here.”

“We’re going to be best friends.” Well....she’s not entirely wrong, timeline aside.

I completely forgot about this whole Scott Knowles pretending to be Tyrell thing. Sooooo boring.

Maybe it’s supposed to be another personal thing that has greater implications politically but...idk he’s really only fucking with Joanna, who is boring and unimportant. I guess it could be a double fake out meant to make the ending more suspenseful. A lot of people had been arguing since s1 that Tyrell was another personality, something I always thought was batshit insane and unbelievable. However, just because he’s real in S1 doesn’t mean he’s still real. So, you have Elliot convinced he’s dead and Joanna convinced he’s alive, and then apparently proof he’s alive--you see him--and then a hint he may be dead--all of the evidence he was alive has been thrown out.

Doesn’t make Joanna any less boring though.

Back to the good stuff.

“Babe.”

“Just two crazy, wacky Jersey girls.”

Cisco might have been the love of her life :(

I feel like Darlene may finally be, if not Dom’s match, at least someone interesting for her for once. Some kinda challenge at least.

Dom has some physical evidence here and there but mostly she’s building her case by just breaking people. Flipping person after person after person. Fingerprints can be wiped off but everyone you encounter who remembers you...

“This is Olympus! We are Prime!” Ugh Tyrell stfu so boring.

On the one hand, that’s pretty dumb of them, putting all the paper records in one place. On the other hand, yay for print saving the day as I always say it will. (Well, almost saving...)

Santiago is trying so hard not to let Dom get anywhere. Too bad for him he’s up against the only actually smart person in the FBI.

“I know her. I am her.”

This scene is so good: the slow, unhurried pacing; the flickering lights; the music; the dramatic hallway walk; all the people amazed that Dom caught Darlene and is gonna show her everything; Dom’s speech; Darlene’s face; how the audience should have seen all of this coming but (at least in my case!) didn’t at all; the Romero reveal; the board itself. A masterpiece!!

And yet for all that they were so wrong about Tyrell. He really was not ever that important.

Trying to parse this convo between the hacker and Mr. Robot. Kinda...makes it sound like the hacker created the big picture and then created Mr. Robot in order to iron out the details and deal with the unpleasant stuff. Or assigned him that role. Mr. Robot who is perhaps farther from the real Elliot than the hacker is?

The stay in your realm thing...he has a certain role he was created to play, and now he’s trying to overstep those bounds.

I love how Elliot thinking Tyrell isn’t real and then being proven wrong is like this big joke on all the people who thought he was always a personality lol.

“I’m the only one who’s real” is literally a psychopathic thing to say.

I also like the subversion and twisting of S1′s finale. Instead of Elliot possibly shooting someone else, he is himself shot, and instead of the big reveal being that another character is his alternate personality, it’s rather that another character is NOT.

I feel like the hacker is already getting to this place where he’s....becoming too dominant. Overstepping his bounds and purpose.

Mr. Robot blinking out but Tyrell staying the same because he is, louder for those in the back, real.

“You did this to yourself.” But not literally. Iconic.

So the ending originally kind of made me wonder if Angela had been a double (triple?) agent the whole time, and ALL of this was in service of whiterose...but I don’t think so. I might have tried to follow the thread of that theory once but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t track. I think she was turned by hypnosis in part 1 of the finale, and then the Dark Army got her number to Tyrell, but he’s never met her before and doesn’t know who she is, other than another contact he’s supposed to trust.

Extra scene! I really was 100% convinced that they were talking about time travel when I first saw this lol. I feel utterly played but not in a bad way. It’s like..the show is smart and so you have to try to think of things in a complicated way. But sometimes they just aren’t that complicated! There isn’t always a conspiracy. Tyrell wasn’t sending secret gifts to his wife. He also wasn’t a hallucination or extra personality. Romero wasn’t shot by the Dark Army or the FBI. Time travel is not possible--or even on the minds of some of these characters. Angela wasn’t a double-triple-super-secret-agent-spy: she was trying to get justice for her mom, genuinely, sincerely. You’re primed, just as the characters are, to see conspiracies, to see complexity, to believe everything and everything, but some things just are as they appear on the surface. It’s never knowing which is which that fucks you up.

At any rate, I’m taking a break to finish the 3% before watching S3, which have seen before, but don’t remember very well. Very excited for the 3% though!

#the year 2020 #2020: mr robot #2020: mr robot s2 #2020: fandom thoughts

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steve0discusses · 5 years

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Yugioh S3 Ep 44-45: Bakura‘s Back for More of This Nonsense

Man, I can’t believe we’re closing in on the 4th season of this show (still in shock I’m still able to make these.) Seems like just yesterday I felt like I had no idea what was happening, and now I’m like “they put in freakin Sans into Smash but not Bakura???” I’ve become one of those people now.

It’s been interesting how, because I have slowed down to watch these, I think I’ve been able to have a much more positive experience with the show. People have been talking about how binging has kind of changed TV from a place where fandoms could chat to a place where...you just watch it all in a weekend and hope no one spoils it and then wait for the next big thing to consume a week later.

But, when you’re watching a 15 year old anime you don’t have to worry about any of that. So it’s like a kind of nostalgic experience of a pre-streaming era despite the fact I’m totally streaming this.

But back to the show, now that the deep and reflective moments for Marik are over, my favorite storyboarder went home and left the rest of this to the night team who are clearly in a real rush to get this all finished. Again, the Yugioh whiplash is going from that high of “damn this is so goo-” then to the reality that the rest of the art direction in this show is “-acceptable. I meant to say acceptable. It’s perfectly acceptable”

Yugi Muto is still strung up by weird shadow magic restraints that must also be around his legs for some reason. I mean...it wouldn’t be so kinky if it wasn't also around his feet. More bits and pieces of Our Boy have been removed over the course of this endless card game, and he’s doing pretty good considering.

Joey has decided he’s had Enough Of These Damn Ghosts.

And so Marik decided that he’s been shamed by Joey Wheeler enough that he will just go away like Joey asks. This may be the only person who was actually bothered enough by Joey Wheeler to walk away in all of Yugioh.

(read more under the cut)

They....

Legit no one told her what had just happened.

They........

Just want to note that while Yugi’s leg burst out a stream of weird purple gas and Yugi screamed in pain, when his crotch disappeared, he did nothing but patiently look over at Pharaoh, who awkwardly winced. I guess the animation team knew better than to animate gas exploding out of that one particular spot, but it is still a rather funny contrast.

Marik has achieved his final form of so many veins, and it is a still frame every time it’s on screen. You cannot animate this. You cannot.

On the other end of the field, Odion has somehow made it down these extremely steep stairs, only to look up and see so many more stairs.

And back on the field is so many cards. So many cards, including the Card Poem. This awful Card Poem I tried so hard to forget.

Bro brings up that maybe this poem sounds way cooler in Japanese but like...I doubt it, right? Like this was a poem that the writers threw together in 5 minutes and were like “we’re never going to actually say the shame poem, right?”

But anyway more cards things happen but why talk about cards when this eventually happens.

I feel like Pharaoh was attempting to use Shadow Magic on Marik like just a few episodes ago so he could have done something now but...maybe he forgot? I dunno. Pharaoh didn’t feel like participating in this particular fight, maybe because his alter ego is holding on to life solely by having extra long emo bangs to count as lifepoints.

and so, Odion gives Marik a pep talk--and I kid you not, this is all Marik needed the entire time.

Yeah.

That was it.

Like maybe Odion had to be awake since Odion has a spell or whatever on Marik but still it’s like...all you had to do was say “This guy is not even a person, Marik--you are the person, just nix him and we’re good”

And so the two alter ego’s fight with eachother in the same body and that must have been a treat for everyone watching.

Man, it’s a good thing Mokuba already has so many PTSD situations under his several belts up to this point, because otherwise I’d be somewhat concerned about this very young kid who is privy to all this type of magical abominations every time his brother just wants to play cards.

and then...Yugi plays a bunch of cards and...um......

......don’t ask me what happened........

After the big group hug, Marik and Marik switch places.

This was because bad Marik was fused with a monster card--which turned bad-Marik into...the definition of a Monster.

So, if you kill the monster card then you can...

...switch places with your alternate half...

...yes...

Basically it’s a more complicated version of what Pharaoh did to Ryou and Bakura in S1, except in S1, Bakura played Ryou as a card and Pharaoh just slammed his hands on the table and was like “Screw it, Bakura! I’m so tired of this! We’re all so individually tired of this! I’m just going to use my Shadow Magic and switch you with Ryou and then we’re all going the HELL BACK TO BED!”

This time it just had to be so much more complicated although we have seen Pharaoh willy nilly switch souls before just two seasons ago.

So, just like Bakura did to his evil side in S1, Marik banishes his evil side to the shadow realm in a card game.

Which worked super good last time, amiright?

I guess we’re all just going to assume that this works now? Even though this absolutely did not work in season 1? Like Bakura went right back to a life of murder immediately?

Then again, Bakura’s an actual dude, and Marik’s alter Ego was a figment of his anger or something?????? Maybe that’s the difference? Maybe that’s why we can be rest assured that this works now?

Maybe they’re just tired of the Marik plot line and are like “listen, he’s kind of hard to draw and we don’t want to do it anymore. He’s dead now.”

For realsies though, from what I’ve been told, Marik never goes cray again and gracefully exits the show. But, if they ever want to continue Yugioh back in this direction, you can just have him snap at any time you feel like, we all know this type of exorcism is wholly reversible.

Anyway, the clouds are lifted and we are reminded that it is still hardly even lunch time.

It is at this point that Marik turns to his Brother and his Sister, who all three have no world skills outside of scamming museums and filtering sewer water, and waxes long about all the great times they’re about to have in the future.

Like what future though? You have to go to 20 years of actual real deal school, Marik, you can only read one Egyptian text. Hell knows how many people you possessed in order to get that motorcycle permit. You for sure aren’t ever allowed to play cards ever again. Like what are you going to do, Marik?

...dude what if he just goes back on the boat and just sails away for the rest of his life with his cultists who are equally unqualified to live in the real modern world. OMG what if that’s the real Marik’s Boat Time all along?

Ah.

I almost forgot about you, Bakura.

Just in time for the British Bake Off to start updating episodes on Netflix, just in time, Bakura.

And following this is actual real thing that happened which, if you told me about, I would have just assumed was a joke or an edit to make it appear like this is happening. But no, it’s strip time.

the hell?

Yo can you believe that like a week ago I was like quoting “One Week” for kicks in these recaps and then this week Marik is, indeed, “in the history of taking off his shirt” ?

Anyway, Marik reminds us that his only purpose in life is to uh...be a book. A book that no one can read because Pharaoh didn’t have the foresight 5000 years ago that no one would be speaking Egyptian anymore and also that his reincarnation would be a 14-16 yo Japanese boy who’s entire brain power is used for selecting cards and selecting matching belts.

I just...Pharaoh’s mind must have been in a real place 5000 years ago and that was before he ever became a ghost.

Also, it is kind of amazing how many times it has come up how illiterate Pharaoh is over the past season and he still hasn’t decided to do anything about it. Like, he’s just kind of hoping that someone else (probably Kaiba) will feed the answer to him like a baby because that’s just how this show has been up to now.

In this case he has a one-ness moment with the tablet and gets the sense of “It’s fine, we’ll figure this out later” which um...

I’m really happy that in this scene, Pharaoh is still tripping balls but everyone else is so used to him doing stuff like this, they just completely ignore it.

So glad I had 2 seasons to build up this back tatt in order to figure out that Marik’s back didn’t help Pharaoh at all. The tablet yes, the back tattoo--no, completely unnecessary. Congrats, Pharaoh’s mole people servants, you screwed up and did this weird ass ceremony on 12 yo’s for 5000 years trapped underground for NO REASON.

Anyways, preteens rejoice, Marik without a shirt is randomly 10 lbs more buffed now, which I’m pretty sure was never a thing when he was wearing that itty bitty pink hoodie. Like maybe the animators are just used to really buffed anime and this is them toning it the hell down, but uh...no actual 16 year olds will ever look like this, sorry to break it to you, preteens.

Man, the horny line running through this show lol.

Letsee, Yugi now has the puzzle, Ishizu’s necklace, the Ring, the Rod, the...

...where’s the freakin eyeball?

Did...where is it? Where is the nastiest of the golden objects?

Did Bakura never bring the eye with him to this trip? Like...is it just hanging out in his desk at home near his secret stash he super hopes that his Mom doesn’t find?

Guys, where’s the eyeball?

Anyway, now that Mokuba has decided Seto can feel joy and smile again, he gives Seto the A-OK to blow the hell out of this moneypit island that has already been violently blown up just a few years previously.

Like this begs the question, why even build this tower if you wanted to blow it up? But then again, that is the equivalent to a small child that builds block towers just to knocks them over, right? Like that part of Seto just never grew up?

So........

My bro, while looking this over, gave me the best spicy bro headcanon I’ve ever heard, and it’s absolutely too ridiculous for this blog that is mostly about what actually happens in the course of this show, but I’mma gonna share it with you anyway. I’m pretty sure this isn’t a common headcanon, but if my bro got it from some random fic he read off Ao3, I don’t know any better. So bro kinda squints at Roland, Seto Kaiba’s most incompetent bodyguard (if “bodyguard” is even an accurate description for the weird fake not-a-job that this guy has to do) and is like “do you feel like Roland has Noah’s hair color?”

and I was like “Bro, if you are suggesting that Roland is the illegitimate son of Gozobura because his hair is the same shade as the darker parts of Noah’s hair, that is one wild headcanon and I love it”

So--using Bro’s logic, lets say Gozaboro had a really stupid illegitimate son he had to hide from his wife. So he just...gives him a fake job. Considers “maybe I can use this son on A.I. Noah?” but Roland ends up being too much of a dumbass to intimidate Noah, so instead, he keeps Roland around on low-tier jobs so he gets keep an eye on him, torture him, etc.

