in thinking the next ep is the final battle here is a non exhaustive list of mystery track things i wish happened/were investigated:

ruben on the cw podcast

kvx bank investigations (logo change, what else changed, is oisín’s ancestor involved in it now, how reliable is nemesis alert)

who wrote the name on lucy’s paper??????

who were the multiple assailants!??!!!

kipperlilly’s network (did aelwyn quit when she got hired at the compass points?)

what was henry hopclap’s letter about

riz’s stipend?!

who were ivy and mary ann before they were rage starred (were all the rat grinders rage starred how did it happen what is the history give me rat grinder canon i am begging!!!!!!!!!)

Since posting on the potential for the Sequel Trilogy (especially in regards to Leia and Ben's arcs between TLJ and TROS), @myfairkatiecat has asked me for my thoughts. I apologize in advance. There's so much I don't even know where to start. I suppose the best place to start is my thoughts on TFA and TLJ:

I liked the force awakens. It was the first Star Wars movie I'd ever seen. I wasn't planning on getting into Star Wars, because like most people who didn't grow up with the movies, I still knew all the twists, all the memes, and all the quotes. What was the point in seeing it? I knew it was good, but it was hard for me to feel the magic of seeing it for the first time when I'd seen so much out of context already. But the force awakens was new. I know a lot of fans at the time were like "this is a cheap new hope remake" and sure, it had a similar plot structure, but it also introduced a lot of new ideas, characters, and concepts, and I think it succeeded in it's two goals: 1) Offering the beginning to an excited new story that could go in a number of interesting and cool directions. 2) Capturing what was so good about Star Wars in a way that would bring in new fans. It not only succeeded, but it completely knocked it out of the park, at least for me. I remember sitting in the theater, before the movie was even over, and thinking to myself "Dang it. They did it. I didn't think they'd do it, but they actually did it. This is the start of another hyperfixation. Maybe one of the worst I've ever had." I knew 100% that the moment I had free time that this was going to take over. And it did. I appreciated the other movies so much more after having had the experience of watching a Star Wars movie unspoiled that captures that feeling. This brought me into the fandom. It might not be everyone's favorite movie, but I loved it.

The Last Jedi was actually good, but it made one fatal mistake. Two if you count the fact that they skipped all the Ben and Leia stuff, but I forgive them for that because it's not like they could see the future and knew Carrie Fisher was going to pass away. If they knew that, I think they would have written a different script. But I liked most of it. The force dyad stuff was incredible. I was in that theater completely in awe because I gotta hand it to them: I would never in a million years come up with the force dyad stuff, and it's better than anything I could have thought up with on my own. 1000/10. Amazing. Fantastic. So what then is my problem with TLJ? Finn. Especially because he was right where he needed to be. They could have even done his arc in a lazy way, and I would have still accepted it. All they had to do was have him panic and rescue Rose from Hux, accidently connecting him to the force, and then he could suddenly be like "woah I'm force sensitive." All they had to do was have him find some files on where he came from and info on all the stormtrooper brainwashing so that we could continue to explore the mystery of his past instead of pretending like it doesn't matter. For heaven sakes, he was right there on the ship. We saw a hologram of child Finn in Force Awakens when they were going over his file. Phasma could have offer him information about himself or his past in exchange for his freedom or betraying the rebellion. Not to mention Finn's discovery his force sensitivity would have parallel Rey discovering she's a dyad AND her not receiving any answers about her past, which would that tied the movie together thematically. That plotline was right there on a silver plater, it was the obvious choice, the easy part, it baffles me that they fumbled it, especially when the stuff they did with Kylo and Rey completely knocks it out of the park. I've probably watched the scene of the two of them fighting in the throne room the most of any Star Wars scene. But I don't think I've ever gone back to rewatch one of Finn's scenes from TLJ. But I could have and that frustrates me so much. I left the theater of TFA being like "Dang. They got me. I'm hyperfixated now.", and I left the theater of TLJ feeling kind of conflicted. On the one hand, the force dyad stuff was one of the best things I'd ever seen. But on the other hand, I wanted more out of Finn. The Rose and Finn kiss came out of nowhere for me, and it made me worried they were gonna waste time in the third movie with an unnecessary Rose, Rey, Finn love triangle then ended with Finn and Rey together (turns out I did not need to worry about that. They had plenty of other ways to waste my time. But I'll put my thoughts on the romance plotlines in another post because...romance wasn't the biggest draw for me anyway, and my takes on it are a tad more nuanced than "love it or hate it with everything in my soul" which seem to be the only two options). But my other worry was that they didn't seem to know what they were doing with Finn. They also have a lot of "Main characters" to keep track of now. The OT trilogy had the classic "Leia, Luke, Han". Now we have Rey, Poe, and Finn, but Rey and Poe didn't meet until the end of the second movie, and also we have Rose now, and then we have Kylo/Ben and his whole dyad bond, he's much more of a main character than dark mysterious villain. In the OT trilogy, was Vadar conflicted? Sure, but we as the audience didn't fully know that until the end, we didn't need to spend a ton of screen time following his internal journey. But we did need that for Kylo/Ben because of everything they set up for him. With all of that, plus Carrie Fisher dying (which would likely force them to rework a lot of their plotlines), I did have concerns going into TROS. But, since they blew me away with the force dyad stuff, I held out hope that they wouldn't fumble it. Sure, I saw the negative reviews. But everyone was crying about TFA and TLJ too, and I enjoy those. So I held out that hope until the end.

And...well... I have thoughts on TROS too. But I'll save those for another time. Also: I know things can get heated in the star wars fandom, and while I welcome engagement and it's totally cool if you hated TFA, loved Finn's TLJ arc, and hated the force dyad, (different opinions are fine!) please don't hate on my posts and please be respectful. Thanks! 🥰

Leo in the Hero’s Journey

I won’t write an essay for school but I will write it for Fandom Purposes!! This is using the Rise movie because it’s easier to analyze in one sitting.

Let’s begin!

For reference, this is the hero’s journey (sometimes referred to as the monomyth)

I will be going through these in just the phases, so I will only add in characters if I really need to.

The rise movie is unconventional in that it doesn’t exactly follow the typical format, like how other action movies (marvel, dc, etc.) would. Let’s start with the call to adventure.

      The call to adventure is in one of the first scenes of the movie (post flash-forward), when they lose the key (this is also the inciting incident that kicks off the plot) and it demands immediate action. Next, supernatural aid (or the info-dump that explains everything and what they have to do) arrives in the form of Casey Jr from the future, telling them about the kraang.

Obviously the kraang are the threshold guardians, since they have a literal threshold that they are guarding, as well as serving as the first challenge.

The helper role in this case is filled by Raph, sacrificing himself and staying behind while enabling Leo and the rest of the team to escape. This is not normally where the helper is (usually the helper shows up on the other side of the door), so let’s just say the the kraang are also the threshold as well as the guardians since that basically works as well. next up are the challenges and temptations. This is less prevalent in the movie, as the challenges are just one big challenge (although for the sake of this being sort of coherent i’ve separated them by before the technodrome and after the technodrome), but this is basically what leads up to the shot on the roof as the technodrome emerges, which serves as the break between the first and second challenges. 

The first challenge is when everyone is disorganized and just trying to rush in (the subway scene and the chase scene with the sister kraang). It shows all the characters pretty much pre-development in terms of plot, but Leo more than anyone (puts his team in danger, literally has no idea what to do, etc etc)

the second challenge is when the characters are more or less familiar with their circumstances and know better what they have to do. In the movie, this is the events of Leo’s actual plan, leading up to the fight scene with kraangified raph (aka the helper showing up again but sinister this time. See? It adds a twist!)

The next step is the abyss, which is the fight scene in the technodrome. “But wait!”, you’re probably saying, “isn’t the abyss the prison dimensions because it’s a literal abyss?” NO!!, and I will explain why.

The point of the abyss in any hero’s journey is that it forces drastic change and reveals truth, and this almost always has to happen at the character’s lowest moment (just because of our human nature). Leo’s abyss is that scene because it is literally his worst nightmare. His entire family is about to die, and it’s his fault. He has hurt the people he cares most about by failing them, and now must face the consequences of his actions alone, without anyone able to help him or reach him. That is the abyss, and that is also the revelation. However, the  whole point of leo’s abyss can be seen in one screenshot.

Right here. You don’t even need the caption (aka I couldn’t find a screenshot with it and I’m not rewatching the movie again just for this) This is the exact moment of Leo’s “rebirth” where he is finally able to stop sinking and start going up. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, but suddenly everything turns around.

The transformation happens almost simultaneously to the abyss, so I won’t be talking much about it. It’s very subtle! (It’s the “title of the franchise” line that could have appeared earlier had we not been denied season 2b or 3 :( actually so not very subtle) But still very important!

Anyway, skipping through one absolutely gorgeous action sequence (I’m sorryy) to the second-to-last landmark in the hero’s jounrey: 

Atonement. This is the prison dimension, this is how Leo makes up for his mistakes. The funny thing about the rise movie is that it subverts these roles; if I was going off literal circumstances, these two scenes would be switched, since leo actually apologizes to raph in the technodrome scene, and the prison dimension is basically an abyss. But no!!! As a character, this is not leo’s lowest point. He’s accomplished what he needed to accomplish. In a sense, he’s relieved because the conflict is otherwise resolved, and now, in some sort of twisted way, he’s making up for everything bad he did by doing one last good thing. This is very extreme for atonement, which is usually in a quieter moment somewhere on the journey home, but rise always tends to subvert expectations in the best way. It’s made clear that this is not Leo’s turning point; it’s him as a fully realized hero character who is righting his (maybe deserved? maybe not this intense) wrongs.

The return is just that: Leo returning home. Hopefully you’ve seen the movie, so I don’t have to do much explaining since “return through a portal” is the #1 most overused trope for the return. What I do like, however, is that the portal home is only necessary because of the movie’s plot specifically, and if they hadn’t gone ham with leo’s character arc (very glad they did), the return probably WOUKD have been signified with the brothers simply returning to their lair. So this sort of works in the movie’s favor.

anyways, I hope you’ve enjoyed my ramblings!!! I normally hate writing any sort of educational-ey response to anything ever but this is such an interesting topic for me.

🌸 (Another) Anohana Review! 🌸

Welcome to a new anime review, everyone! In this one, I'll tackle an anime I reviewed over a year ago, but that deserves much more than the couple of lines I gave back then. I'm talking about Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day!

Deciding to rewatch this was undoubtedly one of my best decisions of the year. Anohana is an eleven-episode slice-of-life anime that aired in 2011. It features drama and supernatural elements.

I don't even know where to start. This anime is simple plot-wise. It's straightforward to follow and short enough that it doesn't get the opportunity to become too intricate.

The episodes flow well together from the very first to the very last. Thanks to its ending, which is considered one of the best ever, you may have heard of this anime. And while the finale is spectacular, there's more to Anohana than just this.

First and foremost, Anohana is a beautiful human journey. The fact that it has such splendid character growth in only eleven episodes is out of this world. This anime just feels... real, in a way, even if it has supernatural elements.

There may only be six main characters, but they're one of the best casts I've seen. The focus that was put on their inner struggles is written perfectly, and their development throughout the series is excellent.

The protagonist is underrated and one of the best slice-of-life protags out there. Anohana also has one of my favorite girls and ships (multiple of them, actually). I just love this silly little cast!

The authors gave every character enough backstory and screen time to positively impact the story. On top of that, they also get moments as duos or trios, reinforcing their development (and making them independent from the central pair).

As I said before, the humane aspect of Anohana is not to be underestimated. You just feel for the characters, and you can understand their hardships and frustrations - even for the least likable of the six.

Also, the story is brilliant and gives info away slowly but surely, gradually leading to the climax of the last episode. New elements are being revealed in each episode with carefully placed flashbacks (which are excellent, by the way).

Musically, this anime is a banger for more than one reason. The music always complements the story, especially during the saddest scenes. The OST feels homey, too, and most often very relaxing.

The opening, Aoi Shiori, by Galileo Galilei, is a f*cking masterpiece (my third favorite ever), and the ending, "secret base ~Kimi ga Kureta Mono~ (10 years after ver.), sung by the Japanese VAs of the main female cast is tearjerking. IT'S SUPERB. LISTEN TO THEM.

This anime is eleven years old at the time I'm writing this, so the art has aged. Still, it looks good, even to this day, and I particularly enjoy the color palette used on the backgrounds and character designs. Very fitting.

Overall, I hope this review was enough to show how much I love this anime. It currently sits in my top five of all time. In a year, I had convinced myself that it was simply "awesome," but only eleven episodes reminded me that it is, in fact, "beautiful."

Please watch it!

Down below is the tierlist for the characters in Anohana! Thank you for reading this review!

the halloween apocalypse rewatch overview 

Things I think hit the chopping block in episode cuts

How Azure ended up in the arctic circle. Therefore also who the man living with her was, since he clearly had no memory/knowledge of Swarm or Azure at all. How Azure and random man were living a modern 21st century life with all the mod cons in a house in the arctic circle, in bad weather, with no greenhouses or obvious power generators to give them the fresh food they were eating. How Swarm was tied to a pole for millennia and azure and co were living a modern earth life in the arctic circle and how those two facts don’t add up if you know they were captured at the same time. Were they in a time bubble thing? had they Honestly not been there as long through time travel nonsense? was the dude Also a prisoner or a division minion forced into this? write a book christopher i want to know. 

Yaz’s comment about being former police. Never explained. I am genuinely sure that it Would have been considering the back work on Yaz’s family from previous seasons, and how it was made textual that neither her family nor her work were happy she kept going off places not explaining where. The forshadowing for the plot around it is present in previous seasons but they didn’t have the time to actually do the plot. 

possibly talking about Dan’s trade? They kind of relied on the idea that everybody would have watched the little clip at the end of revolution of the daleks that introduced him to know he was some kind of builder to not have to go into it. Not sure if they just did that or were planning to go into it in depth in flux and cut it? I only know he’s a plasterer because john bishop mentioned it in an interview. The fact that the story works just fine without the info makes me believe they cut it as unnecessary information. It’s not like you Need to know, but it feels odd we don’t. 

13 & Yaz

Their rockiest episode to date the entire era, 13′s repeatedly almost getting Yaz killed on her quest to hunt down the division and not having the decency to tell her Why. Admittedly, i understand why 13′s not talking about it, non the least because she is shown to have not Truly believed it was all true when she asks Tecteun to confirm what the master told her in a few episodes time. Or she Did believe it but still couldn’t process it yet and was still in denial. Same conclusion, really. Either way, that was a lot of very horrible and traumatizing information to have dumped on her and to sit and stew with for decades in solitary confinement with beings that all hate her. Mental health level #Bad

But on the flip side... When they’ve got harmony they’ve got harmony. 13 giving Yaz loving looks from across the tardis console as they flew the ship together in a small moment of peace? That was a lot, actually. It’s the glimpse of the happiness they could have had and hurts all the more for it. That 13 taught Yaz to pilot the tardis is another of the small moments where she plays her hand in how much she cares for her. Also her setting Yaz loose on Karvanista’s ship to go grab Dan... Previously she’s left Yaz in safety to sit and wait. 13 trusted her competence and she lived up to it, talked Dan into going with her and did the tech work to break him out. Something a lot of other companions wouldn’t have managed. 

Dan as Yaz’s companion

HOnestly with hindsight i feel I should have caught on that Yaz would get her own companion(s) with how long i spent worrying over her safety for trying to mould herself into 13 in s12. But Dan really Is Yaz’s companion in a way Jericho really kind of isn’t. Yaz rescued Dan, not 13, 13 just drove. And then everything happens and Dan accompanies Yaz in the past for four years. And then Yaz shows him around the tardis. and... Yeah, you get the point. Jericho spent all this time with them both but I think his whole journey began with 13 waltzing into his house and he kind of perceived living in this world now to be something thanks to Her. His dialogue indicated it in the vanquishers anyway. 

Karvanista

Right, the first time i watched this on tv live, i was in hysterics a lot of the time with Karvanista and all the hijinks included but with the added context of the rest of the serial it... Kind of hurt? Karvanista’s a grumpy old bastard bound by honour to another person and Hates it. The first time around it was kind of funny, like haha dog man doesn’t want the responsibility of having a pet but will be like all the dads who get their kids an animal and Insist they’ll always hate the thing but end up sleeping with it on their chest and cuddling it because they love it. But... Karvanista’s like this because his loyalty to another person was betrayed. He was abandoned. He doesn’t want Dan there because of this and to add insult to injury the person who ditched him is there constantly annoying him and treating him like crap. The dog man did not have a good day. 

But, also, it’s actually Funnier now that he went to such trouble to create a situation that was sure to kill them both with about 8 failsafes and a planet of acid in the context that he Was a companion. It’s like if Martha snapped and ordered a bathtub full of acid to let ten have a swim in if he turned up again and irriated her. #justified

Swarm & co 

This is... Interesting. From later episodes where we know Tecteun was just using Swarm and Azure as chess pieces, it’s Not weird that he just Happens to escape just as the division workers are there to check on him which i wrote off as a dramatic plot contrivance when i watched the ep on TV. Every show and movie does it even if it’s weird. But no, Tecteun most likely sent them there specifically So he’d murder them which is cold as hell but it’s not like she wasn’t planning on murdering most of her workers when she destroyed the universe, anyway. 

They did a good job of establishing what he’s capable of straight off the bat imo, we know he’s telepathic, incredibly old, very awful and.... Can regenerate. Sets him up perfectly to be a 13 foil with a very short scene. It also is the first time he breaks the fourth wall, which over the course of the serial swarm and azure do multiple times. They are the only characters in era to look at the audience. It’s creepy and adds to the effect of them being Other and outside of the linear time that they so hate. 

We’re also, in this ep, set up to think there was a kind of Master/Doctor vibe between the doctor and swarm in the past, and we’re told the doctor knew him in the years she lost, which sets us up to go ‘is that the master’ pretty well but it turns out what that scene was Actually telling us is that Swarm has a massive ego. Martin!Doctor clearly was just going through the motions in the past. I feel like this also gives us more background on how the doctor and master dynamic is still sacrosanct narratively. The Master may have had a breakdown last season over his perceived irrelevance but the point is he was wrong. I uh. Suspect this will be something in the next episode or two that will be relevant. Since forces and their Master are rising against 13 apparently. 

miscellaneous 

We meet Vinder! Considering his plot revolves around individualism in an empire the small things where he has plants and includes updates on his mental health in each report are great. He is steadfastly broadcasting his individuality.  We also learn off the bat that he’s unhappy where he is, hates his bosses and while it means little at this point in the story, it sets his arc up nicely. 

