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#i’ve never seen a main cast as unlikeable as this one lmao. i mean. at least the [redacted] anime had juri
deus-ex-mona · 3 months
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when the plot developments hit just ✨wrong✨
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#can’t believe the 2k24 plot has progressed to the point where the weekend has ended… s i g h#i don’t want the weekend to eeeeeeeeeenddddddddd#wasted yet another weekend reading a facepalm-worthy manhwa. i want my weekend back </3#m an. the main plot point of that manhwa was just the entitled af sister poisoning everyone and evading consequences until the end#seriouslyyyyyyy first she poisoned the fl,then she tried to poison the fl’s husband (who was also her lover)#then she poisoned herself to bid farewell to her affair child. and th e n she poisoned her dad too bc he said no to her marrying the emperor#and *then* she poisoned the emperor himself with potato sprouts while trying to poison the fl *again*#and t h e n she was roped into a cheap plot to off the emperor by stabbing him with a poisoned needle by a (very meta tbh) guy#i mean. guy handed her the needle and was like ‘ok do what you’ve always been doing and poison the emperor for me.’ and she went ‘ok’#and they had the 2 most pointless brother characters i’ve ever seen.#first bro was some 15 y.o. affair child bro of the fl’s first husband who p much just existed to inherit the husband’s estate#and the second bro was the affair child bro of the emperor: a perfectly nice young man who was unfairly hated by said emperor#and. like. l o l. the 2 pointless bros were like the only likeable characters in the entire story and they barely appeared in it#the first husband had every single possible undesirable trait a man could have rolled up into a single guy#and the emperor had a wafer-thin backbone and a mad case of babyface. like. the 15 year old boy looked older than him h e y#and the fl was somehow both a skilled opportunist and a master of missing opportunities at the same time#and man. the fl had just a single (1) maid who looked like tomoya enstrs (but with a bob cut)#i don’t even remember the maid’s name; i just called her ‘bob tomoya’. sorry for the slander tomochin you’re a cool dude#i’ve never seen a main cast as unlikeable as this one lmao. i mean. at least the [redacted] anime had juri#the plot was a pointless mess in general too. it went from 100 to 10000 in no time flat for no reason at all#it kinda felt like they were just throwing plot twists for the sake of throwing plot twists#and ofc the fl successfully resolved every problem that came her way bc o f c she did. flashtag girlboss and all ig#but the best part of it all (imo) was the improperly placed jewellery assets. they aren’t even angled consistently across progressive panels#they aren’t even shaded either. just plopped on there. it really takes you out of the setting esp if it’s during a serious scene#i liked how i kept getting an ad about cheating in marriages while reading it though. it really added to the experience#i’d rate that series a 2/10: needs more assets and half brothers#time to find a new overy melodramatic telenovella-esque series to binge next weekend ig… last week’s was better thoughhhh#at least that one had the villainess experience her downfall as consequences of her own actions and it was quite satisfying ngl#hm. ​i think i need a new hobby. before the word ‘villainess’ becomes a permanent part of my vocabulary
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firelxdykatara · 3 years
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gods, ok, apparently i’m not done.
atla fandom? we need to have a chat.
(....ok that made me sound pretentious as fuck. and maybe i am, but this needs to be said, cause i’m getting....real, real tired of a Certain Corner of this fandom and as a result, this is gonna be a discourse-heavy post so feel free to scroll past if that’s not your bag. as always, my salt posts all carry the catch-all #salt for ts tag, which you’re free to blacklist/filter at your leisure. i’m Very Annoyed at the moment, which will probably come through in the following post, so just. yknow. be prepared for that. or ignore it, that’s perfectly valid too.)
under a cut bc i do care for my followers and their sanity i swear lmao
there’s a real serious issue in this fandom with not understanding what queer terminology actually means or implies, especially when applied to a fictional narrative.
i’m specifically talking about ‘coding’, here. (if i were in a more meme-y mood, i might have said ‘the atla fandom found out about the term “gay-coding” and haven’t shut up since’.)
to the people who say ‘zuko is gay-coded’, i have this to say: you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means. because he isn’t. i’m sorry, but he’s not! and the fact that this is such a prevalent claim in this fandom is distressing, bc it says to me that none of y’all know what gay-coding is or when and how to apply it! please, i’m begging you, go and look up these terms and what they mean and when they should be used before actually trying to plug them into your critical analysis, because when you misuse them and then call other people delusional for disagreeing with you it casts a pall over the entire fandom and is, i think, the root of some of the worst toxicity this fandom has to offer.
and the thing is, there are cases where gay-coding would apply--for instance, a couple series that are famous for queerbaiting their audience by coding their main characters as being attracted to one another (sometimes even despite their openly stated sexualities) come to mind, but those shows bare no similarities at all to atla and how zuko was written and portrayed! (and it would be funny, if it weren’t so obnoxious and infuriatingly wide-spread throughout the fandom, because the only queer couple we actually seen on-screen in either show wasn’t even queer-coded in any respect, and they’re canonically bi! [yes, i’m shading korrasami, or more accurately i’m shading bryke for refusing to give ka the build-up and development they deserved].)
this absolutely isn’t to say that headcanoning zuko as gay is a bad thing or invalid in any respect. (although the tendency for zukka shippers to do this specifically to keep zuko away from katara and/or invalidate his canon relationship/attraction to girls is more than a little eyebrow raising. especially since sokka is usually allowed to be bi, bc fans have no problem letting sukka stay in the background bc it’s no real threat, while jetko shippers are happy to have both boys be bi. [possibly bc katara is less a threat to jetko bc jetkotara is every bit as valid as any single ship between the three, but zukka can’t exactly let katara join in, and if the potential exists for zuko to be attracted to her then canon giving them the far deeper emotional bond becomes a threat to zukka’s existence? idk for sure--you be the judge.]) i prefer to hc zuko as bi (and always have, long before the atla renaissance), bc i don’t think zuko being attracted to boys is outside the realm of possibility, and it isn’t a threat to my ship since zuko&katara had a deep and emotional bond in canon that is very easy to develop further into something that becomes explicitly romantic--but the headcanon itself isn’t really the problem (although what it’s often in service to can be).
it’s the strange insistence that this is the only way to read his character, bc he was coded that way and so anyone who doesn’t see it must be too straight to understand--and i really shouldn’t have to say why and how that is so incredibly fucking insulting. (the ‘hetero lenses’ comment wasn’t cute when it came from bryke six years ago, and the same sentiment being repackaged and delivered by zukka shippers ain’t cute now.)
calling zuko gay-coded not only demonstrates ignorance as to what the term actually means, and how to usefully apply it in critical analysis, but also validates the frankly bullshit insertion of institutionalized homophobia in the world of atla where it was neither needed, nor wanted, nor ever hinted at in canon. as a queer woman i’m still infuriated by one fucking comic panel shoving institutionalized and systemic homophobia into a world where it was entirely unnecessary (and doing this in the first installment of the franchise showcasing a queer relationship??? making korra and asami worried about ‘coming out’ when they could have just gone on to have cute adventures together and tell people ‘hey we’re dating’ and have everyone else be ‘that’s awesome =DDD’ [because it is, in fact, possible to just have a world without homophobia i promise!!!!!] double yikes, i’m still pissed at bryke about it), and i doubly hate that ‘zuko is gay coded’ has become so widespread that ‘ozai hates him bc he’s gay’ has become a staple in that part of the fandom.
not only does making zuko gay and implying (or outright stating) that ozai hated and abused him because of it completely undermine zuko’s character arc by making his abuse about his sexuality rather than ozai’s toxic pride and anger at seeing himself reflected in his ‘weak’ son, but it comes very close to outright stating that abuse and trauma are inherently gay experiences, and they aren’t!!! they really aren’t, i promise!!!
abuse and trauma narratives exist outside of ‘my dad hates me because i’m gay’. and, quite frankly, there are MORE THAN ENOUGH queer trauma narratives out in the world. we do not need to start trying to retroactively make them canon in a series where they didn’t exist! if you’re gay and see yourself in zuko and project your own experiences on him, that’s understandable and valid. that does not make zuko gay-coded. and honestly, the insistence that he is makes very little sense to me, because you’re essentially trying to give the show credit for work you put into interpreting the characters! why would you want to do that? why not own your own headcanons and take credit for them, rather than insisting they are canon and everyone else is wrong for not seeing them??? like, i’ve said before that i’ve always headcanoned zuko (and katara) as bi, and even support it with my interpretations of evidence from the show, but the difference between ‘i think zuko is bi’ and ‘zuko is definitely gay-coded’ is that i know that bi zuko is my interpretation of canon, and that it is work i’m putting into the show that wasn’t actually intended by the creators/writers, no matter how much sexual tension i read into the jetko swordfight.
and like, zuko’s character arc doesn’t actually parallel a queer one all that well to begin with. it’s easy enough to do the work and twist it sideways just enough to make the general points fit, but the fact is, zuko’s arc is not one of self-discovery. it’s not one of coming to understand something fundamental about himself that he can’t change, that he was hated for, and coming out to his father in a dramatic confrontation where he shows that he understands himself and doesn’t need his father’s acceptance to be fulfilled.
zuko’s arc is actually one of trauma and healing. and those can (and often are--like i said, there are more than enough queer trauma narratives in the world, atla really doesn’t need to be one of them) be part of queer narratives, for sure! but they aren’t uniquely queer. and zuko’s confrontation with ozai during the eclipse doesn’t read like a ‘coming out’ at all. (yes, i’ve seen that post. yes, i rolled my eyes and moved on, bc unlike some people, i’m capable of not clowning on correctly tagged posts i disagree with.) zuko is specifically confronting ozai over his abuse, because his arc wasn’t about discovering anything fundamental about himself (and therefore realizing that ozai was hating him for something he couldn’t change)--it was about realizing that he was not at fault for the way his father treated him. it was also about realizing that the fire nation was broken and corrupt at its core, and that his father was an aspect of that he needed to break away from so that he could help the world begin to heal.
he says it himself:
Zuko: No, I've learned everything! And I've had to learn it on my own! Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history. And somehow, the War was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don't see our greatness. They hate us! And we deserve it! We've created an era of fear in the world. And if we don't want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness.
making this about zuko being gay and rejecting ozai’s homophobia, rather than zuko learning fundamental truths about the world and about his home and about how there was something deeply wrong with his nation that needed to be fixed in order for the world to heal (and, no, ‘homophobia’ is not the answer to ‘what is wrong with the fire nation’, i’m still fucking pissed at bryke about that), misses the entire point of his character arc. this is the culmination of zuko realizing that he should never have had to earn his father’s love, because that should have been unconditional from the start. this is zuko realizing that he was not at fault for his father’s abuse--that speaking out of turn in a war meeting in no way justified fighting a duel with a child.
is that first realization (that a parent’s love should be unconditional, and if it isn’t, then that is the parent’s fault and not the child’s) something that queer kids in homophobic households/families can relate to? of course it is. but it’s also something that every other abused kid, straight kids and even queer kids who were abused for other reasons before they even knew they were anything other than cishet, can relate to as well. in that respect, it is not a uniquely queer experience, nor is it a uniquely queer story, and zuko not being attracted to girls (which is what a lot of it seems to boil down to, at the end of the day--cutting down zuko’s potential ships so that only zukka and a few far more niche ships are left standing) is not necessary to his character arc. nor does it particularly make sense.
(and before anyone brings up his date with jin--a) he enjoyed it when she kissed him, and b) he was a traumatized, abused child going out on a first date. of course he was fucking awkward. have you ever met a teenage boy????)
anyway, uh, that was a lot of words, so have a tl;dr: zuko is not gay-coded. there is nothing uniquely gay (or even uniquely queer) about his character arc or characterization, and he was certainly not coded gay in an attempt to sneak a queer character past the censors. if anyone involved with atla was gonna try that, it would’ve been in lok, and as established, they didn’t even manage to queer-code the actual queer relationship before the last few minutes of the final episode. headcanoning zuko as gay is absolutely fine (though if it’s only done to keep him away from female characters he may otherwise be attracted to, that smells more like misogyny than anything else), but insisting that this reading is the only one that makes sense, and anyone who doesn’t agree must be straight (hello, queer woman here making this insanely long thinkpiece) is very much not.
ship what you like, but stop trying to invalidate other ships and other interpretations of characters just to make your ship seem more plausible. it’s really not a good look.
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trashlie · 3 years
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I'm loving all your ILY posts! I've also seen your comments on reddit and I enjoy reading your insightful analysis there, too. I would like to know your thoughts on Kousuke and Alyssa. Do you think they will become narrative foils? I noticed they were acting awkwardly around each other too (it kind of reminds me of how annoyed Soushi reacts around Maya) and she seems to have a crush on him 👀 I think she'll be used to contrast how he's still capable of redemption. 1/?
I mean Yui groomed them both successfully. They have shown to emulate her behavior, value their reputation over other people's feelings, and refuse to take accountability for their actions against Shin Ae and Nol. But unlike Kousuke, Alyssa has shown no hint of remorse or even guilt. 2/?
Waaahh thank you so much, anon! Isn't it silly that I still go :O when I realize people actually enjoy what I have to say? I started yelling into the void on tumblr because I got worried I was too active on reddit and I was possibly annoying people lmaooooo so I'm actually really glad you're able to find me on both platforms! It means a lot that I'm not just yelling into a total void.
If you don't mind, I'm breaking your ask down into two parts, because I might leave somethin off/this will get too long if I keep it all in one lol. BUT you bring up things I love to think about!!!!! So!!!!!
I think we are deliberately kept in the dark about Alyssa - whether it's to subvert the scheming girl trope, I'm not sure, but there's a lot of things we don't know about her and that's definitely on purpose. She's a character who probably won't be revealed more to us for a while yet, too, which is frustrating if only because I want to know everything NOW, but it does serve to make her more interesting.
Alyssa's interest in Kousuke is so obvious I can't believe I never noticed it in my original reads. I've seen this brushed off as "She just admires him" and I'm just like... she actually sulked for a moment about Kousuke leaving! Meanwhile she was straight up all but telling Nol she'll help him pack his bags lmao.
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I feel like the cast of her shadow is deliberate, too, but look at that face. Sulking.
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There's room to argue that we can't see Alyssa's face when she first tells him she won't stop him, but she kind of makes it abundantly clear that Nol being away doesn't really affect her. And, I mean, look at how their relationship is conducted. She's bragged to Meg that she and Nol are so casual and cool and easy breezy.
(I guess that means there ALSO is room to argue that Alyssa is putting on a front and just saying this to make sure people think her relationship is great, but the only People who know is Meg. And as a people pleaser, if Alyssa felt uncomfortable with the casual nature of her relationship with Nol, wouldn't she actually do more to make the relationship more of what she wants? Notably during the conversation on the balcony, she basically tells Nol this isn't really her dream relationship, which leads to the admission that they are together not for each other but for the benefits they each get so......)
Kousuke is the one who confuses me the most, because it strikes me as really weird that Yui has used Alyssa as leverage before against Kousuke. "You should bring a date, Kousuke, Alyssa will be there." What does this mean? What does it have to do with him and why would it entice him to bring anyone, anyway? I'm still really baffled on this one, tbh. Something that really stood out to me was during the dinner when Nol finally revealed he was planning to attend Oxford, Kousuke was distracted by his own news that the CFO position would be opening. In fact, when Nol mentions attending Oxford later, Kousuke seems to act like this is his first time hearing it.
Nol takes note of Kousuke's state of distraction before he finally starts talking about his plan.
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The way quim does the dialogue and suddenly Kousuke's interest returning is.... interesting isn't it? From the moment Nol notes Kousuke's disinterest, we don't see his face again until Rand brings up Alyssa. Quim doesn't do anything without reason - in a movie, you wouldn't waste film on Kousuke's interesting returning at the mention of Alysa unless it meant anything, right?
There's so many little moments that make me go what the heck is going on here, too.
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What the heck is up with THIS? Why does Kousuke deliberate SO LONG before he calls Alyssa? Like, do I think he's really so weirded out about calling his younger brother's girlfriend, considering he has one of his younger brother's own friends reporting on him and at his beck and call? You can't convince me that he's hesitant only because Alyssa is the sister of Meg. It just seems too wary.
And yes, this moment here?
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It really does have the same tone as Soushi's wariness of Maya, except is Kousuke wary of Alyssa in the same way? Is he wary of her intentions? This one is so hard for me to read, because frankly, at this point it's hard to tell if Kousuke even cares about Nol as a brother or because he was forced to and he feels deep-buried remorse for the way he treated him and doesn't know how to handle it. Is he just aware of Alyssa's keen interest in him and that puts him on edge? Would he even care about Alyssa's keen interest unless she starts to get pushy?
I HONESTLY HAVE NO IDEA and frankly, it drives me nuts, so I love to discuss this and see what other people have to say. I'd never even noticed how long he deliberates before finally calling her until someone on reddit pointed that out.
lmao this so much preamble to get to the point but anyway YES they are absolutely parallels and I do wonder if they would become foils. Again, it's hard to know with Alyssa because we've been deliberately shielded so much of her personality right now and it's hard to tell what's real and what's not with her. The way that she worries about Shinae telling Nol what she did absolutely reads to me as a lack of remorse, but maybe I'm just projecting because we haven't been given much reason to like her lol. Shinae definitely makes it seem like Alyssa never actually apologized and the way Shinae just brushes it off makes me feel like there was never actual, proper closure. What Alyssa did is worse than just causing her injury: it was why she did it and how she reacted like Shinae was something dirty and how dare she even talk to her even though Shinae probably just wanted to know why Alyssa stopped being friends with her. Maybe she was even seeking closure at the time.
In the same way that Nol and Shinae are mirrors, Kousuke and Alyssa are their parallel abusers, grooming victims of Yui, those who care more about their image and reputation than anything else and have hurt others (Nol and Shinae) in their quest to fill the role. We still don't know if Alyssa dated Nol because she genuinely had a crush (doubtful so far) or because she figured out the family he's from and wanted to get closer. I try so hard to give her the benefit of the doubt but narratively we aren't privy to that yet. Also, have you noticed that Nol and Shinae both have a relationship of some kind with each others' abuser? This mirror and their parallel abusers thing is INTRICATELY woven.
That's what makes it so difficult to tell if she'll become a foil or merely a parallel that highlights what Nol and Shinae have been through. We know Kousuke will receive a redemption arc, because he's a main character, and also because I think part of subverting his trope is that he has to take responsibility for his past actions, rather than being loved in spite of the things he's done or whatever. In order for Kousuke to proper and develop further, he has to be held accountable and he has to break free of his family. Can we trust the same for Alyssa? At this point, she doesn't want to lose Nol because she knows if she loses him, she can just as easily lose her career and access to the world she's only just gained access to (and if she were to lose it all right now, it would be worse for her because she'd have all those trainee fees to pay back).
I think both Kousuke and Alyssa are likely in for a very public airing of their sins; for Kousuke it may come in the form of the expose YuJing is working on, collateral damage in the quest to take down Yui. I also think the only way to nudge Kousuke to change is that his image has to take a hit in some form. Is it that Rand isn't his father? Is it a reveal that he abused his brother? Is it whatever happened in the past that Nol got in trouble for was caused by Kousuke and he let Nol take the blame? Likewise, I think the fact that people knew Alyssa in middle school means she's not so safe, either; what if one of the girls from after school duty reveals what happened? Surely there were rumors going around school about what happened - Shinae is out of school, Alyssa is pulled from school, kids talk. Frankly, a scandal like that could ruin her career, and worse, if Nol knew what she had done, would he be able to remain shackled to her?
While I know Kousuke won't immediately take responsibility for his actions, I've always believed that such a catalyst would at least make him start thinking about it and force him to admit it. It wouldn't happen over night, but in time it will. But will Alyssa? Would she deny the allegations? Would she just shift blame, insist that it was all an accident, that it wasn't bullying like you think? (Cos look, I do believe it was an accident, but there's a way to call it an accident and still admit fault and blame; but just as easily you can call it an accident and try to shirk responsibility.)
I do love the idea of her being a foil for Kousuke, an Aesop's fable, if you will, of what happens when you barter with the devil (Yui). I'm not opposed to the scheming female character type, but I do oppose it when they take down others to raise themselves up, and if that's the way Alyssa will end up doing it, then I'll be happy to watch her fall. If she can scheme and use her connections without hurting people then hey power to ya. Unlike Alyssa, Kousuke never had a chance to evade Yui, and being able to walk away from her as an adult will be a choice he can make. Alyssa loses... so much if she breaks her deal.
I guess that's the thing about where she and Nol are in their relationship now - it's been made clear he's hanging in here because he's forced to and as a sort of act of self-sabotage, full well knowing she's here because she's taking advantage of the opportunities that "dating" him brings so... if they're in an agreement, is it okay to watch her climb right now? She leaves me conflicted and I know it's largely because she's one of the characters we know just enough to hate but so little to justify. Could it be that it all just got out of hand for her? At first she just wanted friends, was trying to find a place to belong, something good in a life that deprived her of social connections. And then comes along Yui, seducing her with ideas of fame and fortune? Was the desire to be loved and admired so strong it powered over the need to fit in with friends and she readily cast them off? Did she not anticipate what it would actually mean, thought she could have her cake and eat it, too? The way she responds to Nol's texts, and the fact that Dieter and Soushi ask him about her, means she probably isn't even in touch with them at all anymore. Idk, I really look forward to seeing their dynamic pre-idol Alyssa, because I want to know how she fit with them, what was it like?
And then, because this was supposed to be about foils lmao you have the fact that Shinae basically foils both Alyssa and Kousuke in regard to Nol, both as a person who cares about him and also as "a good friend" vs "the person I'm currently seeing" lmao like, everyone is literally set to juxtapose each other and man, I'll never get over how well this has been done lmao. Compared to Kousuke and Alyssa, Shinae is the one who accepts responsibility even when it's difficult, who knows when and how to swallow her pride (even if she's not the one who should) and I think it's why she is the one seen a the champion at Nol's side - they are the ones who care little for their images and who know how to apologize (even when they aren't the ones who should be) and that's why they are at each other's sides.
So yes, this is a very long essay response lol to essentially say: I'm still undecided if I think Alyssa will become a foil or merely remain a parallel. I would love to see her redeem herself but something tells me not all characters in this story will be redeeamable. Maybe one day we'll understand her motivation, even if we don't agree with it. I hope at the very least she makes peace with Shinae, but I get the feeling she'll be forced into it (as in, her secret gets ousted) and that's not as satisfying, but hey, if it helps Shinae then I'm for it.
A friend of mine has mused that maybe Alyssa will be the one to oust the secret herself and I'm ngl, I like that idea though it does feel kind of vindictive towards her character. Maybe accidentally spilling it to Nol would be the segue to a couple episodes from her POV though!
Gosh this was so long I'm so sorry lmao but please follow up with your thoughts and feelings, too, or if this made you think of anything or what! I think at this point in the story we've been given a lot of information but we just don't have enough of it to totally piece together what we're supposed to be seeing. I think Kousuke and Alyssa's weirdness around each other is very deliberate, though, and I'm not sure "She's Meg's sister" is enough to warrant so many panels of Kou being SO WEIRD about her, you know? Am I missing thing? Is there more to be revealed? Are we just blind? lmao Aaaahhhhhhhhhhh
#I Love Yoo#ILY Brainrot#Alyssa Cho#Kousuke Hirahara#at this point always anticipate a read more cos whew i can't shut up!#BUT I'VE BEEN FIXATED ON THIS FOR A WHILE NOW AND I STILL HAVEN'T COME TO A CONCLUSION I LIKE#AND I'VE BEEN DYING TO TALK A LITTLE ABOUT ALYSSA AND KOUSUKE AS UNREPENTENT PARALLELS AND YUI PUPPETS#the way that Nol and Shinae are mirrors and they each have their own version of Kousuke/Alyssa#and conveniently they each have a relationship of some sort with each others abusers does not escape me#what will Shinae think when she finds out how Kousuke has treated Nol?#What will Nol think when he finds out who Alyssa was during her brief stint at public school#I'm dying for flashbacks with Alyssa because I JUST! WANT! TO UNDERSTAND!!!!!!!#so far it's so easy to villify her because we don't know otherwise#we've been given no reason to justify or forgive her#and you know what i am okay with villifying a character like her in a story with some pretty dimensional female characters#Maya is one such character who was easy for readers to hate but redeemed herself by being mature and honest with Shinae#do I trust Alyssa to be mature and honest?#only if she ever becomes okay with the idea of losing her image#i think that's a big thing for Kousuke and Alyssa?#at some point Kousuke will realize his image is a fraud#something he was manipulated into despite what he likes to believe#and once he comes to that realization after he breaks down and crumbles and rebuilds he will find a new path and build his own image#one of his own making#but Alyssa....? Who or what would she be if she lost her image?#if she couldn't control the narrative?#AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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summernightskyy · 4 years
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My Top The 100 Men
So, @nomattertheoceans​ tagged me to post about my Top 5 The 100 Women, and while I was doing that, I got curious about who her Top 5 The 100 Men are (I’m almost positive I know at least one person who would be on her list, and I think he might even be number 1 haha). So I decided to do my own and then tag her in this! This was very hard, but in a different way from the women for me. I knew who my number one was, no doubt. But #2-5? I love every character on this list a lot, so really almost everyone else is tied for second place hehe.