And as the company falls out around him, Roland gets slowly promoted, as Seto and Mokuba fire basically everyone who worked with Pegasus and the Big 5. And Roland, who is just so bad at everything, forgot to attend the Pegasus coup (and would have no idea what is ever happening), so when the Kaibas returned from Pegasus’ island they still have Roland...sitting there at that long table covered in 4 identical idiot salads and orange juice he laid out for them in his patchy green moustache and his huge Gozaburo shoulders, they’re like “well.....I guess we have to take care of him now.”

And that’s the story my brother has in his head now every time Roland is on screen. It’s not canon at all that Roland is the secret 4th Kaiba brother but damn. What if he’s just the 4th Kaiba brother but has no idea, and Mokuba and Seto do, and that’s why they drag him all over the world with them? Hilarious.

I mean...Seto and Mokuba fire everyone. But they don’t fire Roland, their biggest dumbass. What a headcanon. (and if this joke ends up being real I’ll be very happy)

ALSO, new thing, the necklaces around their necks with the cute picture of eachother that they had up till now to remind eachother of their forever brotherly love--also keys used to blow up things very violently.

I should have expected this.

Anyway, lets check up on Mai---oohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Y’all this was WEIRD.

WHAT. THE. HELL.

So after that extremely insensitive joke that made us doubt if bringing back Mai was a good thing, lets have a reminder that we brought back someone else even worse, who, like a parasite, was devouring everything that they love.

(Bakura’s font color has been changed to blue stripes because before he was just too similar to Joey’s yellow and my white. Eventually I will find the right system for coloring everyone’s font legibly, although I know that the patterns are sometimes harder to read for people that aren’t colorblind.)

Ah, local nasty boy is back. I’d love if they had shown more of the food he ate, but they wisely decided to crop that huge spread out of frame. Bakura eating all of the donuts is canon though. Somehow every donut aboard this blimp fit inside of that small boy’s endless stomach.

PS Kaiba Corp makes their own milk. At some point, Seto Kaiba was just leaning back into his work chair, Mokuba on the couch watching TV, Roland completely unable to reload the Keurig, and Seto was like “But what if...I made CHEESE.” (BECAUSE YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THESE KIDS LOVE CHEESE) and Mokuba was like “OMG you could sell the company back to them at 2 times the price for each share” and he was like “I KNOW.”

and so he marched down to the nearest cheese fields to buy some cows, only to find out that the agriculture market is so strained you can’t sell the shares at a times-two profit now and he‘s like “Ah dammit! I have to do real business! This freakin blows!”

Makes you think.

Anyway, then Ryou throws some shade at us about “PS, I was in Hell! I love you, too!”

Anyway, so it’s about time we ended this season, so how about it? How about we take off, watch it all blow up as a symbolic representation of all the hopes and dreams Kaiba had at the beginning of this tourney, and end this crazy ass season?

Oh wait, that relies on Roland being able to do even one thing competently.

So, that’s where we leave off.

Really truly, honestly, we need to get everyone on this show matching cuff radios because the number of times they’ve needed to call Kaiba is insurmountable. Could have solved so many problems. Really surprised that Roland can’t like...call the Kaibas right now, but now that I think about it, we clarified several episodes ago that Mokuba forcibly kicked Roland off of the radio because he was unable to work it properly.

Good job Roland, the best Kaiba son.

Anyway if you just got here this is a link to read just the Yugioh recaps in chrono order

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immortals-malec · 5 years

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ok talk about why clac.e didn't work pls -deamaia

Oof rant here we go. let’s hope it all makes sense because i ramble a lot when i rant. For me it’s the damn writing for them is why c!ace didn’t work, (the chemistry is another one but the writing drives me nuts) So in s1, c!ace was developed as a somewhat high school/your basic white YA novel couple and they stay like this for the rest of the series, they never grew out of it. Until like their last damn scene in 3x22Most of their writing always fell flat in s1, the moments were either down right creepy or just look like they wanted to bang the entire time, they were supposed to have like romantic stepping stones for their relationship and yet, there was none, nothing felt romantic (this can fall on the no chemistry thing as well but I felt like it was the writing as well). But there was some moments you could be like okay cute, but you can realize everytime they had that ‘oh cute’ moment damn Ruelle was playing in the background so we can just thank her for that. Like in 1x11 they had like this moment about what happened in the TWI universe, they��re talking about how this is real and shit I’m like you are trying to tell me that what they said in the AU world is what they felt? Sh!Jace was there for like two seconds and got stabbed! And sh!Clary legit faded out of existence for awhile there, how did she know how that Clary felt??? I was so confused it was supposed to be a romantic moment and yet it confuses the fuck out of me. S2 things just get worse because of siblings plot shit and the fact is they still try to move them along as a couple but just ended up making them have a brotherly-sisterly bond, and the fact is they probably could’ve ended the plot sooner but choose not to and show us Clary moving on with Simon and Jace sleeping with people to forget he’s in love with his sister. Tbh they forgot about c!ace until 2x14 and they suddenly remembered that they were endgame and rushed to get them back together, which some of their moments during that time was yeah sorta okay I still didn’t feel anything romantic going on for them, that fucking glow-y scene in 2x19 is scarred into my brain, that’s like supposed to be romantic-bonding for 2.0 of their relationship is just what the fuck. Without the special effects I would’ve hated to be a cast member watching them hold onto each other while a fan blows air, I would’ve walked off or just cried from how bad it was. And than we have the oh so famous c!ace scenes in 2x20, I still honestly can’t remember feeling for them here, like yeah he’s dead but hes gonna come back in like two seconds. And that damn “i love you” scene that should’ve been cut, one never addressed it, didn’t make any sense (was just there because someone was a little upset that Malec was gonna get a whole I can’t live without you scene) and two because I feel like because is might have been the road to that damn stupid ass shit Jamie gives them and therefore the other writers who actually have brains had to.So now s3 which is the start of everybody is tired of the unearned crap c!ace is given. Because here is when they start trying to build up c!ace (and s!zzy too) as this epic in love, meant to be couple, which is a lot of my eyerolls in 3a come from. You really don’t see it in the first episode but boy in the ones after it you do. The whole talk in 3x02? Like what the fuck where did that come from because I sure as fuck don’t feel like you have given those emotions off before and I don’t remember you looking like this in the s1/s2 writing where was that and also this is basically Magnus’s fucking lines from 2x07! I don’t remember what the fuck happens in 3x03 other than Izzy wearing that dress and the Malec/Maryse dinner. But 3x04 is just a fucking mess and it’s by our favorite writer Jamie!! Who wrote those incesty lines in 2x04! But she’s here writing lines out for c!ace that don’t make any fucking sense and it’s just for c!ace fans. like the whole “My love for clary is stronger than your magic” bullshit, just what the hell, that whole episode is basically telling me that they love each other, but they aren’t showing me because that’s how storytelling works, you gotta do both, Malec has it, it’s not that hard. And also I totally almost forgot that half of s3 was spent with Jace forcing Clary not to tell anyone about the wish, ooo couple goals, not. Than 3x05 happens, tbh I forgot most, other than the Malec drama with the stupid timeline which effects the whole damn show and the angel getting his heart punched out by Lilith and Jace getting spelled.But yeah that stupid ass two month timeline that effects the whole show because Alec and Magnus really began their relationship in s1, they just didn’t make it official to the whole world in s2. It really hurts c!ace and their epic love story they try to give us. Because how did they fall in love to the point where Lilith had to get Magnus to spell Jace, because he’s so in love with her that it’s stronger than the Queen of Hell’s magic???? Unless they’re trying to tell me that they either fell in love in s1 or during the time they thought they were siblings.Which is really fucking bad, so when did they fall in love?! They never showed me in the episodes’ writing. Anyways moving on, c!ace gets some more toxic moments and that another “I love you” scene which just had me on the ground because why Jesus. Do they do this to me. And than we have Izzy talking about how much Jace has changed since they met Clary which has me like this????? ‘Cause hm, well ever since Jace met Clary, he’s treated his siblings like shit and became even more of an asshole, and that’s stayed the same over the past three seasons? Where is the change? Here you see that they’re trying to make them seem like Alec and Magnus, who’ve actually changed since they met each other, c!ace? That’s nowhere in their writing. Then we have the whole 3x08 thing where he’s killing clary in his mind, which i have no words for that since i only watched it once. 3x10, good episode, no c!ace moments other than that fake ass cry and ‘cLAEEERY’ yell. And now 3b is where we get to see all of the book!c-lace moments that either don’t make any sense or are just plain toxic. 3x11 I basically skip all of the Jace-c!ace related moments mainly because i can’t stand his face and i watch this episode right before i go to bed so yeah. But it’s a good episode. 3x12, oh the famous shitty reunion that falls under bad writing and bad chemistry, I can’t tell if it was the writing or the chemistry for that one, the reunion should’ve been nice ass top tier but yet- we get weird ass smiles, barely any emotion because I know they do write like ‘the character feels happy’ some crap like that, because I remember the 2x20 script having something like that- but with c!ace nothing- just nothing. Just about how Jace wanted to take her to Paris, lol where in the fuck did that come from because he’s never mentioned that, nEVER. Than we got 3x13- lol my favorite episode (not) this episode was just a shitty filler, but the c!ace moments make me wanna sleep and gag which was all of the action I felt during one of their scenes. So in this one they are back together and trying to figure out how to get the rune off of Clary, because first she really doesn’t want to have s-ex with Jace, ‘it’s never gonna be just me and you, it’s him too.’- which they end up forgetting. Than we get the shittiest build up to a first time scene ever, because this just comes out of nowhere really I guess if you count the previous episodes as build up, but there’s no build up in this one, it just comes out of no where really. One minute she’s like I wANT THE RUNE OFF before I get the d to- i mean it’s YOLO, give me that d. Like????? WHERE. But here’s where we get a book-quote that doesn’t make any damn sense but we gotta do it. “I will love you until I die, and even after then” some shit like that, I can’t remember. Does she even say I love you back? But honestly here did that even come from, the writing makes me wanna go hide. And we also get the shittiest written/filmed worse chemistry after first time scene ever. Like it’s supposed to be romantic??? But the way its filmed and written is just so damn bad, all I did was gag my first watch and rewatch of it. Not to forget the whole it’s basically a incest three thing, because her brother decides to send her a message afterwards.And 3x14 which is just ughh, most of the c!ace ones were with her brother, and the fact is the little ice skating thing was meant to be cute, I guess but I really didn’t feel shit, they were barely in the next episode. 3x16, also known as the dumb and dumber part for them, because lets summon Lilith-, but also the whole Jace is able to bring her out of becoming evil works on paper, made me have a headache because how was he able to be the one to pull her back??? Like that trope is amazing but for c!ace doesn’t make sense, because they haven’t shown me that they are in love that much, or care that much. 3x17-3x18, I just remember him being there, that stupid wings shit and her knocking the shit out of him when she turned dark clary. Oh but the next one- me hate. We got Jamie once again proving that she’s a shit writer, because we got c!ace and drugs! And don’t forget the whole she’s gonna force herself on him, but don;t worry he can push her away, even though he’s about to pass out. (And never once address this) Barely of them in the next one, because we got another return of the “Until I die” quote that still doesn’t make sense. That I rolling my eyes again, now in 3x21/3x22 they didn’t actually piss me off or make me roll my eyes, because somehow the writing was finally somewhat good for them. But they had to throw the “Loving cells” quote and comparing themselves to Malec, which writers you aren’t trying to hide at this point you were trying to make them out to be next to the Main couple, when I was like I could like them. Their last scene is so damn good! Like punch in the gut. WHERE WAS THAT THE WHOLE TIME. Shorter story with the writing: C!ace suffered from tell us all about it but we won’t ever show you/unearned development. All because Todd and co were chickens who didn’t want to change the endgame relationships and didn’t write them good.Mainly in the end you can tell that like I said before because they fucked around with them, they had to give them the unearned writing, so they could match up with Malec. Because just like go through gif sets of them, most of what c!ace got is what Malec had before, except better writing and better chemistry. The chemistry is another reason- but I believe the writing is the bigger one in the end.

#sh couples #writing problems

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miss-musings · 6 years

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My List of Top 10 Blacklisters

Let me say right off the bat that it was really difficult to compile this list. Because while I feel a lot of one-off Blacklisters are pretty much throwaways, especially all the different cults and kooky people that the show likes to keep introducing, many of the better ones (IMO) were bad guys who had been around for multiple episodes, maybe even entire arcs or seasons.

So, picking out my Top 10 -- based on how unique they were, how memorable they were, how intimidating, how threatening they were to the main cast, etc. -- was relatively easy, but ranking them was difficult. Because, again, a lot of them get way more screentime than others.

So, I'll try to rank them based on a combination of how much I personally liked them, how much of an overall impact to the story/characters the Blacklister had relative to their screentime and build-up, how well the actor did with the role, how unique and memorable they were, etc.

You'll notice that people like Laurel Hitchen, who was an antagonist but not technically a Blacklister, isn't on the list; and you'll notice that "good guys" like Dembe or Marvin Gerard who were technically Blacklisters, but weren't antagonists for Red or the Task Force aren't on here either. Tom, who flip-flopped between good guy and bad guy as the show progressed, isn't on here either; but that's because there's so much material to judge from as he was a main cast member for at least three seasons, which is unfair.

Anyway, without further ado: my list. Again, feel free to disagree and make your own lists if you like.

(EDIT: I’ve done a follow-up list of ‘Top 10 Best One-Off Blacklisters’, because so many of the below entries had multiple episodes in which to be menacing.)