Claire and her angelic hitchhiker. I’m... Not sure if the angel deliberately had her run into 13, here. I think it’s a valid read to say it may have been a coincidence. If Claire is remembering meeting them in the past because of the angel or even her own prophetic power, then the angel Knows claire must be attacked by other angels and was probably just influencing her to go the long way home so she’d fall victim. I don’t see any reason them running into the doctor then would have been beneficial. 

Hands down best part of this episode is when Dan casually downplays the size of the tardis and 13 hand him his tiny house in response. Very mature, doc. Mine’s bigger than yours!!!!

I don’t get why people were bitching about special effects usage here. Aside from the opening sequence that couldn’t escape them looking like they were on harnesses hanging off a ceiling it was all top notch! And to be fair to the begining, the only reason it looked like that is because for some reason space programs do not lend tv shows their anti gravity chambers. The Nerve. But in general as well, this show gets a long way in believability these days by creative uses of sets and careful selection of locations. Filming during the absolute height of covid awfulness And being limited to locations in england and wales was just reality. Of course they’d lean on sfx, it was the safest option. It was also much better sfx than this show normally offers. 

i am laughing at them changing one single tiny thing about 13′s outfit and saying nothing about it. It’s so Wildly random it makes me laugh. 13′s blue braces symbolise her inner depression and turmoil. 

the comment at the beginning with the two division operatives having been trained to resist telepathic break ins is hilarious if read as a dig at the doctor. 

we also see our first star wars reference here when Karvanista tries a jedi mind trick on dan. We see our second star wars reference when 13 feels the universe dying all obi wan like. 

13′s denial reaches peak this episode. Yeah a creepy guy just broke into her head, yeah the tardis is bleeding black goo, yeah earth may about to be destroyed but IT’S FINE. 

13 feeling all those planets be absorbed by the flux and and the people die leaves her distressed enough to not register that Dan is physically holding her upright with his hands. Yaz is one thing, though 13 has before casually shooed Yaz off her as well, but Dan who she’s only just met? That says something about what that felt like for her. 

13 ignoring the tardis bleeding everywhere and sprouting extra doors like there was a sale on at doors’r’us leading to the tardis ringing the cloister bell as if she’s saying ‘LISTEN TO ME YOU MORON’. Just wife things. 

Poor Diane is left at night in a strange place with swarm and azure mocking her and trying to make her suffer. We’ve not really talked much about just how horrific this was all for Diane. She had nothing to do with any of this, they just Decided to torture her for their own sick kicks and she’s going to have to live with that. 

not sure there’s much to discuss here. I vaguely remember tecteun mad at 13 for throwing vortex energy at the flux but i don’t remember Why tbh. But it put me off when it aired that it came to nothing in the next episode, so i’m gald i know it Does come up again. 

I also liked the little detail that the tardis had trouble landing on karvanista’s ship and we later find out it’s got special armour that helps shield it. Didn’t get that the first time. 

is it cute or creepy 13 kept her son’s first hopper virus??? who knows. 

i... try Not to think about sontarans most of the time if i’m honest. 

anyway that’s all i’ve got for now. Thought i’d shove it in a post instead of 87 small ones. 

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 11 first part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Goodness)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Okay! This episode is a real slice of healthy family dynamics, not triggering in any way. [Uh if this is your first Restless Rewatch: that is sarcasm, dear readers]

Goodbye to You, Goodbye to Everything We Knew

Nie Huaisang asks why Meng Yao has to leave and Meng Yao says "I killed a guy without permission, so your brother fired me." 

Ha ha ha ha no he doesn't. But he does give Nie Huaisang a sweet, sad smile; he seems touched by NHS's distress. 

Meng Yao carefully removes Nie Huaisang's hands from his shoulders and bows to him, wordlessly signaling the change in their relationship from intimate friends to formal strangers, while Nie Huaisang looks crushed. 

They will return to intimate friendship in the future, but falsely. Meng Yao believes that truly loving a person can include destroying their family and using them as an instrument in your murder plots as long as you don't directly harm them.  Nie Huaisang eventually learns to use people just as brutally, but he doesn't lie to himself about what he's doing. This farewell may be the last harmless moment between these friends. 

Jiang Cheng is distressed by what's going on, while Wei Wuxian crosses his arms and watches, fully in Sherlock Holmes mode, instead of his more usual concerned-for-my-friend mode. This may signal mistrust of Meng Yao, who refused his initial attempt at friendship, and not in a sexy, slice-your-face-off way.  Or it may mean that he's reserving judgement on a complicated family situation. He maintains his uncharacteristic reserve through the entire encounter. 

(more behind the cut!)

Nie Huaisang runs in and asks his brother WTF happened. Nie Mingjue says "he killed my subordinate without permission, when he knows perfectly well power must flow from the ruler; it's like he didn't even read that Foucault book I gave him."

Ha ha ha actually he just yells at his brother, as if NHS doesn’t have his own relationship with Meng Yao after being wonder twink powers with him for probably a couple of years now. NHS has to sit and process his loss and confusion in silence.

As a younger sibling who would make friends with my older siblings' girlfriends and then lose those friends if they broke up, for reasons having nothing to do with why I liked their girlfriends, I super feel Nie Huaisang's pain here.

OTOH, older siblings are entitled to have break ups and not explain themselves to anyone besides their lover because that's the nature of intimacy. The moral is, uhh...don't have a family curse that makes you unreasonably angry. 

Jiang Cheng steps up to advocate for Meng Yao, because Meng Yao is injured, and because Jiang Cheng is actually a born leader who knows better than to throw away a useful subordinate. For example, even when Wei Wuxian is at his drunkest and most defiant, Jiang Cheng tries to reform him, not kick him out, only drawing the line at having unpopular zombie friends.

Wei Wuxian continues to keep his mouth shut, waiting for Nie Mingjue to calm down, and speaking only about the tactical situation. He clearly knows there's more to this story but he's pretty good at keeping his head down in a family ruckus, and we're about to learn why.

Yunmeng Town

The Yunmeng bros go home to Lotus Pier, where they are greeted in town with bows, smiles, and free stuff.

We've mostly been seeing them in their roles within the cultivation community, where Jiang Cheng is grumpy and anxious, and Wei Wuxian is sassy and iconoclastic. Here among common people, they are both charming, friendly, and polite, like the imaginary good kind of gentry.

They hear the news from a local lotus seller that the small clans are coming to the Jiang Clan for shelter, but that otherwise everything's ok, which doesn't sound like everything is ok at all. He gives Wei Wuxian a giant bag of lotuses for his sister to make soup from.

Home to Lotus Pier

All the disciples practicing in the courtyard at Lotus Pier are excited to see them, and one girl goes running to tell Jiang Yanli. Thanks to the admittedly beautiful design of Lotus Pier, she is running for a long time.

A long, long time. Getting around on all these insane walkways must be a real drag if you're not the flying sort of cultivator.

Discipline and Punish

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian immediately go and kneel while they wait for their official punishment. Jiang Cheng is kinda worried about the punishment and Wei Wuxian is like, I'm good at being punished, just let me do it. 

Much later, and for a really long fucking time

He also tries to get Jiang Cheng to stop being mad, even giving him skritches while he says they should be brothers after they die.

Which they will, as it happens, although Jiang Cheng after the Wen torture is only mostly golden-core dead, while WWX dies for real.

When Jiang Fengmian shows up Jiang Cheng starts to explain that they were with Lan Wangji, but Wei Wuxian hushes him; he is still keeping the secret of the Yin Iron. Although he's keeping it in exactly the manner that a teenager keeps their weed stash secret: immediately tell literally every teen friend about it, but keep it extra secret from everybody's parents. 

Happy Families Are All Alike

Now we get to meet Yu Ziyuan, who is generally styled Madame Yu but who I'm going to call by her name just as if she was a male character. More on that concept in a minute. She rolls up looking, smelling, feeling like a million yuan, with her two murder bitches in tow.

Her marriage is an unhappy one, and her husband does his best to avoid her and avoid conflict, lying to the kids that she's tired and then sending her away later with the same line about being tired, which is a particularly gendered kind of gaslighting. She is obviously not tired, other than being tired of Jiang Fengmian's shit.

I'm not going to say she's the worst mother ever, because parenthood in a feudal society entails a wide range of skills, many of which she has in abundance. She starts off with a relatively tender greeting to Jiang Cheng, tuning up his always-amazing sartorial style, which is exactly like her own. They are all ready for the mommy & me fashion show.

That said, she dishes out hellacious verbal abuse to everyone in her family. She targets each one in turn, making Wei Wuxian the focus of most of her ire, but without ever directly speaking to him. He is not, in her view, part of her family. 

The Stages of Family Dinner

1. Try to fix it and defuse the situation

2. Yeah no

3. Just keep your head down and be glad it’s not your turn in the hot seat

This family meal hammers home how much Wei Wuxian is not, actually, part of the family. Jiang Fengmian adopted him into the clan, and told A-Cheng and A-Yi to treat him as a sibling, but he didn't give him the Jiang name, and he didn't get his wife's approval. He also doesn’t expect him to dress like any other clan member, apparently. 

Compare this to how Lan Wangji, actual good parent, fully integrates his own adopted son into his clan and family, starting with giving him the Lan surname.  

The hits just keep coming as she goes after Jiang Cheng for being less gifted than Wei Wuxian, Yanli for performing labor for Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Fengmian for possibly begetting Wei Wuxian.

On first watching this scene I took her question "Is this how you raise someone else's son?" to mean that she thought Jiang Fengmian was being too nice to a kid who was actually an outsider, taking resources away from the real kids. But on rewatching, it's pretty clear that she's saying his favoring Wei Wuxian is evidence that Wei Wuxian is NOT someone else's son; that he's Jiang Fengmian's bastard. 

Jiang Fengmian doesn't say a thing to this, or to her mentioning WWX’s mother. This shit is why WWX is running around in the world desperate for any crumb of info he can get about his Mom; he hears about her all the goddamn time at home, but only as insults to her character.  

A Bitch is Not Wrong

Here's the thing, though; a lot of what Yu Ziyuan says is correct. 

Jiang Fengmian should be a lot more concerned about the danger to the children, and should not leave it up to the kids to decide who's going to bear that danger.

Yanli does a lot of food=love, which is ok in the right doses, but causes her to pretty extremely lose face during the whole "soup for Jin Zixuan" debacle. And her doting on Wei Wuxian is...kinda excessive. I mean, yeah, she’s more like a mom than a sister to him, but still. Running out onto an active battlefield to look for him, frex, will be a skosh too much. 

I have a dictionary too, mom

Jiang Cheng, as the future clan leader, shouldn't let his attachments affect his decision making, and should let Wei Wuxian, who's the superior cultivator, fend for himself more often. We love Jiang Cheng for those moments where he puts himself in harm's way to protect his loved ones, but it's not a good strategy. He constantly yells at Wei Wuxian for the exact same thing he does all the time himself; he just limits who he does it for.

After she roasts the shit out of everyone for these failings, she leaves, and everyone sits around being miserable and not talking about what just happened. 

Not to be gender studies-y on main but: the awful things she says to her children are really not very different from the things that Jiang Cheng says to Jin Ling, although her targeting is more adept. JC also says a lot of mean things to WWX when he’s angry. When a man says cruel or insulting things, it's often presented as real love hidden under a rough exterior. When a woman does it, she's a monster.

If you enjoy this sort of interaction you should definitely have a look at Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and the plays of Eugene O'Neill.

Road Runner

Oh thank god, moving on

Lan Wangji is headed back to Cloud Recesses, and gets ambushed by the roadside with the most ridiculous trap this side of Wile E. Coyote.

Wen Chao thinks the "rug over a hole" trap is a good idea for someone who can literally fly.

Lan Wangji doesn't faff about with sword riding, he just fucking goes up in the air and stays there until he is good goddamn ready to come down. A hole in the sidewalk is really not going to be a problem for him. 

Wen Zhuliu does get in one kick before Lan Wanji yeets backwards away from him, in a moment that's scarier on rewatching, now that I know what Wen Zhuliu is capable of.

Wen Chao talks some smack to Lan Wangji, hilariously complaining about "your patronizing tone" to a man who has literally never spoken a word to him, IIRC, and certainly isn't speaking now. Maybe it's a mistranslation and should be "attitude," or maybe Wen Chao is just that dumb.

Apparently Wei Wuxian made a stack of talismans for Lan Wangji to take on the road with him. This talisman is a twin to the one Lan Wangji brings out way, way later in Yunping, when Wei Wuxian says "you even have kept it until now." Missing scene alert! What else did he make for him?

In Yunping this talisman is used to distract some random harmless street bullies. Here it is used against a seven-man murder squad.

This works.

Assault on Cloud Recesses

Forgettable disciple #1, Su She, comes rushing in to tell Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen that Cloud Recesses is under attack.

I'm pretty sure these dudes already know it, because they are meditating extra hard with a buttload of incense, and Lan Qiren is about to cough up some blood. So I think they're trying to hold the ward, rather than just, like, chilling while their disciples get stabbed.

Cloud Recesses is super on fire, you guys; it's going to totally burn to the ground; look at that conflagration, oh the humanity, etc.

Lan Qiren Rises to the Occasion

Ok, I like to rag on Failmaster Qiren and he is definitely an authoritarian dick a whole lot of the time, but in this scene he is fucking amazing.

He starts off worrying about Lan Wangji, not just out of affection but out of strategic planning, probably in equal parts. All three of these Lans take their clan responsibilities extremely seriously.

Then he calmly assesses the situation while imperturbable Lan Xichen freaks the fuck out. 

Lan Xichen is right to be alarmed, because he knows his uncle, he knows one of them is likely to die, and he knows that Lan Qiren will choose to take the hit.

I love, love, love Lan Qiren's physicality here; how centered and assured he is, as he holds his nephew steady and explains what is required of both of them.

Lan Xichen knows Lan Qiren is right. He is utterly fucking devastated, and all he can do to show his love...

...is to obey. 

This whole scene just. kills me.

Su She and forgettable disciple #2 are in the room for this whole conversation, and they join Lan Xichen in this deep bow. Note: I will be reminding everyone of this fact in Part 2.

Whew. This episode is a LOT. Part 2 Coming Soon!

Writing Prompt: What other goodies did Wei Wuxian put in Lan Wangji's care package before Lan Wangji hit the road without saying goodbye?

Soundtrack: 1. Michelle Branch, Goodbye to You 2. Ludacris, Stand Up

Reviewing My Anime 10/10's *Relatively* Spoiler-Free

Note: What I rank a 10/10 is very specific and obviously very subjective to my own. Something can only be a 10/10 if I already consider it a 9/10 AND I must have rewatched it. I am someone who typically does not rewatch/reread anything, unless it's something I truly absolutely enjoy. With that being said, because of the requirements, I only have 4 animes that I rank 10/10, and tbh only one of those animes would get that ranking from the general anime audience. The rest are SO SO SO specific to my particular tastes that I would be absolutely stunned if someone also had the same four as me, because the requirement is so specific. Imma make another post eventually for my 9/10's because I think that list makes a lot more sense for a general anime audience lmaooo.

Soooo, in order of least personal to most personal (although obviously they're all personal to me lol) we have:

1. Psycho-Pass

Recommended for people who: are really into that dark dystopian future society vibes, are fans of Ghost in the Shell, like detective/crime stories

Okay, for a few people, this one actually probably makes some sense. At the moment, it has an 8.37 on myanimelist which means this anime is super well liked. I've watched this anime twice, first the original and then the second time I watched the director's cut (yes that exists lol). Overall, I'm a huge fan of the entire Psycho-Pass anime series as a whole. I've watched all three seasons, as well as two of the movies. I didn't watch any of the Sinners of the System ones cuz tbh I literally couldn't find an english sub of that anywhere, it just doesn't exist lol. I think it's okay cuz the ratings for the Sinners of the System trio of movies seems meh. I've actually watched Psycho-Pass the Movie like three/four times LMAO but that's simply cuz a movie is obviously much quicker to watch than an entire anime season. Like just objectively, the Psycho Pass series as a whole is very inconsistent in quality due to the fact that it's all original, so they do technically just make up everything as they go lol. Season two is all right (I think it gets more hate than it should), three is good but season one by far is the absolute best in the entire series. I'd argue the movie is technically my absolute favorite out of the whole IP, but I actually give the movie an 8/10. The movie, because of being obviously way shorter, simply does not have the deep controversial and philosophical lines of thought that season one has. It lacks that extra depth that would make me put it anything higher than an 8. The two main characters have good chemistry as a crime-fighting duo and the main villain's rivalry/relationship with the male lead is super compelling. The female lead is meant to be relatively naive/more on the innocent side which works with the plot as it allows the show to naturally explain and give more exposition as to the actual world and rules of Psycho-Pass without having it seem so ham-fisted or just throwing info to the audience.

2. Violet Evergarden

Recommended for people who: cry to sad movies, like gorgeous animation, are very empathetic, like vignette-esque storytelling

All right if you even remotely consider yourself an avid anime fan, then this anime is probably also somewhere on your 10/10 list or at least an anime you consider to be "very good." That is, unless you are that very vocal minority who simply really just REALLY do not like this anime for some god forsaken reason. However, in my honest opinion, I think an anime like this just really doesn't sit well with ... how do I put this blunty ... people who do not give a fuck about other people or anyone else's feelings but their own. Basically, IF YOU ARE SELFISH, A NARCISSIST, EGOTISTICAL, OR ANY SORT OF COMBO OF THOSE THREE, YOU WILL NOT LIKE THIS ANIME. And if you do, you probably don't think you're any of those things. Because of the anime's very premise, I find it very difficult to see a very self-centered/heartless person particularly enjoying this anime. The whole premise of this anime is that the main character who, because of her upbringing, doesn't understand feelings/emotions, especially the concept of love, grows as a human and slowly begins to learn what love is. The show does this by showing multiple sets of characters meant to represent different types of love (romantic, familial, platonic, etc). The vocal minority of people I've seen give Violet Evergarden bad ratings all typically argue that although beautiful, the anime doesn't have any substance/doesn't really mean anything. If that's honestly all you got after watching the entire show, then you deadass just don't get it, and you probably will never ever get it. If you've seen or heard of Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song, than just know that these two animes are VERY very similar in vibe despite being technically different genres. However, I personally found the themes and concepts in Vivy are done much more masterfully in Violet Evergarden which I think is due to Vivy's heavier focus on a story-driven overarching plot/action as opposed to Violet Evergarden's focus more on emotional impact/an episodic format. I've watched the entire series and I've rewatched the main show twice. TBH you can probably skip the gaiden movie AKA the one set at the girl's academy it was highkey pointless. Compared to the opera episode they added as a "special", the gaiden movie was still good but I wish resources were dedicated to something that actually added to the story. ALSO YES I KNOW ITS A GAIDEN AKA A SIDE STORY AKA FILLER SO YES NO DUH IT DIDNT ADD ANYTHING, BUT STILL. As for the main show, I think I cried for three episodes (the one about the playwright/author I forgot lol, the mother and daughter, and the soldier). On my rewatch, I didn't cry but I still deeply cared for and related to the characters. Violet Evergarden is a beautiful anime with a beautiful story.