1. Bellamy Blake
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Oh Bellamy. My journey with him has been a long one. I started out the series nearly hating him, but then as we got to see the motivation behind his actions, I started to not only understand the character, but love him. Now, he’s one of my favorite characters across all media - potentially even my absolute favorite male character of all time. He’s an extremely nuanced character, and I love getting to see different sides of him. I love getting to see a lead male character express emotion the way he does (and not just anger); I love seeing a male lead get to cry, and not be portrayed as weak I think we need that more on TV and in movies. I grieve for the childhood both of the Blake siblings had, and I’m so proud of them (is it weird to say I’m proud of a fictional character?) for turning out the way they have. Bellamy, who was burdened with so much at such a young age, who probably never thought he would get to have a life outside of Aurora and Octavia, for fear of Octavia getting discovered. Octavia, who knew nobody outside of her brother and mother for what, like 15 years? Who probably thought she’d never get to have a life of her own either? (Ugh, I get so annoyed when I start thinking a little too much about Aurora and the decisions she made. She doomed both her children. I don’t know how she thought either of them, especially Octavia, would ever have normal fulfilling lives. If Octavia hadn’t been sent to the ground, they wouldn’t have.) Yeah, they’ve both lost their way at times, but I LOVE the Blakes (especially the eldest one haha). Season 7 has been pretty good so far, but I somehow became even more aware of just how much Bellamy (and B.ob, because he’s an amazing actor and portrays Bellamy so well B.ob antis DNI!!!! Regardless of what anyone thinks about him as a person, I think he’s a great actor) brings to the show for me with his extremely limited presence so far this season. I really enjoyed 7x11, even if it ended up with my boy being brainwashed. I stood by him even after he wrongfully and stupidly participated in the grounder army massacre, and I’m sure as heck gonna stand by him now too. @clarkegriffinlovebot​ said they would watch Bellamy Blake watch paint dry for 45 minutes, and I totally agree. (Is it weird that I’m tagging you? I don’t know you and I’ve never interacted with you past liking that post, but I wanted to give you credit haha) The show is just so much better for me when this adorable mythology and history nerd is in it.
2. Nathan Miller
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Onto number 2! I chose Miller because although we *unfortunately* haven’t seen much of him or delve into his character that much, I’ve loved all the little bits we’ve gotten to see. He’s just so sassy and snarky, and I love it, in addition to him being loyal (sometimes to a fault) and trustworthy (lmao, that’s funny considering he’s a thief - but I don’t know, in my eyes he’s trustworthy when it counts 😂). I love him, and him hating all the planets they’ve been to is so, so relatable. I would be just entirely done and tired as well. I also really enjoy Millamy and Millarke as brotps (although I don’t think I’d mind if Millamy was a romantic ship haha). There’s quite a few things I would change about this show, but two of the things highest on that list would be 1) making Jarod Joseph part of the main cast so we could properly explore Miller as a character and give him his own full story line(s) and 2) making Miller x Monty canon, even if it was just for a little bit! Marper was cute, and Mackson is alright, but I think these two would have been cuter, and I’m so salty the show didn’t go down that route, especially since both Jarod and Christoper Larkin seemed to be on board.
Also, I really need to learn how to make my own gifs, because I was really hoping to find one with Miller saying “In other words, get the flock out of here!” I actually died during that moment. Maybe someone did make one, but if they did, I didn’t see it. That’s fine, though. I needed motivation to start trying anyways, because its something I’ve always wanted to do.
3. Gabriel Santiago
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Everyone else on this list has been on the show since season 1, and I definitely didn’t expect to love a character who was introduced in the penultimate season as much as I love Gabriel. At the end of season 6, I was really hoping they’d keep Gabriel around, so I was super happy to hear they were going to, and I haven’t been disappointed. I love how he literally seems to thirst for knowledge. (I clearly have a thing for attractive, nerdy guys, okay?) I also find it incredibly brave that he pushed so hard for the Primes to stop what they were doing, because he had to know that all of them, including the love of his life, would turn on him. It was obvious that Ryker wasn’t fully okay with what was happening either, but he didn’t do what Gabriel did and fully renounce the practice. He clearly has a pretty strong moral compass, even if he was lead astray from it for awhile. I also really liked seeing him bond with Echo, Hope and Orlando. He’s smart, hot as hell, subtly funny, and not afraid to do what’s right even if that’s gonna end up making the people he cares about mad at him. 
4. Monty Green
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Monty has been one of my favorites from the jump, and I miss him so much. He’s just so adorable and kind, and literally one of the best people on this show. He suffered through and lost so much, and I wish we could have had more focus on him dealing with those traumas. I hate that we never really got to see how he dealt with what happened at Mount Weather. The focus tends to be mostly on Clarke and Bellamy, but even then mostly Clarke. I think it’s easy to forget that while, yes, they pulled the lever, Monty made pulling that lever possible so he could save his friends. We also don’t really get to see much about him dealing with the trauma of having to kill his own mother, and even Jasper’s suicide was relatively swept under the rug. I mentioned earlier that there’s quite a few things I would change about this show, and when it comes to Monty, I wish we could have seen him process these events and heal. I also think credit for saving the day tends to go to Bellamy, Clarke, Octavia and Raven - but Monty has been instrumental in many instances. Those five, in my opinion make up the core five characters of the show, and honestly, the show hasn’t been the same without Monty. I love Jordan, he’s adorable and genuinely good just like his dad (and mom) but Monty’s part of the soul of the show to me. Also, how cute is it that Monty taught Jordan Korean?!? (I really think Jordan might be onto something about Cadogan and the Disciples interpreting the text incorrectly - so look at that, Monty might indirectly save the day again)
Also, shout out to @thelovelylights​ for making this gif - it’s one of my favorite moments of Monty, I’ve been following her for a long time, and her blog is amazing.
5. John Murphy
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Honestly, I didn’t realize just how much I’d come to like and care about Murphy as a character until this season. I’ve been sooo stressed out watching every single episode he’s been in, worrying that he would end up dying. I’m a sucker for well depicted character growth / redemption arcs, (I mean lol, there’s a reason that some of my favorite characters include Bellamy Blake, Zuko, and Jaime Lannister), and Murphy’s had a great one. He was such a dick in season 1 who, unlike Bellamy - who clearly cared about Octavia at least, really seemed not to care about anyone but himself. It’s been so amazing to see him grow into the person he is now; a person who cares so much about the lives of random people, who was genuinely scared when he realized Madi was in danger, who reassured to her that she was safe and helped calm her down. I really hope the theories about a Memori baby end up becoming canon, because Memori has grown sooo much over the course of this series and they would be absolutely amazing parents.
Honorable mention: Lincoln Kom Trikru
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Lincoln was just such a great character. I miss him so much 😭
Tagging @nomattertheoceans​ and anyone else who sees this and wants to do this!! 
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silverlightqueen · 4 years
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Olympus - Jeon Jungkook
Hermes, God of boundaries, travel, communication, trade, language, thieves and writing, and Hemera, Goddess of day
(greekgod!au - Hermes!Jungkook x Hemera)
Summary - High up in the clouds of Mount Olympus, the tallest of its kind in the ancient country of Greece, live a community of the most powerful beings to exist on this Earth. Their communities are not unlike those that they watch over, those of the humans. A clear political, economic and social hierarchy exists between the beings, some ruling over the others, some more wealthy than the others, some more powerful than the others. Their lives are much like those of humans, all of them working and living in homes with their families, normal names, normal jobs, normal lives. Some could even be considered ordinary. But those that are considered ordinary… our stories do not focus on those. Our stories focus on those that are positively extraordinary, to say the least. Our stories focus on seven Gods and seven Goddesses, powerful and strong, learning the most basic and human thing to exist; love. 
Word Count: 5.7k+
a/n: finally part two !! I hope y’all like this, lmk what you think, hmu if you wanna be tagged in the next part, and make sure you read the first part before this one !! x
Disclaimer: This is no way accurate to Greek Mythology, so please don’t come in my asks correcting me lmao
Warnings: a lil bit of profanity I think and discussion of sex but no actual sex lol
Character List:
Kim Seokjin – Dionysus
Min Yoongi – Hades
Jung Hoseok – Hephaestus
Kim Namjoon – Apollo
Park Jimin – Poseidon
Kim Taehyung – Ares
Jeon Jungkook – Hermes 
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Three weeks after Dionysus and Hestia’s wedding, and Olympus is back to usual, everyone working from dawn ‘til dusk every day. Dionysus has changed, it is clear to see, the God of chaos tamed and laidback, and Hestia has changed too, the Goddess of the hearth and home out and about much more. One morning, a particularly ordinary morning of a particularly out-of-the-ordinary day, the Gods of Olympus make their way to the biannual meeting, held by Zeus at the town hall. The seven Gods that our stories focus on walk up the long road to the town hall together, six out of the seven exhausted. Hermes, though, is positively energetic. ‘Herm, can you tone down the enthusiasm a bit? I’m getting tired just watching you,’ Hades complains. ‘What’s gotten into you recently? You’re never usually this bright and bubbly, you’re always worse than the rest of us in mornings,’ Apollo asks. ‘Are you getting laid?’ Ares enquires, and Hermes laughs. ‘No, I’m not, Ares,’ he replies with a roll of his eyes. ‘What is it then? Because something must have changed,’ Dionysus asks. ‘Nothing, really. I’ve just been getting more sleep, I guess,’ he replies as they reach the entrance of the town hall. They each sign their names in the signing-in book before heading into the main room, taking their usual seats in the front row. ‘How’s Tia?’ Poseidon asks Dionysus gently. ‘She’s good, she’s good. She usually comes with the girls, and I come with you lot, so we thought we’d continue on like that,’ Dionysus says, explaining why he and his wife aren’t together. Hestia arrives then with her six friends, sitting in the other half of the front row. They all wave to each other, close friends after the events of the wedding, before going back to their own conversations. 
Zeus appears on the stage then, his wife, Hera, stood beside him. Hera, the Goddess of marriage, officiated Dionysus and Hestia’s wedding, so he waves at her, getting a kind smile in return. ‘Good morning, Olympians. It’s been a fantastic half-year, and I’m sure we can keep this going for the rest of the year,’ Zeus begins, before droning on about different statistics over the year, very few in the room paying attention, especially our main characters in the front row who believe they’re above it all. The meeting ends eventually, everyone practically running to escape, but being in the front row means it’s not so easy to leave without being cornered by Zeus. ‘Hermes!’ Zeus’ voice booms from behind the group of men, Hermes groaning before turning with a smile. ‘Yes, your grace?’ he asks, polite as ever, burning on the inside. ‘I’m very impressed with the way you’ve been getting through your work during the past few weeks. I thought I’d check your workload for today before the meeting, and you have around twenty minutes work, max. Take the day off and do that work tomorrow,’ Zeus says, the other men’s eyes wide at his benevolence. Zeus wasn’t a dictator or tyrant, but he worked them all hard, so for him to give a day off is somewhat a big deal. ‘I… really?’ Hermes asks, lost for words, and Zeus nods, ‘You’ve earned it, my boy.’ ‘Thank you for your kindness, my grace,’ Hermes says, bowing his head. ‘Thank you for your hard work,’ Zeus replies before turning to his wife.
‘Has Hekate been up to something?’ Ares asks, looking around for the Goddess of magic. ‘I doubt it, don’t you remember the consequences last time she cast a spell on Zeus?’ Apollo says, thinking back to what happened to the poor girl. ‘How have you been getting through your work so fast, Herm? it doesn’t make sense,’ Dionysus asks Hermes, who shrugs. ‘Hasn’t anything changed?’ Hades asks, and Hermes ponders this for a moment as they head towards the exit. ‘I guess…’ he says, and the other men prompt him for a proper answer. ‘The days seem to last longer when I’m down on Earth, so I can get more done on one day than I normally would. And then night seems a little longer too, so it feels like I get more sleep,’ Hermes explains. Gods like Hermes, whose work focuses down on Earth, rarely spend more than a few days at a time on Olympus. Sometimes for weeks at a time, he’ll be down on Earth doing work. And for Gods, time works differently down on Earth. Where an hour has passed for humans, for Gods, it could be seconds, or days. Depending on the God of time, and the Goddesses of night and day. ‘That’s suspicious,’ Apollo says. ‘It’s just a coincidence,’ Hermes says, waving it off, and Dionysus laughs. ‘I doubt that, Herm. I have a feeling Nyx has something to do with it. She’s obviously dragging out the night, and making Hemera make the days longer too,’ he says. ‘Ooooh, does someone have a crush on our little Herm?’ Hephaestus teases, putting his arm around Hermes’ shoulder, the latter trying to push him off. ‘No, she doesn’t,’ he says, frowning.
‘Go speak to her, Herm. The girls are all at Tia’s; they’re having a girls’ day,’ Dionysus says, with a roll of his eyes. ‘Haven’t they, like, got work?’ Ares asks in annoyance. ‘None of them have urgent work like we do. Nyx and Hemera have schedules set in place for day and night. Athena only needs to work when there’s conflict. Nemesis works part time to cause conflict. Tia has schedules and spells set up already and only has to check on them every now and then. Demeter’s like Poll, only gets called up when needed by Zeus. It’s only Aphrodite that has to work every day like us, but apparently she’s been allowed to take a day off,’ Dionysus explains, and Ares rolls his eyes. ‘Zeus has always had a soft spot for A, it’s not fair,’ he complains. ‘Anyone with a brain would have a soft spot for A,’ Poseidon says, speaking for the first time. ‘Why’s that, P?’ Hades asks, all of the other men falling silent to listen. Poseidon doesn’t join their conversations very often, opting to stay quiet and listen, so when he does contribute, they all naturally want to know what he has to say. ‘Have you met her? Have you seen her face?’ Poseidon says matter-of-factly. ‘Have you seen her ass, more like?’ Ares jokes, laughing with Hephaestus and Hades. ‘Don’t be disrespectful,’ Apollo says, launching into a speech about not treating women like objects and Aphrodite being an amazing woman besides her looks and body. ‘Listen, Herm, speak to Nyx, find out what’s going on,’ Dionysus says to Hermes, who nods.
The group of friends split up as they exit the town hall, heading to their different workplaces, promising to meet at Dionysus and Hestia’s house after work. ‘Go now, Herm,’ Dionysus instructs over his shoulder, and Hermes nods, heading towards Hestia’s house. The walk there, he wonders what he’s going to say to Nyx, nervous about sounding like a fool. When he reaches the front door, he knocks tentatively, hearing female voices inside. The door flies open a few seconds later, Nemesis stood in the doorway. ‘Hey, it’s Herm. Come in,’ she says, moving aside to let him in. Hermes is definitely terrified of Nemesis; the girl may be much shorter than him, but her presence is twice the size. Her hair, falling to her waist in big, bouncy waves, is a bright red, and her face is always set in a determined look. The God steps in, Nemesis leading him through the living room, where the girls sit in comfy clothes, glasses of wine in hands, the fire roaring. ‘Hey, Herm,’ Hestia says with a smile, patting the empty seat beside her. ‘How did you guys get back so quickly? We left a little after you,’ Hermes says confused. ‘A has somehow managed to get her hands on some winged horses, so we flew back,’ Hestia explains as Hermes sits down, Aphrodite smiling at him angelically. Poseidon was right; she really is beautiful. Her long black hair falls to her waist and her tan skin is clear and smooth, her eyes round and dark, and her lips plump, almost always stretched into a smile, revealing pearly white teeth. But she’s intimidatingly beautiful, like one of those queen bees at high school. Always kind to the weird kids, popular and loved, everyone wants to be her or be with her. But obviously she isn’t the perfect angel everyone makes her out to be, Herm thinks, now that he knows she has a multitude of human lovers. Not that that’s anything to frown upon, of course. Just… not the norm.
‘What’s up, Herm? Why have we been blessed with your presence?’ Nemesis says sarcastically, leaning against the door frame. ‘Um, I actually came to speak to Nyx,’ he stutters, Nyx’s eyes widening in surprise. ‘Me?’ she asks, and he nods. ‘Um, okay. Come into the kitchen,’ she says, leading him through into the other room. ‘What’s up?’ she asks curiously, the volume suspiciously low in the living room. ‘Zeus praised me today, for having gotten so much work done in the past few weeks, and the boys were asking me how I did it. I said that the days were longer, so I had more time to do my work, and the nights were longer, so I was getting more sleep. Di said that you were probably the one doing so he made me come ask you why,’ Hermes explains, Nyx’s face becoming more and more amused by the moment. ‘Ah, Herm. How do I explain this? It’s not me doing it,’ she says, and Hermes becomes even more confused. ‘Who is then?’ he asks, and she raises an eyebrow. ‘Come on, you’re a clever boy. Work it out. If it’s not the Goddess of night…’ she trails off, and the sentence finishes itself in Hermes’ head. It’s the Goddess of day. ‘Hemera?’ he whispers, and Nyx nods with a small smile. Hemera hadn’t even crossed his mind; the small timid girl that hid behind her blonde hair all the time is not someone he would’ve ever guessed.
‘Why?’ he asks, and Nyx grins. ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but the girl has a bit of a soft spot for you, if you know what I mean,’ she says. ‘Oh. Ohh,’ Hermes says, realising that Hemera has a crush on him. ‘What does she achieve from it though?’ he asks. ‘Nothing, Herm. It makes you happier, though, right? And I guess that’s what she wants,’ Nyx shrugs. ‘Oh. Do you think I should speak to her?’ he asks the girl. ‘Obviously, you idiot! The girl likes you, for God’s sake, of course you should speak to her,’ Nyx says exasperatedly. ‘What do I say?’ he asks, panicked. ‘You don’t have to ask her to marry you straight away, Herm! Just make general conversation, small talk, get to know her first, you moron,’ Nyx says, and Hermes nods, hanging on her every word. ‘Oh, and don’t do it in front of everyone because she’ll get super embarrassed and clam up. Do it when everyone else is talking between themselves, or involve her in a conversation with other people, okay?’ Nyx advises, Hermes making mental notes. ‘Come on,’ Nyx says, the two heading back into the living room. ‘Are you staying, Herm?’ Athena asks, her kind eyes on the God. ‘No, I should probably get going,’ Hermes says. ‘Do you have work today?’ Hestia asks, her eyes narrowed at him. ‘I… no, Zeus gave me the day off,’ he admits. ‘So, have you got plans?’ she asks, her eyes even narrower now. ‘Um, no, I don’t,’ he says, scratching his neck. ‘So, you’re staying then,’ she decides, and Hermes gives in, knowing there’s no point arguing against Hestia; she may be kind but she’s the most stubborn Goddess he’s met.
He sinks into the seat beside Hestia, instantly being handed a glass of wine, as the girls launch into gossiping about who’s doing what, or rather, who’s doing who. Hermes listens dutifully, getting caught up in the gossip himself, hanging on every word, gasping in all the right places. It’s almost as though he belongs there with the girls, the group of them speaking about almost everybody on Olympus through the course of the day, getting through bottles (upon bottles) of Dionysus’ wine, becoming more and more relaxed. Until they begin speaking about relationships. ‘I just don’t know what to do anymore,’ Aphrodite slurs, having had more wine than the rest of them put together. If Hermes had had the same amount of wine she’d had, he’s sure he’d have passed out around an hour ago. ‘It’s just not fair. I’m the Goddess of love, and I’ve never even been in love myself! It’s like I’m destined to just be a matchmaker, nothing more. No one’s even ever loved me!’ she wails, eyes beginning to water, and Hermes becomes alarmed at the thought that she might start crying.
‘Aphrodite, you are kidding, right?’ Hermes asks without even thinking, the group turning to look at him. ‘What do you mean?’ she sniffs, still looking ethereal despite the tears dripping down her face. ‘I think at least 90% of the Gods on Olympus have been in love with you. And even some Goddesses,’ Hermes says. ‘But they don’t love me! They just think I’m pretty! They don’t care about what’s beneath! No one’s ever loved me for me! Do you know how that makes me feel? So inadequate, and never good enough! They just want to get me into bed, so they can say they’ve slept with me! That’s it! And even then, they probably won’t be able to fulfil my needs!’ she wails, Hermes’ cheeks being tinged with red at the mention of Aphrodite’s needs not being fulfilled. ‘Okay, A, that’s enough wine for you, babe,’ Hestia says gently, taking the glass from the other Goddess’ hand. ‘Who do you know that’s been in love with her?’ Hemera asks Hermes, speaking to the God directly for the first time as the others comfort Aphrodite. ‘I… um… well, I’m pretty sure Ares had the biggest crush on her, for years. Apollo did, too. And I think Hephaestus as well. Just look at Zeus! He has the biggest soft spot for her! If he weren’t married, I think he would’ve tried to get with her by now,’ Hermes says, opting not to mention his own crush on the Goddess a long while ago. ‘He already has,’ Hemera says dryly, Hermes laughing at the girl’s bluntness.
‘See, that’s the worst thing; we can’t even comfort her, and tell her it’s not true, because it is. She’s right. No one has ever loved her for her. They’ve only ever loved her for her appearance, and for the reputation that comes along with her being the Goddess of love. It’s hard for us to see her go through this,’ Hemera says, Hermes watching the Goddess with interest as she speaks. Hemera has always been timid and quiet, but watching her speak about her friend, the confidence and conviction comes out. She clearly feels strongly about Aphrodite’s situation, as her passion comes through in her words. The hard set of her jaw and the way her small hands run through her bright blonde hair makes his heart contract, realising with a jolt how gorgeous she is, the fire in her blue eyes beautiful. ‘She’ll find someone, some day. If she can’t, where’s the hope for the rest of us? I’m absolutely doomed if she can’t,’ Hermes jokes, Hemera not really laughing along with him. ‘Don’t be silly, Hermes. There’s plenty of Goddesses out there who find you attractive,’ Hemera says stiffly, Hermes becoming embarrassed.
He’s suddenly aware of a pair of eyes on him, and looks around to see Aphrodite watching him keenly, her eyes narrowed with a small grin on her lips. The other Goddesses are still trying to give her a pep talk, but Aphrodite looks much better now, smiling at the God slyly. Her eyes flit to Hemera before meeting his again, her smile growing slightly before she juts out her chin. Hermes suddenly feels a wave of confidence hit him, and he turns back to Hemera, saying the first thing that comes into his head; ‘Are you one of them?’ He’s taken aback at his own brazenness, the low confidence and arrogance in his voice nothing he’d ever heard before. But Hemera’s reaction, a slight blush appearing on her small face, fingers beginning to twirl her hair, eggs him on further. ‘Because I’ll be ecstatic if you are. Nyx told me you’ve been making the days longer, and asking her to lengthen the nights whilst I’m on earth, and I really appreciate that. Maybe you can make the days even longer for me, so I have time to come back and see you sometimes,’ he says, not even realising that these words he was speaking had been thoughts, but as they come out, he realises they were. That he’d been thinking them as he’d watched Hemera throughout the day, realising that maybe he has a little crush on her too. ‘I… why?’ she asks timidly, and he smiles gently. ‘Because you’re really quite beautiful, Hemera, both inside and out, and it’d make me the happiest God on Olympus if you agreed to let me take you on a date one night,’ he says, and her mouth drops open. Hermes suddenly realises that the room is silent, the other six Goddesses in the room staring at them, and Nemesis finally breaks the silence. ‘Did you just ask her out?’ she demands, and Hermes nods confidently. ‘About time,’ Nyx huffs, Hemera still staring at the God. ‘Is that a yes, Hemera?’ Hestia prompts. ‘Yes! Yes, it is. I’d love to,’ Hemera stutters nervously, the other Goddesses cheering.