Note for future reference: this list only includes Blacklisters up through the end of S5.

###

HONORABLE MENTION: MR. KAPLAN

I really wanted to put Mr. Kaplan on this list, and I had at one point, but then I realized I forgot one of the more imposing Blacklisters and had to slide him into the spot where I had Mr. Kaplan. The only reason I took her off completely rather knocking every lower-numbered entry down a spot, was because while I really liked Mr. Kaplan up until S3c, I hated how the showrunners forced the storyline where she had once been Liz's nanny and hated Red for doing her and the Keen family wrong. I love Susan Bloomaert and think she's a very talented actress who's incredibly underrated; but I loved her character more when she was on Red's team -- his cleaner, his friend, his confidant. Granted, there were some really good episodes with her as an antagonist, but I hated the way she died -- throwing herself off a bridge.

Anyway, again, I want to emphasize that this list is purely subjective. So, if you think I've done Mr. Kaplan a disservice, feel free to make your own list to give her to honor you believe she deserves. As I said: I loved Mr. Kaplan, but I felt the whole S4b storyline completely assassinated her character as we knew it up to that point.

P.S. I also feel like GREGORY DEVRY should get a shout-out, but I’ll probably include him in my list of Best One-Off Blacklisters.

10. LEONARD CAUL

This is one of those entries where I guess I kind of cheated. Caul didn’t really end up being an antagonist for Red, Liz or the Task Force. But he was introduced to us a little ambiguously with him developing photos of Liz and Red, listening to the police scanner -- and then holding Liz at gunpoint (briefly) in Red's Bethesda apartment... I really liked all of that and how it was kind of vague from the beginning whether he was on their side or not. Granted, he doesn't get much screentime even in his own episode, and honestly, after S2, I'm not really sure what happened to him. I know he was hanging around with Red up until the S2 finale or thereabouts, but yeah, whatever happened to that guy?

Anyway, it was a really tense episode, and I felt like Caul brought a level of adrenaline and urgency to the situation with Red and the Cabal, as well as the show in general.

9. IAN GARVEY

You'd think Garvey would be higher on this list, but I was never really a big fan of him. Granted, he did pose a pretty serious threat for our main crew, after he stole the Real Reddington’s bones, killed Tom and his goons knocked Liz into a coma. And the actor did a fine job. But, I just felt that -- up until his connection to the Reddington family was revealed -- he was just kind of cartoonish. A dirty cop who runs a drug cartel? Yeah, I don't care.

But, again, while I don't really like Garvey, I felt like he had such an impact on the show and the characters that he deserved a spot -- even if it was a low one.

8. MADELINE PRATT

The only female Blacklister to formally make it onto the list. (Sorry, Mr. Kaplan.) I thought her character and this episode was incredibly well-done. It was a little bit of a heist storyline, and Pratt was a good foil for Liz and Red, forcing both of them to open up in ways we hadn't seen before (up to that point). Liz became more comfortable doing criminal-type things, using her slight-of-hand, infiltrating locations and lying/manipulating people; while Red, conversely, became more human and opened up about why he has been so distant with people and the hurt he has experienced in the past.

Also, Madeline is one of the few past/current love interests of Red that we see on the show, and I really like Jennifer Ehle (mostly because of the 1995 version of Pride & Prejudice). I felt like she matched well with Spader and wasn't overpowered by his always-charismatic performance. And, while we only ever saw her in this episode and briefly in 2x14, I felt like she deserved a spot because she was such a unique character and that episode introduced a lot of character details and traits that became important later.

7. THE STEWMAKER

I really, really liked the Stewmaker -- both the bad guy and the episode. The only reason I didn't put him higher on this list is because I feel everyone else is too good (or bad, depending on how you want to look at it) to be displaced.

So, I remember reading on one of those TV-watching websites that if you weren't entirely sure about a show but you wanted to give it a chance, you should watch at least four episodes to see whether it was any good. By the fourth episode, the show should have established its characters, its dynamic, its continuing plot points, its feel, etc. Pilots, of course, always feel a little different than the shows themselves because they're filmed months before any other episode; so you have to give shows a chance to establish themselves and walk on their own two feet.

So... when THIS was the show's fourth episode... oh, buddy.

The Stewmaker posed a serious threat as he was the first person to ever hold Liz captive and feel the wrath of Red for such an offense. The episode gave us the infamous Parable of the Farmer; and continued the then-mystery of Liz finding out about Tom's shady past.

But, as for the character himself, he was just really weird. Walking around naked while he was working, but having that mask on; disintegrating bodies; having his dog with him; actually being a family man but having this criminal work on the side. And, also, we had a little bit of interaction where Liz was actually trying to do her job (for once) and profile him and use that info to her advantage.

He was a character that I feel the show has tried to redo several times -- the kooky weirdo who's very calm, apologetic and doesn't like violence but who is also fascinated by death, bodies, etc. But, of course, this was the FIRST time the show had used such a character, so it was much more memorable then and not so watered-down.

In any case, I really liked the Stewmaker and thought he was a fantastic Blacklister for the show to have in its fourth episode of the entire series.

6. MATIAS SOLOMON

So, this is actually the spot where I had Mr. Kaplan. But, while I was doing some background research on my #1 choice, I ran across Edi Gathegi's name and remembered that I left Solomon completely off the list. He had been an antagonist throughout the whole of S3a and then came back for his namesake episodes where he and his crew attack Liz and Tom's wedding, Liz gives birth to Agnes, and later she "dies" with Red by her side.

Solomon is either directly or indirectly responsible for a lot of major shit that happened on this show -- hell, just in those two episodes. And, I really like Gathegi's performance, especially considering how Solomon was a little Extra™. So he had to play him as dramatic with a penchant for flair and style ... but without him becoming cartoonish. He was just a little bit eccentric but could still hold himself and lead a team of goons in shooting up a church.

Again, I hated to leave Mr. Kaplan off the list but I felt it was a greater disservice to not put Solomon on it, considering how much of a threat he posed to our main cast throughout various points of S3.

5. THE DECEMBRIST (A.K.A. ALAN FITCH)

This is basically just an outlet for me to talk about how amazing Alan Alda is and how much I love him and wish the show hadn't killed his character off. Seriously, he's just so adorable, and it was hilarious to see him partly playing against type here. Fitch was intimidating, but I also kept wanting to give him a hug.

And, I felt like that was how Red felt toward him. He hated Fitch for the whole bullshit in that raid on the Post Office, but yet, he also respected him. That look on his face when he's having that last conversation before the bomb on Fitch's neck goes off... just heartbreaking.

And while so many actors seem to bow under the weight of Spader's performances, Alda is also one of the few actors who I felt like was on-par with him in terms of charisma and acting chops. It seems he just strolls onto the set and does whatever is required of him without a care in the world. "Need me to be gruff and menacing? I can do that. Need me to be sad and fearful? I can do that. Need me to look bored and indifferent? I can do that." God, I just love Alan Alda, and I want to give him a hug.

But, seriously, Fitch was a Blacklister who's impact on the story goes all the way back to setting Berlin on Red decades before S2 takes place, and he was one of the few people (at that time) who seemed to know Reddington from the pre-Night of the Fire era. (It's unclear now whether that was actually true; he probably knew the REAL Reddington, but never knew our guy was an imposter.)

Anyway, Fitch had a major impact on the story because he was the one person/thing who had a connection to the raid on the Post Office, the Cabal and Berlin. So, he definitely deserves a spot on this list. And also, ALAN ALDA!

4. BERLIN

This is a weird entry, because Berlin is hardly in either of his two namesake episodes; and even when he is, his identity is obscured until the very end of "Berlin: Conclusion."

Berlin had been built up for a long time, and while I still am so frustrated that it was never addressed how he organized a giant criminal syndicate from inside a Russian prison. Honestly, for as much as for as long as he was built up, I feel like the pay-off was a little bit disappointing. Which is why he’s at number four for me.

Still, when he came back in the first half of S2, he was such a good baddie. I absolutely love when he and Red meet on Coney Island, and that weird, dynamic and layered conversation that they have. And overall, Peter Stormare's performance is fantastic. He's mustache-twirling, sure, but he was so intimidating at the same time... threatening Liz, capturing Naomi, being responsible for the attacks on Cooper and Meera, etc.

He had a tremendous impact on both S1 and S2a, so he definitely has to have a spot.

3. ALEXANDER KIRK (A.K.A. CONSTANTIN ROSTOV)

Like Berlin, Kirk is hardly in either of his namesake episodes, but we get to see him more fleshed out as a character/villain in S4a.

Unlike most villains, we actually got to see quiet moments of Kirk, where he was caring, respectful, loving and just ... generally not villainous. Most of these other Blacklisters never got those opportunities, and Kirk -- in hindsight -- was built up as a kind of hero out of a Greek tragedy. Odette tells Liz that he was a kind, caring and gentle man up until he found out about Liz’s identity as Masha and her connection to Red. Then, he flipped his shit and did whatever it took to get his (step)daughter away from him. And, honestly, I really liked his little farewell speech to Liz about how she would only ever remember him as a villain who kidnapped and threatened her and her child; and she would never remember him as the young, happy father who held her in her arms, excited at what the future would hold for their family.

God, just thinking back to that speech makes me feel such sympathy for the man... not the one he became but the one he used to be. Kirk was hurt and betrayed multiple times by Katarina, the Real Reddington, the Fake Reddington, and all these other people who played him like a puppet for their own ends. Really thinking back on it, it’s no wonder he became the broken man he is, so desperately trying to cling to this frayed prospect of happiness with the family he once had. Yes, he was hoping that Liz or Agnes would help cure him of his disease, but I truly believe that was only a bonus in his mind and he was really hoping to piece his family back together -- to have a second chance in his (step)daughter’s life and help her with her newborn.

He’s also one of the few villains with his own arc who WASN’T killed off at the end of said arc, so I REALLY hope he comes back. I doubt it, but I would really like to see it. Maybe he could help Liz understand what all happened with Katarina, Real Reddington, Fake Reddington, and everything on the Night of the Fire.

And, again, like with Fitch, he was a really important Blacklister as he was connected to both Red’s past and Liz’s. And, that scene where he’s about to kill Red, and the two stop to reminisce about Katarina, who she was, and how important she was to them ... that’s the kind of depth we don’t get out of most Blacklisters.

Honestly, even though his introduction to the audience was a little too Darth Vader/Alias-esque, I still really enjoyed the range of emotions Ulrich Thomsen got to run through in his portrayal, especially in that final episode. And while he doesn’t really have a lasting effect on the story once his arc is resolved, he was a major threat to everyone, including Liz, and the main characters to make major decisions in the latter half of S3 and the first part of S4 that showed us who they really are.

So, yeah. IMO, he deserves to be this high on the list.

2. ANSLO GARRICK

It might seem a little weird to have a one-off villain this high on the list, but Anslo Garrick -- both the character and his namesake episodes -- was an actual game-changer. Here we were, skipping along through S1, pretty complacent and chill. And then all of a sudden, Anslo Garrick shows up and turns everything on its head. The Post Office is under attack; Ressler gets seriously injured and he and Red have to make due hanging out together inside the box; Cooper et al is captured; Liz and Aram, who have little field experience between them, have to team up to try to get to safety. Luli is killed; Dembe is almost killed; Liz is threatened; Red is captured and later escapes.

God, so much happened in those episodes, and I still think “Anslo Garrick: Part One” might be the best episode of the show to date. Seriously. Even though Red and Liz have zero screentime together, that episode is just SO GOOD. Intense, dark, with high-stakes and important character moments -- and there have been very few episodes like it since.

But, anyway, as for Anslo Garrick himself... he isn’t really all that much. He was a rabid dog sent by Fitch to bring Red in. He was intimidating, coarse, violent and gave zero shits about his actions.

This entry doesn’t really celebrate who the character of Anslo Garrick was, but more of what he represented and the major impact he had on the show at that point in time. He introduced us to Fitch, who first brought up the whole “Cabal” storyline, which was responsible for a lot of shit in S2 and S3a.

Again, Garrick woke us viewers out of our little complacency that Red & co. were just going to glide through their Blacklisters with only a few cuts and bruises and no real stakes (outside of the Tom/mystery storyline that was going on at the time). This was a good kick in the pants to make us realize that we were wrong.

So, yeah. I feel like he deserves to be Number 2.

1. THE DIRECTOR

So, you’re sitting there, wondering who the hell could be sitting at Number 1... above Garvey, above Kirk and Garrick and Fitch and everyone else?

It’s the man who if I could push a button and bring any of the show’s dead character back to life, he would be the one I’d pick:

Peter Kotsiopulos, The Director ... played by the amazing David Strathairn.

Even though he appeared in 12 episodes over what amounted to an entire season of the show (from 2x09 to 3x10), I really wish The Director hadn’t been killed off. Seriously, I have no idea how much money TPTB had to throw at Strathairn to get him to appear for as long and as many times as he did, but it wasn’t enough. I've always said that this show deserves a Big Bad (assuming that Red isn’t it), and he would’ve been great as the Big Bad for The Blacklist.

While Strathairn's basically just reprising his role as "Unethical and Shady AF Government Official and Resident Mustache-Twirler" from The Bourne Series, it's a role he's REALLY good at. And even though he didn’t get a lot of quiet moments to be humanized or come across as sympathetic, like Kirk did, I still feel like it was such a bitch move for Red and his crew to play on The Director’s feelings for/obligation to his wife as their opportunity to abduct him. I know that Liz was facing trial for murder and desperate times called for desperate measures, but I can just imagine that poor lady sitting in her therapist’s office, wondering where her husband was only to find out that he was a villain who had ditched her and fled the country, when that wasn’t the case AT ALL.