3. ACCA: 13-ku Kansatsu Ka

Recommended for people who: like bread and bakeries, don't mind a very chill and slow-paced story, like stories about political intrigue and hidden agendas

Based on a relatively short manga, ACCA: 13 follows the main character Jean Otus as he performs his job of auditing the 13 districts of his country Dowa, while rumors and politics brew in the background that threaten to entangle Jean into a complicated plot. To be honest, I think properly reviewing this anime is impossible for me, because I just can't really explain the vibes of this anime besides "chill" and "intriguing." I think trying to explain anything more than the basic premise I just wrote would spoil a lot of what ACCA is, because it's plot is actually relatively quite simple and straightforward. Compared to Psycho-Pass which has a relatively good cult following, and Violet Evergarden which is universally praised, ACCA is an anime that I've yet to personally meet anyone who has ever even heard of it LMAOO. And almost everyone I know watches anime, so that's saying something oof. ACCA is made by Madhouse, which if you don't know, is a super well known anime studio, producing big hits such as Death Note, Hunter x Hunter, One Punch Man, etc. That's why I'm surprised that ACCA has flown just SO under the radar, but that may be due to the overalls nature of the anime itself. ACCA is an anime where all the characters hold their card close and no one seems to really share their real thoughts. One main criticism the anime has is the lack of deeper connections to characters and that for a main character, Jean Otus is very bland. To be honest, I think that's a very fair criticism and I can understand why this would prevent people from rating this anime higher than an 8 or 7. Due to the very nature of the anime and its plot, I do agree that there is a huge cast of colorful characters that we unfortunately don't really get to know more about. To be honest though, I don't mind this because I feel that's honestly quite realistic, especially factoring in Jean's job. All these places he's going and all these people he's meeting, it's literally just his job. He's not on vacation, these people aren't his friends, so the anime has no real reason to dwell much longer on places past its specific episode. Just like in real life, you encounter so many people and go past so many places that you probably won't ever see again. So for me personally, I didn't mind that the anime didn't explicitly show much about the backstories or lives of the cast, save for the very main characters (as their backstories were plot relevant). I think as viewers of not simply an anime, but a whole other world, I think it should be satisfactory to inherently understand that these are whole "people" who have entire lives that we are not exactly privy to. So although admittedly our understanding of many of the characters was all around quite shallow, I think that works for the scope of the anime, which was relatively simple and focused on just Jean living his life and the political plot stirring in the background until it was brought forward in the second half of the anime. Also I love Jean Otus. I actually completely absolutely adore him. He is literally my profile pic for myanimelist LMAO. I think calling him "bland" is fair from other people's perspectives, especially as the supposed main character of an ANIME, but I feel that if ACCA was in a different format like a novel, I think his personality would have been less criticized. Like I said, I love him soo much. I don't find him bland at all, but actually very interesting and highkey attractive LOL (if only he'd quit smoking but it's part of his charm 😞). Yes for an anime "protagonist," he is quite underwhelming especially compared to others, but I think that makes him very charming!!! Like all he wants to do is just chill, vibe, and do his job lmaooo. I think as a person, he’s very charismatic, and in the world of ACCA the rest of the characters see that as well. Because like, if he really were such a bland person, why would so many people like him and actually trust him lol? As for why it’s technically my favorite anime of all time (my ultimate one is a movie), I can’t give super detailed reasons why to be honest. I just really like the overall vibes of the anime itself, and I think the anime is just super unique and original. I’ve watched a ton of anime over the years, but I’ve genuinely seen nothing like ACCA in the slightest. I mean, just look at the recommended animes on the myanimelist. The recommended animes are all stuff I’ve also personally really liked (like fugou keiji unlimited and the great pretender) but yeah there’s just truly nothing that’s close to what ACCA is, and because of that, it reminds my absolute favorite anime show. I’ve seen the dub and the sub, even though I am a vehement dub hater lmaooo (except for very few circumstances, and this also applies to all non-English media, not just anime). There was only one thing in the entire show that slightly confused me/ seemed slightly unbelievable and I won’t spoil but it had something to do with the overall timeline of some events, but it doesn’t detract from the story at all. Oh and the art style! I really love the art style of the anime. It stays pretty true to the manga, but is also just an overall kind of art style I really like. I really enjoy the more like 2d/flat/drawn art style versus really clean and really detailed stuff, and I’m typically not a big fan of very obvious use of CGI (unless done tastefully like in Demon Slayer). All the backgrounds in ACCA have this painted/drawn style and the anime itself has this like muted(?) filter over it that makes the anime seem like someone’s drawings just put up on display in a way that’s really refreshing and nice. I highly recommend this story for anyone who wants a breath of fresh air and to get away from the typical action-packed high energy of big name anime.

4. From Up on Poppy Hill

Imma make a whole separate post JUST for this movie so I can explain why I love this movie so so much. And honestly, Imma need a whole separate post in the first place to address the elephant in the room when it comes to this movie (if you’ve seen it, then you know what I’m talking about). And if you’ve haven’t seen the movie, maybe you’ve heard about one of its controversial themes. I’m not gonna say what it is, cuz I KNOW it’ll be super off-putting for a lot of people, but please omg just hear me out. I just love this movie so so much. I’ve seen it like 7 times and counting. I have it downloaded on my computer and on a flash drive. I’ve watched the sub AND the dub however I’ve stopped watching the dub because it makes me sad every time I hear Shun’s voice actor ;-; This movie is legit an honest-to-god comfort movie for me that I could watch over and over and I’ll fall in love with it again each and every time. And once again IMMA MAKE A WHOLE SEPARATE POST BECAUSE I SWEAR PEOPLE ARE GONNA BE LIKE “Yo ain’t this the movie with the -----” and it’s like PLEASE LET ME EXPLAIN. The vibes of this movie, the themes it addresses (yes even THAT theme), the music, the art, the characters, is perfectly presented in a way that I will never stop watching this movie. The only other film that has come close to the amount of times I’ve watched From Up on Poppy Hill would be Legally Blonde lmaooooo. 

GUNDAM WING - REWATCH - 48 - 49

We’ve reached the end...

48. Take Off Into Confusion

Throwing us right in with “Gotta do better. I’m over here.” Totally Classic Treize.

Let’s wax philosophical Treize, right in the middle of a battle field. 

Wufei is a monogamous fighter

This is some sexy foreplay

The scientists have a plan, but we need to somehow going to sneak 5 of us into Peacemillion...? It’s not a very good plan is it? 

There’s a big chance Libra will crash into Canada… sorry Canada 🤷🏼‍♀️ 

Zechs: if they both crash, they’ll have an eternal winter; IDK Zechs, in Eva they get an eternal summer after the Second Impact, so which is right?

“Like me, Zechs Marquise.” What a line Zechs.

I don’t like the helmet touch between Heero and Relena.. and this isn’t because I’m not a 1xR shipper. It’s just weird, and feels out of character for Heero, and kind of tacked on? 

Also, since when did Heero promise to protect Relena? I remember threatening to kill her a few times... I don’t think those words mean the same thing?

Relena gets an NCIS freeze frame there

Dorothy: Let’s have a sexy foreplay sword fight. I’ve learned everything I know from my cousin Treize. 

Dorothy is nut bar, and it’s so wonderful. My dad died and I hate it, so I’m gonna die too. 

Aww Dorothy is gonna make Quatre cry

“But Heero is on a suicide mission.” And that’s different from normal, how? 

Heavyarms using his arms like they’re, you know, heavy

Trowa and Duo meeting in battle: We’re dudes and can’t tell each other that we care, but take care and, you know, don’t die

The scientists get to ride in the bat wings?! I bet that’s like when you’re a kid and get to ride in the back-back seat of a station wagon (am I dating myself here?)

Rashad: “Fellow Comrades: no one is allowed to die until we see master Quatre.”

Dorothy read Watchmen and was like, if we create one huge war, then they’ll all come together in peace

Quatre: Trowa taught me to not shy away from my kindness…. DID HE THO? WHEN????

Treize and Wufei: I want to fight you fair and square: why don’t you have sword fight on this spaceship

Treize: I couldn’t kill someone who understood me. I’m not gonna cry.

Treize is so amazing. All the people who died for him. You’re crying.

He has such presence. 

Wufei sobbing. I didn’t think I’d win. OK, I AM CRYING

Treize WAS splendid

Earth declared defeat but White Fang will still crash the ship into earth…

Relena looking for Heero: I’ll just jump out into space and float around until I find him. 

49. The Final Victor

No narrator. Just jumping right into the episode since we are still in the middle of a battle, people.

This is a long con Zechs: to create such a horrible disaster that people want pacifism. No way should that have worked.

Noin is just going to sit there and watch and do nothing. You started off so strong, Noin and then.... nothing.

Noin should probably just put that western shirt on and mosey out into the sunset

Zechs: I’ve got 99k problems and they are all dead people who fought for total pacifism for me

How funny would it be Duo drops the scientists off and like 2 are dead and one has an arm hanging off. Oops. 

Everyone’s long con came is intense. Une was also here for total pacifism, too? Feels weird that she had to murder Relena’s dad for that...

Howard will just lay some science on everyone so that we know why we can’t drop a battleship on earth

Trowa is just gonna lecture Dorothy. He’s not mad, he’s just disappointed. Dorothy can’t take such stoic disappointment. 

Quatre is such a spoil sport. Non-alochollic champaign. Lame. No wonder I don’t like you.

Let’s televise this fight to earth and space, so just random people understand what’s happening in space

CANS was part of operation mentor?? 

The Scientists: We’re gonna interfere once more. KABOOM We blew everything up, including ourselves. YOLO

Heero and Zechs using the ZERO system are like two drunk people having a debate over something dumb while all their friends look on annoyed

The colonies are just covering all their bases, by choosing sides again this late in the game.

Zechs doubling down just because he doesn’t want to admit he’s wrong is fantastic

Obligatory it’s just a flesh wound reference 

SO let me get this straight. Knoweldge goes from Heavyarms to Trowa to Quatre? 

The Maganacs riding into the battle at the last moment like a calvary movie

Heero learned from Trowa, too. Learned how to run out of bullets. Hey-o.

No you blow up, no you blow up. 

Sally: I believe in him, he can defy physics and science 

Heero: I will survive Hey hey. But like, the Cake version

Wow bringing Just Communication back. Amazing. OK, It’s better than Rhythm Emotion. There I said it. 

Look at those mentors, from project mentor

Who’s grave was she putting flowers on if not Zechs??

Relena: Next time hand it to me in person; Heero: Ok bye forever

Thoughts:

There are so many moments were characters are like THIS person did this, or THIS person said that. AND WHEN? WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN??? Off screen, because that ain’t in the series, guys. 

I could write a whole essay one the last battle between Treize and Wufei and boy does it stand up to everything I remembered. A+ Great work, Lads. 

But the rest of these last two episodes... visually they look amazing and we get some great fights. But the plot? Really? Everyone was in for this long con of having such a big fight that everyone would want pacifism? Like, what if Treize and Zechs just talked to the Gundam Pilots? 

The whole first 1/2 to 3/4 of the show is set up so well, and everything is so slowburn, that I had to make a chart for when characters learn each other’s names. But suddenly Heero comes in and FINALLY does something right, and saves the day.... and the show is over??? 

We get no aftermath? Suddenly Relena WHO IS FIFTEEN is a Vice Foreign Minister? And Heero probably left her some important info and she just tears it up. UGH I HATE IT

What I think I remember for the next episode(s):

So, before @mpanighetti​and I watch Endless Waltz, we have decided to watch the Operation Meteor OVA, which neither of us have seen before, and has this description: Set immediately after the ending of the Gundam Wing series (and thus before Endless Waltz), this OVA features a series of 7 clips, one from each pilot's point of view as well as a beginning and ending. The clips give a glimpse into what happened to all five characters in the direct aftermath of the final battle against White Fang. After we watch this, we will head into Endless Waltz, and I am excited to revisit that, as I think I only watched it like twice, but I remember the ending because I thought it was the ending to the series. So don’t worry, you haven’t seen the last of my shitty recaps and shitposts. 

First Thoughts on YJ S4 Panel

WARNING: SPOILERS for the DC Fandome YJ S4 panel!

Okay, before I start chattering away, can I just saw how much I love this title poster? Because I love it. LOOK AT IT. LOOK AT HOW BADASS IT IS. 

Warning: this first bit is a teeny bit ranty, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t genuinely love the panel. It was really fun, but I have a few gripes with the amount of information we got. If you wanna cut straight to the cheery bits, check under the cut.

So... uh. I’m not gonna say I’m disappointed? Because I’m not, this was good, we got info, it was nice to see the voice actors. But I’m... underwhelmed. I definitely wasn’t expecting a lot but this was still, mm, not as much as I thought we’d get. No poster, no previews of character designs, not a peep as to when we’re getting the new season, nothing on where it’ll be streaming, nothing as to new characters, nothing as to who’s going to be the villain, and the Q&A session was maaaayyybe 3 minutes long. Oof, guys. Thought you said you’d leave us with something that’d leave us “more than just ‘whelmed.’” 

Essentially all we got was the title, and a few snippets of information regarding what the current status of the Team and its characters is. They didn’t really get the chance to talk to us at all about the actual season, either- I think Brandon spoke maaaybe three or four times? He got the title reveal, but, well, we knew that already, not that it’s their fault, but still. I love hearing the voice actors chat about their experiences and we got none of that, so that was disappointing. I’m wondering if there wasn’t some material cut, actually, because I distinctly recall seeing a clip on Twitter with Phil Lamarr talking about what it was like returning to the show, and it wasn’t in this. So what’s the deal, DC? Short-changing us on YJ again? When are we gonna get some actual news? 

There is the little problem that their big reveal of the title was spoiled, oh, maybe three or four months ago, and that isn’t their fault, but it does make that revelation more of an “okay, well, glad that’s confirmed” rather than an “OH MY GODS IT’S PHANTOMS WHAAAAAAAT” like I think they were hoping. Still, that’s definitely exciting to hear, and the new title poster looks cool. 

I got a “WHAT!!!” moment maaayybe three times, which is significantly less than I thought I would. There just wasn’t that much new info. But I think that’s less of a Grandon/production team problem and more of a world state and DC problem. I’m not annoyed at them, I’m annoyed at DC and at the pandemic, because I’m willing to bet their snippet was cut short by DC and what information they could’ve revealed just isn’t ready yet because of current events. Probably we would’ve gotten character designs if it weren’t for that.

As for the audio play, it was pretty good. They were definitely struggling what with having a distinct lack of people to pull from for a voice cast, but made some tongue-in-cheek references to it to take off the edge. I don’t think I realized just how many people voice for YJ until now... or how many characters each actor does. It’s a bit janky, and weird what with the arguing over who’s narrating the story (why, are they telling us the story, or are they telling it to someone else? Are you breaking the fourth wall, are you not? Make yourselves clear) but I’m blaming that on the fact that they’re more used to scripts than they are audio plays. These are different mediums, so there’s an inherent gap there; this probably would’ve gone better as an actual episode. 

So, FIRST watch-through, here’s my HAPPY cheery thoughts and reactions, in no particular order! I might do a second one later, we’ll see. (Under the cut, because it’s long.)

Return of Bowhunter Security! 

Clipboard makes a comeback!

The Supermartian marriage has taken place and they’re making reference to taking a long journey with Conner, M’gann, Bioship, Gar and J’onn. So... Mars? Do we finally get to see Mars?  

Forager gets to be sassy! And a hilarious narrator! Which, c’mon, it’s Jason Spisak, honestly, I don’t know what I expected.

Ahahah, Jason makes the most delightful faces when he’s voicing Forager. (And a few flubs, but he’s good at covering them.) We all miss Wally, but man, he does a good job with this character. Also, hey, that’s how he does the clicks!

Rocket! Even though she had a relatively minimal presence, sigh. I’m hoping they build her character more this time, she always get short-changed. 

ARTEMIS IS LEADING THE TEAM, repeat, ARTEMIS IS LEADING THE TEAM!!! YES!!! 

And she also makes a reference at some point to being in this fight for ten years, which, HMM, do I hear a reference point for our time jump? They started back in 2010, so this implies that the season’s caught up to 2020. So... season one was 2010, season two was 2016, season three was... 2018, I think? So does this make the next time jump two years too, or am I off? It also takes place on February 23rd. Eh, either way, it’s absolutely not as long as a lot of people were fearing- heck, I’m thinking this might be the shortest jump yet. Yay!

I’m not sure if the Snapper Carr dialogue is cringy or hilarious. I’m going with hilarious because I’m betting this would’ve been great if it were animated. It definitely loses something without the animation. 

Is... is Crispin Freeman playing four characters? Five? Will, Roy, Jim, Captain Boomerang... I think I’m missing someone, I’m gonna have to go back and rewatch this later, but wow. He switches between them so fluidly, too, that’s impressive.

Forget Freeman for a hot second, Nolan North, what are you doing, dude? Conner, Clayface, Mallah, at least one or two others, with a LOT of animal noises included... wow, okay. I definitely didn’t realize how many of these guys do two or three characters. 

Phil Lamarr doing Brick, Black Manta and Kaldur all at once is definitely impressive. I’m gonna take a guess and say he likes doing Brick best. He seems to get a little grin sometimes when he’s playing the character.