They hear a knock at the door then, all looking up out of the window to realise that it’s dark, and they’d been gossiping all day. Hestia waves her hand and the front door clicks open, Dionysus’ jovial voice booming through the house. Seconds later, the six Gods troop through the door, taking seats around the room. Ares sits as far away from Athena as possible, the Goddess regarding him with an amused grin. Dionysus makes a beeline for the floor beside Hestia’s seat, resting his head against her knee as one hand of hers comes to rest on his shoulder. Apollo also makes a beeline, but for Demeter, the two instantly beginning to speak about work. Hades takes a seat beside Ares, he and Nemesis eyeing each other with frowns. Hephaestus takes the seat beside Hermes, trying to avoid Nyx’s watchful gaze. Poseidon stands beside the door, leaning against the doorframe broodily, no seats left for him. Loud conversations break out, Hephaestus asking Hermes how his day was, but the God is completely unfocused, thinking about the events that had just occurred. Only when he spots Aphrodite’s inky locks disappearing around the corner does he excuse himself, following her into the garden.
‘Aphrodite!’ he calls into the darkness, the Goddess stopping in her tracks, and walking back towards him with a small grin. ‘What did you do?’ he demands, fists balled up at his sides. ‘What do you mean?’ she asks amusedly, her raised eyebrow and crossed arms making her look more like the high school queen bee than ever. ‘What was that spell you cast on me? Making me ask Hemera out like that?’ he asks. ‘I didn’t cast a spell on you. I read your mind and then gave you the confidence to do what you wanted to do,’ she smiles serenely, Hermes being caught at a loss for words. ‘Wait, what? You can do that?’ he asks. ‘Yes, I can, Herm. I’ve known for a while that you’ve had a bit of thing for Hemera, ever since you saw her at the wedding, even if you didn’t know it yourself, and I knew that she had a thing for you, so I made what you both wanted to happen, happen,’ she says matter-of-factly. ‘Oh, right,’ Hermes says, slightly embarrassed. ‘So you should really be thanking me,’ she says with a grin, and he begins to stutter out his gratitude. ‘I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Just remember, I only ever want to make people happy, okay? Tenfold for my friends. So if I ever do anything, I do it to make you happy,’ Aphrodite smiles, a slight sadness to her tone, before turning away. That’s when he spots a flash of blue hair at the bottom of the garden but, before he registers it, he hears a cough behind him. He turns to see Hemera stood there, the Goddess smiling. ‘So,’ she asks, ‘when’s our date?’ 
-
‘You can open your eyes in 3… 2… 1… now!’ Hermes says, Hemera instantly opening her eyes. She gasps instinctively, looking around in wonder. ‘Oh, my God,’ she whispers. ‘Do you like it?’ he asks shyly. ‘I… I love it, Herm. It’s beautiful,’ she replies, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. Hermes and Hemera had already been on two dates, those both on Olympus, and they’d got on like a house on fire. The hours had flown by, and the two had been counting down the time until they could see each other again. For this date, Hermes had decided he wanted to surprise Hemera. He decided to take her down to Earth for the first time. Deciding not to show her the stereotypical tourist places like Paris or Venice or Tokyo, or the popular picturesque places like the northern lights in Iceland, or the fjords in Norway, or the Niagara Falls in Canada, he took her to a place he’d stumbled across once. ‘These are the Rainbow Mountains of Zhangye Danxia, in China,’ he says with a small smile, watching as Hemera’s eyes scan the colourful peaks with vigour. ‘I thought I’d take you somewhere unique for your first time on Earth. Somewhere unique, like you,’ he says embarrassedly, scratching the back of his neck, and Hemera meets his eyes with a small smile. She pulls him up against her, and tilts her head up, closing her eyes. Hermes gets the message and gently presses his lips against her. Within seconds, their hands are roaming over one another, mouths passionately moving against each other.
Hemera breaks away after a few minutes, both of them breathing heavily. Looking at him, Hemera realises that she’s ready. She’s ready to let him in, more than she’d ever let anyone in before. ‘Are we going back to Olympus after?’ she asks, and Hermes shakes his head with a smile. ‘I found us a beautiful house to stay in, in the woods. I think it’s some sort of place that can be hired, but no one’s there at the moment, so…’ Hermes trails off, Hemera nodding. ‘Is there, um, any chance we can go there first? And then come back here tomorrow?’ Hemera asks, and Hermes looks at her in confusion. ‘Do you not like it?’ he asks. ‘It’s, um, it’s not that, Hermes,’ she says, waiting for him to understand, thinking he’ll be embarrassed once he does. But the smirk that spreads across his face surprises her. ‘Why do you want to go then?’ he asks, tongue rolling in his cheek amusedly, and Hemera looks up at him in embarrassment. ‘You know why,’ she says, blushing, and Hermes pulls her up against him. ‘I want to hear you say it, babe,’ he says lowly, looking down at her with a smirk, and Hemera blushes again. ‘I… I want you, Herm,’ she says quietly, Hermes’ eyes darkening at her words. Their surroundings change instantly, a result of Hermes’ powers, the two suddenly stood in the middle of a big rustic bedroom, one wall windows revealing the darkening woods outside. He regards her with a dark and lustful gaze, Hemera’s eyes wide and innocent as he speaks; ‘That’s all I needed to hear.’ 
-
‘Sit your ass down and tell us everything,’ Nyx commands the second Hemera walks into the living room of Dionysus and Hestia’s house. The Goddess of day takes a seat between Demeter and Nyx, all of the other Goddesses watching her intently. ‘It was amazing. I never knew Earth was that beautiful,’ Hemera says, and Nemesis huffs impatiently. ‘We can talk about the boring humans and their boring Earth after. I wanna hear the juicy details about little Herm,’ she says, Demeter and Athena rolling their eyes, Hestia looking amused as Nyx nods in agreement with Nemesis. Aphrodite sits in the corner with a smug, knowing look on her face, grinning at Hemera. ‘I had a really good time with him. I really like him, a lot.’ ‘Did you guys… do anything?’ Nyx asks, wiggling her eyebrows at Hemera, who promptly blushes. ‘Oh, my God, you did!’ Nemesis exclaims. ‘We don’t have any virgins in the friendship group anymore!’ Athena exclaims, just as Dionysus steps into the room. ‘Did not need to hear that. Pretending I didn’t hear that. Going to the bar with the boys. Goodbye,’ he says, promptly leaving without looking at any of the girls. ‘Was he any good?’ Hestia asks, getting caught up in the gossip too. ‘Well, it’s not like I have any experience to compare him with but, yeah, I think so. It… it felt good,’ Hemera stammers out, the other girls squealing save for the love Goddess.
‘Aphrodite, you’re awfully quiet,’ Demeter observes, and the girl grins. ‘You guys do know that I already knew this was going to happen? I knew about Hestia and Di, and I knew about this. I know about what’s going to happen to all of you. And, no, don’t even bother asking me what, because I can’t tell you or it won’t happen,’ she says, the revelation a shock to the other girls. ‘Why did we not know that you know the fate of our love lives?’ Nemesis demands, and the girl shrugs elegantly. ‘It never came up in conversation. That’s my job. I know what’s going to happen to everyone’s love lives, and I just help to speed things up. I’m a catalyst,’ she says, the girls listening attentively. ‘So you know how we’re all going to end up?’ Nyx asks, and Aphrodite nods. ‘I know all the boys’ fates too. Except Poseidon. He’s hard to read. But anyway, that’s why I’m so quiet. I knew all this was gonna happen. I knew exactly what Hemera and Hermes were gonna get up to in that house in the woods,’ she says with a knowing smirk, Hemera burying her head in her hands as the other girls shriek.
‘Why is it I always walk in on you all screaming?’ Hephaestus says as he enters the room, the other boys behind him. ‘We’re just excited to see you,’ Nyx says with a grin shot his way, the God grumbling under his breath as he takes a seat beside Hestia. ‘What happened to the bar?’ Hestia asks as Dionysus pulls her up from her seat, and sits down in it, pulling her back down into his lap. ‘Ares started to a fight,’ Apollo says as he squishes into the armchair with Nemesis who complains, but makes space for him anyway. ‘Seriously? You were there for, what, five minutes?’ Athena says, and Ares scowls at her. Hades throws himself down onto the floor beside Athena as Ares squashes up between Nyx and Hemera. ‘Guess I’m better at war and conflict than you are,’ he says, Dionysus shushing him before a fight begins. Poseidon loiters at the door as he always does, and Hermes loiters there beside him. ‘Come sit, Herm,’ Ares says with a sly grin, and Hermes dithers. ‘Where?’ Hemera looks over to Aphrodite who sits quietly in the corner, observing the scene, and the girl juts her chin out to the Goddess of day, who promptly stands up, despite not recalling wanting to do so. ‘You can sit here,’ Hemera says, Hermes turning slightly red in the face. ‘Where will you sit?’ he asks, and she laughs. ‘Well, on your lap. If you don’t mind,’ she says, and Aphrodite interferes once more, Hermes smirking. ‘I don’t mind at all,’ he replies, everyone, even Poseidon, looking shocked at the exchange. Hermes sits down between Demeter and Ares, and Hemera sits on his lap, leaning back into his chest.
‘Well, I’m guessing you two enjoyed your little trip to Earth,’ Apollo says amusedly, and a laugh ripples around the group. ‘Maybe we should look into a little holiday,’ Dionysus says to Hestia who nods in agreement. ‘Yeah, you definitely should. I know some great places on Earth you can go,’ Hermes says, Hemera nodding. ‘It’s true. He took me to this amazing place,’ she begins, but is cut off by Ares. ‘Let me guess; Paris?’ he says, and she shakes her head. ‘Venice?’ Hephaestus asks, and she shakes her head again. Everyone begins guessing at this point, naming all the romantic places on Earth they’ve heard of. ‘Santorini?’ ‘Hawaii?’ ‘Bruges?’ ‘Bora Bora?’ ‘The Maldives?’ ‘The Amalfi Coast?’ As the room is distracted listening to Hemera explaining where they went, Dionysus turns to speak to Poseidon. ‘Sit down, P, have a drink or something,’ he suggests quietly, but the blue-haired man shakes his head. ‘I should head home. I’ve got a long way to go,’ he says, just as Hemera finishes speaking.
‘That sounds amazing, Hemera,’ Poseidon says, obviously not wanting to take the attention from the newest couple in the group. ‘Don’t try to change the subject, P. We’ve been telling you to move to Olympus permanently for ages now. Why don’t you just do it? It’d save you all the hassle,’ Hermes says, and Poseidon shakes his head, his hair falling into his eyes. He looks like he wants the floor to swallow him up, hating being the centre of attention. ‘I have to be near the sea, you know that,’ he says quietly. ‘Doesn’t mean you have to live in it, miles and miles away from the rest of us, P. You know Olympus is short journey from the nearest ocean on Earth,’ Apollo says, and Poseidon shakes his head again. ‘I have a castle there now. I can’t just abandon it. And I like it there. It’s my home,’ he says, Ares scoffing. ‘Bullshit. You just like living where you can get to all those nymphs easily, without any of us seeing,’ Ares says, tension quickly descending on the room. Poseidon’s face sets with anger, but he doesn’t say anything, opting to turn and leave the room instead, and the Gods and Goddesses can hear the sound of the front door opening and closing a few seconds later. ‘Good job, Ares,’ Apollo says angrily, Ares shrugging with a roll of his eyes, though the guilt in his face is plain. ‘Go after him, Di. Or Hades,’ Nemesis prompts, but Dionysus shakes his head. ‘Aphrodite, you should go,’ Dionysus says, Aphrodite looking startled, and the boys only just notice her sat in quietly in the corner.
‘Me?’ she asks. ‘Yeah. You’re good at things like this,’ Dionysus says, and they all know it’s true; she’s definitely the mother figure of the group, the mediator in moments like this. ‘And it doesn’t hurt to see a pretty face when you’re angry,’ Hestia says, a laugh running around the room. ‘I’ll go in that case,’ Hades says, prompting more laughter as Aphrodite rises from her seat and leaves, going after Poseidon. The conversation soon moves back to Hermes and Hemera, Poseidon and Ares’ little argument completely forgotten about. ‘So are you guys dating now?’ Nyx asks, and Hemera and Hermes exchange a glance. ‘We haven’t actually discussed it,’ Hemera says, eyes still locked with Hermes’. ‘But we can discuss it now. Do you wanna be my girlfriend?’ Hermes asks, a shock running through Hemera at the words. She looks into his big brown doe eyes, shining like the stars, and he smiles his endearing little bunny smile, his face crinkling adorably. ‘I’d love to,’ she replies, their friends all bursting into cheers. ‘God, I really need a man,’ Nemesis says a few moments later, everyone bursting into laughter. ‘What about Tartarus?’ Hephaestus suggests, more laughter rippling around the room. ‘Oh, yeah, the God of the pits of the underworld seems like a right laugh,’ she says sarcastically, and Hemera takes the chance to go after Aphrodite whilst everyone’s distracted, quickly whispering where she’s going to Hermes before she sneaks off.
When she steps outside, she’s surprised to see that the sky is dark, time having gone extremely fast since she arrived. Poseidon is sat atop his winged horse at the bottom of their front garden and Aphrodite stands beside him, the two speaking in hushed tones. Poseidon is visibly more relaxed, and looks as though he is about to crack a smile before he spots Hemera. Aphrodite follows his gaze and instantly heads up the front garden path. ‘Hey, Hemera, you okay?’ Aphrodite asks, and Hemera nods. ‘I just… wanted to ask what you did to me,’ she says, and Aphrodite smiles. ‘You needed a prompt to do what you wanted to do. I gave you that prompt. Now go back inside and join your lover boy,’ she says, still smiling, but Hemera can’t help but focus on her eyes, and the sadness that seems to be in them. ‘It’s cold out here. Make sure you guys come back in soon,’ Hemera says, and Aphrodite nods. ‘Um, we’ll be inside in a few,’ she says, and Hemera goes to enter the house once more before she stops. ‘Are you okay, A? You don’t seem yourself,’ she says, and the Goddess of love smiles an inexplicably sad smile. ‘Don’t you worry about me, I’m fine. Now go, be happy,’ she says, shooing Hemera back inside, and Hemera shuts the door beside her. Her heart nearly breaks when she spies through the peephole and sees the smile slide from Aphrodite’s face, her eyes filling with tears.
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murasaki-murasame · 5 years
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Thoughts on Fruits Basket 2019 Episode 22: “Because I Was Happy”
In spite of how last week’s episode was kinda meh, this episode ended up being one of the single best episodes of the show thus far. It at least goes to show that this adaptation is incredibly good at drama, even if it’s not so great at comedy.
Anyway the TL;DR of my feelings right now is just a whole pile of those pictures of crying cats. You know the ones.
Thoughts under the cut [and spoilers for the manga as a whole]
To get right to the chase, this episode adapted chapter 51, which is interesting because this makes it the first episode adapting material that straight up hadn’t even been written when the 2001 anime was made, since I think that came out when the manga was at around chapter 43 or so. Even Uo’s backstory arc had already been done in the manga by that point, and they just chose to cut it in the first adaptation. So I can’t exactly fault the 2001 anime for not having adapted this chapter, but man it really goes to show how much of the story the 2001 anime was missing, and how much good stuff we’re in for here.
I think it was a good choice to put the two Hana chapters back to back like this, even though in the manga they were like 20+ chapters apart from each other. It’s by far the most standalone chapter of the manga, and it’s specific placement has always kinda baffled me, since it happens right after we meet the student council characters and Kureno, and shortly before the summer vacation arc, and none of that had to do with Hana. I think it’s just one of those things where Takaya’s nerve disorder probably impacted how she approached the story, and lead to some odd detours into side stories and backstories until the ‘main story’ kicked back into high gear. It flows a lot more naturally here, and the fact that the whole episode is a flashback with no real present-day context or framing isn’t even noticeable when it comes right after the events of the last episode. It felt like a bit more of a harsh narrative shift in the manga.
But it’s still always been one of my favourite individual chapters in the series, in spite of it’s awkward timing. The material itself does everything it needs to make it stand out. And the shifted placement in this adaptation just helps elevate it’s strengths even more.
I’ve been wondering how anime-only people might react to this episode, for lots of reasons, and I’m glad that everyone seems to love it. It really does come as a huge curveball in terms of tone and focus after how self-contained and comedic the last episode was, but it works nicely.
And even more than that, it’s fun watching people react for the first time to the reveal that Hana’s powers are actually 100% real, and the story ends up being dead serious in depicting how they impacted her life. Basically Fruits Basket suddenly turns into Carrie But With A Support Network for an episode, and I doubt any new fans saw that one coming, lmao.
Though tbh I still think it’s [intentionally] ambiguous whether or not she actually had supernatural powers. It never really comes up again, and the handful of cases of her using her powers on people can technically be written off as a mix of coincidences and a sort of placebo effect from people who think she’s seriously gonna curse them. In terms of what Takaya thought when she wrote this, I think Hana probably does have straight up psychic powers, but there’s room for interpretation, and I think this episode is really interesting when viewed through the lens of Hana having some sort of severe mental illness.
I’ve been pretty occupied recently with thinking about the topic of disability in Fruits Basket when it comes to Kyo’s arc [and oh boy do I have stuff to say about that very soon], but I’d kinda forgotten that Hana’s backstory here is another good example of that.
I don’t exactly want to jump to conclusions and start armchair diagnosing her, but the ‘voices’ Hana heard could definitely be symptoms of something like social anxiety or even schizophrenia. Depending on how literally you want to take the idea of her ‘hearing voices’.
In general there’s a sort of blurry line in this series between supernatural stuff, and things that are realistic to the experiences of disabled [or otherwise oppressed/neglected in general] people. But I’ll talk more about that later.
On a somewhat related note, one surprising thing about this episode is that in spite of the overall tone and events of this episode, Hana’s family is completely supportive of her, and never doubt the existence of her powers, or hate her for it. Instead all they care about is her safety and well-being, and they’re willing to move towns if it means removing Hana from a toxic school environment. I think I’ve said it before, but I think it’s good that this series has a whole range of types of parents/families who have their own unique feelings about their childrens’ struggles. You can’t really accuse it of being one-dimensional.
The thing that really struck me about this episode most of all was just how good the artistic direction and overall execution were. In terms of the story it was a pretty 1:1 adaptation of the manga, with nothing changed/added/removed from what I can remember, but it was just executed incredibly well. Pretty much like how things went with the Uo arc.
Specifically I really loved the way that the entire episode had a consistent cool grey tone to it all, and was filled with deep shadows and harsh, artificial-looking lighting, right up until the point where Hana admits that she wants to stay with Tohru and Uo, and suddenly everything is bright and warm and filled with light. It’s not exactly the most complicated thing ever, but it really made the climax of this episode stand out.
But the way it handled the lighting and shading up until that point was genuinely really neat in and of itself, and lead to a really atmospheric and oppressive vibe to everything. Especially scenes like the one where Hana got her arm burned by those bullies, and the whole scene was incredibly dark and shadowy and eerie. I also really liked the cut of her running down the school hallway, and how the harsh bluish lighting from the windows contrasted with her silhouette and the darkness of the hallway itself.
The way they handled the scenes of her hearing voices by having the screen be slowly blotted out by cloudy blackness and overlapping voices was also really neat.
I think it’s really neat that some of the best material we’ve gotten thus far has come from some of the most unlikely characters. Normally with a series like this you’d think that Tohru’s best friends would be disposable comic relief characters [which they kinda were in the 2001 anime, tbh], but they both ended up getting incredibly good backstory arcs that flesh them out immensely and deliver some of the strongest emotions and messages in the series. It really goes to show that this is an ensemble cast type of story that cares about all of it’s characters instead of just the core few. In the manga it wasn’t really apparent until later because of how things were paced out, but this adaptation’s really making it clear already that this series is totally willing to basically ignore it’s main trio for episodes on end in order to focus on the supporting cast, lol.
And on THAT note, to balance out the fact that Kyo in particular has been kinda absent since, like, the lake house episode I think, the next episode is gonna dive straight into what will ultimately be a three-episode story arc focused on him, his backstory, and his relationship with Tohru. I hope it lives up to the expectations of all the new fans who’ve been anxious to see more of him, and I hope they know to keep their hands inside the rollercoaster at all times because we’re about to Go Places [tm] :)
I’d been expecting for a while that the next episode would adapt chapters 30 and 31 and end with Kazuma’s introduction, so that the last two episodes of the season can focus on the meat of the true form arc, and thankfully they just outright used Kazuma’s line from the end of chapter 31 as the title of the next episode so that spells itself out, lol.
I’ve seen some people worry that this means they might be skipping the soup chapter, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’d actually be really easy to cover both of those chapters in one episode. You could actually splice the events of them together pretty nicely, so that Tohru getting sick is still the main thread of the whole episode even if it ends with Kazuma showing up.
I think they could at least do some things like making the part in Chapter 31 where Kyo and Kagura go shopping together be related to Kyo cooking for Tohru while she’s sick. But we’ll see.
I know some people think that ep24 will cover the whole true form arc, and that ep25 will be chapters 35 and 36, but I don’t really feel like that’d work well. The true form arc is way too much of an emotional climax all around to not be the season finale. And chapter 35 in general would serve as a nice sort of semi-recap of the true form arc to start season 2 off with.
And in general I don’t think the series has ever adapted three whole chapters into one episode, and I don’t think they’ll start with this arc. I think it’ll be like how they adapted the Uo arc into two episodes when it was also three chapters long. Either way, I think they’d be able to pretty easily flesh it out a bit to cover two episodes, whereas it’d be difficult to condense it into just one episode without it feeling rushed. But who knows. I have faith in them one way or another.
For the time being I’m just gonna emotionally prepare myself, lmao.