Yeah, I know The Director’s an absolute piece of shit who’s responsible for threatening the entire Task Force, publicly demonizing Liz and almost killing Red... but he was so good at being bad that I wanted him to stick around long-term. I wanted to see him and Liz have more interactions; and again, Stathairn was one of the few actors who held his own in scenes with Spader without any effort.

He was also the first one, as I recall, to set Liz on this path toward Katarina Rostova’s backstory and finding out how alike the two of them were. Remember in 2x19, he remarks how much Liz looks like her mom, and I feel like that sends Liz down a road to get answers from Red about who she was and what his connection was to her mom and her family.

But, anyway, yeah. I just love David Strathairn; I loved him in this role, on this show; and I loved how diabolical, manipulative, and just conniving his character was. I also just absolutely love the look on his face in 3x10 when he and Red are watching Laurel Hitchen on the TV and Hitchen just outs The Director as a member of the Cabal. He just goes from angry and staring daggers at Red to flustered and “oh shit” in an instant.

So, just like my Fitch entry was my opportunity to celebrate how amazing Alan Alda was, this is my chance to celebrate how underrated David Strathairn is as an actor and how much I wish he was still on the show.

But, putting all of that aside, why should The Director as a character be ranked above all those other people as a better Blacklister?

Because, The Director represented the Cabal, which was an entity that had been built up from 1x09 as a major force that had power to easily destroy everything Red, Liz and their crew was trying to work toward. They sent Braxton after info about the Fulcrum, they sent Karakurt to frame Liz, they sent that team of commandos to attack Red. They were a force that seemingly could not be stopped, and the Director was at the head of it all.

And, while I can’t find it anywhere (so help me out if you know what I’m talking about), I know there’s a saying about how the worst man is the one who does evil in the name of good. And that’s The Director. He is the embodiment of all the worst parts of The Blacklist’s villains, actual real life government officials and humanity at large. He has dozens of people killed without batting an eye because it’s all in the interest of “national security.” Or so he tells others. But, deep down, we all know that he’s only really concerned about his own self-interest.

Now that the show has killed him off, obviously, there’s no way for Strathairn to return as The Director; but perhaps, if/once the show delves more into Katarina and Red’s backstory, maybe we will see a Young Director in a flashback so that we can see exactly how he was connected to Katarina, the Cabal, and that whole mess with the Fulcrum.

Plus, I can’t get over how awesome his interactions with Liz were, and Strathairn’s delivery of the now infamous line, “I know who you really are, Raymond -- who you are TO HER.”

###

Again, if you disagree, feel free to reblog with your comments or your own list. This is all purely subjective, but -- because we’re on this crazy-long hiatus until January -- I felt like it was good to fill the time with SOMETHING. My goal with this isn’t to give a definitive list and that’s it; but rather, to prompt discussion about the topic.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end and cheers! ~mm

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ofsinnersandsaints · 7 years

Text

Ghost Watch: S3, E4

AO3 / Completed

Modern AU / Bellarke / The Delinquents

"Hey guys, it’s me, Bellamy Blake, and tonight on Ghost Watch we’re going to be investigate a house owned by Clarke Griffin. Her roommates, Monty Green and Jasper Jordan, called us in to investigate their home.

Welcome to Ark, Virginia. Welcome to Ghost Watch."

“I’m going to murder you both and then this house will really be haunted.”

Clarke stormed across the living of the plantation house she shared with Monty and Jasper until she was nearly nose to nose with them and couldn’t decide if she was angry or furious. “I can't believe you did this behind my back.”

Monty and Jasper glanced at each other. To Clarke’s frustration neither of them showed an ounce of remorse. Worse, they didn’t seem particularly afraid of her either but Jasper did hold up his hands in surrender. “In our defense, we didn’t think they’d really pick us.”

“We’re only minimally haunted after all,” Monty pointed out.

“We are not haunted,” Clarke hissed. “This is an old house and you two are crazy.”

“So you’re saying your paintings moved on their own?” Jasper challenged.

“I’m saying I probably moved them and forgot,” Clarke argued for what she imagined was the hundredth time. Even to her own ears, though, her tone lacked conviction. A month ago she’d gone down to her studio and found her father’s portrait on the easel when she would have bet her life it had been on the floor night before, waiting to be framed.

The only thing she could think to explain the reason for its move was she’d gotten up in the middle of the night and moved it before going back to bed, but just thinking about it made her itchy between her shoulder blades.

“What about the doors?” Jasper challenged, “You’re not seriously trying to say they’re opening by themselves.”

“You mean the very old doors which probably need new hinges?” Clarke countered.

“Old hinges stick,” Monty reminded her. “Not make things easier to open.”

“So my moved paintings and doors opening was enough to get the crew of Ghost Watch to come to this backwoods college town to investigate our supposedly haunted house?”

“Technically, your haunted house," said Jasper. “Which is why you’re the one who was supposed to sign the contracts which allow them to film.”

"Wait, supposed to sign?" Clarke spluttered. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Monty and Jasper exchanged looks. "We may have forged your signature on the contracts and sent them to the producer. They'll be here next week."

“For fuck’s sake, Jasper.” Clarke ran a hand through her hair, “I’m really am going to kill you both.”

“Oh, come on. What’s the worst that can happen?” Monty argued. “They come, they hang out in our house for a night while we stay at a cushy hotel and then they leave again.”

Clarke felt her resolution to refuse weaken. She could use a night in a hotel. For the past week she’d been drowning herself in her thesis work and couldn’t remember what it felt like to not have tension in her neck and shoulders. Dreams of a big Jacuzzi tub and room service danced prettily in her head.

“I am not getting on camera saying I believe in ghosts,” she asserted, though she couldn't muster up any heat. Oh God, was she really agreeing to this?

“Awesome!" Jasper high fived Monty. "I’m going to call Maya and tell her we’re a go.”

Monty stayed as Jasper ran off to his bedroom upstairs. It didn’t escape Clarke’s notice that while Jasper was still on the stairs there was the sound of footsteps on the floor above her.

“You know something weird is going on here," Monty told her.

“You guys have watched way too many episodes of Ghost Watch. It’s just the house settling. It is an old house, Monty.”

“So maybe it'll turn out to be nothing. But if it helps, the people on the show are all super hot.”

Clarke sighed and couldn’t help but respond to Monty’s grin. “It helps a little.”

##############################

When Clarke finally accepted the show was coming, she binge watched the first two seasons and was reluctantly impressed by the way the crew conducted themselves.

In order to prevent contamination the watchers, as they called themselves, knew next to nothing about the houses and buildings they were going to investigate. Instead, the tech expert, a woman by the name of Raven Reyes, and her partner Wick (whom Clarke suspected was more than just her partner on set) interviewed the residents or owners of the supposedly haunted buildings.

The three people who went into the houses to make contact with the spirits, brother and sister Bellamy and Octavia Blake and the inscrutable Nathan Miller, knew nothing which meant anything they sensed, heard, or saw would come from their own observations and not from suggestions given by the crazies.

Witnesses, Clarke corrected herself, watching the crew pile out of a black van with the show's logo on the sides and she had to admit Monty was right: they were hot.

Jasper all but hopped from one foot to the other on the last step of the porch in anticipation, while Monty stood calm next to him in the outfit he’d picked after choosing and discarding four others.

The guy she considered to be in charge stepped to the front of the group. Both Monty and Jasper eagerly shook his hand, and there was more than a little hero worship in Jasper’s eyes.

Oh boy, was Clarke definitely regretting this.

“Hi, I’m Bellamy Blake," said the newcomer. "Which one of you is Clarke?”

“I am,” Clarke answered from her spot.

He looked up at her with dark eyes though from this distance she couldn’t see their color but she could definitely feel the spark of something shivering down her spine.

She was kicking the guys out the first chance she had. Jesus, she didn’t have time for this.

“I’m Clarke Griffin.” she said as she held out her hand.

“Nice to meet you,” he smiled as he shook it and there was something about the curve of it which immediately made her want to punch him in the face.

Maybe it was the arrogance, or the fact she immediately wanted to make out with him.

It was 50/50.

Letting go of his hand as if was suddenly a hot rock she took a quick step back. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Blake.”

“Bellamy,” he corrected. “Thanks for letting us come into your home.”

“A metaphorical gun was put to my head by my roommates,” she clarified, looking around Bellamy’s shoulder (who needed shoulders that wide anyway?) to glare at Monty and Jasper. To her annoyance, they didn't even notice, since they were meeting the other members of the crew.

“Ah.” There was a world’s worth of condescension in the single syllable and skewed the ratio 90/10 in favor of punching him. “You’re a skeptic.”

“Yes. But I love my roommates and there were rumors of a hotel room.”

He grinned, quick and bright. Okay, maybe it was more like 80/20. You could want to punch someone's face and still want to make out with them, right?

“Yes, you guys get to hang out in a swanky hotel while we wander around your house all night.”

“I’ll make sure to hide my lingerie.”

He stuck his hands in his pockets and rolled back on his heels, smile still firmly in place. “We don’t touch lingerie unless invited first.”

“Shame, you must not get to touch a lot of lingerie then.”

He barked out a laugh as his sister, a willowy brunette with long brown hair and a ready smile, came up to greet them. “I’m Octavia. You’ve got an amazing house.”

“Thanks, I got it-“

“No spoilers,” Bellamy interrupted. “Did your roommates not tell you the rules?”

“They did.” She hadn’t needed them to after her binge-watch, but she wasn’t about to admit to to her roommates she’d spent 36 plus hours watching a show about haunted houses when she’d adamantly refused to admit they existed so she certainly wasn’t about to admit it to this guy either. “But I didn’t think how I came into possession of the house would be that important.”

“You never know what might be relevant later,” Octavia explained gently as if to make up for her brother’s rudeness. “But I can’t wait to hear the story later. Come on, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the group while my brother figures out where he put his manners.”

“O-“

“Nope,” she interrupted. “You were being an ass. I could tell from the yard." Taking Clarke’s arm to lead her away, she added, "Other than my brother, everyone else is super nice except for Nathan, who is stoic.”

Clarke smiled, endeared by the younger woman’s friendliness and allowed herself to be pulled away and introduced to the rest of the crew.

A tall blonde man stood with his arm slung over a pretty, smirking Hispanic girl while a dark skinned man stood close to Monty. She recognized the early signs of infatuation in her friend’s eyes. When she met Jasper’s grin she realized he’d noticed the same thing.

“Guys, this is Clarke," Octavia announced. “Bellamy was being mean.”

“I wasn’t being mean,” Bellamy argued from behind them.

“You were thinking about it,” Octavia shot back without looking over her shoulder and Clarke stifled a laugh at how efficiently she’d shut her brother down. “So, this is Raven and Wick, they’re the techs and they’re going to be ones interviewing you. This is Nathan, he’s our camera man in the house during the investigation, you’ve met my brother Bellamy who likes to pretend he’s in charge, and I’m Octavia.”

As she shook hands with the others, Clarke was surprised to find they were all about her age. Here she was stressing over school and these people were traveling around the world making a TV or television show.

She was beginning to wonder about her life choices.

“While Raven and Wick interview you, we’ll be wandering around the property getting b-roll, doing our own little observations and what not,” Octavia explained. “When you’re done you’ll give us a tour of your place so we don’t get lost in the middle of the night. Does that work okay for you?”

Clarke nodded, not really certain her agreement was necessary. Octavia was beautiful but mildly terrifying, like a steamroller painted pink.

“Great. We’ll catch up with you in a bit.” Octavia turned and grabbed her brother’s arm and dragged him away from the group. “Come on, bro, you can check her out later.”

After they’d taken a few steps away, Jasper sighed, “She’s hot.”

“So is her brother,” Monty added with a small smile.

Yep. She was really, really going to regret this.

##############################

Twenty minutes later, after Jasper’s interview had finished, Clarke was being rigged with a mic. She’d observed the process from a safe distance so she’d know what to expect when it was her turn and watching the two members of the show's tech team work together was oddly calming, almost like watching a dance.

Raven seemed to be the one in charge and while she and Wick relentlessly teased each other she seemed to respect her counterpart. What Clarke hadn’t known from the show, because she was almost always sitting, was Raven walked with a limp.

Wick more than compensated for her lack of mobility, though, predicting her needs with almost clairvoyant accuracy so she didn’t have to move more than necessary. Not until he’d gone off to get drinks did Clarke get a chance to ask the question which had been burning in her mind since she’d seen them in person for the first time.

“You and Wick. Are you guys are a thing?”

Raven cast her a glance of calculated suspicion. “Why? You thinking of hitting on him?”

“No, but I did binge watch your guys’ first two seasons-which stays between us, by the way-and he followed you around with ‘Property of Raven Reyes’ on his forehead the first season and by the second season you two had zero personal space in the tech center.”

Raven’s guarded look dropped away as she smiled. “He bought me some really fancy tech so I decided give him a bone.”

“Right, the heart eyes are just for the tech.”

This time Raven winked as she fixed Clarke’s microphone to the collar of her shirt. “Totally for the tech. Okay, you’re all set. Wick will be here in a sec to do the interview, he’s better at that kind of stuff than I am. Then you’ll give Bellamy and Octavia the tour of the house. Monty and Jasper will jump in at necessary intervals and then you guys will be free to go.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts.”

Raven shrugged like it didn’t really matter. “I don’t either.”

“What? But you work on a show which is solely about talking to ghosts.”

“I like the challenge of trying to prove or disprove something which is inherently impossible to prove. And I like the crew, they’re family.”

“Family’s important,” Clarke agreed solemnly but there was a catch in her voice which caught Raven’s attention and she received the look she always got when people realized she’d lost someone: a little bit of compassion mixed with a lot of pity.

“I get to travel all over the world with my hot boyfriend, too,” Raven added brightly.

“There’s that,” Clarke agreed with a smile, grateful Raven had dropped the subject and gave them both an out.