Ahhh, Danica McKellar definitely likes playing Terrence Terror. Don’t ask me why, I’m just getting that feeling watching her. Villains are fun to play.

...Wolf? Where’s Wolf? Uhh, guys? Where’s our fluffy doggo? Don’t tell anyone but I’m scared. 

Oooookay, that was unexpectedly gruesome. Dehydrating a man into sand? I mean, okay, it’s Clayface, but we didn’t know that till later. Eeeewww. Y’all, ik you’re going more dark, but that wasn’t an image anyone needed.

Jokes about Dadbod!Will are... hhh, cringy or funny, cringy or funny... I’m going sorta funny for now. Not enough to make me laugh, but enough to make me smile. 

Okay, Will’s definitely still hilarious. Literally that entire scenario with Captain Boomerang was amazing, and only made better by the fact that it was entirely Crispin Freeman. The “are you the Green Arrow fanclub president or something?” “...you have no idea” moment, the “boomerangs are better and Batman said so!” “...okay, FINE,” FLINGING CLIPBOARD, Boomerang teasing Will for his dadbod and Will answering with a wicked uppercut... ah, man. This is 100% Roy/Will Harper and I am here for it. 

I can see some people disliking this humor, but personally, I’m gonna just sit back and enjoy it. YJ has some quirky humor, but honestly, if you’re part of the fandom and you don’t like it, why are you even here?

Huh, Raquel’s a vegan and nobody’s making jokes about vegan burgers? Nice!

Oh, my gods, Forager deciding that Lian and Amistad playing with the food is an educational activity is AMAZING, 100% in character, and something I really, really want to see. 

(Fanartists? Fanartists, pleeeeaaasse?)

Will and Artemis ribbing each other will never get old.

...wait. Hang on. Is Will the comedic relief character now along with Forager? Is this a thing? I guess it is. If you’d asked me who out of the original Team would replace Wally as the comedic relief back when I had finished the second season, I would not have thought of him first, but I think I’m good with this. It’s definitely in character to his comic version. 

Ahh, Conner and M’gann’s relationship is still... interesting. Still not sure how to feel on this one. But hey, they’re married (?) now? Uh... nice? 

Nightwing’s off on some mysterious mission, hmm? I’m assuming that’s because of Jesse McCartney not being there, but I think I’m gonna headcanon that there are Other reasons for this. 

Yay, Clayface getting redemption! I love this in the Rebirth Batman: Detective Comics, so I’m 100% down for seeing it here. 

Tim did that for Clayface! Sweet! Not a plot thread I expected to go anywhere from that one season three episode, but one I am very happy to see used. 

...more secrets. Uhh, M’gann keeping secrets from Conner is... icky... again... but granted, keeping them because of confidentiality agreements is, well, a better excuse than she’s had in the past. Still, this is getting old.

Huh, so Waller will let out the Team’s secrets if they tell anyone about Belle Reve. I think this was already covered in the third season, but maybe not so explicitly. The reactions... hmm. Of course Conner’s okay with letting out all their secrets (and M’gann’s willing to... go along with that? ...okay...?), but the others, maybe not so much? Hmm. I wonder what Dick would have to say about that one. He definitely has something to lose. Not sure about Kaldur or Artemis, though. 

Jason did NOT get to make any Wally references. That makes me even sadder than if he did make one that made all of us cry. C’mon, guys. Let him have his references. 

I’m always a little meh on M’gann, but hey, M’gann gets to be a 100% certified badass! Saving Clayface AND taking down a ton of baddies with telekinesis, yay!

Oh, my gods. LOOPHOLES. WHAT IS WITH THIS TEAM AND LOOPHOLES. I love them so much.

The Team signing on as Bowhunter Security- oh my gods, all of the Team in fucking Bowhunter Security uniforms- oh my gods, so very in-character, so very true to YJ, so absolutely goddamn hilarious, I wanna hug whoever came up with that. That is the BEST mental image and it is a CRIME that they didn’t animate that. 

And, of course, Kaldur just immediately goes along with it. The Team’s corrupted him fully now. I mean, we knew that, but he’s done now. 

Black Manta attempting to roast Kaldur for his security uniform and Kaldur roasting him back 100 times worse is wonderful. “I wear my dignity on the inside, Father. Where do you wear yours?” KALLIE I LOVE YOU 

Ooooo, Artemis is inviting Roy to the Team? This should be interesting. He’s definitely not totally stable, but it seems to me that Artemis should be able to more or less keep him in check. Hopefully. She had to deal with Wally for five years, surely she can keep Roy in check?

...hmm. We’re all thinking there’s gonna be a Red Hood arc... Roy’s joining the team... Roy and Jason did have that run as the Outlaws in the comics with Kory... and this version of Roy has the sort of temper and attitude that I can just see Jason possibly getting along well with... hmmmmmmmm... 

Hah, villain shenanigans. Having Task Force X argue all the time is in character and admittedly sort of funny, especially as Black Manta’s sort of pulling a Kaldur and playing the absolutely exasperated denmother. I dislike BM thanks to him being a Baddie and all, but watching (listening to?) him struggle to contain them is enjoyable if only because I like watching him suffer. 

Ahh, watching the VAs is fun. It’s definitely nice to see that little view behind the camera. There’s the little smiles, the tiny grimaces at the icky bits, the responses to various bits, the way their demeanor changes with each character, everyone egging Nolan on when he’s yelling for Clayface being disintegrated... I’m sad we didn’t get to see them chat, but watching them interact while they work is fun. Pity Jason and Stephanie didn’t really have any interactions, though, I bet watching them work together would’ve been fun. Ah well. Still fun overall.

There’s a lot of variation in where they are/what setups they have. Some of them seem to have proper studios, some of them don’t but they have mics, Danica’s on the lower bunk of her son’s room with what I’m betting are several sheets hung behind her, and then... well, then there’s poor Stephanie with earbuds and what I’m betting is her phone at her friend’s house XD Also, Greg’s library is really awesome, can I steal it please?

Green title card... I know people have been positing this for a while, but Lazarus Pit? Also, the thing people haven’t talked about: Mars?! Is this a nod to the Martians, since M’gann, Conner, Gar and J’onn seem to be going there? 

Lots of speculation regarding Phantoms, but that’s been going around for a while, so *shrug* I’m not gonna spend any time on that for now.

Someone’s gonna have to write this out, methinks, for further examination. We’ll see if I get around to doing that or not before Fandome ends. I’m betting someone will record it and post it on YouTube, but a written-out version of the script would be useful. If I do, I’ll probably post it, so keep an eye out. 

So... season 3.9, episode 1? Hmm. Does this come directly prior to the fourth season? I kinda wanna say it does.

I have more thoughts, but I think I need to do a rewatch first, maybe in a little bit. Anyway... not what I was expecting, I sincerely miss Dick and Wally, but lots of funny jokes all the same, and lots of interesting information on the fourth season even if it’s nowhere near the amount we wanted. I might be underwhelmed but I’m certainly not disappointed. 

What are some of the tvd to fandoms greatest hits so to speak... I was only in it for a short time and then jumped out because I couldn't stand to

Oh, well allow me to be your guide. This will be under a read more because I already know, I’m gonna write a whole essay. Shout out to my ride or die @hellsbellschime.

I don’t think any overtly crazy happened during the good!TVD years. No wait, I’m lying.

The year the spin-off got announced, I believe it was tvguide, that posted an article with like info tidbits for currently airing shows. And one of them, was that Hayley was pregnant with Klaus’ kid. I remember this shit so clearly, man. Everyone was so confused. And then they were like SURPRISE, APRIL FOOLS. Because it was in fact April 1st. So ha-ha we all had a laugh, great. Fastforward to what, late April? Episode 4x20 airs, and it’s exactly what happened???

That whole day btw, the day the backdoor pilot for TO aired was just insanity. I’ll say that about a lot of days in this answer, but that day was really just something else. Like we were delirious, that’s the only way I can explain what happened on here. It was a nightmare but also one of the funniest night’s I’ve ever spent on here. I gotta go back for old time’s sake and reblog some of the shit from that night because we all snapped. And not in the good way. 

The TVD 100th. Now, we knew Joseph was coming back for that episode so they hype was real. Because up until that point, we’d gotten a huge load of nothing in regards to Klaroline. They released a trailer, a short one, that’s still in my favorites folder on youtube to this day. I rewatch it all the time because it’s iconic. And there was literally .002 seconds of Klaroline. It’s Caroline standing and then Klaus says “hello, caroline” and everyone lost their shit so much when it dropped that ‘hello caroline’ trended ww on twitter. 

THE DAY THE NETWORK THAT AIRED TVD IN AUSTRALIA AIRED A PROMO WITH THE KLAROLINE KISS IN 5X11. ICONIC. I literally woke up, logged on at around 11 AM my time, and my dashboard was on fire. It was the BEST. We didn’t know wtf to do, it was amazing. 

Paleyfest. Ohhhh buddy, lemme tell ya. So TVD/TO got chosen to have the CW panel’s at Paleyfest that year. Everyone was on a bit of edge because TO to that point was what, almost done with S1 and Klaroline had been given the mega cold-shoulder despite being the very thing other than the Mikaelson’s that got used to lure people in? After the pregnancy plot from hell, everyone was ready to peace tf out, but we got halted because it was a ‘ohh of course it’s gonna continue’ then they tried to nip Klaroline in the bud with 5x11 and no one was having it. So Paleyfest was where we were gonna get some ANSWERS, DAMMIT. I live on the east coast and the festival was held in the west coast so I wasn’t awake when it was happening. I remember making a post about how ‘going to sleep, and hoping when I woke up the answers were good.’. So I went to sleep, woke up a few hours later like 2-3 AM my time, and checked my blog and the first message I had was ‘don’t wake up stephanie, everything is a mess, stay asleep where everything’s fine’ I—

The gist of that was, they basically set JoMo up to be the bad-cop in shutting down Klaroline. He gave this long answer that made absolutely zero sense. The girl who asked the question about Klaroline, who was like 13 at the time, got called a bully for even asking a question at an event she paid to be at. A mess. And JP was like NO CROSSOVERS, ORGANIC, BLAH BLAH. And Paul was sitting next to her going “why can’t the show’s just intersect”, he was right and he said it. 

I can’t remember if this was S1 or S2, but somebody tweeted something and Carina replied ‘when you’re found dead in your basement with klaroline written on you this is why’ or something like that, that was a ~fun~ night. And then like half an hour later she was like “I’m sorry, I’ll never tweet about Klaroline again just leave me alone” if you’ve ever seen this fandom refer to ourselves as basement dwellers, this night is why. 

NARDUCCI. Can’t forget him. Talk about a man who just didn’t get it. And I don’t mean Klaroline, he just didn’t get anything, nothing in his head has ever clicked, I’m convinced. He used to pick fights on twitter repeatedly. Admitted once that he missed his flight because he was on twitter…arguing with a fan. AND ONE DAY, he decided to just—snap. Went on this hours long tirade against the Klaroline fandom, essentially calling everyone stupid because no one was appreciating the ‘art’ of the show. So when I say it lasted hours, I mean that. Now, you’d think, that he would be done, right? WELL, apparently that wasn’t enough, so the next day, he continued. I remember because I was in this gc on whatsapp, and I remember Erika sending a message to the gc going “omg, Narducci vs KCers round 2″ when I tell you I screamed. The man went on a two-day rampage against this fandom and it was insane. 

S6/S2 of TVD/TO was not a fun time. I can genuinely say it was borderline a chore to come on here during that time. It wasn’t fun, every day someone was in argument with someone from production on twitter. Truly the worst year of the fandom, imo. So S7/S3 rolls around and that’s where shit went nuclear. 

Hillary and I, are minding our own damn business, when someone come’s to us with information regarding the new seasons. This was post-SDCC, so it’s like the lull of September, waiting for the seasons to start in October. And we get approached with information, talkin bout how Caroline’s gonna be pregnant with Alaric’s twins in S7. When I tell you we didn’t know wtf to do. And we had to like wait on confirmation about it but then we found out it was legit and we were pissed. Literally ask us if we wanted to be in the spoiler game, the answer is no tf we did not. And she and I basically spent two days complaining. LIKE UGHHHH WE DON’T WANNA DO THIS, BUT ALSO THIS IS DISGUSTING, WE CAN’T JUST LET THEM SPRING THIS ON EVERYONE, BUT AGHH WHY US. So we chose collectively, as a duo, because das my other half yo, to blab. 

That went over as best as anyone could hope for it to go. Now, flashforward yet again, this time to around late Novemeber/December. I had been sent word that something was going down. TVD/TO lost their Thursday slots and got bumped to Friday’s, so a plan was going on, and they made one. We’d heard that they were rearranging something mid-season because they were gonna make a crossover work, publicly we found out it would be Paul and JoMo that crossover back-to-back. THEN ONE NIGHT—I call it black friday bc  that day was a fucking mess—, a friend of mine was friends with an SCer, I wanna say, and she was hearing word that the crossover did have Klaus and Caroline interact via phone call, but that it was very definitively an ending. Because they spoke about Camille and Stefan, etc, etc. Like a closing of the book type thing. So okay, we were like devastated, everyone on twitter was losing their shit. Everyone was pissed, and @-ing the writers all these crazy, sad things, we were a wreck. Ask Hillary about this night because she, I remember, describes it as ‘logging on and reading what everyone else had and not understanding why tf everyone was mad about it’. It was the first and last time that our roles were reversed, and bless her for it. 

SO WE’RE SITTING THERE, it’s Saturday, and we kept getting more information and we were like…something isn’t right here. So we did a bit of digging, spoke to a few people and waited it out. LO AND BEHOLD, everything we’d heard about the phone call was false. There was a phone call but the CKers and SCers were so mad about what was actually said in it, that a few of em, ring leaders of the feeble minded, made up a version and passed it around their fandoms as legit till it eventually worked it’s way over to us. So we all jumped the gun on fake information, lmfskdnknsks. Rumor has it, you can still hear Hillary yelling ‘I told you so’ at me through our group chat. 

So all was well, I couldn’t tell everyone why not to panic, just that they didn’t need to. Until, this account popped up called tvdspoiler or something on twitter, also saying false information about the phone call. Sending everyone into a panic yet again. I remember this because I was at  kmart with my mom, and the kmart by my house was in a basement so I had no cell service. I was able to send like a couple of messages, and was basically like ‘tell everyone to chill, I’ll clear it up when I get home’ did that in like a couple of hours cause then I had to leave to the midnight showing of the force awakens with my friends. So that day was chaotic, but fun. It was the first time I reached 99+ messages on my inbox, lmao. 

So that all happened like a good while before we actually saw the episode. But cut to a few weeks later. I woke up at 1 AM my time to drink water, was on tumblr trying to go back to sleep. I checked my inbox and there was this bizarre message talking about ‘got some scoop’ and they were like ‘Finn dies in 3x17, Aurora gets put into some weird sleeping spell in 3x18, Camille and Davina die in 3x19, Lucien dies in 3x20′ and I quite literally laughed??? Literally who wouldn’t. Like who tf would ever believe TO had the balls to do all of that when they never killed anyone off. AND, WHO WOULD BELIEVE THAT SOMEONE WOULD JUST STOP BY, SHARE IT AND LEAVE. So I sent a screenshot to Hillary and was like ‘yo did you get this because wtf’. We often got duplicate messages. And we often got messages of people who were pissed about the two previous times we, from the klaroline fandom of all places, had legit info that wound up being true, that they were just waiting for us to fuck up. So we used to get messages of people pretending they were sharing info, and it was just antis trying to make us look stupid. 

SO, Hillary says ‘just answer it because it’s obviously fake’ top ten moments before disaster. I answer it and am like oh haha, and where did that info come from. And they came back like a minute later, saying ‘I have a source’ THEN THEY ELABORATED. They mentioned that Lucien drags Freya and Vincent to Mystic Falls to do this spell with some bullet and etc. So at that point we were like fUCK because that same day we’d found out was in 3x16, which ended with Lucien and this white-oak bullet, having kidnapped Freya. And that’s when we knew, that someone showed up in the middle of the night, spoiled the whole back-half of TO S3—and then left.

The back-half of S3 was so fun??? Every week the info just kept coming true. On the wikia everyone hated me, probably the most anti messages I ever had was during that time, honestly it was great, 10/10 would recommend. 

THEN, at some point in our blog history, Hillary had been getting quite a few messages about PT. And she had this fucking line in one of the messages about Phoebe’s pronunciation with her accent for the show, or lack thereof. And she said “weeches and woves will always have a place in my heart” SO THEM PHOEBE TWEETED IT. THAT EXACT LINE, and we were like was she...? So we shrugged off okay. A few days later, she tweeted “hellsbellschime enough, there’s plenty of other things to watch on tv, I hear mad men’s great.” And I—

THIS WAS ON SOME RANDOM ASS SUNDAY. Like I was lounging around, waiting for the new episode of game of thrones and then WHAM, chaos. AND AS IF THAT WASNT ENOUGH, Leah joined in too. Putting a target on my friends back...about her blog that no one was making them read. You can’t make that shit up. And Jenn actually replied to Phoebe’s tweet and got a reply back, and she was all “you’re right, I’m sorry” and then deleted the original tweet, which I still have a screenshot of btw. And then Leah showed up in Hillary’s inbox with this ridiculous three part ask about how she shouldn’t criticize women in the acting industry because of how hard it is for women in that industry which is true, but it doesn’t make you exempt from criticism??? So not sure where she meant to go with that one.

SO THERE WE HAVE IT, our fandom’s greatest hits. I’m sure I can elaborate and insert more, but I’ve been typing for a good 40 minutes. 

Told ya, I wrote a whole dissertation, lmaooo.

BNHA Rewatch: Two Heroes

mysterylover123

And before we start Season 3, one more road stop: The Big Freaking Movie, Two Heroes, last year’s surprise anime blockbuster and HeroAca’s first excursion onto the big screen. Time to share my thoughts and rewatch this very entertaining film!

We open with bald eagles, deserts, and cowpoke themes, to make sure we know we’re in America. We fly into “California” which looks more like Las Vegas (not really complaining, I loooove that they picked my hometown state for this) to find young, white schlera eye-having All Might and his hunky bro David Shield kicking ass and taking names. My state’s name, to be precise. 