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chariflare · 4 years
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end of work week so No Brain Energy for a “full post” so here’s just like. a brain dump of stuff i liked and disliked about 7 deadly sins (s1). pretty spoiler-y
dislikes (so that we end the post on the most tasty part of the meal)
they give melio.das a flaw of “repeated sexual offender” with the same level of gravitas and plot-irrelevance that ya authors make their self-insert protagonists “clumsy” (i.e. it’s written as a “flaw” but doesn’t affect the plot and is often used for ““comedic effect””). unlike clumsiness though, repeatedly groping women should get a person arrested. thanks
elizabeth is still a damsel
jericho. not the feminist take that the author thinks she is. awful
ultimately the cool female villains turn out to be not that strong or important, and also get love interest’d with members of the main heroic cast (& both’s motives depend on a man)
depending on how her character arc ends up diane’s obsession with wishing she wasn’t a giant is kinda uncomfortable
i don’t mind that elaine looks young-ish but i find it uncomfortable that she has an anime kid voice to top it all off (in jp...?)
gil.thunder’s side-switch wasn’t appropriately established and his og character sucks. years of acting as a moustache-twirling bishie villain don’t appear to have affected his psyche in a meaningful way, and it’s impossible to come away knowing what he’s supposed to act like now
final villains of the first arc are BORING (i think they get more characterisation after they come back to life lmao)
usual shonen bullshit that is both a draw to the show and also makes threat levels kind of ridiculous and non-existent after a certain point (getting bogged down in endless fights, people coming back to life, refusal to acknowledge that maybe their society’s awful power structures are the problem, rapidly changing definition of “the most powerful villain EVER”, etc.)... all encompassed in one pig death fakeout
the weird fatphobic king thing
tiddy outfits. (though i don’t mind didane’s actually?)
more generalised misogyny
the most important hetero ships this season are mediocre
if you know king arthur shit you will know that everyone’s loosely based off of characters from arthurian myth. if you don’t know you will be so pissed when king arthur the 16yo sports anime character shows up to be like “YOUR NEXT ARC IS HERE”
holy SHIT the second opening song is so bad. it’s so bad y’all (the the first op for comparison)
likes
all the characters are adult colleagues (above everything else) and they act like it. (they’re... kind of found family nakama but there’s a bit more there.) they’re all unique, respected, practiced masters of their craft from the beginning of the story
gula & jericho for the when they were threatening were REALLY cool. i am so psyched at the thought of a random minor young female villain who is so badass & dedicated to the evil cause she’s willing to enter a near-death state to chase some random losers into hell. gula’s outfit slaps
(cw: suicide) ban is a really neat character. he’s like... an interpretation of a “vampire curse”. he was never really happy before he achieved immortality (seeking it only because ”if you live long enough, something good might happen to you eventually, i guess”), and getting it (by accident) only made him Worse - more self-destructive and more isolated from the people around him. he often can’t bring himself to care about much of anything, other people don’t care about him, and ultimately his existence is so fucked up and he’s laden with so much guilt that he doesn’t care about himself either. but he’s also a fun guy! incredibly powerful! will help you beat up your abusive dad! probably bi! also he has his tits out at all times and who am i to say no 2 that
personality: part of the reason that he’s isolated from other people (and othered) is his social class... but a main part of it is how his childhood kind of, created his personality. he doesn’t really connect to social norms (or laws), has niche interests, and has a “weird”, disconnected personality (again, made way worse by living 100 years past his lifetime). that being said, he’s not emotionally unintelligent, has interests outside of fighting, and is ultimately a good person
(maybe don’t read this one if you’re interested in watching? it’s all spoilers) Depression: ban willingly runs head-first into danger not just bc it’s a valid fighting technique for someone who can’t die but bc he’s... too ready to give up. but this reveal is only interesting bc it comes after like. a period of getting along with the group, being friends and having fun. ultimately hanging out with them hasn’t solved his problems - it’s just made him able to put them aside for a little while... until his trauma gets brought up, at which point he’s willing to take the first hint of an easy exit, despite how unlikely it is that it’d achieve his supposed goal, if it just lets him relieve himself of his guilt and existential suffering by letting him believe for just one second that he can fix all of the things that he “broke” with his own death (note: killing melio.das would have broken his heart and probably have been suicide by proxy). (this causes a lot of trouble and is not framed as positive, but it’s also not framed as all his fault. and he has to deal with the consequences of this? he realises in retrospect that it was an incredibly unsound idea? and lEAVES THE GROUP BC HE REALISES HE HAS TO TAKE A BREAK???)
comparing ban to a traditional vampire arc: unlike with vampires (who are often an allegory for a group of people, e.g. rich people or oppressed groups) there’s only one ban. and therefore instead of having a group with the same trauma he just suffers alone
meaningful conflict between the main characters. i don’t think i’ve ever really gotten this in a shonen show? there’s a LOT of unresolved trauma. the characters still work together bc they’re Adults... but it’s simmering
ban <-> meli: meli is the only person besides elaine who ever really understood ban... but that doesn’t mean that ban’s ok, now (in fact, the resentment about only being understood by one person kind of makes him... worse). (e: meli also has connections to the rare fantasy creature which started ban’s life hell). ban has too much damage to the point that he becomes a liability
ban <-> king: resolved early, but still good. king is convinced that ban is the cause of all of his suffering partly bc he’s too jealous to admit that smo else got close to his sister when he couldn’t; ban has enough guilt that he just Takes It. even afterwards their personalities are kind of incompatible so it’s fun to see them hang out
meli <-> (king <-> diane): relationship drama but it’s not a frustrating bc it’s relevant to each character’s flaws and Baggage (and the plot doesn’t bother to pretend that diane will end up with melio). king has a lot of guilt over accidentally (?) ghosting his family and SOME of it’s valid (but not all). king is jealous of meli for being the target of diane’s affection but also kind of lowkey thinks he doesn’t deserve her bc of the pain he’s caused her
meli <-> elizabeth <-> diane: diane KNOWS she’s not going to be in a relationship with meli but she still desperately holds onto hope. diane’s fears about being unlovable feed into her lack of self esteem as an oppressed (or at minimum, villanized) minority
elizabeth (the princess) is firmly a member of the team and her determination and character improvement is taken seriously. she DOES get badass moments BEFORE she’s revealed to be a reincarnated angel child or whatever
diane (the only female member of the 7 sins who has a big role this season) is consistently taken seriously (by the writers & other characters)
elizabeth & diane get to INTERACT!! and BE FRIENDS!!
i love elaine. first show i’ve seen that (unintentionally? & through fantasy tropes??) nails Older Sister Disease, i.e. the oldest female sibling being left to deal with all the family business, emotional and physical baggage, while all the male/younger siblings just fuck off. caring for your family members but also lowkey resenting them. they don’t invalidate her feelings even after relieving king of a little of the responsibility for her suffering. (i liked the romance prequel manga a lot - i p much only picked up the anime bc i bought into the romance b/w her and ban)
(despite everything) meli.odas acts like a proper leader for his squad. he takes his responsibilities seriously and treats his colleagues as his equals
ngl the twist with gowther disguising himself and his protagonist hair as a disposable marked-for-death npc was really funny
aesthetic is unique and distinct from the overdone isekai dnd fantasy that’s popular atm
the first ed song by flow & granr.odeo cheers me up every time
the feeling of going on an adventure with your buddies. it’s fun!
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vardasvapors · 7 years
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On Númenor and the Shire
Regarding analyses that are very keen-eyed about certain connections, but whose conclusions drive me nuts, I wanted to take note of some interpretations of this excellent spiel by Erendis to Ancalimë from the Unfinished Tales’s “Aldarion and Erendis,” in the first millennium of the Second Age, long before the Akallabeth:
“The long life that they [Numenorean men] were granted deceives them, and they dally in the world, children in mind, until age finds them - and then many only forsake play out of doors for play in their houses. They turn their play into great matters and great matters into play. They would be craftsmen and loremasters and heroes all at once; and women to them are but fires on the hearth - for others to tend, until they are tired of play in the eve­ning. All things were made for their service: hills are for quarries, river to furnish water or to turn wheels, trees for boards, women for their body’s need, or if fair to adorn their table and hearth; and children to be teased when nothing else is to do - but they would as soon play with their hounds’ whelps. To all they are gracious and kind, merry as larks in the morning (if the sun shines); for they are never wrathful if they can avoid it. Men should be gay, they hold, generous as the rich, giving away what they do not need. Anger they show only when they become aware, suddenly, that there are other wills in the world beside their own. Then they will be as ruthless as the seawind if anything dare to withstand them.”
Now my gripe is that when people do take notice of this, it just flops with a “haha, this is what Numenor was REALLY like INSTEAD of a good society like the other accounts claim, Erendis has LAID IT BARE because she knows the TRUTH unlike everyone else, this dismantles and erases everything, everyone was solely like this and never like anything else and Numenor was ACTUALLY rotten and this uniform narrow society is what Elros ignorantly built lmao”
Erendis noticing these things so early is a great bit of writing, but the smug and one-dimensional fannish hollowing I’ve seen of it is, as usual, eyerolling. That is not how populations work. Or societies in general, especially those with a nobility and a non-nobility. (Though haha it’s certainly far from the first time this fandom has treated an entire fictional race as a monolith in a way that would be breathtakingly racist in real life, or conflated a description of the nobility with the entire population, because lmao poor people don’t count as people and certainly don’t influence society, don’t be silly guys.) But also, it ignores the actually interesting aspect of this quote. Which is, the negative tendencies which Erendis identifies as those that emerge most visibly among this population, are marvelously apt and well-selected and organic, as they are all the inevitable and inescapable negative backhand, as I like to call it, of a prosperous, peaceful, isolated society like Early Numenor. One that has no need to struggle or fight for anything, and has no first-hand experience, only legends and lore, of the sort of collective trauma, suffering, and loss that can define a people, as it defined the Edain in earlier times.
The positives of such a society, on the other hand, are also the opportunity and ease and plenty and resources, and trust in the stability of their community, and the lack of danger or anxiety about their way of life even for the poorest, which allows the Numenoreans to collectively and culturally, not just individually, embody and prioritize a life of being kind and non-violent and accepting and generous and curious and patient and knowledgeable and educated and creative and full of zest and adventure and progress. The two sides are in no way contradictory or opposed to one another. They are both results of the exact same thing - the cocktail of human nature + environmental circumstances + culture and history. Numenor’s social elements draw a fantastically clear-cut picture - free of confounding variables and subject to the law of conservation of detail, as befits a fictional society - of what happens when human beings with the Numenoreans’ past are placed in the Numenoreans’ present circumstances. Compare other societies with different circumstances and history, where the main social ills are ones unknown to the Numenoreans, and yet are less prone to the privilege-based ills most common to Numenoreans, and which have strengths borne of hardship more difficult for the Numenoreans to retain.
I think a problem with a lot of interpretations of the term “double-edged” is the tendency to interpret it as “actually, bad instead of good like it seems” rather than, you know, double-edged. Where the good edge might be as sharp or sharper than the bad edge. Whether the general central thrust of the society is defined (at any given point in time) as positive or negative depends (in-universe) on how good their society’s mechanisms for self-correcting and limiting the negatives are; and (narratively), what lens or timeframe the society is being viewed from. Erendis’ spiel is powerfully perceptive and insightful foreshadowing, but still incomplete, only one person’s viewpoint, and by no means an objective one – though she nails it in that the privilege issue is the reason why Numenorean noblemen, emphasis on both noble and men, are the ones most susceptible to these pitfalls.
The Achilles Heel of the Numenoreans is the blindness of privilege, which shelters them from consequences and therefore renders their other negative traits (and the seriousness of the danger of these traits festering and growing unchecked) far less visible than they ought to be, which in turn makes them even more difficult to limit and self-correct.
In terms of the Tolkien universe specifically, this is a part of Arda Marred, where societies, being a part of the world, are plagued by bone-deep catch-22s that make the negatives inescapable, impossible to entirely or permanently eradicate, and eternally insidious and and encroaching, seeping like water into the tiniest cracks to corrode and crumble even the best and healthiest societies from the inside out, always in danger of overcoming the societies’ positive elements and structures and consuming them. All people can do is use their intelligence and wisdom and strength to tirelessly self-correct and guard against the pitfalls, repeatedly avoiding corruption and decline for another day, another year, another century, another millennium, to give another generation a good childhood, a good life, a good death, a good legacy. This requires a level of clear-eyed perspective and humility and self-awareness born of experience – but the turnover of mortal life, and the blindness of privilege, and both working in tandem, do a very good job of hampering it.
In a weird way, an occurrence that embodies the same phenomenon as Numenor’s indivisibly bundled positives and negatives is probably, well….the Shire. Yeah, okay sure, lmao I know, but really. The Shire is prosperous, peaceful, joyous, harmonious, stable, and in a perpetual state of renewal, regrowth, and sustainability, populated by a people who are reasonable and practical in their accomplishments and characterized by common sense, resilience, and adaptability. The negative backhand is a tendency to be complacent, narrow-minded, ignorant of and uninterested in the world outside or the fragility of their haven, obsessed with trivial properness, and dismissive of anything or anyone unusual. The society where there has not been a murder in living memory and whose law enforcement is almost unemployed, also falls into frivolous gossiping, finicky disapproval, and calling people crazy for not conforming. This is not dumping two random handfuls of good and bad traits in the same vat. The good and bad spring from the exact same source - the peace and shelter and comfort.
The big differences are, first, the obvious part with Numenor’s military might and political power and expansion, so these two societies’ roles in the world are on opposite ends of the spectrum. But the second difference, looking at Early Numenor, is that the peculiar hubris of the Shire is knocked stone cold dead by Lotho and Saruman, and the scouring and recovery is fastidiously calmed and controlled - by Frodo and Sam and Merry and Pippin, who have grown and seen a lot and can think and act outside the box - and the Shire is reintegrated and cast forward into the future as something that can grow and build on its people’s new experience and understanding of hardship and loss, and to deepen in wisdom, mature in spirit, and guard against the likes of Lotho et al with greater tenacity and resilience. A modest hint, one might say, at Arda Remade, albeit with a very mild and brief - comparatively speaking - process of creative destruction/eucatastrophe. But if not for the luck of having the four hobbits of the Fellowship - most especially Frodo, who forbids to the very last any insidious intrusion of any self-perpetuating corrupting elements like vengeance or cruelty or bitterness - the Shire would not have reintegrated or healed so well, and may well have declined into nastiness, suspicion, rigidity, and fearful hostility, killing off all its positives in its attempt to preserve itself and recover from its domination.
For Numenor, there is no similar stroke of luck to re-rail them and help them reintegrate from their damaged state into something even better and stronger before they - pardon the pun - get in too deep. The emergency of Sauron’s rise twists Numenor’s worst long-term tendencies into their most prized short-term assets. Any potential influence by other peoples (such as dwarves and men less privilege-cushioned than they, or by elves who have Frodo-esque helpful first-hand experience with this brand of stupidity) is first weakened and then later rebuffed. At the very edge, Tar-Palantir’s efforts as a single individual are not enough. Tar-Miriel’s rule is usurped. The momentum of their decline is artificially accelerated to the breaking point by Sauron. For Numenor, the negative backhand overtakes the positive elements of their society, becomes ingrained in their power structures, and consumes them.
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sharksfood · 7 years
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so this thought just came into my head and i want to explore it.
in my life i’ve only seen 3 films so far that i read as books before they became movies. im not counting comic books/graphic novels that became movies bcs thats a little different, books that became tv shows, or plays that became movies. but its interesting to think about that.
i didnt read harry potter until well after the films (all of them lmao) were released, i’ve never read how to train your dragon, i’ve never read the hobbit/lotr, the animated alice in wonderland came out in the 50s, i have only recently read the last unicorn, i read World War Z after the movie came out (and ive never seen all of the movie), and i read the neverending story when i was cast in the play.
the books that i read before they came out in film are; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Warm Bodies, and Goosebumps.
Goosebumps kind of fits but it was made into a tv series first, and im not sure if i read the books or saw the shows first. i did both, i know that much.
I read Warm Bodies only bcs I wanted to see the movie but thought the book would be cool to read (its amazing and has a completely different feel from the movie), and Lion Witch Wardrobe was bcs my dad read it to me when I was younger. That and The Magician’s Nephew are the only Narnia books ive ever read.
I was going to try and read Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children before the movie came out, but that work out for me.
if you want to count comics and graphic novels, then the list gets bigger. but comics already have the characters drawn out, so unlike books, you dont have an idea in your head on what the character looks like. that is so often changed in film, plus you loose so much detail and nuance when you go book to screenplay to film (this is also true with comics, but its still different)
However, and the biggest reason as to why I’m thinking about this, two movies will be coming out in the next few years, and both of them are based on my favorite books of all time (aside from the alice books of course). 
The first is Captain Underpants! I know that this is a book series with words and pictures, so technically its a graphic novel series, but they’re kids books! and those tend to have an awful lot of pictures. This series was my FAVORITE (other than the alice books) as a kid!! they were fun, hilarious, relatable, and just all around super great. So when i saw the trailer for the animated film that’s coming out this year based on the series i was ECSTATIC!! Were it live-action i would be bummed out since kids picture books usually fair better when animated (im not a fan of the diary of a wimpy kid movies....) but this animation is handled a lot like The Peanuts movie. The animation look like a color and 3D version of the exact art style!! its wonderful and im SO EXCITED
The other one, and this i am VERY VERY nervous about, is Ready Player One. that is my favorite sci-fi novel ever. i often say its my favorite book ever bc it deserves more love! and i do so much love it. ive reread it i dont even know how many times. and what do you know, they’re making it into a movie!! when i heard about this i had so many mixed feelings, and most of it has to do with the style of the book and the characters.
-Ready Player One Spoilers-
In Ready Player One the protagonist starts out as a dirt poor, fat, unattractive teen boy, and later he gets more physically fit/healthy and rich. he claims to still be unattractive at this point (mostly bcs he jues doesnt like how he looks and he looses all his body hair). this is very important to the character! i’m afraid that in this movie hollywood will do as they always do and make him a skinny conventionally attractive teen from the get-go. people will probably pull the Holes excuse of “the filmmakers didnt want to make the actor gain a bunch of weight and then loose it all” BULLSHIT they can cast a fat actor! and through his training and as they film the movie he can loose some weight or they can use movie magic (like when they made chris evans a scrawny little thing). its not that hard, people.
Another character, and this was super important to me and was a big subplot, is that Wade best friend, Aech, whom he only knows through the game (OASIS) plays as a white, straight, guy avatar, but they’re actually a black lesbian named Helen. And she plays this avatar to protect herself and to get a job and be taken seriously within OASIS. is super sad she has to do this, but its a big part of her character. she’s also fat as well, and im REALLY worried that in the movie she’s going to be a skinny straight white girl.
Two other characters who have important characteristics are Art3mis (Samantha) and the creator of OASIS James Halliday. Art3mis is Wade later love interest and GF. She is notable bcs her avatar is just like her, a chubby girl with black hair, but sans her port-wine birthmark. I know they’ll keep her birthmark, since its an intimate reveal, but they’ll probably make her skinny and i hate it. Now it’s only half canon in the books, but i’ve chosen to go with it, but at one point Wade talks about James Halliday’s childhood and his personality and all that, and mentions that he might have been autistic. Now, since it’s only he “might have been” in the books, the filmmakers will probably not make him autistic. That’s fucking sad to me, I mean, it would be amazing!! This character is one of the smartest, most famous, most prolific video game programmers/designers in history!! And he’s autistic! That is some wonderful representation and the filmmakers should jump on that opportunity. It’ll inspire so many autistic people who have a passion for video games to pursue their dreams. But, i have a hunch they wont go with it.
Two other characters, Daito and Shoto, are Japanese young guys who claim to be brothers (and their characters are) but are just friends in the real world. My initial hunch was that the filmmakers would keep them Japanese, but given the recent whitewashing of important Japanese characters, I have my doubts.
My few other concerns are that this movie won’t have 80s pop culture as the main style and focus of the era they book is set in, not to mention OASIS and most of people’s interests. It’s incredibly important to the novel, but so many dystopian movies choose to go with gritty, futuristic, edgy stuff. The other concern is how they will handle the real life vs OASIS look, since over half of the book takes place inside a VR video game. I’ve seen news that they are utilizing VR technology, but i havent read too much. I’m wondering if they’ll animate all of OASIS and the avatars and action and anything in the video game! That would be awesome.
So these are all my thoughts. I havent looks at who they’ve cast yet, so I’m going to do that right now. I do know that Steven Spielberg is directing it, which could be fantastic or terrible. Okay, cast time.
------
So the IMDB doesnt say who is cast as Daito and Shoto, but Wikipedia says that Win Morisaki of PrizmaX will play him, which is great! I hope that’s what happens.
Art3mis/Samantha will be played by Olivia Cooke, who in my opinion is way too old. She’s older than me! The character’s age (i think) isnt mentioned in the book, but she’s got to be 17-20, and Olivia Cooke looks older than that. She’s also not chubby, but hey, maybe they’ll fit that. She also doesnt have the birthmark, but that’s gonna be makeup. (wouldve been cool if they found an actress with a port-wine stain on her face...)
Parzival/Wade will be played by Ty Sheridan. He was Cyclops in X-Men Apocalypse. He’s the right age, but way too fit and attractive. DAMN IT Well, I guess there’s always makeup and special effects, but i’m 80% sure now they wont make Wade fat.....
Aech/Helen will be played by Lena Waithe who is almost PERFECT. She’s much older than Aech, who is around 18, but like Samantha i imagine they’ll have make up and acting to cover it. My biggest concern is that she’s not fat like Aech, which means they’ll use a body suit or effects or Lena will gain weight, or they wont do anything.....
T.J. Miller will be playing I-r0k, who is another OASIS player and a bigtime douchebag jerk. This is perfect. We don’t know his age, or really anything other than his personality and avatar, and T.J. Miller is hilarious so this/ll be great.
Mark Rylance will be playing James Halliday, witch is fine by me. He’s not quite what I imagined, but thats what makeup and wigs are for. He’s worked a lot with Steven Spielberg, so that makes sense as to why he’s cast here. I just hope he can portray an autistic character well and with respect.... (would be better if he IS autistic but ya know.....)
Simon Pegg will be playing Ogden Morrow, the co-creator of OASIS, and thats perfect. No complaints.
Nolan Sorrento (the antagonist of the book and head of operations at Innovative Online Industries) will be played by Ben Mendelsohn, who was Director Krennic in Rouge One. He is much older and not quite and slimy as I imagined him, but this can totally work. I pictured Nolan Sorrento as Andrew Scott in my head, since he seems like the perfect evil, charismatic, slimy, attractive but ugly inside business man.
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So, after looking at the current casting choices im a little let down, but still excited! I’ll have to wait patienly for the trailer, since this thing is coming out in 2018. Dang, this turned into a Ready Player One post, but its been on my mind recently.
If you read through all of this, good job! let me know what you think! i probably dont talk about Ready Player One very often but thats bcs i dont know anyone in real life (other than my dad) who has read this book, and the online fandom seems nonexistent. Who knows?
But yeah, I guess I made this post bcs I wasn’t able to share the collective nervousness, complaints, and excitement of Harry Potter or LotR or Percy Jackson fans when their fav books became movies.
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sleepymarmot · 7 years
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DS9 season 2 liveblog
[Season index: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 PS]
The Homecoming
They're opening the season with a three-parter about Bajoran-Cardassian problems, and Dukat will show up right in the first episode? The writers are not wasting time...
Sisko's unusually cheerful.
Again, I'm amazed at this new heroic O'Brien who is so unlike the background character I've watched press buttons for years.
One does not simply walk into a Cardassian camp! Unless you're these two.
This is completely crazy! What'll stop the Cardassians from destroying their ship?
Just as I was going to say "Why not beam the wounded right from the runabout?", they actually do so -- but just after exiting it. Is there any in-universe reason behind it, or just the ease of fiming?
Why is Dukat being so friendly? Maybe he has spies among the freed Bajorans? If so, it better not be Li Nalas himself...
Bashir you're embarrassing yourself -_-
Quark, why are you always such an ass to your brother? Is that really necessary?
Poor guy.
Oooookay?? The previous scene made me completely trust him, but now my suspicions are stronger than ever. He's replacing Kira? Seriously? That has got to be someone's plan.
Well, this episode was meaty. And it really seems like the show is finding its feet -- unlike Duet, this episode didn't remind me of the other series and feels uniquely DS9.
The Circle
Aw, Odo's being a good friend! I don't remember him ever becoming so agitated before.
Vedek Winn as guest star? *grinds teeth in advance*
what a mess... I don't know if it's funny or sad. What a contrast to Data's friendly, nice and organized goodbye party :D 
"These are my... these are my friends" 
Do the Prophets really need to show her this sexy crap? Also, I'm too faceblind, is the guy in the vision the freedom fighter or the priest?
Odo and Quark!
I don't understand, which of these two is trying to convince the other to support them? And I don't like how blatantly evil they act.
AUGHHHH NOT A STUPID STARFLEET ADMIRAL AND THE PRIME DIRECTIVE!!!!! NO!!!!!!!!! GET THIS CRAP AWAY FROM ME!
(Seriously though, you say "Prime Directive", I hear "stupid bureaucratic crap that gets in the way of doing the obviously right thing". Either retire it or write it better, dammit!)
The Siege
Okay, I might change my mind by the end of the episode, but this might be the strongest of the multi-episode stories so far.
Aww Nog
"The Cardies" haha
Ugh, don't do the "wife asks husband not to be a hero" thing
The freedom fighter becomes a leader for real!
Sisko and Bashir turn and walk away in sync lol
"Is that a spider or a dog?"