“You guys ready for me?”

Raven stepped back and smiled at Wick as he walked towards him, his disposition so leisurely and relaxed it calmed Clarke just to watch him come towards them.

“Yep, she’s all yours. Let me turn on the cams.” Opening two bottles of soda, she handed one to Wick. They both took long drinks before Raven settled in behind a trio of monitors and Wick walked up to stand on his mark. Setting the soda at his feet, he gave Clarke a friendly smile.

“This is just going to be a conversation. Only thing I need you to do is try to remember when I ask you a question to repeat the question back to me in your answer. So if I ask, what is your name?”

“I say, my name is Clarke Griffin.”

He shot her a grin, more sunshine than heat, and Clarke decided she liked him. “You’re at the head of the class. Most of the questions I’m going to ask you are going to be about the house, how you came to own it, what you know about the history, and lastly what kind of things are happening around the house to make you believe it’s haunted.”

“She doesn’t think it’s haunted,” Raven put in.

Wick frowned. Immediately, Clarke immediately felt as if she had disappointed him.

“I just don’t think it makes sense-“ she began.

“Scientifically?” he finished for her. “It does though.”

“Oh god, here he goes,” Raven muttered.

Wick continued as if she hadn’t anything. “Matter can’t be created or destroyed, only changed. So if a person dies who he, or she, is can’t be changed.” The pace in his voice picked up and she could physically see him getting excited about a potential debate. “They can only be changed, so what happens to your soul when you die? You just, poof!, disappear into nothingness? Doesn’t make sense.”

“But you can’t prove a soul is energy,” Clarke argued. “You’d have to do that first in order to prove it lasts after death.”

“Why? When has science ever waited its turn in line?”

Clarke opened her mouth to argue but closed it again. Okay, he kind of had a point. Sometimes science discovered the truth before it understood the how or the why.

“You’ve argued this a lot, haven’t you?” she said instead.

“Almost daily. I should really learn to stay off the message boards. Reyes, give the guys a heads up we’re interviewing and to keep the sound down.”

Raven pulled out her phone and sent what Clarke assumed was a group text before sliding it back in her pocket. “All set.”

“All right," Wick rubbed his hands together. "Let’s do this.”

##############################

Bellamy’s first instinct when meeting the owner of the supposedly haunted house was she was hot. Not in a Raven sort of way, or in the way his ex-girlfriend Roma was hot. More like being in the shade when it’s cold and chilly but suddenly the world shifts and the shade moves and the sunlight is falling on cool skin so the warmth just starts spreading and there are goosebumps everywhere the sunlight touches.

After five minutes into the tour of the house, it became clear she wasn’t just a skeptic, she was a realist, too. That made no sense, because after touring the attic, the second floor and most of the first, she showed them a small office set off the from the kitchen which housed art.

Actual art. The kind of stuff which hung in galleries and frames and were sold at Sotheby’s for outrageous amounts of money. She admitted it was her room, her art, and he’d never been so confused by a person in his life.

He stepped closer to his sister and kept his voice low as Clarke moved a painting while muttering to herself, ‘this isn’t where this belongs.’

“O, why don’t you take a minute to call your boyfriend?”

Octavia laughed, knowing him too well not to notice the flicker of interest and curiosity in his eyes.

“That wasn’t even a little bit subtle but I’m not going to argue,” she said. Stepping out of the room, she shut the door behind her, leaving him alone with Clarke.

She didn’t seem to notice.

“I didn’t realize you were an artist,” Bellamy began.

She gave him a self-conscious smile, “Yeah. I’m going to school for it.”

“Why?”

She narrowed her eyes and he realized how it must have sounded. Quickly, he went on. “I meant, why go to school for art when it seems like you already know what you’re doing. This stuff is amazing.”

He stopped at an oil painting of a girl curled up in an easy chair, her hair in a braid, reading a book. Above her the story took life in a myriad of images, showing that same girl with the same braid holding a sword and dressed in armor while dragons and castles and landscapes seemed to vie for space.

“I could maybe draw that dragon if you gave me something to trace,” he joked.

“I inherited the drawing talent from my dad. The art, he said I came up with myself.”

“Consider me well and truly impressed. I don’t suppose I could buy this from you.”

“You want it?”

He shifted his weight, feeling awkward at her surprise. “Yeah? It reminds me of when O was little and I used to read to her, or make up stories before she went to bed. She’d hear something like Percy Jackson and then decide she was the daughter of a goddess and spend the next two weeks trying to shoot a bow and arrow.”

“Artemis,” she acknowledged with a smile. “I’m more of an Athena girl myself.”

“Hades,” he admitted with a shrug.

“Appropriate,” she smirked but when he only tilted his head, confused, she shrugged. “You’re here to investigate ghosts. It’s not a far step from Hades.”

Bellamy laughed, “Believe it or not, I never actually made that connection before.”

She smiled as she shook her head. “You can buy it if you want but it’s not like it’s going to be worth anything someday.”

Bellamy studied the painting for a moment before turning to her with what he hoped was a deadpan expression. “Maybe after you die.”

Clarke laughed. “Then I’ll haunt this place and you can come over and tell me how much my art is worth.”

“Sounds fair.” He grinned at her. When he caught himself leaning into kiss the spring sunlight erupting from her smile he immediately stopped himself.

Bad idea. Worst idea.

She blinked as if she realized what he’d been about to do but instead of moving away or glaring at him there was the smallest of smiles on her face. For some reason he thought of that old Peter Pan movie and he suddenly understood the plot behind the secret kiss at the corner of Wendy’s mouth.

Well, if she didn’t think it was a bad idea then he was going to go for it. Just as he started to lean in again, someone outside made a large accompanied by what he recognized was Raven's cursing and the moment was gone.

He took a step back and reached for the door but when he turned the knob it didn’t open.

Clarke came up behind him, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. The door is locked.”

“No it’s not,” Clarke argued. “This door doesn’t even have a lock on it.”

She swatted his hand away and he couldn’t help but be amused at how she’d gone from soft sunlight to hard steel in just a few seconds, as if she’d suddenly remembered she didn’t want him there. His grin only widened when she tried the knob and while it moved the door wouldn’t unlatch.

“Not again.”

“Again? This has happened before?”

She glanced up at him through her lashes, not because she was flirting but because he was a good five inches taller than her. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to taint your perspective with anecdotal evidence?”

“I’m kind of the boss, so if I say it’s okay to tell me, it’s okay to tell me.”

“I’m not encouraging you,” she evaded.

“I should tell you, not telling me something just encourages me more.”

“You’re a pain in the ass.”

“Surprisingly, you’re not the first who has said that to me.”

“Not really that surprising.”

“Tell me when this happened before. No judgement.”

She stared at him for a solid five seconds and he thought she was going to refuse again. Instead she propped her shoulder against the door and crossed her arms. “I was dating this guy. He knocked at the door to pick me up for a date and the front door wouldn’t open. Jasper, Monty, and I all tried to open it, we locked it, unlocked it, we tried everything but we couldn’t open it.”

“What did you do?”

“Eventually it opened, but it took a few minutes. I think the door was warped.”

“Mhm.”

“You think it was a ghost trying to keep me from going on a date?”

“Would there have been a reason to keep you from the date?” Clarke bit her lip and looked away, immediately piquing his interest. “What?”

She sighed and he suspected from the sound she’d had to tell the story more than once. “I found out the next day he hadn’t really broken up with his girlfriend like he said he had.”

“He was cheating on you?”

“I think he was cheating on her,” Clarke shrugged. “He thought he’d broken up with her, she didn't agree.”

Some guy who was too lazy to break up with his girlfriend before moving on to someone new and when he came to pick her up the door wouldn’t open? “Someone’s looking out for you.”

“You think some spirit is hovering in my house protecting me from douchebags?”

“Haunting, not hovering.”

“You’re insane.”

“Because I believe in ghosts?”

“I don’t get you, you’re a smart man.”

“Thank you?”

“I Googled you,” she explained. “You were going for your Ph.D when you got sidetracked by all of this.”

He could tell by the dismissive wave of her hand what exactly she thought of ‘all this’ but he wasn’t about to tell her the why and how he got into this line of work, so he evaded.

“Sidetracked by a career which keeps me excited and allows me to not only work with my sister and my friends but also provides all of us with financial stability? Yeah, you’re right. I’ve made terrible life choices.”

“There is no proof ghosts exist.”

“There was no proof Alexander the Great could conquer the world, that didn’t stop him from trying to prove that he could, did it?”

“Alexander didn’t succeed.”

“He accomplished more than his father had. That’s a kind of success, don’t you think? So maybe I don’t prove empirically there are ghosts. If I find more proof than those who came before me, that’s a kind of success. I can live with that.”

##############################

It didn’t matter how nice the building, or the fact she was never really alone, Octavia couldn’t help the feeling of being on edge and just a little bit terrified when they turned off all the lights and started wandering around a strange place looking for ghosts.

She loved it.

She loved the old sounds of a house settling in, of doors creaking open but more than anything she loved the out of place sounds, soft moans and breathy whispers in the shadows, the sense of a presence just out of reach.

They didn’t always get results when they investigated a house. There were bound to be more than a few places which were just old, after all. She’d had a feeling about this place, though, from the moment she’d seen it.

Even though she knew next to nothing about the house you could tell simply by looking at it there was too much history for there to be nothing. Octavia likened it to a Civil War widow with stories of battles and blood and death in her living room, not knowing if her husband was somewhere living through the same. This place had stories to tell and a strong enough backbone to survive the hard times.

She also imagined if this house could talk, it would probably curse. Like a lot.

Some houses just had a wicked tongue that way.

The first hour passed by quickly and relatively quietly. They’d walked through the house to get their bearings in the dark and then had separated. Bellamy had gone towards the kitchen while she and Nathan had attempted an EVP session in the parlor-this place had a parlor, how cool was that? It was during that session she heard the sound upstairs. Immediately, she dragged Nathan, who was filming, along with her to investigate.

As she walked up the steps, comforted by the presence of Nathan right behind her, she kept her eyes fixed on the darkness ahead of her, watching for any change in the density of the shadows or light where it shouldn’t be.

She didn’t mind working with her brother but he always took the lead, and Wick was easily excitable whenever he was allowed to work a building. Raven, despite her adamant insistence she did not believe in ghosts refused to walk into a house while they were investigating.

Nathan, on the other hand, was a steady and solid presence. If she jumped, he stayed calm. Because he was almost never affected by the spirits they investigated, it usually meant if he said something happened to him it wasn’t a figment of his imagination, it was real.

So when he jumped and yelled, he immediately had Octavia’s attention. Spinning around she reached out to grab his arm. “What? Are you okay?”

“It felt like someone just touched my side,” he bit out. “Shit, man, that was weird.”

Octavia reached her hand towards the space where Nathan had been standing moments ago. “It’s cold here. Do you have temp?”

He shifted the handheld before holding it out to her, “Take the camera.”

She took it from him carefully, holding it over Nathan’s shoulder so the screen on the handheld thermometer was visible through her lens.

And she could see, clear as day, when he moved the thermometer the temp dropped.

“It’s ten degrees cooler there,” she said aloud, amazed. “Did it feel like they grabbed you, or…?”

“No, it was like someone brushing up against you in a crowded room.”

“Here, take the recorder.”

Nathan reluctantly took the recorder she’d been holding in her hand and he held it out to the open room. “Now you ask questions, Nathan.”

“This is your job,” he muttered.

“The spirit touched you,” she pointed out, her breath quickening at the prospect of making contact. “You should do the talking.”

And for the next five minutes Nathan very awkwardly asked questions he’d heard Octavia and Bellamy use in the past and even though she had nothing scientific to back it up she would bet her next paycheck they’d gotten something on the audio.

“We’re not getting anything,” Nathan complained.

“We might finding something later, you know that.” But she traded with him, handing over the camera as she took back the recorder. At the same time Bellamy’s voice came through the walkie-talkie, the volume down low enough it wouldn’t startle them in the quiet of the house. “Hey guys?”

Octavia unhooked the device from her belt, “Hey, person.”

“Where are you?”

“Doing an EVP session in the second floor hallway.”

“Okay, I’m coming up to meet you.”

Octavia didn’t bother responding. Instead, she hooked the walkie back on her hip, then rewound the recorder to about where Nathan yelled about being touched and then started playing the tape.

There was mostly just Nathan’s voice, asking questions, followed by silence but after he asked “Can you show yourself” she thought she heard…something.

Bellamy appeared over Nathan’s shoulder, a camera in his hand but pointed to the floor. There was a static camera at the end of the hall capturing their images and Nathan had his camera so she figured he didn’t see any point in filming.

“Did you get anything?”

“I think so,” she stepped towards him, automatically moving so Nathan could easily get the two of them in a shot.

“Nathan’s ass got grabbed by a ghost.”

“Nothing grabbed my ass," Nathan protested. "It felt like someone brushed up against me.”

Octavia couldn’t help but grin at Nathan’s aggrieved correction. “There was a temp difference,” she added. “It’s all on film, but I had Nathan do an EVP and I think he got something. Listen.”

She played back the question and she watched as Bellamy’s brows furrowed in concentration, his head tilted slightly to catch the sound coming from the speaker.

“What is that? It’s not a word.”

“It sounds like a scoff,” Nathan piped up, but he didn’t sound happy about it.

“A scoff?” Octavia asked the same time as Bellamy.

“Yeah you know, like when you ask someone a question and they just scoff because the question is stupid? You should know, Bellamy, you do it all the time.”

Bellamy rolled his eyes but with that presumably in mind he rewound the tape and listened to the sound again.

“It definitely sounds intentional," he agreed. "I mean, there’s nothing in this hallway which could make that noise.”