Some exposition follows, basically recapping the premise of HeroAca, as I’m reminded of what a stroke of genius Hori had when he decided to make the MC an easy expositor thanks to his geeky knowledge of all things Hero. Deku will always be Captain Exposition.

Melissa! She’s fun and adorable and amazing, and I just love that the first HeroAca movie chooses to focus on a geeky, kind and energetic lady. 

Deku looking back and forth between Melissa’s breasts and All Might’s crotch belt is peak Bi energy.

I’m so jealous that Melissa gets to touch Deku’s hand.

Melissa describing All Might as someone David ‘loves’ is just throwing away all pretence of his heterosexuality, if it ever existed. How the hell did this guy end up with a kid?

Deku blushing around and enthusing over both Melissa and David is max bi energy.

Uraraka’s Annoying Crush Counter: 5

But I’m glad the girls are here! The Bones animators clearly know well what the fanbase wants to see, choosing to give all 6 class 1-A girls at least a cameo in the film, and three of them involved in the main plot. I especially love that, despite being initially pitted against each other, Uraraka and Melissa develop a bit of a womance in the film. OchaLissa ship!

My one major regret about this film is that Mineta is included in the Main Cast. I wish either Mina or Tsuyu had come along for the ride instead - one, they’re better, more lovable characters who could do the same job he does, and two, then we’d have a nearly gender-even cast! (6 Boys: Deku, Katsuki, Tenya, Shoto, Kiri, Kaminari; 5 Girls: Ochaco, Momo, Jiro, Melissa, Mina or Tsu). 

Kacchan makes his appearance! This bit was leaked online before the film’s release and drew quite a lot of ire from BKDK shippers and Bakugo fans. I’m mostly annoyed that Deku is acting OOC here; this is Post-Final Exam Deku, post Hero Killer Deku. Would the guy who punched All Might in the face and Bakugo in the face and the Hero Killer in the face be cowering in fear behind Iida, the guy whose life he saved, from the guy he, only a few weeks ago, punched in the face?! Badass Deku Rights!

Ooh a wild Todobaku moment! I always love when they bicker. Or rather, Katsuki bickers and Shoto ignores him.

OH NO you cannot slap me with the Ingenium OST theme and hardcore feels out of nowhere! God this scene is heartbreaking. I love, however, the cut to the whole of Class 1-A and Melissa when they talk about the future.

AH Bakugo’s feet! Why are we staring up his crotch? So this movie has a lot of KiriBaku scenes, and I should probably talk about them a little, since their friendship is a big deal in S3. They’re the only major HeroAca ship I’ve never shipped as a romantic pairing, per se. Like, in this scene, I see Kiri as Katsuki’s wingman, his bro, the guy who teases him about his obvious feelings from someone, not as the guy he has feelings for.

And for Kiri’s sake, I kinda dislike making him basically Bakugo’s sidekick. He willingly hangs out with the guy, when he wants to, in canon, he doesn’t follow him around and become the butt of the joke, and he has lots of other relationships in canon to draw from, so this dynamic between them doesn’t appeal to me.

Melissa being a quirkless kid like Deku is a great idea for the film, especially since she and David still find a way to help others. They’re a brighter image of the person Izuku could have been. 

Full Gauntlet is pretty cool

Everyone dresses up pretty! The movie suits/dresses are awesome and (almost) everyone looks great. Why Deku is wearing a baggy zoot-suity mess is beyond me, but hey, he sheds it pretty quickly so I’m not complaining. 

If by ‘female assassin’ you mean Beauty Queen. Jiro is gorgeous.

OK the plot ensues! Darn, I could’ve easily enjoyed a movie that was just everyone hanging out and goofing off...ah well, I still love what we got.

This villain does what neither Tomura nor All for One could ever do! Subdue All Might! My god he’s a criminal mastermind!

Deku wants to help, and everyone but Shoto basically piles on the bandwagon afterwards. “And me!” “And me!” “Me too!” “And Me” “Nobody cares Mineta.” I like how they bring up the Powers dilemma, since that’s a big deal in Season 3.

I was pretty impressed by the amount of level grinding our heroes had to do to make it to the top floor. 200 freaking floors, that’s impressive.

Todoroki saved Bakugo! Yay! BTW I love all the tactical planning stuff in this portion, and how lots of characters get to contribute.

10 little superheroes, trying to save the day. Two got lost and then there were eight.

8 little superheroes, escaping from the garden. One saved the others and then there were seven.

7 little superheroes running against the sea, four were trapped by robots and then there were three. (i don’t count mineta). 

Three little superheroes, reached the top and flew; one had to float them so then there were two. (she’s fine, Bakugo saved her. Save to win!)

Two little superheroes, faced with a gun. One fell out the window and then there was - never mind, she saved him, he’s fine.

That was fun. Anyway, to sum, the group gets split up as they work to get to the top, leaving only Deku and Melissa to reach the final boss dungeon. Highlights include the usual Kamijiro bantering, Todobaku making an awesome combat move, Uraraka standing against the coming onslaught of robots in a weirdly dramatic scene, and Reciproburst.

Dislikes include Kirishima being portrayed as not much use and kind of stupid (c’mon, he can do better than that!) and Uraraka not getting to kick any real ass other than floating Melissa and Deku. 

So we make it to Dramatic Plot Twist Tower and find out that David set up the whole thing. I joke, but I actually didn’t see this coming the first time around and was genuinely surprised. I also think it fits really well with the story they’re telling here: about trying to hold onto the past and forgetting to look to the future. I usually measure good plot twists in terms of how they change the story, characters and themes, and this one does.

On the other hand, Sam betraying him is just kind of silly. “Oh no, not...that guy!”

The villain being named Wolfram makes me wonder if there are any secret Buffyverse fans on Bones’ writing staff. With the next movie’s villain be named Hart?

I love how Melissa is a quirkless character who gets to save the day every bit as much as the powered ones. Also, Deku is freaking awesome in this scene, ngl. It has vibes of his fight with Muscular, that “pinned by an unstoppable wall” thing.

And this has vibes of Deku vs Overhaul trying to save Eri. OMG S4 IS GONNA KILL ME. Anyway Deku tries really really hard to save David Shield and does lots of cool leaps and gets beaten up while doing it, enough to earn some of Wolfram’s respect, but is unable to. Fortunately...

Watashi Ga Kita!

But then...duh duh duh! Wolfram has that power-enhancer-plot MacGuffin! Actually, it’s not a MacGuffin now, because now we the audience kind of care about it. It has weight, it’s significant. The characters care about it, but there’s more to it than just being an interchangeable object.

I LOVE how they animated the metal on this guy. That’s Metalbending. OMG. 

Class 1-A showing up and kicking ass as always. I just wanna quibble for a second with how this movie uses Howitzer Impact: a giant mind-blowing explosion in manga canon, a small underwhelming fizzle here.

DUH DUH DUH DRAMATIC PLOT TWIST. Again this one floored me the first time around. My jaw actually dropped when AFO’s theme started playing. Holy crap WHAH How what how. I’m not as excited about this plot twist, as it basically just happens for the sake of being shocking, but hey, that is clearly something AFO would do, and I like seeing him and hearing his theme here anyway, so who cares. Just roll with it!

And now, the reason this movie was made and the premise behind it. We never, in the canon of the manga, actually get to see All Might and Deku fight the same villain at the same time, so the movie I think was made for that purpose: DOUBLE DELAWARE DETROIT SMASH + YSR

OH YOU SAY RUN. You could soundtrack a scene of people sitting around staring at the wall and turn it into the most epic thing ever. I will never get tired of this beautiful, peerless, impossibly good composition. And this is honestly one of my favorite YSR scenes, because dayum, you can’t get much cooler than the Double DD smash. 

Visual storytelling here is on point. David Shield’s image of All Might turning into Deku is perfect.

We end on a sunrise, fittingly, and Long Hope Philia sountracked credits - with a small bit of depressing to end on, as we see David is probably gonna get arrested and All Might can’t do nothing about it.

Two Heroes is great. My quibbles with it are all minor. It’s the perfect first movie for BNHA; it is big and bombastic and action-packed, but more important, it gets what MHA is about at it’s core. BNHA is a story about the prior generation of heroes (and villains) passing the torch down to the next one. You know, like how teachers pass info onto their students in Academia. The movie gets that, and it delivers it with aplomb. It’s a great script, every scene and moment is necessary and everything happens in the right place and right order. It’s a thrill to watch, and I can’t even begin to imagine what insane stuff they’re gonna put in Movie #2 BKDK Boogaloo. Starting S3 tomorrow!

BKDK CORNER:

On a rewatch, I’m a little more OK with this scene, because Deku pretty quickly bucks up and takes the challenge - and he doesn’t exactly cower from Kacchan, Iida just gets in the way. I also love that gay sounding “Kacchan, people are watching!” line in the sub. 

All of Deku’s Love interests where white flowers on their fancy wear.

NGL this is my favorite part of the movie. That is the sweetest, softest, most endearing smile Bakugo has ever had, and Todoroki seeing it and smirking is just perfect. Baku is peak Tsundere in this scene.

RANKER: The Formal Wear

Girls:

4. Momo - I like the tiara, and the dress is kind of a nice color.

3. Melissa - pretty but a little birthday cake-y.

2. Ochaco - Very cute and well-tailored. The tights really sell it.

1. Jiro - unconventional is the winner of the day here.

Boys:

6. Izuku - Deku where the f did you get that suit? Take it off, please. Why is your taste in clothing so bad.

5. Kirishima - it’s ok, but a little generic.

4. Kaminari - the waiter look isn’t half bad on him

3. Iida - sharp dressed, of course. It looks nice!

2. Todoroki - perfectly handsome, and of course his suit is white.

1. Bakugo - that vest tho. damn. 

My rewatch AoS 1x11 to 1X15

I am very late for the rewatch so I thought I’d keep doing my rewatch review in blocks of five episodes (or whatever seems relevant). So here we go. With TAHITI, we're starting to get a glimpse of what the rest show is going to be since from that moment on. Except for Yes Men (who still gives an important moment information about May at the end) who really should have been in the first part of the season, every episode will be connected in a more or less big way to the main plot of the season. Like Yes Men who's completely independent or Seeds whose main plot doesn't seem linked until the end when we learn that Iain Quinn was linked to it, this first part of 1B makes the transition between the happy Bus days and the darker tone of the last seven episodes that will continue on in season two. So here's a few thoughts about separate episode: The Magical Place I absolutely love that first scene with the team working together perfectly, each using their own talent, it was perfect. Still love it when people call Fitz "sir" in season one, it's just so funny since he's so tiny 😄 May is really smart in that episode. Everyone did exactly as she had planned without even having to tell them (because she knew FitzSimmons and Ward would help Skye escape) and thus also remaining in Hand's good graces. Agent Skye mini May is adorable! But she really is as smart and ressourceful as May, she just needs to be trained in combat and badassness now! I know it's a very unpopular opinion but Raina annoys the crap out of me with her too sweet smiles and exaggeratedly sexy voice. I mean she's obviously really at getting in men's heads, including Coulson but I just find her… annoying. She gets more interesting after she turns, too bad she didn't last longer after that. Love the Coulson rescue mission, again that was some very good team work. And love the reunion scene, although I know at least Skye wanted a group hug. Love May's side smile and "Nice Jacket". "Bet there's no flower dresses where she's going!" "Amen to that, sister." Love that :D "Disengage bracelet" Coulson's dorkiness really is one of his most endearing traits. Seeds First of all, a big thank you for giving us enough FitzSimmons content for hundreds of FitzSimmons Academy Era fics. Love that FitzSimmons scene where they present each other's work mirroring the scene in the Pilot when they introduce each other, it's adorable. Also love the way their speech is so well rehearsed, it's perfectly flawing between them and I bet even that joke Fitz does was written on paper. "Potential can sometimes be dangerous…" Oh Fitz, you're going to remember that one quite bitterly in a few years. FitzSimmons are so proud of their Academy and being such stars there. I love their competition with Ward and Simmons' "Did you have one of these in ops? Did not think so." Yep, cannot imagine Ops having something so fun! SciTech would have definitely been more my kind of place (except for the fact that I didn't study science at all :p) "My room was just like that." We know it's a lie but it's cute, it's Fitz's slightly awkward way of trying to connect. We know he has trouble making first contact and it looks like he's also kind of thrilled of being someone's hero or even a father figure of sorts. Coulson saying "You're talking, it's weird" is the best. That's some pretty dangerous info we're getting on Skye. They really took their time giving us bits of information all through the first season to focus on it in season two. Love the little robot on the bar at the boiler room, never noticed that before, need to include it in a future fic, it's adorable! Too bad Donnie ended up as he did, he really wasn't a bad person and deserved a redemption arc. Again, May is such a freaking badass. And all this without a single superpower! T.R.A.C.K.S Although there will be some criticizing, keep in mind that this episode still remains one of my favorite episodes of the season and the show as a whole. Love the plot, the humor, the action, the different POVs and that's also some top notch drama at the end. So, first of all, the accents. Even I, a person who only some distant italian relatives, can tell that Ward's one is awful. But at least, he's not supposed to be Italian so that's understandable. But that conductor sounds like a mix between Mario and Jen speaking pretend Italian in IT Crowd (hilarious episode by the way, you should look it up if you haven't :D) Then, that train. You should read @valentinaonthemoon‘s post here about it if you haven't because she points out all that is wrong with the train and its route. But seriously, it's so weird. It's all too big and pretty. I have never seen a restaurant carriage with actual cute little wooden tables and chairs and actual room to walk between the table. And what the hell about the actual bed? I've taken a night train to Venice once, even first class wasn't close to looking like that! Anyway, now moving on to all the good parts. May is the definition of badass in this episode. First casually walking on a moving train and then taking of all the bad guys with the knife they stabbed her in the shoulder with. And I also love the little Philinda moment where she lets him help her but didn't let Ward. Love Fitz summing up every cliche Europeans have about Americans "They have some good shows. Lots of nice teeth." and "Someplace affordable with big portions." His pretend relationship and real friendship with Skye is very very sweet in this. I love all the teasing but also the way he insists she takes the gun and tells her to be careful. Jemma is, once again, very heroic in this. Once more, she takes the conscious decision to sacrifice herself for his friends and Fitz in particular. Of course, that grenade wouldn't have killed them but she didn't know that. So really, during the pod scene, when Fitz is faced with the reality that only one can hope to make it to the surface, his decision is easy. And I think it's not only because he loves her and couldn't bear to live without her anyway, but also because she did twice already and he thinks that's it's his turn now. He's just less lucky about the consequences it has on him. (And ironically, Ward provoked it instead of being here to save the day… but I digress). I love Fitz's reaction after Jemma falls. He doesn't run to her because he's stunned and frozen at the idea that she might be dead. His sigh of relief when Skye tells him she's alive is everything. And also the line about her little face is adorable, especially since I only learned recently that it was ad libed by Iain! I didn't remember how heartbreaking Skye was when she tries to call for help and has no voice left at all. For a moment, she must have thought she was going to die all alone in that scary dark room. I mean, I never was really worried because they weren't going to kill her off but still, that's gut wrenching :s But Jemma for the win though! She's not even a medical doctor and so many people are alive thanks to her! And well, of course, THAT HUG! I mean all of FitzSimmons hugs are wonderful but this one is just… I love how it parallels the one from 4x21 where they don't talk and he just has to reach for her shoulder for her to finally let go and cry in his arms. At first, she doesn't fully hug him because she's afraid of putting blood on him (which is very Jemma-like of her) but then she lets go and he doesn't need to say a thing because it's his presence that comforts her the most. Also, FZZT was the moment he realized his feelings had changed for the first time but this feels important too. This is the first of many hugs and the moment their relationship becomes more physical (not in the sexual sense of the word, just physical). As much as I like to imagine they spent their Academy days falling asleep in the same bed every week, I feel like until now, their friendship was very intellectual with only quick very tame physical displays of affection like the touch of a hand or shoulder. Even that kiss on the cheek seemed something wild in the way he reacted and she hesitated before doing it. After that, we'll see more hugs and more daring touches, culminating into the pod scene. (and then regressing and slowly progressing again in season two B and and three) Because being on the field had taught them how hard things could be and they're like each other comfort blanket for a time, thus the need to be physically closer. T.A.H.I.T.I I love how FitzSimmons are sitting so close together on that couch. I think they both need the comfort of each other's presence because they are the only constant in their ever changing world. They really should have let Ward blame himself here. The way May beat the crap out of Iain Quinn was very satisfying. Love Coulson's progression about Tahiti. "Turned out not so magical" and in the next episode it'll be "It sucked". Well, at least he got to see the real, beautiful Tahiti 😞 Awww Trip. I didn't like him all that much the first time. I mean I found him okay and all but only on the second rewatch that I grew to like him. Other than the fact that he could actually get "Witches weekly's most charming award", he really is just a genuine nice, easy going, good guy. Too bad it made him the perfect candidate for shock value death 😞 Love, love, love that scene with FitzSimmons looking through the files. It's stunning and blue light definitely suits Fitz. I also love him during the mission. We know he's kind of scared and he still doesn't like being on the field but he's brave and funny and adorable. "Not afraid, not yet…" "To certain horrible death? Absolutely" Classical sassy Fitz! One thing that had always bothered me during this mission: Couldn't they use non lethal weaponry to "attack" the base. I mean they're protecting a shady secret but they're still (mostly) agents of SHIELD. And they'd been left to die and be buried under all that rock. I get that Coulson wanted the truth and to save Skye but still … I absolutely love the way they decided to handle the Kree reveal. Make Coulson look terrified and let us imagine all the most horrible things and then only in the end the horrible mutilated corpse. Feels a lot like what Hydra did to Skye's mother by the way and very, very evil :s Yes Men I enjoyed this one more than I thought I would despite it not being the strongest episode and it has a lot to do with Sif being a badass. So, first of all, with all the super advanced technology they have, would an Asgardian really be impressed by a bike?!! Skye saying: "I must look awful". Honestly, makeup department guys? They did a really good job when she was close to death but now she doesn't even look a little pale. She doesn't a little circle under eyes and doesn't even look tired at all. And look at her hair! That's not the hair of someone who had been forbidden to leave her bed for days! Fury is already missing, it's getting serious! Sif is so freaking badass and really aces the super hero landing! Also, she's so extra, like she casually throws a car to provide cover. I love her connection with May and I would totally watch a spin off of them kicking ass together. I like the phrase about people being dangerous when they are controlled and how it's another hint at May's backstory. Okay, so I love Sif throwing a car during the fight scene and I love Coulson calling Sif "your ladyship" but seriously, didn't SHIELD have enough women fighters? Honestly! Jemma is totally right about being mad at Coulson about wanting to know more about GH325. Coulson has a good reason for keeping it in house but he should just tell them for god's sake! At this point, we can see that he's still struggling between the whole following the rules and doing things his way because he no longer trusts SHIELD completely. "Ward is not the man you knew. He will not hesitate to kill you." "He might try but he wont." Yep, yep, yep, you don't know how right you were, May! "Because yes, I am that good!" Fitz was cocky and cute there but really not that wasn't a smart move telling Coulson about Lorelei without knowing if he'd been swayed as well. Libido does take a bit of his genius away :p "He's always getting knocked out, isn't he?" Mmmhhh … okay but how freakishly strong is Coulson if he can knock him out with only one punch? "You were saying?" Honestly, they should have copied that collar to use for all the villains and their long boring speeches. And finally dun, dun, dun! They really did a good job making us paranoid and making us think May could be the villain.