Please stop ruining your engaging story with scenes about cartoonish villains...
I've... actually completely forgotten that O'Brien had been in the Cardassian war until this very moment. That's probably why he has been so opinionated, not just because of Picard. 
That's it? Kinda underwhelming.
Ugh, killing Li Nalas? I didn't expect this show to cling so hard to status quo...
The first episode was the most impactful, but the entire story is still very impressive, epic and engaging!
Invasive Procedures
End of previous episode: Everyone happily returns after evacuation! Beginning of this episode: The station has been evacuated
Quark and Odo: *bicker* O'Brien: Ughhhh get a room already
Previous episodes: main characters defeat the forces of the entire Bajor This episode: DS9 is easily hijiacked by a handful of mercs & amateurs
That's an impressive "As you know" speech, Dax
When will poor Jadzia get an episode that's not about her being victimized and quietly accepting death?
Yes, I get it, the entire thing is just a plot device to show us Dax without Jadzia (and hopefully, Jadzia without Dax, if she'll be awake for it?), get on with it please
I hope the second half of the episode is about Dax working against the antagonist literally from the inside
Well, it's pretty disappointing that Dax by themself has so little personality and moral compass. I guess Sisko was all this time really friends with just Curzon and Jadzia, not Dax. Honestly, it's easier to forgive Quark (who sort of redeemed himself with an amusing scene) than Dax after this episode.
I was planning to go to bed after this one, but hell, I need to wash down this nonsense
Cardassians
I see Bashir has gained a lot of confidence since Past Prologue
"I am no more a spy than you are--" "A doctor"
I guess not everyone is fine with strangers touching them haha
"To us, he isn't even one of them any more" uh.....
"They won't hurt you. They're humans, they're not Cardassians" jfc...
"Don't apologize. It's been the high point of my day. DON'T DO IT AGAIN." 
(Sisko seems to chew out Bashir more often than others. Is Bashir just the most undisciplined?)
Oh, here we go, O'Brien's anti-Cardassian racism again, makes sense for it to be in this episode
Poor Keiko, she's trying so hard
Miles is getting over himself! I'm proud of him
Bashir is learning to yell at people! Two episodes in a row now.
Um, Miles, I don't think it's a great idea to tell these things to the boy's father...
Dukat's neck scared me. is that normal
GOD IT'S EVEN WEIRDER FROM THE FRONT why am I so bothered by this lmao. honestly was their casting requirement "not only be able to look ominous without actually doing anything, but to have an extremely long neck so we could sculpt interesting things around it"? i'm sorry i'm gonna shut up about this now
Garak if you hold that satisfied smile for some time more you're going to turn into a child-drawn picture of a sun
I love that Dukat doesn't even bother to finish the conversation, he just turns around and leaves without a word the moment it becomes clear that he lost
Ugh, poor boy... What a choice. Abusive family he loves and considers his own or the planet of strangers from an unfamiliar culture he hates, both claiming to love him and expecting him to identify with them? Even if they didn't tell who took him in the end -- he gets a bad deal either way.
it's much more easier to take Garak seriously when he's not dressed like a grandma who stopped giving a fuck 20 years ago. that's probably why he does dress like this, though... but shouldn't that hurt his reputation as a tailor?
This episode was awesome! Exploration of social issues, family drama, political intrigue -- all tightly wound together and making perfect sense. So far the Cardassian stories are the highlight of the show, I hope it's going to stay this way.
It's really weird how Bashir changed between seasons. He hasn't gotten a lot of screentime apart from this episode, but he seems less naive, awkward and bouncy, he's grown more confident, and the crush on Jadzia has disappeared without a trace. Tbh I'm kind of disappointed -- I was expecting a smoother character arc that would let him grow before our eyes and phase out his immature traits one by one. Same goes for his relationship with Garak -- we've only seen their meeting and now they act like besties, how did they get here?
No, wait, let me get back to the plot of the episode. So Dukat had a politician's child kindapped just in case that politician becomes his opponent at some indefinite point in the future, so that he could go through another complicated scheme to humiliate him? Had he absolutely nothing better to do?!! Did he arrange something like this for everyone who could ever possibly cross him?
Melora
Um, Julian, that sounded a bit too much like Geordi's style of creepy almost-stalking...
Wait, Melora is Grace Holloway? :D I didn't recognize her until the familiar name appeared on screen.
She complains about being treated differently and about following the same rules as everyone else in the same breath. Did the writers make her hypocritical on purpose?
Why is he doing this? Is he actually interested in her as a woman? Does he want to help her acclimatize? Or to put her in her place?
Okay, the low gravity scene is pretty cute even if it doesn't make much sense
Daphne Ashbrook in all your fandoms, kissing all of your pretty Doctors
so far it seems like in season 2 the good episodes are better than in season 1, but the mediocre ones are worse
god, the writing and design are so bad, I don't want to list everything that doesn't make sense to me, let's just move on
Rules of Acquisition
I was tired but the plot twist woke me up!!
Dax is so sweet
Poor Pel :( Shitty Ferengi values win again I guess 
Well, I'm glad he took a stand after all. And that they kissed. HELP I'M HAVING FEELINGS ABOUT FERENGI ROMANCE
Necessary Evil
Aw, Sisko called Rom "a family friend"
...so do Odo and Sisko perform the bad cop-good cop routine often?
yoo a flashback! I was wondering how Dukat was going to fit into this
"Cardassian neck trick" I... think I've already said enough on the subject lol
First meetings!
First meetingS!
I was distracted for some reason and didn't appreciate this episode enough :/ But it was very good!
Second Sight
Yikes Sisko don't embarrass yourself
"She's a married woman" "That would have never stopped Curzon" ew
ah I've missed the starship uniforms
what a boring episode. can we stop with the love interests of the week, please? I don't understand why the writers are suddenly forcing them so hard this season, and watching three of these in one day has turned my brain into soup. okay, Rules of Acquisition worked, but Melora and this episode were terrible!
(only pros: gorgeous woman, gorgeous dress)
Sanctuary
What was even the point of the universal translator not working for a while? This had nothing to do with the story, and the only thing it did was to remind the viewer how implausible the entire concept is.
Second mention of the Dominion -- I guess we'll meet them in the season finale?
Yep, I'd be surprised if the promised land didn't turn out to be Bajor
Bajoran Leia!
Wait, why is famine a problem? Why can't the Federation just provide Bajor with replicators? Prime Directive again? I mean, they almost seem to want me to ask this question by cutting right to refugees in front of a food replicator.
Why are they so attached to the idea it MUST be Bajor? Ugh, I hate these stories.
Rivals
Are you implying that El-Aurians have supernatural abilities and all this time people confided in Guinan not because she's charming and wise but because she mind-controlled them? 
Julian is a NERD and Miles is regretting all of his life choices that led to this point
(Gosh, I didn't realize how much I've missed scenes where the main characters just hang out together off-duty)
8 minutes into the episode and I still have no idea what it's about
Are you saying that O'Brien and Bashir's tennis rivalry is legitimately the B-plot because I'm really into it
"Not in this space-time continuum you won't"
oh my goooood
wait a sec, the listener is only figuring it out NOW?! h o w
finally, a really fun silly episode!
The Alternate
Wait, so when Odo is in humanoid form, does he see and hear like us, or "percieve" like in liquid form? Does he have 360 degree vision?
Put it back! This is either a defense mechanism or the environment needs this column to function for some reason; beam it back down
So Bashir's crush on Dax isn't dead? We haven't seen it for so long, I thought it was over. But why is he monologuing? that's just bad writing.
plot twist! D:
god, this doctor is so creepy with his Measure of the Man reenaction
poor Odo is literally having a meltdown :(
Armageddon Game
Another O'Brien and Bashir episode, nice!
Poor Keiko
Bashir's speech about wife and children at home is weirdly sexist, especially since the previous episode re-established his interest in Dax, and his previous romantic involvement this season was a fellow Stafleet officer too -- he should have the opposite problem (which was already discussed in "Melora")!
aw Quark, you don't have to hide behind the Rules of Acquisition to admit you care
Whispers
Everyone around seemed to be acting like he smells bad, does this mean that's actually true?
"It's not doctors I have a problem with, it's--" "You, Julian"
jfc Miles, she's your wife, you should try to talk at least to her
Quark can't name a rule of acquisition by number? alright, for the first time in the episode I believe someone is fake
O'Brien is a badass
Are they absolutely sure the dead one is the clone and the real one takes his place, not the other way around? That was an awfully convenient excuse to shoot a Starfleet officer point blank without anyone asking questions... 
Poor communication kills. At first it seems like something is wrong with O'Brien, but since people refuse to talk to him about it, he becomes convinced literally everyone else is conspiring against him -- and turns out, no, the problem was with him after all! And then they kill him off for no reason just to maintain status quo and avoid the Thomas Riker situation. They could have told him at literally any point instead of being so stupidly vague, but no, gotta keep the plot moving for 45 minutes! Before they found the real O'Brien they could have arrested the clone and told him everything, I'm sure O'Brien would understand; and after they rescued the real one, they could have just transmitted the image, if they're so averse to words. And after acting so stupid, as a final insult the other characters keep talking over their poor dying friend in third person like complete jerks. The episode is great... until that ending. Which just doubles my frustration, because it's one thing when a story is mediocre to begin with, but it really sucks when a wonderful episode is ruined by shitty conclusion.
Paradise
Yes, yes, I get it, this woman would do anything to keep this way of life and probably sabotaged the technology in the first place
What's wrong with replicated food? I hate this stupid trope
did she send the runabout away too?
what the FUCK
look, it might be useful social commentary to depict these rhetoric and tactics, but watching it is still torturous
it adds another level of creepiness that all this shit is done to a black protagonist -- was it intentional?
she's a more proficient torturer than the guy from Chain of Command
this woman is one of the most horrifying antagonists in all Star Trek. she actually believes all this shit
the engineer is supporting her? they all want to stay? for fuck's sake. she made them all see five lights
well. if the writers wanted to upset me, they succeeded
Shadowplay
"How fascinating" :D
"Women don't react to me in that manner" What about Lwaxana, then?
"After seven lifetimes, the impersonal questions aren't much fun anymore"
Yeah, why does a 15 year old need a job?!
The local guy is surprised at Odo beaming up and back down, like he's never seen anything like this before, and two minutes later says he has scanned for transporter activity
I like how the Prime Directive isn't even mentioned :D Or is it a human colony? But isn't this the Gamma Quadrant?
"You want me to spy on Quark for you?" so excited, bless him :D
backstory for that one time Miles played cello on TNG!
I'm glad these villagers are not as conservative and stubborn as people from the previous episode
I am reminded how much more modern DS9's storytelling is than TNG's every time they namedrop the Dominion -- like Doctor Who did ten years later with Bad Wolf, Torchwood etc
I knew he'd transform for the little girl eventually :') Odo reminded me of Data more than usual this time because of the friendship with a child and the episode's general similarity to Thine Own Self. But while Data gets along with kids partially thanks to his own childish (in a good way) qualities, Odo is more like a grumpy but caring grandpa -- I'd even say there's some First Doctor vibe. 
(I'm a bit disappointed the episode didn't follow up on that promise of "Bashir practicing his purely theoretical spying skillz on Quark for Kira", because that sounds absolutely hilarious)
Playing God
Fun-loving cool senpai Jadzia is amazing
Interesting that Jadzia doesn't identify with Curzon at all in this case, despite presumably remembering their interaction from his point of view too
I didn't really understand how they solved the problem but I don't care
This is my favourite Jadzia episode so far. She finally got to show agency, have some fun, show off her professional skills, and explore her own identity (instead of standing around silently while other people explore it). And I love how other characters' scenes are vivid despite shortness: Quark playing tongo with Jadzia and giving well-intentioned if unhelpful advice to the initiate; Bashir's friendship with Jadzia and O'Brien; O'Brien calling across the border about his pest problem; Odo, Kira and Sisko's different approaches to the ethical dilemma.
Profit and Loss
Yesss! Cardassians!
Ooh Quark has romantic history with the pretty Cardassian woman?! This is getting better and better
A scene between Garak and Quark! is it my birthday?
"Personally, I find this style to be a bit too radical. But your friend seems the sort who appreciates that kind of thing" Does he know everything and everyone?! Though come to think of it, this shouldn't have surprised me at all -- even regardless of special channels Garak may use, these dissidents might be well-known to the point that their info is freely available on something like stateenemies.gov.car/wanted
I love how he casually rips an expensive dress to make his point
Passionate lover Quark is so strange to see
Odo's good at playing hard to get
lmao I've waited so long for someone to finally to hug Odo and... :D I do also love his relationship with Quark but I never expected these two things to intersect :D
so, did Garak change his mind on the fly or was he just stalling until that guy comes and can be disposed of?
alright, I amend my previous statement about one-episode love interests: Quark is allowed to have them, if all women who fall for him continue to be this awesome
Blood Oath
What, the holosuites have no sound isolation?! If so, who would ever use them for anything more... private than a recreation of a famous battle?
These Klingons have strange hair
It's so nice to see a young, human-looking woman as an equal to three old Klingons
ah bat'leth fighting, I didn't realize how I've missed it
-- and that young, human-looking woman is more of an old-fashioned honorable Klingon than the rest of them
what an outfit
I'm glad the Klingon interpreted her hesitation so favorably
*reads TVTropes* Wait, all these three are from TOS?! Damn... I could barely tell them apart. I really liked the episode, but turns out I didn't appreciate it nearly enough. Time for a little TOS rewatch?
The Maquis 1
What does the word Nor mean? Terok Nor, Bok'Nor...
The Vulcan woman looks great; nice dress.
"Jake-o" aww
Do Cardassians have a thing for showing up right in your quarters unexpectedly?
"We'll need one of your runabouts" "Where are we going?" Nice one, Sisko
"So you turn off my controls so I don't have enough light to take my photograph?" :D  
"Education is power. Joy is vulnerability" Dukat is being very quotable today?
"Of all the humans I've met you strike me as the most joyless and the least vulnerable" "I am when I'm with you"
Honestly it's as if they are writing Sisko and Dukat's interactions for me personally
I like how the Vulcan is taking Quark's courtship at face value
Wait, is Gul Evek that reasonable guy from Journey's End?
I'm starting to understand Preemptive Strike better -- so it all took place in the demilitarized zone? That makes sense. (How did I miss that?)
"I was looking forward to showing you more ways to mix business with pleasure" "Perhaps in the future. I do find you... intriguing, Quark" im screaming hooly shit I'd never have guessed that Quark of all people would be the chick magnet #1 on this station?? how did he manage to meet a woman this line would actually work on
good shit good shit
The Maquis 2
Sisko gives a show-defining speech!
"Vulcans are a species that appreciate good ears"
something tells me Dukat wasn't the one supplying weapons and the Central Command is trying to kill two birds with one stone -- oh look, this lie was so obvious that for once the characters saw through it right away too
"The Central Command wants him dead. That's reason enough for us to want him alive"
Interesting, Dukat suddenly started acting in a theatrical manner I've only seen in Garak before. Some Cardassian cultural thing?
Haha, I didn't even realize where Sisko was leading the conversation! He's excellent in this story
"With that kind of firepower, the Bajorans could have launched a full-scale assault on Cardassia" "And lost"
Damn, Dukat really has his Intimidate skill maxed out! Sisko fails the Paragon check, Dukat passes the Renegade check.
Finally we see someone explain to a Vulcan why they're being illogical instead of making some bullshit reference to emotion. I love you Quark
the only bad thing about this two-parter is that it kinda made me like the Totalitarian Lizard Man a bit too much??? how dare you. let me go back to my wholesome crushes on Bashir and Jadzia before I start stanning or something
oh, and also I hoped this episode would make the Maquis more sympathetic so I could feel better about Ro Laren leaving Stafleet for them... nnnot much.
The Wire
What a great episode!! I wasn't liveblogging at all because it was too intense. I don't even feel the need to comment on drama or character development -- the story and acting speak for themselves.
Alright, how the hell did Bashir reach Tain? How does one get the home address of the former head of secret service of a foreign empire?! And how did Bashir manage to convince Sisko to authorize this stunt and give him the runabout -- or did he steal it?
The "Elim" reveal isn't really a surprise after you've spent some time near a fandom where people tag characters by full name... 
What interests me now: is Garak going to act differently now that he's not keeping himself drugged? Will he go through withdrawal? In the final scene he pretends everything is Back To Normal, but... Or was the table-flipping scene the extent of his withdrawal symptoms?
Another disjointed thought: this is a wonderful example of a satisfying hurt/comfort story 
Star Trek has some amazingly intense dramas for two actors. The Most Toys, Chain of Command, Duet... This one is different because in order to bring the two characters together and at the same time isolate them from the rest of the world, instead of captivity it uses doctor-patient relationship. Oh, another story from a different fandom it reminds me of, now that I think of it: Scherzo.
Crossover
Lmao it's nice that even after leveling up at unstoppable determination and compassionate badassery in the previous episode, Bashir still can be a ridiculous dork 
...though it is pretty jarring that right after a high drama where he shows his capacity for patience and caring, and greatly deepens his relationship with someone, the next episode opens with the awkwardest attempt at befriending (and flirting?)
I didn't expect Garak to appear in two episodes in a row!
Why is Mirror Kira walking like this...
I started laughing at "I don't have a designation, sir" because my mind immediately went to "There's no need to call me sir, professor"
Female Cardassian guard! And Kira called herself attractive, heh.
Mirror Quark is dressed so poorly...
Okay, Mirror Kira definitely wants to fuck herself -- wait, that's actually canon? Do all evil Kiras hit on women? I wish they'd let our Kira do that too. I know it was written in the nineties, but I really don't appreciate the "evil=bi" trope
Well this was pretty weak. The only mirror character who works well, i.e. exposes the real character's darker side, is Odo. Kira looks just weak and hysterical. (Remember how I complained about her acting in the pilot?) Mirror Garak is actually less intimidating than our Garak.
The Collaborator
Can't say I'm very excited to see Vedek Bareil again. I liked him in his first episode for ideological reasons, but this romance...
Oh no, the Sydney Opera Hat is on the Promenade again? Is she planning another assassination?
"Welcome back. You're under arrest"
The episode was not engaging to watch, but I enjoyed the Grey Morality (tm).
Tribunal
These Cardassians have lost all shame, what do they think they're doing
Evek again, and I think another familiar face?
Yiiikes
Here comes the good cop
I'm glad they're not spending an entire episode on a Chain of Command remake. 
Not telling the accused what they're charged with: a deliberate ploy to mess with their mind, or do the Cardassians not even bother to think about these things anymore?
Huh, Odo had a Cardassian rank that's still valid? That's useful.
Alright, but wasn't O'Brien still declared guilty? So the scheme to discredit the Federation worked?
Also, a missing molar isn't good evidence. Maybe it means that man was just captured and processed by the Cardassians, like O'Brien. And why would a spy alter his appearance but forget about this? You'd think humans and Cardassians have different enough teeth that he'd have to get dental implants anyway. 
I found one good thing about the Cardassian "court"! The judge has fabulous hair.
The Jem'Hadar
Jake!
"I bet we'll have a great time!" "I know we will" Please don't say things like this in the opening scene of a season finale...
Aw poor Sisko :D
"Guess" "He said yes" "Guess again"
Aw Quark needs a hug
Aww kids
Aww Odo cares about Quark
"If the Dominion comes through the wormhole, the first battle will be fought here, and I intend to be ready for them." Well. That's a chilling line to end the season on.
As much as I like it when the Federation arrogance is called out, Quark's speech just doesn't work. "The way I see it, humans used to be a lot like Ferengi. Greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We're a constant reminder of a part of your past you'd like to forget." Well, yeah! That was basically the original concept for their species! "Humans used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi" -- so what? 24th century humans are disgusted by the atrocities of their ancestors, so why can't they also be disgusted by the exact same things perpetuated by their contemporaries? Domestic abuse and sexism are wrong, no matter who does it. Note how this entire speech sidesteps the violent misogyny, aka the Ferengi's most obvious appaling trait. This is like saying "Don't judge the Cardassian state for being totalitarian! That's just their culture, you don't understand!"
General impressions
Bashir and Jadzia finally got some character development!
I live for Cardassian episodes. It's fascinating to see a dystopia in the universe that started as a utopia, and see how characters from both sides deal with each other. 
(Random thought: I want an AU episode like "Crossover" where another universe/timeline's Cardassia is a free state, and for a Cardassian viewpoint character our world is a nightmare scenario just like the Mirror Universe is for our heroes.)
I don't loathe Winn as much as I did in the first season finale. That makes her kind of underwhelming as a recurring antagonist. On the other hand, that might be a good thing, because getting so angry repeatedly couldn't have been good for my health. But because they're represented mainly by the hateful-but-not-enough Winn and the bland Bareil, the Bajoran affairs are usually not as gripping as the Cardassian. I hope to see more of their secular politics next season.
First season was very even; second has two irredeemably clumsy stories (Melora and Second Sight), but a growing number of outstanding ones, too. 
First season was already an improvement over TNG in terms of serialization, and this one is better. Both multi-part stories are brilliant, too. I hope this trend continues. 
A noticeable weakness in the first season was the mundanity of the Gamma Quadrant. No sense of wonder, no noticeably stranger aliens. The introduction of the Dominion and their overwhelming threat partially rectified that problem, bringing back some of the feeling from "Q Who". Yes, setting foot in a far corner of the galaxy should be awesome in both senses of the word, and lead the previously unimaginable dangers right back to your home.
The costume design has visibly improved in this season!
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Confessionals!
Hi it is Olivia! So I don't have the gifs of this season or the player banners so this will be separated by day since I was just an intern and didn’t keep track of confessionals or what day it was when they were posted. Its just all of the confessionals for this season on one post. Sorry for the delay!
5/22
Tim
WHY ARENT I ON THE PRETTY TRIBE! I love Aren already he seems super fun and chill! Certain people... however make me wonder why they are all stars.. jk lmao Im here to have fun and do great!
Aren
Spoiler alert, the f3 is trixie/madison/aren!!!
QuilLynn
So its me, QuilLynn, Two-time winner, next first boot of atomic! I'm happy to be with Dana, but idk about the rest of tribe. I don't really click with anyone, so i'll probably just try to let dana have the social game and i'll just like cling to her coat tails until merge or a swap. I'm trying to be my catty self and form a pretty girls alliance with Dana and Sarah since we are all Iconic woman winners, but I know Sarah will be more loyal to dan, or I think it at least. I'll fill you in more later, gotta go mingle! <3 xoxo gossip ho
Stephen
Its what, one hour into the game and I already love sarah. i knew this season was going to be crazy, it is after all all-stars. So that means no inactives to vote out round one. Eek. So I’ve got to work fast to make those social connections and try and get myself a place in whatever majority forms if we lose immunity. Which we wont. I love creative writing, if we lose this because of my writing I might as well give up writing altogether.
Aundra
"THIS IS BRAZY!! Going into this im ""like Jesus do i want any IOS people in?"" ""theres going to be at least one, right?"" SIKE! THERES 3!! i cant deal im super excited that tim and heather are in the same game as me because they're great people Stephens also here which is awkward a little but i dont really feel like theres any bad blood between us, we've basically made up since IOS . ALSO IM ON A TRIBE BUILT MOSTLY FROM WINNERS. I really wanted to have some winners on my tribe that way i could have hopefully a built in alliance but all winners except one is on my tribe thats so much pressure. And unlike most games ive had a small convo with just about everyone on my tribe/ know them or i like them. this game is definitely going to be different experience and hopefully it will be a long and fulfilling im really looking forward to this season.
my game plan for right now is to get on the good side of all the people that haven't won a game yet and get the other winners out. target #1 QuilLynn SHE HAS WON TWICE. did they let sandra make it to merge?? NO do i want to go far with her in this game? NO is she probably a great person? MAYBE but i dont want to take chances and im gonna be pretty limited at the begging of this game so hopefully the will let me survive long enough to establish myself apart of this game.  