In sync from years working together, both Bellamy and Nathan directed their cameras to opposite ends of the hallway as if to verify there wasn’t anything which could create a kind of scoffing noise.

There was nothing except a few paintings hanging on the walls, all of them still.

“Let’s do EVPs in the bedrooms,” Bellamy finally suggested. “See if we can’t get our friend to have a conversation with us.”

He turned to the closest bedroom as Nathan opened the door to the one next to him. Octavia made her way to the one across the hall from Bellamy and instinctively scanned the room she found herself in, finding the static cam they’d placed there earlier.

“Okay,” she greeted the room. “We’re going to see if Nathan’s new friend wants to talk. Bellamy’s got the spirit box, so I’m going to use the magnetic recorder we used earlier to capture the sound in the hallway.”

It was definitely a guy’s room. There were comic books everywhere and a desk wedged in the corner covered in notebooks and pens and a single empty square patch of wood indicating where a laptop once rested.

Jasper’s room, she remembered from the tour. He’d apologized for the mess and explained he was a writer and had gotten nose deep in writing and research so he’d forgotten to clean up till the last minute.

Sitting on the hastily made bed, she set the recorder on the comforter. She didn’t believe she was going to get any responses in here, though. While the hallway had felt occupied when she and Nathan had been there this room felt distinctly empty.

After ten minutes of talking, of asking questions, demanding proof of existence, she heard one of the doors open and Bellamy’s voice boom from the hallway.

“Fuck! Guys! You have to listen to this. I got a name.”

Octavia scrambled off the bed, leaving the recorder behind, and ran to meet her brother.

##############################

The reveal was one of Bellamy’s favorite parts of the show aside from the actual investigation. It was amazing to see the eyes of his clients go wide at a particularly clear EVP or unexplained image in infrared. Proof they weren’t crazy, proof their experiences were valid.

Even more, when those images and sounds they found corresponded with past experiences from eyewitnesses. Since he and the other watchers knew nothing about those instances, there was no chance of believing before seeing.

And if he could convince a skeptic there was more to the world than they’d thought the day before, all the better.

So when he sat with Octavia across from Monty, Jasper, and Clarke he did so with the pleasure of knowing he had a piece of evidence which the princess couldn’t dispute or ignore. He couldn’t wait to see her reaction.

But, because this was a show after all, they had to work their way up to it, so he showed them the clip from when Nathan and Octavia caught the sound of the footsteps above them. Clarke immediately shifted away as her roommates gaped.

“That’s totally happened to us before,” Jasper announced, leaning towards the screen.

Monty nodded, “It happens quite a bit actually, in different parts of the house.”

“It’s an old house,” Clarke pointed out, but she was looking at the screen as if she didn’t quite trust it.

“True,” Bellamy acknowledged and got more than a little pleasure at her look of surprise at being agreed with. “But in the entire night we never caught that sound again with any of the static cameras throughout the house. If it was just the building settling it would have likely happened more than once.”

Octavia leaned forward so Bellamy pulled back, allowing her to take over with the ease of having known and worked with her for his entire life. “After we heard the footsteps Nathan and I went upstairs to investigate and this happened.

“I apologize in advance for Nathan’s language.” She grinned and Bellamy was struck, not for the first time, at what a natural she was in front of the camera. Her awareness of how things would look once they were edited together and shown on television was unmatched. He knew, if he ever wanted to step back from the show and go back to school she’d be ready and capable of taking over for him.

Bellamy reached out and pushed play on the laptop. The video Nathan took of Octavia on the second floor began playing. When Nathan shouted all three of the civilians jumped.

Octavia and Bellamy grinned at each other as he paused the video.

“Has that happened to anyone before?” Bellamy asked.

“I sometimes feel like someone is walking past me, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually been touched,” Monty admitted. “Is your camera guy okay?”

Bellamy smiled at the note of concern in the man’s voice. “He was a little shaken up but he’ll be fine. Right afterwards, Nathan performed an EVP session and we got this.”

Pulling up the audio file he played the sound his friend had managed to capture.

“Do you guys hear that?” he asked when the audio stopped.

“Sounds like Clarke when she scoffs at us,” Jasper grinned at his friend who, ironically, scoffed in response.

“That’s what we thought it sounded like too,” Bellamy agreed. “We couldn’t find any other source for the sound. We can’t say for sure it was paranormal but it was definitely out of the ordinary.”

“After this Bellamy joined us and suggested we each take a room and conduct another EVP session to see if we could get another response," Octavia put in. "Nathan and I were the in guys’ rooms and after about ten minutes we heard Bellamy yell from Clarke’s room.”

This time Bellamy leaned forward, excitement and anticipation buzzing under his skin. “Do any of you know a man by the name of Jake?”

There was a female gasp and as Bellamy swung his gaze towards Clarke he saw Jasper and Monty's identical slack-jawed looks. Before he could say anything else, Clarke got up and all but ran out of the room.

Her roommates shared a knowing look before Monty shifted forward, his voice lowering when he spoke. “Jake was her father.”

Bellamy’s entire universe pinpointed on that single word, was, and suddenly everything he’d heard made sense.

“He died,” he realized lamely and realized when he’d first met Clarke she had been explaining about how she’d gotten the house and he could just imagine she’d been about to say I got it when my father died.

“Three years ago. She's had a rough time,” Jasper added.

Pushing away from the table, Bellamy took off his mic and set it on the chair before picking up his laptop and following the path Clarke had taken. Following his instincts, he headed to the little office she’d made into a studio at the back of the house. There she was, standing in the middle of the room with her arms wrapped around herself as she stared at a painting resting on her easel of a man and a little girl playing on a beach.

He didn’t have to ask who the painting depicted.

“Clarke?”

“You didn’t look him up did you? That’s not how you knew his name.”

Her voice was shaky but her spine was ramrod straight and there was something about that he respected.

“We try to know as little as possible about the people who live in the houses we investigate to prevent contamination,” he reminded her.

“Jake was my father,” she finally admitted as she turned around to face him. There were tears making their way down her cheeks and his heart broke for her. “He died in a car accident. He had a brain bleed and my mom…she decided to take him off life support. I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

“Saying I’m sorry isn’t enough, but I am.” He touched her shoulder and led her to the worn out love seat she’d pushed against the wall and together they sat, their knees touching. “I’d like to play this for the show, but if you don’t want to be involved, I understand. We can edit out your portions and finish the reveal with Monty and Jasper. It will be as if you were never here.”

But he’d remember her. He couldn’t erase that as easily as frames on a film reel.

“But before you make your decision I want to answer a question you asked me yesterday. You asked me why I got into this. I didn't want to mention it then, but… You didn’t get to say goodbye to your dad before he died. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my mom before she died, either.”

There was a flash of surprise and empathy in her eyes.

“She was working at a convenience store when it was robbed,” he explained. “I got out of school and there was a cop waiting to tell me my mother was dead. Two months later I was beginning to think I couldn’t raise Octavia on my own and go to school and I was a mess. I was up late one night, about to give up when I heard someone say ‘I love you.’ I thought it was Octavia, so I got up to check on her but she was sound asleep. There was no one else there, and I didn’t think it had come from another apartment because it felt as if someone had whispered it in my ear.

“I told Nathan about it and he brought over a magnetic recorder because he’d Googled hauntings and the internet told him those worked best. I told him he was crazy, but we sat in the living room and when we played it back we heard--well, here, listen for yourself.”

Bellamy reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Flipping through his audio files to the oldest one, he took a deep breath and pressed play.

Over the tinny speakers both he and Clarke could hear himself and Nathan talking about his mother, about the problems he’d been having and when they paused in the conversation a whispery voice cracked through.

“Proud.”

Clarke glanced up at him, the immediate shock evident in her eyes. “What was that?”

He couldn’t say it, couldn’t vocalize the words in the back of his throat, written on his heart because if she called him crazy, if she denied it, the pain would be excruciating. “You’re the skeptic, you tell me.”

“Play it again.”

Bellamy obliged, rewinding a few seconds before pushing play so Clarke could hear the female voice again.

“That’s impossible.”

“Maybe, but you heard it with your own ears. What else could it be?”

Clarke took the phone from him and played the EVP again. There was something soft and sad about her face now instead of defiance and skepticism. “Your mom said she was proud of you.”

It was the awe in her voice which brought the tears to his eyes. “That’s what I believe.”

“Okay,” she finally sighed. “Play it. I want to hear what you heard in my bedroom.”

Bellamy cleared his throat before he picked up his laptop and opened it, pulling up the video file they would have played in the reveal in the dining room.

She put a hand on his arm. “Wait.”

He stopped before pushing play on the video from the static cam and met her eyes, wondering if she’d changed her mind.

He wouldn’t blame her if she had.

“You need this, don’t you? For your show?”

“I told you-“

“But this is what you do, isn’t it? Reaction and revelations, people realizing they might not have been right about the black and white of death. I’ve watched your show,” she added as if it was a confession.

“Yes, that’s what the reveal is about.”

“Then tape this. I may change my mind about having you air it, but I want you to have the option.”

He didn’t have a video camera with him and all the equipment had been packed up hours ago so he pulled up the laptop’s camera, angled it so the lighting was decent and since he could see Clarke’s mic clipped to her collar he knew they would have sound.

Then she reached over, took his hand and nodded. “Play it.”

When he pushed the play button his past self’s voice carried out from the speakers and almost immediately Clarke gripped his hand tighter as video-him introduced himself to whomever might be in the room.

He’d been by himself while Octavia and Nathan had done their own sessions in the other rooms, the camera placed on the nightstand while he sat on the edge of the bed, and he’d just been doing the usual conversation starters he’d done for every other session.

At the time there had been no indication he was going to the strongest, clearest response he’d ever gotten in his career.

“If there is anyone here with me, I just want to let you know if you want to speak with me the best way to do that is to speak through this little box. I know it’s loud but I should be able to hear you.”

Bellamy watched himself turn on the spirit box and Clarke shifted closer to him as if his presence could somehow soften the blow of what she was about to hear.

“Like I said, my name is Bellamy. Can you tell me your name?”

There was a lengthy pause and Bellamy remembered nearly giving up on hearing a response when a crackle through the white noise caught his attention and as clear as anything he’d ever heard was a man’s voice.

“Jake.”

“Oh, my God.”

There was desperate, anguished hope on her face as she covered her mouth with her free hand as if to stifle any other words which might slip out.

“I can stop.”

She shook her head as on the screen he looked surprised at the response he’d gotten. “Jake? Jake, what are you doing here? Why are you here in this house?”

Again, there had been silence but Bellamy hadn’t been willing to give up, not after receiving such a strong response so he kept asking questions until he got the one which he was now pretty was going to break Clarke’s heart or put it back together.

There was no way to know.

“Is there something I can do for you? Is there something you’d like for me to do?”

There was another pause but almost as if she knew something important was about to happen Clarke’s grip on his hand tightened and the hand covering her mouth shifted to shield her heart.

“Ache Care of her.”

“What? What did he say?”

Bellamy pulled up the audio file which he could slow down and replay easier than the video and in this version you could hear the end of a word which had been cut off before the man’s voice finished, “Ache Care of her.”

“Care of her,” Clarke repeated, sounding both awed and confused.

“I think, and the others agree with me, he was trying to say ‘take care of her’ but you only hear the last two letters of that first word but the rest of it comes through pretty clearly. He wants you taken care of.”

“I can take care of myself,” and she sounded so insulted he had to hold back a smile.

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should have to,” he reminded her, his thumb making slow circles on the back of her hand. “Asking for help, accepting help, doesn’t make you any less strong.”

She nodded but he didn’t think she really agreed with him. “Is there anything else?”

“No, that’s it. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she assured him, eyes falling back to the screen. “Can I have this? Can I have a copy, I mean?”

“Of course, I’ll have Wick send it to you.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

“I’ll forgive you if you say on camera I was right and you were wrong.”

Clarke laughed and even though it was watery she smiled through it, “I’m not sure I’m willing to go that far. But I will say thank you.”

She took a deep breath and met his eyes and almost immediately the air was sucked from his lungs at the intensity of those blue eyes. “Thank you, Bellamy.”

“You’re welcome.”

He reached up and brushed away a tear, the moment incredibly intimate with her hand in his, their bodies leaning towards each other and suddenly he remembered they were being recorded by his computer and his closest friends would be watching this moment and it was too private, tootheirs, to be shared so he pulled back and squeezed her hand once before letting go.

“I’ll have Octavia and Nathan finish the reveal. They can show this video to your roommates and let you take a moment to regroup. Then if you’re okay doing the exit interview, we’ll do that afterwards.”

She watched him pick up the laptop and stand up and something about the space between them made him feel a little empty. “Exit interview, that’s talking about the reveal, right?”

“Yeah. But only if you want.”

She thought about it, and he could almost see her weighing the pros and cons, one of which was probably admitting in some small way she’d been wrong about the paranormal. “I want.”

“Okay, I’ll see you in about an hour,” but when he tried to open the door it wouldn’t budge. He tried again but just like last time even though the knob moved, it wouldn’t unlatch.

“The door’s locked.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Clarke stood up and reached around him to try the door but it wouldn’t open for her either and then he heard her make a small sound behind him, a quiet gasp of realization.

“What?”

“What did you say after my dad gave his name?” she asked as he turned to face her, so close their clothes brushed against each other. “You asked him if there was anything he’d like you to do and he responded-”

“Take care of her,” he realized and suddenly the door unlatched and the window opened behind them and there was such a sense of peace in the room Bellamy could feel it in every atom of his body.

It felt as if the wind had come in and swept away all the grief, all the sadness, all the lingering gray and when he looked down at Clarke there was a look of peace on her face he hadn’t seen since he’d met her.

Had that only been yesterday?

Wind swirled in the room and around them, dancing through her hair and sending the paper sketches on her desk moving around the room.