Getting back into the old Buffy rewatch. For the record, these are probably gonna be sporadic as I gotta kinda sit down and watch and type scene by scene, but I like doing them, so I’m gonna keep going with it. This episode, which in most shows would be really fillery, I’m gonna cover cause it has one of the most iconic speeches in the whole show, the big Lie to Me spiel from Giles. This episode also deals with some heavy themes and interesting developments for Buffy, and I’m always about that good character stuff for my best girl

So here we go with Season 2, Episode 7: Lie to Me

And we’re starting in a creepy playground. Promising. Drusilla’s here, trying to eat a kid. Like I’m amazed no other vampires have already gotten here. Kid this is Sunnydale, the fuck are you doing? Luckily Angel shows up and scares the kid off (probably to go get eaten by a sludge monster off screen, this is fucking Sunnydale don’t leave your kids unsupervised) He and Drusilla have a weird moment where she clearly knows her and remembers things about her mother. It’s because of this history that he tells her to take Spike and go, but Dru knows Angel won’t actually hurt her. She tells him how she knows he’s fallen for Buffy just as Buffy shows up on a conveniently close roof to watch them get a little too close for comfort and then OPENING CREDITS

To school we go where we find Jenny Calendar and Giles talking about the surprise date Jenny’s planning for them. It’s flirty and cute and I’m sure nothing will mess up this relationship in the very next episode (remember kids, if you’re happy Joss Whedon hates your guts and wants you dead) Sad Buffy is here and she and Giles start talking shop. Giles encourages her to take the night off to go be with her vampire boo (which is sweet, thanks new dad) but Buffy’s a little iffy on that. Next we go to Cordelia being precious in a class where Buffy and Willow are passing notes about the girl she saw Angel with the night before. They leave the class and start talking about it as Xander gets there and immediately wants to know about Angel possibly doing bad things

Okay like, I get that this is supposed to be funny or endearing or whatever, but it just comes off amazingly creepy that Xander “has a happy” when he hears about Buffy’s current boyfriend doing something wrong, cause that means he might have a chance with her. This is beyond ‘cute funny crush’ territory, it’s just obnoxious, why do they hang out with Xander, like ever

ANYWAY

It’s time for the main plot of the episode to start, so here comes Ford, Buffy’s old friend and former crush from her last school, who’s apparently transferred to Sunnydale for his senior year. And oh man, another guy who Buffy knows and is talking to, here comes JEALOUS XANDER TO THE RESCUE. And isn’t that just super endearing. Buffy and Ford explain how they know each other and Buffy’s clearly super thrilled to see him (which doesn’t stop Xander from being a complete and utter tool the entire time, of course it doesn’t, nothing can stop him, literally nothing) Buffy invites him to the Bronze with them that night and takes Ford off to the admissions office in time for Xander to be super gross

Cut to the Bronze where Scoobies + Ford are playing pool and swapping stories. Xander’s still just feeling extra dickish this episode (when is he not) and Buffy goes to get a soda, only to find Angel conveniently brooding by the counter. Across the room, Willow and Xander tell Ford a bit about Angel, how he’s dating Buffy and is older than her (with all the times this comes up it’s really, really rare that it’s mentioned that the age difference is a little sketch, but hey, vampire love story, what’cha gonna do?) When asked, Angel says he stayed in last night and Buffy knows he’s a giant liar face, so she goes back over to Ford and after a very awkward introduction with him and Angel, Buffy pulls Ford out of the club to take a walk, where they talk a little about Angel before Buffy spots a vamp and tries to distract Ford... but that doesn’t quite go as planned and he follows after her (hello ominous music what are you doing here) and gets a full view of the stakeage, which doesn’t seem to surprise him at all. He tells her that he already knows she’s the slayer

We go to Willow and Buffy talking on the phone about the situation and how it’s kind of a relief for Buffy honestly. Meanwhile, Ford heads into the creepiest warehouse possible where there’s a club of people dressed like vampires hanging out and listening to intense music. Ford seems to be sort of in charge here and pops some pills as he promises that soon they will have the chance to ‘die young and stay pretty’. If you didn’t get that Ford is creepy yet, we then see him mouth the difficult to hear speech of a vampire creep in a movie that’s playing in the background of the club

Back to Willow, who gets a knock at the door as Angel arrives to ask her for help. After a little awkwardness (which is super precious, I honestly wish these two had more scenes together, they’re both very much comedic actors who play off each other so well) she invites him in. He asks her to track down information on Ford, which... kinda gives Willow pause and she asks if he’s jealous. Angel admits that he kinda is, cause Buffy is the one shining light in his guilt hole of misery, but he’s still pretty sure there’s something off about Ford. Willow immediately finds something, checking the records and finding that Ford doesn’t actually go to their school. Before she can do more, she has to shove Angel out of the room as her mom calls up to her, and she promises to find more info for him later. He asks her not to tell Buffy

And we very soon see at school the next day that Willow is terrible at lying to Buffy and is instantly a nervous wreck as soon as she sees her, very quickly making an excuse to leave. Giles arrives to give Buffy info so she can contact him that night in case something goes wrong. He’s vaguely concerned when Ford already knows about the vampire situation, but Buffy explains she didn’t tell him, he somehow just already knew (which no one finds suspicious. at all) That night, Buffy takes Ford on a tour of Sunnydale and they spot two vampires heading into the school. She gives him a cross as she leads the way in. They get separated when one of the vamps tackles Buffy over the railing. Ford manages to subdue the other and makes some kind of deal with her we don’t see the end of. Buffy handles her vamp easy and finds Ford alone, saying he dealt with the other one

Meanwhile Xander, Willow, and Angel check out a lead that takes them to the creepy vampire fanclub warehouse. All of them are immediately weirded out, cause they actually live in Sunnydale. They get approached by a groupie, who tries to talk to them about the ‘lonely ones’ (which is like a cool name for vampires or some kinda creepy supernatural species, but not here. all vamps are assholes here. Yes even Angel. Sometimes especially Angel) Angel comes over to shut her down and she goes all tumblr on him saying that he doesn’t get to say who’s valid and leaves. Angel says they should get out cause he knows this type, vampire fans who are really, really upset Twillight won’t be out for a few more years. But that doesn’t explain why Ford is there, so now they definitely know something’s up with him

Back at the library, Buffy’s called in Giles and Jenny, and finds that she pulled them away from their date at a Monster Truck rally, cause Jenny thought it would be a good change for him. Oh Jenny, honey no, you’re trying but... no, no, no. Buffy gets things back on track to talk about the vampires near the school. She already sent Ford home and as she’s mentioning the vamp he took out, she spots a familiar picture in a book: the girl Angel was with the other night. DUN DUN DUNNNNN. Turns out that’s Drusilla, who Giles says is Spike’s lover who was thought to be killed in Prague (idk where that info is coming from, but I’m guessing the Watcher’s Council??? God, they just suck at everything, can’t even keep track of which vamps got dusted) but surprise! She’s... okay well not alive, but not dust, you get the picture. As Giles goes to look for more books on the matter (Oh Giles, don’t ever change) he runs right into a vampire, who literally no one noticed was just rifling through his office this whole time I guess. The vamp makes off with a book and Giles is very offended, but Buffy points out the more pressing point that Ford said he killed that vampire

We go to Dru, trying to get her dead bird to sing to her as Spike enters to ask abut her trip outside the other night. She doesn’t give him much of an answer, even when he brings up Angel, but she’s more about the bird until he tells her a little sharply that it’s dead cause she didn’t feed it, just like the last one. Dru gets all sad and pouty so Spike gets sweet again cause he crumbles when his lady love is sad. He apologizes and offers to get her a new bird just as Ford??? walks right through the front doors???? Spike wonders aloud if he has security here (apparently not, they just don’t make good vampire help like they used to) Te vamp from the library shows up with the book as Ford makes an offer, trying to talk Spike into the typical villain “you have 30 seconds to live/talk” thing. At Dru’s prompting, he reluctantly does the thing and Ford explains he wants to be a vampire. Spike’s hesitant cause he doesn’t really like Ford (not his type, he likes his men taller and more broody) but Ford offers a trade, him getting all bitey for the slayer

And that brings us to Buffy’s place as Angel arrives to tell her Ford isn’t what he seems. GASP Nooooo really? Who could have guessed???  Anyway, Angel tells her the deal about the creepy vampire place and how he and Xander and Willow have all been talking behind her back about this (definitely not for the first time showing in some ways, Buffy is still on her own, and her friends will other her when they need to) She’s mostly not happy about the behind the back going and demands to know about Drusilla. Before he tells her, Angel asks if she loves him (not out of the blue or manipulative at all) Buffy says she does and still wants to know. Angel tells her Drusilla was the worst thing he ever did. Before he turned her, she was a pure, sweet girl (troubled by visions although I think that comes up more when this story is revisiting in Angel: the series) and Angel drove her insane, killing her family and eventually driving her into a convent before he finally turned her. Buffy’s clearly a little sorry she asked, but they gotta get back to the present and Ford, cause they still don’t know what his fucking deal is

This brings us to one of the creepier brightly lit scenes of the series thus far, where Ford encounters Buffy at the school and asks if she wants to come out again with him that night. The camera angles are all spinning and super ominous and it’s actually shot in a really interesting way that I’d get way more into if I was a different kind of film nerd. But I’m not, so we go into the school where Buffy runs into Willow and Xander, who she’s not super happy with, who ask if she knows what’s up, she does and is still (understandably) upset and leaves. Xander can only think about the fact that Angel was in Willow’s room, showing that he’s not just concerned about the guys Buffy dates, but in any woman he’s remotely connected to showing any interest in any other guy

Moving on we go to Ford and his creepy crew, who are super jazzed about the lonely ones coming to bless them. None of these fuckos would make it ten seconds in the rest of Sunnydale, how are they alive in this bunker. But before the vamps can show, Buffy gets there first and Ford subtly signals to have the door shut behind her. Buffy is not pleased especially with Ford’s excuse of ‘everybody lies’ and tries to convince him and everyone else that they’re being stupid and that vampires are picky about who they turn... until she realizes what he was up to and that he was going to give them her (this realization goes fast cause we’re running short on screen time and need to move things along) Ford admits to it as Buffy realizes she’s been trapped in the bunker with them, the door’s rigged so it can only open from the outside and the vampires are on there way as soon as the sun sets. Buffy looks for another way out, but there isn’t one. She tries to talk Ford into letting the others go, but they’re real dumb and won’t listen

Brief scene of Spike getting his forces ready and bringing Dru along. Back in the bunker, Buffy tries the door again, conveniently getting her and Ford up onto this separate upper platform thing for serious talks. Ford admits that the others are probably just gonna be snacked on and won’t get changed (here he crosses the moral event horizon) but he’s cool with it because he will deffs get changed. Buffy tries to explain to him that being a vampire isn’t as glamorous as he thinks and that it basically just makes your body host to a demon (okay tbh for all the focus on vampires and souls here, the show could really do a lot more with it, but that’s another post for another time) Ford then dramatically admits that he’s already dying

And honestly, Ford is a good tragic villain and sometimes I wish they had done more than just a single episode with him, largely because of his connection to Buffy and her past and what that could mean for her as a character, but alas, this is a Joss Whedon show where he only pretends to give a shit about his female characters. Like shit the actor plays this scene really well and it’s a super interesting idea to explore with how the supernatural could fix common problems, but at a cost, and Buffy is super heavily impacted by it, but nah, not gonna make this a long running thing, why bother

ANYWAY Buffy takes a second to compose herself and then tells Ford that she’s sorry for what he’s going through, but he’s still a shit and even dealing with his health issues doesn’t make what he’s doing okay (cool motive still murder.gif) What solidifies Ford’s shittiness is that he calls the other people sheep, just doing the vampire stuff for kicks and giggles, but he doesn’t have a choice. Buffy disagrees, saying that yeah, the hand he’s been dealt is a terrible one, but that doesn’t justify what he’s doing now.

And like, okay, for all btvs’s flaws, it very much hammers in an ‘ends don’t justify the means’ message, which is honestly super cool, and I wish more shows would do that now. For the most part (and there are definitely exceptions to this, which I will cover when they come up) when people screw up in Buffy, there are consequences, and they can be fucking harsh

God, okay, this moment with Ford and Buffy up here is so good, someone yell at me later to write more about it

Ford somehow managed to knock out Buffy???????????? right as the vamps get there. Okay sure, fine. The vamps start eating everyone  (surprise, surprise) and Buffy spots Dru, who’s away from everyone just being weird and obvious in her glowing white dress. Buffy holds a stake to Dru’s chest and threatens Spike, who calls for everyone to stop. Following Buffy’s demands, he lets all the groupies go. The groupies wise up and run and Buffy gets Spike to back off enough for her to throw Dru at him and have time to escape, the door shutting behind her, trapping the vamps... and Ford

Buffy gets out right as the Scoobies arrive. She says they should go, cause the vamps are gonna get free eventually, but the have to come back... for Ford’s body. Back in the bunker, we see the vamps trapped and Spike admitting that Ford did in fact give them Buffy. We don’t get to see exactly what went down and in the next scene, Buffy’s walking into the bunker and she finds Ford’s body, unsure whether or not he’s been turned

Sometime between this scene and the last, there’s been a funeral and Ford has been buried (vamps are very patient and only wait till the most dramatic moment to rise, clearly) So we go to Buffy and Giles in a graveyard where Buffy puts flowers on Ford’s grave. They talk about how Buffy wishes this could be easy if she could just hate him and how she thinks Ford wanted to be the villain, but he was really just scared. She talks about how nothing is ever simple anymore and how she doesn’t know who to trust and it’s all just so confusing. Giles says that’s just part of growing up and Buffy asks if it ever gets easy. Vampire Ford pops out of the grave and Buffy stakes him without thinking

Giles repeats her question and asks what she wants him to say and Buffy says the show title “Lie to me” And here comes that iconic speech

“Yes, it’s terribly simple, Good guys are always stalwart and true Bad guys always distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats We always defeat them and save the day No one ever dies And everybody lives happily ever after”

And Buffy calls him a liar as we go to credits

FINAL THOUGHTS: Okay, there is... a looooot to unpack in this episode. You could write entire essays on it, and I’m sure people have. But the main thing is that morals are complicated and Buffy doesn’t know how to deal with it all the time, but she does her best. This is a really, really solid episode and definitely worth some analysis.

Next up, Season 2, Episode 8: The Dark Times (only cause Ethan Rayne is here and I love him)

Trailer Breakdown

I rewatched the trailer again (okay, many times) and was able to piece a few things together based on clothing. I’ll be attempting to give a general timeline of sorts, which I’ll break up by “groups” for lack of a better term, but certain events within those groups may happen in a different order than presented since I don’t have enough information to figure everything out. Yes, I actually took the time to do this because somehow this goddamn show has given me straight up anxiety. 

Group One 

First, we have what seems like Dennis introducing the gang to his son. Note that Dennis is wearing a white crossed shirt, Mac the Salty Dog tee, Charlie a grey hoodie over a brown shirt, Frank a blue top, and I’m not too sure with Dee but it looks like a dark green or maybe black shirt. The baby momma is wearing a floral top and the baby a green and grey striped shirt. 

Now, I’m not sure if this would be the opening scene or not, but Dennis would have to introduce his new “family” before many of the other events seen in the trailer(s) could occur. It’s also possible the second screenshot is Dennis delivering the news that he has a kid, and the first occurs afterward when the baby momma and son arrive. Based on outfits, these are the following things that must happen within that same day:

More under the cut (this is long as hell, FYI):

1. This conversation in the back room. Maybe this is when Dennis first drops the news that he has a son and he and his baby momma were on their way. Or, maybe the gang has a group huddle after meeting the mom to debrief or perhaps give their suggestions on how to deal with the situation. Given that the synopsis says that Dennis has to choose which life he wants to live, maybe the mother is giving him some kind of ultimatum---move closer and be with your son, or don’t see him at all. I also don’t know what the ultimate goal is here: does Dennis want to see his son but not under the confines of her stipulations or does he want completely out of his fatherhood duties? Either way, we know the gang is scheming this episode. I’m not sure how offering the mother payment for sex or Mac and Dennis pretending to be a couple resolves any of these issues lmao, but maybe 1) Frank’s plan is meant to “pay her off” essentially so that she’ll back off and maybe 2) Mac’s is either to make her feel guilty for making Dennis leave or to make it clear she can’t just barge in and be with Dennis because he’s already Taken™. Overall I’m not exactly sure what’s going on in this scene, but it must happen around the same time that they meet the baby momma since they’re still in the bar. 

2. Mac’s “surprise” in his and Dennis’ old apartment. Many (including myself) have speculated that the refurbished/rebuilt apartment is the surprise itself, but I guess it’s possible there’s something inside. The apartment could be part of the ruse to fool the baby momma for whatever reason they think pretending to be a couple will work, or maybe it’s just Mac giving yet another heartfelt surprise to Dennis. It’s unclear whether or not Dennis and Mac are alone at this point or if anyone else is with them. However, baby momma shows up there as well:

3. The “Mac is actually my---” “Lover” lines. I'm interested to see if they discussed the plan beforehand, or if that was just an ad-lib (and wishful thinking) from Mac that they end up going with. Not essential to the plot, but Dennis does seem a bit nervous with his hand wringing...