Hopefully this game is worth it and is as fun is it was last time even if like time i was sent into a depressive mode thanks pressure last time i think i can take it this time! lmao                                                                                                 xoxo, gossip girl "
5/23
Madison
TOO MANY PEOPLE I KNOW. TOO MANY PEOPLE THAT HATE ME. I’M GONNA DIE SO FAST. 
Dan
"So I like a lot of my tribemates which is cool because if I didn’t I would have quit night one and thrown all the rice in the fire. There’s a ton of Lago representation, which I’m not surprised about, but am v concerned about. It’s like when you were in like 7th grade and you had those friends you talked to every day and then summer came and y’all didnt talk for a while and you come back for 8th grade and things are chill and you catch up, but they still know you’re better than them in every way.
This first challenge is....a choice. I love Cameron with all of my heart normally, but this makes me only love him with my right atrium, so there’s that. I havent taken an English class since 12th grade so y’all know I’m basiclally illiterate now.
I’m just hoping for a cute little jury placement and play a more UTR Sammy-esque game this time around. I know that eventually the wheels will fall off of that plan and I’ll go into full on neurotic, here, queer, and not going anywheer mode where I win like 6 consecutive immunities, but for the mean time I’m goung to try to be diverse, and show I’m not a one trick homosexual. "
Sarah
"Hey so let me just tell yall im stoked for this season bc im back for ALL STARS!
First season winner and flop returning again.
I adore this cast and the fact that I have been put on a tribe with all the winners (except  luke) is amazing. we created a girl winner alliance right away with me, dana and quillynn. I adore them so much!
Also im connecting with stephen and i think he likes me! I will prob be able to control him a tiny bit this season so lets see how that goes :~)
I just want to let yall know there will rocks this season bc me and julia are back! Were not on the same tribe but i adore that bitch and shes just as equal craziness as me
So far i have connections af and i havent burned any bridges with the ppl in this game so im literally in love
Jay will probably want to get me out asap but fuck u im on my own tribe OK
Anyways just like s1 i have an alliance made almost immediately and i have connections!
Also i did the whole immunity so incase we lose they will feel guilty of voting me out WHHAAHAHAHHA
Anyways ill be back later with more news"
Aundra
"A tribe full of mostly winners.. in a way sounds ideal. It’s not the only person that’s attempt the first challenge is Sarah and Sammy helped out i wrote half of one which is better than I bet majority of team has done I highly doubt we’re going to win the challenge becaus Sarah’s story is not all that great it lacks anything it’s just boring but aleast she tried she put forth some effort toward the challenge and I honestly don’t want to go to a tribal that would be the worst also did I forget to mention that the idol system for this season is the exact same way as IOS which I suched and was probably the worst person in the moors of all time cannot l t me just make merge so I can have and isle of skye reunion with my main man tim cause I really need someone that would be my ride or die and I wouldn’t have to worry about betraying me
Also I QuilLynn is a really cool person it would be hard to vote them out ( I think that’s there pronoun caus ewhen we were talking she started using we and what not so I’m gonna call her they/them for now on) and Duncan obviously did some sorta research on the cast cause he came at me with basically my whole tumblr survivor history. I gotta watch him closely                                 Xoxo, gossip girl "
Tim
"Everyone: oh this challenge is so cute its gonna be great
Me internally: It's ok but I thought I'd see it at swap or something its not my favvvorite
Also them: Doesn't write anything for the challenge but some gives ideas
Me: Guess I'll just... write."
Well I just wrote my story for the tribe and trixie drew some bomb ass pictures! It really brought the story to life a bit and I appreciate the partnership effort!
Stephen
"Duncan: Don’t backstab me okay? Me sharpening my knives: Unfortunate Like I love the guy but anyone who asks for an alliance day one can easily become a target or an asset. If we end up losing this challenge I will either throw him under the bus of us or us him to get numbers. Also about this challenge, I feel really bad for not having more input, especially after I bragged about my writing. But tbh this prompt is very specific, and doesn’t really mesh with my style of writing. And by the time I had caught up with messages and read what Sarah had written it was 11:30. Sorry guys."
Duncan
https://youtu.be/5PLE0dQ1mIk
Aundra
"this is going to sound completely under believable but it’s all true and happened day while I was in the the Acadia Mountains on a afternoon hike. So I was walking having a very nice time enjoying a new trail I’d never taken before. It was longer than most and seemed to never end, I almost thought I was going around in circles. When I was finally about to give up my gps went off saying I was near a geocache! So like any normal person I went to go it. When i found the capsule it began to glow. Strongly and brightly it started to shine. I’d never seen a geocache this big so I decided I was going to take it the I noticed something weird on it it had names next to dates on it. QuilLynn- 1902 Samuel- 1913 Dana- 1940 Sammy- 1953 Dan- 1969 Sarah- 1982 Stephen- 1986 Heather- 2000 Duncan- 2012 Aundra- 2018
I had no idea what this list meant or who these people were, I’d so find out. I started my way back to my car but never made it back that day. Once I began to try and leave the geocache started heating up. It became so I dropped it. I would’ve ran off then and there but I started hearing a voice. “Give me what I want and I’ll give you what you want!” Said the dark and gargled voice. “What do you want?” I said quickly to scared to think of anything else to say. “Your soul!” Whisper little voices so close to my ear I could feel there lips nibbling on my earlobes. I got chills and started panicking breathing heavy. Fast. Hard. Deeply. I thought I was gonna pass out but surprisingly stayed awake. “What do o get in return?” I asked the voice. “Happiness” it shot back quickly. “Ok, have it.”
That’s the half of the story I wrote defiantly better than Sarah’s but it’s whatever hopefully her story can pull through with a W                                  Xoxo, gossip girl "
Dan
"Our story is........... garbage honestly.
What happened to Heather’s amazing 7 deadly sins story line??? We got a stale piece of white bread with no plot or anything with just food jokes??? Sarah did her best yes, but when your best is subpar it’s kinda hard to like win a challenge ya know? "
Heather
Wow first confessional after immunity, we stan a mess. So before anyone can get situated we get our challenge thrown at us and of course it is something I am actually terrible at: WRITING. Hun I cant write for shit. But I came up with a great idea that I thought would really sell the judges being the 7 deadly sins. However there are 10 people so 3 would be the ones who find the geocache and use the items in it to fend off the other 7 who are possessed by the sins. Everyone was like super excited for it, but Sarah didn't use it in the writing, which is upsetting since I really wanted to be sloth and be fended off with like Nyquil or something, but aye that's how shit is. Now I guess its time to get these bitches on my side and find out who to get rid of.
5/24
Duncan
so we lost. Obviously i'm not thrilled about it but I'm not filled with rage or anything like that. If i go home first I'll be a little surprised but I don't think thats going to happen. What I'm kind of hoping to form is a foursome of me dan heather and sammy. I think that would be a very strong group at least for now. As for the longevity of the group? I don't know. I just know I told dan and sammy individually that i want to work with them and heather is someone who dan trusts. Sammy and Dan played lago together so hopefully they'll be on good terms. This way Dan can kind of be seen as the leader of the group and if anyone tries to take a shot at the grouping later down the road it will be his head on the line and not mine. As for who goes home at tribal? I don't think people will vote for Quil or Dana as not to stir the pot. We can't vote out Sarah. It would be mcfucked if we did that to her. So that leaves Stephen, Aundra and Samuel. Obviously I would like to keep Stephen around because he can be an asset to me moving forward. As for Aundra and Samuel?  think Aundra is a little enigmatic but i like him. I also like Samuel, he was the last person to add me but we've been talking the most out of all people that are brand new to me. Speaking of being brand new. I kind of want to talk to Heather and Aundra and be like "THIS IS ALL STARS!! WHY Y'ALL ACTING BRAND NEW!?!" because I've talked to them like the bare minimum. Do you know the untucked where that quote was from? God i love untucked. Where was I? Oh yeah. Hopefully they don't send my ass packing first. I haven't thrown out any names, hopefully someone can throw out a name by noon tomorrow. I'll report back later if i have time. xoxo gossip gorl. also woo mitch! im going to try and win this for us since we were robbed in alcatraz <3
Luke
"Hi hello we won immunity and that’s pretty iconic! I like a majority of my tribe but I’m SCARED of if we have to go to tribal because I think I will DIE!
Opinions on my tribe:
Aren: he’s iconic! He’s british and we hit it off right away, I think he’s going to make a great ally for me!
Carson: I love Carson so much ahhhh, I’m excited to see him in this game because we always work really well together. He’s definitely a number for me.
Chris: last time I played with Chris was in Great Lakes when he had a premade to help him get to the end so I can’t wait to get my revenge lol (:
Julia: I love Julia but she always makes it difficult to work with her because she always explodes on somebody and people want her out because of it. I hope she stays a little calm this game because I could use her.
Madison: uggghhhh. I like Madison, I do. She just got me out in BBFurby and I am a LITTLE bitter about but she says she wants to work with me. I believe her like...70% because I think that she’ll take the opportunity to take me out when she can. So I need to get her first.
Ruthie: My Dead Sea queen!! We worked so well together in Dead Sea and she was vital in my plans to win and it worked out for me. I hope she wants to work with me again!
Tim: Tim is one of two people I didn’t know coming into my tribe but he’s super sweet! Our conversations have been nice so far!
Trixie: ugh stupid furby BITCH! i hate this SKANK i want her to CHOKE she will be first boot and we made it no secret in PMs we hate each other >:( HEHE JK i love this bitch can’t wait to work with her again "
Trixie
"Trixie's Alcatraz Confessional Strike Receipt #1
[2018-01-25, 9:51:48 PM] Cameron Bee-Culpepper (Atomic Admin): Pls trixie [2018-01-25, 9:51:51 PM] Cameron Bee-Culpepper (Atomic Admin): ur gonna get another strike [2018-01-25, 9:52:02 PM] Cameron Bee-Culpepper (Atomic Admin): why… why are u like this "
Dana
"There are NOT enough horses on this Island Cameron!!!!
Ok but fr me, Sarah, and my mother Quail have a Pretty Girls Only Alliance. This is a strategy Quil and I have used before, where we rope in a third girl and work with her, but Sarah is smart af so idk if she'll just like work with us and not ask questions.
Then we all made a winners alliance, which I love. But the only problem is I have a cersh on Sammy... so we can't vote him out NEVER EVER. "
Jay
I haven't really done much but i want to make the weed alliance aka me chris and Julia
Heather
Ok so when I saw Stephen here I was like " Hey maybe we can make amends and work together this season" Then all of a sudden people are targeting him. Also Aundra is on my tribe which if anyone doesn't know I adore Aundra well I do. But he is having wifi problems which sucks. I also heard Samuel's name which I would much rather like to roll with. Ughh too many icons tho why u do this. Right now I seem to be working a lot with Dan and Sammy a bit ( Wow Lago thanks a lot) even though Dan idoled me out but he d=cant do that this game cause of NO FUCKING IDOLS. Speaking of advantages I got me a heavy rock. The heavy rocks power is that I can throw it at someone at tribal and cause them not to vote. I laughed so hard when I got it cause who doesn't want to throw a rock at someone. I am really loving this violent all star season. I hope next time I hunt I get a heavier rock where I can throw it at someone to get them out of the game. hehe
Sam
Wig going okay so far!!
Ruthie
I'm SO glad that I'm on a tribe with so many creative people, i'm super busy until tomorrow and i'm just READY for summer vacation so I'm glad I'm not flailing about to save myself.  I've connected a bit with Aren after not talking to him in like two years so that's nice!
Tim
Their story was cute! But you know gorgeous (our story) next to cute. Gorgeous is just gonna devour cute. [Plz tell me yall get this reference lol]"
Our efforts actually won us the comp.. I feel so inspired to write now.
This is the season that I came to play hard and win. These comps bettee get ready because Im giving it my all and not giving up.
Ali
just popping in to say cam & olivia are the DREAM TEAM and I lav them both :)
Sammy
okay so woo i have a lot to talk about kinda...so i usually make an intro saying how i feel about everyone but umm let’s skip that. The cast is super cool but I have to be super careful because I’m playing with the best of the best? Anyways I wasn’t around to help with the story that much but I did go through and edit stuff I saw...so I did something! There were three names going around today and they were Samuel, Aundra, and Stephen. Now Stephen probably thinks that like it was me that is trying to go for him but his name was brought to me? I know we kinda said we wouldn’t target each other this round buttt he usually lies to me so why not. He took me out of the last couple games we were in together and I feel like he has something against me? Idk. So yeah...and last night i did the trails thing and I freaking got caught by a park ranger for touching a rock. I’m so dumb. The whole tribe knows I was searching:/ rip. Anyway I’m trying to get the numbers on my side and Duncan wants an alliance with me him dan and Heather. But also I might be getting myself into a little group with Dana and quill and hopefully sarah? Idk but woo.
Aundra
"So look im not that smart and all im looking for is the Ali to my Jay and right now, seems like thats not possible. So we lost immunity like i said we were going to because it was obvious any who QuilLynn decides to make a winners alliance which im definitely not going to say no to that because thats safety and numbers for a little while BUT im stupid and may have just leaked the whole thing to Duncan who i thought was a winner and isn't. ik he pays very close attention to things (or at least i think so) and this could really bad on my part and to my game hopefully it wont and all is good
QuilLynn is like a really cool person but im on to them i just have to wait till the perfect moment to strike or to get voted off lmfao but im watching them. Stephen is unfortunately the vote tonight which really suck because i wanted to kinda work on our relationship from the last game that we played in. He doesn't really deserve this but it has to happen to everyone . im also thinking of becoming very close to QuilLynn they say keep your friends close and your enemies closer for a reason                                                                                  xoxo, gossip girl"
Carson
"Wow I like most of my tribe?? Everyone is really funny and I actually don’t want to quit on day 2. Who would have thot.
Being on a tribe with Chris stoner AGAIN is terrible, but Luke is also here and that makes up for it. I cannot wait to vote him out for playing me in Alcatraz! "
Stephen
So I have heard absolutely nothing about the vote, then I ask Aundra. So then he messages me saying he’s voting Samuel, but before I can respond he deletes the message. Then claims it was a link he sent to the wrong person. Wow, glad to see he’s gotten less messy since Isle of Skye, but he did win that one so I should never underestimate him. I wouldn’t be surprised if I went home tonigh with all this radio silence, so I’m voting Samuel on the off chance I can survive.
Julia
So like these hoes so boring. I rly h8 Chris stoner, and I’ve been so high idk what’s really been happening I’m floating rly bad rn but idrc
Chris Stoner
"So I’ve been in Denver! Not good timing but it’s all good cause we won the first comp and now I’m home to socialize and compete.
Instantly me and jay clicked. Jays a cool dude. I don’t expect jay to take me far but I do think he knows I will work him.
I’ve also talked a bit with Tim and Aren. Both are cool dudes. I played with Luke and Julia before, both whom were against me. So should be fun to see how all these relationships play a role. Hopefully it’s not too bad. "
5/25
Heather
SO Immunity just ended and I am a little bit nervous about it. I definitely did the most for my tribe so hopefully I can pull out a win. We had some people like NOT EVEN PARTICIPATE. Like we in allstars bitches we gotta not flop ughh. I feel bad for voting out Stephen last round because I wanted to talk to him about flipping the vote, but he didn't get on until I was in a concert. Samuel I don't think participated so I can prob get votes on him. IF WE NEED TO WHICH I FEEL LIKE WE WILL. (Im Cam messaging to confess while I am in the midst of it I love you hehe) I hope this didn't put a target on my back, or do it. welp time to go hunting for shit
Tim
Um this challenge is so rushed and Aren and Julia are dead!!!
Madison, who is arguably one of the most beneficial members of the tribe so far, sat out and Im not sute if were gonna win!
Heather
I swear I am about to rip out my hair. I got the most points in the whole hunt and WE STILL LOST. I GOT FOR OVER HALF MY TRIBES POINT. I AM PISSED AND AM ABOUT TO STRANGLE A BITCH BUT THIS BITCH GOTTA BE SWEET.
5/26
Aundra
"So QuilLynn is my new favorite person i mean they kinda already were but like now it official because the feeling are both ways and i could be happier on other news we lost immunity again and im pretty surprised at how close it came down to right now it votes are between Sarah and Samuel. Sarah's apart of the winners alliance so i doubt they'll want to vote her out which i kinda do because im looking at the bigger picture. winners are very intimidating to me and the more there are in the game the scarier im going to be. this round shouldn't result in me going home if the odds are in my favor. ( also if you couldnt understand my wonderfull story sorry that it had alot of typos)                                                                                     xoxo, gossip girl      P.s. I know that its going to be revealed pretty obvious who gossip girl is when these get posted but it so fun to sign off everything with it so your gonna have to live with it.  "
Chris Stoner
Nothing much.  We keep winning which is nice. Gives me some time to find an alliance. I still feel pretty isolated because of my schedule. It’s hard to talk to ppl. I’m sure I’m the easy boot. So maybe a swap will come soon 
Dan
So I feel like I’m personally in a good spot even though we keep losing. I’m on good terms with basically everyone left. Duncan offered me an out of the winners alliance that won’t effect any of my relationships with them. I guess Aundra accidentally leaked the winners alliance to Duncan thinking he was a winner, but Duncan and I talked things out and all is good. I was aligned with him before them and I explained it was a one week kinda thing for me personally to make sure a winner didn’t go home first. So now we have a target of Aundra bc he done goofed haha. Byeeee
Luke
Hi nothing is happening because we won immunity woo! i have some seaglass which is cute so i look forward to using that WOO! Aren made himself a target by not submitting which makes me sad but Julia is basically inactive so I lowkey hope we vote her out first looool 
Sammy
ahh okay so I’m super tired and like I’m flying to California and I have been up for over 24 hours...ANYWAY I did what I could in the scavenger hunt and I think some people didn’t really try. I’m just in so many games but like the problem is I forget I apply for them and I’m like uh oh. I think aundra is going home tonight but at the same time it could be me because I haven’t talked to anyone. I’m trying to find a good balance between the way I played in Alcatraz and the way i played in Lago and hopefully make it far!! 
Ruthie
So I’m really sad that a few people didn’t participate in the selfie hunt but I am happy that so many people did and even more happy that we’re safe another week! I suspect that we’re going to swap tribes soon though which is kind of frightening!! 
Quil
So this is a MESS. Aundra “accidnetally” leaked the winners chat to Duncan. Now I LOVE Aundra but this has made him the target. I’ve been trying my best to help with damage control but people still want to vote him!!! I’m trying to push to get Duncan out because I like just don’t trust him, idk UGH. 
Duncan
its round two and im going home because i worked all day and wasn't able to contribute to the challenge at all rip. I trust that Sammy, Samuel, and Dan wouldn't vote me out but if Aundra teams up with the girls and gets them to vote for me I'm donezo. Aundra leaked the winners chat thing and has basically ghosted me all day and I appreciated their story the first round but if they want me out he can go. Dan told me that Quil and Dana were going back and forth about voting out me or Aundra and if I am safe tonight?? Thank god for Dan. That man can do magic. I just want to spend some more time on the island but i don't know if I'm gonna last in these conditions tbh. The game has only just started and to go home now in round two would be like going to orlando but not going to disney world. Like I want to ride space  mountain so badly, i dont want to go.
5/27
Duncan
Okay so a lot of shit happened. Firstly Samuel got med evacd from the game this canceling tribal council. Like that’s crazy, I really liked him and wanted to work with him but his dog passed so he might be in a funk and I just hope he’s not depressed and he’s doing okay at this point. Now at the same time this could’ve been a blessing or a curse. If everyone was lying to me and I was going out the door then this was a blessing and I’ve been given a second life. As for if aundra was leaving? Then this is a curse. But who can never be sure besides the hosts I suppose. Then we get told to drop our buffs. Drop these buffs honey? I’ll drop more than just this buff honey! Ohhhhh hooooooonnnneeeeeyyyyyy! So yeah! I’ll talk more about my new tribe later 
5/28
Tim
Im really vibing with everyone on my tribe all of them are really neat. The person I've bonded least with is Dana unfortunately.
Carson
HALF OF MY FUCKING TRIBE DIDNT SUBMIT... THE CLOWNS HAVE JUMPED OUT. I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT I SPENT THE TIME I SHOULD HAVE BEEN SLEEPING ON THESE PEOPLE. I JUST WANT TO MERGE SO I CAN PLAY WITH LUKE AND WE CAN COWIN AND EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE
Aundra
"Idk if I already said this but I was probably going to be voted out because of how I told Duncan about the alliance on accident so he and Samuel decide to try to get me out idk if I would’ve stayed if Samuel didnt get med evac because he didn’t vote lmao what a dummy. We had swap which was nice mainly because I got to stay with most of the people in cool with include my allstars bff QuilLynn and Tim now!!! Happy that he and I can work together this time instead of directly against eachother I really like this tribe as a whole really and see good things going for us till we make merge which I feel will be soon do to the amount of people getting evacuated. What’s up with all these allstars being flops?                                    Xoxo, gossip girl "
Jay
I'm so sad that Julia is gone but that's okay bc I have a new alliance. Honestly I made 0 bonds with anyone on my original tribe other than Julia, Chris, and Tim. So once I joined this tribe I immediately went to Sarah and Duncan and said I wanted to work with them. Which I mean, it's half true. I want to work with Duncan far into the game, but Sarah needs to go sooner rather than later. So my thought is I want to take out Madison or Trixie, doesn't matter to me. And then MAYBE try to see if I could take out Sarah the next time. She doesn't have to go that soon but if I can make it happen, I'd like it to happen.
Dan
I’m so pissed I wasted so much time and energy on that stupid ass game for nothing!!! I love life rn, couldn’t be happier (: 
5/29
Dana
Nothing is happening. I like Dan more than I thought he would and we made a cute alliance chat. 
Tim
Rip Aren also me, Aundra, and Quilynn might become a thing!!
Ruthie
"real life is SO overwhelming right now, i thought the summer would give me more time but it's... quite the opposite these days!  As far as the game goes I am SO glad that our tribe is safe and that we don't have to see tribal for another week.  I think it was SO lucky too hehe.
I've really connected a lot with Duncan, right now he's the person I would say I'm the closest to! "
Aundra
"Guess who found a hidden item!!? MEEE!! I found the magnifying glass which many already know allows me to see who someone voted for. This will definitely come on handy if there is a suspected rat and I got to find them hopefully this isn’t the only thing I find on my walks away from camp. Watch out cause I got eyes everywhere lol                                     Xoxo, gossip girl "
Quil
the new pokemon games look so cute!!! Also love Aundra and Tim, trying to set up a side alliance with them that can take out the other winners down the line! Honestly if I make merge with the right people, we might be looking at my 3rd win folks!
Luke
My new tribe is actually pretty lit now. We’ve bonded by being the hosts’ favourites and winning two challenges! Same can’t be said for the other flops. I want to make an OG Bernard alliance with Carson and Chris to secure my spot in this game and make sure I’m not voted out before another swap. I need to be reunited with my friends!
5/30
Chris Stoner
So swap happened! I def feel swapfucked. 3/5 ppl on my tribe were on opposite sides as me in past games. The fourth person, heather, probably knows at least one of those 3 and will just go with them for an easy vote. Luckily we won and I did a lot in the challenge so I hope that keeps me around. I need another swap or merge... my days are limited with this tribe. 
5/31
Dan
I’m so over these creative challenges. I rarely have time for them which sucks because I’d have time for challenges that are more typical. You know damn well we won’t end up producing anything of substance, Heather’s tribe will submit something oscar worthy, and we’ll be going back to tribal 
Ruthie
My tribe... once again has not stated anything yet. I feel like this is gonna be another mess 
Sammy
nothing insane is going on but like we have a lip sync challenge and I’m not home yet so this sucks hahah, I’m glad that we are doing good as a tribe and honestly everyone seems to be super kind and nice about everything. So we def have good tribe dynamics. I really enjoy playing with heather this time because in lago we were kind of against each other. I’m hoping we can work more together this game and I also hope me and Carson could work well. Oh and Luke, he puts off really good vibes and I click with him well.
Ruthie
I REALLY hope my tribe gets their act together this time around. Friday is... tomorrow. 