“Do you feel that?”

She reached up to the grab the lapels of his jacket, pulling him towards her. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

When he kissed her, it was like finding a piece of himself he hadn’t known was missing. It was like tasting spring, and new beginnings.

When he pulled back her lips were parted, her cheeks were flushed, and he could feel his heart beating madly against his ribs.

“Did you feel that?” he asked with a grin, his nose brushing against hers.

“Yeah,” she smiled, her fingers tangled in his hair. “Yeah, I did.”

#bellarke #the 100 #the 100 fic #bellarke fic #bellarke fanfiction #sam writes fic

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curestardust · 5 years

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if you want: (copy-pasting from my previous review cause it didn’t change) well, it’s BNHA lmao / amazing animation / amazing music / shounen / superpowers and heroes / to have a good fucking time

BNHA S1 (x) BNHA S2 (x) BNHA S3 (x)

I finally caught up and now I won’t have new content till Autumn and I wanna die.

Oh well, what should I say about this movie? It gives us some backstory on All Might’s past while in the USA while the main plot is a pretty nice conflict with a surprising twist. This movie takes us out of U.A. into I-Island, a travelling island that houses the world’s most intelligent scientists who create gadgets for heroes.

The new environment is kinda meaningless though. For whatever reason, the entire class gets themselves to the island for the I-Expo, although only a handful of them take part in the main story. It’s always nice seeing some friendly faces and what messes they get into but the possibilities of this new place; Deku meeting new people or getting some temporary/movie exclusive cool new characters were thrown out of the window. Which is not a huge problem! But I really wasn’t aware that the rest of the class will show up so I was a bit disappointed.

Well, anyway. The story itself was pretty basic but I enjoyed it a lot and I especially liked the message of the movie at the end. There’s nothing new to say about the technical aspects, it’s BONES. The fight scenes were fucking great bruv. [8/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

if you want: an interesting take on idol anime / wacky humour / nice cast of characters

Warning for the first episode: turn down your volume to avoid going deaf.

Zombieland Saga was one of the most popular anime airing during the Fall 2018 season. Comedy and cute girls? Hell yeah, I had to jump onto that.

My enjoyment of Zombieland was screwed however, and in order to warn potentional new viewers I must prefice this: this is an idol anime WITH comedy, not a comedy WITH idol stuff.

Indeed, the comedy got so much hype that I thought the idol aspects of the anime wouldn’t be that prominent so imagine my surprise when a few episodes in we barely had any comedy just mostly the girls bonding and speaking about their future as idols. That was the point I realised that I have been looking at this the wrong way and quickly shifted my perspective (which wasn’t a problem as I also adore idol anime).

I feel sad that I couldn’t enjoy this completely from the beginning but shit happens and here we are.

ZS jumps between 3 emotional states. Hopeful idols, over-the-top comedy and Depression™. It feels like Zombieland Saga stuffed about 50 episodes worth of content in a mere 12. The first few episodes are mostly reliant on comedy and giving us the starting point of the idol activities. From about episode 3 to episode 10 we mostly focus on the idol aspect. Building their brand, performing, gaining fans and all thw while we get backstories for most of the characters. Then in the last few episodes there’s a complete tonal shift to a more bleak and depressing situation, the reason of which I’ll obviously not spoil.

The clashing of genres certainly creates a unique experience which is something we desperately need in today’s anime landscape but it might make it difficult for it to find a stable audience. Well, that’d be my worry except there’s something that saves Zombieland: the characters. The 7 main characters of the story all have unique personalities and backstories which also leads to interesting chemistry between almost every charcater. Unfortunately, due to the runtime of the anime we don’t spend quite enough time on exploring these characters. We are also left quite a few unexplained (and just hinted at) situations.

The ending of ZS hints at a possible second season and I’d be glad to follow these girls on their journey of idolhood further and see some aspects expanded upon that we didn’t have time for here. As to who I’d recommend this to...well, you need to at least not outright hate idol stuff cause there’s too much of it here to ignore. But if you do and you want a more unique take on the genre with a lot of wacky moments and nice characters, well, here you go! [8/10] (x)

EDIT: Oh shit I almost forgot. The music is FUCKING amazing.

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

if you want: everything you’d expect from Monogatari

The continuation of The End, Zoku Owarimonogatari is a story that happens after the last season of Monogatari (Owarimonogatari S2) but before the one that is actually the latest in the timeline at the moment (Hanamonogatari).

Obviously, if you haven’t seen the previous seasons of Monogatari, there’s no reason for you to be reading this. If you have, well, you know what to expect.

First, to quickly get it out of the way, this is a Monogatari installment through and through. Shitton if dialogue, quickly jumping frames, wide still shots, random style changes, fanservice, lots of meta. The music and the animation are also great. It’s all here as you would expect and it brings the same quality as previous installments.

This “movie” specifically is an event that happens after the main story is wrapped up. While I guess, that would be a bit disappointing if it came to any other series, Monogatari has always been built upon random drawn out stories and events, sometimes with no connection to the “main plot”, so this one isn’t any different from those.

I don’t want to go much into the story as the mystery behind it is the whole point of Zoku. Something weird happens as usual, and Koyomi needs to figure it out. That’s all I’m gonna say.

Majority of the main characters appear in Zoku although due to the plot, they offer a new insight into their personalities. Again, hard to talk about without spoiling.

One gripe I had with Zoku is just how much it relies on your knowledge of previous seasons. Lots of places, events and names get dropped all over and if you haven’t brushed up on yout Monogatari knowledge as of late, there’ll be a bit of a confusion as to who the fuck someone is or what they’re talking about. If you have some mild recollection of the story, you’ll be fine, but if you really don’t remember much then...well. This is going to be a confusing ride.

And that’s it! As this is something a newcomer should definitely not watch, I don’t have much else to say as the target audience knows perfectly well what to expect. It was a fun, very Monogatari-esque watch, and that’s all there is to it. [8/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

#dusty reviews #i literally havent written a new appetizer for BNHA since S1 #havent seen an anime this consistently great in a long time #Boku no Hero Academia the Movie: Futari no Hero #My Hero Academia the Movie: The Two Heroes #bnha #mha #Boku no Hero Academia #My Hero Academia #boku no hero academia movie #my hero academia movie #Zombieland Saga #Zombie Land Saga #Zoku Owarimonogatari #Monogatari

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steve0discusses · 5 years

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Yugioh S4 Ep1 Part 1: Yugi Ditches Algebra, Cards Become Real

Ah, a new season a new day. It’s Season 4. And we’re going to start of with:

A deep sea sub. Sure, why not?

So Yugi’s unofficial other grandpa, Arthur Hawkins, AKA one of the member’s of this show’s only really happening OTP has decided to kinda ditch his Granddaughter Rebecca and go to the bottom of the ocean. Don’t blame him. Down here is where, I guess, he will come across this very Grecian looking structure.

Like Yugioh nonchalantly passes a lot of bad history at me but like...he’s in the Atlantic Ocean and there’s Grecian style stuff everywhere?

Why? I mean at least he’s not in the Pacific but like...Yugioh. Anyways, we’re not in Greece but the show had very little time to invent a brand new ancient architecture style although I would be super down for that.

But like...here’s the thing about columns--you can go really deep into column lore and people are really freakin picky about columns and what they mean, and this could have been a low key hilarious place to make an entirely new column order just for Yugioh. They could’ve done it and they decided not to. It’s OK, I’ll save it for the Marik’s Boat Time spinoff they’ll never ever make.

But I just want to bring up just real super fast that Noah and Gozaburo must’ve known about this place for years right? Like they super lived underwater and had robots poised to attack mankind stationed all over the sea floor so...we can pretty much guarantee they already knew about this place?

Just gonna bring up what a shame it is Noah freakin died.

Also want to bring up what a shame it was that Arthur didn’t show up at the beginning of S3 and be like “hey Yugi, I was just in the neighborhood, noticed you got picked up by an undersea gang, what’s up?”

(read more under the cut)

Anyway, there he is, our 70 yo adventurer, who has more energy than I have at under half his age. Arthur Hawkins needs to take it down a few pegs.

Or is it Hawkings?

Wtv.

Anyways, I gave Hawkins this tweed colored font that I just realized is nearly the same as Joey’s so it’ll change if he ever comes back.

Thanks for that prologue, Yugioh. Anyway, apparently no one on this side of Japan freakin cares, because despite finding what looks exactly like Godzilla’s lair on the bottom of the sea, we’re gonna instead fixate on Rex and Weevil.

Y’all I was going to make a joke about “why does this show fixate so much on Rex and Weevil at the beginning of so many arcs?” when I remembered that Bakura basically murdered all the other mean mini bosses from S1 except for Bandit Keith, who probably got deported by now.

I had to think long and hard just now about whether or not I’ve used that joke before because it is S4 and y’all I just don’t even remember.

(I have a very long story about Warby Parker that I just deleted fyi)

Rex is a Christmas plaid now because there are too many characters in this show.

Now that Rex and Weevil have been reunited, which is surprising because I just assumed these two have been Bert and Ernie-ing it up in some condo in the NYC, They say:

I almost forgot about the secret side-plot of Yugioh, that everyone is a cheese monger and very open about it.

So anyway, they’re off to have a very simple storyline of “I will try and Challenge Yugi Muto for God Cards” which...good luck with that, it only took 2 seasons for Yugi to finally accept his challenge from Seto Kaiba. Have fun following around Yugi Muto for 2 seasons.

When there’s a...really bizarre twist that happens. Just a very weird turn of events. Like recall that it’s the middle of the day, and the sun is shining, and there’s people and cars everywhere, and it’s a good neighborhood, and then, like playing Pokemon in tall grass, this guy just appears in front of them.

And guys, I’m from the Bay Area and I have slipped and fallen right on top of my phone on Fillmore which was DEVASTATING so like...their unstoppable speed walk down this 12 degree slope is...

I think they wanted to run into them, I really think they did. I think people in this town are so desperate for any excuse to fall into a horrifying disaster that they are just magnetically attracted to anyone wearing an oversized blanket.

Also this guy’s look is...kind of forgettable. It’s somehow weird and also forgettable at the same time. Hit that sweet spot for me. I don’t even remember this guy’s name, it was so forgettable. I’ll look it up later. Maybe bro will do it. I dunno. He wears a Monocle so like...that’s all I can say about this guy.

OK so I just checked in with Bro and then Bro made a weird rant about this guy being called Gurimo and how bro had some strong opinions about Season 4. Then Bro said a statement that really stuck with me, although I only remember part of the statement which was: “...this guy can just go get more monocles from Forever 21 and Hot Topic...” which made me very quickly realize my adult brother has never entered either a Forever 21 or a Hot Topic if he thinks a cultist in a monocle would purchase monocles from there.

I learned a lot and now you have to know this too.

And in case you’re wondering “did Rex and Weevil deserve this?” No. He just immediately decided to steal their soul on the sidewalk in front of Women’s Foot Locker from what I assume is just down the street from Yugi Muto’s house/game shop.

(how did this storyboarder nail the 3/4 degree angle on Weevil here? Do you know how hard that is to do with not just glasses but weird ass chunky glasses?)

Ah, a duel disk that can stab yourself in the stomach with two very poorly laid out barbs.

Very nice rival to Kaiba’s duel disk that will behead you if you don’t fling your arm out just right.

So like...did he steal a duel disk from Kaiba and then mod it? Is that what they did? The whole point of duel disks is that you’re linked up to the Dueling Facebook or whatever...so did this Cultist buy a normal duel disk from Toy’s R Us and then say “ahahah I’m going to do so much card crime!” and then start modding it with help of a cosplay forum? Like what’s the story here of how this guy spent all of last year (and definitely all of last season) modding this duel disk over a computer desk, some metallic acrylic paint, and a sauntering iron, feverishly asking his forum if anyone can 3d print some sick ass runes for his soul-sucking duel disk?

And then I guess this guy dueled both Rex and Weevil at the same time? Like this was all off screen...but why didn’t Rex and Weevil just leave? Just don’t pull out your duel disk and you’re probably good?

Just so many ways to have avoided losing your soul in the first ten minutes of Yugioh.

Anyway, on the other side of town, Tea is worrying about Yugi which is basically her normal.

Joey and Tristan decided to meet up with her, not because she was clearly in distress, but because Yugi isn’t around, and why worry about Tea when instead your friend Yugi is probably going to destroy the world the moment you turn around (and he did. Yugi absolutely effed everything up the very moment these three took their eyes off of him)

And what was weird is that it took Yugi until, I dunno...several streets over to kind of come out of the ether and be like “heeey Pharaoh...um...what’s up?” Like it took him this long to say something. Probably so that by the time they would have walked back to school math would have been over.

So...did Yugi just not notice at first? Like it’s sort of amazing what these two don’t know what the other one is up to. Including this situation that little Yugi absolutely should have picked up on.

As it turns out, the cards are speaking very audibly to Pharaoh. This should have been somewhat of a...youknow...red flag...since Yugi can’t hear them but Pharaoh can. But, Yugi’s like “well...we’re so used to everyone just giving us the answer and that being the right call, I guess this must also be the right call.”

And...although he had quite the head start, These three are more than willing to drop the hell out of class and rack up those absences. I’m gonna assume they had to make up another wild excuse about Tea’s cat to that one teacher to get out of school just like last time, but they did all that offscreen.

And then Tea just kind of snapped, and she did so with a smile the entire time.

Her wording was somewhat different, but she did basically say something along the lines of “if you don’t remember me telling you this a million times, you are an idiot” and Pharaoh didn’t have an answer and so it was like he said without saying anything “yes, I am.”

Which he will further prove like five minutes from now.