...which 4. leads me to this cursed screenshot. There was no sound (Dee had a random voiceover) so I have no idea what they’re discussing. It does seem like they’re in their old apartment:you can see the greenish-beige walls and the door behind Dennis looks like it could be the apartment’s front door. Perhaps this is what happens after Mac reveals his “surprise.” Maybe it happens after the baby momma leaves the apartment, or maybe she’s in the bathroom or something. Either way, it seems like this is a private conversation between Mac and Dennis. For me, the jury’s out on the nature of this conversation--the clip is just way too short. Dennis does seem kind of nervous and emotional, so perhaps this is a special Feelings moment. On the other hand, it is a short clip and we can’t take away much from a second of expression, so maybe they’re just discussing the plan. Also, Mac has his hands up. I can’t really tell if he’s just fiddling with them or if he’s holding something. 

Group Two 

Starting off our second group, we have Dee in her pajamas eating popcorn on her couch. You can see she’s wearing striped pajama bottoms and a black tank top. Note the pillow is on the left side and the blanket is over the back of the couch. Her hair seems nice and styled. All of this suggests this occurs before she goes to bed. Also, in the trailer she cries “no no no!” to someone...perhaps the baby?

The baby does seem to be around her apartment at the same time because here’s the first batch of what must happen in the same group:

1. “I’m gonna smash it!” You can see here that Dee’s PJ’s are the same, except now she’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt. I can’t tell if it’s something she put over the tank or a new shirt altogether. I don’t know it that’s relevant either (could it mean these are two separate instances of her wearing those bottoms?). Note that in the window it’s clearly day outside and Dee seems disheveled and grumpy, suggesting this occurs after waking up the following morning from whatever was going on in the popcorn scene. It’s possible the popcorn scene occurs in the same night as Group One, but by morning it’s definitely a new day that must take place after Group One since the baby is there.

2. Baby on the carpet. He’s wearing the same outfit that he has on with Dee, so this must be the same day as well. Does anyone know if this is Dee’s apartment? It seems like it. We also see three pairs of men’s feet behind him. Is the entire gang here at this point? Not enough info to tell, but possibly.

3. Dee’s grossed out/disgruntled look. I’m going to guess this actually happens before she does the “I’m gonna smash it!” to the baby. Why? It seems like she may have just woken up, and the blanket is still pretty much around her. When she has the baby, she stands up and the blanket falls off. It’s possible she sits back down afterward, maybe to talk to Frank, Charlie, Dennis, and Mac if they’re there too as evidenced by the shoes in the last picture. If this is when she first gets up, what causes her to wake up and seem so freaked out? 

3. Sleeping Charlie. In this scene, the pillows are on the opposite side where they’re found after Dee wakes up. She appears to be wearing the same outfit as when she gets up too, and you can see Charlie is under the blanket as he sleeps next to her. Maybe this occurs during the night, or maybe it’s what causes her to wake up the following morning. It seems that there are two possibilities here: either a) she’s shocked because wasn’t planning on Charlie being there or b) he’s doing something in his sleep that’s freaking her out. Which brings me to...

4. The Waitress. As many have speculated, could it be possible that this scene is just a dream of Charlie’s? Maybe Dee overhears him sleep talking about banging the waitress and is thoroughly grossed out (and maybe even a little jealous?) which causes her grumpy morning fit. It’s also possible this really does happen in the episode, but given that there’s no other information to go on I’m going to leave it here in this group. 

To summarize, it seems like Dee is in her apartment, possibly watching the baby. Charlie shows up at some point and they may or may not agree to sleep together on the couch. The next morning Dee seems annoyed, both with Charlie sleeping next to her and with the baby. That brings up my next question---why is Dee sleeping on her couch and why would Charlie even squish next to her? Old Black Man aside, who the hell is taking up space in her own bed? 

Since we know she’s watching the baby, maybe the baby and the baby momma are staying with Dee. She let them have the bed or the baby momma insisted on it (Dee doesn’t seem very happy to be sleeping on the couch). Whoever is in the bed doesn’t seem to be someone Charlie would feel comfortable crashing with either, so I doubt it’s Frank or even Mac and Dennis. 

Speaking of Mac and Dennis...do they sleep at their “new” old apartment while the baby momma stays with Dee? The only way I see Mac and Dennis staying in Dee’s room and Dee not feeling comfortable sleeping with them (since she does every night) is if they were Getting It On. But would that actually happen this episode? And why wouldn’t they just go back to their “new” private apartment if they wanted to have sex? What is Charlie even doing sleeping at Dee’s apartment when he has his own? Does it have to do with the Waitress if that was real? Where is Frank? So many questions. 

Group Three

This brings me to the final, most confusing group. Group Three. 

Here Dennis gives his melodramatic “Goodbye Philadelphia” speech to the gang. Note that Dennis is wearing a dark blue button down, Mac the Corner Store tee, Charlie his green jacket over a black shirt, Dee a white top, and Frank a dark blue v-neck. The bar goes black and when Dennis flips off the light here, so I’m assuming that it’s nighttime. 

So what else must happen in this Group? 

1. Charlie and Dee in Dee’s apartment. Dee and Charlie are wearing the same clothes and Dennis’ above speech, so it must happen within the same day. In fact, this scene (and therefore all scenes where they’re wearing these clothes) must happen after the previous groups. Why? Well for starters scroll up and look at what shirt Charlie is wearing when Dee wakes up. Yep, this one. Not the one from the day before when they meet the baby momma. This must happen before the Dennis scene since it’s daylight outside.

2. Charlie in trouble. He’s wearing his green jacket. I can’t tell whose apartment this is---is it Dee’s? Maybe this is when he barges in and then Dee lets him crash there. Perhaps he does sleep with the Waitress, something goes wrong, and he needs Dee’s help? So perhaps this is technically part of the popcorn scene, and Charlie just wears the same outfit the next day? It seems dark, so it could be either a) popcorn scene or b) later in the following day before Dennis’ goodbye.

3. The van. Notice that Frank, Charlie, and Dee (in the back) are all wearing the same clothing as the Dennis goodbye, so it must happen on the same day. This also must occur before the Dennis goodbye because it’s daytime. 

3. The “Decent Proposal.” Now here’s where things start getting interesting. As you can see, both Frank and Mac are wearing the same exact shirts they are in the Dennis goodbye scene. Dennis, however, is wearing a light blue button down. The baby momma is wearing a black floral tank top. Hmm...when else do Dennis and baby momma wear those clothes? Oh yeah...

4. The gunshot. This most likely happens after the date/proposal given that Dennis doesn’t have a giant blood stain on his shirt in the restaurant. That also tells us the date took place sometime during the day, so before the Dennis Goodbye. Is Dennis really shot here? Who shot him? Is it another ruse? One thing that’s interesting is that this looks like the back alley behind the restaurant or something. Frank kind of looks like he’s jumping into some back alley cemented area in the van screenshot too---maybe those scenes are related? 

So does Dennis die here? I’m going to say no right now. He’ll be just fine. Either it’s fake or the wound doesn’t kill him. Why? Because this must have taken place before Dennis’ nighttime speech, where we see him wearing a different shirt even though the rest of the gang are in the same outfits. Maybe he changed because his shirt was bloody. We also see him in that shirt here:

In this quick scene it seems like Dennis is confused or maybe even surprised by something, and turns toward the RPG to look at it. This is definitely the same timeframe he gives his melodramatic goodbye, but there’s no way to know if this is before or after he gives it. This look could either suggest a) blowing up the range rover is his idea or b) this is him finding out what happened to his car. Either way, we know it goes up in flames...

5...and the gang seems pretty happy about it. They have the same outfits on as the Dennis goodbye, it’s nighttime out, and Dennis isn’t there. They don’t seem upset at all. I’m going to guess either a) this happens before Dennis arrives or the most likely option b) after Dennis leaves. I’m going to speculate on the latter since it seems more logical. 

Maybe Dennis does decide to leave Philadephia (either to go to ND to be with the baby or into hiding to fake his death or something), which makes sense with his little speech. The gang seems to be in on it and has already accepted that he’s going to leave. Before he does, though, either Dennis himself or someone in the gang suggests blowing up his rover. Maybe Dennis even gives Mac the blessing to do it...because maybe if someone’s going to destroy his most prized possession (besides maybe the RPG itself) it’s going to be someone special to him? Or, maybe he leaves and the gang is pissed, and blow up the rover to spite him. OR, maybe Dennis is there....just not seen on screen? Maybe he couldn’t witness his car being blown to smithereens?

Well, there you have it. Pretty much every screenshot from the promos. I’m sure there’s some stuff they haven’t shown us at all that could flip all of this on its head, but from what I see this is the general timeline:

Dennis tells the gang he has a son. Baby momma and kid show up. 

Dennis and Mac go to their old apartment. Baby momma shows up there and they pretend to be a couple.

Dee has a strange slumber party fiasco with the baby and Charlie?

The next day Dennis, Mac, Frank and Baby momma go to lunch. Something happens and Dennis gets shot (or stabbed) by someone, whether real or fake.

Later that day Dennis changes his shirt but everyone else is in the same clothes. Dennis makes a speech about leaving. The gang minus Dennis blows up the range rover.

Feel free to add your own thoughts or correct me if I’m totally offbase---most of this was me speculating as I went along. Again, this could totally end up being incorrect if there’s a lot missing from the previews. Just some food for thought to help those (like me) who are thirsty for some answers. 

Ye Olde TFP Reaction Poste

“A Gift to Friends and Hate-Readers Alike”

I promised I’d do this post this weekend, so I am. But fair warning that this is going to be much more about me than about the actual episode.

It will also be at least 2/3 longer than it should’ve been.

I think some people are assuming they know what my reaction to that episode was. That I’m really upset or hate the show now or something. But that’s not true. My primary feeling is exactly the one I said it was a week ago: I feel tired. I am tired.

To give a little bit of context, I decided pre-TFP sp0iler lockdown time was a good chance to update my About page. So I did.

I hadn’t looked at the page in a long time (hence the update), but here’s what it said at the top:

This is the blog I write about the BBC/PBS television drama Sherlock when I am half-asleep. (WHY IS THAT ALWAYS STILL TRUE EVERY TIME I UPDATE THIS PAGE?)

I realized that was still true. Yet again. Which is why it’s still on the page.

So to be perfectly, 100% clear, I was tired going into this thing.

And I knew it. Which is why I was really hopeful about the show finally wrapping some things up--or beginning to move toward wrapping things up--in episode 3 like the writers implied on multiple occasions.

I like it a lot here, and I don’t regret anything about having this as a hobby. But I do also have other skills and commitments and interests that I don’t discuss here since this is a single-topic blog. Plotlines maybe kinda sorta starting to get wrapped up felt like a great opportunity for some mental crop rotation, if you get what I mean.

That’s not to say I was going to pack it in and leave fandom. I wasn’t then, and I’m not now.

But, like... I’ve been here doing this on Tumblr for 5 years. I’ve had a few gaps, sure, but I’ve been more consistently posting about Sherlock and only Sherlock than just about anyone reading this during that time. (Don’t yell, I said almost anyone.) It’s healthy to change things up sometimes. Or to borrow a creepier turn of phrase... “If Tumblr fandom is a balance sheet--well, I believe I’m in credit!”

So I was ready to see the big “story we’ve been telling from the beginning. A story about to reach its climax” whatever-it-was and then take that opportunity to free up a little space in my brain attic.

And then I actually watched The Final Problem.

Did I hate the episode?

No.

But it takes a lot to get me to hate something fictional. (This is also covered on my About page.)

You know that saying, though? “The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.” It’s more like that.

TFP is a giant bowl of indifference stew for me.

And I say that while allowing--as I always, always have--that this story belongs to the writers and they get to do whatever they want with it. This is not the first, “well, that’s not how I would’ve done it” moment for me, either. If I ragequit every time that happened, I wouldn’t have even made it to The Great Game.

I also say that knowing full well many people LOVE the things I am indifferent to about this episode. And if you got just what you wanted here, I am genuinely happy for you! That’s great! That’s a rare thing in fandom life. Enjoy it. (Enjoy it the way I enjoy canon Holmes retiring alone with bees, which I think is fantastic and makes all the sense even though I’m aware almost everyone else here thinks it’s a terrible tragedy.)

But with those disclaimers in place, here is an incomplete list of stuff I am very, very indifferent to:

A secret third Holmes sibling

A single childhood trauma being the primary driver for a complex adult’s personality

Redbeard being anything other than a sweet doggy

Angst in general

Kids getting murdered

Whatever was being expressed about mental illness

Mind control

Random characters dying a whole lot so that main characters can avoid any real damage

Jim Moriarty secretly being anyone else’s pawn the whole time

Big solves coming out of info that was mostly hidden from the audience

Having Sherlock and John in 221B forever with nothing ever changing (I was ready for them to blow something up this series if they needed to, or barely escape blowing it up if they wanted to, but I didn’t expect the result to be “blow it up but put everything back exactly how it was.” I mean, I can appreciate the possible canon reference there to the magically non-harmful fire in the original story, but this ended up a little on the nose with the voiceover and everything.)

Horror movie format

The horror movie thing is probably the closest to an actual “nope” there. It may sound weird since I’m obviously cool with watching murder mysteries, but horror typically doesn’t sit well with me and that aspect alone will make it harder to rewatch the episode and therefore less fun. (Again, I only say this for me. Personally. There is nothing wrong with anyone else being into horror. You do you.)

I could maybe have talked myself into getting on board with the “oh, this is all about what Sherlock would’ve been like if he didn’t have a friend” analysis angle, but then I think about how Sherlock did have a friend and that friend was murdered and how Mycroft (allegedly) doesn’t have friends and is not murdering anyone (and in fact is less murdery than previously anticipated) and end up annoyed about how there’s no real control group and what a badly designed experiment this was. So that doesn’t really help.

It’s definitely not a shipping issue for me, because I don’t ship anything in this show and never have.

And it’s not really a characterization issue because I am a canon-reading Doylist and have long-since become used to not giving a crap about that. (The exception being if characterization is an intentional clue in a mystery, but we’ll come back to that eventually. Maybe.)

And it’s not really about my theories being wrong because--and I know, I KNOW this will sound like such an asshole thing to say, but there’s no way around saying it--technically they aren’t wrong yet. Sure, maybe specific theories I had about this episode that I came up with in the week before it were wrong, but not the ones I really care about that I’ve had for up to 5 years. I mean, you are totally free to interpret this episode as proving me completely wrong about everything. That’s fine. But, for example, saying “Jim recorded some video clips for Eurus” is not actually disproving my theory about what was going on with the “Miss me?” messages. They certainly seemed to want to lead viewers to assume that, but then why not just come out and say it if that’s the answer? Why be coy? (Especially when they’ve left contradicting clues in other episodes of this very series.)

This is where we get to the true heart of the matter. And the part where it becomes even more relevant that I’m tired.

Because they’ve done this to me before. Magically skipped through and managed to neither prove nor disprove any of the theories I’ve been waiting for resolution on. So on the one hand, I probably shouldn’t be surprised.

Which makes it all the more exhausting that the honest truth is...

Deep down...

I still think they’re going somewhere with this.

AND I GET IT, now a bunch of you are looking at me like I’m

Zoidberg: Amy, take off these rubber bands and I'll show you how normal I am! Amy: Fool me seven times, shame on you. Fool me eight or more times, shame on me.

Which is probably fair enough, because that’s how I feel, too.

But the rarely-pure-and-never-simple truth is I think there’s more to all of this plotwise than it seemed like there was. The same pieces of the mystery I cared about are still open. It’s not so much that I hope that’s the case, because again--I was really and truly looking forward to the freedom that would come from being either definitively right or wrong.

The reason I nicknamed this episode The Patience Grenade is because that’s how it felt. Like they were trying to blow up my patience.

Wait for answers? Don’t get answers. But get just enough hints that you walk away believing there still might be answers coming. At some indefinite point in the future. If the show even continues. Which no one is promising it will.

Meanwhile, the entire episode will be themed around the idea that if someone has you trapped in a twisted game, the best option is to refuse to play.

Tick tick tick tick... BOOM.

(It also doesn’t help that I usually adopt the final featured pop song of each series as a theme song to put on loop while I write up theories and such, and this time the one they chose starts with the lyrics: “I want to break free / I want to break free / I want to break free from your lies / You're so self satisfied I don't need you / I've got to break free / God knows, God knows I want to break free.” SALT IN THE WOUND, MUCH?)

If this was back when I just watched the show and didn’t talk to anyone about it, it would be one thing. But now I do talk about it? Almost every day? And short of deciding to storm out of here, which again is not my plan or goal... How do I get through the next few weeks or months or years?

I’m not going to lie and say I loved the last episode.

But I’m also not going to lie and say I think all semblance of plot is irretrievably off the rails or that the writers are just bashing randomly on a keyboard to come up with this.

And the one specific theory I’m most interested in post-TFP is... um... Short of some kind of hail mary play from the writers in the near future that gets rid of the “oh no, there are no more loose ends” business and starts other fans thinking in the same direction as me, it’s one that I know is going to sound kind of unhinged in a way that’s beyond anything I’ve posted before just because of its nature.

Which leaves me in a really awkward place, fandom-wise.

Because now I get to be looked at as the person who is being negative about the show AND SIMULTANEOUSLY as the person who is naively believing the writers aren’t totally clueless or stringing us along with no goal in sight AS WELL AS the person who even a lot of the remaining theory-type-people are likely to think is chasing ghosts. So basically there is nothing I can do that won’t have some camp rolling their eyes at me. (Unless I want to only post Hudders gifs from now on. Which, believe me, is tempting. But there still aren’t quite enough of them to pull it off.)

I guess my answer is to follow the same advice I’d give to someone else--it’s my blog and my hobby. I should do what entertains me.

Which, for the record, will be pretty much the same thing as always. If you find anything that I do on this blog in the near future a radical departure, the fact is you probably haven’t looked back far enough in my blog archives to understand how I work.

1) I will acknowledge plot holes and inconsistencies and  poke some fun and indulge in some fandom crack posts.