Sarah
I hate my tribe they can all die in a pit of fire...that is all
Quil
"https://youtu.be/vis4R2MfzNA xoxo"
6/1
Duncan
Umm so we tribe swapped and MY TRIBE SUCCS EGGS!! it’s me and Sarah with jay, ruthie, trixie, and Madison. Ironically despite how inactive our tribe is we have the most members at this point in time. Julia got med evacd after the reward challenge and after the last immunity challenge, which we did not even attempt to complete, we learned the other tribe had forfeited the challenge and decided to have their tribal that night. We’re blessed as fuck to be ahead of the game right now but luck can’t last forever. We have had three days to do this movie trailer challenge but no one is ever on. I threw a while fucking idea and script out there but nothing ever came of it. If I go home because of my tribe’s inability to come together I’m gonna have a bitch fit
Sammy
literally like i keep suggesting things or asking questions and nobody responds I’m so annoyed. The only one that even responds to me some is heather...i really hope we win the challenge or i could be going home:/
Ruthie
So Madison and I just did the whole trailer by ourselves and Madison is doing 95% of the work, my lines took less than 5 minutes to film what the heck is the rest of our tribe doing 
Tim
It appears as if QuilLynn has gone inactive and our tribe isn't going to submit which is sad! Just send me to final 3 tbh. Also our trailer had a cute concept ngl.
Olivia
REMEMBER THIS DAY AS THE DAY QUIL TURNED IN THE VIDEO LITERALLY 30 SECONDS BEFORE THE DEADLINE AND RIGHT BEFORE WE WERE GOING TO NOT ACCEPT ANYTHING FROM THE TRIBE BC THEY DIDNT ASK FOR AN EXTENSION 
Carson
Heather is the proud owner of my wig whew
Aundra
"Guess who isn't going to tribal for the first time since the game started!!?? MEEE finally i dont have to try and vote out someone and make sure that im safe from getting voted. tbh i really like my tribe and would've hated to have to vote someone off i would really enjoying playing with all of them once we make merge if there are people left in the game to make merge with. these people are being such flops and not submitting confessional or voting its almost like what was the point of saying yes to playing the game. if only we had some real players in the game so i could be stressed and depressed /                                                                                                xoxo, gossip girl P.s. i know im not a girl but i can understand why someone would sign off with it its fun typing xoxo it makes me feeling like i run something lmaoo"
6/2
Stoner
. I’ve never gone to tribal yet this game and I want to keep it like that. I have a feeling the second I go to tribal I’m gone. Unless I merge. If I make merge I’ll have some more options and places to run and hide. I’ve tried talking to people and forming bonds but it’s just not working. 
Trixie
"Trixie's Alcatraz Confessional Strike Receipt #2
[2018-01-31, 5:16:08 PM] Cameron Bee-Culpepper (Atomic Admin): Hello you have not yet made a confessional this round! Pls do that!
[2018-01-31, 5:17:33 PM] Trixie Stale-Werthers: im so sorry the link isn’t working for me
[2018-01-31, 5:17:48 PM] Cameron Bee-Culpepper (Atomic Admin): Sure jan
[2018-01-31, 5:18:19 PM] Trixie Stale-Werthers: im so sorry but something really bad is about to happen and there’s nothing i can do to stop it
[2018-01-31, 5:18:41 PM] Cameron Bee-Culpepper (Atomic Admin): can u not [2018-01-31, 5:18:48 PM] Cameron Bee-Culpepper (Atomic Admin): Can u just make a damn confessional
Heather
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXmXsntB4RM
This was earlier BUT EVERYONE STEPPED UP AND WE WON THAT SHIT HEHEHE"
Luke
AW THE MOVIE TRAILER CHALLENGE WAS SO CUTE IT WAS SO FUN SEEING OUR TRAILER AND WE ALL INPUTTED SO IT WAS ICONIC! I love the Bernard tribe we work really well together and have won every challenge thus far. The other tribes are messy and have big players on them so it’s going to be interesting to see who leaves tonight. Maybe a winner? That’d be shookening. Although I do like this tribe I’d love a swap or something, there’s never much wiggle room on a tribe as small as this but for now I’m content. Still need to work on that Carson/Chris/Luke alliance. Nothing much else to update on. Happy pride! ^.^ 
Dan
We won woo love life no one talks to me
Carson
We surprisingly killed that challenge after waiting until the last possible minute to start it. I’ve been really impressed with how my tribes stepped up after the reward fiasco a few rounds ago. It’s definitely nice not having to go to tribal, so not swapping would be best for me. I’m still tight with luke and plan on being so for the rest of the game. We’ve already talked about hooking up with the other great lakers come merge. After that, world domination!
Jay
I'm getting voted out it was fun while it lasted i guess :/
6/5
Sammy
woo okay so my tribe is doing so good and I’m so happy because if we lose immunity i know that me and heather don’t have the numbers....I’m hoping i make it to atleast jury. Alsooo i just did my maze and it went really well. Yayyyy, okay yes.
6/6
Carson
"So... is no one trying at these challenges? I'm really shocked that I'm actually dominating every single one of these. I normally do well in challenges, but I've performed better than i ever have before. Its definitely because i'm worried about my place on this tribe. Being that we havent gone to tribal yet, there aren't solidified alliances. I've also had no one start a conversation with me. The conversations I've started with people have never lead to any sort of alliance building either. It makes me believe that I could try to be blindsided because I'm the strongest in challenges and that the merge is on the horizon. I wouldn't put it past these people honestly. I know I have luke in my corner, but stoner is a huge wildcard to me, especially since he's both saved me and burned me in the past. We had a weird relationship in Alcatraz, and it makes me hesitant to trust him in this game.
Also I asked Luke the round where he got caught searching if he wanted to work together with me to find the idol. His response was yes, however nothing has transpired from it. Ive sent him my search route once, but he never reciprocated by telling me the routes he's done since he went many times before I even tried. He probably already has it honestly, which is fine, I just wish he would be honest with me about it."
Tim
Woo we won!!! I CAN RELAX
Sarah
I hate hate my tribe pt 4
Quil
So im in a good spot still, I'm literally queen of this series, but trixies tribe lost again and she's probably going home and I swear i'm going to be so pissed if i lose a jury vote rn because of that fatass tribe of rejects! (idk who is on it tbh but still!!!)
Heather
WOO Another immunity and reward. We stan the Bernard tribe. Even tho Carson basically won the flash game. King of flash games. I kinda hope another swap is happening soon but at the same time our tribe is doing fine with challenges soo hehe. 
Luke
wow hello i forgot about this omg.... we won immunity and reward again that's so amazing! Bernard tribe has been killing it but it's been boring, i need a change of scenery. i need to meet up with my friends again and kill this game and WIN i really want to fucking win oh my lord please let me win 
Madison
IT's boring af! I want to pick this shit up! Tribals have been easy! I want to be SPOOKED! Put me on a tribe with people that hate me or something I want DRAMA. 
In addition to my last confession, I'd love for someone to call me a fake feminist right about now. Do you think Sarah will since we're voting her out? 
6/7
Dan
"Literally so shocked we won. I’m not surprised I did well, but like I was so worried others wouldn’t turn it out. I thought we were getting a one way ticket to tribal, but I guess my tribe is a little more iconic than I thought.
I might actually try to talk to people today???? Idk haha I’m just so pretty and can’t be bothered"
Duncan
Like I said! Our tribe succcccs really bad!! Madison and I and ruthie get to choose which of Sarah and trixie go home. Either way is going to be pissing someone off. Hopefully we make the right decision because I feel a swap coming on
Tim
Fuck my game with this swap huh.
Aundra
"Feet don’t fail me now take me to the finish line I feel so alone on this Thursday thanks to lady O and Cam I think I need wine. ANOTHER SWAPP WHYYYY  my tribe was like the best people ever and we worked very well together now I’m with a group of people I’ve never meet which means I have to sit around and talk to them all to get to know them. This is horrible to me 1) I’m a lunatic and going crazy because I’m hella overwhelmed over the last day of school 2) I don’t really want to work with all these people and will more than likely be an outsider because I know NOBODY on this tribe 3) the only person I think I might know looks like Miranda Cosgrove and she’s allegedly super great at everything and multitalented soon to be governor of some state in America. I literally can not. IM SEPARATED FROM MY NEW GAME BFF QUILLYNN we haven’t really talked in awhile but when your tribe is safe you don’t really have to talk plus we’ve all been kinda busy but that’s besides the fact they err my ride or die along Tim IM AWAY FROM MY BFF TEEM I pretty sure Cam and Olivia hate me but you know what they say the devil can work but Normani works harder                                   Xoxo gossip goat "
Dan
Mcscuse me???? Under construction? You know my ass is Charlie Day-ing this shit searching the blog for things. I'm officially crackdt. 
6/10
Tim
Now I now more about Maine than myself. Lmao but we won woo!!
Quil
Just another day of me being the most iconic winner! Kinda sad Sarah got taken out but, at the same time its one step closer to my 3rd win!
Aundra
"So we’re voting Stoner out my favorite person on my tribe tbh i vibe with him and he’s cool the rest of these people ain’t all that and a bag a chips. I have to sit around and lie to him and say Duncan is the vote when ik that he’s the vote which makes me feel horrible because being blindsided is never fun I lowkey hope I’m getting blindsubwvaus the cast is basically full of the the people that could never and winners and the winner seem over it they’re trash in a way like come on people this is an allstar season and you sit around like your here just to be here at least act like you signed up to play and weren’t forced that’s really all I got to say so here’s to me bein a bad friend and to me possibly getting voted out!                                   Xoxo gossip goat"
Luke
"My new tribe was a disaster at first but now everybody wants a bite of this english muffin :~)
I have Dan I have Trixie I have Madison and Duncan as a threeway
Ugh my mind"
Duncan
I don’t know what’s happening. It’s been a stressful week irl and idk why I’m playing a game rn. I’m probably going home but I’ve heard stoner as the vote so that’s what I did. If I die hopefully my daughter Madison thrives 
Heather
Wooo Tim and I did that kahoot. I thought a tribe swap would mean I would lose for the tribe tbh. 
Dan
This vote seemed way too easy tbh. Did I want a comeback story arc with Stoner? I mean kinda? But like he’s also straight and it’s pride month so he gotta get the boot sis. This all could be an elaborate scheme to get me out but in all reality it’s a waste bc I’m so busy in my real life that I pay an ounce of attention to this. (To clarify I do care about this game I just had a super busy weekend full of social events and you know that this boy doesn’t ever have a social life so he had to take advantage of it!!!!)
Ruthie
"I'm SO glad that the people on my tribe are good at challenges! I hope I can do something with the next one so I can show that I'm useful and not just taking up space on the beach bahah!  
I have no idea what will happen tonight but we'll see!  I don't think that there will be another swap anytime soon. "
6/11
Heather
We most certainly do not stan this upcoming one world. No we most certainly do not.
Dan
I love rigging my random.org so Dana is safe. Gotta look out for my winners after Sarah's messy ass left haha. But seriously random.org picked her. I think Heather and Tim will be a little annoyed that I didn't pick someone from Lago, but if they ask I literally have screenshot proof that I randomized it to be fair with a time stamp so like they can calm down. And if one of them goes, oh well??? I really hope merge is next. I feel like this game is going by so quickly, I am forever thankful for that. 
Aundra
"A tribal twist that I really like but both robes are gonna to tribal I think tonight or tomorrow idk I haven’t been paying attention and am more of a mess than normal I really wish I was working with my peeps and not with these randos that are probably going to vote me out which sucks but hopefully I’ll make jury given that we get to go to tribal second it’s all about the motion of the ocean                                   Xoxo gossip goat "
6/12
Tim
Damn it I thought I had a good score in immunity but I lost :////. Congrats Carson and Dan i guess lol but comp beasts can choke (in the game that is). Dana and uhhh someone else is safe so hsbdd. Yeah so the plan is to stick with Quil, Dana, and Carson so ya!
Quil
Idk if im going home or not. Dan is dead to me for not giving me immunity!!! Ruthie better be leaving or yikes
Tim
So it looks like Ruth is dying because of this ugly twist!!! But hey atleast its not someone active.
Luke
"YES YES YES CARSON CAME THROUGH FOR ME AND HE GAVE ME IMMUNITY I'M SO FREAKING HAPPY. This just proves that the relationships I'm making in this game are working to my benefit and are keeping me safe and I could not be happier right now. This tribal council is a difficult one. I like everybody on my tribe but I said I'd work with Madison and Duncan, I said I'd work with Dan, I said I'd work with Trixie which leaves Aundra as really my only option to vote. It sucks because I like Aundra a lot but they don't really talk to me or anybody and it's getting to the point where if you don't try, you gotta go...
I'm expecting a merge after this tribal council because we'll be at 11 (I think ) which is perfect for a merge. I can meet up with Quil, Trixie and Dana, I can get back with Carson and also utilise my relationship with Madison/Duncan. I think I'm gonna make it far providing I play this game smart WOOOO O"
Sammy
ugg okay so I’m on a tribe with everyone that i like so making this decision is gonna be so hard:/ I’ve heard Ruthie tho imso im just gonna go with it....
Madison
"Me: throws immunity
Also me: feels like everyone is sketchy and that I’m probably going home this week.
Am I mad? Not particularly. "
Aundra
"Guess who’s probably going home! Me!! NOBODIES saying anything to me about a vote everyone is “lost” and i think I’m voting Trixie no need to keep dead wieght on our tribe and if these people vote me out they’re idiots complete dummy’s for keeping people that won’t work with them and can’t contribute to the tribe stupid people do stupid things                                   Xoxo gossip goat"
6/13
Tim
I MADE MERGE WOOOO
6/14
Luke
"Hello well all of the conversations about this game spicing up at merge were true because this cast is fucking CRACKEDT and I have no idea what's going on. I'm in an alliance with Duncan, Madison and Dan... Quillynn, Trixie and Dana expect me to vote with them so I'm kinda stuck between two threesomes but Dan wants to talk to me privately in a few about something and I think it's about the same thing I wanna talk to him about. It's about us being STUCK because we're expected to vote a certain. All I know is my name hasn't been brought up so that's good.
After this round, depending on which way to go I want to work with the group I don't betray, Dan and Carson. I think it'd be smart of me. I just need to talk with Dan before we decide what's going on. Will keep you posted. "
Duncan
I might go home because Tim has the fattest mouth on the block. I was hoping for some black guy magic but I just don’t think it’s in the cards. I think one of us will go home and do I know why he chooses the karringtons over the rest of us? No. Also I haven’t really done shit strategically this game and have barely been around socially idk how I’m stil here. Over jay Sarah stoner and aundra? I don’t know how he does it. Maybe if I do nothing in every game I’ll be guaranteed merge. I just don’t get why people are coming after me. You’re not going to like hearing it but sometimes I forget I’m in this game. I’m just now getting my feet game wise but apparently I can’t go in the kiddy look without enduring a shark attack 
Dan
Honestly I’m really happy that my name wasn’t thrown around this vote it’s a hot ass mess and I’m aligned with too many people
Heather
"This round is a mess. Heres what happened Madison wanted Isle of Skye Alliance Her me and Tim make said alliance I get busy and cant message and only do 12 stones for immunity thinking imma lose I win cuz everyones dead Quil wants to gun for Duncan Madison and I wanna gun for Quil Tim does what he always does in games and snakes Quil confronts me I lie I tell Duncan we should gun for Tim NO ONE IS TELLING ME WHO THEY VOTING WJDJSHD"
Carson
God this round was kind of a hot mess for me. So my main concern going into the merge is not being a target. I knew coming into the merge people would see me as a threat based on my performance in challenges. So my first order of business was to throw the immunity challenge since I would still be among other challenge threats (luke and dan) if I don’t win. Next, I made sure I was still good with my alliance of quil, Dana, and Tim. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s best for me to continue with that alliance. So I went ahead and made a side alliance with Duncan. I view him as a HUGE threat to win, but i feel better going to the end with him knowing I can beat him in immunity challenges. My old alliance is full of wildcards. So at this point, I’m pretty much aligned with everyone, which is both terrifying and exciting. I have been on tribes with Sammy and heather for the past few rounds. Luke and I are super close. I have a new alliance with Duncan that was formed to redeem ourselves from Alcatraz. Dan and Madison are allies of Luke and Duncan respectively, so I need to work on my social connection with them bc jury management. I’m starting to see a path to the finals, but more on that next round. I need to go run errands!!
Madison
Do I lowkey hope they flipped the vote on me and I go? yes. at least then someone will have made a move!!
6/15
Sammy
okay so so so I’m at camp and i feel like I’m missin so much stuff happening in the game. But I’m with quill and Dana....however Carson and Duncan want to work with me. BUT Duncan and Quill are against each other-_- why does this always happen to me.....
6/16
Duncan
I think it’s bananas that Tim went home. Well, not really, he broke peoples trust within the first round of merge. You can’t do that. I feel like no one is really playing the game rn besides like Madison and I love her but if I still have a shot to win, even though I’ve done retroactively nothing in this game, I’m still going to go for the W. So if I don’t go home tonight, expect me to start my cocaine drug abuse problem that I had in Alcatraz. Last time I was here for Mitch, this time im here for me. So once I start being active, it’s all over
Madison
"OKAY TEA. Trixie is literally voting however I’m voting bc she’s gonna be gone I’m CACKLING I LITERALLY HAVE A DOUBLE VOTE! WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!
Idk who I want gone. If I go that’s cute too like it’s jury who cares but this is hilarious. Idols make me a little nervy but idk. "
Dan
"I'm so yikes over this vote rn. Like I knew I was aligning myself all over the place, but I wasn't expecting to have to pick a side. Quil basically confirmed today to Luke that votes would be public tonight, which makes this even worse bc I have to own my shit. I'm hoping that Madison doesn't freak the fuck out when she realizes she is really on the bottom. This is what she gets for Mongolia tbh. I turned over a new leaf with her for Lago and now it's my turn to snake. I'm gonna tell her Duncan is going at like 9:50 tonight if she has some advantage or something cute to save him, but like I just also feel like shit???
I don't especially trust Quil, but I need her in front of me bc she'll always be a bigger threat. I know I need to flip on her eventually, but with Quil gone, the drama is gone, the target is gone, and I'm a sitting duck.
Also peep the white gays killing all the POCs, I'm literally disgusted. "
Madison
WHEW okay so I knew the vote was going to flip obviously I’m not an idiot. so this is either going to work and make it seem like I’m on the bottom OR it’s gonna make them all flip and vote me out next round and that works too so. woohoo
6/17
Olivia
Dan searched the trails and found 1/3 idol. Luke searched at practically the same time but like with a 30 second delay. Both went down the EXACT same path. Luke lost the idol by like 20 seconds it was wild. 
6/20
Dan
"I just scrolled 8 miles through the chat to find this yikes.
Honestly like if I go home this round it’s cool and whatever but I just feel like I’m great spot??? Luke showing his cards last week put the target on his back. Of fucking course he had to win immunity bc I didn’t have time to play Casanova, but like I feel like Sammy can go. I’m in 2 strong groups of three and Dana is my number one. I’m just proud I’m getting at least 7th in an all stars season where I’m coming in as a winner. "
6/21
Dan
"Wow so uh I got played huh. That’s what I get for being confident, thanks Demi!!! I just wish that someone clued me in on the Quillynn vote. Like yes I had been working with her, yes she was a big threat, but yes I would have gladly voted her ass out. She would have easily won if she got to the end just bc she’s a 2 time winner.
I did message Heather and Luke and said I would have gone along with the plan if I had known about it so hopefully they believe me bc that’s the honest truth. I really need to do some damage control with Sammy as well. The only reason I voted him was because no one gave me another alternative. I’m definitely not gonna win this game ugh. But again I’m happy that I made at least top 6 in an all stars game coming in as a winner. "
6/24
Dan
"Oh hey it’s me, Lago Dan, here to make an immunity run bc like I feel like I would have been next. I wouldn’t be surprised at all of Dana/Trixie/Luke team up against me and Sammy but also I really want to hope that Luke and Dana will go with the winners to the end mentality. I just realistically don’t see a winner winning if it’s not 3 winners at the end. The jury is fucking bitter bc it’s an all stars season and their entitled asses are just gonna have to get over it.
Realistically I don’t see me having many big moves on my resume besides the Heather vote last round. I think Heather needed to go because she really called the shots at the live Tribal with her vote and she’s someone that is likebale to the jury. This game I tried to get all the lago people out because none of them want me at the end again. The next to go in theory is sammy but I think I might try to give Trixie the boot tbh. Sammy is someone who could win final immunity, but let’s be real the kid lives at camp rn or some shit so maybe he won’t even show up again.
I really wanted to try to have a game with a bit more complexity than my first game but I think I ended up playing pretty similarly. This time I tried to hold off before winning comps and now look at me I’m slaying. But socially I think I faultered a few times in this game and I’m ready to face that bitter af jury"
6/27
Dan
This could very well be my last night in the game and it's super bittersweet. I hate that it's coming down to this fricken comp. I can't figure some things out because some things never got posted on the blog.... *EYES CAMERON AND OLIVIA FROM ACROSS THE ROOM* but anywho, Dana isn't giving me a straight answer about what's going on with everything and I just wanna die. Like Sammy told me he didn't do the comp, which is cool and will self vote to force the tie and then throw fire making, so like now that this confessional has taken a turn for the better I think I'm good (: hehehehehehheehhehehehee. I love being a two time winner (hopefully)
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Rites Of Passage Jury
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Allie: Out of all of the people that have been voted out this season, you leaving was one of the saddest for me. At the beginning of this season, I had no experience with ORGs whatsoever and I was so nervous, and you really took me under your wing and made me feel welcomed! Thank you for bonding with me over kpop and being so bright and wonderful. I hope that your musical went well and that your crush ended up liking you back!
Aromal: You were my winner pick after the first 3 days of the game. You were social af and everyone at Makira 1.0 seemed to rally around you. Hope your thing with your crush is going okay :O !
Mitchell: We're all in this together and all but i'm sorry when i found out that you played my fake idol I laughed so hard i cried. It was fun getting to know you but that moment was pure joy to me. Miss u
Willow: JACOB! Holy shit, let me first start out by saying that I literally love you so much! You were one of my first ally’s over on OG Makira. I remember on night 1 I was really confused how orgs worked and you explained a lot of stuff to me, like I didn’t even know how to screenshot stuff. I remember during the paint ball challenge all of the newbies did a tribe call so that we could focus, but we ended up flopping lmao. I remember you ended up getting stressed and accidentally resting your head on the keyboard and pressing send too early! I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you during the 2nd swap, but I still love you and hope that we can be friends once this is done. 
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Allie: Your submission for the music video challenge was honestly the funniest and cutest thing in the whole entire world. Thank you for always being so pleasant to talk to and I hope you thesis is/ended up going well! You going home on accident was honestly tragic, but you seem super duper crazy smart and I know that you will succeed no matter where life takes you.
Aromal: That was the craziest unluckiest most unfortunate vote out I've ever seen tbh. Mitchell loves you so you're probably a great person but yeah you definitely deserved to get further.
Mitchell: DANA MY ROCK! I miss you so much and I'm sorry I had to do you like that. WE ALMOST HAD EM!!! And I so fucking wish you were still here instead of all these FAKES!! For real, you were my closest ally and my best friend from this experience, and I really wish we could've gotten to spend more time together as the true icons of this game. But I don't miss you enough to get voted out next so ! Distance makes the heart grow fonder !
Willow: Dana, you were a really fun person to talk to, and the name Dana is cool! I remember your video for the music video challenge was so good, and the “bye bitch” sign was hilarious. You were a really awesome person overall, and it sucks that you were voted out with only 1 vote since Luca had fallen asleep and didn’t get a chance to change it. 
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Allie: As soon as we got on the same tribe together, you were completely down to work with me, so thank you for being so welcoming and fun to talk to! I met you really close to finals week and it was kind of de-stressing to be able to talk to someone about mac and cheese. That being said, you were also kind of the victim of a game move of mine, so I do feel like I need to say that it was purely a game move, and not because of your personality! I’m sorry that I wasn’t always completely honest with you and I only have the best wishes for you.