Like Y’all, bless his cursed perfect ass, but Pharaoh is the biggest idiot in this show. Sometimes he’s brilliant, but if he’s ever left to his own devices, just the biggest idiot. He got duped by some guy pretending to throw his voice so that his cards looked like they were talking to him. Pharaoh thought cards can talk.

And so that’s how Pharaoh freakin caused the Apocalypse. The first of many.

He did so just so very easily.

His cards started wigging out, the tablet started icing over--it was like “hey remember what took 2 seasons to build up to? Well screw it.”

Also this happened, apropos of absolutely nothing.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand cards are real.

I mean they’ve been real for a few seasons but now the cards are officially real and they’re not cute like Pokemon. They’re all really gross and roided out and they probably have a funky smell. All of them.

I knew we’d get here eventually I just didn’t know it would be SO fast.

When no one was paying absolutely any attention--when my entire focus was inside of this museum, that was when cards became real.

Well...

...time to shove em into little balls I guess. Anyways, that’s it for this update because this episode was a lot of stuff so I’m gonna split it so y’all have it easier and so I have it easier too.

And if you just got there this is S4, if you want to start reading these from S1, here’s a link to the collection in chrono order, it’s basically like reading a Victor Hugo length of book except its just me ranting about WTF is going on in OG Yugioh for 100+ episodes, knock yourself out.

#Yugioh #ygo #recap #photo recap #episode recap #S4 #S4 Ep1 #Yugi Muto #Joey Wheeler #Tristan Taylor #Tea Gardner #Arthur Hawkins #Rex Raptor #Weevil underwood #I can't believe I remember both of those dummies' last names #Gurimo #a single monocle

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kinetic-elaboration · 5 years

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September 10: The 100 1x06 Fog of War

Mmmm watching another ep and it’s been less than six months since the last one?! * jinxes self *

Bellarke date at the outside cafe. (WHY IS THIS OUTSIDE CAFE NOT IN MORE FICS? WHY IS IT NOT IN MY FICS?)

I don’t always love Clarke’s art tbh but I do love her Mount Weather sketch.

“You won’t be by yourself.” They are canonically Soft with each other.

I have a hard time believing they would wait two days just sitting on their hands, Abby or no Abby. YOU GUYS WERE THE LEADERS. JUST LEAD STUFF.

“We’re at war. We’ve all done things,” is, like, first, beyond the point, because even in war, one doesn’t usually attack civilian villages. (Unless one is a terrorist.) And second, it’s weird that Bellamy would be defending Finn? Not really sure how to read that. Unless his hatred of Grounders is truly that intense, which is possible. And third, are they really still at war? Because after attacking the dropship, the Grounders have done... literally nothing? Like it’s a semi-war scenario.

“Next round’s on me.” Do they have to.... pay for things...? With what lol?

“Salvaged Monty’s still. Now if we could only salvage Monty.” Someone here has a sense of humor. Also lol @ everyone at Camp Jaha using a teenager’s illegal still.

Really, the “pardon for surviving” should not include time on the ground, because pardons aren’t forward looking. Also they bring back the idea of trying Finn later. They just don’t want to deal with Murphy and Finn, and don’t really see the massacre of Grounders as a big deal, which, I am a Sky Person partisan to the last, does not reflect well on them. I think also they still haven’t figured out what tf their judicial system on the ground is, and just don’t want to deal with that yet either. Which isn’t a great excuse but it’s of a piece with how this show deals with society-building questions in general. (By... not.)

And Finn still doesn’t even feel bad.

And Murphy thinks Clarke and Finn are still together...? I guess that makes sense given how long he was away. He’s ALWAYS behind on delinquent gossip.

Clarke to Murphy: “Just because they pardoned you doesn’t mean I have.” Another line that should be iconic.

If Mount Weather is the reason they never heard from any other Ark Stations then they should have heard from more of them after S2 just putting that out there.

Raven is so beautiful.

And I’m sorry but she’s completely in love with Clarke here.

“You and your friends are not soldiers...” Hmmmm except in a certain sense they kind of are. Love this s2 adults versus delinquents conflict though.

Anyway I realize this is just to get them going back to Mount Weather but they were apparently doing this radio mission to get more Guards from other stations, which never happened, which sort of reminds me of Day Trip and the ‘winter supplies’ excursion when apparently winter doesn’t exist in the future anyway.

Literally only now at the credits.... Why am I like this?

So Maya couldn’t survive on the ground, obviously, because blood isn’t good enough, it has to be bone marrow, which, fine, for plot purposes--but what if she could???

“I know the plan was to assimilate them into the gene pool.” COMPLETELY forgot about that. So they did have a reason for being so nice to them. That is a rather long term plan though...

With the delinquent blood, they’ll “live longer and feel better.” I wonder what the sickness rate is, then. What the quality of life is, low vitamin d aside.

“If I agree to harvest those kids, then I won’t deserve to see [the outside] again.”

That Finn is a good tracker is, like, not a retcon in the sense that this was true in season 1, but still a semi retcon in the sense that nothing in the very early episodes implies he’s Mr. Earth Skills. (Unlike, say... Wells.)

Privileged Ark people really do just throw rules around and up and down however they like. Like, Abby clearing her daughter’s friend because “he was trying to save his friends” even though what he did was objectively much worse than pretty much anything the 100 were imprisoned for? Or other people killed for? Hmmm,, yeah, okay.

Jaha’s death wish transformed into a lazy acceptance that he is invincible is truly one of the best character arcs on this show imo. Infuriating but amazing.

“How many times on the Ark did we go two days without water?”

He recognizes the prison as a train station, which is not objectively surprising but I bet the Grounders don’t know what it is. Somehow. Since memory isn’t a thing in the future either.

On the one hand, it’s reasonable to think that Finn’s attack was coordinated from above but on the other hand, these two prisoners literally could not have ordered it, because they have been... imprisoned... the entire time. And I mean truly putting two Sky People who could not themselves have been involved in another Sky Person’s murder spree into some sort of Saw scenario in response to that murder spree really isn’t “justice” in any sense of the word. Like truly the JD in me is just SCREAMING. There is no nexus between the people you have and the person you’re angry at, other than “Sky Person” but the thread is so tangled you’re just.... throwing around bloodshed for lolz. (I know it’s a test and that part isn’t dumb but the scaffolding of the test is DUMB.)

I am still not over that someone gave Jasper a stuffed toy bear as a thank you for giving Maya blood. Also, it looks like... an alarm clock?

I like Dante but every time he says “Jasper” it just creeps me out. Maybe it’s the way he’s, uh, playing him.

It is 100% true that Mount Weather was not meant to last that long. At least not in the sense of ‘as a closed facility.’

Ridiculous as it is to pardon Finn AND take him adventuring AND give him a gun, I like the tension between him and the others, that they have officially forgiven him, and want to still love him, but are wary of him, scared of him, for good reason. For all that people are constantly ‘doing bad things’ and yelling at each other about it, this scenario doesn’t really have a parallel anywhere else in the canon.

“According to Clarke, before the bombs, there were buildings everywhere here. I’m guessing some of the had access to the bunker. So we’re looking for ruins. Anything man-made.”

Bellamy says he and O aren’t under the Guard command. But in a way, aren’t they? Like aren’t the Guard basically in authority over all Arkers? I know I’m overthinking but does he see himself as more delinquent than Arker? Especially with the “our people” are in Mount Weather.

All those mice.... Or rodents....

What a scenario: Clarke and Finn hiding from the acid fog in a weird little personal bunker where they once fucked, and now there’s a dead body in it, and Finn put it there. Not even Olav can top this.

Raven playing with the radio is my kink.

Parking garage as tomb. Who would protect a parking garage with a big-ass steal door that protects cars from radiation? If it does lead to Mount Weather (no recollection if it does) I guess it could be... part of it? Idk. Nice aesthetic though.

Bellamy is very comfortable calling people Sir. Polite young man.

So Clarke’s Dad’s watch returns to Clarke. I can’t remember what ultimately happened to it. Is it basically tainted now?

Monty’s obscene jealousy of Maya just gets me every single time. Makes up for the horrendous second hand embarrassment I’m getting from the rest of this scene.

“Hey, it’s pizza day! Who’s hungry?” uhhhhhhhhhhmmmmm So natural. Cute dress though.

How did she figure out the breach wasn’t an accident? Or that there is surveillance? Anyway now that she knows she was experimented on, and that Jasper was experimented on, one would assume she is pissed. One would assume that’s part of why she shows them the Grounders. Also to stop Jasper perhaps from embroiling his people even more with (her own) untrustworthy people. Because truly it is in part to save them, but it’s also a real risk to herself, admitting this terrible thing she’s been a part of.

“To get you to agree to be her blood brother.” He’s not wrong but that language is sooooo jealous--both revealing the threat he feels (because Jasper is his ‘brother’) and diminishing the JasperMaya relationship (which he knows to be romantic, and is turning familiar.)

Why did the show ever try to top the pure horror of the Grounder Torture Prison?

“What are we supposed to do?” / “Die.” Another Iconic Exchange. This is Monty’s morality: uncompromising. Are the standards he sets for himself hypocritical or consistent? Also, some foreshadowing lol.

I wonder what Monty’s allegiance is to the other kids... Would he have irradiated the Mountain for them if Jasper were safe? Legit question because he defects to his mom’s side pretty fast in S3, and he would 100% leave Mount Weather through the side door just like Clarke, at this point, which Jasper refuses to do even if it were possible. I am intrigued by this scene and the switching of plans/different points of view.

So this is the revelation that the acid fog is a Mount Weather weapon. I always really liked that twist.

Okay so this explains why they didn’t get to the other stations, because they choose to keep the tower up to listen to Mount Weather, but it’s actually not a tough call bc if you defeat Mount Weather and take your people back, then you can get rid of the blocking signal, and then find your other people, so win-win, you just have to go in order and on that note, why did it take 3 months to find only one station??

Is that a....hand crank mp3?? Got a lot of juice from just a little bit of cranking.

There are a hella lot of storylines in this episode. I completely forgot about Jaha and Kane and Lexa.

Kane’s continuing death wish makes him utterly unreasonable. What in a million years makes you think that the Grounders value sacrifice as opposed to just being sadists? I mean, you don’t know. You’re imposing your value system and also your thought processes on them. You’re also assuming that if one of you killed the other, the survivor would actually get something, like a chance to negotiate, which is probably not true--in fact, Gustus basically told you as much with “We’ll hear the terms of your surrender form the survivor.” Winning means nothing except you get to surrender!! And probably die!! They are not coming to you in good faith is what I’m trying to say and having watched the whole season I know I am Right.

“You didn’t order the massacre.” / “Not that one.” Honestly dude get over it lol. Interesting that Jaha, although he has transformed in some ways, keeps to the old lines, about survival, the human race--and our people, if the human race is broader than just the Ark, which it is, and no big deal. So in some ways his morality has not changed at all, at its core.

Look, I’m sorry, not to be that person, but he probably would have been better off killing Lexa there. I mean, I know he’s choosing ‘an innocent’ in his mind but... what a power move to behead the Commander WHILE you’re her prisoner. Good old Jaha, smart and quick and sure of himself.

Just uh not quick enough at murdering I guess.

I’m no Lexa fan but that was an excellent entrance and it remains an excellent entrance. Also while I never thought she was as smart as people said, because name me another tactical decision she made that was actually good, this was a smart ploy. And probably the most subtle thing any Grounder character ever did, even if it does end with her basically beating Jaha up ‘as a message’ as if she were a gangster.

Is this the episode that introduces Blood Must Have Blood? Already Tired of it tbh.

This Clarke and Finn scene is so sad. I realize that they purposefully made him unredeemable at this point, that this story line was always intended to be the method by which he was written off, and that there’s only so much awkwardness you can write around this scenario, but nevertheless it would have been interesting to see Finn in the long term, in a way. Not redeemed.. I don’t know. Whatever I’m thinking it’s not in the range of this show, though, for sure.

Did Jasper and Monty tell all of the 47 everything? To get them to volunteer? (Answer: No, but they told at least Harper and Miller, maybe a few more.)

“How high are you right now?” We were SO robbed of more intoxicated!Monty scenes.

Jasper and Dante: creepy creepy creepy.

“There’s been a Wallace in this office since the bombs.” So glad to know we immediately reverted to some sort of pseud-monarchy post-nuclear war. That said it’s only been 97 years so that’s like 3 Wallaces tops.

Prioritizing the radio also means of course admitting that getting the 47 out of MW is a priority for Abby/Ark PTB, which wasn’t exactly clear before.

I’ve never been a fan of the “Build a brace for yours” line and I’m still not, because I think conflating physical and mental injuries is not exactly helpful, but I guess I appreciate it as a look into Raven’s mind--Raven, who has never really understood mental scars and never really does--and the soft way she says it is a sort of forgiveness. Not really forgiveness she has the right to offer, and in a way a very brash thing to do, because this was literally a war crime that her best friend committed, but nevertheless.

Jaha: appears. Everyone else: what the absolute fuck.

So on that mission they accomplished... literally nothing they set out to do lol.

What is that random shot of Camp Jaha doing there? They’re not within sight of it. They’re still where they set up tents.

I want to point out that this is the FIRST time the Grounders have demanded that the Sky People “leave” or implied in any way that they consider the Sky People to be on “their” land, and that this was never an issue in Season 1, when their beef seemed to be for things like crossing the river at Mount Weather, accidentally dropping their flares on a Grounder village, and torturing a Grounder spy. But I guess at this point the narrative needed to focus on something because the actual reason for the feud, which is roughly, we accidentally pissed each other off and then kept on retaliating, doesn’t play very well or make the Grounders, who were rehabilitated this season, very sympathetic. (Guess who still has zero sympathy lololol?)

#the 100 #the year 2019 #2019: fandom thoughts #2019: the 100 s2 #i wrote a frickin novel #and i still need to make dinner.............. ugh me

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