This is not hating the show or attacking the writers. You can certainly decide it’s not the kind of thing you want to see on your dash and unfollow me. But from my side, it’s all in the spirit of believing the writers are actually building to something and trying to figure out what that something is. Plus, for the record, I poke fun at ACD canon even though I love it. As do Sherlock’s writers. It’s okay to be a fan of something in ways other than writing essays about how great every aspect of it is.

2) I will post theories, and just try not to worry too much if they sound kind of out there. (Which they will this time. They will.)

Theories are how I have fun with this show. And if you read or write fanfiction (like most of the fans on this site) but somehow feel it’s worthwhile to scoff at a theory I write up and point out that you think I’m wasting my time... Maybe stop first and think about why one interpretive/transformative fan activity that entertains me is a bigger waste of time than the interpretive/transformative fan activity you prefer. Because it doesn’t freaking matter, y’all. This is my designated hobby time, and writing up a fan theory--even one you think is super-duper-wrong--isn’t changing anything about how much I am or am not trying to do worthwhile things or save the world with the rest of my time. I simply have a marginally different hobby than you do.

And just to make one little adjustment because it was coming anyway...

3) I’m not going to rush.

If they can patience-grenade me and not guarantee anything will ever be resolved beyond this episode, I get to let myself take my sweet time getting my ideas out of my head this go-round. I have fun with this stuff, but I’ve got a lot of other stuff in my life that needs to be attended to soon. (And some of it’s actually more fun.)

Remember The Empty Hearse? That was a tiring time. Sherlock “explained” how he survived the fall, but a small handful of us were like... “No, that actually makes no sense?” We slowly made our case, and by a few weeks ago, it was probably more common than not for someone I bumped into in fandom space to be on board and believe that we still hadn’t seen the true fall solution. (Though I do expect those numbers to readjust again now that the writers are claiming everything’s all wrapped up, the end.)

To me, The Final Problem feels most like The Empty Hearse. Only I know it’s going to be waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy more of a tiring slog to change anybody else’s mind about what happened there. Or at least to get anyone on the same page as me since I’ll be living in my own little rapidly-shrinking theory bubble. Luckily, my primary goal is to entertain myself rather than convince others, but even figuring out where I stand now that the show has dumped in memory-inhibiting drugs and mind control at the last minute is going to be more of a slog than usual.

So slog it I will, but I’m not going to hurry. Or even promise to make sense for a good long time. If ever. I’m not going anywhere just yet, but I’m not signing up to make myself more tired either.

If you’re cool with all that, we carry on as always.

If not, then you know what to do.

xoxo

Yuri on Ice Rewatch: Episode 3

Time for episode three! I remember this being when I got even more invested in the show than I already was before, so this will be fun to revisit.

Thoughts under the cut.

Not much to say before I sit down and watch the episode itself, other than that this was the episode that fully hooked me into the show, as I said above, but I’ll get more into that later in this post. I can’t remember exactly what my feelings and expectations were going into this the first time around, but I imagine that I was pretty curious to see how the whole Onsen on Ice competition would play out, and how it’d handle the already-emerging themes of love. 

This was also around when I got really into the fandom, or at least when the fandom really took off, especially in terms of discussion and analysis and whatnot.

Anyway, time to sit down and watch this.

----

I imagine that most of this post will be me talking about Yuri and his Eros performance, so I may as well talk about the other parts of the episode first.

As yet another part of the show taking on a whole new tone once you get to the ep10 twist, I can’t help but laugh at the entire concept of Yuri saying that his eros is katsudon, and Viktor then doing out to drink until dawn that same night. That must have been a bit of a whiplash-y moment for him. But he took it in stride.

It’s interesting to look back at Viktor saying that to him, agape is ‘just a feeling that he doesn’t know how to put into words’, and in general being kinda flippant about it, considering how depressed and listless we now know he was. I wonder if agape was a difficult concept for him to truly engage with and understand, at the time.

I still quite like the part where Viktor says that his role is mostly to help Yuri with his self-confidence, since he’s already a perfectly good skater who’s just hampered by his emotions. It’s a really important part of their dynamic as coach and student. I’ve always found it interesting how, even among the anti-YoI crowd, I’ve never seen anyone genuinely complain about their relationship on the basis of the power imbalance they have as coach and student, and I think this is a major part of it. They might be coach and student, but their dynamic is much different, and much more balanced, than that of a ‘regular coach and student’, for lack of a better term. For one thing they’re both adults, so that erases like half of the problems that come with most ‘power imbalance’ relationships like this, and most of all, they’re at a similar level of knowledge and skill. Viktor isn’t really teaching him anything about skating itself, in terms of skills and abilities, he’s just there to mostly be an emotional support for Yuri. So their relationship as a whole has basically none of the bad parts you usually get out of stuff like ‘teacher-student romances’ or whatever. And I really think it’s a testament to how well the show’s written, and how much it sells the idea of them being on more or less equal ground as people, that even the antis don’t complain about it. Also, if you’ve ever seen that one interview quote from Otsuka, the CEO of Mappa [I think it was him] where he was like ‘Yuri and Viktor are coach and student, but they’re also partners’, that’s basically the gist of what he meant. They might have a relationship that’s technically defined by a fundamental power difference, but they’re still equal partners. And of course this is also all further supported as the show goes on by the fact that not only is Yuri emotionally supported by Viktor, the reverse is also true, so even on an emotional level they have a two-way relationship.

It’s also interesting, in hindsight, to look at everything he says about the Eros routine, and how he made it. To put it pretty simply, it’s a fairly common fan theory that aspects of the Eros choreography, if not the entire concept of it, were based on Yuri’s whole pole-dancing routine at the banquet. In general, the whole context of Eros, and Viktor’s desire to see Yuri’s true Eros, changes a lot, and becomes more clear, when you understand that Viktor has already seen his Eros, in all it’s champagne-fueled glory, and is actively seeking it out again.

Oh, and while I remember, on the general topic of Viktor, I still love and adore the post-credits episode preview where he says that he’d be happy to see Yuri naked on the ice. It’s so great. Although part of why I love it, beyond the obvious part of how incredibly gay it is, is that I have no goddamn clue what the context for it is meant to be. Like, where did it even come from? Nobody ever suggested Yuri be naked on the ice, so him talking about it comes out of absolutely nowhere. So it just exists as a canon conversation in the show even though it has no real reason for being there, and that’s amazing. It feels almost like it was meant to be a reference to a part of the episode’s script that got cut before the episode aired, but they kept this part in even though it didn’t make sense anymore. I can imagine how the concept of Yuri being naked on the ice COULD have come up in this episode, but it didn’t. I might sound like I’m criticizing it, but I’m really not. I genuinely love this damn conversation and how completely out of nowhere it is. Yamamoto didn’t need to have Viktor canonically say that he’d love to see Yuri be naked on the ice, but she did that, for all of us.

I don’t think I have a whole lot to say about Yurio in this episode, but I actually really like his scenes in this episode, since he’s at his most introspective, isolated, and vulnerable. That’s basically when his character’s at it’s best. Which is part of why I’m really sad that the show leans more into validating his cocky attitude rather than knocking him down a peg. The whole ‘tell him that I’m gonna be the one to win at the GPF!’ line comes across kinda weirdly when you know in hindsight that he DOES win the GPF. It feels like he was meant to sound petty and defeated when he said it, and that tone gets kinda warped when it turns out he was right about it.

I really do love his relationship with his grandpa, though. It’s a consistently heartwarming and adorable aspect to his character, and it goes a long way to make him sympathetic. I kinda wish we got more insight into his childhood and home life in general, but there wasn’t time for it, and I’m honestly glad that the show cut out a lot of his backstory in order to focus on more relevant and important things. I know we’ve learned a few details about his backstory via staff interviews and such, but I only have a vague memory of it since I don’t really seek out extra info on his character, and I don’t usually care enough to remember, if I’m being blunt, but I think that his mother is some sort of a famous singer, or at least was one, and that she doesn’t have much time for her family, which is vaguely alluded to in this episode.

His whole thing of being frustrated with himself during his agape performance because he’s putting too much energy toward performing the physical actions of the routine, and being unable to focus on the emotional side because of it, was also nice. It’s good to see him at least striving to improve upon himself.

Anyway, time to talk about the real star of the episode, Yuri! I dunno if this’ll actually be the biggest part of this post since I talked a bit more about Viktor than I thought I would, but still. I’ll try.

I should probably say in advance that I kinda struggle at times to talk about my positive feelings toward something I like, because I feel embarrassed about the idea of seeming overly obsessive or dramatic or obnoxiously pushy with my raving, so I tend to hold myself back and talk about things from the most analytical and ‘objective’ perspective I can, which I think leads to me seeming overly critical at times, and it also kinda sometimes leads to me not talking much about the things I like about something. So I just wanna make it absolutely clear, while we’re still relatively early in this rewatch series, that I fucking ADORE Yuri Katsuki. So much so that I would honestly call him my favourite fictional character of all time. He means the absolute world to me. Which means that I might end up not talking much about him or his scenes because I don’t want to spent Literal Hours [tm] raving about this wonderful, incredible man. But I still love him to pieces, and even though I loved him from the start, this was the episode where I began to feel truly invested and connected to him to a degree that I hadn’t been expecting.

The Eros sub-plot/theme/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is where we really start to get a deeper look into Yuri’s feelings, and it’s also where the show begins to really get into the overarching themes and concepts that it’s going to explore over the course of the story. It’s no wonder that this is where there was a bit of an explosion of meta and analysis and speculation within the fandom. This episode provides us with ideas and frameworks that are explored throughout the rest of the show, and at the time, they really got the fandom thinking about how it was going to go. From the very start people had their apprehensions about Viktor, mostly because in the early episodes he has an aloof and emotionally distant playboy vibe to him, and the whole playboy/beautiful woman story presented in this episode really ignited people’s fears and concerns, and sparked a lot of discussion in general. Especially since the Eros story explicitly mentions the idea of the playboy abandoning the beautiful women once he’s done with her [which, yet again, gains new context when you realize what happened during and after the banquet. Not that Yuri himself could have known about it]. I still kinda wish the show could have explicitly brought up the Eros story again later in the show, but oh well.

But we can’t talk about the Eros story without also talking about how Yuri actively subverts it by choosing to adopt the role of the beautiful woman and spin it into a seductive force that can go up against the playboy. It’s no surprise that this was around where it really dawned on us all that this show had a lot of things to say about romantic narratives and interpersonal dynamics. A lot of it is explored somewhat implicitly, in the ways that Yuri and Viktor’s relationship naturally plays out, and how it subverts expectations and narratives and tropes, but there’s still some explicit discussions of and references to these concepts, like in this episode. I definitely think it was very intentional on Yamamoto’s part that this show explored and subverted a lot of romantic narrative and tropes, which I’ll get into as I get through this rewatch. This is a good time to recommend her earlier anime, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, which very actively and VERY explicitly discusses and subverts the way that we create narratives about women, and how damaging they can be. The wonderful Vrai Kaiser has their own series of posts about each episode of that show on their blog, where they go over the themes in that show much better than I ever could. Their posts are made with the entire series in mind, though, so don’t read it if you haven’t watched it all. They also have a really good essay about one of the characters in that show, and how, through that character, the show explores the negative and stifling ways that we create [or don’t create] narratives about gay men. The latter in particular being a topic that I think is very interesting to explore in the context of Yuri on Ice. I’d love to make my own essay post about the concept of ‘how we write stories about gay men’ in relation to Yuri on Ice, and how Yuri on Ice compares and contrasts to The Woman Called Fujiko Mine in that area, but that’ll be it’s own separate post I do later.

That was kinda off-topic and half of it was just me giving a shout out to Vrai because I love their posts and want to have more people read them, but the other half of it is that it supports what I mean about how Yamamoto seems very intentional about how she writes about the idea of narratives, especially narratives to do with gender and sexuality. I’ve also heard similar things about Michiko and Hatchin [the first anime she directed], but I haven’t seen that so I can’t comment on it.

The basic idea of how it’s subversive for Yuri to both adopt the feminine persona in that narrative and to also frame it as an active, dominant sort of role, is pretty obvious. I don’t think I even need to go too deeply into it. But I do like the way that the show as a whole explores and embraces the idea of men, well, exploring and embracing their feminine side. We also see in this same episode how Yuri’s Eros outfit, which was itself previously worn by Viktor, was intentionally designed to evoke both male and female genders. I think it’s a really wonderful and positive message to send. Framing femininity as something that can be empowering is great, and fits in nicely with Yamamoto’s other works and their messages [from what I’ve seen at least]. But, as I’ll get into in episode six’s post, it’s sort of a crutch, or a stepping stone, for Yuri in this episode. He steps into a very actively and aggressively feminine role in this episode, to the point of using the pretty much exclusively-feminine pronoun ‘atashi’ during his performance, and later on he dials back on it a bit and reaches more of a middle ground that reflects his more true self. It’s a part of the story that I truly love, and I’ll have a lot to say about it during episode six. [In general I’m probably gonna have a lot to say about episode six, and I want to give it a lot of attention, especially because it’s by far one of the most under-appreciated episodes in the show, which is still sad to me, since it has one of my most beloved scenes in it]

It’s also worth noting, in terms of what the fandom was talking about back then, this episode sparked a whole lot of headcanons about Yuri [and to a lesser extent Viktor] being a trans woman, or nonbinary to some degree. I think that headcanon kinda died out as the show went on, though, to the point where I feel like more people at this point headcanon Yuri as a trans man. Either way I don’t really think it’s my place as a cis guy to comment on this much, so I’ll just move on.

I really love Yuri’s entire Eros routine here, and his confident and sexy attitude in it. I remember the fandom as a whole being really surprised to see that sort of a seductive side to him as well. In general a lot of the fandom experience as the show was ongoing involved people being continually surprised by Yuri’s many layers as a character, and the escalating ways in which he gets more and more seductive. I still love the little kiss he blows Viktor at the start of it, and Viktor’s wolf whistle that he does in response. It’s great.

I don’t really want to get too deep into movie speculation until my episode twelve post, at least [I’ll probably make a separate post afterward about my speculation for it], but I’m really interested in seeing it again, at least if the movie covers what I think it will and thus he’ll be doing the same routines. Each new Eros performance we got in the show was different in some way to the last, and reflected certain aspects of Yuri’s growth throughout the show, so I can’t help but be curious about how it’d go in the movie. Not gonna lie, I kinda desperately hope that at least one time he just straight-up kisses Viktor and leaves him blushing and breathless before he does an Eros routine. Even if it’s a bit of a pipe dream. At least we got an indirect kiss of sorts during episode 11′s Eros routine, lol.

I also really like how Yuri asked Minako for guidance, and employed his history in ballet, in order to figure out how to go about performing Eros. It ties in nicely with what I said above about him connecting with his feminine side.

I know I basically haven’t said anything at all about the whole katsudon topic in this episode, and that’s just because I don’t have a whole lot to say about it. It’s another aspect of how he explores certain ideas on his road to understanding his true eros, which comes to a head in episode six, but I feel like the aspect of him connecting with a feminine role is more interesting to talk about. The katsudon thing is more of a running gag than any serious plot point worth discussing. Though it does kinda highlight how much Yuri hasn’t really thought about sexuality before, and is really clumsy about figuring out how to explore and express his own sexuality. But I also mostly feel like Hot Topic’s aggressive approach to plastering the ‘I’m a sexy pork cutlet bowl’ line on like 90% of their Yuri on Ice merch has kinda left me burned on the whole thing to some degree. [They didn’t even use the ‘katsudon fatale’ line! That’s, like, the one genuinely interesting and discussion-worthy part of the whole katsudon thing!]

Anyway, since I’m running out of things to say, I’ll just comment on the whole resolution of the Onsen on Ice competition. It caused a whole lot of discourse in the fandom about whether or not it was a case of favouritism, with the competition being rigged against Yurio because Viktor already had a vested interest in Yuri. I think I mentioned this in the last post, but this discourse still comes up from time to time, but thankfully not as much as it used to, especially after the minor resurgence it got after ep10 when it became even more clear how much Viktor was into Yuri by this point in the show. Either way, my stance is that it wasn’t rigged, and that if Yuri had truly been unable to find and express his Eros, Viktor probably would have packed up his bags and left, though he obviously wouldn’t have been happy about it. I think that, mostly, Viktor wanted to make sure that he wasn’t mistaken about that inner flame of passion and Eros that he’d seen in Yuri. He wanted to know that he’d made a good choice in disrupting his career so much in order to pursue it. So if he had ended up feeling that he wasn’t going to be able to find it, and that Yuri wasn’t going to be able to give him what he wanted, he would have been fine with leaving, though I doubt he would have actually left unless an option like Onsen on Ice came up, even if Yuri hadn’t been able to express his Eros. I’m not entirely sure about it, but I imagine that he would have stuck to his word and continued to coach Yuri for the rest of the season.

I guess my way of phrasing it might come across badly, but I don’t think that Viktor was being, like, shallow or manipulative in wanting to rediscover Yuri’s Eros, and basically creating a scenario for it to happen in. I think it was fine. I can’t blame him for being kinda desperate about finding passion and love and happiness.

Oh, and that reminds me, the scene in the rink where Viktor gets up in Yuri’s personal space with his thumb against Yuri’s lips and says that he wants to see Yuri’s Eros is kinda interesting, since it was used at the end of either the first or second PVs, and was one of the main, if not the only, ‘fanservice-y’ scenes used in the PVs. I still feel like the framing of it is kinda weird, like they were trying to make it seem sorta uncomfortable and almost predatory, and so it’s still a bit weird to me that it’s the main fanservice-y scene they used in the PVs. It kinda created a bit of a misleading atmosphere that made me think that the show was going to be more weird and exploitative about it’s portrayal of sexuality. I’m glad that wasn’t the case. Either way, I feel like it’s the sort of scene that really illustrates the gap that existed between them at the start of the show, and how so much of it was about Viktor being aggressive with his flirting while Yuri didn’t know how to respond. It kinda superficially plays into stereotypes and tropes, but it’s one of the things that gets subverted and flipped on it’s head as the show goes on, so I can’t help but wonder if it was intentional, in terms of showing these trope-y and kinda unhealthy and unbalanced scenes at the start, to contrast them with how their relationship develops as the show goes on.

Anyway, next week we’ll be getting to episode four, which is a real turning point in Yuri and Viktor’s relationship, and is the beginning of them truly connecting as equals. So that’ll be nice to revisit.