Aromal: Loved allying with you for 4 rounds! I really enjoyed your dry wit and I hope you get another chance because you were a solid player.
Mitchell: Matt, at times I feel like being close with you hurt my game more than it helped, but I got nothing but love for you, kid. I hate that you got done dirty the way you did and I hope Ponderosa is treating you well. I can't wait to catch up with you when this is all done!
Willow: Matt, the first memory I have is that during the 2nd swap you felt a little on the outs but then Mitchell recommended you to me. I thought overall you were a pretty chill person, and you had good survivor opinions. I remember you were asking for advice on what tumblr url to use, and you said ciriesuschrist was one of your options, which was crazy, bc that used to be my old url for my survivor sideblog. Sometimes you could be kinda shady, but I’m sorry for lying to you about you being voted off, bc I really didn’t wanna flip. 
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Y’know, being in my first main org, the competition was stiff, and I thought I was smarter than everyone else, and it was my own doing. I guess being voted biggest hero, everyone’s best friend and hands down playing the best game didn’t do me any good. At the end of the day, I can only blame myself :/
Allie: I completely mean this when I say it: I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like you. You are so funny and besides my dad, you’re also the only frat boy I’ve ever talked to lol. I really admired how hard you played, and how enthusiastic you were about the rookies vs. vets theme. I hope that you are that passionate and determined in all areas of your life! Also, thank you for being one of the first people to see me as a threat in this game – whether it was accurate or not, it was certainly flattering for me, so I really appreciate it!
Aromal: King Johnny <3 You were easily one of the best players of the season and I'm sorry we had to blindside you the way we did but if we hadn't taken you out then, you would've won :(
Mitchell: Bro, we coulda been a LEGENDARY pair in this game but I just couldn't trust you. Hope you're not too mad about all this and let's light up some time and get past all this. I really did love being on a tribe with you because we clicked so well, but I just could never tell if that clicking was gonna save me in this game or screw me, so I went to screwing you first! People can attest to how excited I was to meet you, and deadass bro, you lived up to it. Catch you soon. You really are unlike every other frat boy out there.
Willow: JOHNNY! Honestly at the start of this game based off your intro I thought you were gonna be a stereotypical annoying frat boy, but holy shit, I was so very wrong! You were honestly one of the most interesting people out here, like whenever we would talk it never got boring! I remember you were one of my first friends in this game, and I hope we can remain friends once this is all over. You were a really big threat though because everyone liked you and you were in control of the nuTemoana alliance and the “all newbie alliance”. Even though I love you it was pretty satisfying blindsiding you 4-3-2-1. 
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Allie: First off, I would like to apologise for lying to you for like thirty minutes straight that one time. That wasn’t cool, but I was in panic mode and for some reason I thought that was the best solution. That being said, I think you were probably one of the biggest personalities cast in this game and I really enjoyed all the funny little things you would put in the main chats! I hope everything between you and Snapchat boy works out all romantic and such.
Aromal: WINNER OF SURVIVOR SUMBAWA WINNER OF SURVIVOR MOROCCO WINNER OF SURVIVOR RESURRECTION WINNER OF SURVIVOR IDALIA
Mitchell: The fact that you gave the flare to this straight white boy was the most touching moment of this game and I thank u for adding some... flair to my game
Willow: I know I’ve said this so many times but Zakriah is one of the coolest names! I remember after the first tribe swap, I was kinda scared of you for some reason, but then you ended up being a super awesome person. You were always really funny, and a good person to talk to. It sucks that you aren’t here right now since you were a part of the nuMakira alliance, and you were the one who originally had the flare. I’m really hoping we can be friends once this game is done. 
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Allie: You get the longest message by far because you’re my favorite person in this game, and also one of my favorite people in my life. Thank you for suggesting to me that I sign up for this, because it’s honestly been so fun! We go way back to when I was a nervous wreck who couldn’t play clarinet and didn’t have any friends, and I really appreciate that you took me under your wing and talked to me about music and gossip. You turned what could have been a pretty awful experience in band into such a positive and amazing one for me, so thank you for sticking with me through thick and thin between all of the stupid, petty drama of highschool. That being said, you have been one of the best parts of college for me as well, and I’m so blessed that I’ve gotten to share so much of my life with you thus far. Even though we won’t be living together next year (a tragedy, tbh), I know I’ll see you lots and that we’ll have so many new and crazy adventures. That being said, you getting voted out was the saddest moment of this game for me, and I am really sorry things worked out the way they did. If I could go back in time and change it, I would. Sorry you got stuck with a friend who had no idea what she was doing in this game. Next time, let’s try not to have our premade exposed! You’re one of my best friends and I love you lots, see you soon! <3
Aromal: We didn't talk, like at all but you were a huge player in the season and your vote out changed the entire course of the game. 
Mitchell: Miss Lexi, I would've loved to work with you in this game bc you got a real cool job but you didn't talk to me that much and our interests never really lined up so that sucked! At least you got to go out voting for the truest icon of this game !
Willow: To be completely honest you didn’t put in a whole lot of effort to talk to me. Every once and a while I’d text you and after a while you’d just sorta stop replying, so I never got to know you very well. But I do remember competing against you in the gross food challenge, and you did so well, like I admire anyone who even attempts it bc it was so gross! 
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Allie: Even though we were in this game together for quite awhile, you were one of the people I talked to the least, and I regret not getting to know you better! I admire you for being so good at the numbers challenge, and at all of the other challenges to be honest. In my opinion, you were one of the biggest comp beasts of the season. Thank you for being completely honest with me whenever we talked game, and I hope that you continue to kill it in your future endeavors like you killed it in those comps!
Aromal: Unfortunately we kinda lost contact after Ulawa, but honestly though working with you to blindside Monty was easily one of my favorite moments of the season. 
Mitchell: L.A., I was really excited to meet the icon that was you ever since the paintball challenge, and I loved connecting with you over things like Kingdom Hearts... but I also just couldn't trust you and it's unfortunate because I think we're really similar people with really similar interests. I hope everything is going well and I know you're gonna end up doing something great!
Willow: Aww LA, ily! You were also one of my first friends in this game, it was cool bc at the start neither of us really knew what was going on since neither of us had played in an org before. I enjoyed talking about video games with you, and you were a really fun person to talk to. You were always pretty good at challenges, like wow go LA! Even though we never really worked together at all after the merge I’m hoping we can be friends once this is all done. 
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Allie: I know that by voting you out, you thought we were handing the season to Mitchell. But honestly, by not voting you out, I feel like we all would have handing this season to you. You were one of the last people in this season that I had the opportunity to talk to (I’m p sure we couldn’t talk until One World), and that’s a shame because you are so very nice, from how you talk to others to even your job, and that’s something I really look up to. Congrats on making it to single digits!
Aromal: The Jay Starret of the season. I definitely understand why you felt the way you did when you got voted out, but you were a huuuuuge threat too and you could've easily gone on an immunity run. Still played an awesome game though.Aromal:
Mitchell: We battled it out but at the end of the day did I want to be friends with RTP or be the last vet standing... Seriously though, you blew my game up so hard that my ass woulda been grass if not for my sea otter idol, and you're truly one of the most phenomenal people I've met in an ORG. It was an honor getting to take out the legend. We spent so much time talking about how cool it would be to vote together again but one of us was always lying. It's no lie when I say that ur a beast in this game and I'm happy i got you before it was too late. See u real soon.
Willow: RTP, you were such a nice person (even though you dragged me at your last tribal lol). But you were such a big threat, you had lots of friends on the jury, you were good in challenges, you successfully played an idol. I understand why you were frustrated at me for not taking out Mitchell, but you were just as big of a threat as he was. Anyway I really enjoyed playing this season with you, and once it’s the fall I’ll try applying to your side season series. 
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Allie: If last round had gone as planned, you wouldn’t be on the jury, so firstly I just wanted to say that it sucks that you went home! I know that that couldn’t have been a very pleasant result to wake up to. Thank you for being so nice to me at the start of this game and for inviting me to play that mini game thing with you (even tho I flopped so hard adios). Also, you have a super soothing voice that sounds like it should be on candle commercials.
Aromal: I'm so sorry that the tribal went the way it did :( It was honestly our worst case scenario and I understand if you're super pissed about it. Hope you slay an all stars season here and kick ass in Idalia!
Mitchell: LOL WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED
Willow: I know I’ve probably said this too many times but you were also one of my first friends in this game lol. You were one of my favorite people to talk to in this game about none game related stuff lol. You were always a really interesting person to talk to and ily a lot! I remember you were also on the newbie tribe call during the paintball challenge, and you were really unintentionally funny. I asked how Zakriah was supposed to be pronounced and you starting spelling out his name bc you didn’t realize that I was asking how to pronounce it lmao. Half the time you were really confused about what was going on in this game, but ily anyway and I hope we can be friends once this whole game is done, bc you’re a really awesome person to talk to.
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survivorpanem · 7 years
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EPISODE TWELVE - “I CAN’T COMPENSATE FOR STUPID PEOPLE“ - JAKE
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Okay, oh my god. Oh my god. I cannot believe I just survived that vote I'm so glad omfg. I flipped someone who flipped on me I'm SCREAMIng. Idk what you call that but I call it ICONIC. I pulled out ALLLL the receipts to Sam trying to show her why she couldn't trust Isaac and Andrew and why I was the best person to keep. Truthfully, I don't know who would've been her best option to keep, but I needed her to think it was me. So yeah, that was successful, tru. I couldn't flip Isaac like I wanted to, but idk I mean it's probably better that way because it gives me a reason to vote for him and for him to vote for me if I make it to the end. So like I think I have a plan to make it to at least f4. I'm playing my idol this week. Sorry but the blind week is just not working for me, sorry not sorry! I'm gonna use my vote negator on Isaac, and have Sam use her extra vote on Isaac, and have Sam and I vote Isaac. Then have Zack and Sam B vote jakey. That way the vote will be split 3-2-1. If Isaac plays an idol then Jakey goes. If he doesn't have an idol boom he's gone. And I'd tell Isaac I'm voting jakey and Jakey I'm voting Isaac that way at the end of the vote, either way it falls I could tell them I told the truth lmao. I'm playing my idol because in the long run I can't really trust anyone completely like I did that round, I mean Sam flipped when I never expected her to. So like if Isaac plays an idol on himself or wins immunity and Sam and I vote him and like Sam B flips on us and votes with like jakey to take out me the vote would be 2-1 and I'd go home! And a bad, disgusting, but possible even if unlikely scenario would be if Isaac/Jakey won immunity and the other played an idol on themselves. Or who knows they could have stuff from the cornucopia???? Okay so then, at f5 it'd hopefully be Zack, the Sam's, Jakey and myself. I truly do not think Jakey has an idol, I'd be shook if he did when like he was barely online. So like my plan would be for all of us to simply just vote Jakey. That brings me to f4, where I could at least hopefully go to firemaking, but I believe everyone in this f6 is better than me at comps, except maybe Isaac? But I think Isaac needs to go next for sure. Ugh. But yeah I mean that always leaves a possibility for people to vote me out at f5, and there's always the possibility of an idol... I'm gonna try to think about the likelihood of people voting me during this blind round, with all the risks involved. But I think it's a huge risk in itself to not just be safe and play the idol on myself, especially after the heart attack I got from this last tribal. SPEAKING OF THE FUCKING HEART ATTACK ZACKS FUCKING ASSHOLE SELF GAVE ME A PANIC ATTACK!!! He messages me right when tribal council is starting and is like "I'm so sorry" BITCH?? I was like omg what did you vote me and he's like yes I'm sorry but Andrew gave me a better offer you're more of a threat I'm so sorry I didn't wanna tell you on call (Sam B and I had added him to our call after I convinced her to reflip). And I freaked tf out! I was like wtf omg I couldn't even type my hands were S H A K I N G and I couldn't breathe and my heart beat so fast yo it was so bad like omg how fuckin lame is that how gross! And like I couldn't even curse him out in the main chat properly LMAO. Like I'm dyin Zack is so annoying omg lmfaooo oooh he had me fucked up! I think the best person to sit next to come f2 (I'm basically just certain it's gonna be a f2 now which is so ugly bc it decreases my chances so much) would be Sam B just because of how she flip flopped on this vote. Like she was a way bigger threat before the vote but now idk. I feel like Andrew and Isaac would be scorned jurors but eh who knows ugh. I hope the upcoming immunity challenges will be luckier for me despite zacks wild ass comp abilities omg. Ugh I just hope all their threatening competition winning asses take me to the end ugh. But I am glad that I'm at this point in the game with a cast that I love..and zack. JK ZACK ILY HNG. But yeah
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Okay I'm pretty sure tribal is in an hour and nobody has talked to me at all. Guess I'm leaving tonight. That's what I get for being a flop ass bitch and flipping and then flipping again on the revote. It's been fun panem.
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welp... i guess isaac is stupid as fuck? lksjdgdlfkjh srsly WHO are my ALLIES... HELP!!!! these ppl suck god even worse than i do. so my plan for this round is get sam b and isaac BACK TOGETHER god... and then flip zack to vote out sam g... which i kinda set up last round when i told zack that i'd vote with isaac to get his trust. im still playing zack and i dont wanna go to the end with him but i dont wanna go to the end with sam g or jc either so like... an ideal f3 would be me sam b and isaac. lmao. everyone sucks idk why sam b voted andrew out like god these people are stupid. idk i dont think ill win immunity since its like luck. but christine goddess got me an immunity advantage so thats nicee. im not telling anyone about that shit! it's a blind round which is fun!!!
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Okay so I have a little idea brewing in my witch pot brain....what if I go around this week "confiding" in people that I have the idol. Like, I'll start with Sam G and then move to Zack and maybe tell Sam B and maybe even Isaac. I want to tell them because I'm going to be playing my idol this round almost without question...but since it's a blind week none of them will know that I'm playing it! Then come f5 hopefully the remaining people are Zack, the Sam's and Jakey, and all of them would still think I have an idol that I'd most likely be playing on myself, which means none of them would flip on me. As for jakey, I wouldn't tell him I have the idol but hopefully Isaac would've told him after I told Isaac which would make things even more believable if it's coming from another source, so jakey might not even vote me. Idk I think that no matter what people are going to vote me anyway, so there's no harm in adding a possible larger target on my back with this idol if it also has the possibility of protecting me. Not only that but if I confide in people, who knows they might have an idol and confide in me too! Also, I'm going to tell Isaac his best chances of survival would be to vote Jakey. Because if I negate his or jakeys vote and we split it 3-2 that means if Isaac has a vote, he could vote jakey and tie it 3-3. Or, he could be dumb and throw his vote away to someone else. And who knows, on the revote we might keep Isaac, if he stayed loyal maybe it'd be smart to keep him especially because he's not as good at competitions unlike jakey, and it relieves the threat of such a goat (baa) like Jakey. But at the same time he's very good with his words and shit so at f5 he might be able to conjure up some magic to cause drama and flip a vote idk. But I could always keep on persisting saying if Isaac does make it to FTC he deserves to win because we let him make it there when we had majority. This is gonna be an INTERESTING week, know that!
Later...
Okay so I've been strategizing and thinking, and like that whole idea of revealing I had the idol and whatnot and like I don't think it's worth it seeing as it gets revealed that an idol gets played...but idk maybe it's worth it? I don't knowwww. I could always tell them I'm playing the idol tonight, discourage them from flipping on me, but then they'd be like tf why you playing an idol? I might just be a crazy bitch and risk not playing my idol again LMFAO. That'd be so wild. But I think if someone else plays an idol I most definitely would. Yo I wish I had a map of the arena for every bitch left in the arena because after last round I learned you can't trust no bitch! Ugh but like I feel like things will be so much easier if I can just wait til next week to play my idol, what are the chances bitches are gonna flip on me again /right/ after flipping on me last week. Like you'd think they'd have the courtesy to at least wait til the next round, right?? Right????? Probably not. This is allstars after all. Ugh. I need to think of who I want to play my map of the arena on, like who would be the smartest person??? These are the pressing questions.
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Sam G has a map of the arena? INTERESTING. Immediate reaction I'm so happy because this is going to clear up soooo much paranoia. But I am a bit confused because I thought that only one map could be purchased per round, so it wouldn't make sense that she got a map this round because I have the map this round!!! Omfg now Sam B approached me about voting out Sam G, I'm SCREECHING. Like the level of shook I am rn is 10/10. I think it'd probably be smart to take out Sam G since I might be seen as her sidekick or something, but I don't think it'd be smart to do it this round. And not only that but if I did make it to f2 with Sam I feel like I could showcase how I wasn't just second in command but made moves and decisions that she didn't necessarily want like the a Brian and Liana votes. And I got the idol from her clue. Yeah I do think this round it's smartest to vote out jakey, then next round could be either of the Sam's or Isaac. If I can keep my idol until next round like its seeming possible to, then I don't even necessarily have to worry about who comes into f4. Except I do have to worry in that I don't want my ass heading into a firemaking challenge!! I've said it before and I'll say it again, everyone else left in the game is a bigger challenge threat than I am so like?? Fuck. But I think if Sam G comes in to f4 with me they'd be more likely to vote her out over me which is better for me hng. Let's say jakey does leave this round (fingers crossed bih), then  who would I want with me in the f4? I feel like my best case scenario would be the Sam's and Zack, because the Sam's may vote each other and Zack may vote with me hopefully. If Sam G goes home this week, that'd leave an opening for either Sam or Zack to flip with Isaac and jakey, and even though I'd have my idol to protect myself for f5 and take one of them out, I'd still have to worry about f4 and fighting another in a fire making challenge. Idk this is all totally assuming Zack wins like every single immunity too like I'm expecting him to. LIKE ZACK IS AN IMMUNITY QUEEN, GODDDD. But nah damn my girl Sam B is trying real hard to put a move on her jury resume. She's really worried about getting second place again, and I feel her, I don't wanna be last juror again, and I especially don't want to lose this season after everything, so I get her dilemma. But I have to do what's the very best for my game, and I think that's voting out jakey. THATS JUST MY OPINIONNNN (insert that's just my opinion gif). But yeah I gotta keep my eye on Sam B 👀
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Whew I almost forgot to do a confessional because I had the sappiest dumb confessional ever but I decided not to send it and thought I did. So anyways here's my confessional... I can't believe it tied because Isaac couldn't make up his mind. I feel really bad about Andrew but the more I think about it the more I shouldn't care. He never really talked to me at all about this game until his ass was on the line and then when I tried to help him he still threw his vote to me when it could have gone to someone else in case Jaiden played an idol. So this vote is the last vote to play anything I'm pretty sure so IF THERE IS AN IDOL it'll probably be played tonight. I'm playing my extra vote and my second map of the arena (I love my sponsors honestly <3) and Jaiden is playing his vote negator. If the two of us vote together the worst thing that'll happen is that we tie and have to vote again. Hopefully everyone's telling the truth but I don't know this whole merge has just felt too easy. I know there have been a few snags but I don't know something about getting here has felt too easy and I'm too calm so I feel like I'm about to get blindsided tonight. I really wanna make it past tonight though because then I'll beat my Atlantis placement!!
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I am soooo torn. Once again. Okay so I am in a 4 person alliance with Jc, Zack, and Sam G. On the other side, I have a final 2 with both Jakey and Isaac. I want Sam G out. But nobody on her side wants to go after her. And there are no numbers without them. That alliance wants to split the vote tonight with 2 on Jakey and 2 on Isaac. What they don't know is that Jakey is playing his idol so his votes will be cancelled. Isaac and Jakey are voting out Sam G, but Jc is using his vote negator on Isaac so it'll just be 1 vote for her. So left we have 3 votes: mine, jakey's and jc's (because jc is voting isaac and zack and sam g are voting jakey which will be cancelled with his idol). Confusing, I know. So Jc and I are supposed to vote out Isaac, and Jakey is voting for Sam G. However I have the opportunity to flip (again) and vote out Sam G. This is what I want. But I am sooo worried about Jc and Zack finding out. Idk how the blind tribal will go, if they will announce that Jc is cancelling a vote or if Jakey is playing an idol. I feel a lot more stress than I did the last blind tribal, that allowed my target to leave and let me keep playing the middle. But this one is definitely going to hurt that. My dream scenario would be Sam G leaving and nobody knowing I flipped and then I have the option to choose between Jc and Zack or Isaac and Jakey. I am praying for this next immunity. If I don't leave tonight (you never know in games like this). I wish I had an idol, or even better a super idol. But I'm just trying to really rely on my social game and my gut at this point. I hope it all works out. And I'm also worried about a vote sneak of my vote just because I did flip last week so I seem untrustworthy, which is why I am going to wait until 3 minutes before votes are due to submit, just so nobody has time to switch their votes to me, if they haven't already done so. Yikes I am nervous whew.
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stupid #1 - isaac do i even have to explain like Why did he vote for sam b when she was literally flipping to us ?? i'm like... i can't even process this bc how can i play a game with people like him like it's impossible i can't compensate for stupid people stupid #2 - sam b oh god this girl is a mess. i cant believe she voted out andrew just bc she was mad at isaac or whatever. like yeah he's fucking stupid but u just ruined your own game?? she can't beat jc sam or zack so idk what the fuck her goal is. she's also fucking stupid and if i wasn't drunk i might have knocked some sense into her stupid #3 - zack taking immunity from me even tho he didn't need it and painting a huge target on his back for no reason and fucking over a tight alliance he had with me... it's like do these people even know what survivor is??? how did u pick this "all stars" cast honestly kass voice id like to see that data stupid #4 - sam b honestly who is this bc she never talks to me and i try so hard to start a convo with her and she's just so boring god. apparently her own alliance wants to vote her out so what's her deal??? stupid #5 - Jc he's the least stupid bc honestly i think he's playing the best game out of everyone so i hope he wins if i can't at this point. but i'm not giving him too much credit bc he's only here bc certain individuals are literally STUPID and that is all
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i think im going this round! bc zack is an idiot lmaoooo but whatever cant wait to vote for JC to win!!! lol this game is so boring and literally they all suck. im playing on idol paranoia and the fact that i have finals all of this week and have no time to play immunity but yeah it doesnt look good. Yikes.
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UGH IM SO #PARANOID WHY DO I KEEP HAVING THE IDEA OF NOT PLAYING MY IDOL WHATS WRONG WITH ME I SHOULD JUST PLAY IT BEFORE MY ASS GETS CHOPPED FUCK
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My favorite thing is how Jc and Sam G have convinced Zack that he has a chance of winning. He hasn't done anything this whole game besides been Jc's lapdog and win immunities like bye.  So this round the other side is splitting it's votes against me and Jakey and expect us to vote against each other so the expect the vote should be like 3-3 but Jc is negating my vote apparently so it's 3-2 but me and Jakey are voting Sam G so it's more 2-2-1 and Sam B isn't voting me and is voting Sam G so it should be 2-2-1 but Jakey also has the idol? So it should be 2-1 with Sam G going home hopefully. I don't want to give up playing this game I've worked too hard for too long to give up. This confessional is really choppy and is bouncing from one topic to another, sorry. I don't understand why Jc wants to keep Sam G when she's literally going to win if she gets to the end. The bitch had a successful idol play. Like?
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I'm so sick and just want to go to bed but these fucking bitches had to pick tonight of all nights to try to blindside me. Now I gotta do work
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hieeeee! SO. its revote time and i know what i'm doing! but anyways.. i still have my idol and if i use it on me next round im guaranteed 5th place (i think?) so hi WIG! let me go revote now.. this has been a long ass round.
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If I'm gunna go I'm going out swinging! I've always tried to stay nice and polite while people are voting me out just in case I can flip but obviously these people are fucking dumbasses and I hope my favorite player ever JC slits all their throats and gets to the end
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ifvdjskd so apparently Isaac and Sam B locked in their votes for me and Zack already said he'd go to rocks so like if JC doesn't go to rocks for me I'm gunna be so mad because I would go for them! If Zack is willing to go to rocks for me and JC isn't Zack 100% has my vote in the finals if he's there even if he's against JC omg JC BETTER DO THIS FOR ME
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